Southampton Row - Anne Perry [147]
They reached the end of the pavement at the corner of High Holborn. Narraway hailed the first empty hansom that passed.
Isadora returned home after having told Cornwallis about the Bishop’s going to Southampton Row. She arrived in the house feeling miserable and horribly ashamed because the step she had taken was irrevocable. She had made her husband’s secret public, and Cornwallis was a policeman; he could not keep such a thing in confidence.
It was possible the Bishop was actually the person who had killed the unfortunate spirit medium, although the more she thought about it, the less did she actually believe he had done it. But she had not the right to conceal information on the strength of her own beliefs when they were not knowledge. Somebody had killed Maude Lamont, and the other people there that evening seemed equally unlikely.
She had thought she knew her husband, but she had been completely unaware of his crisis of faith, the terror inside him. It could not have arisen suddenly, even if it had seemed so to him. The underlying weakness must have been there for years, perhaps always?
How much do we ever know other people, especially if we don’t really care, not deeply, not with compassion and the effort to watch, to listen, to stretch the imagination and to stop placing self to the front? The fact that he did not know her, or particularly want to, was not an excuse.
She sat thinking all these things, not moving from her chair, not finding anything to comfort herself with or even anything there was purpose in doing until he should return, either with or without the proof he sought.
What would she say to him then? Would she have to tell him that she had been to Cornwallis? Probably. She would not be able to lie to him, to live in the same house, sit across the meal table and make idiotic conversation about nothing, all the time hiding that secret.
She was still sitting doing nothing, her mind consumed in thought, when the maid came to say that Captain Cornwallis was in the morning room and said he must see her.
Her heart lurched, and for a moment she felt so dizzy she could not stand up. So it was Reginald who had killed the medium! He had been arrested. She told the maid that she would come, and then as the girl stood staring at her, she realized she had spoken only in her mind.
“Thank you,” she said aloud. “I shall see him.” Very slowly she stood up. “Please do not interrupt unless I send for you. I . . . I fear it may be bad news.” She walked past the girl and out of the door, across the hall and into the morning room, closing the door behind her before she faced Cornwallis.
At last she looked at him. He was very pale, his eyes fixed as if something had shocked him so profoundly he was slow to react in the most physical sense. He took a step towards her, then stopped.
“I . . . I know of no gentle way to tell you . . .” he began.
The room swam around her. It was true! She had not even really thought it could be, not even a moment ago.
She felt his hands on her arms, holding her, almost supporting her weight. It was ridiculous, but her legs were buckling under her. She staggered back and sank into one of the chairs. He was leaning over her, his face tense with overwhelming emotion.
“Bishop Underhill went to Southampton Row and spoke for some time to the housekeeper, Lena Forrest,” he was saying. “We do not know exactly what was the cause, but there was a fire, and then an explosion which broke the gas lines.”
She blinked. “Is he . . . hurt?” Why did she not ask what really mattered: Is he guilty?
“I am afraid there was another, bigger explosion,” he said very quietly. “They were both killed. There is very little left of the house. I’m so sorry.”
Dead? Reginald was dead? That was the one thing she had not thought of. She should be feeling horror, loss, a great aching hollow inside herself. The pity was all right, but not the sense of escape!
She closed her eyes, not for grief, but so Cornwallis would not see