Rutland Place - Anne Perry [104]
In the morning she dressed in her darkest clothes and caught the omnibus. She got off at the nearest stop to Rutland Place and walked the rest of the way. She did not call on Caroline; in fact, if she was not seen, she did not mean to mention her visit at all.
The footman opened the door.
“Good morning, Mrs. Pitt,” he said in a hushed voice, stepping back to allow her in.
“Good morning,” she replied gravely. “I have called to express my sympathies. Is Miss Lagarde well enough to receive me?”
“I will inquire, ma’am, if you care to come this way. Mr. Tormod is in the morning room, but you will find it very chill in there.”
For a moment she was startled by the mention of Tormod as if he were alive; then she realized that naturally he would be laid out, and there would be those whose last respects included a look at the dead. Perhaps it was expected of her also?
“Thank you.” She hesitated, then went to view the dead man.
The room was dark, and as chill as the footman had said, possessed of the peculiar coldness of decay. Black crepe festooned the walls and the table legs, and there was a black cloth on the sideboard.
Tormod was in a dark, polished coffin on the table in the center, and the gas lamps were unlit. The outside sun, filtered through the blinds, gave a diffuse light, quite clear, and she was compelled against her will to go over and look at him.
The eyes had been closed, and yet she felt as if the expression were unnatural. There was no peace in the face. Death had taken the spirit, but his features held the unmistakable impression that his last emotion had been one of hatred, impotent and corroding hatred.
She looked away, frightened by it, trapped by something cold and all-pervasive that grew in her mind and rooted firmer and firmer.
The door opened silently and Eloise stood still a moment before coming in.
Now that they were face to face with the corpse between them, it was far harder than Charlotte had expected.
“I’m sorry,” she said awkwardly. “Eloise, I’m so sorry.”
Eloise said nothing, but her eyes stared straight back at Charlotte—direct, almost curious.
“You loved him very much,” Charlotte went on.
There was a flicker across Eloise’s face, but still she said nothing.
“Did you hate him as well?” Charlotte found the words coming more easily. Pity was stronger than embarrassment or fear. She wanted to reach out and touch Eloise, put her arms around her, hold her close enough to give her warmth, feed her own life into her frozen body.
Eloise breathed in hard and gave a little sigh. “How did you know?”
Charlotte had no answer. It had come from impressions gathered, a look, a word, things remembered from the dark understandings of the mind, hidden from thought because they are forbidden, too ugly to own.
“That was what Mina knew, wasn’t it?” Charlotte said. “That was why he killed her—it had nothing to do with past affaires, or marrying Amaryllis.”
“He would have married Amaryllis,” Eloise said softly. “I wouldn’t have minded that, even his not—loving me anymore.”
“But she wouldn’t have married him,” Charlotte replied. “Not if Mina had told everyone that you and Tormod were lovers, as well as brother and sister.” Now that the words were out, they were not so frightening—they could be said, the truth of them faced.
“Perhaps not.” Eloise was looking down at the dead face. She did not seem to care, and Charlotte knew suddenly that she had not reached the core of it yet. There was more truth to come, and worse. The self-hatred in Eloise, the despair, was more than a knowledge of incest, and then rejection, deeper than anything she had yet understood.
“How old were you when it began?” Charlotte asked.
Eloise reached out and touched the winding-sheet.
“Thirteen.”
Charlotte felt the tears well up inside her, and she experienced an overwhelming hatred of Tormod so profound she could look on his mangled body and his dead face without regret, so coldly as if he were fish on the market slab.