He smiled and kissed her gently. “I’m still looking for proof.”
“Be careful,” she warned. “It won’t help anybody if the government throws you out.”
“I won’t give them the excuse. I promise.” But even as he said it, he wondered if that was possible.
THEY ATE DINNER AT the kitchen table with the late sun streaming in through the back windows. The smell of clean cotton emanated from the sheets on the airing rail, and there was fresh bread on the rack above the oven.
Daniel ate with relish, as usual, but Jemima pushed her food around her plate. Her face was miserable, eyes down.
“If you don’t want that potato, can I have it?” Daniel asked hopefully, looking at her plate.
“ ‘May I,’ ” Charlotte corrected him automatically.
Daniel was disappointed. “You want it?” he said with surprise.
“No, thank you.” She stifled a smile. “The word ‘like’ is better than ‘want,’ in that way. ‘I would like it, please.’ But ‘can’ refers to ability. If you are asking permission for something you say, ‘may I please.’ ”
Wordlessly Jemima passed the potato over to her brother.
“Papa, what happened to Mrs. Quixwood? Why did she kill herself?” she asked suddenly.
Charlotte drew in her breath, held it a second, staring at Pitt, who looked quite taken aback. Then she let it out in a sigh.
“Was she in love with someone she shouldn’t have been in love with?” Tears brimmed in Jemima’s eyes and her cheeks were pink.
“You don’t kill yourself over that!” Daniel said with disgust. “Well, I suppose girls might …”
“It’s usually men who run out of control in that area, not women,” Charlotte said sharply. “And we don’t know what happened yet. Maybe we never will.”
“She was attacked in a very personal way,” Pitt replied, looking at Daniel. “Parts of the body that are private. And then she was badly beaten. She drank some wine with medicine in it, possibly to dull the pain, and she took too much, perhaps by accident, and that is what she died of.”
Daniel looked startled by all of this information, and suddenly very sober.
Pitt plowed on. “When you are older you will develop certain appetites and desires toward women. It’s a natural part of becoming a man. You will learn how to control them and, most important, that you do not make love to a woman unless she is as willing as you are.”
“You do not make love to her unless you are married to her!” Charlotte corrected him firmly, with a quick glance at Jemima, then back to Pitt.
In spite of himself, Pitt smiled. “We will have a long talk about that, a little later,” he told his son. “And not at the dinner table.”
“If he really hurt her, and it was his fault, why does everybody seem angry with her?” Jemima asked.
“Because they’re frightened,” Charlotte said before Pitt could frame an answer he thought suitable for his daughter, not really knowing how much she knew of the whole subject.
Jemima blinked and a tear slid down her cheek. “Why are they frightened?”
“Because rape can happen to any woman,” Charlotte said. “Just like being struck by lightning.”
“Hardly anyone gets struck by lightning,” Daniel pointed out. “And if you don’t go out and stand in the middle of a field in a thunderstorm, there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“Thank you.” Charlotte smiled at him. “That was the point I was trying to make. But when it does happen to someone, then people become afraid and they blame the person it happened to, because if it was their own fault, rather than the lightning’s fault, then everyone else is safe.”
“Was it her own fault?” Jemima did not seem comforted.
Charlotte looked at her steadily. “We have no idea, and it would be cruel of us to assume it was until we know. But perhaps you and I should have a longer talk about it this evening, at a more suitable time. Now please eat the rest of your dinner, and let us discuss something more pleasant.”
THE CONVERSATION COULD NOT be avoided. Charlotte knew from Jemima’s unhappy face that something was troubling her profoundly, something more than the usual day-to-day dreams and nightmares of being fourteen.
“Would it be my fault if—if I … really liked someone?” Jemima asked, her eyes lowered, too afraid to look up at her mother.
“What you feel is not your fault,” Charlotte picked her way through the minefield. “But what you do about it is your responsibility. Perhaps in view of what everyone