Resurrection Row - Anne Perry [41]
“Perhaps she likes them?” Miss Mary Ann suggested. “Some people must, or they would not pay so very much money.”
“Art is very much a matter of taste, isn’t it?” Alicia looked from one to the other.
The old lady snorted. “Naturally. Good taste—and bad taste! Only the vulgar, who know no better, judge anything as a matter of money.” Once more her eyes darted to Virgil Smith and away again. “Time is the thing—whatever has lasted, that is worth something! Old paintings, old houses, old blood.”
Alicia felt embarrassed for him, as if she were both receiving the hurt herself, and at the same time responsible for it because the old lady was part of her family.
“Pure survival alone is hardly a mark of virtue.” She surprised herself by speaking so vehemently and with something that could only be regarded as insolence by the old lady, but she wanted to contradict her so badly it was like a bursting in her head. “After all, disease survives!”
Everyone was staring at her, the old lady with a look as if her footstool had risen up and smitten her.
Somerset Carlisle was the first to react. “Bravo!” he said cheerfully. “An excellent argument, if somewhat eccentric! I’m not sure Godolphin would appreciate it, but it just about sums up the relationship between art, survival, and price.”
“I don’t understand.” Miss Priscilla squinted painfully. “I don’t see the relationship at all.”
“That is precisely what I mean,” he agreed. “There is none.”
The old lady banged her stick on the ground. She had been aiming at Carlisle’s foot and missed. “Of course there is!” she snapped. “Money is the root of all evil! Bible says so. Do you argue with that?”
“You misquote.” Carlisle was not daunted, and he did not move his feet. “What it says is that ‘the love of money is the root of all evil.’ Things are not evil; it is the passions they stir in people that may be.”
“A piece of sophistry,” she said with disgust. “And this is not the place for it. Go to your club if you have a taste for that kind of conversation. This is a funeral breakfast. I would oblige you to remember that!”
He bowed very slightly. “Indeed, ma’am, you have my sympathies.” He turned to Alicia and Verity. “And you also, of course.”
Suddenly everyone remembered this was the third time they had attended such an affair, and Major Rodney excused himself rather loudly in the awkwardness that followed. He took his sisters by the arms and almost propelled them out into the hallway, where the footman had to be sent for to bring their coats.
Vespasia and Carlisle followed; Virgil Smith hesitated a moment by Alicia.
“If there is anything I can do, ma’am?” He looked uncomfortable, as if he wanted to say something and could not find the words.
She was aware of the kindness in him, and it made her also feel a little clumsy. She thanked him more hastily than she meant to, and with a faint color in his face, he followed the others out.
“I see your Mr. Corde didn’t come!” the old lady said spitefully. “Other fish to fry, maybe?”
Alicia ignored her. She did not know why Dominic had sent no word, no flowers or letter of sympathy. It was something she did not want to think about.
On the morning of the interment Dominic had been in two minds as to what to do. He had got up and dressed, intending to go, as a support to Alicia in a time which was bound to be extremely trying for her. Verity was too young and too vulnerable herself to afford much comfort, and he knew the old lady would, if anything, make matters worse. No one would find his attendance odd; it was a mark of respect. After all, he had been invited to the original funeral.
Then as he stared at himself in the mirror, making the final adjustment to his appearance, he remembered his visit to Charlotte. He had never been inside a house of working people before, not something on a level with a tradesman’s house, like Pitt’s. All things considered, it was odd how comfortable he had felt, and how little Charlotte had changed. Of course, it would have been different if he had stayed there long! But for that hour or so, the