‘Hotly varying opinions,’ Kynaston answered. ‘Which I suppose is why they are sold out this evening. Everyone wishes to make up their own minds.’
‘Or accept such an excellent excuse for a glamorous evening,’ Emily suggested. ‘I can see all sorts of interesting people here.’
‘Indeed,’ Rosalind smiled back at her. For a moment her face had a surprising vitality, as if a different person had looked out through her rather ordinary eyes. ‘I think that is the main reason for most of them coming.’
Emily laughed and looked across an open space at a woman in a gown of outrageous green. ‘And an excuse to wear something one could not possibly wear except in a theatre! It will probably still glow when the lights go down.’
Rosalind stifled a laugh, but already she was looking at Emily as an ally.
A few moments later they were joined by a grim-faced man and a tall woman with flaxen fair hair that gleamed like polished silk, a porcelain fair skin, and amazing blue eyes. She led the way and joined the group as if she were quite naturally a part of it. The man stopped a yard or so away, and Charlotte felt Pitt stiffen beside her.
The woman smiled. She had perfect teeth.
‘Commander Pitt. What a pleasant surprise to see you here.’ Her eyes slid to Charlotte, obliging Pitt to introduce her.
‘Mrs Ailsa Kynaston,’ Pitt said a little awkwardly.
For an instant Charlotte wondered if Pitt had made a mistake, using her Christian name; then she remembered that Bennett Kynaston was dead. She was Dudley’s widowed sister-in-law. She acknowledged her with interest, and turned to the man now moving forward. He also seemed to know Pitt, but inclined his head to Charlotte politely. ‘Edom Talbot, ma’am,’ he said, introducing himself.
‘How do you do, Mr Talbot?’ she replied, meeting his hard, steady eyes. She wondered how Pitt knew him, and whether it was as an ally or an antagonist. Something in his manner suggested the latter.
The conversation continued, mostly consisting of meaningless polite observations, the sort of thing one says to new acquaintances. Charlotte took part as much as was necessary, but mostly she studied Rosalind and Ailsa Kynaston. Ailsa must have been a widow for some time. She was striking to look at and clearly self-composed and intelligent. She could easily have married again, had she wished to. Had she loved Bennett Kynaston too much ever to consider such a thing?
But then, if anything happened to Pitt … Even the thought of it chilled her and caught the breath in her throat. Charlotte could not imagine marrying anyone else. She felt a sort of sympathy for the woman standing only a couple of yards from her, and with no idea that Charlotte had more than glanced at her when they were introduced. At what price did she exercise such courage? Looking at her now as the rest of them discussed what was rumoured of the play, she could see a tension in the other woman’s body, in the ruler-straight way she held her back and the proud tilt of her head.
‘… Mrs Pitt?’
Suddenly she realised that Talbot had been speaking to her, and she had no idea what he had said. If she replied foolishly it would reflect on Pitt. Honesty was the only course open to her.
‘I beg your pardon,’ she smiled at him as charmingly as she could, although she did not feel it in the least. ‘I was daydreaming and I did not hear you. I’m so sorry.’ She made herself meet his eyes warmly, as if she liked him.
He was flattered; she could see it in the sudden ease in his face. ‘The theatre is the place for dreams,’ he replied. ‘I was asking if you agree with your sister’s opinion of the leading actress’s last performance.’
‘As Lady Macbeth,’ Emily put in helpfully.
Charlotte remembered reading a critic’s response to it and hesitated, wondering if she could get away with quoting them. She would look such a fool, so much too eager to impress, if she were caught. ‘I read it was rather too melodramatic,’ she replied. ‘But I didn’t see it.’
‘Because of what the critic said?’ Talbot asked curiously.
‘Actually that would have made me more inclined to look for myself,’ she replied without hesitation. Then she remembered what Emily had said of the performance. ‘And Emily did tell me a few other performances were …’ She shrugged slightly, not willing to repeat the negative opinion.
‘And of course you believed her?’ Talbot said with a smile.
‘I had a sister too,’ Ailsa said quietly, her voice tight with a strain she could not disguise. ‘But she was younger than I. I would still have taken her word for anything …’
Charlotte saw Emily’s face and the shock of realisation in it. Jack was startled, then embarrassed. Clearly he had no idea what to say.
It was Pitt who broke the silence. ‘Unfortunately my wife lost her elder sister many years ago. It is a memory we don’t go back to, because it was very painful circumstances.’
‘My sister also,’ Ailsa said, looking at him with interest, almost challenge. ‘Forgive me for having raised the subject. It was clumsy of me. Perhaps we should go into the theatre and find our seats.’
The following day Charlotte put off a dressmaker’s appointment and went instead to visit her great-aunt Vespasia or, to be more accurate, Emily’s late husband’s great-aunt. She could think of no one in the world she liked better, or trusted more. February was still winter, in spite of the slightly lengthening afternoons, and they sat in front of the fire while rain beat against the windows out on to the garden. Charlotte put her feet as close to the fender as she could in the hope of drying out her boots and the hem of her skirt.
Vespasia poured the tea and offered the plate of wafer-thin egg and cress sandwiches. ‘So you did not enjoy your visit to the theatre,’ she observed, after Charlotte had mentioned it.
Charlotte had long since abandoned prevarication with Vespasia. In fact, she was more honest with her than with anyone else. She felt none of the emotional restrictions that she had with her mother, or with Emily. Even with Pitt she was sometimes a little more careful.
‘No,’ she said, accepting the tea and trying to judge how soon she could sip it and let its warmth slide down inside her. Certainly she would burn herself with it now. ‘The conversation lurched from the edge of one precipice to the edge of another, and finally, for Emily, toppled over into the abyss.’
‘It sounds disastrous,’ Vespasia responded. ‘Perhaps you had better tell me the nature of this abyss?’
‘That she isn’t funny or wise or beautiful any more. And, more specifically, that Jack is no longer in love with her. I suppose it is the sort of thing we all have nightmares about some time or other.’
Vespasia looked very serious. She did not even pick up her cup. ‘Possibly,’ she replied. ‘But usually we do not tell other people, because it comes more like a realisation that it is dusk, not a sudden nightfall. Has something happened to Emily?’
‘I don’t think so. But she is restless — bored, I think. We used to be involved in so much, not always as exciting or pleasant as it seemed, looking back on it now. I know that, and I think Emily does too. But being a good Society wife, and an attentive mother to children who need you less and less, hardly exercises the imagination. And it is certainly not exciting …’ She saw the understanding in Vespasia’s expression and stopped. ‘I think at the heart of it she is very aware that she will soon be forty, and a part of life is slipping out of her grasp,’ she added.
‘And Jack?’ Vespasia enquired.
‘Jack is as handsome as ever, in fact I think more so. A few added years suit him. He is not so … shallow.’
‘Ooh!’ Vespasia gave a tiny wince, so small as to be almost invisible.
Charlotte blushed. ‘I’m sorry …’
‘Don’t be.’ Vespasia picked up her cup at last and took a sip, then offered Charlotte the sandwiches again before taking one herself. ‘Which particular precipice did you fall over yesterday evening?’