Half Moon Street - Anne Perry [54]
“I agree with you wholeheartedly,” Samuel said with great feeling, leaning towards her a little. “It is who a man is that matters, not who his father was. Good men have had bad sons, and bad men good ones.”
Mariah wanted to say something to end this subject before it became catastrophic, but suddenly her throat was too dry to speak.
Caroline was regarding Samuel with gentleness and concern. She had caught a deeper note of meaning in what he said, or else she had imagined it. Mariah shivered. This was appalling. What did he know? How much was possible? Anything! Everything! What would a woman tell her son? A decent woman, nothing at all. How could she? It was unspeakable—literally—beyond the power of being put into speech. She must get rid of him! Out of the house forever. Caroline must be made to see the unsuitability of this—immediately.
But for now, she must make her heart calm down, cease choking her. This was all unnecessary. His choice of words was unfortunate, but it was accidental, no more. Face him down.
Caroline was talking again. “Bicycles!” she said with delight. “How interesting! Have you ridden on one?”
“Of course! They’re wonderful, and incredibly fast,” he enthused. “Naturally I’m speaking of gentlemen’s machines.”
“I’m sure ladies’ could be very fast as well, if we wore the correct clothing,” she countered. “I believe they are known as bloomers.”
“Bloomers are hardly ‘correct clothing’ for anything at all!” the old lady said. “Really! What will you think of next? As if your theatrical antics are not sufficient, you want to dress like a man and career around the streets on wheels? Even Joshua would not allow that!” Her voice rose sharp and high. “Presuming you care what Joshua likes? You used to be besotted enough upon him, I think you would have jumped off Brighton Pier into the sea if you thought he wished it.”
Caroline looked at her with wide eyes, perfectly steady and unblinking. For a moment the old lady was quite alarmed at the boldness of them.
“I think that might be a pleasant thought on a hot summer afternoon—a tedious one when everybody is gossiping and talking essentially nonsense,” Caroline replied deliberately. “Not to please Joshua, to please myself.”
That was so outrageous, so perfectly idiotic, that for a moment the old lady was robbed of a reply adequate to the occasion.
Samuel was only too apparently entertained by the notion, and that Caroline should not only think it but say it. But then he did not have to live with her.
Then the perfect answer sprang to her tongue.
“If you act to please yourself, Caroline”—she glared at her former daughter-in-law—“then you may very well end up pleasing no one else. And that, for a woman in your situation, would be catastrophic.” She pronounced the last word with relish.
She was rewarded by a look of startling vulnerability in Caroline’s face, almost as if she had seen an abyss of loneliness opening in front of her, yet the old lady did not feel the satisfaction she had expected to feel. This was nearly victory, and yet isolation, inadequacy, guilt and the burning sense of shame were too familiar, and she wanted to put them behind her forever, so far behind she would never see them or think of them again, not in Caroline, not in anyone. It was intolerable that Caroline, of all people, should remind her.
“It is vulgar to speak so much of oneself,” she said quickly. She turned to Samuel. “How long do you intend to remain in London? You will surely wish to see the rest of the country. I believe Bath is still very attractive. It used to be. And highly fashionable. Anyone who had the slightest aspirations to be anyone would take the waters, in the right season.”
“Oh yes.” He must have been aware it was dismissal, but he refused to go. “Roman baths, aren’t they?”
“They were, yes. Now they are entirely English, if anything can be said to be.