nothing there.”
She wanted to tell him about the distress she felt for Martha Prebble, the sense of her deep pain that had filled the room, her own helplessness in the face of something she thought she had seen, but not understood.
“Charlotte? What is troubling you? Has something happened since I was here last?”
She turned to look at him. For once she was not quite sure how to put her thoughts into words, a failing she was not accustomed to. It was difficult to express the sense of oppression that had weighed on her during and after the Prebbles’ visit without sounding foolish, over-imaginative. Yet she wished to tell him, it would comfort her profoundly if he understood. Perhaps he would even be able to dismiss it, show her it was a fancy.
He was still waiting, apparently knowing she was seeking words.
“The vicar and Mrs. Prebble were here this morning,” she began.
“Natural enough,” he was listening. “He was bound to call.” He shifted his weight. “I know you dislike him. I must say I have the greatest trouble being civil to him myself.” He smiled wryly. “I imagine it is even harder for you.”
She glanced at him, not sure for a moment if he were mocking her. He was, but there was tenderness in his face as well as amusement. For a moment the warmth of it, the sweetness of pleasure it brought her drove Martha Prebble from her mind.
“Why should that have upset you?” he brought her back to the present.
She turned away, so his look should not disturb her. “I’ve always felt ambivalent about Martha.” She was seriously trying now to tell him what was still struggling for form in her mind. “Her talk about sin is so depressing. She sounds like the vicar, seeing evil where I believe there is only perhaps a little foolishness which passes anyway with time and responsibility. People like the vicar always seem bent on spoiling pleasure, as if pleasure itself were against God. I can see that some pleasures are, or that they beguile one from the things one ought to do; but-”
“Perhaps he sees that as his duty?” Pitt suggested. “It’s clear-cut, easier than preaching charity, and certainly easier than practicing it.”
“I suppose so. And if I lived with someone like him for a long time I should learn to feel the same way as Martha Prebble does. Perhaps her father was a vicar, too. I never thought of that before.”
“And what is your other feeling?” he asked. “You said you were ambivalent.”
“Oh, pity, of course. And I think some admiration, too. You know, she really does try to live up to all that that wretched man teaches. And more. She is always visiting, caring for the sick and the lonely. I sometimes wonder how much she believes what she says about sin, or if she just adds it out of habit, and because she thinks she ought to, because she knows he would.”
“I dare say she doesn’t know herself. But that is not all, Charlotte. Why did they disturb you especially today? They have always been like this; you could not have expected anything else.”
What was the unease she had felt? She wanted to tell him, indeed she needed to. “She was talking about the need for punishment, even things like ‘if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out,’ and cutting off hands and things. It seemed so. . so extreme, as if she were frightened of it-I mean really panicked. She talked about washing in the blood of Christ, and things.” She looked at him. “And she spoke about Sarah as if there were evil in her, I mean not just general weakness, as there is in all of us, but as if she knew of something. I suppose that’s what upset me-she spoke as if she knew something I didn’t.”
He frowned, “Charlotte,” he began slowly, “please don’t be angry with me, but do you think Sarah confided in her something that she did not tell you? Is it possible?”
Charlotte was repelled by the thought, yet she remembered that Sarah had wanted to see Martha alone; she had trusted Martha. Sometimes it was easier to speak to someone outside the family.
“Perhaps,” she admitted reluctantly. “I don’t think so. I don’t know what Sarah could have done, but it could be-”
He stood up and came closer to her. She could feel his presence as if it were a warmth. She did not wish to move away. Indeed, she wished it were not immodest, improper to touch him.
“It could be something very slight,” he said gently. “Something that was of little importance, but to Martha Prebble, in the vicar’s eyes, a sin needing forgiveness. And for heaven’s sake don’t confuse the vicar with God. I’m sure God is nothing like as self-righteous-”
In spite of herself she smiled. “Don’t be ridiculous. God is love. I’m sure the vicar never loved anyone in his life.” She was touched by a bleak knowledge. “Including Martha.” She took a deep breath. “No wonder poor Martha is desperate, underneath all her good works, and her condemnation of sin. Not to be loved, not to love-”
He touched her arm very lightly. “And you, Charlotte? Do you still love Dominic?”
She felt herself colour with shame that she should have been so obvious.
“What made you believe-that I-?”
“Of course, I knew.” There was regret in his voice, a memory of pain. “I love you. How could I remain unaware that you loved someone else?”
“Oh.”
“You haven’t answered me. Do you still love him?”
“Don’t you know that I don’t? Or does it not matter to you now?” She was almost sure of what the answer would be, and yet she needed to have it spoken.
He turned her arm firmly till she was facing him.
“It matters to me. I don’t want to be second best?” There was a lift in his voice making it a question.
Very slowly she looked up at him. At first she was a little afraid, embarrassed by the power of feeling in his face, and by the depth and the sweetness of her own feeling. Then she stopped hiding, let go of pretence.
“You are not second best,” she said clearly. She put up her fingers and touched his cheek, at first shyly. “Dominic was only a dream. I’m awake now, and you are the first best.”
He reached up and took hold of her hand, keeping it to his face, his lips.
“And you have the courage to marry an ordinary policeman, Charlotte?”
“Do you doubt my courage, Mr. Pitt? Surely at least you cannot doubt my self-will?”
Slowly he smiled, more and more widely until it was a grin.
“Then I shall prepare for battle with your father.” His face became sober again, “but I’ll wait until this business is settled, and a suitable time has passed.”
“You can settle it?” she asked doubtfully.
“I think so. I have a feeling the answer is just beyond us, only just. I have caught a glimpse of something grotesque, something we have not even dreamed before. I cannot grasp it yet, but it is there. I have felt its darkness and its pain touch me.”
She shivered. “Be careful. He has not killed a man yet, but if his own life is in danger-”
“I shall. Now I must go. There are a few more questions, things that may help to make it plain, to put a face to the shadow. It is so close, a little thought. . ”
She moved away slowly, the shadow of the hangman outside her, and a white, singing happiness inside. She showed him to the door herself.
The following day arrangements were being made for Sarah’s funeral and everyone was busy when Millie came in with a note to say that Martha Prebble had been taken ill, and been confined to her bed.
“Oh dear, that really is too much!” Caroline said in exasperation. “She was going to deal with so many of the details, especially at the church. And I don’t even know what she has done so far!” She sat down hard in the wooden chair behind her. “I suppose I shall have to write a list of questions and send one of the servants ’round to her. It seems heartless, if the poor creature is ill, but what else can I do? And it’s raining!”
“We can’t send a servant, Mama,” Charlotte said wearily. “The least we can do is go ourselves. She visits all the sick in the parish, takes them things, even sits up with them all night if they are alone. It would be unpardonable if now, when she is ill, all we can do is send a servant with a message to know how far she has got in making arrangements on our behalf. One of us must go, and take her something.”
“She will have plenty of things,” Emily pointed out. “We cannot be the only people to know. It will be all ’round the parish. You know what gossips they are.”
“And quite possibly they will all think as you do, that someone else will call,” Charlotte argued. “Anyway, that isn’t the point.”
