Long Spoon Lane: A Charlotte and Thomas Pitt Novel Read online

  Sheridan turned to Vespasia. “May I call your carriage?” He reached for the bell cord a few feet away.

  “Thank you,” she accepted. The atmosphere in the room prickled with tension. Enid looked from her brother to her sister-in-law, but Vespasia was not sure if it was anger or apprehension in her face. Her shoulders were stiff, her head high, as if expecting some old pain to return that all her courage would not offset.

  “Piers will be most distressed,” Denoon said abruptly.

  Vespasia remembered that Enid had a son. He must be almost thirty now, roughly the same age as his cousin Magnus.

  Cordelia acknowledged the remark.

  “Perhaps we should leave also,” Enid observed, more to Denoon than to Cordelia. “Discussions of law reform can surely wait a day or two. They will take months to enact anyway, if not years.”

  “We don’t have years!” Denoon said angrily, his face flushed. “Do you imagine the forces of anarchy are going to sit around and wait for us to thwart them?”

  “I imagine they will be quite happy to watch us thwart ourselves,” she replied.

  “Don’t be absurd!” Denoon said, almost under his breath, as if she embarrassed him and he were uncertain how to deal with it in front of Vespasia and Landsborough.

  Landsborough stiffened, moving closer to his sister, and away from his wife. He drew in his breath between his teeth.

  Vespasia was acutely uncomfortable. She felt compelled to intervene, before the situation became worse.

  “If we react too swiftly, or too drastically, we may well do harm,” she said, glancing at Enid, and then away again. “We do not wish to provoke criticism that we are as repressive as they say, or to turn sympathy from us by heavy-handedness. At the moment all hearts and minds will be in our favor. Let us not lose that.”

  There were several seconds of tense silence, then Landsborough spoke. “Yes, of course. You are quite right.” He moved out into the hall. Vespasia followed him. A footman was sent to inform her coachman that she was ready to depart, and the Denoons’ coachman similarly. Cordelia made a remark about the weather. Vespasia replied.

  The green baize door opened from the servants’ quarters and a footman in livery came through. He was young and moved with the grace of a man used to physical action and confident in himself. He looked only at Enid, ignoring everyone else, including Denoon himself.

  “The coach is ready, ma’am,” he said respectfully, standing a few feet from her. He met her eyes for a moment, then deliberately looked away.

  Enid thanked the man, then took her leave of Landsborough with a quick placing of her hand on his arm. She nodded to Cordelia, smiled at Vespasia, and walked calmly to the door, leaving Denoon to follow.

  The moment after, Vespasia’s carriage arrived also. Landsborough offered her his arm in a discreet indication that he would like a moment of conversation with her, if not alone, at least out of earshot of his wife.

  Vespasia bade Cordelia good-bye yet again, then accepted Landsborough’s arm. Together they went out of the front door and down the steps towards the waiting carriage.

  “Thank you for coming,” he said quietly. “It was good of you, especially in the circumstances.”

  She was uncertain if he were referring to their past association or the way in which Magnus had died, and what might yet emerge about it. There might be storms of public blame or outrage to come.

  “I grieve for your loss,” she said candidly. “No doubt we shall have to face other things later, but just at the moment they all seem irrelevant.”

  He smiled very slightly. His face looked old, his skin papery thin, but his eyes were as she had always known them. “It will come soon enough,” he agreed. “Magnus was always too much of an enthusiast. He espoused causes because he cared about injustice. He did not always look closely enough at them, or realize that sometimes bad people can preach a good crusade. I should have taught him more patience, and much greater wisdom.”

  “You cannot teach people what they do not wish to learn,” she told him gently. “I seem to remember I was somewhat revolutionary when I was in my thirties. My only wisdom was that I did not pursue it in my own country. But I made Rome too hot to hold me. Fortunately I had England to return to.”

  He looked at her with an old tenderness she remembered with pleasure and guilt. “You never told me about it,” he said. “Except for the heat, and the food. You always liked Italian food.”

  “One day, perhaps,” she replied, knowing that she would not. That summer of 1848 was an island of time that could not be brought into the rest of her life, and she did not wish to share it, even with Sheridan Landsborough. But quite apart from that, it might hurt him, remind him of youth and fierceness of idealism and love that had slipped away from him now, but perhaps was reminiscent of the son he was mourning.

  The carriage was waiting. She looked at him steadily and saw memory in his eyes, loneliness, and perhaps guilt as well. He might have been a revolutionary in his youth. He had cared about injustice and change, and had the courage to say so. That might have been the reason he had never held high office in government. How much might he have known about what Magnus was doing? Might he even have sympathized in the beginning, and be prepared to defend his memory now?

  “Good-bye,” she said, and accepted his arm to step into her carriage.

  She rode home still turning the questions over in her mind, and even through the afternoon her thoughts kept going back to the conversation between Cordelia and Denoon, and Enid’s arguments against them. There had been a heat of emotion in her face, which was more than idealistic, and a pain so close to the surface it was almost beyond her control.

  In the early evening Vespasia could no longer weigh the matter on her own, and she sent for her carriage to take her to Keppel Street.

  Charlotte was delighted to see her. She was no longer embarrassed by the modesty of her home. She had several years ago realized that Vespasia felt at ease in the kitchen in a way she never would have in her own, where she was mistress, servants answered her only when spoken to, and the gulf between them was unpassable. Vespasia lived in a house full of people, but she was in many ways alone. It had been so since her husband had died, and possibly before that. Children offered a different kind of love, not necessarily the kind that includes companionship.

  “Aunt Vespasia!” Charlotte greeted her with unfeigned delight. “Please come in. Would you like to sit in the parlor?”

  “Not in the least,” Vespasia said candidly. “Is there something wrong with the kitchen?”

  Charlotte smiled.

  “Not more than usual. The laundry is dry, the cats are asleep in the wood basket, and Gracie is putting away the last of the dishes. But I can quite easily do that, and she can fold the clean clothes upstairs.” She took Vespasia’s cape and the silver-topped cane she carried, but never really used, then her hat.

  As soon as they opened the kitchen door, Gracie rose from the bench where she was drying the supper dishes and became instantly very formal. She made a wobbly curtsy.

  “Good evening, Lady Vespasia!” she said breathlessly.

  “Good evening, Gracie,” Vespasia replied, ignoring the curtsy as if she had always managed it with such style. “I have had a very disturbing day. Would you be kind enough to make me a cup of tea?”

  Gracie flushed with pleasure, and caught her elbow on the crockery as she swiveled around to obey. She only just saved it from falling to the floor.

  Charlotte glanced at Vespasia and hid a smile. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “What happened today?”

  Vespasia sat in one of the kitchen chairs, her back as ramrod straight as it had been since she was a schoolgirl and her governess had poked it with a ruler every time she slouched. She had learned to walk with a pile of books upon her head—dictionaries, nothing as frivolous as novels—and the habit had never left her. Without thinking she adjusted her dark gray skirts to sweep about her without getting in the way of others.
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  “I went to express my condolences to Lord and Lady Landsborough,” she said without prevarication. “I expected merely to leave a note, and was amazed to be received.” She saw Charlotte’s eyes widen. “I do not like Cordelia Landsborough, nor does she like me, for good and sufficient reason we do not need to discuss.”

  Charlotte bit her lip, and made no comment.

  “I believe she received me because she wishes to use my political influence in her crusade to have a bill passed in Parliament that will allow the police to carry firearms,” Vespasia continued. “And to have far greater power to invade the privacy of ordinary people, in the pursuit of their duty, however they see it. It disturbs me greatly.”

  Gracie dropped a spoonful of tea leaves on the floor, and bent to sweep them up, moving silently so as not to interrupt the conversation.

  Charlotte glanced at her, then back at Vespasia, her eyes grave, her face faintly puckered with anxiety. “Is she not speaking from grief?” she asked. “She must be distraught, poor woman.” Her lips tightened, and the muscles of her throat, as if she were thinking of her own son upstairs, who was presumably studying his schoolbooks before going to bed. He was a child, still governable, still willing to listen. A mere handful of years and he would be so different, full of passion and self-will, certain he knew the ills of the world and how to address them. At least he would if he had any of the fire or the courage of youth.

  “She will work through her pain by driving herself to act,” Vespasia replied. “Through exhaustion or tears, through everything that you or I might feel.”

  Charlotte considered for a moment before responding, but her face was gentler, lost in thought rather than the difficulty of understanding Vespasia’s feelings.

  “Would you help her to have such a change made in the law?” she asked, dismayed at the thought.

  Gracie was standing with her back to the sink, not even pretending that she was uninvolved. Her eyes moved from one to the other of them with rapt attention. She did not dare to interrupt, but the subject was very obviously something about which she had profound feelings.

  “No,” Vespasia replied. “I would not.”

  Gracie drew in her breath sharply.

  Charlotte smiled, relaxing a little in her chair. “I can understand why they feel as they do,” she conceded. “The violence is very frightening, and we must do all we can to prevent it.”

  Her moderate tone was the last straw for Gracie. Because it was Charlotte who was speaking, not Vespasia, she did not feel obliged to keep silent anymore. “It’s ordinary people wot’s blown up!” she said desperately. “They may not ’ave any power nor money, but they’re the ones wot police and government is meant to protect! It’s ’orrible. I saw pictures in the newspapers o’ wot they done. Where’s those people going ter sleep now? Their ’ouses is all gone, everything they got. ’Oo’s going ter replace all that, eh?”

  Charlotte colored with embarrassment in case Vespasia was offended.

  Vespasia looked at Gracie with seriousness. Gracie went white, but she did not lower her eyes.

  “It is an extremely difficult question,” Vespasia said quietly. “I shall do what I can to see that money is raised to help those who have been made homeless. I give you my word. But the reason I will not help Mr. Denoon is that I do not trust him to be moderate in his response. I fear he will react so strongly he will make the problem worse rather than better.”

  Gracie blinked. “Would yer? I mean ’elp ’em? Really?”

  The kettle boiled and no one took any notice.

  “I have said so,” Vespasia answered gravely. “Your comments are very fair. We are too willing to indulge our anger at the destruction and think how we can punish those who have inflicted it, rather than make any effort to help those who have suffered.”

  None of them had heard Pitt close the front door, nor his soft footsteps down the hall.

  “Thank you, Aunt Vespasia,” he said gravely. She had given him permission some time ago to address her thus. He walked into the room, acknowledging her first, then Charlotte and Gracie. He sat on the third hard-backed chair.

  “There is a backlash, Thomas,” Vespasia told him. “Edward Denoon intends to press for arming the police and increasing their powers to search people, and their homes.” She had no need to explain to him who Denoon was.

  “I know,” he said somberly. “Do you think he will succeed?”

  She looked at the anxiety in his face, and the need for hope. She had never lied to him, and she could not afford to begin with this. “I think he will be difficult to stop. Many good people are very angry, and very frightened,” she said.

  He looked tired. “I know. Perhaps they are right to be. But arming the police with guns is not going to make it better. The last thing we need is pitched battles in the streets. And if we search people without real cause, or go into their homes, the one place they feel any sense of being master, we shall lose their willingness to help. And it has taken us thirty years to earn that.”

  Gracie looked deeply confused. He had his back to her and did not see the consternation in her face.

  Charlotte saw it. “We must fight them,” she responded. “What is it best we do? Have you any idea who they are, or at least what they want?”

  “I know what they say they want,” he replied wearily.

  Charlotte sensed another emotion in him, more painful than anything that had emerged before. “What?”

  “An end to police corruption,” he replied.

  Charlotte froze. “Corruption?”

  Pitt pushed his hands through his hair. “I don’t know if it exists in the degree they say, but I shall have to find out. People need to believe in the law before we can expect them to honor it.”

  Vespasia felt a chill take hold of her, and a sense of loss far broader than the death of one man, however violent or tragic. “Then perhaps we have a battle,” she answered him. “We must draw up our lines.”

  3

  IN THE MORNING, Pitt went back to try again to see if he could learn anything from the two anarchists in jail. He found Welling hollow-eyed and exhausted. He looked as if he had been up all night pacing the floor, and now he was too distraught to think coherently. He did not dare trust himself to speak to Pitt.

  Carmody was different. He was an idealist burning to speak about the oppression of government, the exploitation of the poor, and the inherent evils of property and rules. The energy danced in him; he could barely keep still.

  “We’re old!” he said, staring fiercely at Pitt and jabbing his thin fingers in the air. “Tired! We need a new start. Get rid of the mistakes of the past, sweep them all away.” He gestured wildly with both arms. “Begin again!”

  “With new rules?” Pitt asked bitterly.

  “There you go, doing it too!” Carmody accused him. “You can’t even think without rules. You pretend to be listening, but you’re not. You’re just like all the others, trying to impose your will on everyone else. That’s it: power, power, power all the time. You don’t hear a thing I’m saying. No rules! You’re suffocating people, killing them slowly. Can’t you see that? You’re killing the whole country.”

  “Actually I think your real complaint is exactly the opposite,” Pitt replied, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. The air in the cell was close and musty.

  Carmody was exasperated. Pitt’s apparent stupidity defeated him. “Get out!” he shouted suddenly. “I’m telling you nothing! You killed Magnus—we didn’t. Why would we? He was our leader.”

  “Maybe somebody else wanted to be leader?” Pitt suggested without moving.

  Carmody regarded him with total contempt. “Is that what you do?” he asked. “You want promotion in your police, so you kill the man above you?”

  Pitt pushed his hands into his pockets. “Wouldn’t work,” he answered. “There are rules against it.”

  Blind fury touched Carmody’s face for an instant, then he realized he was being laughed at. “And of co
urse you always obey the rules!” he said sarcastically. “I’ve seen a bit of that, down Bow Street way.”

  Pitt had been about to retort, trapping him in his own need for rules, but the jibe about Bow Street cut him more sharply than he was prepared for. He cared intensely for its reputation, even now when it was Wetron’s responsibility, not his. Some of the men there were those he had worked with, especially Samuel Tellman, who had resented him so bitterly when he had first taken over. Tellman had thought him unfit for command, a man jumped up beyond his ability. Command belonged to gentlemen, ex-army or ex-navy officers who understood the merits of experience and did not interfere. He did not approve of those who rose from the ranks. It had been a long and often uncomfortable journey for both of them until they reached the place of mutual trust, before Pitt’s expulsion. Then it had been Tellman’s loyalty that had saved Charlotte’s life in Devon.

  A look of triumph slowly lit Carmody’s face as Pitt did not answer him, and he realized that his shot had found its mark.

  “If you don’t want any rules,” Pitt replied at last, “why are you complaining that some of the men in Bow Street don’t keep them?”

  “Because you’re hypocrites!” Carmody spat. “You abide by rules well enough when it suits you!”

  “Don’t you?” Pitt asked. “Isn’t that your point? Do what you like, no rules, even about keeping the rules.”

  Carmody looked momentarily confused.

  Pitt leaned forward. “Look,” he said gravely. “I want to know who killed Magnus just as much as you do, maybe more. Whoever did it broke my rules. You say that you don’t believe in rules, but that’s rubbish. You’re angry with me because you think I’m lying to you…”

  “Aren’t you?” Carmody accused.

  “So you have rules about lying!” Pitt observed.

  Carmody drew in his breath sharply.

  “And you think one of us shot Magnus,” Pitt went on. “Which makes you angry, because you don’t expect police to kill people in cold blood. So you have rules about murder. What about betrayal? Do you have rules about that too?”