Bluegate Fields - Anne Perry [36]
The irony was that perhaps Jerome’s very bitterness was partly born of a whisper at the back of his brain that reminded him of the gulf between them—not only because of birth but because he was too small of vision—too self-obsessed, too aware of his own position—to command. A gentleman is a gentleman because he lives unself-consciously. He is too secure to take offense, too certain of his finances to account for shillings.
All this went through Pitt’s mind as he watched the boy’s solemn, rather smug face. He was at ease now—Pitt was ineffectual, not to be feared after all. It was time to come to the point.
“Did Mr. Jerome show any consistent favoritism toward your brother?” he asked quite lightly.
“No, sir,” Godfrey answered. Then confusion spread on his face as he realized what had half dawned on him through the haze of grief—hints of something that was unknown but abominably shameful, that the imagination hardly dared conjure up, and yet could not help but try. “Well, sir, not that I realized at the time. He was pretty—sort of—well, he spent a lot of time with Titus Swynford, too, when he took lessons with us. He did quite often, you know. His own tutor wasn’t any good at Latin and Mr. Jerome was very good indeed. And he knew Greek, too. And Mr. Hollins—that’s Titus’s tutor—was always getting colds in the head. We called him ‘Sniffles.’ ” He gave a juicy, realistic imitation.
Waybourne’s face twitched with disapproval of mentioning to a person of Pitt’s social inferiority such details of frivolous and rather childish malice.
“And was he also overfamiliar with Titus?” Pitt inquired, ignoring Waybourne.
Godfrey’s face tightened. “Yes, sir. Titus told the that he was.”
“Oh? When did he tell you?”
Godfrey stared back at him without blinking.
“Yesterday evening, sir. I told him that Mr. Jerome had been arrested by the police because he had done something terrible to Arthur. I told him what I told you, about what Mr. Jerome did to me. And Titus said he’d done it to him, too.”
Pitt felt no surprise, only a gray sense of inevitability. Jerome’s weakness had shown itself after all. It had not been the secret thing, erupting without warning, that had struck Pitt as so unlikely. Perhaps surrender to it had been sudden, but once he had recognized it and allowed the hunger to release itself in action, then it had been uncontrollable. It could only have been a matter of time until some adult had seen it and understood it for what it was.
What a tragic mischance that the violence—the murder—had arisen so quickly. If even one of those boys had spoken to a parent, the greater tragedy could have been avoided—for Arthur, for Jerome himself, for Eugenie.
“Thank you.” Pitt sighed and looked up at Waybourne. “I would appreciate it, sir, if you would give me Mr. Swynford’s address so that I can call on him and verify this with Titus himself. You will understand that secondhand testimony, no matter from whom, is not sufficient.”
Waybourne took a breath as if to argue, then accepted the futility of it.
“If you insist,” he said grudgingly.
Titus Swynford was a cheerful boy, a little older than Godfrey. He was broader, with a freckled, less handsome face, but he possessed a natural ease that Pitt found attractive. Pitt was not permitted to see his young sister Fanny. And since he could put forward no argument to justify insisting, he saw only the boy, in the presence of his father.
Mortimer Swynford was calm. Had Pitt been less aware of society’s rules, he might have imagined his courtesy to be friendliness.
“Of course,” he consented, in his rich voice. His manicured hands rested on the back of the tapestried antimacassar. His clothes were immaculate. His tailor had cut his