Balantyne was repelled, he winced at the vulgarity of the question. Helena had been a woman of quality, a-he caught Pitt’s eyes and realized he was trying to cling to a dream of unreality that was no longer viable. But to think so-of a woman! Damn Pitt for his squalid truths.
“Do you?” Pitt repeated, although it was an unnecessary question. Balantyne’s sensitive revulsion had already answered it for him.
“No, of course I don’t!” Balantyne turned away.
“It is natural that you should be distressed,” Pitt said softly. “You had a high regard for her?”
Balantyne was not sure how to answer, he hesitated awkwardly. He had always found her fair beauty especially clean and gentle; perhaps he had idealized it a little.
Pitt was speaking again at his shoulder.
“I believe she had a considerable admiration for you also.”
Balantyne jerked upward with surprise.
Pitt smiled very slightly.
“Women confide in each other, you know. And I have been asking questions about women in this square for quite a long time now.”
“Oh,” Balantyne looked away again.
“How well did you know her, General Balantyne?” Pitt’s voice was quiet, but it put a sudden new and dreadful thought into Balantyne’s head. He swung round, feeling the blood hot in his face. He stared at Pitt, trying to see if the suspicion was in his eyes. He found only intelligent interest, waiting, probing.
“Not very,” he said clumsily. “I told you-I–I knew her socially, as a neighbor. Not more than that.”
Pitt said nothing.
“Not more than that,” Balantyne repeated. He started to say something else, to clarify it, so that Pitt would understand, then faltered and fell silent.
“I see.” Pitt meant no more than that he had heard him. He asked a few more questions, then sought permission to speak to the women.
He left, and Balantyne stood in the room feeling foolish and considerably shaken. Three, even two months ago, he had been unthinkingly sure of so many things that now lay in ugly and unfamiliar shreds around him. So much of it had to do with women. All the certainties that had provided so much of the security of his life, not materially, but emotionally, lay in his beliefs about women. Now Christina had become involved with that fearful footman, and was going to marry Alan Ross. Thank God that at least had come to a tolerable conclusion. Although Augusta’s part in it was something he had not yet come to terms with. Euphemia Carlton was bearing another man’s child, which he felt was inexplicable. She had inexcusably betrayed a good man, who loved her. And now poor Helena Doran had been beguiled and used, and murdered. Or had she? Perhaps they would never know the truth of that. The thought of all of it hurt him.
But in some ways the most disturbing of all, the thing in himself he least wished to look at was the warmth with which he regarded Charlotte Ellison, the pleasure he felt in her company, the acuteness with which he could recall to his mind’s eye the exact curve of her throat, the rich color of her hair, the way she looked at him, and how deeply she felt all that she did and said, whether it were better said, or not.
It was ridiculous. He did not get disturbed, feel hope or embarrassment, least of all loneliness over a young woman: one who regarded him as nothing more than an employer! Or perhaps a little more? He believed she might have some respect for him, dare he imagine affection? No, of course not. Dismiss the thought. He was making an idiot of himself.
He picked up some paper and began furiously to read, although it was fully five minutes before the words began to create pictures for him, and take on a life separate from the tumult in his mind.
Even at dinner time the conversation passed him by. He would pay for the wedding, naturally, but he left all the arrangements, both social and practical, to Augusta. He would do as he was directed and be as charming as was required of him, but the preparations were out of his grasp.
He did not even really hear the rather unpleasant exchange between Christina and Brandy about the governess next door. As much of it as penetrated his mind seemed to consist of Christina’s disparaging her in some way and Brandy’s defending her with a vigor that would have drawn a request for explanation from him at any other time. It did trouble the back of his consciousness that perhaps Brandy was developing what seemed to be a family taste for affairs with servants. Of course for a man it was quite different, but it would show considerably more sense if he were to indulge himself a little less close to home.
After dinner he sent for Brandy to see him in the library. The butler brought the port and retired, closing the door behind him.
“Port?” Balantyne offered.
“No, thank you, bit heavy,” Brandy shook his head.
“I understand your inclinations,” Balantyne began. “Natural enough-”
“Just don’t like port a lot,” Brandy said easily.
“Not about the port!” Was he deliberately being obtuse? “About Miss whatever-her-name-is, the governess next door. Charming little thing-”
“She’s not a ‘little thing’!” Brandy said with a sudden flare of anger. “She’s a woman, just like Christina, or your Miss Ellison, or anyone else!”
“Hardly like Christina,” Balantyne said coldly.
“No, you’re right,” Brandy snapped. “She doesn’t sleep with the footmen!”
Balantyne raised his hand to strike him, outrage knotting his body. Then he saw Brandy’s calm face, set hard, unmoving. He let his hand fall. There was truth in the jibe, and he did not wish to quarrel with his son. They were utterly different, and yet he liked Brandy deeply.
“That was unnecessarily unkind,” he let his voice drop. “I dare say you have lain where you should not, at some time or other.”
To his surprise Brandy blushed deeply.
“I apologize, sir,” he said quietly. “It was a filthy thing to say. It’s just that I have a high regard for Jemima; not of the sort you supposed. As I suspect you have for Miss Ellison. And I would not insult either of them by making an advance of that nature.” He smiled a little bleakly. “I daresay one would get a thick ear if one tried. I certainly feel Miss Ellison capable of it!”
Balantyne grudged it, desperately embarrassed by Brandy’s perception. His inside was in turmoil, but he forced a smile in return.
“I dare say,” he agreed thickly. “Perhaps we had better discuss something else.”
They were not long launched on something less fraught with pitfalls when the footman announced Sir Robert Carlton, and Brandy, with unusual tact, excused himself.
Carlton also declined port, and stood a little awkwardly in the center of the floor. His face showed the fine lines of emotional strain.
“Dreadful thing about the poor Doran child,” he said jerkily. “Poor creature, poor woman. An appalling thought that she was there all the time, and we had no idea; went about our business.”
Balantyne had not thought of it in precisely that light before, and it revolted him: their obliviousness, the immediacy of life and death. They had passed so close to and so unheeding of another creature’s extremity. Dear God, did they regularly pass each other like that? Instinctively he met Carlton’s eyes. There was something entirely new in them and he could not yet understand what it was.
“About Euphemia-” Carlton said hesitantly.
Balantyne tried to show in his face some of the gentleness he wanted to feel, did feel. He said nothing, thinking it better merely to wait.
“I-” Carlton was stumbling for words. “I didn’t understand. I must have seemed-very cold-to her. She wanted a child. I–I didn’t know that. I wish-I wish she could have felt she could tell me so. It must have been my fault that she couldn’t. I was too-I put her on a pedestal-I didn’t realize what a-comfortless thing respect is. She wanted a child-that’s all.”
“I see.” Balantyne did not see at all, but he felt Carlton’s need, his groping toward belief that it was understandable, and that he himself understood. “Yes, I see,” he repeated.
“I find it,” Carlton swallowed. “I find it hard to come to terms with, but in time I shall. I shall consider the child to be mine. Balantyne-you will?” His skin colored deeply. He could not put it into words.
