On a Cold Dark Sea(64)
“That’s very kind of you,” she said. “I accept.”
They walked from the bedroom, Georgie leading the way. At the top of the stairs, he paused and asked, “You still go by Mrs. Evers?”
“Yes,” Charlotte said, “I never remarried. Well, I wasn’t married in the first place, but no one needs to know that.”
“It’s just occurred to me that it makes for rather awkward introductions. Hello, everyone, I’d like you to meet . . . Mrs. Reginald Evers!”
They both laughed, and Charlotte was struck by how quickly her earlier reservations had faded. At eighteen years old, Georgie had been like a castle on a movie set: a fine-looking fa?ade with nothing behind it. Now, in his late thirties, he’d grown into himself, and Charlotte was genuinely enjoying his company. Perhaps she had changed as well.
“You could introduce me simply as Charlotte—one of those exotic adventuresses with no surname.”
“No, no. You have to be Russian or Italian for that. You’re much too British. Charlotte Evers will do. I’ll say you’re my cousin.”
“We used to spend summers together, in the country,” Charlotte suggested.
“And Nanny was always scolding us for running about and making a mess at tea.”
“She was a wet blanket, wasn’t she?”
How easily the imagined vignettes shook shape: Charlotte and Georgie as children, their clothes muddied, eating toast in front of a nursery fire. The two of them older, shoes flung aside, exchanging insults and giggles over a game of croquet. The invented memories came to Charlotte in such detail that they might as well have been real.
Drinks and nibbles extended into a five-course dinner. Georgie seated Charlotte at his right, and the conversation was lively and loud. Everyone wanted to talk to Georgie’s surprise visitor, and Charlotte was gratified by the attention. More than once, she was reminded of her escapades with Reg, as she and Georgie traded made-up stories of their childhood, playing off each other with the ease of experienced performers. After dessert, the gramophone was wheeled into the sitting room for dancing, and Charlotte never lacked for partners. In London, the onslaught of all that beauty and talent might have irritated her or made her sarcastically dismissive. That night, she felt more generous. Most of the people there were so young and eager for approval. It was the easiest sort of kindness to say something nice and watch them bloom, as if compliments were currency and Charlotte a benevolent ruler tossing out coins from her carriage.
It was only at the end of the night—after the guests had made their way home in huddles of two and three, saying goodbye with elaborate European kisses on the cheek—that Georgie and Charlotte found themselves alone again. He insisted on driving her rather than ringing for a taxi and teased her about staying at the Sultan’s Palace, while she protested that she found it marvelously bohemian. The night had turned cool, and Georgie urged Charlotte to borrow one of his jackets. They paused by the front door as Georgie placed it over her shoulders, and Charlotte was suddenly overcome by a visceral memory of Reg. He’d stood behind her in just the same way, wrapping his coat around her and pulling it taut around her life belt. Putting her survival above his own.
“I miss Reg so much,” Charlotte said. “I hadn’t realized, until tonight.” She felt the same looming dread she felt when on deadline, the urgency of putting words in the right order as the seconds ticked past. “I was beastly to him. And to you.”
Georgie reached out a hand, and Charlotte stretched out her fingers to hold on. But no, he was only adjusting the back of the jacket. His eyes were turned away.
“The situation, with me and Reg,” he said quietly. “It wasn’t tawdry. I was in love with him.”
Charlotte wanted to tell Georgie she understood, but she hadn’t, not at all. When she met Georgie, her notions about sex were vague and based mostly on rumor; she’d never even seen a naked man. But she’d known with self-righteous certainty that what he was doing with Reg was wrong. She’d never allowed herself to believe that Georgie and Reg had real affection for each other, or considered how her constant disapproval might have hurt them. Charlotte had told herself no decent person would condone such behavior. But she was hardly an exemplar of virtue herself, given the things she’d done.
No, Charlotte realized, it went deeper than that. She’d tried to deny Reg the happiness he deserved because she was jealous. Because he hadn’t chosen her.
“Reg loved you, too, you know,” Georgie said.
“Please,” Charlotte protested. “You mustn’t worry about sparing my feelings.”
“I told you, didn’t I, that he thought of you as a sister? It was the truth. He never talked about his parents or where he’d come from; he said you were the nearest he had to family. That he’d even come close to marrying you.”
“I wanted to marry him, very much,” Charlotte said. “He turned me down.” Ridiculous, really, how much that rejection still hurt.
“Most men of our kind do marry,” Georgie said, “if they want a normal life. Things are a little freer here in Los Angeles, if you’re discreet about it, but I was married for a time myself, in New York. Sadie, a lovely little dancer. Very young, very na?ve. It only lasted a year. Luckily for me, you’re not anyone in Hollywood until you’ve had at least two divorces.”