Читаем A Dangerous Fortune (1994) полностью

"Why didn't you simply tell me what you were doing, and why?"

"I couldn't." Remembering those awful days, she felt choked up again and had to take a deep breath to calm herself. "I found it very hard to cut myself off like that; it broke my heart. I couldn't have done it at all if I'd had to justify myself to you as well."

Still he would not let her off the hook. "You could have sent me a note."

Maisie's voice dropped almost to a whisper. "I couldn't bring myself to write it."

At last he seemed to relent. He took a gulp of his wine and averted his eyes from her. "It was awful, not understanding, not knowing if you were even alive." He was speaking harshly, but now she could see the remembered pain in his eyes.

"I'm sorry," she said feebly. "I'm so soriy I hurt you. I didn't want to. I wanted to save you from unhappiness. I did it for love." As soon as she heard herself say the word "love" she regretted it.

He picked up on it. "Do you love Solly now?" he said abruptly.

"Yes."

"The two of you seem very settled."

"The way we live ... it isn't difficult to be contented."

He had not finished being angry with her. "You've got what you always wanted."

That was a bit hard, but she felt that perhaps she deserved it, so she just nodded.

"What happened to April?"

Maisie hesitated. This was going a bit too far. "You class me with April, then, do you?" she said, feeling hurt.

Somehow that deflated his anger. He smiled ruefully and said: "No, you were never like April. I know that. All the same I'd like to know what became of her. Do you still see her?"

"Yes--discreetly." April was a neutral topic: talking about her would get them off this dangerously emotional ground. Maisie decided to satisfy his curiosity. "Do you know a place called Nellie's?"

He lowered his voice. "It's a brothel."

She could not restrain herself from asking: "Did you ever go there?"

He looked embarrassed. "Yes, once. It was a fiasco."

That did not surprise her: she remembered how naive and inexperienced the twenty-year-old Hugh had been. "Well, April now owns the place."

"Goodness! How did that happen?"

"First she became the mistress of a famous novelist and lived in the prettiest little cottage in Clapham. He tired of her at about the time Nell was thinking about retirement. So April sold the cottage and bought Nell out."

"Fancy that," said Hugh. "I'll never forget Nell. She was the fattest woman I've ever seen."