thing you could say.” She backed out of the doorway in a kind of excitement, and swung around without noticing the maid crossing the hall behind her. Charlotte called out, but it was too late. Mina’s hand caught the teapot. The maid shrieked and let go and the tray went clattering to the floor. The maid shrieked again and threw her apron over her face, and Mina let out a cry.
Charlotte could see immediately what had happened from the dark stain of wetness over Mina’s wrist, where the scalding tea had run over her.
“Quickly!” Charlotte grasped her without explanation or apology. “Where is the kitchen?”
“There.” Mina looked to her left, her face tight with pain.
The maid was still shrieking, but no one took any notice of her.
Charlotte half pushed Mina towards the passageway, then thought of a far better idea. There was a large bowl full of lilies on the hall table. She turned and dragged Mina towards it, then as soon as she could reach, seized the flowers and dumped them on the table and pushed Mina’s hand into the bowl full of cold water.
“Ah!” Mina said in amazement, the pain easing out of her face. “Oh—how wonderful.”
Charlotte smiled at her, then looked at the maid.
“Stop it,” she commanded fiercely. “Nobody’s blaming you. It was an accident. Now don’t stand there making that horrible noise, go and do something useful. Go back to the kitchen and send the tweeny to clean up this mess, and you come back with a bag of ice, and a tea cloth wrung out of cold water and a solution of bicarbonate of soda, and another one that’s clean and dry. Get on with you.”
“Yes, miss. Right away, miss,” the girl said, staring at Charlotte with a tear-stained face and not moving from the spot.
“Go on, Gwynneth,” Mina urged her. “Do as you are told.”
Charlotte pulled Mina’s hand out of the flower bowl as the maid disappeared.
“We’d better go to the light and see how bad it is.” She walked with Mina towards the central chandelier, lit in spite of the sun because of the drawn blinds. Without asking permission she undid the buttons on Mina’s long cuffs and pushed back the black fabric.
“Oh!” Mina gasped.
Charlotte also drew in her breath sharply, not because of the red scald she expected to see, but the broad yellow-and-purple stain of bruising with its deeper blotches like finger marks over the flesh. There was also a certain irritated pinkness, from the burn, but nothing like as serious as she had feared, and there was no blistering.
Mina was absolutely motionless, paralyzed with horror.
Charlotte looked up and met her gaze.
Mina’s cheeks burned hot and her eyes filled with a desperate shame, and then overwhelming guilt.
“Do you need any help?” Charlotte said simply. A dozen questions raced through her mind, none of them she could ask: Gracie’s gossip in the park, Bart Mitchell’s protectiveness and his anger, and the fear in Mina’s eyes.
“Help! No … no. I … everything is …” She stopped.
“Are you quite sure?” Charlotte was aching to ask if it had been Captain Winthrop who had done it, and did Bart know—when did he know, before Winthrop’s death, or after?
“Yes.” Mina swallowed and caught her breath, looking away. “Yes, I am perfectly all right, thank you. It really hurts very little now.”
Charlotte did not know if she meant the burn or the bruising. She longed to look at the other wrist to see if it was the same, and even more to see under the black lace fichu at her throat, over her shoulders and back. Was that why she walked so stiffly? But there was no way she could do it without being unforgivably intrusive and breaking every tenuous thread of friendship she had built.
“Do you think you should see a doctor?” she asked with concern.
Mina’s other hand went to her throat and she shook her head as she met Charlotte’s eyes again. The pretense was back, at least on the surface. “Oh no. I think—I think it will heal quite well, thank you.” She smiled wanly. “Your quick thought saved me so much. I really am most grateful to you.”
“Had I not been here viewing your beautiful room it would not have happened,” Charlotte replied, allowing the charade. “Do you think you should sit down for a little, and maybe have a tisane? You have had a most unpleasant experience.”
“Yes—yes that would be an excellent idea,” Mina agreed. “I hope you will stay too? I feel such a poor hostess to have been so clumsy.”
“I should love to,” Charlotte accepted immediately.
They were at the withdrawing room entrance when the front door opened and Bart Mitchell came in. He glanced, first at Mina, seeing her wrist with the black cuff open and trailing, then at Charlotte, his face suddenly tight with anxiety. Curiously, he said nothing.
“Mrs. Pitt came to visit me, Bart,” Mina said in the sudden silence. “Wasn’t that considerate of her?”
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Pitt.” Bait’s blue eyes were very wide and direct, searching Charlotte’s face. Then he looked back at Mina.
“I scalded myself,” Mina said very slowly, as if she owed him some explanation. “Mrs. Pitt was very helpful, very quick …”
At that moment, as if in further support, Gwynneth reappeared with the towels. She looked over to Charlotte.
Mina held out her arm, which was beginning to look pink again where the bruise did not mar it.
