“You can feel his emotions, can’t you?” he observed.
It was Julius. It was the first time she had been alone with him in a year. She could remember the last time exactly. It had been after dinner at the new home Cahoon had bought in Chelsea. They had been in the conservatory. The smell of leaves and damp earth had hung in the air, warm and motionless, like a tropical jungle.
She cleared her throat. She was shivering. “Yes.” Should she go back to the party now? It would be cowardly. She loathed the coward in herself even more than in others. She wanted to stay, even if they did not speak to each other. “There is a Rembrandt in the next gallery. Different sort of face altogether.”
“Self-portrait?” he asked.
“Yes, yes, I think so. It would be hard to see yourself honestly enough for a painting to be worth doing, wouldn’t it.” It was not really a question, simply a remark to fill in the silence, and prevent anything personal from being said.
“Yes,” he agreed. “To catch the weakness, the indecision, the thing that’s pleasant but shallow. Willfulness would be easier. Or appetite.”
“More attractive?” she asked, thinking of Minnie. What about herself? Did she find Cahoon’s passion and will more exciting than Julius’s less forceful nature? Was she afraid that behind the strong bones of his face there was essentially a man without the hunger or the courage to fight for his dreams? Or without dreams at all? But why should she expect of him what she seemed to lack herself?
He had not answered.
“Is it?” she pressed him. “Is that what we like to see?” Then as soon as the words were out she did not want him to answer. But if she spoke again, stopping him from doing so, she would always wonder what he would have said.
“Not on my own walls,” he answered. “I would rather have something with truer beauty, someone you feel would smile at you, if they could move.” He hesitated. “And I would rather have mystery, the feeling that there is something I have yet to learn, perhaps would never entirely know, because it might change in time, grow, as living things do.”
She was burning and cold at once, her heart pounding, her hands chilled. “I would like something with a warmth I could trust,” she said. Was that too obvious? Was she being as clumsy and predictable as Minnie had said she was?
Julius was so close she could smell the faint odor of soap and clean cotton, and the heat of his skin.
“Perhaps we all would.” His voice was not much more than a murmur. “How much of what we see in a face is really there?”
“Not always very much,” she admitted. “If we could read them with any skill we wouldn’t make so many mistakes. We see what we want to.”
“And we change,” he added. “We find what we were looking for, and discover that we don’t like it after all.” He touched her shoulder a moment with his hand, then dropped it away again.
She wanted to turn round, face him, look into his eyes. That was a lie. She wanted infinitely more than that, and it would be a disaster, something too wonderful to forget, or too empty, too revealing of disillusion ever to heal. She must change the subject, however violently.
“What was Cahoon talking about before? Was it like this poor woman here?” Her voice sounded too harsh.
“Yes, pretty much.” He did not step away.
“Is he. . suggesting it was the same person who did it?”
“Yes, I think so. Particularly since he was in Europe at the time, so it couldn’t have been him. And Eden Forbes is dead.”
“Liliane’s brother? Why did you mention him? What happened to him anyway? She’s never spoken of it.” Elsa had not meant to, but she sounded frightened and accusing.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “I believe it was crocodiles. He was in a boat that capsized. Stories were a bit garbled, and everyone was very shocked. From what I heard, Hamilton did a lot to help. Watson Forbes was there, and Liliane, but they were devastated by it. I was actually a couple of hundred miles away up-country when it happened.”
She tried to imagine it, and deliberately stopped. “I’m not sure if I would like Africa. Not that I have to go. I don’t think Cahoon will care whether I do or not, and I’m certainly not necessary.”
“We don’t have the contract yet,” he pointed out.
She was surprised. “Don’t you think we will?” Failure was not something she had seriously considered. Cahoon never failed, and he wanted this more passionately than anything else in his life. But that had been before the murder.
Julius answered slowly, concentrating on each word. “I suppose that depends on what the policeman finds.” There was irony in his voice, and pity, and fear. He would have been a fool to possess less.
She was glad to hear it; at least he felt something.
“And I’m not as certain that the railway will be an unqualified asset as I used to be. There are other factors. I thought I knew as much as I needed to, now I’m not sure. What about a generation from now-or two? The internal boundaries in Africa are all very fluid.
What if they change? If only one country opposes the British Empire, we become desperately vulnerable. And even if we can safeguard the project, militarily or through treaty, what will it do to Africa itself?”
“Give it a unity,” she replied immediately. She did not understand why he was concerned. “Isn’t that good? We did the same in India.”
“India already had a degree of unity,” he pointed out. “Africa doesn’t. It has far more changes in climate and terrain, in race, culture, and religion. Maybe it’s all better tied together by a British railway, but I’m far from certain of that. I’ve been wondering if east to west, inland to the sea, might be far more practical, not only physically but morally.”
Elsa was amazed, and in spite of her resolution not to, she turned to face him. “Have you said so?”
“No. I’m not certain, and Cahoon isn’t listening anyway. He considers anyone who questions him to be committing an act of betrayal.” A half-smile touched his lips. “But you know that.”
She did know it. She realized that it must be so plain that he had seen it even from outside. There was no answer to give.
“I think I should return,” she said. “I have been gone rather a long time. I would rather do it before I need to give explanations.”
“Of course. I’ll follow in a few minutes. I’d like to look at this portrait a little longer.”
She moved away without looking at him again. He had not touched her again, and she felt alone, somehow incomplete because of it.
Cahoon followed her to her bedroom and closed the door hard behind him. He dismissed Bartle, who was waiting. “Your mistress will pull the bell if you’re wanted,” he said brusquely.
Bartle went out, head high, shoulders stiff.
Elsa stood facing him.
“You didn’t know about that, did you?” he demanded, a slight curl of amusement on his lip. “You thought this was the first time he’d done it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She played for time.
She was afraid of his temper. He had struck her before, although never where anyone would see the marks. Always it had been because of her coldness, as he saw it, her lack of fire or passion, the ways in which she fell short of his wishes and her duty as his wife. Was it Minnie he was comparing her with, or Amelia Parr?
“Whoever killed the damn woman in the cupboard, Elsa!” he shouted. “For God’s sake, stop pretending! Haven’t you the courage to face the truth about anything at all?” His disgust was palpable. “You live in a world of insipid dreams, all the edges of passion or pain blunted. Well, you’re going to have to face reality now.” He moved closer to her, six inches taller than she, and massively more powerful.
She could smell the cigar smoke and the brandy on his breath.
“I don’t know the truth,” she said with as much composure as she could muster, refusing to step backwards. “If you do, then you should tell the police.”
