Highgate Rise

7

CHARLOTTE WAS deeply distressed that Lindsay had died in the second fire. Her relief that Shaw had escaped was like a healing on the surface of the first fear, but underneath that skin of sudden ease there ached the loss of a man she had seen and liked so very shortly since. She had noticed his kindness, especially to Shaw at his most abrasive. Perhaps he was the only one who understood his grief for Clemency, and the biting knowledge that she might have died in his place; that some enmity he had earned, incited, somehow induced, had sparked that inferno.

And now Amos Lindsay was gone too, burned beyond recognition.

How must Shaw be feeling this morning? Grieved—bewildered—guilty that yet another had suffered a death meant for him—frightened in case this was not the end? Would there go on being fires, more and more deaths until his own? Did he look at everyone and wonder? Was he even now searching his memory, his records, to guess whose secret was so devastating they would murder to keep it? Or did he already know—but feel bound by some professional ethic to guard it even at this price?

She felt the need for more furious action while the questions raced through her thoughts. She stripped the beds and threw the sheets and pillowcases down the stairs, adding nightshirts for all the family, and towels; then followed them down, carrying armfuls into the scullery, off the kitchen, where she filled both tubs with water and added soap to one, screwed the mangle between them, and began the laundry. She was in one of her oldest dresses, sleeves rolled up and a pinafore around her waist, scrubbing fiercely, and she let her mind return to the problem again.

For all the possible motives to murder Shaw, including money, love, hate and revenge (if indeed someone believed him guilty of medical neglect, Theophilus Worlingham or anyone else), her thoughts still returned to Clemency and her battle against slum profiteers.

She was up to her elbows in suds, her pinafore soaked, and her hair falling out of its pins, when the front doorbell rang. Fishmonger’s boy, she thought. Gracie will get it.

A moment later Gracie came flying back up the corridor, her feet clattering on the linoleum. She swung around the kitchen doorway, breathless, her eyes wide with amazement, awe and horror as she saw her mistress.

“Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould!” she said squeakily. “She’s right ’ere be’ind me, ma’am! I couldn’t put ’er in the parlor, ma’am; she wouldn’t stay!”

And indeed Great-Aunt Vespasia was on Gracie’s heels, elegant and very upright in a dark teal gown embroidered in silver on the lapels, and carrying a silver-topped cane. These days she was seldom without it. Her eyes took in the kitchen, scrubbed table, newly blacked range, rows of blue-and-white china on the dresser, earthenware polished brown and cream, steaming tubs in the scullery beyond, and Charlotte like a particularly harassed and untidy laundry maid.

Charlotte froze. Gracie was already transfixed to the spot as Vespasia swept past her.

Vespasia regarded the mangle with curiosity. “What in heaven’s name is that contraption?” she inquired with her eyebrows raised. “It looks like something that should have belonged to the Spanish Inquisition.”

“A mangle,” Charlotte replied, brushing her hair back with her arm. “You push the clothes through it and it squeezes out the soap and water.”

“I am greatly relieved to hear it.” Vespasia sat down at the table, unconsciously arranging her skirts with one hand. She looked at the mangle again. “Very commendable. But what are you going to do about this second fire in Highgate? I presume you are going to do something? Whatever the reasons for it, it does not alter the fact that Clemency Shaw is dead, and deserves a better epitaph than that she was murdered in error for her husband.”

Charlotte wiped her hands and came to the table, ignoring the sheets still soaking in the tub. “I am not sure that she was. Would you like a cup of tea?”

“I would. What makes you believe that? Why should anyone murder poor Amos Lindsay, if not in an attempt to get rid of Shaw more successfully than last time?”

Charlotte glanced at Gracie, who at last moved from the doorway and reached for the kettle.

“Maybe they were afraid Shaw had realized who they were, or that he might realize?” she suggested, sitting down opposite Vespasia. “He may well have all the information, if he knew how to add it up and see the pattern. After all, he knew what Clemency was doing; she may have left papers which he had seen. In fact, that may be why they chose fire. To destroy not only Clemency but all the evidence she had collected.”

Vespasia straightened a little. “Indeed, that is something I had not considered. It is foolish, because it makes no difference to her, poor creature, but I should prefer not to believe she did not even die in her own right. If Shaw knows already who it is, why does he not say so? Surely he has not yet worked it out, and certainly has no proof. You do not suggest he is in any kind of collusion with them?”

“No—”

Behind Charlotte, Gracie was rather nervously heating the teapot and spooning in tea from the caddie. She had never prepared anything for someone of Great-Aunt Vespasia’s importance before. She wished to make it exactly right, and she did not know what exactly right might be. Also she was listening to everything that was said. She was horrified by and very proud of Pitt’s occupation, and of Charlotte’s occasional involvement.

“I assume Thomas has already thought of everything that we have,” Vespasia continued. “Therefore for us to pursue that line would be fruitless—”

Gracie brought the tea, set it on the table, the cup rattling and slopping in her shaking hands. She made a half curtsey to Vespasia.

“Thank you.” Vespasia acknowledged it graciously. She was not in the habit of thanking servants, but this was obviously different. The child was in a state of nervous awe.

Gracie blushed and withdrew to take up the laundry where Charlotte had left off. Vespasia wiped out her saucer with the napkin Charlotte handed her.

Charlotte made her decision.

“I shall learn what I can about Clemency’s work, who she met, what course she followed from the time she began to care so much, and somewhere I shall cross the path of whoever caused these fires.”

Vespasia sipped her tea. “And how do you intend to do it so you survive to share your discoveries with the rest of us?”

“By saying nothing whatever about reform,” Charlotte replied, her plan very imperfectly formed. “I shall begin with the local parish—” Her mind went back to her youth, when she and her sisters had trailed dutifully behind Caroline doing “good works,” visiting the sick or elderly, offering soup and preserves and kind words. It was part of a gentlewoman’s life. In all probability Clemency had done the same, and then seen a deeper pain and not turned away from it with complacency or resignation, but questioned and began the fight.

Vespasia was looking at her critically. “Do you imagine that will be sufficient to safeguard you?”

“If he murders every woman who is involved in visiting or inquiring after the parish poor, he will need a bigger conflagration than the great fire of London,” Charlotte replied with decision. “Anyway,” she added rather more practically, “I shall be a long way from the kind of person who owns the properties. I shall simply start where Clemency started. Long before I discover whatever someone murdered to keep, I shall draw other people in, you and Emily—and of course Thomas.” Then suddenly she thought she might be being presumptuous. Vespasia had not said she wished to be involved in such a way. Charlotte looked at her anxiously.

Vespasia sipped her tea again and her eyes were bright over the rim of her cup.

“Emily and I already have plans,” she said, setting the cup down in its saucer and looking over Charlotte’s shoulder at Gracie, who was self-consciously scrubbing at the washboard, her shoulders hunched. “If you think it advisable not to go alone, leave the children with your mother for a few days and take your maid with you.”

Grade stopped in mid-motion, laundry dripping in the sink, her back bent, her hands in the air. She let out a long sigh of exquisite anticipation. She was going to detect—with the mistress! It would be the biggest adventure of her entire life!

Charlotte was incredulous. “Gracie!”

“And why not?” Vespasia inquired. “It would appear quite natural. I shall lend you my second carriage and Percival to drive it for you. There is no point in doing it if you do not do it as well as possible. I am concerned in the matter. My admiration for Clemency Shaw is considerable. I shall require you to inform me of your findings, if any. Naturally you will also tell Thomas. I have no intention of allowing the whole thing to be swallowed up in public assumption that the intended victim was Stephen Shaw, and Clemency’s death can be dismissed as an error, however tragic. Oh!” Her face fell with sudden awful comprehension. “Do you think it is conceivable that that is why poor Lindsay was murdered? So we might well assume Clemency’s death was unintended? How cold-bloodedly deliberate.”

“I am going to find out,” Charlotte said quietly with a little shiver. “As soon as Percival arrives with the carriage, I shall take the children to Mama’s, and we shall begin.”

“Fetch what they require,” Vespasia commanded. “And I shall take them with me on my return. I have no errands until this evening when the House rises.”

Charlotte got to her feet. “Somerset Carlisle?”

“Just so. If we are to fight against the slum profiteers, we require to know the exact state of the law, and what it is most reasonable to expect we may achieve. One may assume that Clemency did much the same, and discovered some weakness in their position. We need to know what it was.”

Gracie was scrubbing so hard the board was rattling in the tub.

“Stop that now, child!” Vespasia ordered. “I can hardly hear myself think! Put it through that contraption and hang it up. I am sure it is clean enough. For goodness sake, they are only bed sheets! Then when you have done that, go and tidy yourself up and put on a coat, and a hat if you have one. Your mistress will require you to accompany her to Highgate.”

“Yes ma’am!” Gracie heaved the entire lot of linen up, standing on tiptoe to get it clear of the water, dropped it in the clean water in the opposite tub, pulled the plug, then began to pay it through the mangle, winding like fury in her excitement.

Vespasia seemed completely unaware that she had just given a complete hour’s instructions to someone else’s servant. It seemed common sense, and that was sufficient to justify it.

“Go upstairs to the nursery and pack whatever is necessary,” she continued, speaking to Charlotte in almost the same tone of voice. “For several days. You do not want to be anxious for them while you are endeavoring to unravel this matter.”

Charlotte obeyed with a very slight smile. She did not resent being ordered around; it was what she would have done anyway, and the familiarity with which Vespasia did it was a kind of affection, also an unspoken trust that they were involved in the affair together and desired the same end.

Upstairs she found Jemima solemnly practicing her writing. She had progressed from the stage of rather carefully drawing letters and now she did them with some abandon, confident she was making words, and of their meaning. Sums she was considerably less fond of.

Daniel was still struggling, and with immeasurable superiority now and again Jemima gave him assistance, explaining carefully precisely what he must do, and why. He bore it with placid good nature, imitating her round script and concealing both his ignorance and his admiration behind a frown of attention. It can be very difficult being four and having a sister two years older.

“You are going to stay with Grandmama for a few days,” Charlotte informed them with a bright smile. “You will enjoy it very much. You can take your lessons with you if you wish, but you don’t have to do them more than an hour or two in the mornings. I shall explain why you are not at school. If you are good, Grandmama might take you for a carriage ride, to the zoo perhaps?”

She had their immediate cooperation, as she had intended. “You will be going with Great-Aunt Vespasia, who is ready to take you as soon as you are packed. She is a very important lady indeed, and you must do everything exactly as she tells you.”

“Who is Great Vepsia?” Daniel asked curiously, his face puckered up trying to remember. “I only ’member Aunt Emily.”

“She is Aunt Emily’s aunt,” Charlotte simplified for the sake of clarity, and to avoid mentioning George, whom Jemima at least could recall quite clearly. She did not understand death, except in relation to small animals, but she knew loss.

Daniel seemed satisfied, and rapidly Charlotte set about putting into a Gladstone bag everything they would require. When it was fastened she made sure they were clean and wrapped up in coats and that their gloves were attached to their cuffs, their shoes buttoned, their hair brushed and their scarves tied. Then she took them downstairs to where Vespasia was waiting, still seated in the kitchen chair.

They greeted her very formally, Daniel half a step behind Jemima, but as she took out her lorgnette to regard them, they were so fascinated by it they forgot to be shy. Charlotte had no qualms as she watched them mount into the carriage, with considerable assistance from the footman, and depart along the street.

Gracie was so excited she could hardly hold her comb in her hand to tidy her hair, and her fingers slipped and made a knot in the strings of her bonnet which she would probably have to cut with scissors ever to get it off again. But what did it matter? She was going with the mistress to help her detect! She had very little clear idea of what it would involve, but it would absolutely without question be marvelously interesting and very important. She might learn secrets and make discoveries concerning issues of such magnitude that people were prepared to commit murder in their cause. And possibly it would even be dangerous.

Of course she would walk a couple of steps behind, and only speak when she was invited to; but she would watch and listen all the time, and notice everything that anyone said or did, even the way their faces looked. Maybe she would notice something vital that no one else did.

It was some two hours later when Charlotte and Gracie descended from the second carriage. They were handed down by Percival, to Gracie’s intense delight; she had never ridden in a proper carriage before, still less been assisted by another servant. They walked up the path to St. Anne’s Church side by side at Charlotte’s insistence, in hope of finding someone there who might guide them in matters of parish relief, and thus to a more precise knowledge of Clemency Shaw’s interest in housing.

Charlotte had given the matter a good deal of thought. She did not wish to be open about her intentions and it had been necessary to construct a believable story. She had tussled with the problem without success until Gracie, biting her lip and not wishing to be impertinent, had suggested they inquire about a relative who had been thrown on the parish as a result of widowhood, which they had just heard about and were anxious to help.

Charlotte had thought this so unlikely to be true that even Hector Clitheridge would doubt it, but then Gracie had pointed out that her Aunt Bertha had been in just such a predicament, and Gracie had indeed heard about it only two weeks ago. Then Charlotte realized what she meant, and seized upon the idea instantly.

“O’ course me Aunt Bertha din’t live in ’Ighgate,” Gracie said honestly. “She lived in Clerkenwell—but then they dunno that.”

And so after learning that there was no one in at the parsonage, they repaired to the church of St. Anne’s itself, and found Lally Clitheridge arranging flowers in the vestry. She turned at the sound of the door opening, a look of welcome on her face. Then she recognized Charlotte and the smile froze. She kept the Michaelmas daisy in her hand and did not move from the bench.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Pitt. Are you looking for someone?”

“I expect you could help me, if you would be so kind,” Charlotte answered, forcing a warmth into her voice which did not come naturally in the face of Lally’s chill gaze.

“Indeed?” Lally looked beyond her at Gracie with slightly raised brows. “Is this lady with you?”

“She is my maid.” Charlotte was conscious as she said it of sounding a trifle pompous, but there was no other reasonable answer.

“Good gracious!” Lally’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you unwell?”

“I am perfectly well, thank you.” It was becoming harder and harder to keep an amiability in her tone. She wanted to tell Lally she owed her no account of her arrangements and would give none, but that would defeat her purpose. She needed at the least an ally, better still a friend. “It is on Gracie’s behalf we are here,” she continued her civil tone with an effort. “She has just heard that her uncle has died and left her aunt in very poor circumstances, most probably a charge on the parish. Perhaps you would be kind enough to tell me which of the ladies in the neighborhood have been most involved in charitable works and might know of her whereabouts.”

Lally was quite obviously torn between her dislike for Charlotte and her compassion for Gracie, who was staring at her belligerently, but Lally apparently took it for well-controlled grief.

“You do not know her address?” She looked past Charlotte as if she had not been there. It was an excellent compromise.

Gracie’s mind was quick. “I know ’er old ’ouse, ma’am; but I’m afraid wot wif poor Uncle Albert bein’ took so sudden, and not much put by, that they might’a bin put out on the street. They’d ’ave no one to turn to, ’ceptin the parish.”

Lally’s face softened. “There’s been no Albert buried in this parish, child; not in more than a year. And believe me, I mark every burial. It is part of my Christian duty, as well as my wish. Are you sure it is here in Highgate?”

Gracie did not look at Charlotte, but she was acutely conscious of her a foot or two away.

“Oh, yes ma’am,” she replied earnestly. “I’m sure that’s wot they said. Per’aps if you would just tell us the names o’ the other ladies as ’elps them as is in trouble, we could ask an’ mebbe they’d know, like?” She smiled appealingly, putting to the front of her mind their purpose in having come; it was, after all, the greater loyalty. This must be what detecting involved, learning facts people were reluctant to tell you.

Lally was won over, in spite of herself. Still ignoring Charlotte she directed her answer to Gracie.

“Of course. Mrs. Hatch may be able to assist you, or Mrs. Dalgetty, or Mrs. Simpson, Mrs. Braithwaite or Miss Crombie. Would you like their addresses?”

“Oh, yes ma’am, if you’d be so good?”

“Of course.” Lally fished in her reticule for a piece of paper, and failed to find a pencil.

Charlotte produced one and handed it to her. She took it in silence, wrote for several moments, then gave the slip to Gracie, who took it, still without looking at Charlotte, and held on to it tightly. She thanked Lally with a slight curtsey.

“That’s ever so kind of you, ma’am.”

“Not at all,” Lally said generously. Then her expression clouded over again and she looked at Charlotte. “Good day, Mrs. Pitt. I hope you are successful.” She passed back the pencil. “Now if you will excuse me I have several vases of flowers to finish and then some calls to make.” And she turned her back on them and began furiously poking daisies into the rolled-up wire mesh in the vase, sticking them in at all angles.

Side by side Charlotte and Gracie left, eyes downcast until they were outside. Then immediately Gracie pushed the paper at Charlotte with a glow of triumph.

Charlotte took it and read it. “You did expertly, Gracie,” she said sincerely. “I couldn’t have managed without you!”

Gracie flushed with pleasure. “What does it say, ma’am? I carsn’t read that kind o’ writin’.”

Charlotte looked at the sprawling cursive script. “It is exactly what we want,” she answered approvingly. “The names and addresses of several of the women who might know where Clemency Shaw began her work. We shall start immediately with Maude Dalgetty. I rather liked her manner at the funeral. I think she may be a sensible woman and generous spirited. She was a friend of Clemency’s and so, I expect, inclined to help us.”

And so it proved. Maude Dalgetty was both sensible and desirous to help. She welcomed them into a withdrawing room full of sunlight and bowls of late roses. The room had a graciousness of proportion and was elegantly furnished, although many of the pieces were beginning to show wear. There were little knots and gaps in some of the fringes around lamps and the sashes on the curtains, and some of the crystals were missing from the chandelier. But the warmth was unmistakable. The books were used—here was one open on the side table. There was a large sewing basket with mending and embroidery clearly visible. The painting above the mantelpiece was a portrait of Maude herself, probably done a dozen years earlier, sitting in a garden on a summer day, the light on her skin and hair. She certainly had been a remarkable beauty, and much of it was left, even if a little more amply proportioned.

Two cats lay curled up together in a single ball of fur by the fire, sound asleep.

“How may I help you?” Maude said as soon as they were in. She paid no less attention to Gracie than to Charlotte. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

It was, strictly speaking, too early for such a thing, but Charlotte judged it was sincerely offered and since she was thirsty and had eaten no lunch, and she imagined Gracie was the same, she accepted.

Maude ordered it from the maid, then inquired again how she might help.

Charlotte hesitated. Sitting in this warm room looking at Maude’s intelligent face she was uncertain whether to risk telling her the truth rather than a concocted lie, however plausible. Then she recalled Clemency’s death, and Lindsay’s so soon after, and changed her mind. Wherever the heart of the murders lay, there were tentacles of it here. An unwitting word by even an innocent person might provoke more violence. It was one of the ugliest changes in the aftermath of murder that instinctive trusts disappeared. One looked for betrayal and suspected every answer of being a lie, every careless or angry word of hiding greed or hatred, every guarded comment of concealing envy.

“Gracie has recently heard that an aunt of hers in this locality has been widowed,” she explained. “She fears she may be in straitened circumstances, perhaps even to the degree of being put out on the street.”

Maude’s face showed immediate concern but she did not interrupt.

“If she has fallen on the care of the parish then perhaps you know what has become of her?” Charlotte tried to put the urgency into her voice that she would have felt had it been true, and saw the compassion in Maude’s eyes, and hated herself for the duplicity. She hurried on to cover it in speech. “And if you do not, then someone else may? I believe that the late Mrs. Shaw concerned herself greatly with such cases?” She felt her cheeks burn. This was the kind of deception she most despised.

Maude tightened her lips and blinked several times to control the very obvious grief that flooded her face.

“Indeed she did,” she said gently. “But if she had any record of whom she helped it will have been destroyed when the house was burned.” She turned to Gracie, since it was Gracie whose aunt they were speaking of. “The only other person likely to know would be the curate, Matthew Oliphant. I think she confided in him and he gave her counsel, and possibly even help. She spoke very little of her work, but I know she felt more deeply about it as time passed. Most of it was not within the parish, you know? I am not at all sure she would have been directly involved with a local loss. You might be better advised to ask Mrs. Hatch, or perhaps Mrs. Wetherell.”

The maid returned with tea and the most delicious sandwiches, made with the thinnest of bread and tomato cut into minute cubes so there was nothing squashy in them and no stringy skins to embarrass the eater. For several minutes Charlotte abandoned the purpose of her visit and simply enjoyed them. Gracie, who had never even seen anything so fine, let alone tasted it, was absolutely spellbound.

It was early afternoon and becoming overcast when Percival drew up the carriage outside the lodging house where Matthew Oliphant lived. He handed down Charlotte, and then Gracie, and watched them walk up the path and knock on the door before he returned to the carriage seat and prepared to wait.

The door was opened by a maid who advised them that Mr. Oliphant was in the sitting room and would no doubt receive them, since he seemed to receive everyone.

They reached the sitting room, an impersonal place furnished with extreme conservatism, armchairs with antimacassars, a portrait of the Queen over the mantel and one of Mr. Gladstone on the far wall, several samplers of religious texts, three stuffed birds under glass, an arrangement of dried flowers, a stuffed weasel in a case, and two aspidistras. They reminded Charlotte immediately of the sort of things that had been left over after everyone else had taken what they liked. She could not imagine the person who would willingly have selected these. Certainly not Matthew Oliphant, with his humorous, imaginative face, rising in his chair to greet them, leaving his Bible open on the table; nor Stephen Shaw, busy writing at the rolltop desk by the window. He stood up also when he saw Charlotte, surprise and pleasure in his face.

“Mrs. Pitt, how charming to see you.” He came towards her, his hand extended. He glanced at Gracie, who was standing well back, smitten with shyness now they were dealing with gentlemen.

“Good afternoon, Dr. Shaw,” Charlotte replied, hastily concealing her chagrin. How could she question the curate with Shaw himself present? Her whole plan of action would have to be changed. “This is Gracie, my maid—” She could think of no explanation for her presence, so she did not try.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Oliphant.”

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Pitt. If—if you wish to be alone with the doctor, I can quite easily excuse myself. My room is not cold; I can pursue my studies there.”

Charlotte knew from the temperature of the hallway that that was almost certainly a fiction.

“Not at all, Mr. Oliphant. Please remain. This is your home and I should be most uncomfortable to have driven you away from the fire.”

“What may I do for you, Mrs. Pitt?” Shaw asked, frowning at her in grave concern. “I hope you are as well as you seem? And your maid?”

“We are very well, thank you. Our visit has nothing to do with your profession, Dr. Shaw.” There was now no purpose whatsoever in continuing with the tale of Gracie’s uncle. He would see through it and despise them both, not only for the lie, but for the inadequacy of it. “I did not come about myself.” She faced him boldly, meeting his eyes and being considerably disconcerted by the acute intelligence in them, and the directness of his gaze back at her. She took a deep breath and plunged on. “I have determined to pursue the work that your late wife was involved in regarding the housing of the poor, and their conditions. I would like to learn where she began, so I may begin in the same place.”

There was a full minute’s total silence. Matthew Oliphant stood by the fire with the Bible in his hand, his knuckles white where he grasped it, his face pale, then flushed. Gracie was rooted to the spot. Shaw’s expression flashed from amazement to disbelief, and then suspicion.

“Why?” he said guardedly. “If you have some passion to work with the poor or the dispossessed what is wrong with those in your own neighborhood?” His voice hovered on the edge of sarcasm. “Surely there are some? London is teeming with poor. Do you live in some area so select you have to come to Highgate to find anyone in need?”

Charlotte could think of no answer. “You are being unnecessarily rude, Dr. Shaw.” She heard herself mimicking Aunt Vespasia’s tone, and thought for an awful moment that she sounded ridiculous. Then she saw Shaw’s face and the sudden color of shame in his cheeks.

“I apologize, Mrs. Pitt. Of course I am.” He was contrite. “Please forgive me.” He did not mention either his bereavement or the loss of his friend; as an excuse it would have been cheap and beneath him.

She smiled at him with all the warmth and deep empathy that she felt for him, and the very considerable liking. “The matter is forgotten.” She dismissed it charmingly. “Can you help me? I should be so obliged. Her crusade is one in which I should like to become involved myself, and draw others. It would be foolish not to profit from what she has already done. She has earned much admiration.”

Very slowly, wordlessly, Matthew Oliphant sat down again and opened his Bible, upside down.

“Do you?” Shaw frowned in some inner concentration. “I cannot see that it will be much advantage to you. She worked alone, so far as I know. She certainly did not work with the parish ladies, or the vicar.” He sighed. “Not that poor old Clitheridge could fight his way out of a wet paper bag!” He looked at her gravely, a kind of laughing admiration in his eyes she found a trifle discomfitting. One or two rather absurd thoughts flashed through her mind, and she dismissed them hastily, a flush in her cheeks.

“Nevertheless I should like to try,” she insisted.

“Mrs. Pitt,” he said gently. “I can tell you almost nothing, only that Clemency cared very much about reforming the laws. In fact I think she cared more about them than almost anything else.” His face pinched a little. “But if, as I suspect, what you are really seeking is to discover who set fire to my house, you will not accomplish it this way. It is I who was meant to die in that fire, as it was when poor Amos died.”

She was at once fiercely sorry for him and extraordinarily angry.

“Indeed?” Her eyebrows shot up. “How arrogant of you! Do you assume that no one else could possibly be important enough in the scheme of things, and only you arouse enough passion or fear to be murdered?”

It was one sting too much. His temper exploded.

“Clemency was one of the finest women alive. If you had known her, instead of arriving the moment she was dead, you wouldn’t have to be told.” He was leaning forward a little, his shoulders tight and hunched. “She did nothing to incur the kind of insane hatred that burns down houses and risks the lives of everyone in them. For heaven’s sake if you must meddle—at least do it efficiently!”

“I am trying to!” she shouted back. “But you are determined to obstruct me. One would almost think you did not want it solved.” She pointed at him sharply. “You won’t help. You won’t tell the police anything. You stick to your wretched confidences as if they were secrets of state. What do you imagine that we are going to do with them, except catch a murderer?”

He jerked very upright, back straight. “I don’t know any secrets that will catch anyone but a few unfortunate devils who would rather keep their diseases private than have them spread ’round the neighborhood for every able and nosy busybody to turn over and speculate on,” he shouted back. “Dear God—don’t you think I want him caught—whoever he is? He murdered my wife and my best friend—and I may be next.”

“Don’t give yourself airs,” she said coldly, because suddenly her anger had evaporated and she was feeling guilty for being so ruthless, but she did not know how to get out of the situation she had created. “Unless you know who it is, as it appears poor Mr. Lindsay did, you are probably not in danger at all.”

He threw an ashtray into the corner of the room, where it splintered and lay in pieces, then he walked out, slamming the door.

Gracie was still standing on the spot, her eyes like saucers.

Oliphant looked up from his Bible and at last realized it was upside down. He closed it quickly and stood up.

“Mrs. Pitt,” he said very softly. “I know where Mrs. Shaw began, and some of where it led her. If you wish, I will take you.”

Charlotte looked at his bony, agreeable face, and the quiet pain in it, and felt ashamed of her outburst for its noise and self-indulgence.

“Thank you, Mr. Oliphant, I should be very grateful.”

Percival drove them; it was well beyond the area of Highgate and into Upper Holloway. They stopped at a narrow street and alighted from the carriage, once again leaving it to wait. Charlotte looked around. The houses were cheek by jowl, one room upstairs and one down, to judge by the width, but there may have been more at the back beyond view. The doors were all closed and the steps scrubbed and white-stoned. It was not appreciably poorer than the street on which she and Pitt had lived when they were first married.

“Come.” Oliphant set out along the pavement and almost immediately turned in along an alley that Charlotte had not observed before. Here it was dank and a chill draft blew on their faces, carrying the smell of raw sewage and drains.

Charlotte coughed and reached for her handkerchief—even Gracie put her hand up to her face—but they hurried after him till he emerged in a small, dim courtyard and crossed it, warning them to step over the open gutters. At the far side he knocked on a paint-peeled door and waited.

After several minutes it was opened by a girl of fourteen or fifteen with a gray-white face and fair hair greasy with dirt. Her eyes were pink-rimmed and there was a flicker of fear in the defiance with which she spoke.

“Yeah? ’Oo are yer?”

“Is Mrs. Bradley at home?” he asked quietly, opening his coat a fraction to show his clerical collar.

Her face softened in relief. “Yeah, Ma’s in bed. She took poorly again. The doc were ’ere yest’dy an’ ’e give ’er some med’cine, but it don’t do no good.”

“May I come in and see her?” Oliphant requested.

“Yeah, I s’pose. But don’ wake ’er if she’s sleepin’.”

“I won’t,” he promised, and held the door wide for Charlotte and Gracie to enter.

Inside the narrow room was cold. Damp seeped through wallpaper, staining it with mold, and the air had an odor that was sour and clung in the back of the throat. There was no tap or standpipe, and a bucket in the corner covered with a makeshift lid served the purposes of nature. Rickety stairs led upwards through a gap in the ceiling and Oliphant went up first, cautioning Charlotte and Gracie to wait their turn in case the weight of more than one person should collapse them.

Charlotte emerged into a bedroom with two wooden cots, both heaped with blankets. In one lay a woman who at a glance might have been Charlotte’s mother’s age. Her face was gaunt, her skin withered and papery, and her eyes so hollow the bones of her brow seemed almost skull-like.

Then as Charlotte moved closer she saw the fair hair and the skin of her neck above the patched nightshirt, and realized she was probably no more than thirty. There was a handkerchief with blood on it grasped loosely in the thin hand.

The three of them stood in silence for several minutes, staring at the sleeping woman, each racked with silent, impotent pity.

Downstairs again, Charlotte turned to Oliphant and the girl.

“We must do something! Who owns this—this heap of timber? It’s not fit for horses, let alone women to live in. He should be prosecuted. We will begin straightaway. Who collects the rent?”

The girl was as white as flour; her whole body shook.

“Don’t do that, please miss! I beg yer, don’t turn us aht. Me ma’ll die if yer put ’er in the street—and me an’ Alice and Becky’ll ’ave ter go inter the poor ’ouse. Please don’t. We aven’t done mithin’ wrong, honest we ’aven’t. We paid the rent—I swear.”

“I don’t want to put you out.” Charlotte was aghast. “I want to force whoever owns this place to make it fit to live in.”

The girl looked at her with disbelief.

“Wotcher mean? If we makes a fuss ’e’ll ’ave us aht. There’s plenty more as’d be glad ter ’ave it—an’ we’ll ’ave ter go souf into—w’ere it’ll be worse. Please miss, don’t do it!”

“Worse?” Charlotte said slowly. “But he should make this—this fit to live in. You should have water at least, and drainage. No wonder your mother is ill—”

“She’ll get better—jus’ let ’er sleep a bit. We’re all right, miss. Just leave us be.”

“But if—”

“That’s wot ’appened ter Bessie Jones. She complained, an’ now she’s gorn ter live in St. Giles, an’ she ain’t got no more’n a corner o’ the room to ’erself. You let be—please miss.”

Her fear was so palpable that Charlotte could do no more than promise to say nothing, to swear it in front of Matthew Oliphant, and leave shivering and by now aware of a rising nausea in her stomach, and an anger so tight it made all the muscles in her body ache.

“Tomorrow I’ll take you to St. Giles,” Oliphant said quietly when they were out in the main street again. “If you want to go.”

“I want to go.” Charlotte said the words without hesitation—if she had thought for even a moment she might have lost her resolve.

“Did you go there with Clemency also?” she asked more gently, trying to imagine the journey she was copying, thinking of Clemency’s distress as she must have seen sights just like these. “I expect she was very moved?”

He turned to her. His face was curiously luminous with memory that for all its bleakness held some beauty for him that still shone in his mind and warmed him till he was temporarily oblivious of the street or the cold.

“Yes—we came here,” he answered with sweetness in his voice. “And then to St. Giles, and from there eastwards into Mile End and Whitechapel—” He might have been speaking of the pillared ruins of Isfahan, or the Golden Road to Samarkand, so did his tongue caress the words.

Charlotte hesitated only a moment before plunging on, ignoring what was suddenly so obvious to her.

“Then could you tell me where she went last?”

“If I could, Mrs. Pitt, I would have offered,” he said gravely, his cheeks pink. “I only knew the general direction, because I was not with her when she found Bessie Jones. I only know that she did, because she told me afterwards. Would to God I had been.” He strove to master his anguish, and almost succeeded. “Maybe I could have saved her.” His voice cracked and finished husky and almost inaudible.

Charlotte could not argue, although perhaps by then Clemency had already frightened those landlords and owners whose greed had eaten into them until they had destroyed her.

Oliphant turned away, struggling for control. “But if you wish to go there, I shall try to take you—as long as you understand the risk. If we find the same place, then—” He stopped; the conclusion was not needed.

“You are not afraid?” she asked, not as a challenge but because she was certain that he was not. He was harrowed by feelings, almost laid naked by them, and yet fear was not among them—anger, pity, indignation, loss, but not fear.

He turned back to her, his face for a moment almost beautiful with the power of his caring.

“You wish to continue Clemency’s work, Mrs. Pitt—and I think perhaps even more than that, you wish to learn who killed her, and expose them. So do I.”

She did not answer; it was hardly necessary. She caught a sudden glimpse of how much he had cared for Clemency. He would never have spoken; she was a married woman, older than he and of higher social station. Anything more than friendship was impossible. But that had not altered his feeling, nor taken anything from his loss.

She smiled at him, politely, as if she had seen no more than anyone else, and thanked him for his help. She and Gracie would be most obliged.

Naturally she explained to Pitt what she was doing, and to what end. She might have evaded it had not Vespasia taken the children to Caroline, but their absence had to be explained and she was in no mood to equivocate.

She did not tell him what manner of place she would be going to because nothing in her experience could have foreseen where the following two days would take her. She, Oliphant and Gracie were driven by Percival from street to street, forever narrower, darker and more foul, following the decline of the unfortunate Bessie Jones. Gracie was of inestimable help because she had seen such places before and she understood the desperation that makes men and women accept such treatment rather than lose their frail hold on space and shelter, however poor, and be driven out into the streets to be huddled in doorways shuddering with cold, exposed to the rain and casual violence.

Finally in the later afternoon of the third day they found Bessie Jones, as Clemency Shaw had done before them. It was in the heart of Mile End, off the Whitechapel Road. There seemed to be an unusual number of police around.

Bessie was crouching in the corner of a room no more than twelve feet by sixteen, and occupied by three families, one in each corner. There were about sixteen people in all, including two babies in arms, which cried constantly. There was a blackened potbellied stove against one wall, but it was barely alight. There were buckets for the necessities of nature, but no drain to empty either that or any other waste, except the one in the courtyard, which overflowed and the stench filled the air, catching in the throat, soiling the clothes, the hair and the skin. There was no running water. For washing, cooking, drinking, it all had to be fetched in a pail from a standpipe three hundred yards away along the street.

There was no furniture except one broken wooden chair. People slept in what scraps of rag and blanket they could gather together for warmth; men, women and children, with nothing between them and the boards of the floor but more rags and loose ends of oakum, and the dross of the cloth industry too wretched even to remake into drab for the workhouse.

Above the crying of children, the snoring of an old man asleep under the broken window, boarded with a loose piece of linoleum, was the constant squeaking and scuttling of rats. On the floor below were the raucous sounds of a gin mill and the shouts of drunkards as they fought, swore and sang snatches of bawdy songs. Two women lay senseless in the gutter and a sailor relieved himself against the wall.

Below street level, in ill-lit cellars, ninety-eight women and girls sat shoulder to shoulder in a sweatshop stitching shirts for a few pence a day. It was better than the match factory with its phosphorous poisoning.

Upstairs a brothel prepared for the evening trade. Twenty yards away rows of men lay in bunks, their bodies rotting, their minds adrift in the sweet dreams of opium.

Bessie Jones was worn out, exhausted by the fruitless fight, and glad now at least to be under shelter from the rain and to have a stove to creep close to in the night, and two slices of bread to eat.

Charlotte emptied her purse and felt it a gross and futile thing to have done, but the money burned her hand.

In all of it she had followed the path that Clemency Shaw had taken, and she had felt as she must have felt, but she had learned nothing as to who might have killed her, although why was only too apparent. If the ownership of such places was accredited publicly there would be some who would not care, they had no reputation or status to lose. But there were surely those who drew their money from such abysmal suffering, and who would pay dearly to keep it secret, and call it by some other name. To say one owned property implied estates somewhere in the shires; farmlands might be envisioned, rich earth yielding food, cattle, timber—not the misery, crime and disease Charlotte and Gracie had seen these few days.

When she reached home she stripped off all her clothes, even her shift and pantaloons, and put them all in the wash, and told Gracie to do the same. She could not imagine any soap that would cleanse them of the odor of filth—her imagination would always furnish it as long as the memory lasted—but the sheer act of boiling and scrubbing would help.

“What are you going ter do, ma’am?” Gracie asked, wide-eyed and husky. Even she had never seen such wretchedness.

“We are going to discover who owns these abominable places,” Charlotte replied grimly.

“An’ one of ’em murdered Miss Clemency,” Gracie added, passing over her clothes and wrapping herself in Charlotte’s old gown. The waist of it was around her hips and the skirt trailed on the floor. She looked such a child Charlotte had a moment of guilt for involving her in this fearful pursuit.

“I believe so. Are you afraid?”

“Yes ma’am.” Gracie’s thin little face hardened. “But I in’t stoppin’ ’ere. I’m going’ ter ’elp yer, never doubt that, an’ nob’dy in’t going’ ter stop me. Nor I in’t going’ ter let yer go there on yer own, neither.”

Charlotte gave her a great hug, taking her utterly by surprise so she blushed fiercely with pleasure.

“I wouldn’t dream of going without you,” Charlotte said candidly.

While Charlotte and Gracie were following the path of Clemency Shaw, Jack Radley looked up one of his less reputable friends from his gambling days, before he had met Emily, and persuaded him that it would be both interesting and profitable to take a turn around some of the worst rented accommodation in London. Anton was very dubious about the interest it would afford, but since Jack promised him his silver cigar cutter—he had given up the habit anyway—he understood the profit readily enough, and agreed to do it.

Jack absolutely forbade Emily to go with them, and for the first time in their relationship he brooked no argument whatsoever.

“You may not come,” he said with a charming smile and completely steady eyes.

“But—” she began, smiling back at him, searching for a lightness in him, a softness in his expression which would allow her to win him over. To her surprise she found none. “But—” she began again, looking for an argument in her favor.

“You may not come, Emily.” There was not a flicker in his eyes and no yielding in his mouth. “It will be dangerous, if we have any success, and you would be in the way. Remember the reason we are doing this, and don’t argue the toss. It is a waste of time, because whatever you say, you are not coming.”

She drew in a deep breath. “Very well,” she conceded with as much grace as she could muster. “If that is what you wish.”

“It is better than that, my love,” he said with the first edge of a smile. “It is an order.”

When he and Anton had departed, leaving her on the doorstep, she felt completely betrayed. Then as she gave the matter more reasoned consideration, she realized that he had done it to protect her from both the unpleasantness of the journey and the distress of what she would inevitably see; and she was pleased that he showed such concern. She had no desire to be taken for granted. And while she did not like being denied or countermanded, she also did not like being able to prevail over his wishes. Getting your own way too often can be singularly unsatisfying.

With an idle afternoon on her hands, and a mind teeming with questions, she ordered the other carriage. After dressing extremely carefully in a new gown from Salon Worth in Paris, a deep thunder blue which flattered her fair coloring, and embroidered lavishly in blouse front and around the hem, she set out to visit a certain lady whose wealth and family interests were greater than her scruples. This she knew from high society friends she had met in the past, at places where breeding and money were of far more account than personal affection or any form of regard.

Emily alighted and climbed the steps at the Park Lane address. When the door was opened, she presented her card and stood her ground while a slightly disconcerted parlormaid read it. It was one of Emily’s old ones from before her remarriage, and still read “The Viscountess Ashworth,” which was very much more impressive than “Mrs. Jack Radley.”

Normally a lady would have left her card so the lady of the house might in turn leave hers and they would agree on a future time to meet, but Emily was clearly not going to depart. The parlormaid was obliged either to ask her to go or to invite her in. The title left her only one choice.

“Please come in, my lady, and I will see if Lady Priscilla will receive you.”

Emily accepted graciously, and head high, walked through the large hallway decked with family portraits, even a suit of armor on a stand. She took her place in the morning room in front of the fire, until the maid returned and ushered her upstairs into the first-story boudoir, the sitting room specially reserved for ladies.

It was an exquisite room, decorated in the Oriental style, which had become popular lately, and full of chinoiserie of every sort: lacquer boxes, an embroidered silk screen, landscape paintings where mountains floated above mists and waterfalls and tiny figures like black dots traveled on interminable roads. There was a glass-shelved cupboard containing at least twenty jade and ivory figures, and two carved ivory fans like frozen white lace.

Lady Priscilla herself was perhaps fifty, thin and with black hair of an unnatural depth that only her fondest friends imagined to be her own. She was wearing magenta and rose, also embroidered, but perfectly symmetrical. She knew it was a mistake as soon as she saw Emily.

“Lady Ashworth!” she exclaimed with courteous surprise. “How charming of you to have called upon me—and how unexpected.”

Emily knew perfectly well she meant “how uncouth and without the appropriate warning,” but she had come with a highly practical purpose in mind, and had no intention of jeopardizing it with impulsive words.

“I wished to find you alone,” Emily replied with a slight inclining of her head. “I would like some confidential advice, and it suddenly occurred to me that no one in London would be better able to give it than you.”

“Good gracious. How you flatter me!” Lady Priscilla exclaimed, but her overriding expression was not vain so much as curious. “Whatever do I know that you do not know quite as well yourself?” She smiled. “A little scandal, perhaps—but surely you have not come alone at this time of day for that.”

“I am not averse to it.” Emily sat down on the chair indicated. “But that is not why I am here. It is counsel I want, in certain matters in which I now have the freedom to be my own mistress—” She let it hang in the air, and saw Priscilla’s sharp face quicken with interest.

“Your own mistress? Of course I heard of Lord Ashworth’s death—” She composed her features to the appropriate solicitude. “My dear, how awful. I am so sorry.”

“It was some time ago now.” Emily brushed it aside. “I have remarried, you know—”

“But your card.”

“Oh—did I give you one of the old ones? How careless of me. I do apologize. I am getting so shortsighted these days.”

It was on Priscilla’s tongue to say “A small pair of spectacles, perhaps?” but she did not wish to be too offensive in case she did not learn the cause for Emily’s consulting her, and then how could she relate it to others?

“It is of no consequence,” she murmured.

Emily smiled dazzlingly. “How gracious of you.”

“If I can help?” Priscilla offered intenüy.

“Oh I’m sure.” Emily settled a little farther into her seat. This could have been quite entertaining, but she must not lose sight of her reason for coming. Clemency Shaw’s death was enough to sober any amusement. “I have a certain amount of money at my disposal, and I should like to invest it profitably, and if possible where it is both safe and reasonably discreet.”

“Oh—” Priscilla let out her breath slowly, a dawn of comprehension in her face. “You would like it to return you some profit, but be inaccessible to your family. And you are married again?”

“I am.” Silently Emily thought of Jack, and apologized to him. “Hence the need for the utmost … discretion.”

“Absolute secrecy,” Priscilla assured her, her eyes alight. “I can advise you very well; you certainly came to the right person.”

“I knew it,” Emily said with triumph in her voice, not for investment, but because she was on the brink of discovering exactly what she sought. “I knew you were the very best person. What should I do with it? I have quite a substantial amount, you understand?”

“Property,” Priscilla replied without hesitation.

Emily schooled her face very carefully into disappointment.

“Property? But then anyone who wished could ascertain exactly what I owned, and what income it brought me—which is precisely what I wish to avoid!”

“Oh my dear—don’t be naive!” Priscilla waved her hands, dismissing the very idea. “I don’t mean domestic residences in Primrose Hill. I mean two or three blocks of old tenements in Mile End or Wapping, or St. Giles.”

“Wapping?” Emily said with careful incredulity. “What on earth would that be worth to me?”

“A fortune,” Priscilla replied. “Place it in the hands of a good business manager, who will see that it is let advantageously, and that the rent is collected every week or month, and it will double your outlay in no time.”

Emily frowned. “Really? How on earth would rent for places like that amount to much? Only the poorest people live in such areas, don’t they? They could hardly pay the kind of rents I should wish.”

“Oh yes they can,” Priscilla assured her. “If there are enough of them, it will be most profitable, I promise you.”

“Enough?”

“Certainly. Ask no questions as to what people do, and what profit they in turn can make, then you can let every room in the building to a dozen people, and they will sublet it, and so on. There is always someone who will pay more, believe me.”

“I am not sure I should care to be associated with such a place,” Emily demurred. “It is not—something—”

“Ha!” Priscilla laughed aloud. “Who would? That is why you do it through a business manager, and a solicitor, and his employees, and a rent collector, and so on. No one will ever know it is you who owns it, except your own man of affairs, and he will certainly never tell anyone. That is his purpose.”

“Are you sure?” Emily widened her eyes. “Does anyone else do such a thing?”

“Of course. Dozens of people.”

“Who—for instance?”

“My dear, don’t be so indiscreet. You will make yourself highly unpopular if you ask such questions. They are protected, just as you will be. I promise you, no one will know.”

“It is only a matter of—” Emily shrugged her shoulders high and opened her eyes innocently. “Really—people might not understand. There is nothing illegal, I presume?”

“Of course not. Apart from having no desire to break the law”—Priscilla smiled and pursed her lips—“these are all highly respectable people with positions to maintain—it also would be very foolish.” She spread elegant hands wide, palms upwards, her rings momentarily hidden. “Anyway, it is quite unnecessary. There is no law to prevent your doing everything I suggest. And believe me, my dear, the profits are exceedingly good.”

“Is there any risk?” Emily said lightly. “I mean—there are people agitating for reforms of one sort or another. Might one end up losing it all—or on the other hand being exposed to public dislike, if—”

“None at all,” Priscilla said with a laugh. “I don’t know what reformers you have heard of, but they have not even a ghost of a chance of bringing about any real changes—not in the areas I propose. New houses will be built here and there, in manufacturing towns, but it will not affect the properties we are concerned with. There will always be slums, my dear, and there will always be people with nowhere else to live.”

Emily felt such a passion of revulsion she found it almost impossible to hide it. She looked down to conceal her face, and searched in her reticule for a handkerchief, then blew her nose a good deal less delicately than was ladylike. Then she felt sufficiently composed to meet Priscilla’s eyes again and try to make the loathing in her own look like anxiety.

“I thought it was such slums that reformers were involved in?”

Now the contempt in Priscilla’s face was easily readable.

“You are being timid for no reason, Emily.” The use of her name added an infinite condescension to Priscilla’s words. “There are very powerful people involved. It would not only be quite pointless trying to ruin them, it would be extremely dangerous. No one will cause more than a little inconvenience, I promise, and that will be dealt with without your needing even to know about it, much less involve yourself.”

Emily leaned back and forced a smile to her face, although it felt more like the baring of teeth. She met Priscilla’s gaze without a flicker though inside she was burning with a hatred that made her want to react with physical violence.

“You have told me precisely what I wished to know. And I am sure you are totally reliable and unquestionably are fully aware what you are dealing with. No doubt we will meet again on the matter, or at least you will hear from me. Thank you so much for sparing me your time.”

Priscilla smiled more widely as Emily rose to her feet. “I am always happy to be of assistance to a friend. When you have realized your assets and decided what you would like to invest, come back and I shall put you in touch with the best person to help you, and to be utterly discreet.”

Money was not mentioned, but Emily knew perfectly well it was understood, and she was equally sure Priscilla herself took a proportion for her services.

“Of course.” Emily inclined her head very slightly. “You have been most gracious; I shall not forget it.” And she took her leave and went out of the house into the cold air of the street where even the manure on the cobbles could not spoil its comparative sweetness to her.

“Take me home,” she told the coachman as he handed her up. “Immediately.”

When Jack returned tired and dirty, his face ashen, she was waiting for him. He was just as somber, with an underlying anger equal to hers.

He stopped in the hallway where she had come from the withdrawing room to meet him. She still found his step on the black-and-white flagstones quickened her heart and the sound of his voice as the footman took his coat made her smile. She looked at him and searched his dark gray eyes, with the curling lashes she had marveled at—and envied—when they first met. She had considered him far too conscious of his own charm. Now that she knew him better, she still found him just as engaging, but knew the man behind the manners and liked him immensely. He was an excellent friend, and she knew the supreme value of that.

“Was it very bad?” She did not waste words in foolish questions like “How are you?” She could see in his face how he was, that he had been exhausted and hurt and was as violently angry as she, and as impotent to change or destroy the offenders or to help the victims.

“Beyond anything I can convey in words,” he replied. “I’ll be lucky if I can get the smell out of my clothes or the taste out of my throat. And I don’t think I’ll ever completely lose the picture of their misery. I can see their faces every time I close my eyes as if they were painted on the inside of my eyelids.” He looked around the huge hallway with its flagged floor, oak-paneled walls, the sweeping staircase up to a gallery, the paintings, the vases laden with flowers two and three feet tall, the huge carved furniture with gleaming wood and the umbrella stand with five silver- and horn-handled sticks.

Emily knew what he was thinking; the same thoughts had passed through her head more than once. But it was George’s house, Ashworth heritage, and belonged to her son Edward, not to her except as a trust until he was of age. Jack knew that too, but they both still felt a taste of guilt that they enjoyed its luxury as easily as if it had been theirs, which in all practical ways it was.

“Come into the withdrawing room and sit down,” she said gently. “Albert can draw you a bath. Tell me what you learned.”

Taking her arm he went with her and in a quiet, very grave voice he described where Anton had taken him. He chose few words, not wanting to harass her nor to relive the horror and the helpless pity he had felt himself, not the nauseating disgust. He told her of rat-and-lice-infected tenements where the walls dripped and hung with mold, of open sewers and drains and piles of refuse. Many rooms were occupied by fifteen or twenty people, all ages and both sexes, without privacy or sanitation of any kind, without water or drainage. In some the roofs or windows were in such disrepair the rain came in; and yet the rent was collected every week without fail. Some desperate people sublet even the few square yards they had, in order to maintain their own payments.

He forbore from describing the conditions in the sweatshops where women and girls worked beneath street level, by gaslight or candlelight and without ventilation, eighteen hours a day stitching shirts or gloves or dresses for people who inhabited another world.

He did not go into any detail about the brothels, the gin mills and the narrow, fetid rooms where men found oblivion in opium; he simply stated their existence. By the time he had said all he needed to, to share the burden and feel her understanding, her anguish at the same things, her equal sense of outrage and helplessness, Albert had been twice to say his bath was getting cold, and had finally come a third time to say that a fresh bath had been drawn.

There were in bed, close together and almost ready for sleep, when she finally told him what she had done, where she had been, and what she had learned.

Vespasia took the questions to Somerset Carlisle, when the parliamentary business of the day was done. It was after eleven in the evening chill with a rising fog when she finally reached her home. She was tired, but too filled with concern to sleep. Part of her thoughts were turned towards the matters she had raised with him, but a good deal of her anxiety was for Charlotte. It was not untouched with guilt, lest by suggestion, the offer of Percival and the carriage, and the ready ease with which she had taken the children to Caroline Ellison, that she had enabled Charlotte to embark on a course which might become personally dangerous. At the time she had simply thought of Clemency Shaw and the appalling injustice of her death. For once she had allowed anger to outweigh judgment, and had sent the woman she was most fond of into considerable risk. It was true; she cared for Charlotte as much as anyone, now her own daughter was dead. And more than that; she liked her—enjoyed her company, her humor, her courage. It was not only rash, it was completely irresponsible. She had not even consulted Thomas, and he of all people had a right to know.

But it was not her nature to spend time over what could not be undone. She must bear it—and take the blame should there be any. There was no purpose to be served in speaking or writing to Thomas now; Charlotte would tell him, or not, as she wished; and he would prevent her from continuing, or not, as he was able. Vespasia’s meddling now would only compound the error.

But she found it hard to sleep.

The following evening they met at Vespasia’s house for dinner, and to compare notes upon what they had learned, but primarily to hear from Somerset Carlisle the state of the law they must fight, deal with, and change if possible.

Emily and Jack arrived early. Emily was less glamorously dressed than Vespasia could remember her being since she had ceased mourning for George. Jack looked tired; there were lines of strain on his normally handsome face and the humor was absent from his eyes. He was courteous, from habit, but even the usual compliments were not on his lips.

Charlotte was late, and Vespasia was beginning to feel anxious, her mind wandering from the trivial conversation they maintained until the business of the evening could be shared.

Somerset Carlisle came in, grim-faced. He glanced at Vespasia, then Emily and Jack, and forbore from asking where Charlotte was.

But Charlotte finally arrived, brought by Percival and the returned carriage. She was breathless, tired, and her hair markedly less well done than customarily. Vespasia was so overwhelmingly relieved to see her all she could do was criticize her for being late. She dared not to show her emotions; it would have been most unseemly.

They repaired to the dining room and dinner was served.

Each reported what he or she had seen and done, cursorily and with no unnecessary description; the facts were fearful enough. They did not speak as if they had been tired, sickened or endangered themselves. What they had seen dwarfed self-pity or praise.

When the last was finished they turned as one to Somerset Carlisle.

Pale-faced, weary of heart, he explained the law to them as he had ascertained it. He confirmed what they already knew: that is was almost impossible to discover who owned property if the owner wished to remain anonymous, and that the law required nothing to assist the tenant or shield him. There were no basic requirements of fitness for habitation concerning water, sewage, shelter or any other facility. There were no means of redress regarding payment of rents or freedom from eviction.

“Then we must change the law,” Vespasia said when he had finished. “We will continue where Clemency Shaw was cut off by her murderers.”

“It may be dangerous,” Somerset Carlisle warned. “We will be disturbing powerful people. The little I have learned so far indicates there are members of great families who come by at least part of their income that way, some industrialists with vast fortunes reinvested. It has not failed to touch others of ambition and greed, men who can be tempted and who have favors to sell—members of the House, judges of court. It will be a very hard struggle—and with no easy victories.”

“That is a pity,” Vespasia said without even consulting the others by so much as a glance. “But it is irrelevant.”

“We need more people in power.” Carlisle glanced at Jack. “More men in Parliament prepared to risk a comfortable seat by fighting against the vested interests.”

Jack did not reply, but he spoke little the rest of the evening, and all the way home he was deep in thought.