'Do you want some soup? It's hot.'
He glanced down at his hands. He had not even realized how cold he was. She noticed the gesture and turned back to the stove to ladle out a bowlful without waiting. She handed it to him and he took it in silence.
'What are you going to do?' she asked, dishing out her own soup and sitting down opposite him. She was afraid-afraid he would defy Athelstan and go ahead with an inquiry on his own, and perhaps be demoted, or even dismissed. They would have no money coming in. She had never been poor in her life, not really poor. After Cater Street and her parents' home, this was almost poverty-or so it had seemed the first year. Now she
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was used to it, and only thought about it as different when she visited Emily, and had to borrow clothes to go calling in. She had no idea what they would do if Pitt were to lose his job.
But she was equally afraid that he would not fight Athelstan, that he would accept Albie's death and disregard his own conscience because of her and the children, knowing their security depended on him. And Jerome would hang, and Eugenie would be alone. They would never know whether he had killed Arthur Waybourne, or if he had been telling the truth all the time and the murderer was someone else, someone still alive and still abusing young boys.
And that too would He between them like a cold ghost, a deceit, because they had been afraid to risk the price of uncovering the truth. Would he hold back from doing what he believed right because he would not ask her to pay the price- and ever afterward feel in his heart that she had robbed him of integrity?
She kept her head down as she ate the soup so he could not read her thoughts in her eyes and base any judgment on them. She would be no part of this; he must do it alone.
The soup was too hot; she put it aside and went back to the stove. Absentmindedly she stirred the potatoes and salted them for the third time.
'Damn!' she said under her breath, and poured the water off quickly down the sink, filled up the pan again, and replaced it on the stove. Fortunately, she thought he was too preoccupied to ask her what on earth she was doing.
'I'll tell Deptford they can keep him,' he said at last. 'I'll say we don't need him after all. But I'll also tell them all I know about him, and hope they treat it as murder. After all, he lived in Bluegate Fields, but there's nothing to say he was killed there. He could still have been in Deptford. What on earth are you doing with the potatoes, Charlotte?'
'I'm boiling them!' she said tartly, keeping her back to him to hide the rush of warmth inside her, the pride-probably stupid. He was not going to let it go, and thank heaven, he was not going to defy Athelstan, at least not openly. 'What did you think I was doing?'
'Well, what did you pour all the water off for?' he asked. 228
She swung around and held out the oven cloth and the pan lid.
'Do you want to do it, then?' she demanded.
He smiled slowly and slid farther down in the chair.
'No, thank you-I couldn't-I've no idea what you're making!'
She threw the cloth at him.
But she was a good deal less light about it when she faced Emily across the porcelain-spread breakfast table the following morning.
'Murdered!' she said sharply, taking the strawberry preserve from Emily's hand. 'Strangled and then put in the river. He could have gone all the way out to sea and nobody would ever have found him.'
Emily took the preserve back.
'You won't like that-it's too sweet for you. Have some marmalade. What are you going to do about it?'
'You haven't been listening!' Charlotte exploded, snatching the marmalade. 'There isn't anything we can do! Athelstan says prostitutes are murdered all the time, and it just has to be accepted! He says it as if it were a cold in the head or something.'
Emily looked at her closely, her face sharp with interest.
