peculiarly insensitive thing to say now to this man, whose wife had responded so fully and so publicly to George. Instead, she told him the easiest lie.
“They were so pleased with Emily marrying Lord Ashworth they tolerated me really quite well.”
But mention of George and Emily only brought back the sharp contrast with Emily’s present loss. “I’m so sorry,” he said quietly, and turned back to the cruel, sensitive painting.
She was dismissed, and this time she accepted it, walking slowly back through the jungle of growth to the rest of the house.
In the afternoon they were visited by the pink-faced curate. He made an embarrassed and rather abrupt apology for the vicar who, apparently, was unable to come in person due to some emergency, the nature of which was unclear.
“Indeed!” Vespasia said with unconcealed skepticism. “How unfortunate.”
The curate was a large young man of obvious West Highland origin. With the bluntness of youth, and perhaps some judgment of his own, he made no effort to embellish the excuse. Charlotte warmed to him immediately and was not surprised to observe that Tassie also seemed to find him agreeable.
“And when do we expect this crisis to pass?” Mrs. March inquired coldly.
“When our reputation is restored and we are not the seat of scandal anymore,” Tassie said instantly, and blushed as soon as the words were out.
The curate took a deep breath, bit his lip, and colored as well.
“Anastasia!” Mrs. March’s voice cracked like a whip. “You will excuse yourself to your room if you cannot guard your tongue from uncharitableness, let alone impertinence. No doubt Mr. Beamish has his reasons for not calling upon us to give us his comfort in person.”
“I expect Mr. Hare will do rather better anyway,” Vespasia murmured to no one in particular. “I find the vicar peculiarly tedious.”
“That is beside the point!” Mrs. March snapped. “It is not the vicar’s function to be amusing. I always felt you did not understand religion, Vespasia. You never knew how to behave in church. You have had a tendency to laugh in the wrong places as long as I have known you.”
“That is because I have a sense of the absurd, and you have not,” Vespasia replied. She turned to Mungo Hare, balanced on the edge of one of the hard-backed, withdrawing room chairs and trying to compose his face to display the appropriate mixture of piety and solicitude. “Mr. Hare,” she continued, “please convey to Mr. Beamish that we understand his reasons quite perfectly, and that we are very satisfied that you should take his place.”
Tassie sneezed, or that is what it sounded like. Mrs. March made a clicking noise with her tongue, excessively irritated that Vespasia should have contrived to insult the vicar more effectively than she herself had. How dare the wretched, cowardly little man send a curate in his place to call upon the Marches? And Charlotte remembered with renewed vividness why she had liked Aunt Vespasia from the day they had met.
Mungo Hare duly unburdened himself of the condolences and the spiritual encouragement he had been charged with; then Tassie accompanied him upstairs to repeat it all to Emily, who had chosen to spend the afternoon alone.
Charlotte meant to go up later and see if she could tap Emily’s memory for some observation, however minor, which would betray a weakness, a lie, anything which could be pursued. But as she was crossing the hall Eustace emerged from the morning room, straightening his jacket and coughing loudly, thus making it impossible for her to pretend she had not seen him.
“Ah, Mrs. Pitt,” he said with affected surprise, his round little eyes very wide. “I should like to talk with you. Perhaps the boudoir? Mrs. March has gone to change for dinner, and I know it is presently unoccupied.” He was behind her, hands wide, almost as if he would physically shepherd her in the direction he wished her to go. Short of being unexplainably rude, she could not refuse.
Charlotte found the room one of the ugliest she had ever seen. It exemplified the worst taste of the last fifty years, and she felt suffocated by everything it symbolized as much as by the sheer weight of the furniture, the hot color, and the wealth of ornaments and drapings. It seemed to be expressive of a prudery that was vulgar in its very consciousness of the things it sought to cover-an opulence that was lacking in any real richness. It was difficult to keep the distaste from showing in her face.
For once Eustace did not fling open the windows in his customary manner, and it was the only time when she would willingly have done it for him. He seemed too preoccupied with the burden of framing his thoughts.
“Mrs. Pitt. I hope you find yourself as comfortable as may be, in these tragic circumstances?”
“Quite, thank you, Mr. March.” She was confused. Surely he had not brought her to this room to ask her in private such a trivial question?
“Good, good.” He rubbed his hands together and remained looking at her. “Of course, you do not know us very well. Nor perhaps anyone like us. No, no you wouldn’t. We must seem alien to you. I should explain, so that we do not add confusion as well to your natural grief for your sister. If I can help you at all, in the least way, my dear …?”
Charlotte opened her mouth to say that she was no more confused than anyone else would be, but he hurried on, drowning her protest.
“You must excuse Lady Cumming-Gould her eccentricities. She was a great beauty once, you know, and so she was allowed to get away with being outrageous, and I’m afraid she has never grown beyond it. Indeed, I think with age she has become more so-I know my dear mother finds her quite trying at times.” He rubbed his hands and smiled experimentally, searching Charlotte’s face to see how she responded to this information. “But we must all exercise forbearance!” he went on quickly, sensing disapproval. “That is part of being a family-so important! Cornerstone of the country. Loyalty, continuity, one generation to the next-that’s what civilization is all about. Marks us from the savages, eh?”
Charlotte opened her mouth to argue that in her opinion savages had an excellent dynastic sense, and were intensely conservative, which was precisely why they remained savages instead of inventing and exploring things new. But again Eustace carried on regardless before she could begin.
“And of course from your point of view poor Sybilla must seem most cruel and ill-behaved, because you will naturally take Emily’s part. But you know there was far more to it than that. Oh dear, yes. I am afraid it was George who pursued, you know-quite definitely George. And dear Sybilla is so used to admiration she failed to discourage him appropriately. It was ill-judged of her, of course. I feel obliged to tell her so, directly. And George should have been far more discreet-”
“He shouldn’t have done it at all!” Charlotte interrupted hotly.
“Ah, my dear!” Eustace’s face was lit with a smile of patience and condescension. He wagged his head a little. “Let us not be unrealistic. One expects girls of Tassie’s age to have romantic illusions, and heaven forfend I should wound her susceptibilities at so tender a stage in her life, when she is just on the brink of betrothal. But a married woman of Emily’s years must come to terms with the nature of men. A truly feminine woman has forgiveness in her nature for our foibles and weaknesses, as indeed we men have for the frailties of women.” He smiled at her, and for a moment his hand hovered warmly over hers and she was intensely aware of him.
Charlotte was furious. There was something about him that brought back in a rush every patronizing word she had ever heard. She ached to wipe the complacence off his moon face.
“You mean that if Emily had lain with Mr. Radley, for example, George would have forgiven her?” she asked sarcastically, pulling her hand away.
She had succeeded. Eustace was genuinely shocked. She had preempted a subject he would not have put words to himself. The blood drained from his skin, then rushed back in a tide of color. “Really!” he spluttered. “I appreciate that you have had a grave shock, and perhaps you are afraid for Emily, understandably. But my dear Mrs. Pitt, there is no call for vulgarity! I shall do you the favor of putting from my mind that I ever heard you so forget yourself as to make such a vile suggestion. We shall agree never to refer to it again. You strike at the very root of all that is fine and decent in life. If women were to behave in that way, why, good God! — a man wouldn’t know if his son were his own! The home would be desecrated, the very fabric of Society would fall apart. The idea does not bear thinking of!”
Charlotte found herself blushing, although as much from anger as embarrassment. Perhaps she was being ridiculous, and the movement of his hand really had been no more than sympathy.
“I did not suggest it, Mr. March!” she protested, raising her chin and staring at him. “I merely meant that perhaps Emily expected as high a standard from George as she was prepared to adhere to herself.”
