“Caroline, please leave us” Joshua said softly. From his tone and his gestures he was repeating himself.
She said something, a protest. She had her back to the window, and Mariah did not hear her words.
Joshua did not answer but stood very still, his face cold, eyes steady.
Caroline walked to the door and went out, closing it behind her.
“You were made welcome in my home, Mr. Ellison,” Joshua said in a tight, low voice. “But your behavior in visiting so frequently, and spending your time alone with my wife, is inappropriate and is compromising her reputation. I regret I must ask you not to call again. You have left me no room to do anything else. Good day, sir.”
Samuel stood perfectly still, his face scarlet. Once he made as if to speak, hesitated, then walked past Joshua to the door. Again he seemed about to say something.
“Good day, sir,” Joshua said again.
“Good day,” Samuel answered, and opened the door.
It was done, accomplished. Samuel Ellison had left and he would not return. He had been prevented from saying anything.
But Mariah did not feel any sense of elation. She was cold in the afternoon sun, and she could not bear to go into the withdrawing room. She turned away and walked all the way around to the areaway and in at the scullery door, through the kitchen without looking to right or left, and up to her own room, where she sat on the bed with the tears running down her face.
CHAPTER NINE
Caroline stood at the top of the landing, confused and wretched. The whole scene with Samuel had been acutely embarrassing, and she had no idea what had produced the change in his attitude. He had been friendly and open from the beginning, much less formal than an Englishman would in the same circumstances. She had found it refreshing and not in the least out of place. She had not misunderstood it for forwardness, and she felt that she had responded only appropriately.
Then today he had arrived at an unusual hour and behaved as if she had invited him-more than that, as if there had been something peculiarly intimate about her invitation, and urgent.
She racked her brain to think of anything she could have said which could be so misinterpreted, but nothing came. She had listened to all his stories with interest, perhaps more than courtesy demanded. But they were extraordinary and fascinating to her. Anyone else would have done the same. It was immeasurably more than drawing room chatter. And he was a relative turned up from nowhere, a brother-in-law she had not known she had. At a glance, before he spoke, he was so like Edward, perhaps she had offered a friendship more instant and natural than was normal, but surely she had not implied anything else.
Had she?
She was touched by guilt as she realized how much she had enjoyed his company. No, not just his company, the way he had flattered her by liking her so much, by the unspoken suggestion that he found her equally interesting, charming, attractive. It was such a welcome contrast to Cecily Antrim’s subtly patronizing air that she had reveled in. It made her feel feminine, in control of herself and the situation again.
Now it was completely out of control, out of even her attempts to understand what had gone so disastrously wrong.
What did Joshua believe she had done? Why had he come racing home from a rehearsal in the middle of the late afternoon and in such ice-cold anger commanded her to leave the room, and then seemingly ordered Samuel from the house? Did he really not know her better than to believe she had. . what? Had an assignation of some sort, here in her own house? In his house! That was absurd! It was only the merest coincidence that Mrs. Ellison had not been in the room with them the entire time, as usual. And the old lady missed nothing; she was as quick as a ferret, and twice as vicious.
Should she try to explain? Samuel had left, but her courage failed at the thought of going down to Joshua. She had never seen him really angry before, and it hurt her more than she could have imagined. No,
That cut to the heart.
And it was not true. Not really. If it was true at all, it was by omission, carelessness, misunderstanding. . never intent.
She went down the first step, but Joshua came out of the withdrawing room and went straight across the hall and out of the front door without looking back. He had not even tried to speak with her. It was as if he no longer cared what she thought.
A new kind of darkness had begun, a pain inside she could not believe would ever heal.
She turned and went back up to her room, not her bedroom, which she shared with Joshua, but her sitting room upstairs, where she could be alone. She could not eat dinner, and she certainly could not face the prying, jubilant eyes of the old woman. She had warned her this would happen. She would be triumphant now that it had.
Caroline went to bed a little after ten o’clock. Joshua had not come home. She had thought for a moment about whether she wanted to wait up for him, however long it would be, but she dreaded the confrontation. What would she say? It might only make things worse. He would be tired. They could neither of them pretend that nothing had happened.
She might have considered sleeping in the spare bedroom, and perhaps he might also, but Mrs. Ellison was in it, so that was impossible.
Of course the worst possibility was that he would not come home at all. That was too painful to hold in her mind. She thrust it away. This might be the death of trust. . for a while, even a long while. . but it could not be the end of the marriage. He could not believe she had done anything but be indiscreet, surely?
She lay in the dark longing for sleep, starting at every sound in case it was his footsteps. Eventually, about midnight, she drifted into oblivion.
She woke again with no idea what time it was, and knew instantly that he was there beside her. He had come in and gone to bed and to sleep without disturbing her, without speaking or touching her.
She lay listening to him breathing. He was on the far side of the bed. She could barely feel the weight or the warmth of him. He was as separate from her as if they were strangers, together by chance in the crowd in some public place. She had never felt more crushingly alone.
Part of her wanted to wake him now and end the terrible tension, provoke a resolution, for better or worse. Her stomach was sick at the thought of what the worst would be. Could he really think that of her? Did he not know her better than that? She remembered the moments of tenderness, the laughter, the quick understanding, the vulnerability in him, and the hot tears filled her eyes.
Don’t wake him now. It would be childish. Wait. Perhaps in the morning it would be better, there would be some sense in it. He would speak to her and explain. But when she woke, headachy and still tired, he was already gone and she was alone.
The old lady also slept little, in spite of her triumph. Nothing would warm the coldness inside her. She drifted in and out of nightmare. She was alone in an icy swamp. She cried out and no one heard her. Blind, inhuman faces peered and did not see. Hate. Everything was drenched and dark with hate. Guilt brought her out in a sweat, and then froze, leaving her shuddering under the bedclothes.
When Mabel finally came at half past eight with hot tea, the old lady had dozed into a fitful sleep again and was actually grateful to be startled into wakefulness in a sunlit room and see the familiar, plump figure of the lady’s maid, whose ordinary face held no alarm and no accusation.
The tea had never been more welcome. Even almost scalding as it was, it was clean and fragrant and it eased her dry mouth and pounding head. She had no desire to get up and get dressed and face the morning, but to lie there in bed alone with her thoughts would be unendurable.
