As yesterday, she was still in bed.
“I am not receiving visitors,” she said coldly when Caroline went in.
“I am not a visitor,” Caroline replied, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I live here.”
The old lady glared at her. “Are you reminding me that I have no home?” she enquired. “That I am dependent upon the charity of relations in order to have a roof over my head?”
“That would be quite unnecessary,” Caroline answered her levelly. “You have complained about it often enough I could hardly imagine you were unaware-or had ever forgotten.”
“It’s not something one forgets,” Mrs. Ellison retorted. “One is never allowed to, in a dozen subtle ways. You will learn that one day for yourself, when you are old and alone and everyone else of your generation is dead.”
“Since I have married a man young enough to be my son, as you never tire of telling me, I shall be unlikely to outlive him at all, let alone by long,” Caroline pointed out.
The old lady stared at her, her eyes narrow, her mouth tight shut in a thin, miserable line. She had been bested at her own game, and it thoroughly disconcerted her. She was not sure how to retaliate.
Caroline sighed. “If you are still not well enough to get up, I shall send for the doctor. We can tell him whatever you please, but whether he believes you is another matter. It is not good for you to lie there. Your system will become sluggish.”
“I am perfectly able to get up! I don’t want to!” Mrs. Ellison glared at her, daring her to argue.
“What has wanting got to do with it?” Caroline asked. “The longer you delay it, the more difficult it will be. Do you wish to cause speculation?”
The old lady raised her eyebrows. “What is there to speculate about? Who cares what I do or do not do?”
Caroline did not speak. All sorts of thoughts crowded her mind, how close the old lady had come to destroying the happiness she held so precious. She still cringed inside at the memory of her own misery and the fear which had darkened everything inside her.
“Please go away. I am exhausted and I prefer to be alone.” Her face was set in a mask of loneliness and despair, shutting out Caroline and everyone else. “You don’t understand. You have not the faintest idea. The least you can afford me is the privacy of suffering without being stared at. I do not want you here. Have the decency to go.”
Caroline hesitated. She could feel the other woman’s pain as if it were a living thing in the room, but beyond her power to touch. She longed to reach out and give it some comfort, some beginning of healing, but she did not know how to. For the first time she realized how deep it was. The scars were woven through Mariah Ellison’s life, not only for the humiliation itself but for how she had dealt with it over the years. It was not just what Edmund had done to her but what she had done to herself. She had hated herself for so long she did not know how to stop.
“Get out of my room!” the old lady said between her teeth.
Caroline looked at her, lying hunched up in the bed, her gnarled hands gripping the covers, her face blind with misery, the tears running down her cheeks. Caroline was helpless to do anything about it, even to reach out to her, because the barrier between them had been built over the years, reinforced with a thousand daily cuts and abrasions until the scars were impenetrable.
She turned and went out, closing the door behind her, startled to find that the tears were thick in her throat also.
She went to call on the Marchands as early as it was decent to do so, perhaps even a little earlier. Mrs. Marchand was surprised to see her but appeared to be delighted. They sat in the heavy, comfortable withdrawing room for several minutes, making idle conversation, before Mrs. Marchand became aware that Caroline had some purpose in coming other than to find a pleasant way to fill an otherwise empty afternoon. She stopped in the middle of a sentence about some small event and what people had said about a particular soiree.
Caroline was aware that she had not been listening. Now that she was faced with putting into words what she feared, it was much harder than she had imagined. She looked at Mrs. Marchand’s wide blue eyes, her direct, almost challenging stare and her pretty features. She was so sure of her world, of its conventions and its rules. She had conscientiously taught them to her son. Caroline was certain it had never crossed her imagination that he would venture outside its values. She cared almost as passionately as her husband about censorship so the innocent would not be tainted. She would have put fig leaves on all the great classical statues, and blushed to look at the Venus de Milo in the presence of men. She would have seen in it not naked perfection but the indecent display of a woman’s breasts.
“Are you quite well, my dear?” Mrs. Marchand asked with concern, leaning forward a little, her brow furrowed. “You look a trifle pale.” Of course, what she meant was “You are not listening, what is disturbing you so much you have forgotten your usual manners?”
There would never be a better opening. She must take it.
“To tell you the truth, I have been worried lately on a number of matters,” she began awkwardly. “I am so sorry my attention wandered. I had no wish of being so. . discourteous.”
“Oh, not at all,” Mrs. Marchand disclaimed immediately. “Can I help, even if it is only to listen? Sometimes a trouble shared seems a little lighter.”
Caroline looked at her earnest face and saw only kindness in it. This was going to be worse than she had expected. Mrs. Marchand was so vulnerable. It occurred to her to invent something, evading the link altogether. Perhaps she was quite wrong. Maybe Lewis’s remarks about Ophelia, the look she had seen in his eyes, was only her own imagination, fueled by Mrs. Ellison’s story and what Pitt had told her.
But what if it were not? What if Lewis had Cathcart’s photographs, lots of them, images which could twist his dreams and cause untold pain in the future-to him, and to some young girl as unknowing as Mariah Ellison had been half a century ago?
“My son-in-law is a policeman, as you know. .” She ignored the slight flicker of distaste and plunged on. “He is working on a matter at the moment to do with a photographic club. .” That was a ridiculous euphemism! She swallowed and plunged on. “From something Lewis said when I was here the other day, I believe he may have stumbled on a piece of information which could help. May I have your permission to speak with him?”
“Lewis?” Mrs. Marchand was incredulous. “How on earth could he? He is only sixteen! If he had seen anything. . wrong. . he would have told me, or his father.”
“He could not know it was wrong,” Caroline said hastily. “It is merely information. I am not even sure if I am correct. But if I am, then it would greatly serve justice if he would tell me. I don’t believe it would be necessary for him to do more than that. Please, may I speak with him. . confidentially, if that is possible?”
Mrs. Marchand looked uncertain.
Caroline nearly spoke again, then changed her mind. To press too hard might awaken suspicion. She waited.
“Well. . yes, of course,” Mrs. Marchand said, blinking several times. “I’m sure my husband would wish Lewis to be of any help he can. We all would. A photographic club? I did not know he was interested in photography.”
“I don’t know that he is,” Caroline answered quickly. “It is just that I think he may have seen a particular photograph, and he could tell me where, and I would tell Thomas without mentioning how I learned.”
“Oh. I see.” Mrs. Marchand rose to her feet. “Well, he is upstairs with his tutor. I am sure we could interrupt them for something so important.” She rang the bell for the maid, and Lewis was sent for.
He arrived within minutes, having been going over some of the more abstruse irregular Latin verbs, from which he was delighted to be distracted. He went quite willingly with Caroline into the library and faced her with interest. Anything she had to say, however tedious or pedestrian, had to be better than the eccentricities of the past tense of words he would never in his life have any cause to use. It had been explained to him many times that it was not the practicality but the mental discipline of the exercise which benefited him, but he remained unconvinced.
“Yes, Mrs. Fielding?” he said politely.
“Please sit down, Lewis,” she replied, sitting herself in the worn, leather armchair in front of the fireplace. “It is kind of you to spare me your time. I would not have interrupted you were it not an issue of great importance.”
“Of course, Mrs. Fielding.” He sat opposite her. “Whatever I can do.”
She wished now that she had had sons as well as daughters. She had no acquaintance with sixteen-year-old
