Pentecost Alley - Anne Perry [82]
“Don’t you expect to change a husband a little?” Tallulah said reasonably. “Why should I be the one to make all the accommodations?”
“Because that way doesn’t work,” Emily said with eminent practicality. “It is no good dealing with what you think is fair, only with what is real. Anyhow, would you want Jago to accommodate you by changing his beliefs? What would that make of him?”
“I thought marriage was supposed to improve men, at least a little,” Tallulah protested. “Are we not meant to be a gentler and civilizing influence? Isn’t that what we are for? To have children and to provide an island of peace and purity and high ideals away from the clamor and conflict of the world?”
Emily bit her tongue so she did not reply too savagely.
“Did you ever know a man who wished to be civilized and improved?”
“No,” Tallulah said with some surprise. “All the men I know wish to be supported, admired and obeyed. That is certainly what Papa wants and insists on. In return he provides for us, advises us and, on occasion, protects us.”
“Of course,” Emily countered with a smile. “Sometimes we may behave in such a way as to cause a man to wish to civilize and improve himself. But that is a different proposal altogether. It is one thing to ask for something, it is quite different to accept when offered it.”
Tallulah was prevented from continuing the discussion by the intervention of a group of ladies who came across to them, leading two spaniels and a setter. The conversation was turned over to dogs.
Emily remained only another ten minutes or so, then excused herself and went to her carriage. It was agreed that Tallulah would place the badge immediately on her return home. Now it was necessary for someone to provoke Pitt into searching again, in order for it to be found. She gave her coachman Charlotte’s address in Bloomsbury and sat back to compose some sensible way of introducing such a suggestion into a conversation. Naturally she would not tell Charlotte why; that would place too great a strain on her loyalties, and Emily had no wish for Pitt to be told. At this point it could defeat everything.
It was a beautiful afternoon, warm and still with that mellow tone of sunshine one gets only in the late summer, a sort of gold in the air, a heavy perfume of flowers, and the knowledge that in a month’s time the first leaves would yellow, but would ripen and the nights begin to chill, and to darken earlier.
Charlotte was in the garden inspecting the young chrysanthemum plants and admiring the asters in bloom, great shaggy heads of purple and magenta. “It’s perfectly beautiful,” Emily said sincerely.
Charlotte looked at her skeptically. “Is that what you came to say?”
“No, of course not.” She wondered for an instant if picking a quarrel might divert Charlotte’s attention from what she had come to say, and decided it would not. It was extremely difficult to think of a way of having Charlotte persuade Pitt to search again for the badge without Charlotte’s realizing exactly what Emily was doing, and why.
“I’ve just come from the dog show,” she said tentatively. “I saw Tallulah FitzJames there. She looks terribly worried. I feel so helpless to know what to say to her. Does Thomas really think her brother is guilty? Did you mention …” She stopped.
“That we went to Beaufort Street?” Charlotte said with wide eyes. “No, of course I didn’t! What could I say? That Finlay’s sister says she saw him at a party, but she can’t remember who else was there because nobody remembers anything about the whole event, except where it was held, and when?”
“I suppose it wouldn’t help,” Emily agreed unhappily.
They walked side by side very gently down the lawn towards the apple tree and past the honeysuckle, which was still in bloom. The late afternoon began to send a heavy sweetness into the air.
“All it would really do,” Charlotte said gently, “is show that Tallulah is a loyal sister.”
“It’s the badge, isn’t it?” Emily seized her opportunity. “That’s what makes it look so