Death in the Devil's Acre (26 page)

The following afternoon, at the earliest hour acceptable for calling, the parlormaid came in with a message that Miss Ellison was in the morning room, and did the general wish to receive her?

He felt a rush of excitement boil up inside him, sending the blood into his face. That was ridiculous—she had come to see the letters. It was not personal. She would have come just as quickly, whoever had possessed them.

“Yes.” He swallowed and tried to meet the parlormaid’s eyes quite casually. “By all means. She has come to see some historical documents, so show her into the library, and then bring tea.”

“Yes, sir.” If the parlormaid found it strange, there was nothing in her face to betray it.

He stood up and pulled his jacket a little straighter. Without thinking, he raised his hands to his cravat. It seemed tight. He loosened it a fraction, and made sure in front of the glass that it was properly tied.

Charlotte was in the library. She turned and smiled as the general came in. He did not even notice the warm reds of her street gown, or that her boots were soaked. All he saw was the light in her face.

“Good afternoon, General,” she said quickly. “It is most kind of you to allow me to read the letters. I do hope I have not called inconveniently?”

“No—not at all.” He wished she would use his name, but it would be grossly familiar to ask her to. He must behave with dignity or he would embarrass her. He kept his face cool. “I have no other engagements for the meantime.” He was going to have late tea with Robert Carlton, but that was unimportant; they were old friends and the arrangement was quite informal.

“That is very generous of you.” She was still smiling.

“Please sit down,” he said, indicating the big chair near the fire. “I have asked the maid to bring tea. I hope that is acceptable?”

“Oh, yes, thank you.” She sat down and put her feet on the fender. For the first time, he noticed how wet her boots were, and that they were quite worn. He looked away, and went for the letters out of the bookcase.

They studied them together for half an hour. The maid brought tea, Charlotte poured it, and they returned to the utterly foreign world of Spain at the beginning of the century. The soldier wrote with such intense honesty that they knew his thoughts, felt his emotions, sensed the closeness of other men and the impact of battle, endured with him endless marches over dry hills, his hunger, and the long hours of waiting followed by sudden fear.

At last Charlotte sat back, her eyes wide, seeing far away. “You know, with his writing that soldier has given me a portion of his life. I feel very rich. Most people are restricted to one time and place, and I have been privileged to see another so vividly it is as if I had been there but come away without the injury or the cost.”

He looked at her face, alive with pleasure, and felt ridiculously rewarded. The sense of being alone vanished like night when the whole earth whirls suddenly upward toward the sun.

He found himself smiling back at her. Instinctively he put out his hand and touched her for a moment. The warmth of her spread right through him till his whole body felt it. Then, reluctantly, he withdrew his hand. It was a moment he dared not linger over. The intensity with which he wished to was warning enough.

What could he say that was honest? He would shatter the moment if he were to descend to platitudes, ordinary and born of someone else’s mind. “I’m glad,” he said simply. “It mattered to me, too. I felt as if I knew that soldier better than I know most of the people I see and talk to, and whose lives I thought I understood.”

Her eyes moved away from his and she took a deep breath. He observed the smooth curve of her body, her throat, the fine line of her cheek.

“Merely living close to people does not mean you know them,” she said thoughtfully. “All you know is what they look like.”

Christina came to his mind.

“One tends to believe that other people care about the same things,” she went on. “It comes as a shock to discover sometimes that they don’t. I cannot get the murders in the Devil’s Acre out of my thoughts, and yet most of the people I know prefer not to hear anything about them. The circumstances remind us of poverty and injustices that hurt.” She swung around to look at him, her eyes level. She felt a little embarrassed. “I’m sorry—do you find it unbecoming that I should mention it?”

“I find it offensive and frightening that anyone should be prepared to ignore it,” he said honestly. Would she think him as pompous as Christina did? She could not be more than a few years older than Christina. That was a realization that shot through him with sudden and startling pain. His face flushed and he felt self-conscious. The past hour’s comfort fled. He was being ridiculous.

“General Balantyne?” She spoke very gravely, her hand touching his sleeve. “Are you being kind to me? Are you sure I have not offended you by raising such a subject?”

He cleared his throat. “Of course I’m sure!” He leaned back hard against the upright of his chair, where he could not feel the warmth of her, or smell the faint aroma of lavender and clean hair, a sweet musk of the skin. Wild sensations stirred inside him, and he strained after intelligent thought to drown them. He heard his voice as if it came from far away. “I have tried to discuss the matter. Brandy is most concerned, and Alan Ross as well. But it distresses the women.” Already he was becoming pompous!

But she did not seem to notice. “It is natural Christina should be upset,” she said quietly, looking down at her hands in her lap. “After all, she knew Sir Bertram Astley, and she knows Miss Woolmer, whom he was engaged to marry. It must be much more painful to her than to you or me. And it is only natural that the police will wonder if Mr. Beau Astley could have envied his brother enough to wish him harm, since he stood to inherit both the title and the estates. And of course Miss Woolmer is very fond of him also—I gather he is most charming. As his friend, Christina is bound to feel for him. His situation must be painful because of his bereavement, and most unpleasant in the suspicions that the uncharitable are bound to exercise.”

He considered it, but Christina had expressed no sympathy. In fact, she had given him the impression that she was impatient of the whole affair. But then Charlotte was crediting Christina with the emotions she would have felt herself.

“And, of course, that wretched creature Max Burton used to be footman here,” she continued. “Although you can hardly care about his fate, it is unpleasant to think that any human being you have known should meet such an end.”

“How did you know it was the same man?” he asked in surprise. He did not recall any mention of Callander Square in the newspapers, or of Max’s previous career. And Burton was not an uncommon name.

The color rose in her cheeks and she looked away.

He was sorry for embarrassing her, and yet honesty between them, the ability to say what was truly in the mind, was of overpowering importance to him. “Charlotte?”

“I am afraid I have been listening to gossip,” she said a little defensively. “Emily and I have been engaged in a great effort to bring the conditions of certain people, especially the young involved in prostitution, to the attention of those who have influence. Apparently one cannot legislate against it, but one can move public opinion until those who practice these abuses find their positions intolerable!” Now she looked up and met his eyes, challenging him to disapprove. Nothing he could say would alter her beliefs in the slightest. He felt a surge of joy well up inside him as he realized it.

“My dear,” he said candidly. “I should not wish to be able to.”

A flicker of confusion showed in her eyes. “I beg your pardon?”

“Are you not defying me to try to change your mind, to disapprove of you?”

Her face relaxed into a smile, and he realized with horror how much he wanted to touch her. A unity of minds was not enough; there were things at once too strong and too delicate to be transmitted by such limited means as speech. Things long dormant inside him broke open their barrier with great currents of movement, destroying the balance. He wanted to stretch out this afternoon into an indefinite future with no nightfall, to prevent Augusta from returning and bringing back normality—and loneliness.

Charlotte was looking at him. Had she seen that thought in his face? The light died out of her eyes and she turned away.

“Only on that subject,” she said quietly. “Because I know I am right. There are plenty of other things in which I might well be obliged to agree with you if you were to find me at fault. I find myself at fault!”

He did not know what she was referring to, and it would be an intrusion to ask. But he did not think she was saying it for effect, a false modesty. There was some sense of guilt that disturbed her.

“Everyone has faults, my dear,” he said gently. “In those we love, the virtues outweigh them, and are what matter. The qualities less than good we do not choose to observe. We know them, but they do not offend us. If people were without weakness or need, what could we offer them of ourselves that they could value?”

She stood up quickly, and for a moment he thought there were tears in her eyes. Did she know what he was thinking—what he was trying to say—and at the same time not to say? He loved her. It was there in words in his mind at last.

It would be unforgivable to embarrass her. At all costs, he must behave properly. He pulled his shoulders back and sat up straighter. “It sounds a most excellent work that you and Emily are engaged in.” He prayed that his voice sounded normal, not too suddenly remote, too pompous.

“Yes.” She kept her back to him and stared out the window at the garden. “Lady Cumming-Gould is also concerned, and Mr. Somerset Carlisle, the Member of Parliament. I think we have already accomplished something.” She turned at last and smiled at him. “I’m so glad you approve. Now that you have said so, I can confess I should have been hurt had you not.”

He felt the heat burn his cheeks again, with a mixture of pleasure and pain. He stood, then picked up the soldier’s letters from the desk. He could not bear for her to go, and yet it was equally intolerable now that she should stay. He must not betray himself. The emotion he felt was so profound and so very unreliable inside him that he must excuse her and be alone.

“Please take these, and read them again if you wish.”

She understood the convention well. She accepted them and thanked him. “I will take the greatest care of them,” she said quietly. “I feel he is a friend of both of us. I do thank you for a unique afternoon. Good day, General Balantyne.”

He took a deep breath. “Good day, Charlotte.” He reached for the bell. When the footman came, he watched her go, her back straight, head high. He stood exactly where he had been when she left, trying to keep her presence with him, to wrap himself in a golden cocoon before the warmth died and he was left alone again.

Balantyne did not sleep well that night. He chose to be out when Augusta returned, and when he came back to the house he was already late for dinner.

“I cannot imagine why you wish to walk at this hour,” she remarked with a little shake of her head. “It is totally dark, and the coldest night of the year.”

“It is quite fine,” he answered. “I imagine presently there will be a moon.” It was irrelevant. He had walked to put off the time of meeting her and having to step out of his dream and back into the pattern of life. To try to explain that would be cruel and incomprehensible to her. Instead he broached another unpleasant subject.

“Augusta, I think it would be advisable for you to take some counsel with Christina, give her a little advice.”

Augusta raised her eyebrows and sat motionless, her soupspoon halfway to her mouth. “Indeed? Upon what subject?”

“Her behavior toward Alan.”

“Do you consider that she is failing in her duty?”

“It is nothing so simple.” He shook his head. “But duty does not beget love. She is contrary, too unkind with her tongue. I have seen no softness in her. She is quite unlike Jemima, for example.”

“Naturally.” She carried the spoon to her mouth and ate elegantly. “Jemima was brought up as a governess. One would expect to find her manner a good deal more obedient and grateful. Christina is a lady.”

It was not necessary to remind him that Augusta’s father had been an earl, and his own possessed of no distinction but a military one. “I was thinking of her happiness,” he said steadily. “One may be a princess and yet not necessarily inspire love. She would serve herself better if she were to charm Alan a little more, and take him for granted a good deal less. He is not a man to be dazzled by appearances, or to have his affections heightened by the awareness that other men find her pleasing.”

Augusta went suddenly quite white, her arm frozen, fingers rigid around the spoon.

“Are you ill?” he said in confusion. “Augusta!”

She blinked. “No ... no, I am perfectly well. I swallowed my soup a little carelessly, that is all. What did you mean about Christina? She has always been something of a flirt. It is natural for a pretty woman. Alan can hardly take exception to that.”

“You are talking about social customs!” Why did she seem unable to understand? “I am talking about love, gentleness, sharing things.”

Her eyes widened and there was a shred of bitter humor in them he found confusing. “You are being romantic, Brandon,” she said. “I had not expected anything so—so very young of you!”

“You mean naïve? On the contrary, it is you and Christina who are naïve—in imagining that a relationship can survive without honest emotion and the occasional sacrifice to unreason in the name of kindness. You can argue people into a business arrangement, but not into affection.”

Augusta sat still for several minutes, considering what he had said and what she should reply to him. “I think we should be interfering where it is no longer our concern,” she said at last. “Christina is a married woman now. Her private life is Alan’s responsibility, and you would be trespassing upon his rights if you were to offer her advice, especially about such personal matters.”

He was surprised. That was the last answer he had expected from her. “You mean you would stand by and watch her destroy her marriage because you consider it interfering to offer her advice? She did not cease to be our daughter just because she became Alan’s wife, nor did our affection stop!”