“I’ll try. But you said not to count on it.”
There was a movement on the landing beyond the door, and Karansky turned. Pitt saw past him where a handsome woman stood just behind. She must have been almost Karansky’s age, but her hair was still thick and dark although her face was lined with weariness and anxiety and her eyes held a haunted look, as if fear were a constant companion. Nevertheless her features were beautifully proportioned, and there was a dignity in her that experience had refined rather than destroyed.
“Is the room right for you?” she asked tentatively.
“It is good, Leah,” Karansky assured her. “Mr. Pitt will stay with us. He will look for a job tomorrow.”
“Saul needs help,” she said, looking past her husband to Pitt. “Can you lift and carry? It is not hard.”
“He was asking about the sugar factory,” Karansky told her “Perhaps he would rather be there.”
She looked surprised, worried, as if Karansky had done something which disappointed her. She frowned. “Wouldn’t Saul’s be better?” Her expression indicated that she meant far more than the simple words, and she expected him to understand.
Karansky shrugged. “You can try both, if you want.”
“You said I wouldn’t get anything at the sugar factory unless I knew someone,” Pitt reminded him.
Karansky gazed back in silence for several seconds, as if trying to decide how much of what he had said was honest, and the truth of it eluded him.
It was Mrs. Karansky who broke the silence.
“The sugar factory is not a good place, Mr. Pitt. Saul won’t pay as much, but it’s a better place to work, believe me.”
Pitt tried to balance in his mind the advantages of safety and the appearance of ordinary common sense against the loss of opportunity to discover what was so dangerous about the sugar factories which supported half the community, either directly or indirectly.
“What does Saul do?” he asked.
“Weave silk,” Karansky answered.
Pitt had a strong feeling that Karansky expected him to be interested in the sugar factory, to go for that job in spite of any warning. He remembered Narraway’s words about trust.
“Then I think I’ll go to see him tomorrow, and if I’m lucky, he may give me some work,” he replied. “Anything will be better than nothing, even a few days.”
Mrs. Karansky smiled. “I’ll tell him. He’s a good friend. He’ll find a place for you. May not be much, but it’s as certain as anything is in this life. Now you must be hungry. We eat in an hour. Come, join us.”
“Thank you,” Pitt accepted, remembering the smell from the kitchen and recoiling from the thought of going out again into the sour, gray streets with their smell of dirt and misery. “I will.”
4
IT WAS NOT the first night on which Pitt had been away from home, but Charlotte felt a kind of loneliness that she had not experienced at other times, perhaps because now she had no idea when he would be back, or even if. When he was, it would be only temporary.
She lay awake a long time, too angry to sleep. She tossed and turned, pulling the bedclothes with her until she had made a complete mess of them. Finally at about two o’clock she got up, stripped the bed and remade it with clean sheets. Half an hour later she finally slept.
She woke in broad daylight with a headache—and a determination to do something about the situation. It was not tolerable simply to endure it. It was completely unjust, firstly and mostly of course to Pitt, but also to the whole family.
She dressed and went downstairs to the kitchen, where she found Gracie sitting at the table. The scullery door was open and a shaft of sunlight fell across the scrubbed floor. The children had already gone to school. She was angry with herself for missing them, especially today.
“Mornin’, ma’am.” Gracie stood up and went over to the kettle, which was singing on the hob. “I got fresh tea ready.” She poured it into the pot as she spoke and carried it back to the table, where there were two cups waiting. “Daniel and Jemima’s fine this mornin’, off wi’ no trouble, but I bin thinkin’. We gotta do summink about this. It in’t right.”
“I agree,” Charlotte said instantly, sitting down opposite her and wishing the tea would brew more quickly.
“Toast?” Gracie offered.
“Not yet.” Charlotte shook her head very slightly. It still throbbed. “I was also thinking about it half the night, but I still don’t know what there is we can do. Mr. Pitt told me that Commander Cornwallis said it was for his own safety, as well as to keep him in a job of some sort. The people he’s upset would be happy to see him with nothing, and where they can reach him.” She did not want to put it into words, but she needed to explain. “They might have meant him to have an accident in the street, or something like that …”
Gracie was not shocked; perhaps she had seen too much death when she was growing up in the East End. There was nothing about poverty she had not known, even if some of it was receding into memory now. But she was angry, her thin, little face hardened and her lips drawn into a tight line.
“All because ’e done ’is job right an’ got that Adinett ’anged? Wot der they want ’im ter do? Pretend like it in’t wrong ’e murdered Mr. Fetters? Or just act daft like ’e never realized wot ’appened?”
“Yes. I think that’s exactly what they wanted,” Charlotte answered. “And I think not every doctor would have seen anything wrong. It was just their bad luck that Ibbs was quick enough to realize there was something odd, and it was Thomas he called.”
