Ellis Peters - George Felse 09 - Mourning Raga Read Free Page B

a throw-away sound almost like V, the second a long sigh of ‘aaah’! Her wisp of an embroidered Jane Austen handkerchief came into brief, subdued play. No doubt about it, Dorette was an artist.
    Tossa’s dry little, gruff little voice said: ‘Yes, I do see, he must have missed her terribly!’ But Chloe’s undisturbed smile said serenely that Dorette was doing very well, and could afford to hold her fire. Perhaps she even read her daughter’s implacable motives; whatever the doubts about Dorette’s brain, now rapidly being revised, there had never been any doubts about Chloe’s. Dominic held his peace, and saw the Taj Mahal clear as in a vision.
    ‘Tossa, there’s a time even to give up what one wants and needs, a time to remember… not other people’s wants and needs, but
theirs
. The children’s.’ Dorette turned her head and gave them the benefit of her full blue stare, radiant and dazzling; and her beauty, of which they had heard so much and thought so little, was absurd, agonising, irresistible. They understood her power, and being immune to it made no difference when the rest of the world was vulnerable. She looked eighteen, agitated, appealing, Marianne to the life. The Austen irony was missing, perhaps, but this was between takes. ‘She has a whole family there, wanting and longing for an heir. She has a
kingdom
, you might say. What right have I to keep her from it? What can I give her to make up for it? In America she is just one little girl, not nearly a princess. And my husband…’ She looked momentarily doubtful about that word, but shouldered it and went on: ‘He has rights, too. She knows nothing of the world
he
can offer her, and she has a right to know everything before she makes a choice. When I marry again…’ Oh, noble, that brave lift of her head, facing the whole world’s censure for love! Or money. Or
something
! ‘…she will be watching us from a cool distance, I know that. She knows who her father was, she knows he is far away, and almost lost to her. I want to be honest with her! I want her to go to her father!’
    A pale person in an unravelling pullover and a green eyeshade leaned through the pump-room palms and called: ‘Any time, Dorrie!’ and Miss Lester, switching from emotion and sincerity to a note of sharp practicality which Tossa found almost insulting, called back in quite a different tone: ‘Coming, Lennie! Give us three minutes more!’ and as promptly returned to character. As though Chloe’s two student stand-ins for a New England governess who declined to cross the world had been a couple of cameras trained on her. No more sales-talk was necessary, Chloe’s brief, reassuring glance had told her they were sold already; still, for her reputation’s sake she kept up the performance in a modified form and at an accelerated tempo.
    ‘My husband is expecting his daughter. I wrote to him a month ago, before I left the States, to tell him that she would be coming. He will be so happy to see her, and so grateful to you.’
    For one brief and uncharacteristic moment she looked back, remembering a thin, fastidious face set in the tension of distaste and disbelief as he argued his case in court, with the dignity he was incapable of laying aside, and which had passed for arrogance and coldness. He could hardly be expected to compete with such an artist in heartbreak and tears and maternal desperation as Dorette Lester; sometimes she wondered why he had even tried. And sometimes, too, she wondered exactly why he had waived his rights of access, resigned from his science chair, and left for India immediately after the divorce suit ended. Was it outraged love and implacable anger against the wife who had shucked him off – a broken heart, in fact? Or had he merely extricated himself in shock and disgust from a world he had suddenly realised was not for him, a jungle not denser than, but different from, his own? She knew better than to simplify his withdrawal; herself