eyes which gave Charlotte a surge of hope.
Gracie pushed her stray hair behind her ears, then turned and poked the fire vigorously to get the flames high so the kettle would boil. She dug the poker in as if she were disemboweling some mortal enemy.
Charlotte thought aloud while she fetched milk from the larder, watching where she trod because of the cats circling around her as if determined to trip her up. She poured a little into a saucer for them, and then broke off a small crust of new bread and dropped it on the floor. They fought over it, and patted it around with their paws, chasing it and diving on it.
Gracie made the tea and they sat in companionable silence sipping, while it was sharp and pungent, and still too hot. Then Charlotte went upstairs and woke first Jemima, then Daniel.
“When is Papa coming home?” Jemima asked as she washed her face, being rather generous with the water. “You said soon.” There was accusation in her voice.
Charlotte handed her the towel. What should she say? She heard the sharpness, and knew it came from fear. Life had been disrupted and neither child knew why. The unexplained made the world frightening. If one parent could go and not come back, perhaps the other could as well. Which did the least harm: the uncertain, dangerous truth; or a more comfortable lie that would get them over the next few days, but which might catch her in the end?
“Mama?” Jemima was not prepared to wait.
“I hoped it would be soon,” Charlotte replied, playing for time. “It’s a difficult case, worse than he thought.”
“Why did Papa take it, if it’s that bad?” Jemima asked, her stare level and uncompromising.
What was the answer to that? He had not known? He had had no choice?
Daniel came into the room, pulling his shirt on, his hair wet around his brow and over his ears.
“What?” He looked at his mother, then at his sister.
“He took it because it was right,” Charlotte replied. “It was the right thing to do.” She could not tell them he was in danger, that the Inner Circle had destroyed his career in vengeance for his testimony against John Adinett. Nor could she say he had to work at something or they would lose their home, perhaps even be hungry. It was too soon for such realism. Certainly she could not tell them he had discovered an evil so terrible it threatened to destroy all he knew and trusted from day to day. Dragons and ogres were for fairy stories, not reality.
Jemima frowned at her. “Does he want to come back home?”
Charlotte heard the fear in her that perhaps he had gone because he wished to. She had caught the shadow before, the unspoken thought that some piece of disobedience had made him go, that in some way Jemima had not matched up to his expectations of her and he was disappointed.
“Of course he does!” Daniel said angrily, his face flushed, his eyes hot. “That’s a stupid thing to say!” His voice was raw with emotion. His sister had challenged everything he loved.
At another time Charlotte would have told him very quickly about his language; now she was too conscious of the tremor in his voice, the uncertainty that prompted the retaliation.
Jemima was stung, but she was terrified that what she feared was true, and that was far more important than dignity.
Charlotte turned to her daughter. “Of course he wants to come home,” she said calmly, as if any other idea were not frightening, only silly. “He hates being away, but sometimes doing the right thing is very unpleasant and means you have to give up some of the things that matter most to you for a while, not forever. I expect he misses us even more than we miss him, because at least we are all together. And we are here at home, and comfortable. He has to be where he is needed, and that is not nearly as clean or pleasant as this.”
Jemima looked considerably comforted, enough to start arguing.
“Why Papa? Why not someone else?”
“Because it’s difficult, and he’s the best,” Charlotte replied, and this time it was easy. “If you are the best, that means you always have to do your duty, because there is no one else who can do it for you.”
Jemima smiled. That was an answer she liked.
“What sort of people is he chasing?” Daniel was not yet willing to let it go. “What have they done?”
This was less easy to explain. “They haven’t done it yet. He is trying to make sure that they don’t.”
“Do what?” he persisted. “What is it they are going to do?”
“Blow up places with dynamite,” she answered.
“What’s dynamite?”
“Stuff that makes things blow up,” Jemima supplied before Charlotte had time to struggle for it. “It kills people. Mary Ann told me.”
“Why?” Daniel did not think much of Mary Ann. He was disinclined to think much of girls anyway, especially on such subjects as blowing people up.
“ ’Cos they are in pieces, stupid,” she retorted, pleased to turn the charge of inferiority back at him. “You couldn’t be alive without your arms and legs or your head!”
That seemed to end the conversation for the time being, and they went down to breakfast.
It was well after nine, and Daniel was building a boat out of cardboard and glue, and Jemima was sewing, when Emily arrived to find Charlotte peeling potatoes.
“Where’s Gracie?” she said, looking around.
“Out shopping,” Charlotte replied, abandoning the sink and turning towards her.
Emily looked at her with concern, her fair eyebrows puckered a little, her eyes anxious. “How is Thomas?” she said quietly. There was no need to ask how Charlotte was; Emily could see the strain in her face, the weariness with which she moved.
“I don’t know,” Charlotte replied. “Not really. He writes often, but he doesn’t say much, and I can’t see his face, so I don’t know if he’s telling me the truth about being all right. It’s too hot for tea. Would you like some lemonade?”
“Please.” Emily sat down at the table.
Charlotte went to the pantry and returned with the lemonade. She poured two glasses full and passed one across. Then she sat down and told Emily all that had happened-from Gracie’s excursion to Mitre Square to Tellman’s visit last night. Not once did Emily interrupt her. She sat pale-faced until finally Charlotte stopped speaking.
“That is far more hideous than anything I had imagined,” she said at last, and her voice trembled in spite of herself. “Who is behind it?”
“I don’t know,” Charlotte admitted. “It could be just about anyone.”
“Does Mrs. Fetters have any idea?”
“No… at least I’m almost certain she doesn’t. The last time I was there we found Martin Fetters’s papers and it seemed he was a pretty ardent republican. If Adinett were a royalist, and part of this other terrible thing, and Fetters knew it, then that would explain why Adinett killed him.”
“Of course it would. But how can you pursue that now?” Emily leaned forward urgently. “For heaven’s sake, Charlotte, be careful! Think what they’ve done already. Adinett’s dead, but there could be any number of others alive, and you don’t have any idea who they are.”
She was right, and Charlotte had no argument against it. But she could not let go of the thoughts, the knowledge that Pitt was still in Spitalfields, and men who were guilty of monstrous crimes were going unpunished, as if it did not matter.
“We must do something about it,” Charlotte said quietly. “If we don’t at least try, who will? And I have to know if that’s the truth. Juno has the right to know why her husband was murdered. There must be people who care. Aunt Vespasia will know.”
Emily considered for a moment. “Have you thought what will happen if it is true, and because of what we do it becomes public?” she said very gravely. “It will bring down the government…”
“If they connived at keeping it secret then they need to be brought down, but by a vote of no confidence in the House, not by revolution.”
“It isn’t only what they deserve.” Emily was perfectly serious. “It is what else will happen, who will take their place. Oh, they may be bad, and I wouldn’t argue over that, but before you destroy them you have to think whether what you get instead may not be even worse.”
Charlotte shook her head.
