Long Spoon Lane - Anne Perry [24]
As soon as they opened the kitchen door, Gracie rose from the bench where she was drying the supper dishes and became instantly very formal. She made a wobbly curtsy.
“Good evening, Lady Vespasia!” she said breathlessly.
“Good evening, Gracie,” Vespasia replied, ignoring the curtsy as if she had always managed it with such style. “I have had a very disturbing day. Would you be kind enough to make me a cup of tea?”
Gracie flushed with pleasure, and caught her elbow on the crockery as she swiveled around to obey. She only just saved it from falling to the floor.
Charlotte glanced at Vespasia and hid a smile. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “What happened today?”
Vespasia sat in one of the kitchen chairs, her back as ramrod straight as it had been since she was a schoolgirl and her governess had poked it with a ruler every time she slouched. She had learned to walk with a pile of books upon her head—dictionaries, nothing as frivolous as novels—and the habit had never left her. Without thinking she adjusted her dark gray skirts to sweep about her without getting in the way of others.
“I went to express my condolences to Lord and Lady Landsborough,” she said without prevarication. “I expected merely to leave a note, and was amazed to be received.” She saw Charlotte’s eyes widen. “I do not like Cordelia Landsborough, nor does she like me, for good and sufficient reason we do not need to discuss.”
Charlotte bit her lip, and made no comment.
“I believe she received me because she wishes to use my political influence in her crusade to have a bill passed in Parliament that will allow the police to carry firearms,” Vespasia continued. “And to have far greater power to invade the privacy of ordinary people, in the pursuit of their duty, however they see it. It disturbs me greatly.”
Gracie dropped a spoonful of tea leaves on the floor, and bent to sweep them up, moving silently so as not to interrupt the conversation.
Charlotte glanced at her, then back at Vespasia, her eyes grave, her face faintly puckered with anxiety. “Is she not speaking from grief?” she asked. “She must be distraught, poor woman.” Her lips tightened, and the muscles of her throat, as if she were thinking of her own son upstairs, who was presumably studying his schoolbooks before going to bed. He was a child, still governable, still willing to listen. A mere handful of years and he would be so different, full of passion and self-will, certain he knew the ills of the world and how to address them. At least he would if he had any of the fire or the courage of youth.
“She will work through her pain by driving herself to act,” Vespasia replied. “Through exhaustion or tears, through everything that you or I might feel.”
Charlotte considered for a moment before responding, but her face was gentler, lost in thought rather than the difficulty of understanding Vespasia’s feelings.
“Would you help her to have such a change made in the law?” she asked, dismayed at the thought.
Gracie was standing with her back to the sink, not even pretending that she was uninvolved. Her eyes moved from one to the other of them with rapt attention. She did not dare to interrupt, but the subject was very obviously something about which she had profound feelings.
“No,” Vespasia replied. “I would not.”
Gracie drew in her breath sharply.
Charlotte smiled, relaxing a little in her chair. “I can understand why they feel as they do,” she conceded. “The violence is very frightening, and we must do all we can to prevent it.”
Her moderate tone was the last straw for Gracie. Because it was Charlotte who was speaking, not Vespasia, she did not feel obliged to keep silent anymore. “It’s ordinary people wot’s blown up!” she said desperately. “They may not ’ave any power nor money, but they’re the ones wot police and government is meant to protect! It’s ’orrible. I saw pictures in the newspapers o’ wot they done. Where’s those people going ter sleep now? Their ’ouses is all gone, everything they got. ’Oo’s going ter replace all that, eh?”
Charlotte colored with embarrassment