Traitors Gate - Anne Perry [166]
“But … if she felt … differently …” Nobby started a train of thought, but it died even as she tried to give it words. It was indefinable, something no one had even bothered to express because it was taken for granted. Women owed their husbands their loyalty, not only of supporting them in all they aspired to do, but more subtly than that, going far deeper into the assumptions of man and woman, of trusting their judgment in all matters that lay in the male domain, matters of thought, philosophy, politics and finance. It was taken for granted married women did not require a vote since they were naturally represented by their husbands. It was not open to question, even in the privacy of the home. To challenge publicly was a betrayal of all unspoken agreements everyone assumed, even in a marriage where there was no love, let alone in one where there was love both long-standing and still intense.
“It was a matter of conscience with her,” Charlotte added. “She was not willingly disloyal. I even remember seeing her try to argue with him once. He simply did not hear her, because the idea that she thought differently was inconceivable to him. Heaven knows how many times she tried.”
Nobby looked almost as if it had been she who was bereaved. She seemed stunned, her eyes focusing far away, her attention inward. She even swayed a little when she stood up.
“Yes … yes, of course. I know she did nothing out of malice, or lightly. Thank you. You have been most generous to me. Now, if you will excuse me … I think I have a further call to make….”
Charlotte hesitated on the brink of asking her if she was all right, but she knew the wound was an emotional one and must be endured. No one else could help. She murmured some sort of farewell and watched Nobby go, very upright and fumbling a little, out of the parlor and to the front door.
Nobby rode home barely aware of where she was going. Half of her wanted to go now to see Kreisler, to speak to him in the shadow-thin hope there was some other answer. A far larger part knew it was not only pointless but also absurd. She would only embarrass them both. One did not call upon a man in his rooms to inform him that you were … What? Disillusioned? Heartbroken? That you loved him, which subject had never been discussed between you, never given such words, but that you could not condone what he had done.
He had not asked her to.
She went home engulfed in misery, and it was late in the afternoon, after the time when social calls of a formal nature were paid, when the maid told her that Mr. Kreisler was there to see her.
She considered receiving him in the withdrawing room. The thought of the garden was too painful, too full of memories of a different mood, a closeness and an hour of intimacy and hope.
And yet the withdrawing room—any room in the house—was too small. They would have to stand too close to each other; turning away would be obvious.
“I shall be in the garden,” she replied, and walked quickly out of the door as if, even before he entered, it could be some kind of escape.
She was standing by the border, the roses now in bloom, when he reached her. He did not bother with preamble. They had never spoken to each other in trivialities.
“I imagine you have heard about Linus Chancellor?” he said quietly. “All London has. I wish I could be sure it would mean some space, some interim of relief for Africa, but the treaty will go ahead, and by now I daresay Rhodes is already in Mashonaland.”
She kept her back towards the lawn and did not turn sideways to face him.
“Is that why you did it?”
“Did what?” He sounded genuinely puzzled. There was no evasion in his voice, no pretense.
She had expected to sound querulous, even tearful, but her question, when it came, was level and surprisingly strong.
“Drove Susannah until she broke.”
He was startled. There was a moment’s silence. She was acutely aware of his physical presence beside her.