The Secret History - Donna Tartt [237]
She looked at me in surprise. “No. Why would you think that?”
“How am I supposed to know what to think?”
The sun came suddenly from behind a rain cloud, flooding the room with glorious light that wavered on the walls like water. Camilla’s face burst into glowing bloom. A terrible sweetness boiled up in me. Everything, for a moment—mirror, ceiling, floor—was unstable and radiant as a dream. I felt a fierce, nearly irresistible desire to seize Camilla by her bruised wrist, twist her arm behind her back until she cried out, throw her on my bed: strangle her, rape her, I don’t know what. And then the cloud passed over the sun again, and the life went out of everything.
“Why did you come here?” I said.
“Because I wanted to see you.”
“I don’t know if you care what I think—” I hated the sound of my voice, was unable to control it, everything I said was coming out in the same haughty, injured tone—“I don’t know if you care what I think, but I think you’re making things worse by staying at the Albemarle.”
“And what do you think I should do?”
“Why don’t you stay with Francis?”
She laughed. “Because Charles bullies poor Francis to death,” she said. “Francis means well. I know that. But he couldn’t stand up to Charles for five minutes.”
“If you asked him, he’d give you the money to go somewhere.”
“I know he would. He offered to.” She reached in her pocket for a cigarette; with a pang I saw they were Lucky Strikes, Henry’s brand.
“You could take the money and stay wherever you like,” I said. “You wouldn’t have to tell him where.”
“Francis and I have gone over all this.” She paused. “The thing is, I’m afraid of Charles. And Charles is afraid of Henry. That’s really all there is to it.”
I was shocked by the coldness with which she said this.
“So is that it?” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re protecting your own interests?”
“He tried to kill me,” she said simply. Her eyes met mine, candid and clear.
“And is Henry not afraid of Charles too?”
“Why should he be?”
“You know.”
Once she realized what I meant, I was startled how quickly she leapt to his defense. “Charles would never do that,” she said, with childlike swiftness.
“Let’s say he did. Went to the police.”
“But he wouldn’t.”
“How do you know?”
“And implicate the rest of us? Himself, too?”
“At this point, I think he might not care.”
I said this intending to hurt her, and with pleasure I saw that I had. Her startled eyes met mine. “Maybe,” she said. “But you’ve got to remember, Charles is sick now. He’s not himself. And the thing is, I believe he knows it.” She paused. “I love Charles,” she said. “I love him, and I know him better than anybody in the world. But he’s been under an awful lot of pressure, and when he’s drinking like this, I don’t know, he just becomes a different person. He won’t listen to anybody; I don’t know if he even remembers half the things he does. That’s why I thank God he’s in the hospital. If he has to stop for a day or two, maybe he’ll start thinking straight again.”
What would she think, I wondered, if she knew that Henry was sending him whiskey.
“And do you think Henry really has Charles’s best interest at heart?” I said.
“Of course,” she said, startled.
“And yours too?”
“Certainly. Why shouldn’t he?”
“You do have a lot of faith in Henry, don’t you,” I said.
“He’s never let me down.”
For some reason, I felt a fresh swell of anger. “And what about Charles?” I said.
“I don’t know.”
“He’ll be out of the hospital soon. You’ll have to see him. What are you going to do then?”
“Why are you so angry at me, Richard?”
I glanced at my hand. It was trembling. I hadn’t even realized it. I was trembling all over with rage.
“Please leave,” I said. “I wish you’d go.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Just go. Please.”
She got up and took a step towards me. I stepped away. “All right,” she said, “all right,” and she turned around and left.
It rained all day and the rest of the night. I took some sleeping pills and went to the movies: Japanese film, I couldn’t seem to follow it. The characters loitered in deserted rooms, no one talking,