Rutland Place (23 page)

Maddock looked faintly hurt. “Naturally, ma’am, I have never permitted that in my house.”

“No, of course not.” Caroline was mildly apologetic for having thoughtlessly insulted his integrity.

Emily was standing at the door, and the footman opened it for her. The carriage outside was already waiting.

The distance to the Lagardes’ was only a few hundred yards, but the day was wet and the footpath running with water, and this was the most formal of calls. Charlotte climbed in and sat in silence. What on earth could she say to Eloise? How could a person reach from her own happiness and safety across such a gulf?

None of them spoke before the carriage stopped again and the footman handed them down. Then he remained standing at the horses’ heads, waiting in the street as a mute sign to other callers that they were there.

A parlormaid, minus her usual white cap, opened the door and said in a tight little voice that she would inquire whether Miss Lagarde would receive them. It was some five minutes before she returned and conducted them into the morning room at the back of the house, overlooking the rainswept garden. Eloise rose from the sofa to greet them.

It was excruciating to look at her. The translucent skin was as white as tissue paper, with the same lifeless look. Her eyes were sunken and enormous, seeming to stretch till the bruises beneath were part of them. Her hair was immaculate, but had obviously been dressed by the maid, as had she; her clothes were delicate and neat, but she wore them as if they were artificial, winding-sheets on a body for which the spirit no longer had any use. She seemed even thinner, her laced-in waist more fragile. The shawl Charlotte had previously seen her wear was gone, as if she no longer cared if she was cold or not.

“Mrs. Ellison.” Her voice was completely flat. “How kind of you to call.” She might have been reading a foreign language, without any comprehension of its meaning. “Lady Ashworth, Mrs. Pitt. Please do sit down.”

Uncomfortably they obeyed. Charlotte felt her hands chill, and yet her face hot with a sense of embarrassment at having intruded into something too exquisitely painful even for the rituals of pride and the need for privacy to cover. She was overwhelmed by anguish like this; it filled the room.

Charlotte was stunned into silence. Even Caroline fumbled for words and found none. Only Emily’s unrelenting social discipline carried her through.

“No expression of our sympathy could possibly meet such distress as you must feel,” she said quietly. “But do be assured we grieve for you, and in time if there is anything we may do to be of comfort, we would be only too willing.”

“Thank you,” Eloise replied without expression. “That is generous of you.” It was as if she were hardly aware of them, only of the need to reply or at least to acknowledge each time someone spoke. Her sentences were formal, things she had prepared herself to say.

Charlotte searched her mind for anything at all that did not sound idiotic.

“Perhaps presently you would care for a little company,” she suggested. “Or if you have somewhere to go, perhaps you would prefer not to go alone?” It was a suggestion for Emily or Caroline rather than herself, since she had neither frequent opportunity to visit Rutland Place nor a carriage available.

Eloise’s eyes met hers for a moment, then slid away into something frighteningly like complete vacancy, as if all the world she knew was inside her head.

“Thank you. Yes, I expect that may be. Although I fear I shall hardly be pleasant company.”

“My dear, that is not at all true,” Caroline said. She lifted her hands as if to reach forward, but there was some barrier around Eloise, an almost tangible remoteness, and she let them fall again without touching her. “I have never known you anything but sympathetic,” she finished helplessly.

“Sympathetic!” Eloise repeated the word, and for the first time there was emotion in her voice, but it was hard, stained with irony. “Do you think so?”

Caroline could do nothing but nod.

Silence closed in on them again, stretching as long as they would suffer it to exist.

Again Charlotte racked her mind to think of something to say, just for the sake of sound. But it would be offensive, almost prurient, to inquire how Tormod was faring, or what the doctor might have said. And yet to speak of anything else was unthinkable.

The moments ticked on. The room seemed to grow enormous and the rain outside far away; even the sound of it was removed. The nightmare horses galloped through all their minds, the wheels crashed.

Eventually, when Charlotte was just about to say something, however absurd, to break the pressure, the maid returned to announce Amaryllis Denbigh. Much as Charlotte disliked Amaryllis, she felt a rush of gratitude merely to be relieved of the burden.

Amaryllis came a few steps behind the maid. She stood in the doorway and stared from one to the other of them aghast, although surely she must have seen the carriage outside.

Her eyes fastened on Charlotte accusingly. She was white-faced, and her usually lush hair was awry and the pink salve on her lips smudged.

“Mrs. Pitt! I had not expected to find you here!”

There was no civil reply to this, so Charlotte attributed it to natural distress and ignored it altogether.

“I am sure you have called in sympathy, as we have,” she said levelly. She waited a second or two for Eloise to say something; then, as she did not, Charlotte added, “Please do sit down. This sofa is most comfortable.”

“How can you talk of comfort at such a time?” Amaryllis demanded in a sudden gust of fury. “Tormod will get better, of course! But he is in agony.” She shut her eyes and hot tears ran down her cheeks. “Absolute agony! And you sit there as if you were at a soirée and talk about comfort!”

Charlotte felt anger and pain well up inside her, because Amaryllis spoke out of her own passion, without thought for the pain she must be causing Eloise.

“Then stand, if you prefer to,” she said tartly. “If you imagine it will be of some conceivable service, I’m sure no one will mind.”

Amaryllis seized a chair and sat down, her silk skirts everywhere.

“At least if he will get better, then that is hope,” Emily said, trying to ease the electric harshness a little.

Amaryllis swung round, opened her mouth, then closed it again.

Eloise was sitting perfectly motionless, her face blank, her hands lifeless in her lap.

“He will not,” she said without a shadow of expression, as if she had faced death itself and grown accustomed to it and accepted it without hope. “He will never stand again.”

“That’s not true!” Amaryllis’ voice rose almost to a shriek. “How dare you say anything so dreadful? That is a lie! A lie! He will stand, and in time he will walk. He will! I know it.” She stood up, went over to Eloise, and stopped in front of her, shaking with emotion, but Eloise neither looked up nor flinched.

“You are dreaming,” Eloise said very quietly. “One day you will know the truth. However long it takes, it is always there, and it will come to you.”

“You’re wrong! You’re wrong!” The color flamed up Amaryllis’ face. “I don’t know why you’re saying all this. You have your own reasons—God in heaven knows what they are!” There was accusation in her voice, shrill and ugly—frightened. “He will get better. I refuse to give in, to surrender!”

Eloise looked at her as if she were transparent or of no importance, as if she were unreal, as inconsequential as a magic-lantern slide.

“If that is what you wish to believe,” she said quietly, “then do so. It really makes no difference to anyone, except I would ask you not to keep repeating it, especially if the time should come when Tormod is well enough to receive you.”

Amaryllis’ body became rigid, her arms like wood, her bosom high.

“You want him to lie there!” she cried, almost gulping the words. “You evil woman! You want to keep him a prisoner here! Just you and he, all the rest of his life! You’re mad! You’re never going to let him go—you—”

Suddenly Charlotte woke into action. She jumped to her feet and slapped Amaryllis sharply across the face.

“Don’t be idiotic!” she said furiously. “And so utterly selfish! Who on earth do you imagine you are helping, standing there shrieking like a servant girl? Pull yourself together and remember that it is Eloise and not you who has to bear the hardship of this! It is she who has cared about him all her life! Can you possibly believe that poor Mr. Lagarde wishes to have his sister subjected to abuse on top of everything else? The doctor is the only one who can say whether he will recover or not, and false hope is more painful than learning to accept with patience the truth, whatever it may be, and await the outcome!”

Amaryllis stared at her. Quite possibly it was the first time in her life anyone had struck her, and she was too appalled to react. And the insult that she had behaved like a servant was a mortal one!

Emily stood up also and took Charlotte aside, then guided Amaryllis back to her seat. Eloise sat through it all as if she had neither seen nor heard them, absorbed in her own thoughts. They could have been shadows passing across the lawn for any mark they made upon her mind.

“It is natural you should be shocked,” Emily said to Amaryllis with a supreme effort at calmness. “But these dreadful things affect people in different ways. And you must remember that Eloise has spoken with the doctor and knows what he has said. It would be best if we were all to await his advice. I daresay Mr. Lagarde needs as little disturbance as can be.” She turned to Eloise. “Is that not so?”

Eloise was still looking at the floor.

“Yes.” She raised her eyebrows a little, almost with surprise. “Yes, we should not distress him with our feelings. Rest—that is what Dr. Mulgrew said. Time. Time will tell.”

“Is he to call again soon?” Caroline inquired. “Would you care to have someone with you when he does, my dear?”

For the first time Eloise smiled very faintly, as if at last she had heard not only the words, but their meaning.

“That is most kind of you. If it is not a trouble? I am expecting him momentarily.”

“Of course not. We shall be happy to stay,” Caroline assured her, her voice rising with pleasure that there was something they could do.

Amaryllis hesitated when they all turned to look at her, then changed her mind.

“I think there are other calls it would be courteous for us to make while I am in the neighborhood,” Emily said. “Charlotte can remain here. Perhaps Mrs. Denbigh would care to come with me?” She spoke with exquisite ease. “I should be most happy for your company.”

Amaryllis’ eyes widened; obviously it was a contingency she had not foreseen, and she was about to protest, but Caroline grasped the opportunity.

“What an excellent idea.” She rose, straightening her skirts to make them fall elegantly behind her. “Charlotte will be delighted to remain here, and I shall accompany you so we may continue with our visiting. I am sure Ambrosine would be pleased to see us. You would be happy to do that, wouldn’t you, my dear?” She looked to Charlotte nervously.

“Of course,” Charlotte agreed quite sincerely. For once, Mina and the mystery surrounding her death were banished from her mind and she was aware only of Eloise. “I think that is most certainly what you should do. And it is only a step. I can quite easily walk back when it is time.”

Amaryllis stood a few moments longer, still trying to think of some acceptable excuse to stay, but nothing came to her and she was obliged to follow Emily out into the hallway as Caroline took her arm and walked with her, and the maid closed the door behind them.

“Don’t let her distress you,” Charlotte said to Eloise after a moment. She would not be fatuous enough to suggest that what was said was not meant. It was blindingly obvious that it had been fully intended. “I daresay the shock has affected her judgment.”

Eloise’s face shadowed with a ghost of humor, wraithlike and bitter.

“Her judgment, perhaps,” she answered. “But only insofar as previously she would have thought the same, whereas good manners would have prevented her from saying it.”

Charlotte slid more comfortably into her seat. Dr. Mulgrew might yet be some time.

“She is not the pleasantest of persons,” she observed.

Eloise met her eyes; for the first time she appeared actually to see her, not some inward scene of her own.

“You do not care for her.” It was a statement.

“Not a great deal,” Charlotte admitted. “Perhaps if I knew her better—” She left the suggestion as a polite fiction.

Eloise stood up and walked slowly over toward the French windows and stood facing the rain.

“I think a great deal of what we like about people is what we do not know but imagine to be there. That way we can believe the unknown is anything we wish.”

“Can we?” Charlotte looked at her back, very slender, with shoulders square. “Surely to continue to believe what is not true is impossible, unless you leave reality altogether and sink into madness?”

“Perhaps.” Eloise suddenly lost interest again and her voice was weary. “It hardly matters.”

Charlotte considered arguing, purely as a principle, but she was overwhelmed by the grief and futility that drowned the room. While she was still struggling to think of anything to say that had meaning, the parlormaid returned to announce that Dr. Mulgrew had arrived.

Shortly afterward, when the doctor was upstairs with Tormod and Eloise was waiting on the landing, the maid returned to ask Charlotte if she would receive Monsieur Alaric until Eloise should reappear.

“Oh.” She caught her breath. Of course it would be impossible to refuse. “Yes, please—ask him to come in. I am sure Miss Lagarde would wish it.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The girl withdrew, and after a moment Paul Alaric appeared, soberly dressed, his face grave.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Pitt.” He showed no surprise, so he must have been forewarned of her presence. “I hope you are well?”

“Quite, thank you, Monsieur. Miss Lagarde is upstairs with the doctor, as I imagine you already know.”

“Yes, indeed. How is she?”

“Most terribly distressed,” she answered frankly. “I cannot remember having seen anyone look so shocked. I wish there was something we could say or do to comfort—it is frightening to be so helpless.”