Resurrection Row (17 page)

“Why shouldn’t I believe it?” Pitt said wearily. “I’d believe anything.”

“Because it was Horrie Snipe!” the constable burst out. “As I live and breathe, it was—sitting up on a gravestone in Resurrection Cemetery in his old stovepipe hat. He was run over three weeks ago, by a muck cart, and buried a fortnight—and there ’e was, sitting on a tombstone all by ’isself in the moonlight.”

“You’re right,” Pitt said. “I don’t believe it. I don’t want to believe it.”

“It’s ’im, sir. I’d know Horrie Snipe anywhere. He was the busiest procurer the Row ever had.”

“So it seems,” Pitt said drily. “But for this morning, I still refuse to believe it.”

O
N
M
ONDAY
C
HARLOTTE
received a handwritten note from Aunt Vespasia, inviting her to call that morning and be prepared to stay for some little while, in fact, over luncheon and into the afternoon. No reason was given, but Charlotte knew Aunt Vespasia far too well to imagine it was idle. A request at such short notice, and stating such a specific time and duration, was not casual. Charlotte could not possibly ignore it; apart from good manners, curiosity made it absolutely imperative she go.

Accordingly, she took Jemima over the street to Mrs. Smith, who was always more than willing to tend her with great affection, in return for a little gossip as to the dress, manners, and especially foibles of the society that Charlotte kept. Her own resulting importance in the street, as Charlotte’s confidante, was immeasurable. She was also quite genuinely a kind woman and enjoyed helping, especially a young woman like Charlotte who was obviously ill prepared by her own upbringing to cope with the realities of life such as Mrs. Smith knew them.

Having been rather rash with the housekeeping in buying bacon three days in a row, instead of making do with oatmeal or fish as usual, Charlotte was obliged to catch the omnibus to its nearest point to Gadstone Park, instead of hiring a hansom, and then walk in rising sleet the rest of the way.

She arrived on the doorstep with wet feet and, she feared, a very red nose: not in the least the elegant image she would wish to have presented. So much for bacon for breakfast.

The maid who answered was too sensitive to her mistress’s own eccentricities to allow her thoughts to be mirrored in her face. She was becoming inured to any kind of surprise. She moved Charlotte into the morning room and left her standing as near to the fire as she dared without risking actually setting herself alight. The heat was marvelous; it brought life back into her numb ankles, and she could see the steam rising from her boots.

Aunt Vespasia appeared after only a few moments. She glanced at Charlotte, then took out her lorgnette. “Good gracious, girl! You look as if you came by sea! Whatever have you done?”

“It is extremely cold outside,” Charlotte attempted to explain herself. She moved a little forward from the fire; it was beginning to sting with its heat. “And the street is full of puddles.”

“You appear to have stepped in every one of them.” Vespasia looked down at her steaming feet. She was tactful enough not to ask why she had walked in the first place. “I shall have to find something dry for you, if you are to be in the least comfortable.” She reached out for the bell and rang it sharply.

Charlotte half thought of demurring, but she was wretched with cold, and if she was to be there for some time, it would be quite worth it to borrow something warm and dry.

“Thank you,” she accepted.

Vespasia gave her a look of sharp perception; she had seen the edge of argument and quite possibly understood. When the maid came, she treated the whole matter quite lightly.

“Mrs. Pitt has unfortunately been splashed, and quite soaked, on her journey here.” She did not even bother to look at the girl. “Go and have Rose put out dry boots and stockings for her, and that blue-green afternoon gown with the embroidery on the sleeve. Rose will know which one I mean.”

“Oh, dear.” The girl looked at Charlotte with sympathy. “Some of those hansom drivers don’t look in the least where they’re going, ma’am. I’m ever so sorry. Cook only took a step down the road the other day, and two of them lunatics passed, seein’ as they could race each other, and she was fair covered in mud. Said something awful, she did, when she got ’ome again. I’ll find something dry for you straightaway.” She whisked out of the door, bound on an errand of mercy, and hoping eternal punishment for cab drivers in general and careless ones in particular.

Charlotte smiled broadly. “Thank you, that was remarkably tactful of you.”

“Not at all.” Vespasia dismissed it. “I am holding a small soirée this afternoon, very small indeed.” She fluttered her hand slightly to indicate how very minor it was. “And I would like you to be here. I’m afraid this wretched business of Augustus is not going well.”

Charlotte was not immediately sure what she meant. Her mind flew to Dominic. Surely there could be no one who genuinely suspected him—

Vespasia saw her look and read it with an ease that made Charlotte blush, thinking if she were so transparent now, how truly painful she must have been in the past.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said hastily. “I had hoped people would put it from mind, now that he is reinterred. It does seem as if he was only the unfortunate victim of some insane creature who is tearing up graves all over the place. There have been two more, you know—apart from Lord Augustus and the man in the cab!”

She had the satisfaction of seeing Vespasia’s eyes widen in surprise. She had told her something she not only did not know but had not foreseen.

“Two more! I heard nothing of it. When, and who?”

“No one you would know,” Charlotte replied. “One was an ordinary man who lived near Resurrection Row—”

Vespasia shook her head. “Never heard of it. It sounds most insalubrious. Where is it?”

“About two miles away. Yes, it isn’t very pleasant, but nothing like a slum, just a back street, and of course there is a cemetery—there would be, with such a name. That is where the other corpse was found—in the graveyard.”

“Appropriate,” Vespasia said drily.

“Yes, but not sitting up on a tombstone, and with his hat on!”

“No,” Vespasia agreed, pulling a painful face. “And who was he?”

“A man called Horatio Snipe. Thomas would not tell me what he did, so I presume it must be something disreputable—I mean worse than merely a thief or a forger. I suppose he kept a house of women, or something like that.”

Vespasia looked down her nose. “Really, Charlotte,” she snorted. “But I dare say you are right. However, I don’t think it will help. Suspicion is a strange thing; even when it is proved to be entirely unjustified, the flavor of it stays on: rather like something disagreeable one has disposed of—the aroma remains. People will forget even what it was they suspected Alicia or Mr. Corde of having done—but they will remember that they did suspect them.”

“That is quite unjust!” Charlotte said angrily. “And it is unreasonable!”

“Of course,” Vespasia agreed. “But people are both unjust and unreasonable without the slightest awareness or intention of being either. I hope you will stay to the soirée; that is principally why I invited you today. You have something of a perception of people. I have not forgotten you understood what had really happened in Paragon Walk before any of the rest of us. Perhaps you can see something in this that we do not—”

“But in Paragon Walk there had been a murder!” Charlotte protested. “Here there has been no crime—unless you think Lord Augustus was murdered?” It was a horrible thought and she had not accepted it, nor did she now. She meant it as a criticism, a shock rather than a question.

Vespasia was not shaken. “Most probably he died quite naturally,” she replied, as if she had been discussing something that happened every day. “But one must face the possibility that he did not. We know a great deal less about people than we like to imagine. Maybe Alicia is as simple as she seems, a pleasant girl of good family and more than usual good looks, whose father married her advantageously; and she was, if not pleased by it, at least not imaginative or rebellious enough to object, even in her own mind.

“But, my dear, it is also possible that, as her marriage became more and more tedious, and she began to realize it would never be otherwise and could well last another twenty years, the thought became unbearable. And then when Dominic Corde came along and at precisely the same time an opportunity presented itself quite easily to be rid of her husband, in an instant she took it. It would be very easily done, you know, merely a small movement of the hand, a drop, two drops too much, nothing more: no evidence, no lies as to where she had been or with whom. She could almost forget it, wipe it from memory, convince herself it had not happened.”

“Do you believe that?” Charlotte was afraid. Even in front of the fire she became conscious of coldness again, of her feet being wet. Outside, the sleet clattered against the glass of the windows.

“No,” Vespasia said quietly. “But I do not deny its possibility.”

Charlotte stood still.

“Go and change out of those wet boots,” Vespasia ordered. “We will take luncheon in here, and you may tell me about your child. What is it you have called her?”

“Jemima,” Charlotte answered obediently, standing up.

“I thought your mother’s name was Caroline?” Vespasia raised her eyebrows in surprise.

“It is,” Charlotte agreed. She turned at the door and gave her a dazzling smile. “And Grandmama’s name is Amelia. I don’t care for that either!”

The soirée was informal, and there was a great deal more conversation than listening to the music, which Charlotte rather regretted, since it was good and she was fond of the piano. She had never played it well herself, but both Sarah and Emily had, and this young man’s gentle touch brought back memories of childhood and Mama singing.

Dominic was surprised to see her, but either he did not notice the excellence of Vespasia’s gown on her, or he was too sensitive to comment on it, knowing that in her circumstances it would have to be borrowed.

Charlotte had not seen Alicia before, and her curiosity had been mounting from the time the first guest, who was Virgil Smith, arrived. As Vespasia had said, he was remarkably plain. His nose was anything but aristocratic; it appeared less like marble than warm wax, put on with a careless hand. His haircut might have been executed with a pair of shears round the edge of a basin, but his tailor was exemplary. He smiled at Charlotte with a warmth that lit up his eyes and spoke to her in an accent she would have loved to mimic, as Emily could have, to retail it to Pitt. But she had no skill in the art.

Sir Desmond and Lady Cantlay did not remember her or, if they did, chose not to acknowledge it. She could hardly blame them; when a corpse lands in the street in front of one, one does not recall the faces of the passersby, even those who offer assistance. They greeted her with the well-bred, mild interest of acquaintances who have nothing in common, so far as they know, except the place in which they meet. Charlotte watched them go and wondered nothing about them, except if they suspected Dominic or Alicia of having entertained murder.

Major Rodney and his sisters held no involvement for her either, and she murmured polite nonsenses to them that reminded her of standing beside her mother and Emily at endless parties when she was single, trying to sound as if she were totally absorbed by Mrs. So-and-so’s most recent illness or the prospects of Miss Somebody’s engagement.

She had already built in her mind very clearly how she expected Alicia to look: fair skin and hair that curled quite naturally—unlike her own—medium height and with soft shoulders, a little inclined to plumpness. Afterward she realized she was creating a vague picture of Sarah again.

When Alicia came she was utterly different. It was not so much a matter of description; she did have fair skin, and her hair waved so softly and asymmetrically it must surely be natural. But she was as tall as Charlotte, and her body was quite slim, her shoulders almost delicate. Far more than that, there was a completely different look in her eyes. She was nothing like Sarah at all.

“How do you do?” Charlotte said after only a second’s hesitation. She did not know whether she had expected to like her or not, but she was startled by the reality. In her own mind, because Dominic was in love with her, she had created a shadow of Sarah. She was unprepared for a different and independent person. And she had forgotten that to Alicia she would be a stranger and, unless Dominic had told her of Sarah and their relationship, one of no importance.

“How do you do, Mrs. Pitt?” Alicia replied, and Charlotte knew instantly that Dominic had not told her; there was no curiosity in her face. Alicia took a step away, saw Dominic, and stood perfectly still for a moment. Then she turned to Gwendoline Cantlay and complimented her on her gown.

Charlotte was still considering her own instinctive understanding of the moment when she realized she was being spoken to.

“I understand you are an ally of Lady Cumming-Gould?”

She looked round at the speaker. He was lean, with winged eyebrows and teeth that were a little crooked when he smiled.

Charlotte scrambled to think what he could mean. “Ally?” It must have something to do with the bill Aunt Vespasia was concerned with, to get children out of workhouses and into some sort of school. He would be the man who had driven Dominic to the street in Seven Dials and shown him the workhouse that had upset him so profoundly. She looked at him with more interest. She could understand Thomas’s care for such things; his daily life brought him the results of its tragedies, every sort of victim. But why did this man care?

“Only in spirit,” she said with a smile. Now she knew who he was, she felt assured; perhaps in all the room he was the one who discomfited her least. “A supporter; nothing so useful as an ally.”

“I think you underrate yourself, Mrs. Pitt,” he replied.

It stung her to be patronized. The cause was too real for trivia and meaningless flattery. She found herself resenting it, as if he did not consider her worthy of the truth.