“She doesn’t seem to share the widow’s emotions, or lack of them.”
“Maybe she was fonder of him than the widow,” Emily suggested. “Perhaps she is what you are looking for. Or at least what Thomas is looking for?”
“A mistress?”
“Ssh!” A thin woman in front of them turned around and glared.
Emily lifted one shoulder a little and stared back, eyebrows raised.
The woman snorted. “Some people have no idea how to behave!” she said loudly enough for Charlotte and Emily to hear.
“Ssh!” hissed a woman a little to the left of her.
“Well!” the thin woman gasped, filled with outrage.
Lord Winthrop finally wound to a close, and footmen began to pass among the guests again, carrying trays of glasses filled with Madeira wine, heavy and sweet. Others came with glasses of white wine for the ladies, or lemonade for those who preferred it.
Emily pulled a face and took white wine. Charlotte hesitated, then chose lemonade. This might call for a clear head. It was certainly not an occasion for enjoyment!
“I must meet the woman with the fair hair,” Charlotte said seriously. “How can we contrive it?”
“I can’t think of a decorous manner,” Emily replied. “I could simply be blunt.”
“In what way?”
Rather than explain, and give Charlotte a chance to refuse, Emily demonstrated exactly what she meant. Excusing herself to pass a group of sober men remembering their days at sea, and what they did or did not recall of Oakley Winthrop, she sailed towards Thora Garrick with Charlotte a yard behind.
“Mrs. Waters!” she exclaimed with delight. “I was so hoping we should have the chance to meet again, although not in these circumstances, of course! How are you?”
Thora looked startled. She regarded Emily with alarm, then, seeing her smiling face and bright eyes, it changed to confusion.
“I am afraid you are mistaken. My name is Garrick. My husband was the late Samuel Garrick, lieutenant in Her Majesty’s Navy. You may have heard of him?”
“Oh dear, I’m so sorry.” Emily apologized profusely. “What a dreadful mistake to have made. Really, I fear my eyesight must be quite at fault. Now that I am closer, I can see that you are not she at all.” She dismissed it with an airy wave. “Indeed, she is shorter and much older than you are, although of course she would not thank me for saying so, so I hope you will never repeat it? It is just that she also has that wonderful coloring.”
Thora blushed with pleasure and uncertainty.
“Do forgive me, Mrs. Garrick?” Emily begged, clasping Charlotte’s arm. “Do you know my sister, Charlotte Pitt? No, of course you don’t, or she would have prevented me from making such a ridiculous mistake.”
“How do you do, Mrs. Pitt,” Thora said nervously.
“Oh—of course, if you are not Mrs. Waters, then you do not know me either,” Emily exclaimed. “I am Emily Radley. I am so delighted to make your acquaintance—that is if you will consider me an acquaintance?”
“Of course. I am very happy to.” Thora gave the only possible answer.
Emily smiled radiantly. “How generous of you! Especially at a moment of grief. Did you know poor Captain Winthrop well? Or is it indelicate to inquire?”
“No, of course not,” Thora denied. “Although I have known him a long time. He served with my dear husband, who was a most outstanding man, not at all unlike poor Captain Winthrop. They both excelled in all manner of fields of endeavor, of the body and of the mind. They both had such a sense of duty, of purpose. Do you know what I mean?”
“Oh, of course,” Emily said quickly. “Some men are immovable from the course of what is right, no matter what temptations are set in their path.”
Thora’s face lit with an inner radiance.
“Exactly! You know it precisely,” she agreed. “One has to be immovable at sea. Mistakes can cost lives. My dear Samuel was always saying that. He would have everything done just so, to the inch and to the minute. Dear Captain Winthrop was the same. I do so admire command in a man, don’t you? Where would the world be if we were all haphazard, depending upon intuition and hoping for the best, as I am afraid I am inclined to do too much of the time.”
“Artists, I expect,” Emily replied with a tiny frown. “And terribly unreliable. I imagine you were very fond of Captain Winthrop, then, if he had so many fine qualities in common with your late husband?”
“I had the highest regard for him,” Thora agreed warmly, but there was the slightest shadow of guilt in her answer. “In fact he was my son’s godfather, you know?” She smiled and turned to her left to indicate a young man with the same fair hair as herself, but the superficial resemblance in feature was almost negated by the difference in expression. The visionary delicacy in her was a serene certainty, as if she could see beyond the masks of the present to some greater truth whose beauty she believed utterly. In him there was still a searching, the pain of guilt and disillusion were marked in his eyes and his lips. He was someone far from the haven of knowledge in which she rested At the moment he was settling himself in a small cleared area with a cello held lovingly in one hand, his bow in the other. “That is he,” Thora said quietly.
“Is he going to play?” Charlotte asked with interest. It seemed so far from the picture of a stiff, dogmatic naval officer which she had had well in her mind.
“Mina Winthrop asked him to,” Thora agreed. “He does play very well, but I think perhaps she asked him because he was so fond of her, and I know it eased the sadness of this whole affair for him that he should be able to contribute in some way.”
