Rutland Place - Anne Perry [86]
“But you put them back?” she said urgently. “You promised—”
“Of course I did, once I knew where they belonged. No one else knows.” He turned to Charlotte. “I’m afraid my mother has a regrettable habit of picking up small things that do not belong to her. I do my best to replace them as soon as possible. I’m also afraid I took rather longer than usual with your mother’s locket, because she said nothing about losing it so I didn’t know to whom it belonged. I doubt I need to explain all the reasons for that?”
“No,” Charlotte said quietly. “No, better not.” She was puzzled. She liked Ambrosine Charrington. “Why on earth should she resort to petty stealing?”
Inigo pulled over another chair, and he and Ottilie sat down. Seeing them so close together, Charlotte realized the resemblance was quite marked. There could be no doubt who “Ada Church” was.
“Escape,” Ottilie said simply, looking at Charlotte. “Perhaps you can’t understand that? But if you had lived with Papa for thirty years, you might. Sometimes you get to feel so imprisoned by other people’s ideas and habits and expectations that part of you grows to hate them, and you want to break their ideals, smash them, shock those people into really looking at you for once, reaching through the glass to touch the real flesh beyond.”
“It’s all right.” Charlotte shook her head. “You don’t need to explain. I’ve wanted to stand on the table and scream myself, once or twice, tell everybody what I really thought. Perhaps after thirty years I would have. Do you like it here?” She looked around at the tables, the sea of bodies and faces.
Ottilie smiled, without pretense. “Yes. I love it. I’ve cried myself to sleep a few times, and I’ve had long, lonely days—and nights. And a good few times I’ve thought I was a fool, or worse. But when I hear the music, the people singing with me, and the applause—yes, I love it. I daresay in ten years or fifteen I shall have nothing but vanity and memories, and wish I’d stayed at home and married suitably—but I don’t think so.”
Charlotte found herself smiling as well; the champagne still glowed inside her.
“You might marry well anyway,” she said, and then suddenly her tongue felt awkward, and the next sentence did not sound quite as she had intended it should. “People from music halls sometimes do, so someone said—didn’t they?”
Ottilie looked at her brother. “You’ve been filling her with champagne,” she accused.
“Of course. That way she’ll have an excuse in the morning. And I daresay not recall quite how much she enjoyed slumming!” He stood up. “Have some yourself, Tillie. I must take Charlotte home before her husband sends half the metropolitan police out for her!”
Charlotte did not hear what he said. The music had started in her head again, and she was happy for him to lead her to the door, collect her cloak, and send for the carriage. The air outside was sharp; its coldness made her feel a little dizzy.
He handed her up and closed the door, and the horses clopped gently through silent streets.
Charlotte began to sing to herself and was still going through the chorus for the seventh time when Inigo helped her down outside her own front door.
“Champagne Charlie is my name!” she sang cheerfully and rather loudly. “Champagne drinking is my game! There is nothing like the fizz, fizz, fizz. I’ll drink every drop there is, is, is! I’m the darling”—she hesitated, then remembered—“of the barmaids! And Champagne Charlie is my name!”
The door swung open, and she looked up to see Pitt staring at her, his face white and furious, the gas lamp in the hallway behind him making a halo around his head.
“She’s perfectly safe,” Inigo said soberly. “I took her to meet my sister—after whom I believe you have been inquiring?”
“I—” Charlotte hiccupped and slid neatly to the floor.
“Sorry,” Inigo said with a slight smile. “Good night!”
Charlotte was not even aware of Pitt bending down to pick her up and heave her inside with a comment that would have blistered her