Pentecost Alley - Anne Perry [134]
Maybe she would understand Charlotte’s own fear for Pitt now far more intensely than she had believed. She had never considered they were alike. Perhaps in that she was wrong. They were different generations, with all the values and experiences that that meant, but their natures held more in common than ever separated them. The excuses she had prepared vanished.
“Will you look after Daniel and Jemima for me for a few days, please?” Charlotte asked, following as Caroline led the way into the old, familiar withdrawing room. “I dare not leave them at home. Gracie would do anything necessary for them, but she is so furious with everyone who criticizes Thomas she might start a fight in the street, before I could stop her, especially if the children are frightened or upset. And anyway, it is not fair to expect her to comfort them if appalling things are said about their father.”
“Where will you be?” Caroline asked, her expression conveying that her willingness need not even be questioned. She sat down and indicated one of the other chairs for Charlotte.
“Emily knows the sister of the man Thomas suspects may be behind it all,” Charlotte started to explain, sitting a little sideways, ignoring her skirts. “At least his family and his enemies are. I must do something to help. I can’t just sit at home and commiserate. Mama, they are attacking him at every side! Liberal writers and politicians, the very people who should be most on his side, because he agrees with them, are accusing him of corruption.”
Her voice was rising and she could hear it herself, and yet her emotion was too strong to govern. “They are saying he had Costigan charged and convicted to satisfy people’s fears after the other Whitechapel murders two years ago, and didn’t care whether it was the right man or not. He should have investigated the well-born young men who use prostitutes instead of their own class of women, and that the establishment don’t care what happens to the poor, as long as it doesn’t cause a scandal in their own circles. If—”
“I know,” Caroline interrupted. “I know, my dear. I read the newspapers now. Of course it is facile and stupid, and bitterly unjust. But did you not expect them to say something of the sort?”
“I …” Charlotte leaned forward and rested her chin on the heels of her hands. Here in these half-familiar surroundings, the old shapes within the new colors, she could so easily remember her first meeting with Pitt, how he had infuriated her, made her think. Even at her angriest she had never been able to dislike him. He had shown her new worlds, a different kind of pain, of joy and of reality from the safety of the dreams she had known before. She could not bear to see him so vilified, all he had built so carefully destroyed, and by people who thought they were fighting for justice and compassion. Well-meaning, and so desperately wrong.
“It is beside the point at the moment,” she answered, swallowing down the ache in her throat which threatened to choke her. “I can’t prevent that. I can go to the FitzJames house, with Emily, and learn a great deal more about them, in a way Thomas never could. I’m going to visit Emily, right now.”
“Of course,” Caroline agreed. “I shall see that Daniel and Jemima are perfectly all right. I … I suppose there is no point in saying to you, be careful?”
“None at all,” Charlotte replied. “Would you?”
“No.”
Charlotte smiled briefly, then rose, hugged Caroline, and went out to the front door. In the street she turned sharply towards the thoroughfare where she would find a hansom. She had no intention of taking care of herself, but she was going to be meticulously careful of every piece of information she acquired and every step she took to obtain it.
“Of course,” Emily agreed immediately when Charlotte asked her. She had gone straight from Caroline’s house to Emily’s. “But if we are to achieve anything of value, we must see Finlay as well as Tallulah. We had better go later this afternoon, when he is likely to be home from the Foreign Office. Although frankly, I’m not sure how much work he really