The Hyde Park Headsman (25 page)

“Was it very different?” Charlotte inquired, uncertain whether she should pursue a subject which seemed to cause such distress. To look back on a quarrel, perhaps unsolved, when the other person was no longer alive and so beyond reconciliation, must be one of the most terribly painful aspects of bereavement. She longed to be of comfort, and had no idea how.

“Oh yes—I’m afraid so,” Mina went on quietly, memory filling her voice, and there was pleasure in spite of the shivering pain. “I did everything in warm yellow. It looked as if it were entirely filled with sunlight I loved it.”

“It sounds very delightful,” Charlotte said sincerely. “But you speak as though it were no longer so. Did he insist that you change it?”

“Yes.” Mina turned away for a moment, averting her face. “That was what he said was vulgar, everything in tones and
shades of the one color, apart from the furniture, of course. That remained mahogany. Actually”—she bit her lip as if even now it still needed some apology or explanation—“it has not yet been done. Oakley locked the door and said we should not use the room until it had been put back as it was before. Would you care to see it?”

“Oh indeed.” Charlotte rose to her feet immediately. “I should like to very much.” She meant it both for the sake of seeing what such a room would be like, and even more to find out what Oakley Winthrop had considered so offensive that he had been willing to initiate such a quarrel over it that it was still apparently unresolved.

Mina led her out of the withdrawing room, back along the passageway and out of the main hall in the opposite direction. The door to the breakfast room was apparently now unlocked, and Mina pushed it open and stood back.

Charlotte looked past her into one of the most charming rooms she had ever seen. As Mina had said, it appeared to be full of sunlight, but it was more than that which pleased, it was a sense of space and graciousness, a simplicity which was restful and yet totally welcoming.

“Oh you are most gifted,” Charlotte said spontaneously. “It’s quite lovely!” She turned to look at Mina, still standing in the doorway, but her face now filled with amazement.

“Is it?” she said with incredulity, and then a dawning pleasure. “Do you really think so?”

“Indeed I do,” Charlotte answered her. “I should love to have such a room. If this is of your creation, then you have a kind of genius. I am so glad I met you while my entire house is still undecorated, because if you will give me your permission, I will most assuredly have a yellow room too. May I? Would you consider it a compliment and not an impertinence?”

Mina was glowing with pleasure like a child given an unexpected gift.

“I should be most flattered, Mrs. Pitt. Please do not think for a moment that I should mind. It is quite the nicest thing you could say.” She backed out of the doorway in a kind of excitement, and swung around without noticing the maid crossing the hall behind her. Charlotte called out, but it was too late. Mina’s hand caught the teapot. The maid shrieked and let go and the tray went clattering to the floor. The maid shrieked again and threw her apron over her face, and Mina let out a cry.

Charlotte could see immediately what had happened from the dark stain of wetness over Mina’s wrist, where the scalding tea had run over her.

“Quickly!” Charlotte grasped her without explanation or apology. “Where is the kitchen?”

“There.” Mina looked to her left, her face tight with pain.

The maid was still shrieking, but no one took any notice of her.

Charlotte half pushed Mina towards the passageway, then thought of a far better idea. There was a large bowl full of lilies on the hall table. She turned and dragged Mina towards it, then as soon as she could reach, seized the flowers and dumped them on the table and pushed Mina’s hand into the bowl full of cold water.

“Ah!” Mina said in amazement, the pain easing out of her face. “Oh—how wonderful.”

Charlotte smiled at her, then looked at the maid.

“Stop it,” she commanded fiercely. “Nobody’s blaming you. It was an accident. Now don’t stand there making that horrible noise, go and do something useful. Go back to the kitchen and send the tweeny to clean up this mess, and you come back with a bag of ice, and a tea cloth wrung out of cold water and a solution of bicarbonate of soda, and another one that’s clean and dry. Get on with you.”

“Yes, miss. Right away, miss,” the girl said, staring at Charlotte with a tear-stained face and not moving from the spot.

“Go on, Gwynneth,” Mina urged her. “Do as you are told.”

Charlotte pulled Mina’s hand out of the flower bowl as the maid disappeared.

“We’d better go to the light and see how bad it is.” She walked with Mina towards the central chandelier, lit in spite of the sun because of the drawn blinds. Without asking permission she undid the buttons on Mina’s long cuffs and pushed back the black fabric.

“Oh!” Mina gasped.

Charlotte also drew in her breath sharply, not because of the red scald she expected to see, but the broad yellow-and-purple stain of bruising with its deeper blotches like finger marks over the flesh. There was also a certain irritated pinkness, from the burn, but nothing like as serious as she had feared, and there was no blistering.

Mina was absolutely motionless, paralyzed with horror.

Charlotte looked up and met her gaze.

Mina’s cheeks burned hot and her eyes filled with a desperate shame, and then overwhelming guilt.

“Do you need any help?” Charlotte said simply. A dozen questions raced through her mind, none of them she could ask: Gracie’s gossip in the park, Bart Mitchell’s protectiveness and his anger, and the fear in Mina’s eyes.

“Help! No … no. I … everything is …” She stopped.

“Are you quite sure?” Charlotte was aching to ask if it had been Captain Winthrop who had done it, and did Bart know—when did he know, before Winthrop’s death, or after?

“Yes.” Mina swallowed and caught her breath, looking away. “Yes, I am perfectly all right, thank you. It really hurts very little now.”

Charlotte did not know if she meant the burn or the bruising. She longed to look at the other wrist to see if it was the same, and even more to see under the black lace fichu at her throat, over her shoulders and back. Was that why she walked so stiffly? But there was no way she could do it without being unforgivably intrusive and breaking every tenuous thread of friendship she had built.

“Do you think you should see a doctor?” she asked with concern.

Mina’s other hand went to her throat and she shook her head as she met Charlotte’s eyes again. The pretense was back, at least on the surface. “Oh no. I think—I think it will heal quite well, thank you.” She smiled wanly. “Your quick thought saved me so much. I really am most grateful to you.”

“Had I not been here viewing your beautiful room it would not have happened,” Charlotte replied, allowing the charade. “Do you think you should sit down for a little, and maybe have a tisane? You have had a most unpleasant experience.”

“Yes—yes that would be an excellent idea,” Mina agreed. “I hope you will stay too? I feel such a poor hostess to have been so clumsy.”

“I should love to,” Charlotte accepted immediately.

They were at the withdrawing room entrance when the front door opened and Bart Mitchell came in. He glanced, first at Mina, seeing her wrist with the black cuff open and trailing, then at Charlotte, his face suddenly tight with anxiety. Curiously, he said nothing.

“Mrs. Pitt came to visit me, Bart,” Mina said in the sudden silence. “Wasn’t that considerate of her?”

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Pitt.” Bait’s blue eyes were very
wide and direct, searching Charlotte’s face. Then he looked back at Mina.

“I scalded myself,” Mina said very slowly, as if she owed him some explanation. “Mrs. Pitt was very helpful, very quick …”

At that moment, as if in further support, Gwynneth reappeared with the towels. She looked over to Charlotte.

Mina held out her arm, which was beginning to look pink again where the bruise did not mar it.

“Here, allow me to help.” Bart dropped his stick and hat on the settee and came forward, grasping the wet towel and holding it onto the burn while Charlotte wound dry cloth around it. His hands were sunburned brown, slender and strong, but he touched his sister’s arm as if it were fragile enough to break at the merest pressure.

“Thank you, Mrs. Pitt,” he said finally when it had been secured. “I think perhaps in view of the unpleasantness of the incident, Mrs. Winthrop should lie down for a while. She is not strong …”

“This is nothing,” Mina began, then stopped again, her face filled with fear. She glanced at Bart, then at Charlotte. “I have not even given Mrs. Pitt any tea,” she said helplessly, grasping at the trifling problem of etiquette when so obviously something of overwhelming magnitude filled her mind. “It was the tea I spilled.”

“I will give Mrs. Pitt tea, my dear,” Bart answered, staring at her with a penetrating gaze. “You go and lie down for a while. You will be far better able to keep that bandage upon your arm if you rest it on a pillow. If you insist upon sitting up for afternoon tea in the withdrawing room you are bound to loosen it.”

“I—I suppose you are right,” she agreed reluctantly, but still she did not leave. She looked at Bart, and then at Charlotte, anxiety deep in her face.

“Should you call a doctor?” Charlotte asked.

“No—no.” Bart shook his head with complete decision. “I am sure that will not be necessary. You appear to have done extremely well.” He flashed a smile, beautiful and sudden as April sun. “Now if Mina will lie down for a while, I shall be most happy to give you tea, Mrs. Pitt. Please come into the withdrawing room.”

There was no civil alternative but to do as she was invited, while Mina, equally obediently, went upstairs.

Charlotte followed Bart into the withdrawing room and sat down where he indicated. Apparently Gwynneth had already gathered that she was supposed to bring tea, or else possibly she always did so at that time of day, but it was only a few moments before she appeared again, very carefully balancing a tray in front of her, and put it down on the table, bobbed a curtsy and withdrew with more haste than grace.

When the formalities of pouring and passing had been completed, Bart leaned back and regarded Charlotte with careful, intelligent eyes.

“It is an unusual kindness to call upon someone who is in mourning, Mrs. Pitt,” he remarked.

She had been waiting for him to say something of the sort.

“I have been in mourning myself, Mr. Mitchell,” she replied quite lightly. “And found it very hard to bear, even though I had my mother and my sister in the house at the time. I wished profoundly to have a little conversation that was not in hushed tones and had nothing whatever to do with the dead.” She sipped her tea. “Of course I could not know if Mrs. Winthrop would feel the same, but it seemed very natural to give her the opportunity, should she wish to take it”

“You surprise me,” he said candidly. His expression was casual and charming, but his eyes did not leave her face. “Mina was devoted to Oakley. I think some people do not realize quite what courage it requires to maintain such a calm exterior to the world.”

How much was he lying? She had no doubt now that he had seen at least some of those bruises. How many more were there? Did he guess, or know?

“We each of us have our own way of dealing with grief.” She smiled back at him, her easy words belying the tension she felt. “For some of us, to resume normality is helpful. Mrs. Winthrop showed me the beautiful breakfast room, which I found quite delightful. I think it is one of the loveliest I have ever seen.”

His face tightened.

“Oh yes. Mina has a considerable gift with color and grace.” He was watching her very closely, weighing her reaction, judging why she had raised the subject in the first place.

“I am sure Captain Winthrop would have seen how charming it was once he had become accustomed to it,” she continued, watching him as frankly. Between them, unspoken but now almost palpable, lay the awful bruises, and Mina’s humiliation
and embarrassment. What had she told him? And immeasurably more important, when? Before Winthrop’s death—or after?

He started to speak, and then changed his mind.

“I am in the process of moving house myself,” Charlotte said to fill the silence. “It is one of the most exhausting things I have ever done. The detail that requires to be attended to seems never ending.”

“Surely your builder is of assistance?” he asked, still watching her. The conversation was meaningless and they both knew it, but they had to speak of something. What thoughts were racing through his head?

She smiled. “Of course. But he leaves the matters of domestic decoration to me. Just at the moment I am torn between choosing one color because I think I care for it, and another because it may prove more practical.”

“A dilemma,” he agreed. “What is your decision?”

There was another silence between them. Ridiculous as it was, it seemed as if his question meant more than a trivial matter of color, as if he were also asking what she intended to do about the bruises—to carry the tale back, or to dismiss it.

She thought for several moments before replying. Then she met his remarkable eyes with total candor.

“I expect I shall consult my husband,” she answered at length.

His face was bare of all expression.

“I suppose I should have expected that,” he said levelly.

She was caught in a confusion of emotions, anger against Oakley Winthrop because it seemed he had been a bully, and if Gracie were correct, even a sadist; pity for Mina because she had first endured it, and now must walk in terror in case Bart had killed him, and were discovered; a fear both for Bart, and as he sat opposite her, even a twinge of fear for herself.

The silence was becoming oppressive.

“Since it is his home also, it would be only civil,” she said hollowly.

A very slight amusement touched his lips.

“Do I gather from your choice of words that you will not necessarily abide by his decision, Mrs. Pitt?”

“Yes—I think that is so.”