“You have no notion of loyalty, Mama-in-law!” Eustace said with a slight flaring of his nostrils and a warning note in his voice.
“None at all,” she agreed. “I always felt it a spurious value to defend what is wrong merely because you are related to its perpetrators.”
“Quite.” Eustace avoided Charlotte’s eyes and looked at Emily. “If we find that the-offender-is one of this family, we will still do our duty, painful as it may be, and see that they are locked away. But discreetly. We do not wish the innocent to be hurt as well, and there are many to consider. The family must be preserved.” He flashed a smile at Sybilla. “Some people,” he continued, “ignorant people, can be most unkind. They are apt to tar all of us with the same brush. And now that Sybilla is at last to bear us a child”-his tone was suddenly jubilant, and he gave William a conspiratorial glance-“we trust, the first of many, we must look to the future.”
Emily had a suffocating feeling of being crowded in. She looked at Mrs. March, who looked away, dabbing stupidly at the water she had spilled across the cloth, but it had long since soaked in. Jack Radley gave a half smile, but it died on his lips as he thought better of it.
William had eaten little and now he stopped altogether. His face was as white as the sauce on the fish. Emily already knew him well enough to be aware that he was an acutely private man, and such open discussion of so personal a subject was agonizing to him. She looked away along the table to Sybilla.
But Sybilla was gazing at William, then at Eustace, her face filled with a loathing so intense it was incredible he should be unaware of it.
Tassie picked up her wineglass, and it slipped through her fingers to crash on the table, spilling wine everywhere. Emily had no doubt whatsoever she had done it on purpose. Her eyes were wide, like pits in the bleached skin of her face.
Sybilla was the first to recover. She forced a smile that was painful, worse than the hate before because of the effort behind it. “Never mind,” she said huskily. “It’s a white wine-I daresay it will wash quite easily. Would you like some more?”
Tassie opened her mouth soundlessly, and closed it again.
Emily stared at William, and he looked back at her, ashen, and with a complexity of emotions she could not unravel. It could have been anything, most probably pity for her; perhaps he also believed she had murdered her husband in a frenzy of hopeless jealousy, and that was what he pitied her for. Perhaps he even felt he understood. Was it Eustace, with his complacency, his boundless energy, his virility which had ultimately exhausted Olivia, who had shadowed William’s marriage for so long? Was he terrified Sybilla would die of excessive childbearing, as his mother had done? Or had he never loved Sybilla deeply anyway? Maybe he even loved someone else. Society was full of empty marriages at all levels; since marriage was the only acceptable state for a woman, one could not afford to be pernickety.
She looked at Eustace, but he was busy again with his food. He had problems to consider: keeping his family from hysteria, preventing scandal in Society, and preserving the reputation of the Marches-especially of William and Sybilla, now that the longed-for heir was to come. Emily was an embarrassment, threatening rapidly, if the old lady were to be believed, to become something far worse. He sliced a piece of meat viciously, squeaking his knife on the plate, and his face remained in deep concentration.
Emily looked across the table at Jack Radley. His eyes were candid and startlingly soft. He had been watching her already, before she looked at him. She realized how often she had seen that expression in him recently. He was attracted to her, very strongly so, and it was deeper than the triviality of a flirtation.
Oh, God! Had he killed George for her? Did he really imagine that she would marry him now?
The room swayed around her and there was a roaring sound in her ears as if she were underwater. The walls disappeared and suddenly she could not breathe. She was far too hot … suffocating …
“Emily! Emily!” The voice was booming and fuzzy, and yet very close to her. She was sitting on one of the side chairs, half reclining. It was uncomfortable and precarious. She felt as if she might slide off if she were to move. It had been Charlotte’s voice. “You are perfectly all right,” she said quietly. “You fainted. We expected too much of you. Mr. Radley will carry you upstairs, and I’ll help you to bed.”
“I will have Digby bring you up a tisane,” Aunt Vespasia added from somewhere above her in an unfocused distance.
“I don’t need carrying upstairs!” Emily protested. “It would be ridiculous. And why can’t Millicent bring me a tisane-except that I don’t want one.”
“Millicent is upset,” Vespasia replied. “She weeps at the drop of a hat, and is quite the last thing you need. I’ve put her to the stillroom till she can take hold of herself. And you will do as you are told and not cause yourself any more distress by fainting again.”
“But Aunt Vespasia-” Before her argument was formed Charlotte’s borrowed silk was replaced by black barathea, and Jack Radley put his arms round her and lifted her up. “This is quite unnecessary,” she said irritably. “I am perfectly able to walk!”
He ignored her, and with Charlotte going ahead opening doors, Emily was carried out of the dining room, through the hallway, and up the stairs to her bedroom. He laid her on the bed, said nothing, but touched her arm gently and left.
“I suppose it’s a little late to think of it now,” Charlotte said, unbuttoning Emily’s dress. “But your excess of charm to win George back was bound to attract others as well. You shouldn’t really be surprised.”
Emily stared at the pattern on the coverlet. She allowed Charlotte to continue with the buttons. She did not want her to go.
“I’m frightened,” she said quietly. “Mrs. March thinks I killed George because he was making love with Sybilla. She as good as said so.”
Charlotte did not reply for so long that finally Emily swung round and stared at her. Her face was grave, and her eyes were blurred and sad.
“That’s why we have to discover exactly what did happen, painful as it will be-and difficult. I must talk to Thomas privately tomorrow and see what he has learned.”
Emily said nothing. She could feel the fear growing enormous inside her, roaring into the chasm of loneliness for George; the fierce, gripping pain was like ice. The danger was closing round her. If she did not learn the truth soon she would not escape it, perhaps not ever.
Charlotte woke in the night, her skin crawling with horror, her body rigid under the sheets and her fists clenched. Something appalling had torn her from the dark cocoon of sleep.
Then it came again-a high, sharp scream, ripping through the silence of the house. She sat up, clutching the bedclothes as though the room were freezing, although it was midsummer. She could hear nothing, nothing at all.
She climbed out of bed slowly, her feet touching the carpet with a chill. She bumped against a chair. She was longer than usual accustoming her sight to the denseness of the curtained room. What would she find out there on the landing? Tassie? Horrific ideas of blood and the gaslight at the head of the stairs shining on knives swarmed into her imagination, and she stopped in the middle of the floor, holding her breath.
At last there was another sound, footsteps somewhere far away, and a door opening and closing. Then more steps and the confused sounds of fumbling, of people awkward with sleep.
She pulled her wrap off the chair and put it round her shoulders, then opened the door quickly. At the end of the small passage the landing itself was aglow with light. Someone had turned up the lamps. By the time she reached the head of the stairs Great-aunt Vespasia was standing beside the jardiniere with the fern in it. She looked old and very thin. Charlotte could not remember ever having seen her with her hair down before. It was like old silver scrollwork, polished too many times till it had been worn away. Now the lamplight shone through it, and it looked vaporous.
“What is it?” Charlotte’s voice cracked, her throat too dry to allow the words through. “Who screamed?”
There was another sound of feet, and Tassie appeared from the stairs to the floor above. She stared at them, her face white and frightened.
“I don’t know,” Vespasia answered them quietly. “I heard two screams. Charlotte, have you been to Emily?”
“No.” It was only a whisper. She had not even thought of Emily. She realized now that she had believed the sound came from the opposite direction, and farther away. “I don’t think-”
But before she could continue Sybilla’s bedroom door swung open and Jack Radley came out wearing nothing
