Resurrection Row - Anne Perry [34]
Vespasia took the last cake. “No, not in the least. Nor do I think the other people in the Park will enlighten the situation. Somerset Carlisle never showed anything for Augustus beyond the courtesy required of good manners; he, like St. Jermyn, is far too occupied with the bill. Major Rodney and his two sisters are very retiring. They are maiden ladies and will assuredly remain so. They busy themselves with domestic chores, largely of a refined nature, such as fine sewing and the making of endless preserves, and I think rather a lot of homemade wine from quite dreadful ingredients like parsnips and nettles. Perfectly appalling! Not that I have tasted it above once! Major Rodney has left the army now, of course, and collects butterflies, or something small that crawls around on dozens of legs. He has been writing his memoirs of the Crimea for the last twenty years. I had no idea so much had happened out there!”
Charlotte hid a smile.
“And there is a portrait artist,” Vespasia continued, “Godolphin Jones, but he has been absent for some little while, in France, I believe, so he could not have dug up Augustus. And I can think of no possible reason why he should wish to.
“The only other person,” she concluded, “is an American called Virgil Smith! Quite outrageous, of course. Society will abhor him if he is brazen enough to remain here next Season, but then on the other hand he is laden with money from something quite uncouth, like cattle, out in wherever it is he comes from, so they will not be able to refrain from courting him at the same time. It should be greatly entertaining. Except that I hope the poor creature does not get too hurt. He really is very good-natured and seems to be quite without airs, which is such a change. Of course, his manners and his appearance are both disasters, but money covers a multitude of sins.”
“And kindness even more,” Charlotte pointed out.
“Not in Society!” Vespasia stared at her. “Society is all to do with what seems, and nothing to do with what is. That is one of the reasons you will find it uncommonly difficult to discover whether Augustus was killed, by whom, or why—and still less if anybody cares!”
While Charlotte was sitting in Vespasia’s carriage being driven home, feeling self-conscious but utterly pampered, turning over in her mind the fruits of the journey, or rather the lack of them, in the churchyard of St. Margaret’s two gravediggers were standing in the rain for a moment’s respite from the long and heavy duty of preparing the earth to receive Augustus Fitzroy-Hammond yet again.
“I dunno, ’Arry,” one of them said, wiping the drop off the end of his nose. “I’m beginning to think as I could make me livin’ purely out o’ this, just buryin’ ’is lordship. No sooner does we ’ave ’im down there as some great fool goes an’ digs ’im up again!”
“I know what you mean,” Harry sniffed. “I dreams about this, I does! Spend me life goin’ in an’ out o’ this bleedin’ grave. You should ’ear what my Gertie says about it! She says it’s only them wot’s murdered as won’t rest, an’ I tell you, Arfur, I’m beginnin’ to think as she’s right! I don’t suppose this is the last time we’ll be in an’ out of ’ere!”
Arthur spat and took up his spade again. The next blow hit the coffin lid. “Well, I’ll tell you this, ’Arry, it’s the last time I will! I don’t want no truck wiv murder, or them w’ot’s been murdered. I don’t mind buryin’ nice decent corpses what ’ave died natural. I’ll bury as many of them as you like. But there’s two things as really gets me. One is babies—I ’ate buryin’ kids—and the other is them w’ot’s been murdered. An’ I already buried this one twice! If’n ’e don’t stay there this time, they needn’t ask me to do ’im again—’cos I shan’t! Enough’s enough. Let the rozzers find out ’oo done ’im in, then maybe ’el’ll stay there, that’s w’ot I say.”
“Me too,” Harry agreed vehemently. “I’m a patient man, God knows I am. In this line you gets to see a lot o’ death, you gets to know w’ot’s important and w’ot ain’t. We all comes to this in the end, and some folks