Callander Square - Anne Perry [9]
“We shall have to be very discreet.” Common sense suffered a quick defeat.
“Of course!” Emily was withering. “My dear Charlotte, I could not possibly have survived in society for two whole years if I had not learned to say everything but what I actually mean. I am the soul of discretion. We shall begin right away. Go home and discover whatever you can. I don’t imagine you can be discreet, you never could; but at least don’t volunteer our plans. Mr. Pitt may not approve.”
That was an understatement of magnificence. Nevertheless, Charlotte stood up with every intention of obeying, a tingle of fear inside her, and a thin quiver of Emily’s excitement.
TWO
THE FOLLOWING DAY Pitt went back to Callander Square, hoping to interview the servants in the last two houses, but it was not until the early afternoon that they returned from their long weekends in the country. Consequently it was nearly three o’clock when he was shown by the Campbells’ butler into the back parlor and, one by one, saw the rest of the servants. Of course they were expecting his questions—the news must have been virtually waiting for them on the doorstep in the shape of scullery maid, tweeny, or bootboy bursting with the events and their own rich interpretations of them.
Pitt learned nothing new, and he was ready to leave when he met the mistress of the house. The Honorable Garson Campbell was a younger son of a family of wealth and position, and he had maintained a lifestyle appropriate to it. Mariah Campbell was a pleasant looking woman in her late thirties, with broad, good-humored face and fine, hazel eyes. She had been busy unpacking and organizing her family, which, she explained hastily, comprised a son, Albert, and two daughters, Victoria and Mary. She showed considerable distress on hearing of the purpose of his questions. Apparently the gossip had not reached her, and she begged that he would be discreet enough that the children might not come to hear of it.
“I assure you, ma’am, I should not dream of introducing such a subject to a child,” he said honestly, although he forbore to say that if some child should mention the matter to him, he would not be averse to listening. He had usually found children much less affected by death than adults. And it was a rare child indeed that was not inveterately inquisitive, and would have extracted from the servants every last detail that was to be had, or even invented and embroidered upon.
“Thank you,” she said courteously. “Children can be—hurt,” she was looking out of the window, “and frightened. There is so much that is ugly. The least we can do is protect them from it as long as we are able.”
Pitt was of a totally different opinion. He believed that the longer you hid from the truth the less able you were to cope with it when it finally broke through all the barriers, like a dammed river, and carried away the careful structure of your life with it. He opened his mouth to argue, to say that a little at a time bred some tolerance to pain, a balance; but remembered his place. Policemen did not give advice in the upbringing of children to ladies who lived in Callander Square. In fact, policemen did not philosophize at all.
“I’m afraid, ma’am, that they may well hear it from the servants,” he said gently.
She frowned at him.
“I shall forewarn the servants,” she answered. “Any servant who mentions such a thing will lose his or her position.”
Pitt spared a thought for the unwitting maid who in a careless, garrulous moment might yield to childish insistence, or even petty blackmail, and thus lose home and job at one blow. Childhood would have given her no such protection from the unpleasant realities of life.
“Naturally,” Pitt agreed sadly. “But there are other servants in the square, ma’am; and other children.”
Instead of the anger he had expected, she merely looked suddenly tired.
“Of course, Mr.—Pitt, did you say? And children will tell each other such gruesome stories. Still, I’m sure you will not frighten anyone unnecessarily. Do you have children of