Silence in Hanover Close (26 page)

“I shall have Elisabeth with me!” Her voice rose sharply, almost out of control. “I know the rules! I—”

Loretta stared at her, eyes careful, steady, almost warning, a tight smile on her lips. “My dear girl—”

“How generous of you.” Charlotte immediately wished she had not stepped in: it might have been more productive to let the scene play itself out. She should have thought more of detection and less of friendship. But it was too late now. “I am sure we should enjoy your company, especially if we take a walk in the park.” She thought of the raw wind slicing in off the open grass and whining through the wet, leafless trees.

But Loretta was not to be deterred so easily. “I think, Miss Barnaby, that when you step outside you will change your mind, but if that is what you wish then I shall wait in the carriage for you.”

“You’ll freeze!” Veronica said desperately.

“I am much stronger than you think, my dear,” Loretta replied levelly, and as Veronica turned away Charlotte was startled to see tears in her eyes. What was this emotion between these two women? Veronica was afraid; Charlotte had seen fear often enough to know. And yet Veronica was not naturally submissive, and now that Robert was dead she ought to have no need to cater to his feelings for his mother. Financially she was secure, and she was all but engaged to marry again. Why was she so afraid? Everything Loretta had done, at least on the surface, had been in her interest.

If only Charlotte could learn what sort of a marriage it had been, how it had begun. Had Loretta adored her only son, and had she been too demanding of her daughter-in-law? Had she interfered, criticized, been open in her disappointment because there had been no grandchildren? There could be a dozen passions or griefs behind the driving emotion that bound these two women.

The tense silence in the room was broken when the door opened and Piers York came in. Charlotte had not met him before, but she knew him immediately from Pitt’s description: elegant, a trifle stooping, face wry with self-deprecatory good humor.

“Ah!” he said with slight surprise on seeing Charlotte.

Veronica forced a smile; it was ghastly, a travesty of pleasure.

“Papa-in-law, this is Miss Barnaby, a new friend of mine who has been good enough to call. We were going to take a short drive.”

“What an excellent idea,” he agreed. “Rather cold, but better than sitting inside all day. How do you do, Miss Barnaby.”

“How do you do, Mr. York,” Charlotte replied warmly. He was the sort of man she liked without needing to think about it. “I’m so glad you approve. Mrs. York”—she glanced at Loretta—“was afraid we should not enjoy it because it is so chill outside, but I feel exactly as you do, that whatever the weather it is better to go out for a little while, even if only to better appreciate the fire when we return.”

“What a sensible young woman.” He smiled. “I have no idea why fashion so admires the drooping young creatures who lie about being bored with everything. They have no idea how tedious they are. I pity the man who is naïve enough to marry one of them. Still, I suppose they are all taking a pig in a poke anyway!”

“Piers!” Loretta said tartly. “Please keep that sort of unfortunate language for your club! It has no place here. You will offend Miss Barnaby.”

He looked surprised. “Oh, I’m sorry, Miss Barnaby, did I offend you? I assure you I only meant that one can get very little idea of a person’s true nature from the sort of social twitterings that are all one is allowed before marriage.”

Charlotte smiled broadly. “I am not in the least offended. I know precisely what you mean. And then when you do discover, of course it is too late. Mrs. York was just saying that if we come to call upon the Danvers it would be necessary for Veronica to be chaperoned. But I would be quite happy to make sure nothing is done that could be remarked upon, I give you my word.”

“I am sure you mean well, Miss Barnaby, but that is not sufficient for Society,” Loretta said firmly.

“Nonsense,” Piers contradicted her. “Perfectly all right. Anyway, who would know about it? Harriet certainly isn’t going to say anything.”

“It would be as well if I were to go with you,” she insisted, taking a step towards the door. “This is a most delicate time.”

“For heaven’s sake stop fussing, Loretta!” he said with unusual sharpness. “You worry over Veronica far too much. Danver’s a decent enough fellow, and no stick-in-the-mud. Miss Barnaby is perfectly adequate as a chaperone, and it’s good of her to oblige.”

“Piers, you don’t understand.” Loretta’s voice grated with the power of her emotion. “I wish you would accept my judgment. There is far more to this than you realize.”

“About a carriage ride?” His disbelief was tinged with annoyance.

Her face was white. “There are delicacies, things that. . .”

“Indeed? What, for example?”

She was angry, but she had no answer that she was prepared to give him.

Charlotte looked at Veronica, wondering whether the brief escape would be worth the unpleasantness which would undoubtedly follow.

“Come, Elisabeth,” Veronica said without looking at Loretta. “We shall not be long, but it will be good for us to go out.”

Charlotte excused herself and followed Veronica out into the hallway. She waited a few moments while the footman was dispatched to fetch Veronica’s cloak and muff, and Veronica herself went to change her boots.

The withdrawing room door was ajar.

“You know nothing whatever about that young woman!” Loretta’s voice rose angrily. “Most unsuitable. Brash. Totally unsophisticated!”

“She seemed very pleasant to me,” Piers answered. “In fact, altogether attractive.”

“For heaven’s sake, Piers! Just because she has a handsome face. Really, you are so naïve sometimes.”

“And you, my dear, see complications where there are none.”

“I anticipate, which is not the same thing.”

“It is very often exactly the same thing.”

Charlotte was prevented from overhearing any more by Veronica’s return. Emily came downstairs, too, with a cloak over her arm. At first Charlotte hardly recognized her; she looked so different with her hair under a cap, wearing a blue stuff dress with no bustle and a plain apron over it. She looked thinner than before, although it was probably the clothes, and terribly pale. Their eyes met only for a moment, Emily’s wide and very blue, then Veronica put on the cloak. Emily smoothed it over her shoulders, and Charlotte and Veronica went out of the front door as Albert held it open for them.

The drive was chilly, even with rugs over their knees, but it was exhilarating to be bowling along at a good pace with fashionable streets, wide avenues, and squares passing their windows. For a moment Veronica turned, her eyes almost black in the carriage interior, her lips parted, but Charlotte knew where Veronica wanted to go before she could ask.

“Of course,” she said quickly.

Veronica clasped her hand inside the muff. “Thank you.”

They were received without surprise at the Danver house and shown into the withdrawing room. Since Charlotte had written to Veronica two days ago, it was possible Veronica had written to Julian, and they were expected. Julian Danver himself was there and greeted them, taking Veronica’s hands and holding them warmly for a moment before turning to Charlotte.

“How charming to see you again, Miss Barnaby.” He smiled at her. His gaze was very direct, and Charlotte remembered how much she had liked him. “I am sure you remember my aunt, Miss Danver? And my sister Harriet?”

“Of course,” she said quickly, looking first at Aunt Adeline, whose thin, intelligent face regarded her with interest, and then at Harriet. This afternoon she seemed paler than before; there was a deep shadow of unhappiness behind her answering look. “I hope you are well.”

“Very well, thank you, and you?”

All the usual greetings were exchanged and the polite, meaningless topics of conversation touched upon. It was the sort of formal ritual Charlotte had been used to as a girl but had been able to cast aside after her marriage. Indeed with the dramatic fall in her social standing, the opportunity had been removed from her, a loss she had been grateful for. She had never been skilled at it, her own opinions far too ready on her tongue. No one wanted them: it was unseemly for a woman to be opinionated, and a great deal of feminine charm lay in listening and admiring, and making perhaps an occasional remark of optimism and good nature. Of course, it was almost always acceptable to laugh, if one’s laughter was musical and not too loud; it should never be the rich mirth of one who understood the absurd or the farcical. Charlotte had lost the polish she had cultivated when her mother had tried so hard to marry her successfully. Now she sat primly on the edge of her chair with her hands folded in her lap and watched, speaking only when civility demanded.

Veronica had practiced the feminine graces so long it was second nature to her to find the words to courteously say nothing. But watching her face, which on the surface seemed so fragile until one looked at the balance of the bones and the strength of passion in the mouth, Charlotte could see her mind was occupied with other, more distressing thoughts. Her smile was brittle, and although she appeared to be listening to whomever was speaking at the moment, her eyes frequently flickered to Julian Danver’s face. More than once Charlotte had the feeling Veronica was uncertain of his attention to her. It seemed foolish to wonder whether such a lovely woman, already experienced in marriage and the object of sympathy for her bereavement, but never of the kind of pity reserved for the unmarried like Harriet or Aunt Adeline, could be unsure of herself. Julian Danver’s intentions were plain; all his actions, the way he conducted himself in front of others, made it obvious. No man would behave in such a manner unless he had promised marriage. To withdraw without the most drastic of reasons would open him to ruin. Such a promise once given was unforgivable to break.

So why did Veronica twine her fingers in her lap and keep glancing first at Julian, then at Charlotte? Why did she talk just a little too much, and with a fine, almost indiscernible edge to her voice, cutting Charlotte off in the middle of a remark and then smiling at her so frankly it was an apology? Charlotte thought she understood Harriet’s pain perfectly. It was very simple to explain: if she really loved Felix Asherson, whether he returned it or not, there was nothing she could do about it, nor would there ever be, unless Sonia Asherson died. And why should she die? Sonia was an almost offensively healthy young woman, buxom and serene as a good country cow. She would probably live to be ninety. She was far too well versed in the arts of survival, not to mention contented with her lot, to abandon all sense and give Felix cause to divorce her, and it was quite impossible she should divorce him, even if she discovered he loved Harriet. Yes, Harriet’s colorless face and quiet voice took no leap of the imagination to understand, and Charlotte grieved for her without being able to do anything at all; even compassion would only have been like vinegar to the wound, robbing her of the sole comfort of supposing her pain to be private.

Finally Charlotte could bear the tension no longer. She remembered seeing a doorway to the conservatory when they were shown in, and she turned to Julian.

“I believe I noticed your conservatory as we passed through the hall. I love conservatories so much. Perhaps you would be kind enough to show me? It would be like stepping in a moment from London’s winter into a foreign land full of flowers.”

Veronica drew in her breath with a sharp sound.

“How well you describe it. You have added instantly to my pleasure,” Julian said quickly. “I should be delighted to take you. We have some very fine lilies—at least, that is what I believe they are. I’m not good at names, but I can find you the most beautiful, and those with the richest perfume.” He stood up as he spoke.

Charlotte rose also. Veronica’s back was to Julian, so he could not see her face; Charlotte smiled directly at her, meeting her hot gaze steadily. It was full of anger and dark, wounded bitterness. Charlotte extended her hand, palm upward in invitation.

At last, and quite suddenly, Veronica grasped her meaning; she came quickly to her feet, her face first pale, then a deep pink. “Oh—oh yes,” she said awkwardly. “Yes.”

“If you will be kind enough to excuse us?” Charlotte asked Aunt Adeline and Harriet.

“Of course,” they murmured. “Yes, of course.”

It was successful immediately. The conservatory was quite large, and there were elegant ferns and vines hiding one walk from another, and a small green pool with flawless lotuses, which Charlotte stopped to admire without needing to feign delight. Julian then pointed out the fragrant lilies he had mentioned. After making all the right comments Charlotte at last caught Veronica’s eye, and with the tiniest smile, she turned and walked back to the lotus pool. After enough time had passed, she tiptoed back out into the hall again.

She could not return to the withdrawing room or she would betray the whole fabric of the excuse—not that anyone was deceived, but forcing the others to acknowledge it was another thing entirely. She felt foolish standing there in the hall, doing nothing. She walked over to a large painting of a landscape with cows and stopped in front of it as if she were regarding it closely. Actually it was very agreeable, of the Dutch school, but her mind was busy with all she knew of Veronica and the Danvers.

She stood for some time with her eyes on the peaceful scene. She could hear in her mind the chewing of the cud, and almost see the jaws’ gentle rhythm. They were beautiful creatures, oddly angular and yet graceful, the curve of their horns ancient as civilized man.

She turned away from the painting suddenly. She was not there to indulge her taste for art, nor even her friendship for Veronica. Veronica might be Cerise; she and Julian Danver might have murdered Robert York. Duty demanded that Charlotte creep back and attempt to overhear their conversation, distasteful as that was.

Just inside the conservatory door she stopped and solemnly regarded a red canna lily as if it held her interest. Then she sidled further in, glancing from the lilies on the ground up to the vines overhead and back again. She was several yards along the path and had nearly collided with a potted palm when she saw Veronica and Julian Danver in an embrace of such passion she blushed for having seen them. It was an intrusion which at any other time would have been inexcusable, and she could not possibly explain without betraying herself completely, and everything she hoped to achieve, even perhaps putting Emily in a position of the greatest embarrassment, culminating in social ruin.