Pentecost Alley (41 page)

They arrived in Devonshire Street at a quarter past four, and were received by Tallulah in her own boudoir,
the sitting room specifically for ladies. She was delighted to see Emily, but taken aback when she saw that she was accompanied by someone else, and a stranger.

“My sister, Charlotte,” Emily introduced them. “I was sure you would not mind my bringing her. She is most resourceful, and I thought she might help us with the dilemma we face. She is already familiar with something of the circumstances.”

Tallulah looked a little startled. She had obviously not considered that Emily might have confided their situation to anyone else.

Emily ignored her expression and plunged on, looking innocent. “It has come to the stage when we must prove the matter once and for all.” She shook her head a little and her face was full of sympathy. “You are going to have to admit that you were at that wretched party and that you saw Finlay.”

“No one will believe me!” Tallulah said with exasperation, glancing at Charlotte nervously, then back to Emily again. They were all seated in small, floral-covered easy chairs, but Tallulah hunched herself uncomfortably on the edge of hers. “We’ve been over all that,” she protested. “If it would have been the slightest use, I would have said so in the beginning. Do you think I would have allowed Finlay to be suspected at all if I could have helped it? What kind of a person do you think I am?” Her eyes were very bright, as if filled with tears, and her hands were clenched in her lap.

Charlotte wondered whether it was Emily’s opinion which hurt her or some other, perhaps that of Jago Jones. There was so much they did not know about Tallulah, about Finlay, about all the emotions which seethed below the surface of polite exchanges between those who lived beneath one roof, who seemed to share so much of daily life, of heritage, of status in the world and in society, who had known each other all their lives and yet had so little idea of what mattered or what hurt.

Emily was thinking how to phrase her reply so it did not make a fragile situation worse.

“I think you are frightened for a brother you love,” she answered at length. “As I would be. I love my sister, and would do anything I could to save her from an unjust punishment.” She smiled apologetically. “I might even go to some lengths to mitigate a just one, were it necessary. As she would for me … as she has done.” She looked at Tallulah gently. “But because I care so much, I would also be unable to think as clearly as I might were it someone less close to me.”

She waited, watching Tallulah.

Slowly Tallulah relaxed. “Of course. I’m sorry. This is such a nightmare. And I have not been myself lately.” She looked at Emily, as if her last remark were not merely a figure of speech but something she meant more literally.

Emily perceived the difference.

“Who have you been?” she said, not quite jokingly.

“Someone much more virtuous,” Tallulah replied, also as if she were not quite certain if she were serious or not. “Someone who doesn’t go to exciting parties, or waste time, or wear very expensive and fashionable clothes.” She sighed. “In fact, someone really pretty tedious. I’m trying to be good, and all I’m being is a bore. Why is being good such a list of things you mustn’t do? And it’s almost everything that’s any fun. Being virtuous seems to be so … so bland! So … gray!”

“Doing good works can be gray,” Charlotte replied, remembering something Aunt Vespasia had said. “Being good isn’t, because that involves feeling, caring about what you do. It isn’t a bloodless sort of thing at all. Selfishness is gray, in the end. It may not look it to begin with, but when you realize someone is essentially interested only in themselves, and if they even have to choose between what they like and what you need, you will lose. That’s gray. Cowardice is gray … the people who run away and leave you to fight alone when it looks as if the
danger is real and you might not win. Liars are gray, people who tell you what you want to believe whether it’s true or not. It’s generosity, courage, laughter and honesty which are really the bright colors.”

Tallulah smiled. “You say that as if you really mean it. Mama thinks I’m trying to mend my reputation. Papa thinks I’m being obedient. Fin hasn’t even noticed.”

“Does any of that matter?” Emily asked.

Tallulah shrugged.

“No, not really.”

“And Jago?”

Tallulah tried to laugh and failed. “He thinks it’s a pose, and very silly. If anything, he despises me even more for being artificial.” Her face was full of pain and confusion. “I don’t know how to be better, except by behaving as if I were. What does he expect me to do?” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “I think he wouldn’t really like me no matter what I did.” Suddenly she was angry, the pain of rejection flaring up inside her. “And anyway, I don’t want to be liked! Who on earth wants to be liked? It’s a pale, tepid sort of thing! I like rice pudding!”

“Why?” Charlotte said suddenly.

Tallulah turned to look at her. “I beg your pardon?”

“Why do you like rice pudding?” Charlotte repeated.

Tallulah could not hide her impatience. “Because it tastes pleasant. What on earth difference does that make? It hardly matters, does it?”

“I know that you meant you like rice pudding because you were contrasting a bland and unimportant feeling with one of passion and intensity,” Charlotte explained, trying for a few moments to put her own desperate need to help Pitt from the front of her mind and think wholly of Tallulah. “But the point I am trying to make is that the liking you are thinking of is purely subjective. What you mean is not that you like rice pudding but that you enjoy it. You like the way it makes you feel.”

Tallulah stared at her without comprehension. Only
inbred good manners kept her from saying something dismissive.

“When we speak of affections for a person,” Charlotte continued as she would have to Jemima, “we might be speaking only of the way they make us feel, but if it is really a love, or even liking, we should also be speaking of some concern for what they feel. Isn’t love supposed to be an unselfish thing? A placing of someone else’s well-being before your own?”

There was complete silence in the room. It was a typical boudoir of a young woman of fashion and a good deal of money, where she could receive her visitors in privacy. It was richly decorated in florals, all pinks and blues with dashes of white. Actually, for someone of Tallulah’s originality, it was surprisingly conventional. Perhaps she had not been allowed to decorate it herself. From what Emily had said of her, Charlotte would have expected something more inventive, perhaps Oriental, or Turkish, or even a touch reflecting the current fascination with ancient Egypt, not these conventional flowers.

“I … I suppose so,” Tallulah said at last. “I hadn’t thought of it like that….”

Charlotte smiled. “Yes, you had. Your concern for your brother is unselfish. You are prepared to get into a considerable amount of unpleasantness yourself in order to clear him of suspicion. It will not enhance your reputation—with society in general, or Jago in particular—if you admit to having been at that party. Nor will your father be inclined to view it favorably. You may well find your freedom curtailed, or your dress allowance cut short or even suspended altogether.”

Tallulah was very pale. “Yes,” she said softly. “I know. But that’s different.” Her hands clenched in her lap. “Fin is my brother. I’ve known him all my life. If I don’t stand by him, who will?”

“Probably no one,” Charlotte said honestly. “But please don’t think so lightly of liking someone. It’s terribly important. It is a kind of loving, you know, and one
that frequently lasts a lot longer than romance. You can fall out of love, as well as in. Most of us do, especially if you don’t actually like the person as well. It doesn’t always grow into love by any means, but sometimes it does.”

Tallulah blinked and frowned.

“Would you care to spend the rest of your life with someone you didn’t actually like?” Charlotte added.

“No, of course not.” Tallulah looked at her closely, as if trying to judge what kind of woman she was. “Would you marry someone you merely liked, and who no more than liked you?”

Charlotte had to smile broadly. “No, I wouldn’t even entertain the idea. I married highly unsuitably because I loved my husband wildly, and still do.”

“Well, Jago doesn’t love me,” Tallulah said with flat desperation. “And the whole discussion is pointless because he doesn’t even like me either.”

“Don’t give up yet,” Emily cut in. “Merely not going to parties and being extravagant is not enough. It is negative, a case of not doing things. Your heart isn’t in it, and he knows that. You must find something to do that you care about, a cause to fight for. We’ll think about it after we have won this battle. We have a pretty big cause in these terrible murders. If no one is going to believe you, then we must find someone else who was there, and sober enough to recall seeing Finlay, or if not Finlay, then at least seeing you. That would prove you were there. It might push someone’s memory. Are you willing to do that?”

“Of course I am.” Tallulah was very white, but she did not hesitate. “As soon as he comes home, we shall speak with him.” She reached for the bell and rang it. When the parlor maid answered, expecting a request for tea, Tallulah asked her to inform them as soon as Mr. Finlay should come in.

“Yes, miss. Is there any message?”

“Only that there is something most urgent I have to see
him about,” Tallulah replied. “It concerns him, and it may be of service to him. Please be sure to let him know immediately, and then tell me.”

The maid had no sooner gone than there was a knock on the door, and before Tallulah had time to respond, it opened and Aloysia FitzJames came in. She was a handsome woman with a quiet, well-bred manner. There was a serenity in her face, as if she deliberately closed out that which was ugly and, by strength of will, created her own world.

“Good afternoon,” she said as they rose to greet her. “How pleasant of you to call.” It was now considerably after the appropriate hour for formal calls, or even informal ones. Their presence needed some explanation.

“Mama,” Tallulah began, “these are my good friends, Mrs. Radley and her sister, Mrs….” She was obliged to hesitate, not having been told Charlotte’s name.

“Pitt,” Charlotte supplied.

It was a moment before Tallulah realized what she had said. She glanced at Emily, saw the consternation in her face, turned to Charlotte and saw it there also. Anger flamed up inside her, a sense of betrayal which she held in check only with extreme difficulty.

Aloysia noticed nothing.

“How do you do, Mrs. Radley, Mrs. Pitt,” she said with a smile. “Tallulah my dear, are your guests remaining for dinner? I think now would be an appropriate time to inform Cook.”

“No.” Tallulah forced out the word between clenched teeth. “They have previous matters to attend to which would make that impossible.”

“What a shame,” Aloysia said with a slight shrug.

“It would have been pleasant to have an interesting conversation over the dinner table. Men tend to talk about politics so much of the time, don’t you think?”

“Yes indeed,” Emily agreed. “My husband is in the House. I hear a great deal too much of it.”

“And your husband, Mrs. Pitt?” Aloysia enquired.

“We already know Mrs. Pitt’s husband,” Tallulah said viciously. “He is a policeman!” She turned to Charlotte. “I imagine you hear about all manner of things over the dinner table? Thieves, arsonists, prostitutes …”

“And murderers … and politicians,” Charlotte finished with a bright, brittle smile. “Usually they are separate, but not invariably.”

Aloysia was totally bemused, but she did not falter. She had kept up a calm, agreeable conversation in worse circumstances than this.

“I feel very sorry for these women that have been killed,” she said, regarding Emily and then Charlotte. “Perhaps if we could make prostitution illegal, then such things wouldn’t happen?”

Tallulah stared at her.

“I don’t think it would help, Mrs. FitzJames,” Charlotte said quite gently. “There isn’t much point in making a law you can’t enforce.”

Aloysia’s eyes widened. “Surely the law must be a matter of ideals, Mrs. Pitt? We cannot call ourselves a civilized or a Christian people if we make laws only on those issues where we feel we have control. All crime must be against the law, or the law is worthless. My husband has said that many times.”

“If you pass a law against something, that defines it as a crime,” Charlotte argued, but still with perfectly conceded patience. “There are a multitude of things which are sins, such as lying, adultery, malice, envy, ill temper, but it would be completely impractical to make them against the law, because we cannot police them, or prove them, or punish people for them.”

“But prostitution is quite different, my dear Mrs. Pitt,” Aloysia said with conviction. “It is utterly immoral. It is the ruination of good men, the betrayal of women, of families. It is unbelievably sordid! I cannot believe you really know what you are talking about….” She took a deep breath. “Neither do I, of course.”

“I hold no advocacy for it, Mrs. FitzJames,” Charlotte
replied, suffocating an intense desire to giggle. Tallulah was so furious she could scarcely contain herself. “I simply believe it is impossible to prevent. If we really wished to do so, we would have to address the issues which cause prostitution, both the women who practice it and the men who use them.”

Aloysia stared at her.

“I have no idea what you mean.”

Charlotte gave up. “Perhaps I am not very good at explaining myself. I apologize.”

Aloysia smiled charmingly. “I’m sure it doesn’t matter. Perhaps you will come again one day? It was charming to have met you, Mrs. Radley, Mrs. Pitt.” And with that she made some comment about the weather and excused herself.

Tallulah glared at Emily, pointedly ignoring Charlotte.

“How could you?” she said furiously. “I suppose you contrived my acquaintance right from the beginning. You must have found my confidences very entertaining, if not particularly instructive.”