Paragon Walk

Three

Charlotte had already worked out in her mind exactly what she meant to do, and, as soon as Pitt had gone, she tidied the kitchen and then dressed Jemima in her second-best clothes, cotton, trimmed with lace Charlotte had carefully salvaged from one of her own old petticoats. When she was all ready, Charlotte picked her up and took her out into the warm, dusty street and over to the house opposite. The net curtains were twitching behind a dozen windows, but she refused to turn her head and betray that she knew it. Balancing Jemima on one arm, she knocked on the door.

It opened almost immediately, and a gaunt little woman in a plain, stuff pinafore stood on the mat just inside.

“Good morning, Mrs. Smith,” Charlotte said with a smile. “I just heard yesterday evening that my sister is unwell, and I feel I should go and see her. Perhaps I can help.” She did not want to lie so directly as to imply that Emily had no one else to care for her, as might have been her own situation, but she did want to suggest a certain urgency. Her feelings conflicted; she was faintly ashamed on this woman’s doorstep, looking at the shabby hall and knowing that Emily could ring a bell and have a maid come if she were ill, or send a footman for a doctor. Yet she needed to make the summons seem important.

“Would you be good enough to look after Jemima for me today?”

The woman’s face lit in an answering smile, and she held out her arms. Jemima hesitated for a moment, drawing back a little, but Charlotte had no time for tears or cajolings today. She gave her a quick kiss and passed her over.

“Thank you very much. I expect I shall not be long, but, if things are worse than I fear, I may not be home until the afternoon.

“Don’t you worry, love.” The woman cuddled Jemima easily, setting her weight on her bony hip, as she had done with countless bundles of laundry and with all eight of her own children, except the two who had died before they were old enough to sit at all. “I’ll take care of ’er, give ’er ’er dinner. You just go and see to your sister, poor soul. I ’ope as it isn’t anything bad. I always reckons this ’ot weather’s to blame for a lot. Ain’t natural.”

“No,” Charlotte agreed hastily. “I like the autumn best myself.”

“More like furrin’ weather, I should think,” Mrs. Smith went on. “Leastways from what one ’ears. I ’ad a brother what was a sailor. Terrible places ’e’s bin to. Well, you go and see to yours sister, dear. I’ll take care o’ Jemima till you comes back.”

Charlotte gave her a dazzling smile. It had taken her a long time to learn any sort of ease with these people, who were so different from those she had known before her marriage. Of course, there had been working people before, but the only ones she had known personally had been servants, as familiar in the house as the furniture or the pictures, as much accommodated to the family’s ways, and as easy to regard or ignore. They had brought nothing of their own lives into the drawing room or upstairs. Their families were known of, naturally, as part of their references, but they were no more than names and reputations; there were no faces, and still less any ambitions or tragedies, and feelings.

Now she had to accommodate herself to them, learn to cook, to clean, to shop wisely-above all to need and be needed. Neighbors were everything through the long days while Pitt was away; they were laughter, the sound of voices, help when she did not know how to manage things, when Jemima was cutting teeth and she had no idea what to do. There were no nursery maids to call, no nanny, only Mrs. Smith with her old woman’s remedies and years of practice. Her ordinariness, her passive resignation to hardship and obedience infuriated Charlotte, and yet her patience soothed her, that and her sureness of what to do in the daily small crises that Charlotte had never been taught to handle.

To begin with, the whole street had thought Charlotte arrogant, aloof to the point of coldness, not realizing she was as shy of them as they of her. It had taken nearly two years for them to accept her. The annoying thing was that in their own way they were just as prim as Mama and her friends, just as full of genteel expressions to avoid a truth that offended and every whit as conscious of social differences in all the subtlest of shades. Charlotte had quite unintentionally outraged them with her opinions, spoken in total innocence.

Mama’s withdrawing room seemed a long time ago: the afternoon teas, the polite visits, exchanging gossip, trying to learn something about eligible young men, other people’s social and financial affairs, always in the most circumlocutory manner, of course.

Now she must try to recapture at least the semblance of grace again, sufficient not to embarrass Emily.

She hurried home and changed into the gray muslin with white spots. Last year she had saved from the housekeeping for it, and the style was so plain as to have dated little. Of course that was why she had chosen it, that, and so as not to seem above herself to the rest of the street.

The day was already hot by ten o’clock when she dismounted from the cab in Paragon Walk, thanked the cabbie and paid him, then crunched her way slowly up the gravel to Emily’s door. She was determined not to stare; someone would see her. There was always someone about, a housemaid bored with dusting, daydreaming out of a window, a footman or coachman on an errand, a gardener’s boy.

The house was large, and after her own street it seemed positively palatial. Of course, it was built for a full staff of servants as well as the master and mistress, their children and whatever relatives might care to come up for the Season.

She knocked on the door, and then suddenly felt terribly afraid that she would let Emily down, that their lives had become so separate since Cater Street that they would be strangers. Even that business at Callander Square was more than a year ago now. They had been close then, sharing danger, horror, even a sort of excitement. But that had not been in Emily’s home, among her friends.

She was wrong to have thought the gray muslin was all right; it was dull, and there was a tear near the hem that showed where she had mended it. She did not think her hands were red, but she had better keep her gloves on just in case. Emily would be bound to notice; Charlotte’s hands had always been beautiful, one of the things she had been proud of.

The maid opened the door, surprise in her face at seeing a stranger.

“Good morning, ma’am?”

“Good morning,” Charlotte stood very straight and forced herself to smile. She must speak slowly; it was idiotic to be nervous calling upon one’s own sister, and one’s younger sister at that. “Good morning,” she repeated. “Will you be good enough to inform Lady Ashworth that her sister, Mrs. Pitt, has called?”

“Oh.” The girl’s eyes widened. “Oh, yes, ma’am. If you’d like to come in, ma’am, I’m sure as her ladyship’ll be pleased to see you.”

Charlotte followed her in and waited in the morning room for only a few minutes before Emily came bursting in.

“Oh, Charlotte! How marvelous to see you!” She threw her arms around Charlotte’s neck and hugged her, then stood back. Her eyes glanced over the gray muslin, then at Charlotte’s face. “You look well. I have been meaning to come and see you, but you must know what an awful thing has happened here. Thomas will have told you all about it. Thank heaven it is nothing to do with us this time.” She shuddered and shook her head in a little gesture of denial. “Does that sound terribly callous?” She turned back to Charlotte again with a wide, slightly guilty look.

Charlotte was honest as always.

“I suppose it does, but it is the truth, if we would all but admit it. There is a sort of thrill in horror, as long as it is not too close. People will talk about how dreadful it is and how the mere mention of it distresses them beyond conceivable opportunity.”

Emily’s face relaxed in a smile.

“I’m so glad you’re here. I dare say it is quite irresponsible of me, but I shall love to hear your opinions of the Walk, although I shall never be able to view them in the same way afterward. They are all so very careful, they bore me terribly at times. I’ve an awful feeling I have forgotten how to think frankly myself!”

Charlotte linked her arm in Emily’s, and they walked through the French doors and onto the lawn at the back. The sun was hot on their faces and dazzled from a peerless sky.

“I doubt it,” Charlotte answered. “You were always able to think one thing and say another. I am a social catastrophe because I can’t.”

Emily giggled as memories came back to her, and for a few moments they talked together over disasters of the past that had made them blush at the time but were only bonds of laughter and shared affection now.

Charlotte had even forgotten her real reason for coming when sudden mention of Sarah, their older sister who had been a victim of the Cater Street hangman, made her remember murder, its close, suffocating terror, and the corroding acid of suspicion it brought in its wake. She had never been able to be subtle, least of all with Emily who knew her so well.

“What was Fanny Nash like?” She wanted a woman’s opinion. Thomas was clever, but so often men missed the real things in a woman, things that were perfectly obvious to another woman. The number of times she had seen men taken in by a pretty girl who chose to seem vulnerable, when Charlotte knew really she was as strong and as hard as a kitchen pot!

The laughter died out of Emily’s face.

“Are you going to play detective again?” she said warily.

Charlotte thought of Callander Square. Emily had wanted to detect then. She had even insisted on it, and there had been times when it was a kind of adventure-before the frightening, horrifying end.

“No!” she said immediately. Then, “Well, yes. I can’t help caring, can I? But I’m not going to go around asking questions, of course not! Don’t be foolish. I mean, that would be most unseemly. You should know I wouldn’t do that to you. I can be tactless, I admit, but I am not quite stupid!”

Emily relented, probably because she also was curious and the whole thing was not close enough to be ugly yet.

“Of course, I know that. I’m sorry. I am a little highly strung at the moment,” she colored very faintly at her reference to her condition; she had not yet become accustomed to it, and it was not a subject one discussed. “Fanny was rather ordinary, really. I suppose you do want the truth? She was the last person in the world I would have thought to provoke such a passion in anyone. I can only presume he was quite mad, poor creature. Oh.” She tightened her lip, caught in a social gaffe herself. She took pride that since her marriage she had made herself immune to such things. Charlotte’s influence must be contagious. “I suppose one shouldn’t sympathize with him,” she corrected. “That is quite wrong. Except that, if he is mad, of course, he cannot help it. Will Thomas catch him?”

Charlotte did not know how to reply. She could say simply that she did not know, but that was no answer at all. What Emily was really asking was: did Thomas have any knowledge; was it inside or outside the Walk; could they all dismiss it as a tragedy, but something beyond their own affairs, a brief intrusion, now entirely of the past, something that had happened in the Walk, but could as easily have occurred anywhere else in the mad creature’s path?

“It’s too early to say,” she temporized. “If he is quite mad, he could be anywhere by now, and since there was no reason for selecting Fanny, except that she was there, he will be very hard to recognize-even when we find him.”

Emily looked directly at her.

“Are you saying it is possible it was not someone mad?”

Charlotte avoided her eyes.

“Emily, how can I know? You say Fanny was very- ordinary, not in the least a flirt-”

“No, no one less so. She was not plain, exactly. But you know, Charlotte, the older I get, the more I believe beauty is not so much a matter of what your features or your coloring may be, but the way you behave and what you believe of yourself. Fanny behaved as though she were plain. Whereas Jessamyn, if you look at her dispassionately, is not really so very beautiful, and yet she behaves as if she were quite marvelous. Therefore everyone sees her so! She believes it-and so we do too.”

It was very perceptive of Emily to know that. Charlotte wished she could have known it herself when she was younger and cared desperately. She could recall with painful clarity how wretched she had felt at fifteen when Sarah and Emily seemed so pretty and she felt plain, all elbows and feet. She was already the tallest, and still growing. She might become perfectly gigantic, and no man would ever care for her. She would look over the tops of their heads! She thought young James Fortescue so attractive, but she knew she was at least two inches taller than he was and found herself unable to say anything at all in his presence. He had ended up by admiring Sarah instead.

“You are not listening!” Emily accused.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“That Thomas has been up and down the Walk asking questions of all the men. He even asked George where he was.”

“Of course,” Charlotte said reasonably. This was the part she had been fearing since the beginning. “He has to. After all, George may have seen something that appeared quite usual at the time, but now that we know what happened, he would recognize it as important.” She was pleased with the way she had phrased that. It was immediate and yet completely rational. It did not sound contrived to make Emily comfortable.

“I suppose so,” Emily conceded. “Actually George wasn’t even here that evening. He was in town at his club, so he couldn’t be any help.”

Charlotte was saved the necessity of answering by the arrival of the most magnificent old lady she had ever seen, with hair piled immaculately and back as straight as a ramrod. Her nose was a shade too long, and her eyes a little hooded, and yet the remnant of beauty was unmistakable, and her intimate knowledge of it and its power even more so.

Emily got to her feet with a trifle more haste than dignity. It was a long time since Charlotte had seen her the least out of composure, and it was telling. She hoped it was not anxiety that she would not know how to behave, and thus let her down.

“Aunt Vespasia,” Emily said quickly. “May I present my sister, Charlotte Pitt?” She looked at Charlotte penetratingly. “My great aunt-in-law, Lady Cumming-Gould.”

Charlotte had no need of warning.

“How do you do, ma’am,” she inclined her head very slightly, enough for courtesy and too little for obsequiousness.

Vespasia extended her hand, and her eyes regarded Charlotte frankly from toe to top, ending with a direct stare from her flittering old eyes.

“How do you do, Mrs. Pitt,” she answered levelly. “Emily has often spoken of you. I am pleased that you have been able to call.” She did not add “at last,” but it was in her voice.

Charlotte doubted that Emily had spoken of her at all, still less that it had been often. It would have been most injudicious-and Emily had never been injudicious in her life-but she could hardly argue. Neither could she think of a suitable answer. “Thank you” seemed so foolish.

“It is kind of you to make me welcome,” she heard herself saying.

“I hope you are staying to luncheon?” It was a question.

“Oh yes,” Emily rushed in quickly before Charlotte had time to flounder. “Of course, she will stay. And this afternoon we shall go calling.”

Charlotte drew breath to make some excuse. She could not possibly go around Paragon Walk with Emily, dressed in gray muslin. Momentarily she was angry with Emily for putting her in such a position. She turned to glare at her.

Aunt Vespasia cleared her throat sharply.

“And who, precisely, did you have it in mind to call upon?”

Emily looked at Charlotte, realized her mistake, and fished herself out of it with aplomb.

“I thought Selena Montague. She admires herself in plum pink, and Charlotte will look so much better in it I should enjoy putting her in my new silk, and obliging Selena to look at her. I do not care for Selena,” she added as an aside to Charlotte, quite unnecessarily. “And the dress will fit you excellently. The foolish dressmaker got her fingers muddled and made it much too long for me.”

Aunt Vespasia allowed her a small smile of admiration.

“I thought it was Jessamyn Nash you disliked,” she remarked casually.

“I like irritating Jessamyn,” Emily waved a hand. “That is not really the same thing. I have never thought whether I like her or not.”

“Whom do you like?” Charlotte inquired, wanting to know more about the Walk. Now that she was freed from the immediate problem of dress, her mind went back to Fanny Nash and the fear that the others seemed to have forgotten.

“Oh,” Emily considered for a moment. “I quite like Phoebe Nash, Jessamyn’s sister-in-law, if she would be a little more definite. And I like Albertine Dilbridge, although I have no patience with her mother. And I like Diggory Nash, but I do not know why. I can think of nothing in particular to say about him that is good.”

Luncheon was announced, and the three of them departed for the dining room. Charlotte had not seen a meal of such simple grace for a long time, perhaps not ever. It was all cold, and yet of such delicacy that it must have taken hours to prepare. In the still heat it was delicious just to contemplate the cold soups, fresh salmon with minute cold vegetables, ices, sherbets and fruit. She was halfway through eating it, elegantly, as if she ate such things every day, when she remembered Pitt would probably be chewing through heavy bread sandwiches with a little cold meat in them, if he was fortunate, if not, then cheese, dry and clogging in the mouth. She put her fork down, the peas rolling away. Neither Emily nor Vespasia noticed.

It took half an hour, much critical surveying by Emily, and a least a dozen pins, before Charlotte was satisfied that she looked acceptable in the plum silk and could go calling to the Walk. Actually she was rather more than satisfied. It was a very good quality silk indeed, and the color was remarkably flattering to her. The warmth of it against the honey of her skin and the richness of her hair was enough to carry her away in a flight of vanity. It was going to hurt to take it off and give it back to Emily at the end of the afternoon. The gray muslin had lost all its appeal. It no longer looked smart, merely drab and very much last year’s.

Aunt Vespasia complimented her with dry humor as she came down the stairs, but she met the old lady’s eyes without a flicker and hoped she had no idea how many pins there were in it, or how hard she had relaced her stays to get into Emily’s old waist.

She thanked Vespasia and walked with Emily out into the sunlight on the carriageway, head high and back very straight. Actually it was more than a little uncomfortable to hold herself in any other way, and she would have to sit with care.

It was only a hundred yards or so to Selena Montague’s house, and Emily said very little on the way. They knocked at the door and were let in immediately by a smart maid in black and lace, obviously poised to expect callers. Apparently Mrs. Montague was in the garden at the back, and they were invited to join her. The house was elegant and expensive, although Charlotte’s practiced eye could see tiny economies, a mend in the fringe of a lampshade, a cushion whose upholstery had obviously been turned, the new piece from the underside darker against the faded wings. She had done the same herself and knew the signs.

Selena was sitting in a wicker chaise lounge, her arms dangling over the sides, her face lifted upward, but protected from the harsh sun by a floppy, flower-decked hat. She had excellent features, although her nose was perhaps a trifle sharp. Her eyes were wide and brown, long lashed, and she opened them with intense interest when she saw Charlotte.

“My dear Selena,” Emily began in her best voice. “How charming you look, and so cool! May I present my sister, Charlotte Pitt, who has called upon me?”

Selena did not move, but surveyed Charlotte with barely disguised curiosity. Charlotte had an unpleasant feeling that nothing had been missed, from her rather worn best boots to every pin in her dress.

“How delightful,” Selena said at last. “So,” she glanced down at Charlotte’s boots again “-considerate-of you to have come. I am sure we shall all enjoy your company.”

Charlotte felt her temper rise instantly. Above all things she hated to be patronized.

“I hope I shall also enjoy yours,” she said with a cool smile.

The implication was not missed by Selena, and from the pressure of Emily’s fingers on her arm Charlotte knew that she too had taken the point.

“You must come and dine with us sometime,” Selena went on. “These summer evenings are so warm we frequently eat out here. The strawberries are quite delicious this year, don’t you think so?”

Strawberries were utterly beyond Charlotte’s budgeting.

“Very sweet,” she agreed. “Perhaps it is the sun.”

“No doubt,” Selena was not interested in where they came from. She looked up at Emily. “Please sit down. I’m sure you would like some refreshment, you must be dreadfully hot-” Charlotte saw Emily’s face tighten at the implication, and her cheeks did look flushed. “Perhaps a sherbet?” Selena smiled. “And you, Mrs. Pitt? Something cooling?”

“Whatever you care for yourself, Mrs. Montague,” Charlotte put in before Emily could speak. “I would not wish to put you to inconvenience.”

“I assure you it is no inconvenience!” Selena said with a touch of tartness. She reached out and rang a small bell on the table, and its sharp sound was answered by a maid in starched white. Selena gave elaborate orders. Then she turned to Emily again. “Have you seen poor Jessamyn?”

Emily sat in a white wrought-iron chair, and Charlotte perched on another beside her, carefully, so as not to burst a pin.

“No,” Emily replied. “I did leave my card, of course, and a small letter to express my condolences.”

Selena struggled to hide her disappointment and failed.

“Pour soul,” she murmured. “She must be feeling quite dreadful. One simply cannot imagine it! I hoped perhaps you had seen her and could tell me something.”

Emily knew immediately that Selena had not seen her either and was consumed with curiosity.

“One doesn’t even wish to try,” She shivered. “I’m sure she has the sympathy of absolutely everyone. I have no doubt each of us will call upon her in the next weeks, it would be inhuman not to. Even gentlemen will call, I’m sure. It would be the least they could do to comfort her.”

The nostrils flared on Selena’s sharp little nose.

“I would not have thought any comfort possible after one’s sister-in-law has been violated practically on one’s doorstep and has staggered in to die literally in one’s arms.” There was an unspecified criticism of Emily in her tone. “I think I should retire altogether if such a thing happened to me. I might even become quite deranged.” She said it very certainly, as if she were in no doubt that such a thing had already happened to Jessamyn.

“Good gracious!” Emily affected horror. “Surely you don’t imagine it will happen again, do you? I didn’t even know you had a sister-in-law.”

“I don’t!” Selena snapped. “I was merely saying how I sympathize with poor Jessamyn, and that we must not expect too much of her. We must be understanding if she seems a little odd-at least I am sure I shall be.”

“I’m sure you will, my dear.” Emily leaned forward, her voice cooing. “I’m sure you would never intentionally be unkind to anyone.”

Charlotte wondered if Emily were not giving her credit for rather many “accidents.”

“It must be very difficult to know what to say,” Charlotte suggested. “I should not know whether avoiding the subject might seem as if I were indifferent to her loss, or then on the other hand discussing it might appear like curiosity, which would be so vulgar.”

Selena’s face hardened, taking the inference perfectly.

“How very frank of you,” she said with wide-eyed surprise, as if she had discovered something alive in the salad. “Are you always so-candid-about your thoughts, Mrs. Pitt?”

“I’m afraid so. It is my greatest social disadvantage.” Now let her find a civil answer to that!

“Oh! Well, I dare say it cannot be too serious,” Selena replied cooly. “Your sister does not appear even to be aware of it.”

“I am inured to it.” Emily smiled dazzlingly at her. “I have suffered disaster upon disaster. Now I only bring her to call upon friends I know I can trust.” She met Selena’s brown eyes squarely.

Charlotte nearly choked, trying to maintain a sober face. Selena was outmaneuvered, and she knew it.

“How kind,” she murmured pointlessly. She took the tray from the maid. “Do have some sherbet.”

There was a natural silence after this for a little while, as they dipped their spoons into the cool delicacy. Charlotte wanted to use the opportunity to learn something more about the people, perhaps something that Pitt, as an obvious policeman, could not observe, but all the questions in her head were too clumsy. And she had not decided precisely what she needed to know. She sat with the sherbet dish in her hand and stared at the roses on the far wall. It reminded her a little of Cater Street and her parents’ home, only this was grander, lusher. It seemed such an unlikely place for a sordid crime like rape. Embezzlement or fraud she could have understood, or of course burglary. But did men who lived in houses like these ever rape anyone? Surely no matter how eccentric their tastes, or even perverted-she had heard that there were such things-men from Paragon Walk could afford to pay to indulge them. And there were always people who catered, everywhere, from the teeming rookeries to the expensive brothels, even boys and children.

Unless, of course, some particular woman was tormenting them, teasing, and flaunting herself. But from everyone’s descriptions, Fanny Nash had been anything but a flirt-in fact, decidedly gauche. Thomas had said Jessamyn made as much a point of it as was only just short of unkindness, and Emily had borne her out.

She was still thinking about it, convincing herself it had been some drunken coachman from the Dilbridges’ party and nothing to touch Emily, when she was distracted by voices across the lawn. She turned to see two elderly ladies, dressed in identical turquoise muslin and lace, although the styles were different, as suited their vastly different figures. One was tall and gaunt, flat-chested, the other small and rotund with a high, overstuffed bosom and plump little hands and feet.

“Miss Lucinda Horbury,” Selena introduced the small one, “and Miss Laetitia Horbury.” She turned to the taller. “I am sure you have not met Lady Ashworth’s sister, Mrs. Pitt.”

Greetings were exchanged with elaborately concealed curiosity, and more sherbet was brought. When the maid had left, Miss Lucinda turned to Charlotte.

“My dear Mrs. Pitt, how good of you to call. Of course you have come to comfort poor Emily after the dreadful happening! Isn’t it too appalling?”

Charlotte made polite noises, scrambling to think of something useful to ask, but Miss Lucinda did not really require a reply.

“I really don’t know what things are coming to!” she went on, warming to the subject. “I’m sure when I was young such things never occurred in decent society. Although, of course-” she glanced at her sister “-we did have those among us whose morals were not without fault!”

“Indeed?” Miss Laetitia’s faint eyebrows rose. “I don’t recall that I knew any, but perhaps you had a wider circle than I?”

Miss Lucinda’s plump face tightened, but she ignored the remark, lifting her shoulder slightly and looking toward Charlotte.

“I expect you have heard all about it, Mrs. Pitt? Poor dear Fanny Nash was vilely assaulted and then stabbed to death. We are all quite shattered! The Nashes have lived in the Walk for years, I dare say for generations, a very good family, indeed. I was talking to Mr. Afton, that’s the eldest of the brothers, you know, only yesterday. He has such dignity, don’t you think?” She flushed and looked at Selena, then Emily, and returned to Charlotte. “He is such a sober man,” she continued. “One can hardly imagine his having a sister who would meet with such an end. Of course, Mr. Diggory is a good deal more-more liberal-” she pronounced the word carefully “-in his tastes. But I always say, there are things a man may acceptably do, even if they are not very pleasant, which would be quite unthinkable in a woman-even of the loosest order.” Again she lifted her shoulder a little and glanced momentarily at her sister.

“Are you saying that Fanny somehow invited her attack?” Charlotte asked frankly. She felt the ripple of amazement in the others and ignored it, keeping her eyes on Miss Lucinda’s pink face.

Miss Lucinda sniffed.

“Well, really, Mrs. Pitt, one would hardly expect such a nature of thing to happen to a woman who was-chaste! She would not allow herself to be put in such a circumstance. I am sure that you have never been molested! And neither have any of us!”

“Perhaps that is no more than our good fortune?” Charlotte suggested, then added, lest she embarrass Emily too much, “If he were a madman, he might imagine all sorts of things that were entirely false, might he not, utterly without reason?”

“I have no acquaintance with madmen,” Miss Lucinda said fiercely.

Charlotte smiled. “Nor I with rapists, Miss Horbury. Everything I say is only a surmise.”

Miss Laetitia flashed her a smile so quick it was gone almost as soon as it had appeared.

Miss Lucinda sniffed harder. “Naturally, Mrs. Pitt. I hope you did not imagine for a moment that anything I said was from any kind of personal knowledge! I assure you, I was no more than sympathizing with poor Mr. Nash-to have such a disgrace within his family.”

“Disgrace!” Charlotte was too angry even to try to control her tongue. “I see it as a tragedy, Miss Horbury, a terror, if you like, but hardly a disgrace.”

“Well!” Miss Lucinda bridled. “Well, really-”

“Is that what Mr. Nash said?” Charlotte pressed, ignoring a sharp nudge from Emily’s boot. “Did he say it was a disgrace?”

“Really, I do not recall his words, but he was most certainly aware of the-the obscenity of it!” She shuddered and snorted down her nose. “I am quite terrified at the mere thought myself. I believe, Mrs. Pitt, if you lived in the Walk, you would feel as we do. Why, our maid, poor child, fainted clean away this morning, when the next door bootboy spoke to her. That’s another three of our best cups gone!”

“Perhaps you could reassure her that the man is probably miles away from her now?” Charlotte suggested. “After all, with the police investigating and everyone looking for him, this is the last place he would be likely to remain.”

“Oh, one must not lie, Mrs. Pitt, even to servants,” Miss Lucinda said sharply.

“I don’t see why not?” Miss Laetitia put in with mildness. “If it is for their good.”

“I always said you had no sense of morals!” Miss Lucinda glared at her sister. “Who can say where the creature is now? I am sure Mrs. Pitt cannot! He is obviously possessed by uncontrollable passions, abnormal hungers too dreadful for a decent woman to contemplate.”

Charlotte was tempted to point out that Miss Lucinda had done little else but contemplate them since she had arrived, and it was only sensibility for Emily that prevented her.

Selena shivered.

“Perhaps he is some depraved creature from the under-world, excited by women of quality, satins and laces, cleanliness?” she said to no one in particular.

“Or perhaps he lives here in the Walk, and naturally chooses his own to prey upon-who else?” It was a gentle, light voice, but distinctly masculine.

They all whirled round as one, to see Fulbert Nash only two yards from them on the grass, a dish of sherbet in his hand.

“Good afternoon, Selena, Lady Ashworth, Miss Lucinda, Miss Laetitia.” He looked at Charlotte with raised eyebrows.

“My sister, Mrs. Pitt,” Emily said tightly. “And that is an appalling thing to say, Mr. Nash!”

“It is an appalling crime, ma’am. And life can be appalling, have you not observed?”

“Not, mine, Mr. Nash!”

“How charming of you,” he sat down opposite them.

Emily blinked. “Charming?”

“That is one of the most restful qualities of women,” he replied. “The ability to see only what is pleasant. It makes them so comfortable to be with. Don’t you think so, Mrs. Pitt?”

“I should think it would make for extreme insecurity,” Charlotte replied with candor. “One would never know whether one was dealing with the truth or not. Personally I should be forever wondering what it was I did not know.”

“And so, like Pandora, you would open the box and let disaster loose upon the world.” He looked over the sherbet at her. He had very fine hands. “How unwise of you. There are so many things it is safer not to know. We all have our secrets.” His eyes flickered round the small group. “Even in Paragon Walk. ‘If any man says he is without sin, he deceives himself.’ You didn’t expect to hear me quote from the Good Book, did you, Lady Ashworth? If you stroll along the Walk, Mrs. Pitt, your naked eye will see perfect houses, stone upon stone, but your spiritual eye, if you have one, will see a row of whited sepulchers. Is that not so, Selena?”

Before Selena could reply, there was a slight clatter as a maid jiggled yet more sherbet on her tray, and they turned to see a most beautiful woman coming across the grass, seeming almost to gloat as the faint, warm air moved the white and water-green silk of her dress. Selena’s face hardened.

“Jessamyn, how charming to see you. I had not expected you to have such fortitude to be about. How I admire you, my dear. Do join us and meet Mrs. Pitt, Emily’s sister from-?” She lifted her eyebrows, but no one answered her. There were brief acknowledgements. “What an attractive gown,” Selena went on, looking at Jessamyn again. “Only you could get away with wearing such a-an anaemic color. On me I swear it would look quite disastrous, so, so washed out!”

Charlotte turned to Jessamyn and observed from her expression that she understood Selena’s meaning perfectly. Her composure was exquisite.

“Don’t be depressed, my dear Selena. We cannot all wear the same things, but I’m sure there must be some colors which will suit you excellently.” She looked at the gorgeous gown Selena was wearing, lavender appliqued with plum-pink lace. “Not that, maybe,” she said slowly. “Had you thought of something a little cooler, perhaps blue? So flattering to the higher complexion in this trying weather.”

Selena was furious. Her eyes spat something that looked as deep as hatred. Charlotte was surprised and a little taken aback to see it.

“We go to too many of the same places,” Selena said between her teeth. “And I should dislike above all things to be thought to ape your tastes-in anything. One should at all costs be original, do you not agree, Mrs. Pitt?” She turned to Charlotte.

Charlotte, acutely conscious of Emily’s made-over dress, full of pins, could not summon a reply. She was still shaken by the hatred she had seen, and Fulbert Nash’s ugly remark about whited sepulchers.

Oddly, it was Fulbert who rescued her.

“Up to a point,” he said casually. “Originality can so easily become outlandish, and one can end up a positive eccentric. Don’t you think so, Miss Lucinda?”

Miss Lucinda snorted and declined to reply.

Emily and Charlotte excused themselves shortly afterward, and, as Emily obviously did not feel like making any further calls, they went home.

“What an extraordinary man Fulbert Nash is,” Charlotte commented as they climbed the stairs. “Whatever did he mean about ‘whited sepulchers’?”

“How should I know?” Emily snapped. “Perhaps he has a guilty conscience.”

“Over what? Fanny?”

“I’ve no idea. He is a thoroughly horrible person. All the Nashes are, except Diggory. Afton is perfectly beastly. And whenever people are horrible themselves, they tend to think everyone else is too.”

Charlotte could not leave well enough alone.

“Do you think he really does know something about all the people in the Walk? Didn’t Miss Lucinda say the Nashes had lived here for generations?”

“She’s a silly old gossip!” Emily crossed the landing and went into her dressing room. She took Charlotte’s old muslin dress off its hanger. “You should have more sense than to listen to her.”

Charlotte began searching for the pins in the plum silk, taking them out slowly.

“But if the Nashes have lived here for years, then maybe Mr. Nash does know a lot about everyone. People do, when they live close to each other, and they remember.”

“Well, he doesn’t know anything about me! Because there isn’t anything to know!”

At last Charlotte was silent. The real fear was out. Of course Mr. Nash did not know anything about Emily, but then no one would suspect Emily of rape and murder. But what did he know about George? George had lived here every summer of his life.

“I wasn’t thinking of you.” She slipped the plum dress to the floor.

“Of course not,” Emily picked it up and passed her the gray muslin. “You were thinking of George! Just because I’m with child, and George is a gentleman and doesn’t have to work like Thomas, you think he’s out gambling and drinking at his club and having affairs, and that he could have taken a fancy to Fanny Nash and refused to be put off!”

“I don’t think anything of the kind!” Charlotte took the muslin and put it on slowly. It was more comfortable than the plum, and she had let her stays out an inch, but it looked inexpressibly drab. “But it seems that you are afraid of it.”

Emily whirled around, her face red.

“Rubbish! I know George, and I believe in him!”

Charlotte did not argue; the fear was too high in Emily’s voice, the sharp corrosive poison of anxiety eating away. In weeks, perhaps days, it would turn to question, doubt, or even actual suspicion. And George was bound to have made some mistakes somewhere, said or done something foolish, something better forgotten.

“Of course,” she said softly. “And hopefully Thomas will soon find whoever did it, and we can begin to forget the whole thing. Thank you for lending me your dress.”