him. She left a leek and potato pie in the oven and a note on the kitchen table telling him she had gone to visit Aunt Vespasia. Since it was extremely cold and a fog was drifting in off the river, she took the rather expensive step of hiring a cab to take her all the way to Vespasia's house where she was received with pleasure and some surprise.
'Is anything wrong, my dear?' Vespasia asked, and looked at Charlotte more closely. 'What is it? What has happened?'
Charlotte took the letters from her reticule and passed them over, explaining how Pitt had discovered them.
Vespasia opened them, adjusted her pince-nez on her nose, and read them slowly and without comment. Finally she put the last one down and sighed very quietly.
'How very terrible. Two lives wasted, and in such confusion and pain, over such terrible domination of one person by another. How unreasonably far we still have to go before we learn to treat each other with dignity. Thank you for showing them to me, Charlotte-although when I lie awake at night I shall wish you had not. I must speak to Somerset next time about the laws of lunacy; I am getting old to take up new causes about which I know nothing, but it will haunt me. What could be worse than madness, except to spend years as the only sane person in a fortress of the mad?'
'Don't! . . .I'm sorry. I should not have shown them to you.'
' 'No, my dear. It was very natural.'' Vespasia put her hand over Charlotte's.' 'We wish to share our pain. And better you
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should have come to me than to poor Thomas. He has seen more than enough lately, and his helplessness must hurt him.'
'Yes,' Charlotte agreed; she knew it did. But it was nearly six o'clock and time to put the next part of her plan into progress. 'I mean to visit Sir Garnet Royce, perhaps to deliver the letters to him.'' She saw Vespasia's body grow rigid. 'After all, they are his, in a sense.'
'Rubbish!' Vespasia snapped. 'My dear Charlotte, you may be able to lie successfully to other people, although I doubt it, but please do not try it with me. You do not for a moment imagine they are Sir Garnet's property. They were written by his wife to a Miss Forrester, and if they cannot be delivered to her, then they are the property of Her Majesty's Postal Service. Nor would you give a fig if they were Sir Garnet's! What do you mean to do?'
There was no more purpose in lying; it had failed. 'I mean to oblige him to know the truth, and to know that I know it,' Charlotte replied. It was not all her plan, but it was part of it.
'Dangerous,' Vespasia answered.
' 'Not if I take your carriage, with your coachman to drive me. Sir Garnet may be as angry as he likes, but he is not going to harm me. He would not dare. And I shall take only two letters, and leave the rest with you.' She waited, watching Vespasia's face. Charlotte saw the doubt in it, as Vespasia argued back and forth with herr^lf.''He deserves to know!'' she said urgently. 'The law cannot face him with it, but I can. And for Naomi's sake, and Elsie Draper's, I am going to. I shall arrive in a proper carriage, with a footman, and the servants will let me in. He cannot harm me! Please, Vespasia. All I want is the use of your carriage for an hour or two.' She considered adding, 'Otherwise I shall have to go by hansom,' but it sounded too much like pressure, and Vespasia would not care for that.
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'Very well. But I shall send Forbes as well, to ride on the box. That is my condition.'
'Thank you, Aunt Vespasia. I shall leave at about seven, if that is acceptable to you. That way I shall be most likely to find him at home, since the House of Commons is not debating anything of importance today, so I have been told.''
' 'Then you had better have supper.'' Vespasia's silver eyebrows rose. 'I presume you have left something for poor Thomas to eat?'
'Yes of course I have. And a note to tell him I am visiting you and will be home at about half past eight or nine o'clock.'
'Indeed,' Vespasia said dryly. 'Then I suppose we had better request the kitchen to send us something. Would you care for some jugged hare?'
An hour later Charlotte was
