Part 25 (1/2)

147.

”Miss Ladram, if there's anything I can do . . . to help, I mean . . .”

”There is.”

”What?”

”Go and see Frank Griffith. Tell him what you've told me. Tell him that if Emerson McKitrick does have the letters, I . . . Well, just say I shall find out for certain today, one way or the other.”

”How?”

”Leave that to me.” She looked at him and, a second later, past him. He was aware of wanting to say much more than he either could or should, conscious and resentful of how marginal his own concerns were to Charlotte's. ”I must go now,” she added, in a tone bordering on impatience. ”I really must.”

CHAPTER.

FOUR.

Not till she had driven across the bridge at Cookham and turned in to Riversdale did Charlotte's resolution falter. Till then, indignation had blotted out her shame. But now, when confrontation with Emerson McKitrick was imminent, her mood changed. She halted at the roadside several driveways short of Swans'

Meadow and twisted the rear-view mirror round to reflect her own face, then stared at it intently, at the puffy eyes, the flushed cheeks, the quivering lips. About her neck and nose and forehead there was a sheen of perspiration and, when she withdrew her hand from the frame of the mirror, she could see that it was trembling.

She wound the window down and took several gulps of air. But all that was cool and fresh had been crushed out of the afternoon and replaced by a hazy and oppressive stillness. Whatever courage she needed she must find within herself. That at least was clear.

Yet nothing in Charlotte's life had prepared her for an occasion such as this. A sheltered childhood and an unadventurous youth had left her ill-equipped to understand her emotions, let alone command them. It was not the probability that Emerson had deceived her that 148 R O B E R T G O D D A R D.

wounded her, so much as the growing certainty that she was to him merely a means to an end, as uninteresting and unappealing as she had long feared she truly was.

She glanced up at her reflection and saw the tears br.i.m.m.i.n.g in her eyes, swallowed hard and climbed abruptly from the car. If she delayed any longer, she would be in no fit state to continue. And continue she must. She began to walk fast towards Swans' Meadow, clenching her teeth as she went, rehearsing in her mind all that might be said and done when she stood before him and scanned his face for the glistening snail's trail of a lie.

There was no answer to the doorbell. It was the last eventuality Charlotte had antic.i.p.ated. Peering through the bull's-eye window into the hall, she could see no movement within, yet she could not bring herself to believe there would continue to be none. It was scarcely credible that everybody was out. She had supposed Emerson might well be, but had a.s.sumed one or all of the others would be there to let her in. She pressed the doorbell again and waited. Still there was no response.

Turning, Charlotte looked back up the drive and knew, if she had ever doubted it, that to return to Tunbridge Wells with nothing accomplished was out of the question. If she did, what would she say to Frank Griffith? What, for that matter, would she say to herself ? No.

She must remain where she was for as long as necessary. She must not let Emerson McKitrick elude her.

She walked round to the side of the house and entered the garden through the honeysuckle arch, wondering if she would come upon Samantha, rec.u.mbent on the lawn despite the lack of sun. But the lawn was empty. There was no sign of Samantha or of anybody else.

She walked over to the gazebo and reached up into the shadowy recess above the entrance. Sure enough, the reserve house key was hanging in its place on a nail. She took it down, retraced her steps as far as the kitchen door and let herself in. Dropping the key on one of the work-tops, she carried on towards the lounge, reckoning that would be the best room in which to wait.

It was as she reached the hall that an awareness of something amiss-some discrepancy in the atmosphere-stopped her in her tracks. A second later, just as she was about to dismiss the sensation as a symptom of her anxiety, she heard from above a sound more like a H A N D I N G L O V E.

149.

slap than anything else, then a cry that was also a laugh, and then . . .

the voices of Emerson and Ursula, neither raised nor muted, pitched as naturally and casually as those of two people who believed they were alone were likely to be.

”Come back to bed,” said Emerson. ”Whoever it was has given up and gone.”

”Yes,” replied Ursula, her tone buoyed up by the residue of a giggle. ”You're right.”

”I'm always right.”

”About what a woman like me really wants, you mean?”

”That especially.”

”Then I'm surprised you should suggest going back to bed.”

There was a pause, filled by the hint of a kiss, though not, Charlotte sensed, of mouth on mouth. ”It's cooler here, by the window.”

Charlotte gazed up the stairs at the empty landing and caught a glimpse of shadows moving against the wall. She clutched at the newel-post for support, unable to retreat or advance, compelled by the acoustics of the house to listen as the very worst she had feared was eclipsed by events.

”You really are insatiable, aren't you, Emerson?”

”So are you.”

”Just as well.”

”Get down.”

A second pa.s.sed, then another, then Ursula moaned: ”Oh, G.o.d, that's good.”

”There's better to come.”

”Spare me . . . your Harvard puns . . . but . . . nothing else . . .”

Their words petered into panting breaths, rising steadily together towards what Charlotte was as powerless to prevent as she was to evade. She stood where she was, struggling to keep from her mind the images conjured by what she could hear. The pleasure they took from each other was undeniable and somehow worse than the knowledge of what they were doing. Just as the sound of their coupling was worse than the sight of their joined and naked bodies could ever be.

Then the climax, the groaning and the falling, the clammy un-ravelling of their sweat-soaked limbs, the moist and meaningless kisses, the husky heartless laughter.

”Better?” asked Emerson.

”Than Maurice could ever imagine.”

”And Charlie?”

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R O B E R T G O D D A R D.

”You're too good for her. Far too good.”

”But not for you?”

”Oh, no. I deserve the best. And I appreciate it.”