The Hyde Park Headsman - Anne Griffin Perry [159]
She had the grace to blush, and grunted something inaudible. Then she glared at Charlotte. “You might have told me he was there, fool!” she hissed.
“I didn’t know you were going to be so offensive, or I might have,” Charlotte whispered back.
“What? Don’t mumble, girl. I can’t hear you. For Heaven’s sake, speak clearly. Your mother paid enough to have you taught elocution and deportment when you were young. She should have kept her money.” And with that she smiled at Jack. “Congratulations, young man. I hear you have won something.”
“Thank you.” He bowed, offering her his arm. “May I take you and introduce you to some interesting people who would no doubt like to meet you?”
“You may,” she accepted, head high. Without a backward glance, she twitched her skirt around and sailed off, leaving Charlotte and Emily alone.
“If someone had taken her head off, I would understand it,” Emily said under her breath.
“I don’t think I should turn him in,” Charlotte added. Then slowly she swiveled to face Emily just as the same thought was reflected in Emily’s eyes.
“Do you really think …” Emily began. “No,” she said, answering her own question, but without conviction. “Do you suppose there is someone who knows who it is? Would anyone protect …”
“I don’t know,” Charlotte replied slowly. “I suppose if it were someone you loved—a husband or father?” A haze of ugly and frightening thoughts filled her mind. “But how could you bear to believe that anyone you loved could do such things? It wouldn’t be simply their guilt, you would feel as if it were part of yourself. You can’t be separate, as if their acts or their nature in no way touched you. If they had done it, had lost their minds to madness, it would be as if you were touched with it too.”
“No it wouldn’t!” Emily contradicted her. “You couldn’t blame—”
“It may not be fair,” Charlotte went on, cutting across her, “but that is how you would feel. Weren’t you embarrassed when your friends commented on Mama being seen with Joshua?”
“Yes. But that’s—” Emily stopped, realization flooding her face. “Yes, of course,” she said quickly. “And that’s nothing, beside this. I see what you mean. One would feel as if one had contributed to it, even if by sheer ignorance of something terribly, hideously wrong. One would fight against believing it to the very last, unarguable fact.” Her face crumpled with pity. “How truly appalling.”
“I suppose it could conceivably be Mina,” Charlotte said slowly. “She might protect her brother, especially if he killed Winthrop to protect her.”
“I can’t think who else,” Emily was thinking aloud. “Mr. Carvell hasn’t a wife, and no one knows anything about the omnibus conductor.”
“Do you suppose Mrs. Arledge might know anything?” Charlotte asked dubiously, half hating herself for speaking ill, even by suggestion, of Dulcie. Pitt so obviously admired her, and with excellent cause. It seemed small-minded to raise her name in this connection.
“Such as what?” Emily asked. “I doubt she has the faintest idea who killed Arledge, or she would have told Thomas, to get the matter cleared up and get the police out of her house. Then she could continue with her life discreetly.”
Charlotte stared at her. “What do you mean, ‘discreetly’? You sound as if you thought she had something to hide.”
“Oh Charlotte, at times you are obtuse,” Emily said with a patient smile. “Dulcie has an admirer, or maybe more than that. Haven’t you seen?”
Charlotte was taken completely by surprise.
“No! Who is it? Are you sure? How could you know?”
“I don’t know who it is, but I know he exists. It’s obvious.” Emily shook her head a little. “Haven’t you looked at her, I mean really looked?”
“At what?”
“Oh for Heaven’s sake, Charlotte!” Emily said exasperatedly. “At the way she dresses, the little touches, the dainty mourning brooch, the lace, the perfect fit of her gown around the waist and the fashionable sleeves set with the point