Eloise’s eyes widened, momentarily confused, seeking to understand Charlotte’s curious remark.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not quite sure,” Charlotte hedged. She must avoid seeming to pry. “Only I suppose that if poor Mrs. Spencer-Brown took her own life, then it can only have been a tragedy that had been growing, unknown to us, for some time.” She had intended to be far more subtle, but Eloise was so candid herself that Charlotte could not play word games with her as she might have with someone more devious.
Eloise looked down at the folds of her skirt arranged over her knees.
“You think Mina took her own life?” She pronounced the words one by one, very clearly, weighing them. “That seems rather a cowardly thing to do. I always thought of Mina as stronger than that.”
Charlotte was surprised. She had expected more pity, and more understanding.
“We don’t know what pain she was faced with,” she said rather less gently. “At least I don’t.”
“No.” Eloise did not look up, a flash of contrition in her face. “I suppose we seldom even guess at anyone else’s pain—how big it is, how sharp, how often it cuts.” She shook her head. “But I still think that taking one’s life is a kind of surrender.”
“Some people grow too tired to fight anymore, or the wound is greater than they can overcome,” Charlotte persisted, wondering at the back of her mind why she was defending Mina so hard. She had not especially liked her; indeed she had felt a greater warmth for Eloise.
“We do not know that poor Mina took her own life,” Caroline said, intervening at last. “It may have been some sort of horrible accident. I cannot help believing that if there had been something distressing her so dreadfully, we would have been aware of it.”
“I cannot agree with you, Mama,” Charlotte replied. “Do you think that was what happened, Miss Lagarde? You knew her quite well, did you not?”
Eloise sat without answering for several seconds.
“I don’t know. I used to think I knew all the obvious things, and heard most of the gossip one way or another, and imagined I could evaluate its worth. Now . . .” Her voice trailed away and she stood up, turning her back to them, and walked over to the garden window. “Now I realize that I knew almost nothing at all.”
Charlotte was about to press her when the door opened and Tormod came in. His glance went immediately to Eloise at the window, then to Charlotte and Caroline. There was anxiety in his face, and his body was stiff.
“Good afternoon,” he said politely. “How kind of you to call.” His eyes went to Eloise again, dark and troubled. “I’m afraid Eloise has taken this appalling tragedy very hard. It has distressed her till she is quite unwell.” There was a warning in his face to be careful, choose their words, or they might add to the burden.
Caroline murmured understandingly.
“It is a very dreadful affair,” Charlotte said. “A person of sensibility would be bound to feel for everyone concerned. And I believe you were the last to see the poor woman alive.”
Tormod gave her a glance of profound appreciation. “Of course . . . and it cannot but distress poor Eloise to wonder if perhaps there might have been something we could have done. Naturally, her own servants actually—”
“Oh, servants,” Charlotte said, waving them away with a little gesture of her fingers. “But that is not the same as friends, whom one might have confided in.”
“Exactly!” Tormod said. “Unfortunately she did not. I really think it must have been some sort of accident, perhaps a wrong dosage of a medicine.”
“Perhaps,” Charlotte said doubtfully. “Of course I did not know her very well. Was she so absentminded?”
“No.” Eloise turned from the window. “She always seemed to know precisely what she was doing. If she did something so fatally foolish, then she must have been very distracted in her mind, or she would have noticed immediately that she had poured from a wrong bottle, or a wrong box, and disposed of it instead of drinking it.”
Tormod went to her and put his arm around her gently.
“You really must stop thinking about it, dear,” he said. “There is nothing we can do for her now, and you are distressing yourself. You will make yourself ill, and that will help no one, and it will hurt me very much. Tomorrow we shall go into the country, back to Five Elms, and think of other things. The weather is improving all the time. The first daffodils will be out in the wood, and we shall take the carriage and go driving to see them—perhaps even with a picnic basket, if it is warm enough. Wouldn’t you like that?”
She smiled at him, her face softening in gentle, melting pleasure, more as if she were comforting him than he supporting her.
“Yes, of course I should.” She put her hand over his. “Thank you.”
Tormod turned to Caroline. “It was most thoughtful of you to call, Mrs. Ellison, and you, Mrs. Pitt. We appreciate it. Such courtesies of friendship make these things easier to bear. And I am sure you must feel very shocked as well. After all, poor Mina was a friend of yours also.”
“Indeed, I am completely at a loss,” Caroline said a little ambiguously.
Charlotte was still pondering what she meant by that when the maid opened the door and announced Mrs. Denbigh. Amaryllis came in so close behind her there was no time to say whether the call was acceptable or not.
Eloise looked at her bleakly, almost through her. Tormod remained with his arm still around her and smiled politely.
Amaryllis’ face stiffened and her round eyes were glittering sharp.
“Are you ill, Eloise?” she said with surprise, her voice ambivalent between sympathy and impatience. “If you are faint, let me help you upstairs to lie down. I have salts, if you wish?”
“No, thank you, I am not faint, but it is most civil of you to offer.”
“Are you sure?” Amaryllis’ eyes swept her up and down with chilly condescension. “You do not look at all well, my dear. In fact, you are really very peaked, if you do not mind my saying so. I am the last person in the world to wish my visiting you to cause you to overstrain yourself.”
“I am not ill!” Eloise said a little more sharply.
Tormod’s arm tightened around her almost as if he were bearing her weight, although to Charlotte she looked quite steady.
“Of course not, dear,” he said. “But you have suffered a deep shock—”
“And you are not strong,” Amaryllis added. “Perhaps if you send for a tisane? Shall I ring for your maid for you?”
“Thank you,” Tormod accepted quickly. “That would be an excellent idea. I’m sure Mrs. Ellison and Mrs. Pitt would care for a cup of tisane as well. It is a most distressing time for all of us. You will take some refreshment, won’t you?”
“Thank you,” Charlotte said immediately. She was not sure what could be gained from remaining, but since she had learned nothing so far, she must at least try. “I hardly knew poor Mrs. Spencer-Brown, but I still feel most profoundly sad for her death.”
“How tenderhearted of you,” Amaryllis said skeptically.
Charlotte affected an air of innocence. “Do you not feel the same, Mrs. Denbigh? I am sure I can understand Miss Lagarde’s emotions with the greatest of sympathy. To know you were the last person to see a friend and talk with them before such overwhelming despair of mind overtook them that they found life itself insupportable—I’m sure I also should be far from well.”
Amaryllis’ eyebrows rose. “Are you saying, Mrs. Pitt, that you are of the belief that Mrs. Spencer-Brown took her own life?”
“Oh dear!” Charlotte weighed all the consternation into her voice that she could contrive. “Surely you don’t believe someone else—oh dear—how very dreadful!”