“I realize it is absurdly short notice,” Chancellor went on. “But history waits for no man, and our treaty with Germany is on the doorstep.”
“Of course,” Pitt accepted. What Chancellor had said was true. It would be an ideal situation in which to make some judgment of the men in a more personal capacity. “It is an excellent idea. Thank you for your assistance, sir.”
“Yourself and your wife? You are married, I presume?”
“Yes indeed.”
“Excellent. I shall have my footman deliver them by six. Your address?”
Pitt gave it, with pleasure that it was the new house, and after a moment or two, took his leave. If he were to attend a reception at Marlborough House in a few hours, he had a very great deal to attend to. And Charlotte would have even more. Her sister, Emily, from whom she usually borrowed gowns for the better social occasions, was currently abroad in Italy again. Her husband, Jack, was very newly a member of Parliament, and since Parliament was in recess for the summer, they had taken the opportunity to travel. Borrowing from her would not be possible. She would have to try Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould, Emily’s great-aunt by her first marriage, to Lord Ashworth.
“What?” Charlotte said in disbelief. “Tonight? That’s impossible! It’s nearly five o’clock now!” She was standing in the kitchen with plates in her hand.
“I do realize it is not much time….” Pitt began. It was only now beginning to dawn upon him what an enormity he had committed.
“Not much time!” Her voice rose in something close to a squeal and she put the plates down with a clatter. “To prepare for something like this would take a week. Thomas, you do know who the Duchess of Marlborough is, I suppose? There could be royalty present! There could be everybody who is anyone at all-there almost certainly will be.” Suddenly the outrage vanished from her face and was replaced by an overwhelming curiosity. “How in Heaven’s name did you get an invitation to the Duchess of Marlborough’s reception? There are people in London who would commit crimes to get such a thing.” Amusement tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Don’t tell me someone has?”
He felt laughter at the absurdity of it well up inside him too. It was such a wild contrast with the truth. Perhaps he ought not to mention it to her. It was a highly confidential matter, but he had always trusted her in the past, although of course no previous case had involved matters of state.
She saw his hesitation. “They have!” Her eyes were wide, and she was uncertain whether to laugh or not.
“No-no,” he said hastily. “The matter is very much more serious than that.”
“Are you not working on Sir Arthur’s death?” she said quickly. “That can’t have anything to do with the Duchess of Marlborough. And even if it had, you wouldn’t just get an invitation because you wanted one. I don’t think even Aunt Vespasia could do that.” That was the height of social power.
Vespasia had been the foremost beauty of her day, not only for her classic features and exquisite coloring, but for her grace, wit and extraordinary panache. Now in her eighties, she was still beautiful. Her wit had sharpened because she was assured in her position, and no longer cared in the slightest what anyone thought of her, as long as she rested easily in her own conscience. She espoused causes few others dared to, liked and disliked whom and what she pleased, and enjoyed pastimes of which many a younger and more cautious woman would have been afraid. But she still could not command an invitation to the Duchess of Marlborough’s receptions at short notice, and for someone else.
“Yes, I am working on Sir Arthur’s death,” Pitt answered with some stretching of the truth. He followed her as she whirled into sudden activity, turning to go into the passage and up the stairs.
“But I am also working on another matter Matthew left with me this morning, and it is in connection with that,” Pitt said from behind her, “that we are going to the Duchess of Marlborough’s this evening. The invitations came through Mr. Linus Chancellor, of the Colonial Office.”
She stopped on the landing. “Linus Chancellor. I’ve heard of him. He’s very charming, and extremely clever, so they say. He may even be Prime Minister one day.”
He smiled, and then hid it almost immediately as he followed her into the bedroom. Charlotte no longer moved in the social circles where people discussed serious politicians, as she had done before she had shocked her friends by marrying a policeman, a dramatic reduction of both her financial and social circumstances.
Her face fell. “Is that mistaken? Is he not charming at all?”
“Yes, he is most charming, and I should judge also very clever. Who told you about him?”
“Emily,” she answered, throwing open the wardrobe door. “Jack has met him several times. But also Mama.” She realized what he had meant. “All right, only two people. You actually met him today? Why?”
He was undecided for only a moment.
“It is highly confidential. It is a matter of state. I am not revealing the whole business even to those I question. Certain information is being passed from the Colonial Office to other people who should not know it.”
She swung around to stare at him. “You mean there is a traitor in the Colonial Office? That’s terrible! Why couldn’t you just say that, instead of hemming and hawing? Thomas, you are becoming pompous.”
“Well-I …” He was horrified. He loathed pomposity. He swallowed. “Can you find something to wear and get ready, or not?”
“Yes of course I can,” she said instantly, eyes wide, as if the answer were the only one possible.
“How?”
She shut the wardrobe door. “I don’t know yet. Give me a moment to think. Emily is away, but Aunt Vespasia is not. She has a telephone. Perhaps I can reach her and ask her advice. Yes. I’ll do that immediately.” And without waiting for comment from him, she brushed past him and went across the landing and down the stairs to the hallway where the new telephone was situated. She picked up the receiver. She was extremely unfamiliar with the instrument, and it took her several minutes before she was successful. She was naturally answered by the maid, and was obliged to wait for several moments.
“Aunt Vespasia.” Her voice was unusually breathless when she heard Vespasia at last. “Thomas has just been put onto a most important case, which I cannot discuss, because I know very little about it, except that he has been invited immediately, this evening, to attend the reception at the Duchess of Marlborough’s.”
There was a very slight hesitation of surprise at the other end of the line, but Vespasia was too well bred to allow herself anything more.
“Indeed? It must be of the utmost gravity for Her Grace of Marlborough to allow the slightest alteration to her plans. How may I be of assistance, my dear? I imagine that is why you have called?”
“Yes.” From anyone else such candor would have been disconcerting, but Vespasia had never been anything but frank with Charlotte, nor Charlotte with her. “I am not quite sure what to wear to such a function,” Charlotte confessed. “I have never been to anything quite so-so very formal. And of course I do not own such a thing anyway.”
Vespasia was thinner than Charlotte, but of a similar height, and it would not be the first occasion for which she had lent her a gown. Policemen of Pitt’s previous rank did not earn the kind of salary to afford their wives attire for the London Season, and indeed none of them would have been invited.
“I shall find something suitable and have my footman bring it over,” Vespasia said generously. “And don’t worry about the time. It is not done to arrive early. About half past ten would be excellent. They will serve supper at around midnight. One should be there between thirty and ninety minutes of the hour mentioned on the invitation, which, if I recollect, is eleven o’clock. It is a formal occasion.” She did not add that more intimate receptions might well begin an hour earlier. She expected Charlotte to know that.
“Thank you very much,” Charlotte said with real gratitude. It was only after she had put the receiver back on its hook that she realized if Vespasia knew the time on the invitation, she must have one herself.
The dress, when it arrived, was quite the loveliest she had ever seen. It was of a deep blue-green shade, cut high at the front, and with a sheer sleeve, and decorated with a delicate beading at throat and shoulder. The bustle was narrow and heavily draped, caught up in a bow of gold and a shade of the gown itself, but so dark as to appear almost black. Included with it was a most elegant pair of slippers to match. The whole effect made her think of deep water, exotic seas and wild dawns over the sand. If she looked even half as wonderful as she felt, she would be the envy of every woman in the place.
