don’t know which.” Her voice was very nearly steady. Her effort of will must have been immense. “But it was I who hit him over the head with the jar of bath salts and pushed him under the water—” She stopped abruptly, waiting.
There was utter silence but for the faint hiss of the gas.
Twice Piers opened his mouth as if to speak, then realized he did not know what to say. It was left to Justine to continue. Her voice was harsh with pain. Charlotte knew from the tightness of her back, the rigidity of her shoulders, that she had kept some kind of hope until this moment, and now she had at last let it go. She was speaking from despair.
“I meant to kill him,” she went on flatly. “I didn’t actually, only because he was already dead. I had been his mistress … for money … and he was going to tell you.” She smiled with a bitter mockery at herself. “I thought I couldn’t bear that. I still love you, and I wanted you to love me more than I wanted anything else in the world. It would have been much easier to bear than this … having to tell you myself, and not only tell you what I was but what I have done as well. I’m sorry … I’m sorry I did this to you. You will never be able to understand how sorry ….”
He stared at her as if he had not seen her before.
She looked back in silence, without evasion, almost without blinking.
Charlotte was locked immobile. She would have felt intrusive if she had thought either of them had the slightest awareness of her.
“Why?” he said at last, his face almost bruised with shock and incomprehension at what he had heard. “Why did you live that … that kind of … life?”
This time Justine did not use the word
“At first it was to survive,” Justine answered, her voice low, expressionless, as though the feeling in it were too great to be allowed through. “My father was killed at sea, and my mother and I had nothing. She was ostracized because she had married a foreigner. Her family would do nothing for us. Later I got used to the things it could buy me, the safety, the warmth, and in time the beauty, the freedom from worrying every day where the next week’s food and rent would come from.”
She took a deep breath and went on. “I knew it wouldn’t last. Women get old, then no one wants them. You can’t earn much past thirty, even less past thirty-five. I wanted to save so I could buy a business of some sort. I kept meaning to get out, but it was too easy to stay in. Until I met you at the theater. I came to love you, and I realized what I had paid for my safety. I stopped from that day on.” She did not make any protestations that it was the truth.
Again he sat silent, only shivering a little, as from physical shock.
Minutes passed by—five, ten, a quarter of an hour. Neither of them moved or made a sound.
Charlotte was getting stiff and, in spite of her gown, thoroughly chilled. But she must not interrupt. Justine had not looked at her. She would, if she wanted her to take any part.
At last Piers drew in a breath and let it out in a long sigh. “I …” He shook his head a little. “I can’t …” He looked wretched, shattered, confused, hurting too much to know how to express it. “I can’t think what to say …” he confessed. “I … I’m sorry. I need a little time … to think ….”
“Of course,” Justine said quickly in a curiously flat tone. It was an acknowledgment of defeat, of a kind of little death inside. She rose to her feet and at last looked at Charlotte. “Good night,” she said to Piers with a formality which was at once absurd and yet understandable. What else was there to say? She turned and went to the door, leaving him also standing helpless, watching her go.
Charlotte followed her and closed the door behind them both. They went back along the passage to Justine’s room. Charlotte was not sure if Justine might want to be alone, but she was afraid to leave her, knowing the despair she must now feel. Without asking, she went into the room after her.
Justine was walking in a nightmare, as if unaware even where she was anymore. She walked into the corner of the bed, bruising herself against the wood and barely registering the pain. She sat down suddenly, but she was too numb to weep.
Charlotte closed the door and went over to her. There was nothing to say which would mean anything. It would be ridiculous and painful to talk about hope or even to imagine plans. There was nothing which could have been done differently or better as far as Piers was concerned, and anyway it was all past. She did not know whether Justine would find touch comforting or intrusive, but it was her instinct to reach out. She sat beside her on the bed and very gently put her arms around her.
For minutes they sat unmoving, Justine rigid, locked inside her own pain. Then at last she relaxed and leaned against Charlotte’s shoulder. The wound was no less, but she consented to share it for a space.
Charlotte had no idea how long they sat. She grew stiff and even colder except where Justine’s body kept her warm. Her arm started prickling with pins and needles. When she could bear it no longer and her muscles were beginning to jump, she spoke.
“You might try to sleep a little. I’ll stay with you if you like—or go, if you’d prefer?”
Justine turned around slowly. “How selfish of me,” she answered. “I’ve sat here as if there were no one else in the world. You must be exhausted. I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m not,” Charlotte lied. “Do you want me to stay? I can sleep here anyway.”
“Please …” Justine hesitated. “No, that’s stupid. I can’t expect you to stay with me forever. I brought this on myself.”
“We bring a lot of our griefs upon ourselves,” Charlotte said honestly. “It doesn’t make it hurt any less. Lie down and get warm. Perhaps then you’ll sleep a while.”
“Will you lie down too? Under the covers, or you’ll be frozen.”
“Yes, certainly I will.” Charlotte suited the act to the words, and Justine turned out the gas. They lay in silence. Charlotte had no idea how long it was before sleep overtook her at last.
She woke with a start to hear knocking on the door. It took her a moment to remember that the person beside
