Seven Dials - Anne Perry [78]
Charlotte was about to say “Of course not” when she realized that she was actually considering the possibility.
Tellman drew in his breath, but his mouth was full.
“I think we need to know a great deal more about the Garrick family,” Charlotte said, choosing her words carefully.
Gracie’s face tightened. “Yer gonna ask Lady Vespasia?” she said hopefully. She had not only heard of Vespasia’s help in other cases, she had actually met her and been spoken to on more than one occasion. Vespasia had visited Keppel Street. Gracie could not have been more impressed had it been the Queen herself. After all, the Queen was short and more than a little plump, whereas Vespasia was as regal and as beautiful as a queen should be. And more important than that, she was willing to help wholeheartedly in the solving of crimes. She might be a real lady, with all the unimaginable glamour that went with that, but she helped them detect, and that was the ultimate belonging. “She’d know,” Gracie added encouragingly.
Charlotte looked at Gracie’s eager face and then at Tellman, who hated aristocrats, and amateurs interfering with police business, especially women, and saw his eyes flicker, a shadow of self-mockery with the denial. She hesitated as if deferring to his opinion, then when he said nothing, she nodded.
“I can’t think of anything better. As we have already acknowledged, there is no police case to pursue, but there is almost certainly something wrong,” he conceded. “There’s no help for it.”
IT WAS FAR TOO LATE that evening to contact Aunt Vespasia, but in the morning Charlotte dressed in her best calling gown, albeit very definitely last year’s cut, which she had had no reason or incentive to alter yet. Since Pitt’s demotion from head of Bow Street into Special Branch, she had had absolutely no excuse, or opportunity, to attend social engagements of any importance. It was only now, looking at her overfamiliar wardrobe, that she realized it quite so forcefully.
However, there was no money to spare for unnecessary indulgences such as a fashionable gown when what she had was warm, becoming and perfectly adequate. It was not so very long ago that they had both worried as to whether there would be food and coal.
The thing that stung was that she had not had the opportunity to help Thomas, which would have been an important thing in itself, and as an added benefit would have given her the chance and the excuse to borrow something glamorous from Emily, or even from Aunt Vespasia herself, who, although two generations older, was of a more similar height.
Now she pulled out her plum-colored morning dress and changed into it, pleased that at least it still fit her very nicely. Finding the right hat was less easy, and she settled for black with a touch of soft reddish pink. She did not really like it, but she owned nothing better, and one could not call without wearing a hat of some sort. More important than her own feelings, if anyone else were calling upon Vespasia, she would not like to embarrass her. No one wishes for impecunious relatives, however distant, still less for ones with distressing taste in clothes.
Gracie saw her off with enthusiasm and last-minute advice and instruction. She would not have been so impertinent as to offer it had she thought first, but her eagerness overcame propriety.
“We gotta know wot that ’ouse’old is like,” she said with a frown. “They done summink to ’im. We gotta find out wot, an’ why.”
“I shall tell Aunt Vespasia the truth,” Charlotte answered her, standing on the front step and looking up at the sky. It was a beautiful day, bright but decidedly crisp.
“It in’t gonna rain,” Gracie said decisively.
“No, I can see that. I was just thinking it is the sort of day when everyone and their mothers will think to go out calling. I may be fortunate to find her alone, and it is really not the sort of conversation