She knew immediately why Pitt had concealed it from her. She herself was newly expecting their first child. The thought of some servant girl, alone, desperate not to lose her livelihood, deserted by a lover-the whole thing was appalling. She felt cold at the imagining of it. Yet when she put the paper down she was already determined not to drive it from her mind. Perhaps she would be able to help the girl, if she were thrown out. It was a possibility: not herself, of course, she had no position to offer. But Emily! Emily was rich-and she had a deep suspicion she was also just a little bored. It was two years since her marriage also, and she had by now met all George Ashworth’s friends of any importance; she had been seen well dressed in all the fashionable places. Perhaps this would arouse her. Charlotte decided on the spot. This afternoon she would call upon Emily; early, so as not to collide with her more socially elite callers, and before Emily herself might be out.
Duly at two o’clock she presented herself at the front door of Emily’s London house in Tavistock Square.
The parlormaid knew her and admitted her without asking explanation. She was shown into the withdrawing room where there was a fire lit already and barely a moment later Emily herself came in. She was already dressed for her afternoon visiting; she looked magnificent in pale apple green silk with dark brown velvet ribbons. It must have cost more than Charlotte would have spent on clothes in half a year. Her face was alight with pleasure. She kissed her sister delicately, but with genuine warmth.
“Goodness, if you’re going to take up calling, Charlotte, I shall have to teach you what time to begin! It is not done to arrive before three at the very, very earliest. Ladies of rank, of course, later still.”
“I haven’t come calling,” Charlotte said quickly. “I wouldn’t think of it. I came to ask your help, if you can give it; and of course you are interested.”
Emily’s honey-colored eyebrows rose, but her eyes were bright.
“In what? Not a charity, please!”
Charlotte knew her sister too well to have come on such an errand.
“Of course not,” she said sharply. “A crime-”
“Charlotte!”
“Not to commit, goose; to help, when it is solved.”
Even Emily’s new sophistication could not hide her excitement.
“Can’t we solve it? Can’t we help? If we-”
“It’s not a nice crime, Emily, not a robbery or something clean,” Charlotte said hastily.
“Well, what is it?” Emily did not look disconcerted. Charlotte had forgotten how composed she was, how easily she adapted to the unpleasantnesses of life. Indeed, from the day she had decided she would marry Lord George Ashworth, she had accepted frankly that he had faults and that she might never eradicate more than a few of them, but she made her decision and settled for the bargain as it was. She had never complained. Although in truth Charlotte did not know if she had any cause.
“Goodness, Charlotte,” Emily prodded. “Is it so dreadful you cannot put tongue to it? I never before knew you at a loss for words.”
“No. No, it is merely very sad. Two babies’ bodies were dug up in the garden in the center of Callander Square.”
Surprisingly, Emily was shaken.
“Babies?”
“Yes.”
“But who would want to kill a baby? It’s insane.”
“A servant girl who was unmarried, of course.”
Emily frowned.
“And you want to find out who it was? Why?”
“I don’t want to find out who it was,” Charlotte said impatiently. “But if they were born dead, as seems well possible, perhaps you might be able to find her another position, if she were dismissed-”
Emily stared at her, thoughts flashing in her face almost as transparently as they crossed her mind.
Charlotte waited.
“I know someone who lives in Callander Square,” she said at last. “At least George does-Brandy Balantyne. His father is a general, or something. I’m sure they live in Callander Square. He has a sister, Christina. I shall have George introduce us; it can be arranged, with a little thought. Then I shall call on her,” her voice began to rise with excitement. There was a faint color in her cheeks and a set of determination about her head. “We shall discover the real truth. I can learn things the police never could, because I move in the right circles. They will speak to me. And you can speak to the servants; oh, the higher-up ones, of course-cook and governess, and the like. You won’t tell them you are a policeman’s wife, naturally. We shall begin immediately. As soon as George returns home I shall speak to him and he will arrange it!”
“Emily-”
“What? I thought you wanted my help. We cannot possibly know what is best to do if we do not know the truth. It is always best to know the truth, whether you then decide to dismiss it or to conceal it, or even to forget about it entirely. But if we do not know the truth to begin with, we can make the most unfortunate mistakes.”
Charlotte looked at Emily’s dancing eyes and every shred of common sense in her told her to refuse instantly.
“We shall have to be very discreet.” Common sense suffered a quick defeat.
“Of course!” Emily was withering. “My dear Charlotte, I could not possibly have survived in society for two whole years if I had not learned to say everything but what I actually mean. I am the soul of discretion. We shall begin right away. Go home and discover whatever you can. I don’t imagine you can be discreet, you never could; but at least don’t volunteer our plans. Mr. Pitt may not approve.”
That was an understatement of magnificence. Nevertheless, Charlotte stood up with every intention of obeying, a tingle of fear inside her, and a thin quiver of Emily’s excitement.
TWO
The following day Pitt went back to Callander Square, hoping to interview the servants in the last two houses, but it was not until the early afternoon that they returned from their long weekends in the country. Consequently it was nearly three o’clock when he was shown by the Campbells’ butler into the back parlor and, one by one, saw the rest of the servants. Of course they were expecting his questions-the news must have been virtually waiting for them on the doorstep in the shape of scullery maid, tweeny, or bootboy bursting with the events and their own rich interpretations of them.
Pitt learned nothing new, and he was ready to leave when he met the mistress of the house. The Honorable Garson Campbell was a younger son of a family of wealth and position, and he had maintained a lifestyle appropriate to it. Mariah Campbell was a pleasant looking woman in her late thirties, with broad, good-humored face and fine, hazel eyes. She had been busy unpacking and organizing her family, which, she explained hastily, comprised a son, Albert, and two daughters, Victoria and Mary. She showed considerable distress on hearing of the purpose of his questions. Apparently the gossip had not reached her, and she begged that he would be discreet enough that the children might not come to hear of it.
“I assure you, ma’am, I should not dream of introducing such a subject to a child,” he said honestly, although he forbore to say that if some child should mention the matter to him, he would not be averse to listening. He had usually found children much less affected by death than adults. And it was a rare child indeed that was not inveterately inquisitive, and would have extracted from the servants every last detail that was to be had, or even invented and embroidered upon.
“Thank you,” she said courteously. “Children can be-hurt,” she was looking out of the window, “and frightened. There is so much that is ugly. The least we can do is protect them from it as long as we are able.”