Midnight at Marble Arch tp-28 Read online

  “Perhaps not. It was an arranged marriage, you said earlier? Sixteen is very young to feel that your fate is already decided, and by someone other than yourself.”

  “It is a common practice,” Vespasia pointed out. “And I daresay our parents’ choice for us was no more reckless than our own would have been. I remember falling in love at least half a dozen times with men it would have been disastrous for me to have married.”

  Charlotte drew in her breath to ask if the choice Vespasia had made in the end had been so much better. Then she realized how appallingly intrusive that would be. From the little she knew of Vespasia’s life, her marriage had been tolerable, but not a great deal more than that. The great love she had known had been elsewhere, brief and ending in all but memory when she returned from Italy to England. What Vespasia had felt Charlotte did not know and did not wish to. There are many things that should remain private.

  Charlotte watched a bumblebee meander lazily through the blossoms.

  “I thought I would die when Dominic Corde married my elder sister, Sarah,” she said candidly, turning the conversation back to her own feelings. “I cherished an impossible infatuation with him for years. I don’t think he ever knew, thank heaven.”

  “Perhaps Angeles Castelbranco likes someone rather better than she liked her fiancé, and finds it difficult to reconcile herself to keeping her promise,” Vespasia said, smiling a little in the sun and watching the same bee as it settled in the heart of a scarlet poppy. “Life can tend to lurch from one wild emotion to another at that age. Of course, with a lot of laughter, excitement, and soaring hopes in between. I don’t think I could bear all that anguish again.”

  Charlotte looked at her quickly. Vespasia was still beautiful, but-in spite of her poise, her wit, and all her accomplishments-perhaps she was also still vulnerable. Certainly she was very much alone. Charlotte had never thought of it before, but it struck her now with the force of a blow. Had Vespasia ever known the safety of heart that Charlotte took so much for granted?

  She changed the subject quickly, before her face betrayed her thoughts.

  “Perhaps we are being too fanciful about Angeles,” she remarked. “I expect there is no grand passion for someone else and no betrayal by her fiancé with another woman. I am more bored with Society than I had remembered, and I can see that the devil has made more work for idle minds than he ever does for idle hands. Sometimes I wish Thomas were back in the regular police instead of in Special Branch, where all his cases are secret. I can’t help anymore because he can’t even tell me what they are about.”

  “Be careful what you wish for,” Vespasia warned gently. “It may not be so pleasant if you are granted it.”

  Charlotte glanced at her and, seeing the gravity in her eyes, changed her mind about responding. Instead she said, “By the way, I was listening to a piece of gossip just now, and they mentioned Pelham Forsbrook possibly marrying again. They hinted at some tragedy regarding his first wife. I had no idea what they were referring to.”

  Vespasia’s face filled with a sudden sadness. “Eleanor,” she said quickly. “I knew her only slightly, but she was charming and funny and very kind. I’m afraid she was killed in a traffic accident. Something startled the horse and it bolted. One of the wheels was caught and the whole carriage was overturned. Poor Eleanor was crushed. I think she died instantly, but it was an appalling thing to happen.”

  Charlotte was taken aback. “I’m sorry. Was it long ago?”

  “About four years. I don’t think Pelham has ever considered marrying again but, of course, I could be mistaken. I never knew him well.” She smiled, dismissing the subject. “I should like you to meet Lady Buell. She is ninety if she’s a day, and has been everywhere and met everyone. You will find her most entertaining.”

  An hour later Charlotte was looking for somewhere to set down her empty cup. She went into the big marquee, which had been erected for the unlikely event of rain, or for those who wished more adequate shelter from the sun than even the most excellent parasol could offer.

  She placed her cup down and was moving toward the entrance again when she saw Angeles Castelbranco four or five yards away, on the other side of a table set with samovars for tea, which partially concealed her from view.

  Angeles was holding her cup and saucer and was also facing the door when a young man came in. He was tall and fair-haired, and when he smiled at Angeles he was good-looking enough to be considered handsome.

  “Good afternoon,” he said warmly. “Geoffrey Andersley. May I pour more tea for you, Miss …?” He hesitated, waiting for Angeles to introduce herself.

  She took a step backward, holding on to her cup and saucer.

  He reached for it and his fingers brushed her hand.

  She dropped the cup instantly and it fell to the grass.

  “I’m sorry,” he apologized, as if it had been his fault. He bent to pick it up, moving closer to her to reach it.

  Angeles jerked backward as though he had in some way threatened her.

  He looked embarrassed as he rose to his feet again and straightened up.

  “I say, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  She shook her head, her face flushed with color, her breathing heavy, as if she had been running. She began to speak and then stopped.

  “Are you all right?” he asked anxiously. “Would you like to sit down?” He held out a hand as if to steady her.

  She flinched and backed farther away, knocking against a table set with glasses and clean cups and saucers. They clattered against one another and half a dozen tall champagne flutes fell over.

  Angeles swung around, distressed by her own clumsiness. Now her face was scarlet.

  “I’m perfectly all right, Mr…. Mr. Andersley. If you will allow me to pass, I would like to go outside and get a little air.”

  “Of course,” he agreed, but he did not move.

  “Let me pass!” she repeated, her voice rising, wobbling a little, out of control.

  He took a small step closer to her, his face creased with concern. “Are you sure you are all right?”

  Charlotte decided to intervene, even though it was possibly tactless and certainly none of her concern.

  “Excuse me.” She came out from behind the samovars and moved toward Angeles.

  Angeles saw her and her face filled with relief.

  “Perhaps you don’t remember me, Miss Castelbranco,” Charlotte said smoothly. “We met the other evening. I am Mrs. Pitt. I should so like you to meet my great-aunt, Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould. Would you care to come with me?”

  “Oh, yes!” Angeles said immediately. “Yes. I would be delighted.” She stepped closer to Charlotte.

  Charlotte looked at Andersley and smiled. “Thank you for your courtesy. I hope you have a pleasant afternoon.”

  “Mrs. Pitt.” He bowed and stepped back to allow them both to pass, giving them room for their wide skirts. Even so, Angeles was obliged to pass within a yard of him. Her face was pale as she did so, and she moved hastily and without looking at him.

  Outside in the sun Charlotte kept up the pretense while they walked side by side the hundred yards or so to where Vespasia had just left another conversation. She was standing in the sun, her face lifted a little to its light, looking more like the Italians with whom she had stood at the barracks in ’48 than the English aristocrat she was now. Charlotte wondered what memories were in her mind or her heart.

  Charlotte and Angeles approached Vespasia. They went through with the charade, the polite smiles, the affected interest, the trivial exchange of words, until convention was satisfied. Then Angeles excused herself and Vespasia looked at Charlotte.

  “I think perhaps you had better explain,” she invited.

  Charlotte told her briefly what she had observed, adding no comment, watching Vespasia’s face for her reaction.

  “Oh dear.” Vespasia’s eyes were sad, her face in an expression of profound gravity.

  Charlotte
waited, fear beginning to grow inside her. She had been clinging to a hope that she was being unnecessarily alarmed, and now it was melting away.

  “What is it you think?” she said at last.

  Still Vespasia hesitated. “I think that Angeles Castelbranco has had a terrible experience,” she said at last.

  It was exactly what Charlotte had thought also, though she had hoped she was being melodramatic. “How terrible?” she asked. “More than just … a forced kiss, perhaps a torn gown?”

  Vespasia’s mouth pulled tight in deep unhappiness. “She appears a healthy young woman. I’m sure she could slap someone hard enough to make her refusal known very plainly. And from what you say, she was not acquainted with this young man Andersley.”

  “No. He introduced himself. It seemed they had not met until that point.”

  “But she was so frightened that she backed away from him even though he did not actually touch her?”

  “Yes. She didn’t look just unwilling, or even as if it were merely distasteful. She looked terrified.” Charlotte pictured Angeles’s face again. Her expression had been unmistakable. “You believe she was far more seriously assaulted, don’t you?”

  “I think that is probably so,” Vespasia agreed, her voice low and strained with pity.

  “What are we going to do?” Charlotte’s mind raced over the possibilities, beginning with talking to Pitt.

  “Nothing,” Vespasia replied.

  “Nothing! But if she was actually raped that’s one of the worst possible crimes.” Charlotte was outraged. It was totally out of character for Vespasia, of all people, to be so callous. “She must be helped,” she said hotly. “And above all, whoever did it must be punished, put in prison.” The thought of the man getting away with such a thing was intolerable.

  Vespasia put her hand very gently on Charlotte’s arm. “And if Angeles names a young man and says that he raped her, what do you suppose will happen?”

  Charlotte tried to imagine it. The anguish would be profound. Isaura Castelbranco would be distraught for her daughter. Charlotte felt cold throughout her body at the thought of such a thing happening to Jemima. It was almost impossible to hold in the mind, it was so appalling. But if it ever happened, she would injure somebody in the most terrible revenge she could imagine. She would destroy him!

  And it would change nothing. All the pain she could inflict would do nothing to help Jemima.

  “Exactly,” Vespasia agreed gently, as if she had followed Charlotte’s train of thought. “It is an injury no punishment is ever going to heal. To blame anyone else, even if you could prove her total innocence-”

  “Of course she’s innocent!” Charlotte interrupted. “She’s sixteen! She’s a child!”

  “For goodness’ sake, my dear, were you innocent at sixteen?”

  “Of course I was! I was innocent until-”

  “I’m not questioning your chastity,” Vespasia said a little more tartly. “I took that for granted. I am speaking of innocence in the sense of offering no temptation to a man with more appetite than decency, and no belief that he needs to exercise self-control.”

  Charlotte remembered her passion for Dominic Corde, and how far she might have gone, quite willingly, had he given her the chance. She felt blood surge to her face. She did not know whether to be furious or humiliated.

  “It is not so simple, is it?” Vespasia observed. “And if this wretched young man should accuse her of being just as willing as he was, how does she convince people that she was not? I saw no cuts or bruises to prove her reluctance, did you?”

  Charlotte was amazed. She stared at Vespasia with complete disbelief. For once she was at a loss for words.

  “People can be very cruel,” Vespasia continued, her voice very quiet. “Which, if you think about it, my dear, you know as well as I do. Perhaps I have a few years’ advantage on you, but it makes little difference. Think what she will face: the whispers, the disapproval, the sniggers from young men, the alarm from other young women, the prurient interest. There will be questions from those who imagine it might secretly have been rather fun, because they have no idea that it has nothing to do with romance or passion, but rather the desire to humiliate and conquer.”

  Charlotte looked at Vespasia’s face and saw that the pain on it was even greater than the anger.

  “You knew someone it happened to, didn’t you?” The words were spoken before she gave them thought. Immediately she regretted them.

  Vespasia’s mouth pulled tight in remembered grief and she blinked several times.

  “I did, long ago. More than one. Some things are bearable only if no one else knows of them. Then at least you do not imagine that every remark you don’t quite hear is about you, every joke you don’t understand is an oblique reference to your shame.” She winced. “You do not believe that every party to which you are not invited is because you are no longer considered eligible. Above all, you do not suppose that you are soiled forever and that no man will want to touch you, except for his own amusement; that you will never marry and never have children.”

  “But that’s-” Charlotte stopped as the full impact of what Vespasia had said overwhelmed her. “But it’s not her fault,” she said quietly, her own voice choking now. “Do we really have to just … just pretend it didn’t happen, and let him walk away, untouched? For heaven’s sake, won’t he do it again?” She was so angry, so horrified she could hardly get her breath. The act itself almost paled compared with the misery that must follow, the lifelong guilt and loneliness.

  “Almost certainly,” Vespasia agreed. “But it is not our decision to make. If you were her mother, would you want any stranger, or even a friend, to make the choice and use your daughter in order to prosecute this man, on the chance that you might win-if proving to the whole world that your daughter had been raped would be regarded as winning? Would you do that to Jemima?”

  Vespasia knew the answer as she asked. Charlotte saw it in her eyes.

  “No. I … I would find some way of taking revenge myself,” she admitted.

  The ghost of a smile touched Vespasia’s mouth. “And would you tell Thomas?”

  “Of course.”

  “Are you sure? What do you think he would do?”

  “I don’t know, but he’d certainly do something!”

  “Of course he would, in fury and pain, without thinking of his own safety or comfort,” Vespasia said.

  “Naturally! He’d be thinking of Jemima!” Charlotte protested.

  Vespasia shook her head very gently. “Charlotte, my dear, you would have to protect Thomas just as much as you would Jemima. If he accused some young man from a good family-” she lifted her head slightly and indicated an elegant, wealthy young man moving easily from one group to another, laughing, flirting very slightly “-what do you imagine would happen to him?”

  Charlotte stared at the young man, and then at Vespasia. She felt suffocated, even though they were standing in the open air and there was a very slight breeze tugging at parasols and ruffling the flower heads. She tried to remember her own days before her marriage, when she had moved in Society, the rules she had known implicitly, the fun, the laughter … and the cruelty.

  Vespasia supplied the answer for her. “The oldest defense has always been to blame the victim. They would tell him his daughter was a whore in the making, and although they pitied him, if he made any more trouble he would find himself without a job. He, and you, would no longer be welcome in Society. And Jemima would feel even guiltier because she was inadvertently the cause of your ruin.”

  “That’s monstrous.” Charlotte’s voice trembled.

  “Of course it is.” Vespasia put her hand on Charlotte’s arm. Her touch was warm and very gentle. “It is one of the very worst of the private tragedies we have to bear in silence and with as much dignity and grace as we can. Kindness is perhaps the only gift we can offer. And perhaps we will then have a little more gratitude for the griefs we do not personally have to bear.”
>
  Charlotte nodded, too full of emotion at that moment to answer.

  BUT THAT NIGHT, WHEN Pitt was sitting downstairs in the parlor, absorbed in reading papers he had brought with him from his office, she went upstairs alone and soundlessly opened Jemima’s bedroom door.

  Jemima was asleep, lying on her back, arms spread wide, smiling a little. She looked very young and desperately vulnerable. She thankfully could not even imagine the kind of pain that Charlotte and Vespasia had been talking about, the kind that had already begun for Angeles Castelbranco-if, of course, their assumptions were correct.

  Perhaps two years ago Isaura had stood in Angeles’s bedroom doorway and watched her sleep. Had she been full of dreams for her daughter’s future happiness, or had fear touched her as it did Charlotte now?

  She stayed there only a few moments longer. She did not want Jemima to waken and see her.

  Quietly she closed the door and walked along the passage a few steps to Daniel’s room. The man who had raped Angeles was somebody’s son. Did his parents have any idea what he had become?

  She opened that door also, very softly, and looked in on Daniel. He was curled over, facing the window where the curtains were wide open and the last of the summer evening light still glowed. His dark eyelashes shadowed across his smooth, unblemished cheek. It was an impossible thought, but in another seven years he would be a man.

  Suddenly she felt frightened, aware of how precious everything was, of the happiness, the safety, the hope she took for granted; even the little things like the daily certainty of kindness, someone to touch, to love, to talk to; of being surrounded by people who mattered to her.

  Charlotte felt tears slip down her cheeks and a tightness in her chest. The enormity of life, the joy and the pain, the caring so deeply-it was almost too much.

  She closed the door in case she disturbed Daniel, and walked very slowly along the passage. She hesitated at the top of the stairs. She did not want to go down yet. Pitt would wonder what on earth was the matter with her, and she was not ready to try to explain.