Eloise shut her eyes and turned away, pulling her arm from Alaric, leaving him standing confused, aware he was in the outside of some tremendous grief and unable to reach it or share it.
Charlotte felt a certain compassion for him, but her first feeling was for Eloise. She stood up and went to her, putting her arms around her and holding her tightly. Eloise’s body was yielding, lifeless, but Charlotte held on to her just the same. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Alaric’s face, tight with pity, and then silently he turned and left, closing the door behind him with a tiny click as the latch went home.
Eloise did not move, nor did she weep; it was as if Charlotte were holding a sleepwalker whose nightmare imprisoned her mind and soul elsewhere. Yet Charlotte felt that her presence, the contact of her warmth, was worth something.
Minutes went by. Someone clattered up the back stairs. Rain drove in a gust against the windows. Still neither of them spoke.
At last the door opened and the maid spoke, then was overcome with embarrassment. “Mr. Inigo Charrington, ma’am. Shall I tell him you are not at home?”
“If you would inform Mr. Charrington that Miss Lagarde is not well,” Charlotte said quietly. “Ask him to wait in the withdrawing room, and I shall go to him in a few moments.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The girl withdrew gratefully, without waiting for Eloise to confirm the command.
Charlotte stood for a moment longer, then guided Eloise to the sofa and laid her on it, kneeling beside her.
“Do you not think you would be better to lie down for a while?” she suggested. “Perhaps a dish of tea, or an herbal tisane?”
“If you wish.” Eloise obeyed because she had no will to argue.
Charlotte hesitated, still not sure if there was anything else she could do, then accepted at last that it was futile and went to the door.
“Charlotte!”
She turned. For the first time there was expression in Eloise’s face, even her eyes.
“Thank you. You have been kind. I may not appear as if I value it, but I do. You are right. Perhaps I shall drink something, and sleep for a while. I feel very tired.”
Charlotte felt a surge of relief, as if hard knots inside her had slipped loose.
“I’ll tell your maid to see that no one else is admitted for today.”
“Thank you.”
After delivering the directions to the maid and the footman, Charlotte went into the withdrawing room where Inigo Charrington stood by the mantelshelf, his face creased with anxiety, his coat still over his arm as if he were unsure whether to stay or go.
“Is she all right?” he said without any pretense at formality.
“No,” Charlotte replied with equal honesty. “No, she isn’t, but I don’t know of anything else we can do to help.”
“Should you have left her?” Inigo’s face creased. “The last thing I want is for my calling to cause further distress.”
“I sent the maid for a dish of tisane. Then I think she will rest for a time. Sleep will not alter the facts; she will still have to face them when she awakes, but she may have a little more strength for it.”
“It’s absolutely bloody!” he said with sudden anger. “First poor Mina, and now this!”
Charlotte was appalled to hear herself reply, “And your own sister—”
“What?” His quicksilver face was blank, almost comically empty.
This time embarrassment made her hold her tongue.
“Oh,” Then he realized what she had said. “Oh yes. You mean Ottilie.”
She wanted to apologize, to undo her intrusion, but she knew how close it could lie to Mina’s death, and murder. And she had learned only too dreadfully how one murder could beget another—and another. Mina was not necessarily the last victim.
“I believe her death was very sudden—I mean, quite unexpected. It must have been a devastating shock.” She had meant to be subtle, and ended by sounding crass.
“Unexpected?” Again he repeated her words. “Mrs. Pitt! Of course, how stupid of me. The policeman! But why the interest in Ottilie? She was eccentric, to put it at its mildest, but she certainly never harmed anyone—least of all Mina.”
“That is the third time someone has said that she was eccentric,” Charlotte said thoughtfully. “Was she really so very unusual?”
“Oh yes.” He smiled at the memory. “She did some appalling things. Once she got up on the dining table at dinner and sang a bawdy song. I thought Papa would die of it. Thank God no one else was there but the family, and one or two of my friends.” His eyes were alight, gleaming with the memory, laughter and softness in them.
“Embarrassing, if it were to be repeated.” Charlotte was confused by him; surely no man could act affection so perfectly and be lying? “One cannot afford a great deal of that if one is to remain in Society.”
His face was bright, with mockery in it, but no malice, as if he himself were part of the joke.
“You know, Mrs. Pitt, I have the strongest feeling that in spite of your afternoon-tea behavior, you are a good deal more your husband’s wife than your mother’s daughter! You think we quietly suppressed Ottilie somewhere, don’t you? Perhaps imprisoned her in our country house, locked in a disused wing, with an old family retainer to guard her?”
