On a Cold Dark Sea(39)

“Sugar?” Lady Upton asked.

Charlotte nodded, and Lady Upton poured. She offered Charlotte a plate of biscuits, and Charlotte took two, though she hardly felt like eating. The sooner she got to the heart of what Lady Upton wanted, the sooner she could leave, and already she was worried that if this meeting dragged on long enough, she’d be asked to stay for supper.

“Your son Tom,” Charlotte said. “Was he lost in the war?”

Lady Upton nodded. “At Ypres. Only a month after he joined up.”

“What a terrible loss,” Charlotte said, wishing there was something more she could say, knowing there wasn’t. She hadn’t seen a photograph of a man in uniform on the mantel, but she was sure the family would have commissioned a portrait of Thomas St. Vaughn in his military finery before he went off to the front. Most likely it was by Lady Upton’s bedside, to be sobbed over each night.

“I invited a group of his school friends here a year or so after the Armistice,” Lady Upton said. “The ones who’d survived. One fellow lost both legs at the Somme, which must have been dreadful, but he put on a good show. They all did, for my sake. It was so lovely to talk about Tom. People don’t want you to speak of the dead once they’re gone. It makes them uncomfortable. But how can you ask a mother to pretend her children never existed? The only scraps of happiness I’ve felt in ages are when I’ve been able to share memories of my boys.”

Charlotte nodded, thinking she never should have come. She’d expected a brief, formal conversation, not this wrenchingly honest confession.

“I grieved terribly for Tom. Of course I did. But I was prepared to lose him, from the day he left. I even expected it, though I didn’t dare say so at the time. My heart was already broken, you see, by George’s death. To lose my sweet, darling boy with no warning, and not even have a body to bury . . . it ruined me.”

Charlotte told herself Lady Upton’s grief had nothing to do with her. But she felt the woman’s anguish leak through her armor, infecting her with guilt. “He was a delightful young man,” she said.

Lady Upton’s face lit up. “Wasn’t he, though?”

If Lady Upton was so keen to talk about her son, why not indulge her? It was better than watching her cry.

“As you know, he was an acquaintance of my husband, Mr. Evers,” Charlotte continued. She had no idea how much Lady Upton knew about Reg and Georgie. Best to be circumspect. “I hadn’t met him before we sailed, but Reginald introduced us on board. I remember thinking he was one of the most handsome men I’d ever seen, but he wasn’t at all vain about his looks. Right off, he said he hoped we’d be friends.”

In a queasy wave of remembrance, it all came back: Georgie’s puppy-dog eyes, hungry for Charlotte’s approval. His constant hovering. She’d been awful, barely able to look him in the face without scowling. But Lady Upton didn’t need to know that. Charlotte sifted through her memories, choosing the bits that presented her and Georgie in the best light, describing strolls on deck and friendly conversations over meals. Lady Upton listened raptly, as if Charlotte’s banal vignettes were a thrilling tale of suspense, for these were stories Lady Upton hadn’t worn smooth with repeated recall. They allowed her to imagine that Georgie was still making his way across the Atlantic, unseen but not yet lost.

Charlotte even managed to make Lady Upton laugh. “I can’t believe he told you about my sister’s horse!” she said, with a disconcertingly childish giggle. “Poor Prancer. He was such a naughty one.” Then the sadness swept back in, like clouds dimming a midnight moon. “He had to be put down in the end.”

Death and more death. Charlotte desperately tried to think of a story that would distract Lady Upton, something amusing to keep the mood light. She’d already embellished the truth beyond recognition. She was close to inventing a conversation, when Lady Upton asked with disconcerting directness, “Do you know what happened to George? At the end?”

Finally, the question Charlotte had been dreading. She shook her head. “I left in a lifeboat, before the ship sank.”

“With your husband?”

“No.”

“But he survived,” Lady Upton said.

This is wrong, Charlotte thought. I shouldn’t mislead this poor woman. But she’d made a promise, and she feared the repercussions of breaking it.

“He was rescued later,” Charlotte said, “by another boat.”

“Did he tell you what happened to George?”

Again, Charlotte shook her head, more forcefully than before. “We didn’t talk about the sinking. It was all such a shock.”

“I understand. You mustn’t feel bad on my account. It was such a muddle for us, as well. At first, we were told George had been saved. The next day, his name was on a list in the paper, of passengers lost. It wasn’t until the rescue ship arrived in New York that we received a telegram . . .” She paused to take a shaky breath. “Even then, I kept hoping. I thought George might walk through the door and tell me it had all been the most dreadful mistake.”

She was smiling and crying, all at once, and Charlotte felt leaden with shame. She hadn’t expected to like Lady Upton so much. It would have been so much easier if Lady Upton had been condescending and awful. Then Charlotte could have walked away knowing there was a good reason for her lies. Now, she wasn’t so sure.