Traitors Gate - Anne Perry [170]
She looked up at Charlotte and invited her to be seated, dismissing the maid. She made no pretense of offering refreshment.
“Your message was candid to the point of offense, Mrs. Pitt. It is remarkable of you to have felt you had any right to insist upon seeing me. We had the slightest of acquaintance; a few pleasant occasions together do not give you the right to intrude on my grief with threats of harassing me, or calling me a coward. What is it you wish to say that you think warrants such behavior? I cannot imagine what it can be.”
Charlotte had thought long and hard about what she would say, but now that the moment was come, it was far more difficult than her worst thoughts had foreseen.
“You have an extremely important choice to make,” she began, her voice low and gentle. “One which will affect the rest of your life …”
“I have no choice whatsoever,” Harriet said bluntly. “Matthew Desmond has removed them all from me. There is only one path open to me now. But that does not concern you, Mrs. Pitt. I suppose I cannot blame your husband for what has happened. After all, he is a policeman and bound to follow his duty. However, I cannot like him for it, nor you, because you are his wife. If we are to speak so plainly, which seems to be your wish, then I will be plain.”
“The matter is far too important to be anything less than plain,” Charlotte agreed, changing her mind suddenly as to how she would say what she had to. “But if you think I agree with my husband’s actions out of loyalty to him, you are mistaken. There are certain things we must believe for ourselves, regardless of what any others may think, be they fathers, husbands, political leaders or men of the church. There is an inner self, a soul, if you like, which is answerable to God, or if you do not believe in Him, then to history, or to life, or merely to yourself, and loyalty to that must supersede all other loyalties. Whatever light of truth you have glimpsed, that must never be betrayed, whatever or whoever else must fall because of it.”
“Really, Mrs. Pitt, you—”
“That sounds extreme?” Charlotte cut across her. “Of course there are ways of doing things. If you have to let someone down, deny their beliefs, you owe it to them to do it openly and honorably, to their faces and not their backs, but no one has the right to demand of you a loyalty to them above that to your own conscience….”
“No, of course not, I mean … I …” Harriet stopped, unsure where her agreement was leading her.
“I used to know a poem at school, written during the Civil War,” Charlotte went on. “By Richard Lovelace. It was called ‘To Lucasta, Going to the Wars.’ There was a line in it—‘I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honor more.’ I laughed at it then. My sister and I would ask, ‘Who is Honor Moore?” But I am beginning to understand what it means; at least in my better moments I have a glimpse of it.”
Harriet frowned at her, but she was listening.
“The finer a person is,” Charlotte continued, “then the more integrity, compassion, and courage they have, and the finer the love they can give you, and I honestly believe also the deeper the love. A shallow vessel holds less, has less from which to give, and you can reach the bottom a lot sooner than you expect or wish to.”
Harriet’s eyes had not moved from Charlotte’s face.
“What are you trying to tell me, Mrs. Pitt?”
“Do you admire a man who does what he believes to be right, indeed knows to be, only when it does not cost him anything?”
“Of course not,” Harriet replied quickly. “Anyone can do that. Most people do. Indeed it is in one’s own interest to do so. It is only when there is cost involved that there is any nobility, any honor.”
“Then your answer in words is quite different from the answer in your acts,” Charlotte pointed out, but gently, and with a look of sadness that held no criticism.
“I don’t understand you,” Harriet said slowly, but her very hesitation showed that perhaps she was beginning to.
“Don’t you? Would you have had Matthew do something he knew to be wrong in order to please you?