Traitors Gate - Anne Perry [171]
Harriet’s face pinched with distress and a terrible conflict of decision.
“Would he lie to you,” Charlotte went on, “to save himself from your anger or rejection? Where does he make a stand? What truths or promises are sacred? Or can anything be broken if the pain of keeping it is sharp enough?”
“Stop it!” Harriet said. “You don’t need to go on. I know what you mean.” She drew in a long breath, twisting her fingers in her lap. “You are telling me I am wrong to blame Matthew for doing what he believed was right.”
“Don’t you believe it was right?” Charlotte pressed.
Harriet was silent for a long time.
Charlotte waited.
“Yes …” Harriet said at last, and Charlotte could guess how much it hurt her. She was in a sense turning her back on her father, admitting he was wrong. And yet it was also a kind of release from the effort of trying to maintain a fiction that tore her reason from her emotion in a conflict which would erode her as long as it lasted. “Yes, yes you are right.” She looked at Charlotte through a frown of anxiety. “Do you think he will … forgive me for my hasty judgment … and anger?”
Charlotte smiled with absolute certainty.
“Ask him,” she replied.
“I … I …” Harriet stammered.
“He is outside.” Charlotte smiled in spite of herself. “Shall I ask him to come in?” Even as she said it she moved towards the door. She barely waited to hear Harriet’s husky assent.
Matthew was sitting hunched up in the hansom, peering out, his face haggard. He saw Charlotte’s expression and eagerness and hope fought with reason in his eyes.
Charlotte stopped beside him. “Harriet says will you please come in,” she said gently. “And Matthew … she … she has realized her mistake. I think the less that is said of it, the more easily will it have some chance to heal.”
“Yes. Yes, of course. I …” He gulped. “Thank you!” And then he forgot Charlotte and strode to Harriet’s front door and through it without bothering to knock or wait for any answer.
Charlotte walked back down the pavement and quite unashamedly stared in through the front window, where she could just make out the shadows of two figures face-to-face, and the moment after they moved so close they seemed but one together as if never to let go.
When she had returned after seeing Harriet Soames and Matthew, Charlotte was in a buoyant mood, full of elation that the matter had gone so well; but there were other visions to be dealt with, which she was much less certain even as to how to approach, let alone what their resolution might be. It had all begun with the death of Arthur Desmond. Susannah’s murder was a tragedy she felt keenly, having known her; but Sir Arthur’s death was the one which hurt Pitt, and his grief was interwoven through everything because it was part of his life and could never be set aside or forgotten. And she knew, even through his silences, that there was still guilt in it.
She had the framework of a plan in her mind, but it needed someone to help, someone with access to the Morton Club, who would not in any way be associated with the police but could go there as an innocent and curious member. That person would also, of course, have to be willing to conduct such an enquiry.
The only one she knew who fitted even part of that description was Eustace March, and she was very uncertain if he could ever be persuaded to satisfy the last requirement. Still, there was only one possible way to find out.
Accordingly she sat down and wrote a letter.
“Dear …”
She hesitated, confounded as to whether she should address him as “Uncle Eustace” or “Mr. March.” The first seemed too familiar, the second too stiff. Their relationship was unique, a mixture of distant kinship, acute guilt and embarrassment, and finally antagonism over the tragedies at Cardington Crescent. Now it was a sort of truce, nervous and extremely wary on his part.