Pentecost Alley - Anne Perry [32]
She knew he had been to Whitechapel, and she knew what it was like. He could not have forgotten the numerous times when she had seen slum tenements, smelled the stinking gutters, the dark, narrow houses with their generations of filth seeped into the walls, the tired, hungry and anxious people.
But in order to help, one had to keep one’s own strength. Agonizing for people accomplished nothing useful. To help the masses one needed laws, and change of heart in those with power. To affect an individual one needed knowledge, and perhaps money, or some appropriate skill. Above all one needed nerve and judgment, one needed all one’s own emotional strength.
So she sat quietly and sewed, waiting until Pitt was ready to share with her whatever it was that bothered him, or to deal with it by at least temporarily forgetting and allowing himself to restore his spirit with what was good.
3
EMILY RADLEY, Charlotte’s sister, about whom she had been concerned, was indeed dispirited. It was not a specific problem. She had everything she considered necessary to be happy. Indeed, she had more. Her husband was charming, handsome, and treated her with affection. She was unaware of any serious fault in him.
When they had met he had been well-born, living largely on his value as a lively, delightful companion and guest, his exquisite manners and his ready wit. Emily had been fully aware of the risks entailed in falling in love with him. He might prove shallow, spendthrift, even boring after the first novelty had passed. She had done it just the same. She had spent many hours telling herself how foolish she was, and that there was even a high possibility he sought her primarily for the fortune she had inherited from her first husband, the late Lord Ashworth.
She smiled as she thought of George. Memory was very powerful, a strange mixture of sadness, loss, sweetness for the times that had been good, and a deliberate passing over of those which had not.
All her fears had proved groundless. Far from being shallow, Jack had developed a social conscience and a considerable ambition to effect changes in society. He had campaigned for a seat in Parliament, and after his first defeat had returned to battle, and at the second attempt had won. Now he spent a considerable amount of his time, and his emotions, in political endeavor.
It was Emily herself who seemed a little trivial, a little spendthrift.
Edward, her son and George’s heir, was in the schoolroom with his tutor, and baby Evangeline was upstairs in the nursery, where the maid was caring for her, seeing to the laundry, the feeding, the changing. Emily herself was largely unnecessary.
It was late in the morning and Jack had long since departed to the City to various engagements before the House of Commons met. Watching him fight for his selection, then campaign, lose, and campaign again, she had gained a respect for him which added very greatly to her happiness. He was consolidating his position with skill.
So why was she standing in the sun in the great withdrawing room in her lovely town house, dressed in lace and coffee-colored tussore, and feeling such a sense of frustration?
Edward was in the schoolroom. Evie was upstairs in the nursery. Jack was in the City, no doubt fighting for reform of some law he believed outdated. Cook would be with the butler preparing luncheon; they would not need to serve dinner tonight. Emily and Jack were due to dine out. She had already asked her maid to prepare her clothes for the occasion. She had a new silk gown of dark forest green trimmed with ivory and pale gold flowers, which complemented her fair skin and hair. She would look beautiful.
She had seen the housekeeper. The accounts were attended to. Her correspondence was up to date. There was nothing to say to the