Mina ignored her and turned to Charlotte with excitement.
“Do you go to the theater alone, Mrs. Pitt? How thrilling! Do tell us, do you have adventures?”
Grandmama pulled out a handkerchief and blew her nose loudly.
Charlotte hovered on the edge of pretending that she did do such a thing, to annoy her grandmother, then decided the embarrassment it would cause Caroline was too great to balance the pleasure.
“No, no, I never have,” she said with a touch of regret. “Is it adventurous?”
“Good gracious!” Mina looked startled. “I have no idea! One hears stories, of course, but—” Suddenly she giggled. “I should ask Mrs. Denbigh! She is just the sort of person who would have the courage to do it, if she wished.”
“I daresay.” Grandmama glowered at her. “But I have often thought that for all that she is a widow and ought to know her place better, Amaryllis Denbigh is no better than she should be! Caroline! Are we going to have tea this afternoon or sit here till dusk chattering dry?”
Caroline reached out and rang the bell.
“Of course we are, Mama. We were merely waiting until you joined us.” Over the years she had grown accustomed to calling the woman “Mama,” although she was in fact Edward’s mother.
“Indeed,” Grandmama said skeptically. “I hope there is some cake. I can’t bear all that bread cook sends up. The woman has a mania for bread. They used to know how to make a decent cake when I kept servants. Trained them properly—that’s what it all comes down to. Don’t let them get away with so much—then you’ll get cake when you want it!”
“I do get cake when I want it, Mama!” Caroline’s temper was wearing thin. “And keeping a good staff these days is a lot harder than it used to be. Times change!”
“Not for the better!” Grandmama glared at Charlotte. She refrained from saying anything about respectable women who married into the police, of all things! But only because there was an outsider present, who, please God, knew nothing about it. If she did, next thing it would be all over the neighborhood! And then heaven knew what people would say, let alone what they would think!
“Not for the better,” she said again. “Women working in offices like clerks when they ought to be in good domestic service. Whoever heard of such a thing? Who looks after their morals, I should like to know? There aren’t any butlers in offices. Not that there are many women, thank heaven! Women’s place is in a house—either their own or, if they haven’t one, somebody else’s!”
Charlotte thought of several answers and held her tongue on all of them. The conversation degenerated into pleasantries about fashion and the weather, with only occasional references to other residents of Rutland Place, and Grandmama’s dour comments upon them. They were almost finished when Edward came in, rubbing his hands a little from the cold.
“Why, Charlotte, my dear!” His face lit up with pleasure and surprise. “I had no idea you were calling or I would have come home sooner.” She stood up and he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “You look extremely well.”
“I am, thank you, Papa.” She stepped back and he noticed Mina for the first time, her pale lace almost blending into the brocade of the sofa and its cushions.
“Mrs. Spencer-Brown, how pleasant to see you.” He bowed.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Ellison,” she answered brightly, her eyes moving from Edward back to Charlotte, interested that he had not been expecting her. “You seem cold,” she observed. “Do you care to sit next to the fire?” She moved her skirt to allow him more room on the sofa beside her.
He could not decline without discourtesy, and anyway he considered the spot nearest the fire to be his right. He sat down gingerly.
“Thank you. It does appear that the weather has changed. In fact, I fear it might rain.”
“We can hardly expect better at this time of the year,” Mina replied.
Caroline met Charlotte’s eyes over the low table in a glance of helplessness, then reached for the bell to send for a fresh pot of tea for Edward, and some more cakes.
Edward received them with obvious appetite, and they all engaged in only the barest conversation for several minutes.
“Did you find that brooch you lost, my dear?” he said presently, head toward Caroline but his attention still on the cake.
Caroline colored very slightly. “Not yet, but I daresay it will turn up.”
“Didn’t know you’d lost anything!” Grandmama exclaimed. “You didn’t tell me!”
“No reason why I should, Mama,” Caroline replied, avoiding her eyes. “I’m quite sure if you had found it you would have mentioned it to me without my asking.”
“What was it?” Grandmama was not going to let go so easily.
“How unfortunate!” Mina joined in. “I hope it was not valuable?”
“I’ve no doubt it will turn up!” Caroline replied with a note of increasing sharpness in her voice. Charlotte, glancing down, saw her hands twined in the handkerchief again, white where the tightness of the linen bit into her flesh.
“I expect you have mislaid it,” she said with a smile she hoped did not look as artificial as it was. “It may be pinned to some garment you had forgotten you had worn.”
“I do hope so,” Mina said, shaking her head. Her dark blue eyes were enormous in her fragile face. “It is most distressing to have to say so, but, my dear, there have been a number of things—taken—in the Place recently!” She stopped and looked from one to another of them.
“Taken?” Edward said incredulously. “What on earth do you mean?”
