Surely by then there would be a message.
She had just reached for a rough, dry towel and felt its clean abrasiveness on her skin when the doorbell rang. She dropped the towel onto the bench accidentally dragging it with her elbow and pulling it onto the floor. She ignored it, running along the passage to the front door, which she flung open. A red-faced constable stood on the doorstep, misery so heavy in his features that she was instantly afraid. Her breath stopped.
“Mrs. Pitt?” he asked.
She stared at him speechlessly.
“I’m terribly sorry, ma’am,” he said wretchedly. “But I ’as ter tell yer that Inspector Pitt ’as bin arrested fer killin’ a woman in Seven Dials. ’E said as ’er neck was already broke when ’e found her-no doubtin’ it was. ’E’d never do such a fing. But fer ve time bein’ ’e’s bin took to the ’Ouse o’ Correction at Coldbath Fields. ’E’s all right, ma’am! There’s no need ter-ter take on!” He stood helpless, unable to offer any comfort. He did not know how much she knew of “the Steel,” but lies were useless: she would find out soon enough. Its nickname was a corruption of Bastille, and with good reason.
Charlotte remained frozen. At first she felt relief: at least he was not dead. That had been the fear she had not dared to name. Then a kind of darkness closed round her as if it were dusk, not dawn. Arrested! In prison? She had heard more than even Pitt knew of the houses of correction like Coldbath Fields. They were the short-term jails where people were taken before trial, or for brief sentences. No one could survive for more than a year in them; they were crowded, brutal and filthy. It had been one of Aunt Vespasia’s passions to get rid of at least the worst of the epidemic jail fever.
But surely Pitt would only be there for a few hours-a day at most-until they realized their mistake.
“Ma’am?” the constable interrupted anxiously, his blue eyes puckered and very earnest. “Mebbe you should sit down, ma’am, take a cup o’ tea.”
Charlotte looked back at him in surprise. She had forgotten he was still there. “No.” Her voice seemed to come from far away. “No, I–I don’t need to sit down. Where did you say he was-did you say Coldbath Fields?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He wanted to say something else but the words eluded him. He was used to horror and misery, but he had never had to tell a colleague’s wife that he was charged with murder-of a prostitute! His face was blurred with pity for her.
“Then I’ll have to take his things.” She was reaching for a solid idea, something practical she could latch on to, something she could do to help him. “Shirts. Clean linen. Will they feed him?”
“Yes, ma’am. But I’m sure a little extra won’t come amiss, if it’s plain like. But ’ave yer got a brother, or someone as could go for yer? It in’t a very nice place fer a lady.”
“No, I haven’t. I’ll go myself. I’ll just make sure the maid is up to care for the children. Thank you, Constable.”
“Yer sure, ma’am? In’t nuffin’ I can do?”
“Yes, I’m sure.” Leaving him on the step, she closed the door gently and walked back towards the kitchen on wobbling legs. She bumped into the door lintel on the way in, but her mind was so dazed it was moments before the pain of it registered. In time there would be a purple bruise, but all she could think of now was Pitt, cold, hungry, and at the mercy of the warders of the Steel.
Very carefully she cut the fresh loaf, buttered the slices, and then carved the cold meat that was to have done them all for the next two days. She wrapped the sandwiches and put them in a basket. Next she went upstairs and took out his newly laundered underlinen and a good shirt, then realized that was foolish and chose the oldest ones instead. She was still at the press on the landing when Gracie came down from her attic bedroom and stopped on the last stair.
“You lost summink, ma’am?”
Charlotte closed the cupboard doors and turned round slowly.
“No, thank you, Gracie, I have it. I must go out. I don’t know when I shall be back; it may be late. I took the meat for Mr. Pitt. You’ll have to find something else for us.”
Gracie blinked, hugging her shawl closer round her.
“Ma’am, you look terrible white. ’As summink ’appened?” Her little face was pinched with dismay.
There was no point in lying; Charlotte would have to tell her soon enough.
“Yes. They have arrested Mr. Pitt; they say he killed some woman in Seven Dials. I’m going to take-to take some things for him. I-” Suddenly she was on the edge of tears, she could feel her throat tighten and her voice would not come.
“I always thought some o’ them constables was daft!” Gracie said with profound contempt. “Now they really ’as gorn the ’ole way. “ ’Ooever made that mistake’ll spend the rest of ’is life eatin’ worms! An’ serve ’im right! Are you goin’ ter see the commissioner o’ police, ma’am? They can’t know ’oo they got! Why, there in’t nobody in Lunnon solved more murders than Mr. Pitt. Sometimes I think some o’ them couldn’t detect an ’ole in the ground if’ n they fell in it!”
Charlotte smiled bleakly. She looked into Gracie’s plain, indignant little face, and felt reassured.
“Yes I will,” she said more firmly. “I’ll take these things to Mr. Pitt first, then I’ll go and see Mr. Ballarat at Bow Street.”
“You do that, ma’am,” Gracie agreed. “An’ I’ll take care o’ everythin’ ’ere.”
“Thank you. Thank you, Gracie,” and she turned away quickly and hurried downstairs before emotion could overtake her again. Best not to talk. Action was easier and infinitely more useful.
But when she reached the massive gray tower and gates of Her Majesty’s House of Correction and asked to go in, they would not allow her to see Pitt. A red-nosed jailer with a perpetual cold took her basket with the food and the linen, promising lugubriously to see that they reached the prisoner. But she could not come in, it was not visiting hours, and no, he could not make an exception, he would not take a note for her. He was sorry but rules was rules.
There was no argument against such bleak refusal, and when she saw the unreachable uninterest in his watery eyes she turned and left, walking back along the wet footpath, the wind in her face, trying to think of what she would say to Ballarat. Temper passed quickly, fury at the stupidity and the injustice, and she began to think how to be practical. What would be the best way to make Ballarat act immediately? Surely a reasoned and calm explanation of the facts. He could not know what had happened or he would have done something already. He would have contacted the police station which had made such a blunder, and Pitt’s release would have been assured as soon as the appropriate message was received.
She took the next public omnibus, which was crowded with women and children. She paid her fare to the “cad,” as conductors were known, and squeezed in between a fat woman in black bombazine with a bosom like a bolster and a small boy in a sailor suit. She tried to occupy her mind by staring round her at the other passengers- the old lady with the withered face and out-of-date lace cap, the girl in the striped skirt who kept smiling at the youth with the side whiskers-but sooner or later every thought came back to Pitt and her terrible sense of being shut off from him, the threatening wave of panic at her helplessness.
By the time she got off in the Strand and walked up Bow Street to the Police station Charlotte’s heart was knocking in her chest and her legs felt shaky and uncertain. She breathed in and out deeply, but that did not steady her. She went up the steps, tripping on the top one because her feet no longer seemed coordinated. She pushed the door open and went in, suddenly realizing she had never been here before. Pitt came here every day and spoke about it so often she had assumed it would look familiar, but it was much darker and colder than she had expected. She had not imagined the smell of linoleum and polish, the worn brass of the door handles, the shiny patches on the bench where countless people had rubbed against it, waiting.
The duty constable looked up from the ledger where he was writing in studious copperplate. “Yes, ma’am, what can I do for yer?” He sized up her respectability instantly. “Lorst summat, ’ave yer?”
“No.” She swallowed hard. “Thank you. I am Inspector Pitt’s wife. I should like to see Mr. Ballarat, if you please. It is most urgent.”
The man’s face colored and he avoided her eyes. “Er- yes, ma’am. If-if yer’ll wait a few moments I’ll go an’ see.” He closed the ledger, put it away under the shelf, and disappeared out of the glass-paned door into the passageway. She could hear his muffled voice speaking hurriedly to someone beyond.
She stood on the worn linoleum floor and waited. No one came back, and she knew they were too embarrassed to face her, not knowing what to say. It frightened her. She had expected anger, defensiveness, repeated assurances that it must be a mistake and would be put right immediately. This evasion must mean either
