Bluegate Fields - Anne Perry [86]
“Good morning, Emily.” Aunt Vespasia walked in and allowed the footman to close the doors behind her. “My dear Charlotte, you appear extremely well. That can only mean that either you are with child again or you have another murder to meddle with.”
Emily let out her breath in a gasp of frustration.
Charlotte felt all her good intentions vanish like water through a sieve.
“Yes, Aunt Vespasia,” she agreed instantly. “A murder.”
“That’s what comes of marrying beneath you,” Aunt Vespasia said without a flicker of expression, patting Emily on the arm. “I always thought it would be rather more fun—if, of course, one could find a man of any natural wit—and grace. I cannot bear a man who allows himself to be put upon. It is really very frustrating. I require people to know their places, and yet I despise them when they do! I think that is what I like about your policeman, my dear Charlotte. He never knows his place, and yet he leaves it with such panache one is not offended. How is he?”
Charlotte was taken aback. She had never heard Pitt described that way before. And yet perhaps she understood what Aunt Vespasia meant; it was nothing physical, rather a way of meeting the eyes, of not permitting himself to feel insulted, whatever the intent of others. Maybe it had something to do with the innate dignity of believing.
Aunt Vespasia was staring at her, waiting.
“In excellent health, thank you,” she replied. “But very worried about an injustice that may be about to take place—an unpardonable one!”
“Indeed?” Aunt Vespasia sat down, arranging her dress on the sofa with a single, expert movement. “And I suppose you intend to do something about this injustice, which is why you have come. Who has been murdered? Not that disgusting business with the Waybourne boy?”
“Yes!” Emily said quickly, wrestling the initiative before Charlotte could provoke some social disaster. “Yes, it is not necessarily what it seems.”
“My dear girl.” Aunt Vespasia’s eyebrows rose in amazement. “Very little ever is—or life would be insufferably boring. I sometimes think that is the whole purpose of society. The basic difference between us and the working classes is that we have the time and the wit to see that very little appears to be what it is. It is the very essence of style.
“What in particular is more than usually deceptive about this wretched business? It certainly appears plain enough!” She turned to Charlotte as she said this. “Speak, girl! I am aware that young Arthur was found in the most sordid of circumstances, and that some servant or other has been tried for the crime and, as far as I know, found to be guilty. What else is there to know?”
Emily shot Charlotte a warning glance, then abandoned hope and sat back in the Louis Quinze chair to await the worst.
Charlotte cleared her throat. “The evidence upon which the tutor was convicted was entirely the testimony of other people, nothing material at all.”
“Indeed,” Aunt Vespasia said with a little nod. “What could there be? Drowning someone will hardly leave tangible marks upon a bath. And presumably there was no struggle of any worth. What was this testimony, and from whom?”
“The two other boys who say Jerome tried to interfere with them also—that is Godfrey, Arthur’s young brother, and Titus Swynford.”
“Oh.” Aunt Vespasia gave a little grunt. “Knew Callantha Vanderley’s mother. She was married to Benita Waybourne’s uncle—Benita Vanderley, as she was then, of course. Callantha married Mortimer Swynford. Could never understand why she did that. Still, I suppose she found him agreeable enough.