Dorchester Terrace (25 page)

Charlotte laughed with her, and they moved to the next painting. Charlotte only barely noticed Adriana glance back once at the gentle bridge in the sun, with the cows grazing nearby. She must have loved Blantyre very much to have left behind the country she clearly adored and come to England.

“Have you traveled to many places in Europe?” she asked aloud. “I have never been to Italy, for instance, but from the pictures I have seen, it is very beautiful indeed.”

“It is,” Adriana agreed. “But I have found that it isn’t really places that matter; it all comes down to people, in the end.” She turned to look at Charlotte. “Don’t you agree?” There was complete honesty in her eyes, and almost a challenge.

“Yes. I suppose I like London because the best things that have happened to me have happened here,” Charlotte agreed. “Yes, of course it is all to do with people; in the end, it comes down to being with those you love. Beauty is exciting, and thrilling; you never entirely forget it, but you still need to share it with someone.”

Adriana blinked and turned away. “I don’t think I really want to go back to Croatia. It wouldn’t ever be the same. My family is gone …” She stopped abruptly, as if she regretted having begun. She straightened her back and shoulders, and moved to another painting, depicting a girl of about sixteen sitting on the grass in the shade of a tree. She was wearing a pale muslin dress, and the dappled light made her seem extraordinarily fragile, as if not altogether real. She had dark hair, like Adriana. In fact, the resemblance was remarkable.

Adriana stared at her. “It was another world, wasn’t it? Sixteen?” she said at last.

“Yes,” Charlotte agreed, thinking back to being with Sarah and
Emily in the garden at Cater Street every summer when they were young.

Adriana moved a little closer to her. “She looks so delicate,” she said, facing the painting. “She probably isn’t. I was ill a lot as a child, but I have been well for years now. Evan doesn’t always believe it. He treats me as if I need watching all the time: extra blankets, another scarf, gloves on, don’t step in the puddles or you’ll get your feet wet. You’ll catch a cold.” She pulled her lips into a strange, rueful half-smile. “Actually I hardly ever get colds. It must be your bracing climate here. I have become English, and tough.”

This time it was Charlotte who laughed. “We get colds,” she admitted. “Some people seem to always be coughing and sniffling. But I’m very glad to hear that you have outgrown your ill health. If you are strong now, that’s all that counts.”

Adriana turned away quickly, tears slipping down her cheeks.

“I’m sorry!” Charlotte said instantly, wondering what she had said. Had Adriana lost someone to a simple illness? Perhaps a child? How tragic and painful, if that was the case.

Adriana shook her head. “Please don’t be. One cannot go backward. There are always losses. I don’t think there is anyone in the world I ever loved as I cared for my father. I wish he could know that I am well and strong here, and that I …” She waved her hand impatiently. “I apologize. I shouldn’t even allow the memories to come to my mind. We all lose people.” She looked back at Charlotte. “You are very patient, and gentle.”

“I had two sisters. I lost one of them,” Charlotte said quietly. “Sometimes I think of her and wonder what it would be like if she were still alive. If we would be better friends than we were then.” She forced her memory back to those dreadful days when the family, the whole neighborhood, looked at each other with fear, when she had realized how little she knew of what the people closest to her really believed in, loved, or dreamed of.

She blushed now, when she wondered if Sarah had known that Charlotte had been in love with Dominic, Sarah’s husband. That was something she preferred not to recall. Everyone had embarrassing
moments in their past, pieces they would like to live over again, to create a better outcome.

She linked her arm in Adriana’s. “Come on, let’s go and get a hot cup of tea, and maybe some cake, or crumpets. You mentioned where you first met Mr. Blantyre the other evening. It sounded far more romantic than London. I first met Mr. Pitt when he was investigating a fearful crime near where I lived, and we were all suspect, at least of having seen something and lying about it, in order to protect those we loved. It was all grim and awful. You have to have a better tale to tell than that.”

Adriana looked at her with interest, and then, as their eyes met for longer, with understanding. “Certainly,” she said cheerfully. “Tea and crumpets, then I’ll tell you how Mr. Blantyre and I met, and more about some of the really wonderful places I’ve been. The blue and green lakes in the mountains in Croatia. You’ve never even imagined such colors! They lie like a necklace dropped carelessly by some great goddess of the sky. And I wish I could really describe for you the forests of Illyria,” she went on. “They are all deciduous trees, and in the spring, when the young leaves are just out, it is as if the whole world were newly made.”

Charlotte tried to imagine it. Perhaps it was something like a beech forest in England, but she did not want to put words to it, or try to compare.

“And we have the Dinaric Alps,” Adriana went on. “And caves, dozens of them, seven or eight hundred feet deep.”

“Really?” Charlotte was amazed, but mostly she was moved by the depth of emotion in Adriana’s voice, the passion behind her words. “Have you been in some of them?”

Adriana shivered. “Only once. My father took me, and held my hand. There is nothing on earth darker than a cave. It makes the night sky, even with clouds, seem full of light. But you should see Istria, and the islands. There are over a thousand of them strung all along the coast. Those in the farthest south are almost tropical, you know.”

“You must miss such beauty, here.”

“I do.” Adriana gave her a sudden smile of great warmth; then she changed the subject abruptly, as if the memories of her own country were too overwhelming to continue discussing. “Vienna is marvelous,” she said cheerfully. “You have never really danced till you have heard a Viennese orchestra play for Mr. Strauss. And the clothes! Every woman should have a dress to waltz in, once in her life. Come!”

Charlotte obeyed, falling into step with her.

T
HE FOLLOWING DAY CHARLOTTE
was in the parlor giving serious consideration to the matter of whether to buy new curtains, possibly in a different color, when she heard Daniel shouting angrily. He must have turned at the bottom of the stairs to go along the passage to the kitchen, because his feet were loud on the linoleum.

The next moment Jemima came after him.

“I told you you’d break it!” she shouted. “Now look what you’ve done!”

“I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t left it there, stupid!” Daniel shouted back.

“How was I to know you’d go banging around like a carthorse?” Jemima was at the bottom of the stairs now.

Charlotte came out of the parlor. “Jemima!”

Jemima stopped in the passage and swung around, her face flushed with anger. “He broke it!” she said, holding up the remnants of a delicate ornamental box. She was close to tears from fury and disappointment.

Charlotte looked at it and knew it was beyond mending. She met Jemima’s eyes, so much like her own.

“I’m sorry. I don’t think there’s anything we can do with that. I don’t suppose he meant to.”

“He didn’t care!” Jemima retorted. “I told him to be careful.”

Charlotte looked at her, and imagined how tactful Jemima’s warning had likely been. “Yes,” she said calmly. “You’d better put it in the wastebasket, under the lid so you don’t keep looking at it. I’ll go and speak to him.”

Jemima did not move.

“Go on,” Charlotte repeated. “Do you want to make it better, or worse? If I talk to him about it in front of you, it will definitely make it worse, that I can promise you.”

Reluctantly Jemima turned around and climbed slowly back up the stairs.

Charlotte watched her until she had disappeared up the next flight as well, to her own bedroom, then she went along to the kitchen.

Minnie Maude was peeling potatoes at the sink. Daniel was sitting on one of the chairs at the kitchen table, swinging his feet and looking miserable and angry. He glared at Charlotte as she came in, ready to defend himself from Jemima if she was immediately behind.

“Did you break it?” Charlotte asked.

“It was her fault,” he responded. “She left it in the way!”

“Did you mean to?”

“Of course I didn’t!”

“Daniel, are you sure?”

“Yes! That’s not fair! I didn’t see it.”

“That’s what I thought. So what are you going to do about it?”

He looked at her resentfully. “I can’t put it together again,” he protested.

“No, I don’t think anybody can,” she agreed. “I think you’ll have to find her another one.”

His eyes widened. “I can’t! Where would I get it?”

“You won’t get one just like it, but if you save up your pocket money, you might find one nearly as nice.”

“She shouldn’t have left it there!” He drew in a deep breath. “It’ll be all my money for weeks! Maybe months!”

“What if she puts in half?” Charlotte suggested. “Her half for leaving the box in the way, your half for not looking where you were going and breaking it?”

Reluctantly he agreed, watching to see if she was pleased.

“Good.” She smiled at him. “Now Minnie Maude will get you a piece of cake, then you will go upstairs and tell Jemima you are sorry, and offer to share pocket money with her to find another box.”

“What if she says no?” he asked.

“If you ask nicely, and she refuses, then you are excused.”

He was happy. He turned to Minnie Maude and waited for the promised cake.

“I’m going out for a little while,” Charlotte told them both. “I may be an hour or two, or even longer. Minnie Maude, please tell Mr. Pitt, if he comes home before I do, that I’ve gone to visit my sister.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Minnie Maude agreed, reaching for the cake.

Charlotte did not bother to change. She took her coat, hat, and gloves and left immediately, before she could lose the conviction within herself that she must go to Emily and make peace with her.

She walked briskly along Keppel Street to Russell Square, where she caught a hansom. During the ride, she composed in her mind, over and over, what she would say, how she would vary her answers according to Emily’s responses, and how best to keep both of their tempers in check.

The weather was getting milder. She passed several carriages bowling along briskly with ladies out visiting, or simply taking the air. Another month and it would be a pleasure to go to the botanical gardens. Trees and shrubs would begin to show green leaves, even flower buds. There would be daffodils in bloom.

She arrived at Emily’s spacious, handsome house and alighted. She paid the driver, then walked up to the front door and pulled the bell.

She waited only a few moments before the door was opened and a footman greeted her with apologies.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Pitt, but neither Mr. nor Mrs. Radley is at home. You are welcome to come in and take a little refreshment, if you would care to?” He held the door wide and stepped back to allow her to pass.

Charlotte felt ridiculously disappointed. It had never occurred to her that Emily would be out at this hour, but of course that was perfectly reasonable. All her screwing up of courage, her swallowing of pride, was to no avail.

“Thank you,” she accepted, going into the warmth of the hallway. It was windy outside. Already the light was fading from the sky, and dusk was in the air. “That would be very pleasant. Perhaps I may leave a message for Mrs. Radley?”

“Certainly, ma’am. I shall bring you a pen and paper, unless you would prefer to use Mrs. Radley’s desk in the morning room?”

“That would be a very good idea. Thank you.”

“I’ll have your tea served here when you return. Would you care for hot crumpets and butter as well?”

She smiled at him, liking his thoughtfulness. “Yes, please.”

She found the paper in Emily’s desk and wrote:

She hesitated. Maybe she was taking rather too much of the blame for what had been, at the very least, quite as much Emily’s fault? No, better to continue in this vein. She could always be a trifle sharper if Emily took advantage. And it was true: none of the differences mattered, in the end.

She folded the note and put it in her reticule, then put the top back on the ink and laid the pen down.

She returned to the morning room, and hot tea and crumpets were served to her a few moments later. She gave her note to the footman, thanked him, and sat down to enjoy her treat, before going back outside into the cold to look for a hansom to take her home again.