far more difficult than her worst thoughts had foreseen.
“You have an extremely important choice to make,” she began, her voice low and gentle. “One which will affect the rest of your life …”
“I have no choice whatsoever,” Harriet said bluntly. “Matthew Desmond has removed them all from me. There is only one path open to me now. But that does not concern you, Mrs. Pitt. I suppose I cannot blame your husband for what has happened. After all, he is a policeman and bound to follow his duty. However, I cannot like him for it, nor you, because you are his wife. If we are to speak so plainly, which seems to be your wish, then I will be plain.”
“The matter is far too important to be anything less than plain,” Charlotte agreed, changing her mind suddenly as to how she would say what she had to. “But if you think I agree with my husband’s actions out of loyalty to him, you are mistaken. There are certain things we must believe for ourselves, regardless of what any others may think, be they fathers, husbands, political leaders or men of the church. There is an inner self, a soul, if you like, which is answerable to God, or if you do not believe in Him, then to history, or to life, or merely to yourself, and loyalty to that must supersede all other loyalties. Whatever light of truth you have glimpsed, that must never be betrayed, whatever or whoever else must fall because of it.”
“Really, Mrs. Pitt, you-”
“That sounds extreme?” Charlotte cut across her. “Of course there are ways of doing things. If you have to let someone down, deny their beliefs, you owe it to them to do it openly and honorably, to their faces and not their backs, but no one has the right to demand of you a loyalty to them above that to your own conscience….”
“No, of course not, I mean … I …” Harriet stopped, unsure where her agreement was leading her.
“I used to know a poem at school, written during the Civil War,” Charlotte went on. “By Richard Lovelace. It was called ‘To Lucasta, Going to the Wars.’ There was a line in it-‘I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honor more.’ I laughed at it then. My sister and I would ask, ‘Who is Honor Moore?” But I am beginning to understand what it means; at least in my better moments I have a glimpse of it.”
Harriet frowned at her, but she was listening.
“The finer a person is,” Charlotte continued, “then the more integrity, compassion, and courage they have, and the finer the love they can give you, and I honestly believe also the deeper the love. A shallow vessel holds less, has less from which to give, and you can reach the bottom a lot sooner than you expect or wish to.”
Harriet’s eyes had not moved from Charlotte’s face.
“What are you trying to tell me, Mrs. Pitt?”
“Do you admire a man who does what he believes to be right, indeed knows to be, only when it does not cost him anything?”
“Of course not,” Harriet replied quickly. “Anyone can do that. Most people do. Indeed it is in one’s own interest to do so. It is only when there is cost involved that there is any nobility, any honor.”
“Then your answer in words is quite different from the answer in your acts,” Charlotte pointed out, but gently, and with a look of sadness that held no criticism.
“I don’t understand you,” Harriet said slowly, but her very hesitation showed that perhaps she was beginning to.
“Don’t you? Would you have had Matthew do something he knew to be wrong in order to please you? Would you have admired that, loved him for it? If he could do something wrong, betray his country’s trust and his colleagues’ honor to please you, what else would he betray, to save himself pain or loneliness, if the occasion arose?”
Harriet’s face pinched with distress and a terrible conflict of decision.
“Would he lie to you,” Charlotte went on, “to save himself from your anger or rejection? Where does he make a stand? What truths or promises are sacred? Or can anything be broken if the pain of keeping it is sharp enough?”
“Stop it!” Harriet said. “You don’t need to go on. I know what you mean.” She drew in a long breath, twisting her fingers in her lap. “You are telling me I am wrong to blame Matthew for doing what he believed was right.”
“Don’t you believe it was right?” Charlotte pressed.
Harriet was silent for a long time.
Charlotte waited.
“Yes …” Harriet said at last, and Charlotte could guess how much it hurt her. She was in a sense turning her back on her father, admitting he was wrong. And yet it was also a kind of release from the effort of trying to maintain a fiction that tore her reason from her emotion in a conflict which would erode her as long as it lasted. “Yes, yes you are right.” She looked at Charlotte through a frown of anxiety. “Do you think he will … forgive me for my hasty judgment … and anger?”
Charlotte smiled with absolute certainty.
“Ask him,” she replied.
“I … I …” Harriet stammered.
“He is outside.” Charlotte smiled in spite of herself. “Shall I ask him to come in?” Even as she said it she moved towards the door. She barely waited to hear Harriet’s husky assent.
Matthew was sitting hunched up in the hansom, peering out, his face haggard. He saw Charlotte’s expression and eagerness and hope fought with reason in his eyes.
Charlotte stopped beside him. “Harriet says will you please come in,” she said gently. “And Matthew … she … she has realized her mistake. I think the less that is said of it, the more easily will it have some chance to heal.”
“Yes. Yes, of course. I …” He gulped. “Thank you!” And then he forgot Charlotte and strode to Harriet’s front door and through it without bothering to knock or wait for any answer.
Charlotte walked back down the pavement and quite unashamedly stared in through the front window, where she could just make out the shadows of two figures face-to-face, and the moment after they moved so close they seemed but one together as if never to let go.
When she had returned after seeing Harriet Soames and Matthew, Charlotte was in a buoyant mood, full of elation that the matter had gone so well; but there were other visions to be dealt with, which she was much less certain even as to how to approach, let alone what their resolution might be. It had all begun with the death of Arthur Desmond. Susannah’s murder was a tragedy she felt keenly, having known her; but Sir Arthur’s death was the one which hurt Pitt, and his grief was interwoven through everything because it was part of his life and could never be set aside or forgotten. And she knew, even through his silences, that there was still guilt in it.
She had the framework of a plan in her mind, but it needed someone to help, someone with access to the Morton Club, who would not in any way be associated with the police but could go there as an innocent and curious member. That person would also, of course, have to be willing to conduct such an enquiry.
The only one she knew who fitted even part of that description was Eustace March, and she was very uncertain if he could ever be persuaded to satisfy the last requirement. Still, there was only one possible way to find out.
Accordingly she sat down and wrote a letter.
“Dear …”
She hesitated, confounded as to whether she should address him as “Uncle Eustace” or “Mr. March.” The first seemed too familiar, the second too stiff. Their relationship was unique, a mixture of distant kinship, acute guilt and embarrassment, and finally antagonism over the tragedies at Cardington Crescent. Now it was a sort of truce, nervous and extremely wary on his part.
She wanted his help, needed it. His own estimation of himself was such that he would always leap to assist a woman in distress; it fitted his conception of the respective roles of male and female, and his vision of a righteous and powerful Christian, as well as a beneficent gentleman.
“Dear Mr. March,” she wrote.
“Forgive my approaching you so forthrightly, and without any preamble, but I need help with a matter of the utmost moral gravity.” She smiled as she continued. “I can think of no one else to whom I could turn with the assurance both of their ability to help, and their willingness to do so with the courage it would require, and the supreme tact. Quick judgment may be called for, great perception of men, and their motives as well as their actual honesty, and possibly even a certain physical presence and authority.”
If that did not appeal to him, nothing would! She hoped she had not overstated her case. Pitt would instantly
