Paragon Walk (17 page)

“Yes sir, we shall do that.”

“Might have been a rapist in France for all we know!” Freddie’s own voice lifted as he warmed to the subject, pleased with his own sagacity. “Maybe Fulbert discovered it. Now that would surely be worth killing him for, wouldn’t it? Yes, you find out about Monsieur Alaric before he came here. Guarantee you’ll find the reason for your murder there! Guarantee it! Now, for heaven’s sake, let me go and have some breakfast! I feel perfectly awful!”

Grace Dilbridge had an entirely different outlook on the subject.

“Oh no!” she said immediately. “Freddie is not himself this morning, or I’m sure he would not have made such a suggestion. He is very loyal, you know. He would not wish to think of any of his friends as—as more than a little— indelicate. But I assure you, Monsieur Alaric is the most charming and civilized man. And Fanny, poor child, thought him quite devastating, as indeed did my own daughter, until quite lately when she has become fond of Mr. Isaacs. I really don’t know what I’m going to do about that!” Then she blushed at having mentioned so personal a thing in front of what was after all no more than a tradesman. “But no doubt it will pass,” she added hastily. “This is her first Season, after all, and it is natural she should be admired by a number of people.”

Pitt felt he was losing the thread. He tried to pull her back.

“Monsieur Alaric—”

“Nonsense!” she repeated firmly. “My husband has known the Nashes for years, so naturally he is loath to admit it, even to himself, but it is quite obvious that Fulbert has run away because he himself was guilty of molesting poor Fanny. I dare say in the dark he mistook her for a maid, or something, and then when he discovered who she was, and she of course saw him, there was nothing he could do but kill her to keep her silent. It is perfectly awful! His own sister! But then men are perfectly awful, at times, it is their nature, and has been ever since Adam. We are conceived in sin, and some of us never rise above it.”

Pitt searched his mind and found no answer to that, and anyway his thoughts were revolving on her earlier words and the thought that had never occurred to him before, that Fulbert could have mistaken Fanny for someone else, a maid, a kitchen girl, someone who would never dare to accuse a gentleman of forcing himself on her or, for that matter, might not even have minded, could possibly have encouraged him. And then, when he found it was his own sister, the horror and the disgrace not only of rape but of incest would have panicked many a man into murder! And that applied equally to all three of the Nash brothers! His brain was in a whirl with the enormity of it, the vast new dimensions it opened up. Vista upon vista swam into his imagination and fell away endlessly. The whole problem would have to be started again almost from the beginning.

Grace was still talking, but he was not listening anymore. He needed time to think, to be outside in the sun where he could rearrange all that he knew in this new light. He stood up. He knew he was cutting across her speech, but there was no other way to escape.

“You have been extraordinarily helpful, Lady Dilbridge. I am most grateful.” He smiled at her dazzlingly, leaving her a little startled, and swept out into the hallway and through the front door, coattails flapping, sending the maid on the step over backward, her broom at her shoulder like a guardsman presenting arms.

It was a long, hot and busy week later, when Charlotte announced to him that Emily was giving a soiree. He had very little idea what that was, except that it occurred in the afternoon, and that she had been invited to it. He was preoccupied with waiting for news from Paris about Paul Alaric and with the wealth of detail he had learned about the personal lives in the Walk, since he had begun, with Forbes’s wide-eyed and willing assistance, to inquire all over again in the totally new light of Grace Dilbridge’s suggestion. It seemed, if everyone was to be believed, that there were a great many more relationships of varying natures than he had suspected. Freddie Dilbridge was quite notorious. Something secret, and apparently thrilling to those who partook, was assumed to happen at some of his more riotous parties. And Diggory Nash had given way to temptation on more than a few occasions. There was much speculation about Hallam Cayley, especially since the death of his wife, but he had not yet sorted out the direct lies from the fantasies on that one, and had even less idea how much might actually be truth. Apparently George had at least had the good sense to keep his indulgences out of the servants’ quarters, although it was beyond doubt he had certainly entertained feelings toward Selena, heartily reciprocated, which would deeply hurt Emily if she ever had to know. But if there were anything but wishful thinking about Paul Alaric, no one was prepared to speak of it.

He would dearly like to have discovered something to the discredit of Afton Nash, as he found the man incredibly unpleasant. However, although none of the maids seemed to feel kindly toward him, there was not even the barest suggestion he had been in the least familiar with any.

As for Fulbert himself, there were whispers, suggestions, but since his disappearance even the mention of his name produced such hysteria that Pitt had no idea what to believe. The whole Walk seethed in overheated imagination. The mind-dulling monotony of daily chores that stretched from childhood to the grave was made bearable only by the penny romances and the giggling stories swapped in tiny attic bedrooms when the long day was done. Now murderers and lust-crazed seducers lurked in every shadow, and fear, half-desire, and reality were hopelessly entangled.

He did not expect Charlotte to learn anything of value at Emily’s party. He was convinced that the answer to the murders lay below stairs, far out of Charlotte’s or Emily’s reach, and all he said to her on the matter was in the nature of an exhortation to enjoy herself and a very firm command totally to mind her own business and make no inquiries or comments that might lead to anything but the most trivial of polite conversation.

She said, “Yes, Thomas,” very demurely, which, had he been less consumed in his own thoughts, would have struck him immediately as suspicious.

The soiree was a very formal affair, and Charlotte was totally swept off her feet with delight at the gown Emily had had made for her as a present. It was of yellow silk, and it fitted her perfectly and was quite ravishingly beautiful. She felt like sunshine itself as she swept in through the doorway, head high, face glowing. She was surprised when no more than half a dozen people turned to look at her; she quite expected the whole room to fall silent and stare. However, she was conscious that Paul Alaric was one of those few who did look. She saw his elegant black head turn from Selena to where she stood on the step. She knew the color burned up her cheeks, and she lifted her chin a little higher.

Emily came over to welcome her straightaway, and she was pulled into the crowd, which must have numbered fifty or more, and drawn into conversation. There was no opportunity for any private exchange. Emily gave her a long, straight look, which said very plainly that she was to behave herself and think before she spoke, and the moment after she was called away to welcome another guest.

“Emily has asked a young poet to come and read us some of his work,” Phoebe said with brittle cheerfulness. “I have heard it is most provoking. Let us hope we can understand it. It will give us food for much discussion.”

“I hope it is not vulgar,” Miss Lucinda said quickly. “Or erotic. Have you seen those quite dreadful drawings of Mr. Beardsley’s?”

Charlotte would like to have commented on Mr. Beardsley, but since she had never seen any of his drawings, or indeed heard of him, she could not.

“I cannot imagine Emily choosing someone without doing all that one can to assure that he is neither,” she replied, with an immediate edge to her voice. “Of course,” she went on, “one is not able to control what one’s guests say or do once they come, only to judge to the best of one’s ability whom to invite.”

“Of course.” Lucinda colored faintly. “I did not mean to imply anything but mischance.”

Charlotte remained cool.

“I believe he is political rather than romantic.”

“That should be interesting,” Miss Laetitia said hopefully. “I wonder if he has written anything about the poor or social reform?”

“I believe so.” Charlotte was pleased to have caught. Miss Laetitia’s interest. She rather liked her, especially since Vespasia had told her about the long past scandal. “They are the best things about which to try to stir people’s consciences,” she added.

“I’m sure we have nothing to be ashamed of!” It was a stout elderly lady who spoke, her body marvelously corsetted into a peacock-blue dress and her face above square-jawed and reminding Charlotte of a Pekinese dog, although vastly larger. She guessed her to be the Misses Horbury’s permanent guest, Lady Tamworth, but nobody introduced her. “Poor Fanny was a victim of the times,” she went on loudly. “Standards are falling everywhere, even here!”

“Do you not think it is up to the Church to speak to people’s consciences?” Miss Lucinda asked with a slight flaring of the nostrils, although it was not clear whether her distaste was for Charlotte’s political views or Lady Tamworth having brought up the subject of Fanny yet again.

Charlotte ignored the remark on Fanny, at least for the time being. Pitt had not said she must avoid political discussion, although of course Papa had outrightly forbidden it! But she was not Papa’s problem now.

“Perhaps it is the Church that has stirred his will to speak in the way he is best equipped?” she suggested innocently.

“Do you not feel he is then usurping the Church’s prerogative?” Miss Lucinda said with a sharp frown. “And that those called of God for the purpose would do it far better?”

“Possibly,” Charlotte was determined to be reasonable. “But that is not to say others should not do the best they can. Surely the more voices the better? There are many places where the Church is not heard. Perhaps he can reach some of those?”

“Then what is he doing here?” Miss Lucinda demanded. “Paragon Walk is hardly such a place! He would be better employed somewhere else, in a back street, or a workhouse.”

Afton Nash joined them, his eyebrows raised in slight surprize at Miss Lucinda’s rather heated comment.

“And who are you consigning to the workhouse, Miss Horbury?” he inquired, looking for a moment at Charlotte, then away again.

“I’m sure the back streets and the workhouses are already converted to the need for social reform,” Charlotte said with a slight downward curve of her mouth. “And indeed for the ease of the poor. It is the rich who need to give; the poor will receive readily enough. It is the powerful who can change laws.”

Lady Tamworth’s eyebrows went up in surprize and some scorn.

“Are you suggesting it is the aristocracy, the leaders and the backbone of the country, who are at fault?”

Charlotte did not even think of retreating for courtesy’s sake, or because it was unbecoming in a woman to be so contentious.

“I am saying there is no purpose in preaching to the poor that they should be helped,” she replied. “Or to the workless and illiterate that laws should be reformed. The only people who can change things are the people with power and money. If the Church had already reached all of them, we would have achieved our reform long since, and there would be labor for the poor to earn their own necessities.”

Lady Tamworth glared at her and turned away, affecting to find the conversation too unpleasant to continue, but Charlotte knew perfectly well it was because she could think of no answer. There was a delicate type of pleasure in Miss Laetitia’s face, and she caught Charlotte’s eye for a moment before also leaving.

“My dear Mrs. Pitt,” Afton said very carefully, as if speaking to someone unfamiliar with the language, or a little deaf. “You do not understand either politics or economics. One cannot change things overnight.”

Phoebe joined them, but he disregarded her entirely.

“The poor are poor,” he continued, “precisely because they do not have the means or the will to be otherwise. One cannot denude the rich to feed them. It would be insane and like pouring water into the desert sand. There are millions of them! What you suggest is totally impractical.” He managed a smile of condescension for her ignorance.

Charlotte seethed. It took all the self-will she possessed to master her face and affect an air of genuine inquiry.

“But if the rich and the powerful are unable to change things,” she asked, “then to whom does the Church preach, and to what purpose?”

“I beg your pardon?” He could not believe what he had heard.

Charlotte repeated herself, not daring to look at Phoebe or Miss Lucinda.

Before Afton could form a reply to such a preposterous question, another voice answered instead, a soft voice with a delicate intonation of accent.

“To the purpose that it is good for our souls to give away a little, so that we may enjoy what we have, and still sleep easily at night, because we can then tell ourselves we have tried, we have done our bit! Never, my dear, in the hope that anything will actually change!”

Charlotte felt the color sweep up her face. She had had no idea at all that Paul Alaric was so close and had heard her opinionated baiting of Afton and Miss Lucinda. She did not look at him.

“How very cynical, Monsieur Alaric.” She swallowed. “Do you believe we are all such hypocrites?”

“We?” his voice rose very slightly. “Do you go to Church and feel better for it, Mrs. Pitt?”

She was caught in complete indecision. Certainly, she did not. Sermons in church, on the rare occasions she went, made her squirm with anger and a desire to argue. But she could not say so to Afton Nash and hope to be even remotely understood. And it would only hurt Phoebe. Damn Alaric for making a hypocrite of her.

“Of course I do,” she lied, watching Phoebe’s face. The anxiety ironed out of it, and she was immediately rewarded. She had nothing in common with Phoebe, and yet she felt an ache of pity for her every time her plain, pale face came to mind. Perhaps it was only because she imagined all the hurt Afton could do with his hard, thrusting tongue.