Southampton Row - Anne Perry [37]
She would never be able to speak to any of them again. They would cut her dead in the street. She would become invisible. Funny how a scarlet woman was not seen. You would think she would be the most highly visible of all! Isadora smiled at the thought, and saw a look of puzzlement in the face of the woman across the table from her. The conversation was hardly humorous!
Reality came back. It was only a daydream, a sweet and painful way of escaping a tedious evening. Even if she were wild enough to go to Cornwallis, he would never accept her offer. It would be utterly dishonorable to take another man’s wife. Would he even be tempted? Perhaps not. He would be embarrassed by her, ashamed of her forwardness, or that she should even think that he might accept such an offer.
Would that hurt intolerably?
No. If he were a man who would have accepted, then she would not have wanted him.
The conversation babbled on around her, getting heated over some difference of theological opinion now.
But if Cornwallis would have accepted her, would she have gone? The answer hovered only a moment on her mind, undecided, then she was afraid that at this instant, hearing the suffocating pomposity around her at this stiff, unhappy table, yes . . . yes! She would have seized the chance and escaped!
But it would not happen. She knew that absolutely; it was more real than the lights of the chandeliers or the hard edge of the table under her hands. The voices ebbed and flowed around her. Nobody noticed that she had said nothing for a while, not even the polite murmuring of agreement.
Going to Cornwallis was a daydream she would never follow through, but suddenly it was intensely important that she know if he would have wished her to, were it possible; if in some way it could have been all right. Nothing else mattered quite as much. She needed to see him again, just to talk, about anything or nothing, but to know that he still cared. He would not say so, he never had. Maybe she would never hear him say the words “I love you.” She would have to make do with silence, awkwardness, the look in his eyes and the sudden color in his face.
Where could they meet that would cause no comment? It must be a place where both of them customarily went, so it would look to be chance. An exhibition of some sort, of paintings or artifacts. She had no idea what was showing at the moment. She had not until this moment felt like looking. The National Gallery always had something. She would write to Cornwallis, send him a message, casually worded, an invitation to see whatever it was. It would be simple enough to find out. She would do it in the morning, first thing. She could say something about its being interesting and wondering if he might find it enjoyable also. If it were seascapes no excuse would be needed; if something else, then it hardly mattered whether he believed her or not, what counted was if he came. It was immodest, the very thing the archdeacon had been railing against, but what was there to lose? What had she anyway but this empty game, words without communication, closeness without intimacy, passion, laughter or tenderness?
Her mind was made up. Suddenly she was hungry, and the crème caramel in front of her seemed hardly more than a couple of mouthfuls. She should not have ignored the preceding courses, but it was too late now.
Actually, the National Gallery was showing an exhibition of Hogarth’s paintings—portraits, not his political cartoons and commentaries. In his lifetime, some hundred and odd years ago, he had been dismissed by the critics as a miserable colorist, but now his stand-ing had risen considerably. It was something she could quite easily suggest was worth seeing to make one