insult to her tact; she could not afford to, and Emily was probably right.
The red dress was extremely flattering, rather too much so for someone proposing to call on the recently bereaved. Emily looked her up and down with her mouth pursed, but Charlotte was too pleased with her reflection in the glass to consider
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changing it; she had not looked so dashing since she had spent that unspeakable evening in the music hall-an incident she profoundly hoped Emily had forgotten.
'No,' she said firmly before Emily spoke. 'They are in mourning, but I am not. Anyway, if we let them know that we know they are, then we can hardly go at all! I can wear a black hat and gloves-that will be enough to tone it down. Now you had better get dressed, or we shall have wasted half the mom-ing. We don't want to find Aunt Vespasia already gone out when we get there!'
'Don't be ridiculous!' Emily snapped. 'She's seventy-four! She doesn't go calling on people at this hour! Have you forgotten all your breeding?'
But when they arrived at Great-Aunt Vespasia's house they were informed that Lady Cumming-Gould had been up for some considerable time, and had already received a caller that morning; the maid would have to see whether she was available to receive Lady Ashworth and her sister. They were invited to wait in a morning room fragrant with the earthy smell of a bowl of chrysanthemums, reflected in gold-edged French cheval glasses and echoed in a most unusual Chinese silk embroidery on the wall. They were both drawn to admire the embroidery in the minutes left them.
Vespasia Cumming-Gould threw open the doors and came in. She was exactly as Charlotte had remembered her: tall, straight as a lance, and as thin. Her aquiline face, which had been among the most beautiful of her generation, was now tilted in surprise, with eyebrows arched. Her hair was exquisitely piled in silver coils, and she had on a dress with delicate Chantilly lace over the shoulders and down to the waist. It must have cost as much as Charlotte would have spent on clothes in a year; yet, looking at it, she felt nothing but delight at seeing Aunt Vespasia, and a surging of spirit inside herself.
'Good morning, Emily.' Aunt Vespasia walked in and allowed the footman to close the doors behind her. 'My dear Charlotte, you appear extremely well. That cari only mean that either you are with child again or
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f
Emily let out her breath in a gasp of frustration.
Charlotte felt all her good intentions vanish like water through a sieve.
'Yes, Aunt Vespasia,' she agreed instantly. 'A murder.'
'That's what comes of marrying beneath you,' Aunt Vespasia said without a flicker of expression, patting Emily on the arm. 'I always thought it would be rather more fun-if, of course, one could find a man of any natural wit-and grace. I cannot bear a man who allows himself to be put upon. It is really very frustrating. I require people to know their places, and yet I despise them when they do! I think that is what I like about your policeman, my dear Charlotte. He never knows his place, and yet he leaves it with such panache one is not offended. How is he?'
Charlotte was taken aback. She had never heard Pitt described that way before. And yet perhaps she understood what Aunt Vespasia meant; it was nothing physical, rather a way,of meeting the eyes, of not permitting himself to feel insulted, whatever the intent of others. Maybe it had something to do with the innate dignity of believing.
Aunt Vespasia was staring at her, waiting.
'In excellent health, thank you,' she replied. 'But very worried about an injustice that may be about to take place-an unpardonable one!'
'Indeed?' Aunt Vespasia sat down, arranging her dress on the sofa with a single, expert movement. 'And I suppose you intend to do something about this injustice, which is why you have come. Who has been murdered? Not that disgusting business with the Waybourne boy?'
'Yes!' Emily said quickly, wrestling the initiative before Charlotte could provoke some social disaster. 'Yes, it is not necessarily what it seems.'
'My dear girl.' Aunt Vespasia's eyebrows rose in amazement. 'Very little ever is-or life would be insufferably boring. I sometimes think that is the whole purpose of
