Anne Perry: Resurrection Row

Pitt’s mind flew to the dour, airless halls he had seen crammed with men, women, and children picking apart and re-sewing new shirts from old for the price of their keep. Their eyes ached and their limbs stiffened. In the summer they fainted from heat, and in the winter bronchitis racked them. But it was the only shelter for those with families, or women alone who were too old, too ugly, or too honest to go on the streets. He looked at Vespasia’s lace and Hester’s minuscule pin tucks.

“Yes,” he said harshly. “I am.”

Vespasia’s eyes gleamed in instant recognition of his thoughts. “And you do not approve,” she said slowly. “Abominable places, especially where the children are concerned.”

“Yes,” Pitt agreed.

“Nevertheless, necessary, and all the poor law allows,” she continued.

“Yes.” The word came hard.

“Politics have their uses.” She barely moved her head to indicate the others. “That is how things are changed.”

He reversed his opinion of her, mentally apologizing. “You are moving to change them?”

“It is worth trying. But no doubt you have come about that disgusting business yesterday in the church. A piece of the most appalling distaste.”

“If you please. I would appreciate speaking with you, if you will; certain investigations might be accomplished more-discreetly.”

She snorted. She knew perfectly well he meant that they might be accomplished with a good deal less trouble, and probably more accurately, but the presence of the others prevented her from saying so. He saw it in her face and smiled.

She understood precisely, and her eyes lit up, but she refused to smile back.

Carlisle stood up slowly. He was more solid and probably stronger than he had appeared at the internment.

“Perhaps there is little more that we can do at the moment,” he said to Vespasia. “I will have our notes written up, and we can consider them again. I fancy we have not yet all the information. We must supply St. Jermyn with everything there is; otherwise he will not be able to argue our case against those who have a few contradictions to it, however ill conceived.”

Hester rose also, and Desmond followed her.

“Yes,” he agreed. “I’m sure you are correct. Good morning, Lady Cumming-Gould-” He regarded Pitt indecisively, not able to address a policeman as a social equal, and yet confounded because he was apparently a fellow guest in the withdrawing room of his hostess.

Carlisle rescued him. “Good morning, Inspector. I wish you a rapid success in your business.”

“Good morning, sir.” Pitt bowed his head very slightly. “Good morning, ma’am.”

When they had gone and the door was closed, Vespasia looked up at him. “For goodness’ sake sit down,” she ordered. “You make me uncomfortable standing there like a footman.”

Pitt obeyed, finding the overstuffed sofa more accommodating than it appeared; it was soft and spacious enough for him to spread himself.

“What do you know about Lord Augustus Fitzroy-Hammond?” he asked. Suddenly the lightness had evaporated, and there was only death left-and perhaps murder.

“Augustus?” She looked at him long and steadily. “Do you mean do I know anyone who might hire lunatics to disinter the wretched man? No, I do not. He was not a person I cared for; no imagination, and therefore, of course, no sense of humor. But that is hardly a cause to dig him up-rather the opposite, I would have thought.”

“So would I,” Pitt agreed very softly. “In fact, every reason to wish him in his grave.”

Vespasia’s face changed. It was the only time he could recall her losing that magnificent composure.

“Good God!” She breathed out a long sigh. “You don’t think he was murdered!”

“I have to consider it,” he answered. “At least as a possibility. He was dug up twice now; that is more than coincidence. It may be insanity, but it is not random insanity. Whoever it is means Lord Augustus to remain unburied-for whatever reason.”

“But he was so very ordinary,” she said with exasperation and a touch of pity. “He was wealthy, but not exceptionally so; the title is not worth anything, and anyway, there is no one to inherit it. He was pleasing enough to look at, but not handsome, and far too pompous to have a romantic affaire. I really can think of-” She stood with a tired little gesture of her hands.

He waited. There was sufficient understanding between them that it would have been faintly insulting for him to have reasoned with her. She was as capable as he of seeing the nuances, the shadings of suspicion and fear.

“I suppose it is better that I tell you than you learn it from backstairs gossip,” she said irritably, angry not with him but with the circumstances.

He understood. “And probably more accurate,” he agreed.

“Alicia,” she said simply. “It was an arranged marriage, as what else could it be between a sheltered girl of twenty and a comfortable, unimaginative man in his mid-fifties?”

“She has a lover.” He stated the obvious.

“An admirer,” she corrected him. “To begin with, no more than a social acquaintance. I wonder if you have any idea how small London Society really is? In time one is bound to meet practically everybody, unless one is a hermit.”

“But now it is more than an acquaintance?”

“Naturally. She is young and has been denied the dreams of youth. She sees them parading in the ballrooms of London-what else do you expect her to do?”

“Will she marry him?”

She raised silver eyebrows very slightly, her eyes bright. There was a dry recognition of social difference in them, but whether there was amusement at it or not, he was not sure.

“Thomas, one does not remarry, or even allow oneself to be seen considering it, within a year of one’s husband’s death; whatever one may feel, or indeed do in the privacy of the bedroom. Provided, of course, that the bedroom is in someone else’s house, at a weekend, or some such thing. But to answer your question, I should imagine it is quite likely, after the prescribed interval.”

“What is he like?”

“Dark and extremely handsome. Not an aristocrat, but sufficient of a gentleman. He has manners enough, and most certainly charm.”

“Money?”

“How practical of you. Not a great deal, I think, but he does not appear to be in need of it, at least not urgently.”

“Lady Alicia inherits?”

“With the daughter, Verity. The old lady has her own money.”

“You know a great deal about their affairs.” Pitt disarmed it with a smile.

She smiled back at him. “Naturally. What else is there to occupy oneself with, in the winter? I am too old to have any affaires of interest myself.”

His smile widened to a grin, but he made no comment. Flattery was far too obvious for her.

“What is his name, and where does he live?”

“I have no idea where he lives, but I’m sure you could find out easily enough. His name is Dominic Corde.”

Pitt froze. There could not be two Dominic Cordes, not both handsome, both charming, both young and dark. He remembered him so clearly, his easy smile, his grace, his obliviousness of his young sister-in-law Charlotte, so painfully in love with him. It had been four years ago, before she met Pitt, at the start of the Cater Street murders. But do the echoes of first love ever die away? Doesn’t something linger, perhaps more imagination than fact, the dreams that never came true? But painful. .

“Thomas?” Vespasia’s voice invaded his privacy, drawing him back to the present: Gadstone Park and the disinterment of Augustus Fitzroy-Hammond. So Dominic was in love with Lady Alicia, or at least sought after her. He had seen her only twice, yet had gathered an opinion that she was utterly unlike Charlotte, far more a memory of Dominic’s first wife, Charlotte’s sister Sarah, who had been murdered in the fog. Pretty, rather pious Sarah, with the same fair hair as Alicia, the same smooth face. He could think only of Charlotte and Dominic.