We have just such a person here, named John Dalgetty, who keeps a shop of sorts, selling books and pamphlets, some of which pander to the lowest possible tastes, some which excite flighty minds to dwell on subjects with which they are quite unable to deal, questions of philosophy disruptive both to the individual and to society.”
“Josiah would have a censor to tell everyone what they may read and what they may not.” Shaw turned to Charlotte, his arms wide, his eyebrows raised. “No one would have had a new idea, or questioned an old one, since Noah landed on Ararat. There would be no inventors, no explorations of the mind, nothing to challenge or excite, nothing to stretch the boundaries of thought. No one would do anything that hadn’t been done before. There would certainly be no Empire.”
“Balderdash,” Charlotte said frankly, then blanched at her temerity. Aunt Vespasia might be able to get away with such candor, but she had neither the social status nor the beauty for it. But it was too late to withdraw it. “I mean, you will never stop people from having radical thoughts, or from speaking them-”
Shaw started to laugh. It was a rich, wonderful sound; even around all the black crepes and the somber faces, it was full of joy.
“How can I argue with you?” He controlled his mirth with difficulty. The room seemed alight with his presence. “You are the perfect argument for your case. Obviously not even Josiah’s presence in person can stop you from saying precisely what comes into your mind.”
“I apologize,” she said, uncertain whether to be offended, embarrassed, orto laugh with him. Grandmama was outraged, probably because Charlotte was the center of attention; Caroline was mortified; and Angeline, Celeste and Prudence were struck dumb. Josiah Hatch struggled between conflicting emotions so powerful he dared not put them into speech. “I was extremely discourteous,” she added. “Whatever my opinions, they were not asked for, and I should not have expressed them so forcefully.”
“You should not have expressed them at all,” Grandmama snapped, sitting bolt upright and glaring at her. “I always said your marriage would do you no good-and heaven knows you were wayward enough to begin with. Now you are a disaster. I should not have brought you.”
Charlotte would have liked to retort that she should not have come herself-but it was not the time, and perhaps there was no such time.
Shaw came to Charlotte’s rescue.
“I am delighted that you did, Mrs. Ellison. I am exceedingly tired of the polite but meaningless conversation of people who wish to express their sympathy but endlessly repeat each other simply because there is nothing anyone can say that is deep enough.” His face lightened. “Words do not encompass it, nor do they bridge the gap between those who grieve and those who do not. It is a relief to talk of something else.”
Suddenly the memory of Somerset Carlisle and the sorrow in his face was as clear in Charlotte’s mind as if he had been here in the room with them.
“May I speak privately with you, Dr. Shaw?”
“Really!” Prudence murmured in amazement.
“Well …” Angeline fluttered her hands as if to brush something away.
“Charlotte,” Caroline said warningly.
The same smile touched Shaw’s mouth with amusement.
“Certainly. We shall repair to the library.” He glanced at Celeste. “And leave the door open,” he added deliberately, and watched her scowl with irritation. A protest rose to her lips, and she abandoned it; the explanation of what she had not thought, or implied, was worse than its absence. She shot him a look of intense annoyance.
He held the door open for Charlotte and then as she swept out, chin high, he followed her and strode ahead. Since she had no idea where she was going, he led the way to the library, which turned out to be as impressive and pompous as the hall, with cases and cases of leather-bound books in brown and burgundy and dark green, all lettered with gold. Pious scripts were framed in mahogany on the free wall space, and there was a large picture of some high church dignitary above the mantelpiece, carved in marble and inset with quartz pillars supporting the shelf. Massive leather-covered chairs occupied much of the dark green carpet, giving the whole room a claustrophobic feeling. A large bronze statue of a lion ornamented the one table. The curtains, like those in the withdrawing room, were heavily fringed, tied back with fringed sashes, and splayed carefully over the floor at their base.
“Not a room to put you at your ease, is it?” Shaw met her eyes very directly. “But then that was never the intention.” A smile curled the corners of his mouth. “Are you impressed?”
“That was the intention?” She smiled back.
“Oh assuredly. And are you?”
“I’m impressed with how much money he must have had.” She was perfectly frank without even considering it. He was a man whose honesty demanded from her exactly the same. “All these leather-bound books. There must be a hundred pounds’ worth in every case. The contents of the whole room would keep an average family for at least two years-food, gaslight, a new outfit for every season, coal enough to keep them thoroughly warm, roast beef every Sunday and goose for Christmas, and pay a housemaid to boot.”
“Indeed it is, but the good bishop did not see it that way. Books are not only the source of knowledge, but the display of them is the symbol of it.” He made a slight gesture of distaste with his shoulders, and paced over to the mantel, and back again, straightening the bronze as he passed it.
“You were not fond of him,” she said with a half smile.
Again his face was unwaveringly direct. In any other man she might have felt it bold, but it was so obviously part of his nature only the most conceited woman would have interpreted it so.
“I disagreed with him about almost everything.” He waved his hands. “Not, of course, that that is the same thing. I do not mean to equivocate. I apologize. No, I was not fond of him. Some beliefs are fundamental, and color everything that a man is.”
“Or a woman,” she added.
His smile was sudden and illuminated his entire face. “Of course. Again, I apologize. It is very avant-garde to suppose that women think at all; I am surprised you mention it. You must keep most unusual company. Are you related to the policeman Pitt who is investigating the fire?”
She noticed that he did not say “Clemency’s death,” and the flicker of pain in his moment of hesitation was not lost on her. He might mask the hurt, but the second’s glimpse of it showed a side of him that she liked even better.
“Yes-he is my husband.” It was the only time she had admitted it when she was involving herself in a case. Every other time she had used her anonymity to gain an advantage. And also, the wives of policemen were not received in society, any more than would be the tradesmen’s wives. Commerce was considered vulgar; trade was beneath mention. In fact the very necessity of earning money at all was not spoken of in the best circles. One simply presumed it came from lands or investments. Labor was honest and good for the soul, and the morals; but the more leisure one had, the greater status one possessed.
He stood perfectly still for a moment, and the very unnaturalness of it in him spoke a kind of pain.
“Is that why you came-to learn more information about us? And brought your mother and grandmother too!”
The only possible answer was the truth. Any alternatives, however laced with honesty, would jar on his ear and degrade them both.
“I think curiosity may well be why Grandmama came. Mama, I think, came with her to try to make it a little less-awful.” She stood facing him across the table with its rampant bronze lion. “I came because I heard from Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould, and Mr. Somerset Carlisle, that Mrs. Shaw was a most remarkable person who had given much time to fighting against the power of slum landlords, that she wished to change the law to make them more accessible to public awareness.”
They were standing barely a yard from each other and she was acutely aware of his total attention.
“Mr. Carlisle said she had an unusual passion and unselfishness about it,” she went on. “She was not looking for personal praise nor for a cause to occupy herself, but that she simply cared. I felt such a woman’s death should not go unsolved, nor people who would murder her in order to protect their miserable money remain unexposed-and perhaps scandal of that might even further her work. But your aunts tell me she was not involved in anything of that kind. So it seems I have the wrong Clemency Shaw.”
“No you have not.” Now his voice was very quiet and he moved at last, turning a little away from her towards
