Anne Perry - Death in the Devil's Acre

“The Devil’s Acre and its occupants are not of the least concern to us,” Augusta agreed huskily. “And I refuse to have them or their obscenities discussed at my table.”

“I disagree, Mama.” Brandy was not impressed. “As long as everybody refuses to talk about them-”

“I imagine half the city is talking of little else,” Augusta cut him off. “There are plenty of people whose nature wallows in such things. I do not intend to be among them-and neither will you while you are in my house, Brandon!”

“I’m not thinking of the details.” Brandy leaned forward, his face earnest. “I’m talking about the general social conditions in our slums. Apparently, Max was a pimp. He procured women for prostitution-”

“Brandon!”

He ignored the interruption. “Do you know how many prostitutes there are in London, Mama?”

Balantyne looked across at Augusta’s face and thought he would not forget her expression as long as he lived.

Her eyebrows rose and her eyes widened. “Am I to assume, Brandon, that you do?” she inquired in a voice that could have chipped stone.

The color came up Brandy’s cheeks slightly, but his face set in the same defiance that echoed as far back as nursery days over such trivialities as rice pudding and talcing naps. He swallowed. “Eighty-five thousand.” To have added “approximately” would have diminished the impact. “And some of them are no more than ten or eleven years old!”

“Nonsense!” she snapped.

For the first time, Alan Ross joined in. “I am sorry, Mama-in-law, but that is true. Several people of some reputation and quality have been espousing the cause of these people lately, and there has been much investigation.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Christina laughed, but it was a high sound, without happiness. “Mama is perfectly correct. How could a person of any quality whatsoever take up such a cause? That’s preposterous. It really is not worth discussing. We are descending to absurdity, and it is most unpleasant.”

Balantyne wondered at Christina’s agreeing so readily with her mother; it was not like her. He was surprised to hear his own voice. “Eighty-five thousand unfortunates in London!” He had unconsciously used the current euphemism for prostitution. It made the whole dark, amorphous misery seem less terrible; it allowed one to think that people were moved by compassion.

“Unfortunates!” Brandy’s eyes were narrow with scorn. He ripped Balantyne’s thought apart exactly as if he had read it from his mind. “Don’t make it sound as if we had some kind of pity for them, Papa. We don’t even want to know about them! We’ve just said they are not suitable conversation for our table. We prefer to pretend they don’t exist, or that they are all doing it quite happily and sinfully, because they want to-”

“Don’t talk rubbish, Brandy!” Christina snapped. “You know nothing about it. And Mama is perfectly correct. It is most disagreeable, and I think you are ill-mannered to force it upon us. We have already made it as plain as we can that we don’t care to learn of such coarse subjects! Jemima.” She stared across the table. “I’m sure you don’t wish to hear about prostitutes over your dinner, do you?”

Balantyne leaned forward, wanting to defend Jemima. She was peculiarly vulnerable. She was in love with Brandy-and she had married wildly above herself.

But Jemima smiled back at Christina, her gray eyes clear and level. “I should find it extremely uncomfortable at any time,” she answered. “But then, when I can regard other women’s distress, either physical or moral, without feeling uncomfortable about it, then I am in need of a very sharp reminder of my responsibilities as a human being.”

There was a moment’s silence.

Brandy’s face broke into a dazzling smile and his hand moved for a moment as if he would reach across the table and touch her.

“How very pious,” Christina said with delicate contempt. “You sound as if you were still in the schoolroom. You really must learn not to be so unimaginative, my dear. It’s such a bore! And, above everything else in the world, Society hates a bore!”

The color drained out of Brandy’s face. “But it usually forgives a hypocrite, darling.” He turned on his sister. “So you will remain a success, as long as you are careful not to become too obvious-which you are doing at the moment. A clumsy hypocrite is worse than a bore-it is insulting!”

“You know nothing about Society.” Christina’s voice was brittle, her face hot. “I was trying to be helpful. After all, Jemima is my sister-in-law. No one wishes to sound like a governess, even if one thinks like one! Good heavens, Brandy-we have all had more than enough of the schoolroom!”

“Of course we have.” Augusta came to life again at last. “No one wishes to be instructed about social ills, Brandy. Take a seat in Parliament if you are interested in such things. Christina is right. But it is not poor Jemima who is a bore-she is merely being loyal to you, as a wife should be. It is you who are being extremely tedious. Now please either entertain us with something pleasant or else hold your tongue and allow someone else to do so.”

She turned to Alan Ross, ignoring Balantyne at the end of the table. He was still unhappy, and sought the words to convey his sense that the subject could not so easily be dismissed. Its comfort or discomfort was irrelevant; it was its truth that mattered.

“Alan,” Augusta said with a slight smile. “Christina tells me you have been to see the exhibition at the Royal Academy? Do tell us what was interesting? Did Sir John Millais show a picture this season?”

There was no alternative but to answer. Ross gave in gracefully, offering her a light and delicately humorous description of the paintings at the Academy.

Balantyne thought again how much he liked the man.

After the dessert had been cleared away, Augusta rose and the ladies excused themselves to the withdrawing room, leaving the gentlemen free to smoke, if they chose, and to drink the port that the footman Stride brought in in a Waterford crystal decanter, with a silver neck and an exquisite fluted stopper. He left it on the table and retired discreetly.

Without knowing why he said it-the subject had been a ghost on the edge of his mind for days-Balantyne returned to Max and the Devil’s Acre. “It was our old footman who was murdered.” He filled his glass and picked it up, turning it, looking at the light on the ruby-reflecting facets. “Pitt came here. He asked me to go and identify the body.”

Ross’s face was blank. He was a very private man; it was not often easy to know what he thought or felt. Balantyne remembered Helena Doran, whom Ross had loved before Christina, and the painful idea occurred to him that possibly he had never entirely stopped loving her. It hurt him for both of them-for Ross himself and for Christina. Perhaps that was why she was so-so fragile at times, and so unkind. Jemima’s happiness must be like caustic in the wound.

And yet the happiness of how many marriages is based on anything else than a certain sharing of time, of experience that welds a couple together simply because it is something held in common? The fortunate marriages mellow into a kind of friendship. Had Christina even tried to win Alan Ross’s love? She had all the wit and beauty it could have needed; the gentleness, the generosity of spirit were her duty to acquire, and then to show him. Again the thought intruded that he must have Augusta speak to her.

Brandy was staring at him. “Pitt came here? Didn’t they know who he was?”

Balantyne brought his mind back to Max. “Apparently not. He was using several names, but Pitt recognized his face, or thought he did.”