Bluegate Fields - Anne Perry [121]
She swallowed, and spoke quite casually. “One has only so much time, and one must spend it wisely.”
Titus pulled up a small padded chair and sat down.
“What are you writing?” He had been well brought up and his manners were excellent. He made it sound like friendly interest, even very faintly patronizing, rather than anything as vulgar as curiosity.
She had had every intention of telling him anyway—his curiosity was a pale and infant thing compared with hers. She glanced down at the paper as if she had almost forgotten it.
“Oh, this? A list of wages that people get paid for picking apart old clothes so that other people can stitch them up again into new ones.”
“Whatever for? Who wants clothes made up out of other people’s old ones?”
“People who are too poor to buy proper new ones,” she answered, offering him the list she was copying from.
He took it and looked at it.
“That’s not very much money.” He eyed the columns of pence. “It doesn’t seem like a very good job.”
“It isn’t,” she agreed. “People can’t live on it and they often do other things as well.”
“I’d do something else all the time, if I were poor.” He handed it back to her. By poor, he meant someone who had to work at all, and she understood that. To him, money was there—one did not have to acquire it.
“Oh, some people do,” she said quite casually. “That is what we are trying to stop.”
She had to wait several moments of silence before he asked the question she had hoped for.
“Why are you trying to do that, Mrs. Pitt? It doesn’t seem fair to me. Why should people have to unpick old domes for pennies if they could earn more money doing something else?”
“I don’t want them to pick rags.” She used the term quite familiarly now. “At least not for that sort of money. But I don’t want them to be prostitutes either, most particularly not if they are still children.” She hesitated, then plunged on. “Especially boys.”
The pride of man in him did not want to admit ignorance. He was in the company of a woman, and one whom he considered very handsome. It was important to him that he impress her.
She sensed his dilemma and pushed him into an emotional corner.
“I expect when it is put like that, you would agree?” she asked, meeting his very candid eyes. What fine, dark lashes he had!
“I’m not sure,” he hedged, a faint blush coloring his cheeks. “Why especially boys? Perhaps you would give the your reasons?”
She admired his evasion. He had managed to ask her without sounding as if he did not know, which she now was almost sure was so. She must be careful not to lead him, to put words into his mouth. It took her longer than she had expected to frame just the right answer.
“Well, I think you would agree that all prostitution is unpleasant?” she began carefully, watching him.
“Yes.” He followed her lead; the reply she expected was plain enough.
“But an adult has more experience of the world in general, and therefore has more understanding of what such a course will involve,” she continued.
Again the answer suggested itself.
“Yes.” He nodded very slightly.
“Children can much more easily be forced into doing things they either do not wish or else of which they cannot foresee the full consequences.” She smiled very faintly so she would not sound quite so pompous.
“Of course.” He was still young enough to feel echoes of the bitterness of authority, governesses who gave orders and expected early bedtimes, all vegetables eaten—and rice pudding—no matter how much one disliked them.
She wanted to be gentle with him, to let him keep his new, adult dignity, but she could not afford it. She hated having to shred it from him like precious clothes, leaving him naked.
“Perhaps you do not argue that it is worse for boys than for girls?” she inquired.
He flushed, his eyes puzzled. “What? What is worse? Ignorance? Girls are weaker, of course—”
“No—prostitution—selling their bodies to men for the most familiar acts.”
He looked confused. “But girls are ... ” The color