Paragon Walk - Anne Perry [58]
“Do you not think it is up to the Church to speak to people’s consciences?” Miss Lucinda asked with a slight flaring of the nostrils, although it was not clear whether her distaste was for Charlotte’s political views or Lady Tamworth having brought up the subject of Fanny yet again.
Charlotte ignored the remark on Fanny, at least for the time being. Pitt had not said she must avoid political discussion, although of course Papa had outrightly forbidden it! But she was not Papa’s problem now.
“Perhaps it is the Church that has stirred his will to speak in the way he is best equipped?” she suggested innocently.
“Do you not feel he is then usurping the Church’s prerogative?” Miss Lucinda said with a sharp frown. “And that those called of God for the purpose would do it far better?”
“Possibly,” Charlotte was determined to be reasonable. “But that is not to say others should not do the best they can. Surely the more voices the better? There are many places where the Church is not heard. Perhaps he can reach some of those?”
“Then what is he doing here?” Miss Lucinda demanded. “Paragon Walk is hardly such a place! He would be better employed somewhere else, in a back street, or a workhouse.”
Afton Nash joined them, his eyebrows raised in slight surprize at Miss Lucinda’s rather heated comment.
“And who are you consigning to the workhouse, Miss Horbury?” he inquired, looking for a moment at Charlotte, then away again.
“I’m sure the back streets and the workhouses are already converted to the need for social reform,” Charlotte said with a slight downward curve of her mouth. “And indeed for the ease of the poor. It is the rich who need to give; the poor will receive readily enough. It is the powerful who can change laws.”
Lady Tamworth’s eyebrows went up in surprize and some scorn.
“Are you suggesting it is the aristocracy, the leaders and the backbone of the country, who are at fault?”
Charlotte did not even think of retreating for courtesy’s sake, or because it was unbecoming in a woman to be so contentious.
“I am saying there is no purpose in preaching to the poor that they should be helped,” she replied. “Or to the workless and illiterate that laws should be reformed. The only people who can change things are the people with power and money. If the Church had already reached all of them, we would have achieved our reform long since, and there would be labor for the poor to earn their own necessities.”
Lady Tamworth glared at her and turned away, affecting to find the conversation too unpleasant to continue, but Charlotte knew perfectly well it was because she could think of no answer. There was a delicate type of pleasure in Miss Laetitia’s face, and she caught Charlotte’s eye for a moment before also leaving.
“My dear Mrs. Pitt,” Afton said very carefully, as if speaking to someone unfamiliar with the language, or a little deaf. “You do not understand either politics or economics. One cannot change things overnight.”
Phoebe joined them, but he disregarded her entirely.
“The poor are poor,” he continued, “precisely because they do not have the means or the will to be otherwise. One cannot denude the rich to feed them. It would be insane and like pouring water into the desert sand. There are millions of them! What you suggest is totally impractical.” He managed a smile of condescension for her ignorance.
Charlotte seethed. It took all the self-will she possessed to master her face and affect an air of genuine inquiry.
“But if the rich and the powerful are unable to change things,” she asked, “then to whom does the Church preach, and to what purpose?”
“I beg your pardon?” He could not believe what he had heard.
Charlotte repeated herself, not daring to look at Phoebe or Miss Lucinda.
Before Afton could form a reply to