“With pleasure.” He took the goblet and withdrew.
He was replaced within moments by Celeste and Angeline, still presiding over the gathering like a duchess and her lady-in-waiting. Prudence Hatch brought up the rear, her face very pale and her eyes pink rimmed. Charlotte remembered with a sharp pang of pity that Clemency had been her sister. Were it Emily who had been burned to death, she did not think she could be here with any composure at all; in fact she would probably be at home unable to stop weeping, and the idea of being civil to a lot of comparative strangers would be unbearable. She smiled at Prudence with all the gentleness she could convey, and met only a numb and confused stare. Perhaps shock was still anesthetizing at least some of the pain? The reality of it would come later in the days of loneliness, the mornings when she woke and remembered.
But Celeste was busy being the bishop’s daughter and conducting the funeral supper as it should be done. The conversation should be elevated and suitable to the occasion. Maude Dalgetty had mentioned a romantic novel of no literary pretension at all, and must be put in her place.
“I don’t mind the servants reading that sort of thing, as long as their work is satisfactory of course; but such books really have no merit at all.”
Beside her a curious mixture of expressions crossed Prudence’s face: first alarm, then embarrassment, then a kind of obscure satisfaction.
“And a lady of any breeding is far better without them,” Celeste went on. “They really are totally trivial and encourage the most superficial of emotions.”
Angeline became very pink. “I think you are too critical, Celeste. Not all romances are as shallow as you suggest. I recently-I mean, I learned of one entitled
“You what?” Celeste’s eyebrows rose in utter contempt.
“Some of them reflect what many people feel …” Angeline began, then tailed off under Celeste’s icy stare.
“I’m sure I don’t know any women who feel anything of the sort.” Celeste was not prepared to let it go. “Such fancies are entirely spurious.” She turned to Maude, apparently oblivious of Prudence’s scarlet face and wide eyes. “Mrs. Dalgetty, I am sure with your literary background, your husband’s tastes, that you found it so? Girls like Flora Lutterworth, for example … But then her status in Highgate is very recent; her background is in trade, poor girl- which of course she cannot help, but neither can she change it.”
Maude Dalgetty met Celeste’s gaze with complete candor. “Actually it makes me think of my own youth, Miss Worlingham, and I thoroughly enjoyed
Prudence blushed painfully and stared at the carpet.
“Good gracious,” Celeste replied flatly, making it very obvious she was thinking something far less civil. “Dear me.”
Shaw had returned with Vespasia’s glass of claret and she took it from him with a nod of thanks. He looked from one to another of them and noticed Prudence’s high color.
“Are you all right, Prudence?” he asked with more solicitude than tact.
“Ah!” She jumped nervously and met his concerned expression with alarm, and colored even more deeply.
“Are you all right?” he repeated. “Would you like to retire for a while, perhaps lie down?”
“No. No, I am perfectly-oh-” She sniffed fiercely. “Oh dear-”
Amos Lindsay came up behind her, glanced at Shaw, then took her by the elbow. “Come, my dear,” he said gently. “Perhaps a little air. Please allow me to help you.” And without waiting for her to make up her mind, he assisted her away from the crush and out of the door towards some private part of the house.
“Poor soul,” Angeline said softly. “She and Clemency were very fond of each other.”
“We were all fond of her,” Celeste added, and for a moment she too looked into some distance far away, or within her memory, and her face reflected sadness and hurt. Charlotte wondered how much her managerial attitude and abrasively condescending manner were her way of coping with loss, not only of a niece but perhaps of all the opportunities for affection she had missed, or forfeited, over the years. She had probably loved her father at the time, admired him, been grateful for the ample provision of home, gowns, servants, social position; and also hated him for all the things her duty had cost her.
“I mean the family,” Celeste added, looking at Shaw with sudden distaste. “There are ties of blood which no one else can understand-particularly in a family with a heritage like ours.” Shaw winced but she ignored him. “I never cease to be grateful for our blessings, nor to realize the responsibility they carry. Our dear father, Clemency’s grandfather, was one of the world’s great men. I think outside those of us of his blood, only Josiah truly appreciates what a marvelous man he was.”
“You are quite right,” Shaw said abruptly. “I certainly didn’t and don’t now…. I think he was an opinionated, domineering, sententious and thoroughly selfish old hypocrite-”
“How dare you!” Celeste was furious. Her face purpled and her whole body shook, the jet beads on her bosom scintillating in the light of the chandeliers. “If you do not apologize this instant I shall demand you leave this house.”
“Oh, Stephen, really.” Angeline moved from one foot to the other nervously. “You go too far, you know. That is unforgivable. Papa was a veritable saint.”
Charlotte struggled for something to say, anything that would retrieve an awful situation. Privately she thought Shaw might well be right, but he had no business to say so here, or now. She was still searching her brain wildly when Aunt Vespasia came to the rescue.
“Saints are seldom easy to live with,” she said in the appalled silence. “Least of all by those who are obliged to put up with them every day. Not that I am granting that the late Bishop Worlingham was necessarily a saint,” she added as Shaw’s face darkened. She held up her hand elegantly and her expression was enough to freeze the rebuttal on his lips. “But no doubt he was a man of decided opinions-and such people always arouse controversy, thank heaven. Who wills a nation of sheep who bleat agreement to everything that is said to them?”
Shaw’s temper subsided, and both Celeste and Angeline seemed to feel that honor had been served. Charlotte grabbed for some harmless subject, and heard herself complimenting Celeste on the lilies displayed on the table, rather as if laid out above a coffin.
“Beautiful,” she repeated fatuously. “Where did you find such perfect blooms?”
“Oh, we grow them,” Angeline put in, gushing with relief. “In our conservatory, you know. They require a lot of attention-” She told them all at some length exactly how they were planted, fertilized and cared for. They all listened in sheer gratitude for the respite from unpleasantness.
When Angeline finally ran out of anything to add, they murmured politely and drifted away, pretending to have caught the eye of another acquaintance. Charlotte found herself with Maude Dalgetty again, and then when she went to see if Prudence was recovered, with John Dalgetty, listening to him expound on the latest article he had reviewed, on the subject of liberty of expression.
“One of the sacred principles of civilized men, Mrs. Pitt,” he said, leaning towards her, his face intent. “The tragedy is that there are so many well-meaning but ignorant and frightened people who would bind us in the chains of old ideas. Take Quinton Pascoe.” He nodded towards Pascoe very slightly, to be sure Charlotte knew to whom he was referring. “A good man, in his own way, but terrified of a new thought.” He waved his arm. “Which wouldn’t matter if he were only limiting himself, but he wants to imprison all our minds in what he believes to be best for us.” His voice rose in outrage at the very conception.
Charlotte felt a strong sympathy with him. She could clearly recall her indignation when her father had forbidden her the newspaper, as he had all his daughters, and she felt as if all the interest and excitement in the world were passing her by and she was shut out from it. She had bribed the butler to pass her the political pages, without her parents’ knowledge, and pored over them, reading every word and visualizing the people and events in minute detail. To have robbed her of it would have been like shutting all the windows in the house and drawing the curtains.
“I quite agree with you,” she said with feeling. “Thought should never be imprisoned nor anyone told they may not believe as they choose.”
“How right you are, Mrs. Pitt! Unfortunately, not everyone is able to see it as you do. Pascoe, and those like him, would set themselves up to decide what people may learn, and what they may not. He is not personally an
