”Doesn’t she-mind?”
“I’ve no idea. One doesn’t ask, and naturally she doesn’t mention it.”
He was stunned. He could think of no reply adequate to his confusion. He had always known that women’s minds and emotions worked on lines not comprehensible to men, but never before had it been so forcibly brought home to him.
Augusta was still looking at him.
“I wish there were some way it could be kept from that policeman, for Adelina’s sake,” she went on, “but I have not so far thought of any. That is why it might be a good idea for you to approach Robert Carlton to see if he can get the investigation shelved. It can hardly serve any purpose now, even in the unlikely event of their discovering which poor girl was responsible.”
“There is the small matter of justice,” he said indignantly, his feelings stunned once again. How on earth could she speak of it as if it were all irrelevant, as if they had not been human babies, now dead, possibly murdered?
“Really, Brandon, sometimes I despair of you,” she said as she passed him the caramel sauce. “You are the most impractical man I ever knew. Why are soldiers such dreamers? You would think with the command of armies in their charge they would at least be practical, if nothing else, wouldn’t you?” she sighed. “But then I suppose war is really the most idiotic of all pursuits, so perhaps not.”
He stared at her as if she were a totally alien creature, as if she had changed shape from the known to the unknown in front of him.
“Naturally you don’t understand war,” he dismissed the last subject. “But even if justice is too abstract a concept for you, surely as a woman, who has borne children herself, you are moved to compassion?”
She put down her spoon and fork and leaned a little forward.
“The children are dead; whether they were born dead or died afterward, they are beyond our help now. The mother will have been through deeper hell than you can imagine, or probably than I can either. Whatever manner of woman she was, she will have paid for it in grief in this life, and will answer to God for it in the next. What else is it you want from her? Her example will not prevent it happening again, I assure you, as long as there are both men and women in the world.
“Yes, your idea of justice is far too abstract for me. It is a word that sounds sonorous and pleasing to you; but you have no idea what it means from day to day; you have satisfied your ideals, and someone else is left to live it through.
“This thing is better buried. It is a pity those men ever went to plant their tree. If you can persuade Robert Carlton to exert a little influence and have the police leave well enough alone, it will be the best day’s work you have done in a long time.
“Now if you intend to eat that pudding you had better do so before it gets cold, or it will give you indigestion. I am going upstairs to see how Christina is,” and she stood up and walked out, leaving him staring after her, speechless.
Balantyne worked on his military papers in the afternoon, because they were something he was sure of; perhaps in time Augusta would explain herself, or else the matter would fall into recess of memory and cease to be important.
It was early evening, and already dark and turning very cold when Max announced Robert Carlton. Balantyne had always liked Carlton, he was a man whose quiet confidence and dignity appealed to him, the best type of Englishman, who followed the military into all the corners of the empire to govern and teach civilization where it was hitherto unknown. They were two partners to the same cause, and he felt they had an instinctive understanding, an inbred sense of duty and justice.
This evening he was especially pleased to see him because the mass of papers palled on him. It was more difficult without Miss Ellison to assist him, and in truth, gave him less than the usual satisfaction. He stood up with a smile, his hand out.
“’Evening, Robert, come in and warm yourself. Best fire in the house. Have a sherry, or whisky if you like? It must be about that time,” he glanced at the brass carriage clock on the mantelpiece. How he hated the ormolu one in the withdrawing room and the fat cherubs round it; it did not even keep correct time!
“No, thank you, not yet.”
Balantyne looked at him in surprise, then saw his face clearly for the first time. There were gray lines under his eyes and a flat, bare look about his whole aspect. Augusta would have been subtle, but he was incapable of it.
“For heaven’s sake, man, have one, you look as if you need it! What’s the matter?”
Carlton stood by the fire, unsure how to begin, and Balantyne realized he had embarrassed him by noticing a private distress he was not yet able to put into words. He was in turn embarrassed by his own clumsiness. Why could he not be warmer, more instinctive? He knew how to act in a crisis, but so often not what to say.
The silence hung between them, growing worse.
It was Carlton who resolved it.
“I’m sorry. Yes, I would like a whisky. I’m a little upset this evening-” he stopped, still looking not at Balantyne but at the fire. “Am I holding you up from changing to dine?”
“No, no. Plenty of time. Going to the Campbells.”
“Oh yes, of course. So are we. Forgot.”
Balantyne poured two whiskys from the decanter on the sideboard and passed him one. Surely Carlton wanted to discuss whatever it was? Was that not why he had come?
“Anything wrong in particular?” he asked.
“Had that police chap, Pitt, round again.”
Balantyne opened his mouth to ask if the servants were upset, then realized that such a domestic disturbance would hardly cause the distress he thought he saw. He remained silent, waiting for Carlton to frame whatever it was that lay so close under the surface.
It was a few minutes before it came, but this silence was one of patience.
“I think they suspect Euphemia,” Carlton said at last.
Balantyne was stunned. He could think of nothing coherent to say. How could they possibly suspect Euphemia Carlton? It was preposterous. He must have misunderstood: especially since the more he thought about it, the more he honestly believed it was most likely to be some indulgence of Reggie’s, and Reggie knew it, which was why he was in such a sweat.
He suddenly remembered that Reggie had wanted him to get Carlton to have the investigation suppressed! It was ludicrous.
“They can’t,” he said flatly. “It doesn’t make any sense at all, and Pitt’s an ordinary sort of chap, but he’s not a fool. They wouldn’t let him be an inspector if he made wild charges like that. You must have misunderstood something. Apart from anything else, Euphemia could have no reason!”
Carlton still looked into the fire, keeping his face away.
“Yes, she has, Brandon. She has a lover.”
From many men that would have meant little, as long as it were not publicly known, but to Carlton it was a sacrilege against his home, his most private person. Balantyne understood that much, although he could not feel the same inner injury to purity and pride himself. If Augusta had betrayed him, he would have been above all surprised; and yes, angry too; but not wounded except on the surface.
“I’m sorry,” he said simply.
“Thank you,” Carlton accepted it with the same politeness he might have received a compliment or a glass of wine, but Balantyne could see the pain in his drawn face. “You see,” Carlton went on, “they think she might have got rid of the children, in case the-made her-her situation obvious.”
“Yes, of course. But surely, you would have known? I mean-a woman you live with-your wife! If she had been with child-?”
“I do not ask a-a-great deal of Euphemia,” Carlton said awkwardly, his shoulders stiff, his face turned away. “I am considerably older than she is-I do not-like to-” he could not find words to finish, but his meaning was obvious.
Balantyne had never been so delicate about feelings, least of all Augusta’s, and suddenly he saw himself as a boor. He was ashamed for himself, and for Carlton he was inexplicably hurt. How could Euphemia, with a man so
