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.”
She had been afraid, almost angry in anticipation of it, that he might say something trite, but he did not.
“I know.” His voice was very quiet, his mind seeking to understand the pain. “I really don’t feel I can be of any use, but not to call seems so indifferent, as if I did not care.”
“Are you a great friend of Mr. Lagarde’s?” she inquired with surprise. She had not considered a realm of his life where he might find company with a man as much younger and as relatively slight in his pursuits as Tormod Lagarde. “Please do sit down,” she offered as composedly as she could. “I daresay they will be a little while as yet.”
“Thank you,” he said, moving the skirts of his coat so he did not sit on them. “No, I cannot say that I found much in common with him. But then tragedies of this sort override all trivial differences, don’t they?”
She looked up to find his eyes on her, curious and quite devoid of the impersonal glaze she was accustomed to in social conversation. She smiled slightly to show she was calm and grave and composed; then, as an afterthought, she smiled again, to show that she agreed with him.
“I see it has not kept you away,” he continued. “It would have been quite excusable for you to have found other business and avoided what can only be painful. You do not know the Lagardes well, I believe? And yet you felt a desire to come?”
“I fear to little enough good,” she said with sudden unhappiness. “Except perhaps that Mama and Emily removed Mrs. Denbigh.”
He smiled, and the irony inside him went all the way to his eyes.
“Ah, Amaryllis! Yes, I imagine that was something of a kindness in itself. I don’t know why, but there seems to be little love lost between her and Eloise. It would have been a source of considerable pain had they become sisters-in-law.”
“You don’t know why?” Charlotte was surprised. Surely he could not be so blind! Amaryllis was intensely possessive and her feeling for Tormod was almost devouring in its heat. The thought of living in a household with Eloise would be unbearable to her. When two women shared a house, there was always one who became superior; that it should be Eloise was unlikely, and for Amaryllis intolerable, but if Eloise were driven, however subtly, into a subordinate position, then Tormod would feel a sense of obligation, even of pity, toward her, and that might be worse. No, if Paul Alaric could not see why Amaryllis felt as she did, he was disappointingly lacking in imagination.