the same again.”
“I am sure it will not be,” Vita agreed. “There are new debts … and new loyalties. It is a turning point in all our lives, I think. That is what makes it so frightening …” She let the words hang in the air. “One tries hard to hope, and that also hurts, because it matters so very much.” She smiled and glanced at Dominic, then away again. Her voice dropped. “Thank heaven one does not have to do it all alone.”
“Of course not,” Dominic said firmly. “That is about the only good thing we can cling to, and that I promise.”
Something in Vita relaxed. She turned to Charlotte and smiled, as if she had made a profound decision.
“Perhaps you would care to stay to tea, Mrs. Pitt. You would be most welcome. Please do.”
Charlotte was surprised. It was a sudden change, and although she had every intention of accepting, it also filled her with an awareness of unease.
“Thank you,” she said quickly. “That is most generous of you, especially in the circumstances.”
Vita smiled, and the expression lit her face with conviction and warmth. It was easy to see that in other circumstances she would be a woman of extraordinary charm, having both intelligence and vitality, and almost certainly a ready wit.
“Now please, you must spend a little time with Dominic, which is what you came for, and I am sure he would appreciate it. Tea will be at four o’clock.”
“Thank you,” Dominic said earnestly, and there was a light and a gentleness in his face, then he turned to Charlotte. “Shall we walk in the garden?”
She followed him, taking his arm, very conscious of Vita watching them leave. Vita had changed her attitude completely. She was a different woman when Dominic was present. Was that trust, the knowledge that Charlotte was the wife of the policeman investigating Unity’s death and therefore inevitably linked with blaming Ramsay with murder? Vita could hardly help being suspicious of Charlotte, even disliking her regardless of every natural personal impulse. Charlotte would have hated anyone who posed a threat to Pitt. Knowing it was unjust would make no difference. It would touch her mind but not her instinct.
And Vita must know Dominic’s loyalty to Ramsay, his immense sense of gratitude and debt. She could count on him to do all that was humanly possible to help.
They went out through the side door into the garden, still leafless and dappled with light through the branches. The snowdrops were over and the narcissus spears were high and already bending their heads, ready to open. If Charlotte had had this land she would have planted primroses, celandine and a drift of wood anemones under those trees. The gardeners here had been a trifle unimaginative with periwinkle and ferns, their heads barely through the ground.
Dominic was talking about something and she was not listening. Her mind was filled with memory of the emotion in Vita’s face as she had looked at him. There was such admiration in it. Did she cling to him because Ramsay was weaker, a flawed vessel, and she knew it? Charlotte remembered how he had sat at the table and allowed Tryphena to make offensive remarks without defending himself or his beliefs. It was as if he had in some way already surrendered.
Vita did not seem like a woman who gave up. She might be beaten by circumstance, but she would not simply cease to try. It was not surprising she was drawn to Dominic, admiring his spiritual energy and conviction. It matched her own strength of will. Charlotte had seen her flatter those aspects of his nature, and how precious it had been to him. Surely Vita knew that, too?
She made an appropriate reply to Dominic, her mind less than half upon what he was saying. It was of the past, memories shared. It did not need her attention. They were under the trees, looking towards the azaleas. They would not bloom for another two months. They looked miserable, almost dead against the naked earth, but in late spring they would blaze with color, orange, gold and apricot flowers on bare branches. It took an effort of imagination to see it now. But then that was what gardening was about.
They walked together in companionable silence, the occasional remark made not for meaning but simply to establish some sense of being together. All the things that mattered must remain unsaid. They were only too aware of the suspicions and the overshadowing fear,