Paragon Walk - Anne Perry [64]
“What do you mean?” she demanded. “Explain what you mean!”
Charlotte stood perfectly still.
“I mean that, if you let your fears drive you into suspicion now, or allow George to think you do not trust him, you will never be able to replace what you have destroyed, no matter how much you may regret it afterward, or how trivial it may all seem when you know the truth. And you will have to prepare yourself that we may never know who killed her. Not all crimes are solved.”
Emily sat down sharply. It was appalling to think they might never know, that they might spend the rest of their lives looking at each other and wondering. Every affection, every quiet evening, every simple conversation, offer of company or help, would be marred by the dark stain of uncertainty, the sudden thought—could it have been he who killed Fanny, or she who knew about it?
“They’ll have to find out!” she insisted, refusing to accept it. “Someone will know, if he is really one of us. Some wife, some brother, some friend will find a clue!”
“Not necessarily.” Charlotte looked at her with a little shake of her head. “If he has been secret so long, why not forever? Perhaps someone does know. But they do not have to say so, maybe not even to themselves. We do not always recognize things, when we do not wish to.”
“Rape?” Emily breathed the word incredulously. “Why in the name of heaven would any woman protect a man who had—”
Charlotte’s face tightened.
“All kinds of reasons,” she replied. “Who wants to believe their husband, or brother, is a rapist, or a murderer? You can prevent yourself from seeing that forever, if you want to badly enough. Or convince yourself that it will never happen again, and it was not really his fault. You’ve seen for yourself, half the people in the Walk have already made up their minds that Fanny was a loose woman, that she invited her own fate, somehow she deserved it—”
“Stop it!” Emily hauled herself up and faced Charlotte angrily. “You’re not the only one who can tell the truth about anything, you know! You’re so smug, sometimes you make me sick! We’re not all hypocrites here in the Walk, just because we have time and money and dress well, any more than all of you are in your grubbly little street, just because you work all day! You have your lies and your conveniences as well!”
Charlotte was very pale, and instantly Emily regretted it. She wanted to put her hands out, put her arms around Charlotte, but she did not dare. She stared at her, frightened. Charlotte was the only person she could talk to, whose love was unquestioned, with whom she could share the secret fears and wants in every woman’s heart.
“Charlotte?”
Charlotte stood still.
“Charlotte?” she tried again. “Charlotte, I’m sorry!”
“I know,” Charlotte said very quietly. “You want to know the truth about George, and you’re afraid of it.”
Time stopped. For motionless seconds Emily hesitated. Then she asked the question she had to ask.
“Do you know? Did Thomas tell you?”
Charlotte had never been any good at lying. Even though she was the elder, she had never been able to dupe Emily, whose sharp, practiced eye had always seen the reluctance, the indecision before the lie.
“You do.” Emily answered her own question. “Tell me.”
Charlotte frowned.
“It’s all over.”
“Tell me,” Emily repeated.
“Wouldn’t it be better—”
Emily just waited. They both knew that truth, whatever it was, was better than the exhaustion of sweeping from hope to fear, the elaborate effort to deceive oneself, the indulging in awful imagination.
“Was it Selena?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Now that she knew, it was not so bad. Perhaps she had known before, but simply refused to say so to herself. Was that really all George was afraid of? How silly. How very silly. She would put a stop to it, of course. She would take that smug look off Selena’s face and replace it with something far less satisfied. She was not sure how yet, or even if she would allow George to know that she knew about it. She played with the idea of letting him go on worrying, allowing the fear to eat into him sufficiently so