“How are you?” Adriana asked. “I am sorry to call you so hastily. This is all most improper, but there is an exhibition in a private gallery that I am very eager to see, and I thought you might enjoy it too. Have you ever heard of Heinrich Schliemann?”
“Of course!” Charlotte said quickly. “He discovered the ruins of Troy, through his love of Homer. He died a few years ago. Is something of his work on display?” It was not difficult to sound enthusiastic. It was the perfect opening for her to see Adriana again, and perhaps learn something of the evidence Pitt needed. She hoped fervently that she could help prove Adriana innocent.
“Yes,” Adriana replied instantly, excitement lifting her voice. “I only just heard of it. I’ve canceled my other engagements and I’m going. But it would be so much more fun if you were to come with me. Please don’t feel obliged … but if you can …”
“I can. We shall make a journey through time, and for a few hours today will disappear. Where shall we meet?”
“I shall come for you in my carriage in an hour. Is that too early?”
“No, not at all. I assure you, I have nothing more pressing to do, and anything else that arises can wait.”
“Then I shall see you in an hour. Good-bye.”
Charlotte replaced the receiver. She would tell Minnie Maude where she was going, and then change into the smartest morning dress she had and prepare to be charming, friendly, and intelligent, and-if she found out a difficult truth-betray her friend to Pitt.
She sat in front of her bedroom mirror but found it difficult to face her reflection. She despised what she was about to do, and yet she could see no alternative, except refusing to help Pitt, which wasn’t an alternative at all. Someone had murdered Serafina, lying frightened and alone in her bed, terrified of the darkness that was closing in on her mind, robbing her of everything she had been, betraying her in a way against which there was no defense.
All she could hope was that her discoveries would prove Adriana innocent, not guilty.
As soon as they entered the doors of the exhibition, the past seemed to close in around them and whisk them away. The whole display was as much about Schliemann himself as the objects he had discovered. He had died in Naples, the day after Christmas in 1890, but his energy and the power of his dreams filled the gallery. A large portrait of him hung at the entrance: a balding man with spectacles, wearing a neat formal suit with a high- buttoned waistcoat. He looked to be in his late fifties or early sixties.
“That’s not how I imagined him,” Adriana said with a little shrug. “He should be fierce and magnificent, a man who would not have been out of place at the time when Troy still lived.”
Charlotte smiled. “Just don’t let us find out that Helen of Troy was really quite plain. I couldn’t bear it.”
Adriana laughed. “They burned the topless towers of Ilium for her, so the poets tell us.” Her eye caught another portrait on the wall a few yards away. It showed a dark-haired woman, quite young, wearing a gorgeous headdress with long, trailing pieces at the ears, and also a heavy necklace comprised of fifteen or more strands of gold.
Charlotte walked over to it, Adriana immediately behind her.
“She’s rather beautiful,” Charlotte said, regarding her closely. She read the inscription below: “Sophie Schliemann, wearing the treasures discovered at Hisarlik, said to be the jewels of Helen of Troy.” She turned to Adriana. “I wonder what Helen was really like. I can’t imagine anyone being so beautiful that a whole city and all its people were ruined because of it. Not to mention the eleven-year war, and all the death and despair it brought. Is any love worth that?”
“No,” Adriana said without hesitation. “But I have often wondered about the connection between love and beauty. To marry a woman because of the way she looks, when you do not care about who she is inside that shell, is no more than acquiring a work of art for the pleasure it gives you to look at it, or to exhibit it to others. If she is not a companion to you, one with whom you share your dreams, your laughter and pain, is that not like buying food you cannot eat?”
Adriana’s face was quite calm, the skin unblemished across its perfect bones, her eyes fathomless.
Charlotte was left speechless; such a life would be terribly empty. Was that how Blantyre felt about Adriana: that she was a fragile, exquisite possession? What would he feel when the first lines appeared, when the bloom faded from her cheeks, when her hair thinned and turned gray, when she no longer moved with such grace?
Charlotte had always secretly wanted to be beautiful: not merely handsome, as she was, but possessed of the kind of beauty that dazzles, the kind Aunt Vespasia had had. Now she was almost dizzy with gratitude that she looked as she did; Pitt was not only her husband, he was also the dearest, most intimate friend she had ever had, closer than Emily, or anyone else.
Collecting herself, she replied, “Poor Helen. Do you suppose that is all it was: a squabble over possessions that a whole nation paid for?”
“No,” Adriana shook her head. “The classical Greek idea of beauty was as much about the mind as the face. She must have been wise and honest and brave as well.”
“And gentle?” Charlotte continued. “Do you think that she had a wild and vivid sense of humor as well? And that she was quick to forgive, and generous of spirit?”
Adriana laughed. “Yes! And no wonder they burned Troy for her! I’m surprised it wasn’t the whole of Asia Minor! Let’s look at the rest of this.” She touched Charlotte’s arm and they moved forward together, marveling at the ornaments, the golden masks, the photographs of the ruins, the walls that must once have kept out the armies of Agamemnon and the heroes of legend.
“How much of it do you think is true?” Charlotte said after several minutes of silence. She must not waste this opportunity to try to learn some information that could help Thomas. “Do you think they felt all the same things we do: envy, fear, the hunger for revenge for wrongs we can’t forget?”
Adriana turned from the photographs she was looking at and faced her. “Of course. Don’t you?” A flicker of fear crossed her face. “Those things never change.”
Charlotte racked her brain for something relevant that could continue the conversation. “Agamemnon killed his daughter, didn’t he? A sacrifice to the gods to make the winds turn in his favor and carry his armies to Troy. And when he came home again eleven years later, his wife killed him for it.”
“Yes,” Adriana agreed. “I can understand that. Mind, she had married his brother in the meantime, so there were a lot of different emotions there. And then her son killed her, and on and on. It was a pretty nasty mess.”
“Revenge often is,” Charlotte said with a sudden change of tone, as if they were speaking of something present.
Adriana looked at her curiously. “You say that as if they were people you knew.”
“Aren’t all good stories really about people we know?”
Adriana thought for a moment. “I suppose they are.” She gave a sudden, brilliant smile. “I knew coming here with you would be more fun than with anyone else! Can you spare time to have luncheon as well? There is a most excellent place near here where the chef is Croatian. I would like you to taste a little of the food from my country. It is not so very different. You will not find it too strong, or too heavy.”
“I would be delighted,” Charlotte said sincerely. “I know so very little about Croatia. I wish you would tell me more …”
“That is a dangerous request,” Adriana said happily. “You may wish you had never asked. Stop me when it gets dark and you have to go home.”
Charlotte felt the guilt well up inside her, but it was too late to turn back. “I will,” she promised. “Now let us see the end of what Mr. Schliemann found in Troy and Mycenae.”
“Did you know he spoke thirteen different languages?” Adriana asked. “He wrote in his diary in the language of whatever country he was in. English, French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Italian, Greek, Latin, Russian, Arabic, and Turkish. And German, of course. He was German.” Her face was animated with excitement and admiration.
“He actually wrote a paper on Troy in Ancient Greek,” she went on. “He was an extraordinary man. He made and spent at least two fortunes. He named his children Andromache and Agamemnon. He allowed them to be baptized, but placed a copy of
