Anne Perry - Cardington Crescent

“William is dead,” she said harshly. “I’m sorry. I really am sorry. I liked him-probably far more than you ever did.” She looked at his shocked face, the open mouth and pallid skin, without any gentleness. “He killed himself,” she went on. “There was nothing else left for him, except arrest and hanging.” She found her voice was choking as she said it. She let all her scalding emotions pour out at Eustace.

“I–I don’t know what you mean!” he said helplessly. “Dead? Why? What happened?” He moved towards her, floundering a little. “Don’t just stand there, do something! Help him! He can’t be dead!”

She blocked his way. “He is,” she repeated. “Don’t you understand yet, you stupid, blind man?” She could feel the thickness tightening her throat. She wanted him to know the maiming he had caused, absorb it into itself and become one with it.

He stared at her as if she had struck him. “Killed himself!” he repeated foolishly. “You are hysterical-he can’t have!”

“He has. Don’t you know why?” She was shivering.

“Me! How could I know?” His face was ashen, the first pain of belief beginning to show in his eyes.

“Because it was you who drove him to it.” She spoke more quietly now, as if he were an obstinate child. “Trying to make him into something he wasn’t-couldn’t be-and ignoring all that he was. You with your obsession with family, your pride, your vulgarity, your-” She stopped, not wanting to expose William to his contempt, even now.

He was bewildered. “I don’t understand….”

She closed her eyes, feeling helpless.

“No. No, I suppose you don’t. But maybe you will one day.”

He sat down on the nearest chair, huddled as if his legs had failed him, still looking up at her.

“William?” he repeated very quietly. “William killed George? And Sybilla-he killed Sybilla?”

Now the tears burned in her eyes. She saw Vespasia in the dining room doorway, white as the wall behind her, and beyond, gentle and untidy, the figure of Pitt.

She made her decision. “He thought there was an affair,” she said slowly to everyone, the words difficult, the lie catching on her tongue. “He was wrong-but it was too late then.”

Eustace was staring at them with the beginnings of comprehension, a glimmer of what she was doing, and even why. It was a world he had not imagined, and he was frightened by his own crassness.

In the doorway Pitt put his arm round Vespasia, supporting her, but he looked over her shoulder at Charlotte. He smiled, his face blurred with pity.

“That’s right,” he said deliberately. “There’s nothing more for us to do now.”

“Thank you,” Charlotte whispered. “Thank you, Thomas.”