“Quite,” Dominic agreed. “I would like him to see the workhouse in Seven Dials, as I did. It would not be a sight he would forget in a hurry.”
Alicia was looking puzzled, a slight frown on her face. “What is so dreadful about the workhouse?” she asked. “You said there was poverty, but no legislation is going to get rid of that. Workhouses at least provide people with food and shelter. There have always been rich and poor, and even if you were to alter it with some miracle, in a few years, or less, it would all be the same again-wouldn’t it? If you give a poor man money, it does not make him a rich man for long-”
“You are more perceptive than perhaps you intend,” Carlisle said with a lifting of his brows. “But if you feed the children and keep them clean from disease and despair, so they survive into adulthood without stealing to live, and give them some sort of education, then the next generation is not quite so poor.”
Alicia looked at him, absorbing the idea, realizing that he was very serious.
“God! If you’d seen it!” Dominic said sharply. “You wouldn’t be standing here discussing academic niceties; you would want to get out there and do something!” He looked across at Charlotte. “Wouldn’t they?”
A look of pain shot cross Alicia’s face, and she moved almost imperceptibly away from him. Charlotte saw it and knew exactly what she felt, the sudden sense of alienation, of being shut out of something important to him.
Charlotte looked at him hard, making her voice clear and light. “I should imagine they would. It has certainly affected you that way. You are totally changed. But I hardly think it is a suitable place to take Lady Fitzroy- Hammond, from what I have heard. My husband would not permit me to go there.”
But Dominic would not be told, nor read her hint.
“He doesn’t need to take you,” he said heatedly. “You already know about such places and the people in them, and you care. I can remember you telling me about it years ago; but I didn’t really understand what you meant then.”
“I don’t think you were listening to me!” she said quite honestly. “It has taken you a long time to believe. You must permit others a little time as well.”
“There isn’t time!”
“Indeed, there isn’t, Mrs. Pitt,” St. Jermyn said, raising his glass. “My bill comes up in a few days. If we are to get it through, we will have to have our support then. There isn’t any time to waste. Corde, I’d be most obliged if you’d tackle Fleetwood tomorrow, or the day after at the latest?”
“Of course,” Dominic said firmly. “Tomorrow.”
“Good.” St. Jermyn patted him on the shoulder, then drained his glass. “Come on, Carlisle, we’d better go and talk to our hostess; she knows simply everyone, and we need that.”
A flicker of distaste crossed Carlisle’s face for an instant and was gone almost before Charlotte was sure of it, and he moved to keep up with St. Jermyn. They walked together past the Misses Rodney and Major Rodney, holding a glass in his hand and looking anxiously over their heads as if searching for someone, or possibly fearing someone.
There was an uncomfortable silence; then Virgil Smith appeared. He looked a little doubtfully at Charlotte; then his face softened and he spoke to Alicia. It was only some common remark, quite trivial, but there was a gentleness in his voice that jarred Charlotte away from thoughts of poverty or parliamentary bills, and even suspicions of murder. It was sad, and perhaps unnoticed by anyone else, but she was quite sharply aware that Virgil Smith was in love with Alicia. Probably she had eyes only for Dominic and was not in the least conscious of it, and perhaps he would know its futility and never tell her. In those few seconds Charlotte became one person with Alicia in her mind and memory, reliving her own infatuation with Dominic, finding again the miseries and wild hopes, the silly self-deceptions, all the virtues she read into him, and how little she really knew him. She had done them both a disservice with her dreams, saddling him with virtues he had never claimed to possess.
She would not have seen Virgil Smith either, with his unsculpted face and his impossible manners, and certainly never known or wanted to know that he loved her. It would have embarrassed her. But perhaps she would have been the loser for it.
She excused herself and went to talk to Vespasia and Gwendoline Cantlay and saw more than once a look of unease pass over Gwendoline’s face as she recognized Charlotte vaguely, struggling to place her and failing. She was not sure if she knew her socially, and whether she ought to acknowledge it. With a faint malice, Charlotte allowed her to search; the satisfaction of telling her would not be as great and might possibly embarrass Aunt Vespasia. She might not care in the least if they all knew she kept company with policemen’s wives-but, on the other hand, she might prefer to select whom she told, and how!
It was late, with one or two guests departed and the gray afternoon already beginning to close in, when Charlotte found herself comparatively alone, near the entrance to the conservatory, and saw Alicia coming toward her. She had been expecting this moment; in fact, if Alicia had not chosen it, she would have contrived it herself.
Alicia had obviously been rehearsing in her mind just how she could begin; Charlotte knew it, because it was what she would have done.
“It has been a most pleasant afternoon, hasn’t it?” Alicia said quite casually as she drew level with Charlotte. “So considerate of Lady Cumming-Gould to arrange it in such a way that it is not inappropriate for me to come. Mourning seems to go on for so long, it only makes the bereavement worse. It allows no one diversion in order to relieve one’s mind from thoughts of death, or from loneliness.”
“Quite,” Charlotte agreed. “I think people do not realize the added burden it is, on top of the loss one has already sustained.”
“I did not know before today that Lady Cumming-Gold was an aunt of yours,” Alicia continued.
“I think that is rather more than the truth,” Charlotte smiled. “She is the great-aunt of my brother-in-law, Lord Ashworth.” Then she said what she intended to tell Alicia ever since the conversation with Lord St. Jermyn. “My sister Emily married Lord Ashworth a little while ago. My older sister, Sarah, was married to Dominic before she died; but then I’m sure you knew that-” She was, in fact, quite sure that she did not, but she wanted to allow Alicia room to pretend that she had.
Alicia disguised her confusion with a masterly effort. Charlotte affected not to have noticed.
“Yes, of course,” Alicia pretended. “Although he has been so taken up with this business of Mr. Carlisle’s lately that I have not talked with him much. I should be obliged if you could tell me a little more about it. You seem to be in their confidence, and I confess myself most dreadfully ignorant.”
Charlotte surprised herself by lying. “Actually, I think it is rather more Aunt Vespasia’s confidence I am in.” She kept her voice quite light. “She is very concerned with it, you know. Mr. Carlisle seems to speak to her on the subject, perhaps to gain her assistance in persuading others with seats in the House to go and support them-” She glanced at Alicia and saw the memory of St. Jermyn’s remark flicker across her face. “She does know a great many people. I have never seen a workhouse myself, naturally, but from what they have said, it is a most appalling distress which should be alleviated. And if this bill will provide maintenance and education for pauper children in the metropolis and remove them from the effects of living in the constant company of the vagrant of all sorts, I for one would hope and pray it will be passed.”
Alicia’s face softened with relief. “Oh, so do I,” she agreed intensely. “I must think if I know anyone who could help; there must be some of Augustus’s family or friends.”
“Oh, could you?” Charlotte was not playacting this time; she cared about both Dominic and Alicia because they were individual people she could understand; but perhaps if she were honest, the bill was far more important than a simple murder, whatever tragedy brought it about or followed in its wake.
Alicia smiled. “Of course. I shall begin as soon as I get home.” She held out her hand impulsively. “Thank you, Mrs. Pitt. You have been so kind, I feel as if I know you already. I hope you don’t consider that an impertinence?”
“I consider it the greatest compliment,” Charlotte said sincerely. “I hope you will feel so in the future.”
Alicia kept her word. Upon arriving home, the first thing she did after giving her cloak to the maid and changing into dry boots was to go to her writing room and take out her address book. She had very carefully composed and written four letters before going upstairs to change for the evening meal.
Verity was not home, having gone to visit a cousin for a few days, and there was no one at the table except the old lady and herself. She missed Verity, because she both enjoyed her company and would have liked to share with her the new project she had found and her thoughts on Mrs. Pitt, whom Alicia had changed from disliking
