Anne Perry - Resurrection Row

Charlotte felt the color sweep up her face. Vespasia could not possibly know of her infatuation with Dominic, unless Pitt had told her; or Emily? But they would not! Vespasia must know he had been her brother-in-law. Thomas would say so. She knew he liked Vespasia and would tell her that much of the truth.

Charlotte chose her words very slowly. To lie would be pointless and lose Vespasia’s regard. She made herself look up and smile.

“No, I should imagine not,” she answered lightly. “Especially if he was her father’s choice rather than her own. There is nothing to put one off anything like not having chosen it yourself, even if you might have liked it well enough otherwise.”

Vespasia’s smile lit up her face, going all the way to her eyes. “Then you did well, my dear. I’m sure Thomas Pitt was not your father’s choice!”

Charlotte found herself grinning, a tide of memories coming back to her; although to be fair, Papa had not fought her nearly as hard as might have been expected. Perhaps he was glad enough she had at last made a choice at all? But she had not come here merely to enjoy herself. She must get back to the purpose.

“Do you think the old lady could have hired someone to dig up Lord Augustus, just to spite Alicia?” she asked a little too bluntly. “Jealousy can be very obsessive, especially in someone who has nothing else to occupy herself with but the past. Perhaps she has even convinced herself it is true?”

“It may be true.” Vespasia weighed it in her mind. “Although I doubt it. Alicia does not seem to have the desperation in her actually to have murdered the old fool, even for Dominic Corde. But then, one seldom knows what fires may burn underneath a comparatively passive exterior. And perhaps Dominic is greedier than we think, or more urgently pressed by creditors. He dresses extremely well. I should think his tailor’s bill is no small matter.”

The thought was ugly, and Charlotte refused to entertain it. She knew she might well have to eventually-but not yet, not until they had tried every other answer.

“What possibilities are there, apart from that?” she said cheerfully.

“None that I know of,” Vespasia admitted. “I cannot imagine anyone else of his social acquaintance either hating him enough to kill him, or loving him enough to wish him avenged. He was not the sort of man to inspire passion of any sort.”

Charlotte could not give up. “Tell me about the other people in the Park.”

“There are several who would be of no interest to you; they are away for the winter. Of those who are here, I can see no reason why any should be involved, but you may as well consider them. Sir Desmond and Lady Cantlay you have already met; they are pleasant enough, quite harmless, I should have judged. If Desmond has anything more to him, he should be on the stage; he is the finest actor I have seen. Gwendoline may be a little bored, like many women of her station with everything provided for her and nothing to complain of, but if she took a lover it would most assuredly not have been Augustus, even had he unbent himself so far as to be willing. He was a great deal more boring than Desmond.”

“Could it have anything to do with money?” Charlotte was clutching at extremes.

Vespasia’s eyebrows went up. “Not likely, my dear. Everyone in the Park has more than adequate means, and I don’t believe anyone lives significantly beyond them. But if one is temporarily embarrassed, one goes to the Jews, not to Augustus Fitzroy-Hammond. And there are no fortunes to be inherited, except by the widow.”

“Oh.” It was disappointing. As always, it led back to Dominic and Alicia.

“The St. Jermyns were well acquainted,” Vespasia continued. “But I cannot conceive of any reason why they should wish him harm. In fact, Edward St. Jermyn is far too involved in his own affairs to have time or effort for anyone else’s.”

“Romantic affaires ?” Charlotte’s hopes rose.

Vespasia pulled a small, dry face. “Certainly not. He is a member of the House of Lords and has great ambitions for office. At the moment he is drafting a private member’s bill to reform conditions in workhouses, particularly with regard to children. Believe me, Charlotte, it is very much needed. If you have any idea of the suffering of children in such places, that may well affect them all their lives- He will achieve a great thing if he succeeds, and a good deal of regard throughout the country.”

“Then he is a reformer?” Charlotte said eagerly.

Vespasia looked at her down her long nose. She sighed a little wearily, “No, my dear, I fear he is no more than a politician.”

“You are being unkind! That is quite cynical!” Charlotte accused.

“It is quite realistic. I have known Edward St. Jermyn for some time, and his father before him. Nevertheless, it is an excellent bill, and I am giving it every support I can. Indeed, we were discussing it when Thomas came here last week. I see he did not mention it.”

“No.”

“He seemed to feel strongly about it; in fact, I felt it was hard for him to be civil. He looked at my lace and Hester’s silk as if it had been a crime in itself. He must see a great deal more of poverty than any of us imagine, but if we did not buy the clothes, how would the seamstresses get even the few pence they do?” Her face tightened, and for the first time all the wit was gone out of her voice. “Although Somerset Carlisle says that even sewing eighteen hours a day, till their fingers bleed, they still do not earn enough to live. Many of them are driven to the streets, where they can make as much in a night as they would in a fortnight on the sweatshop floor.”

“I know,” Charlotte said quietly. “Thomas seldom speaks of it, but when he does I cannot rid myself of the visions it brings for nights afterwards: twenty or thirty men and women huddled together in a room, probably below the street, with no air and no sanitation, working, eating, and sleeping there, just to make enough to cling to life. It is obscene. God alone knows what a workhouse must be like, if they still prefer the sweatshop. I feel so guilty because I do nothing-and yet I go on doing nothing!”

Vespasia’s face warmed to her honesty. “I know, my dear. Yet there is very little we can do. It is not an isolated instance, or even a hundred instances; it is a whole order of things. You cannot relieve it by charity, even had you the means. It needs law. And to initiate laws, you must be in Parliament. That is why we need men like Edward St. Jermyn.”

For some time they sat silently; then at last Charlotte brought herself back to the thing that she could accomplish, or at least could try. “That doesn’t answer why Lord Augustus was dug up, does it?”

Vespasia took the last cake. “No, not in the least. Nor do I think the other people in the Park will enlighten the situation. Somerset Carlisle never showed anything for Augustus beyond the courtesy required of good manners; he, like St. Jermyn, is far too occupied with the bill. Major Rodney and his two sisters are very retiring. They are maiden ladies and will assuredly remain so. They busy themselves with domestic chores, largely of a refined nature, such as fine sewing and the making of endless preserves, and I think rather a lot of homemade wine from quite dreadful ingredients like parsnips and nettles. Perfectly appalling! Not that I have tasted it above once! Major Rodney has left the army now, of course, and collects butterflies, or something small that crawls around on dozens of legs. He has been writing his memoirs of the Crimea for the last twenty years. I had no idea so much had happened out there!”

Charlotte hid a smile.

“And there is a portrait artist,” Vespasia continued, “Godolphin Jones, but he has been absent for some little while, in France, I believe, so he could not have dug up Augustus. And I can think of no possible reason why he should wish to.