Brunswick Gardens

by Anne Perry

  “Nothing better to do, I suppose!” the old lady remarked.

  Charlotte was tempted to say that she had many better things and she had come as a matter of duty, but decided it would achieve nothing she wished for, and refrained.

  “Not at the moment,” she answered.

  “No crimes for you to interfere with?” The old lady raised her eyebrows.

  “Dominic has become a minister,” Charlotte said, changing the subject.

  “Vulgar, I think,” the old lady pronounced. “Most of them are corrupt anyway, always currying favor with the public, who don’t know any better. Government should be conducted by gentlemen, born to lead, not by people chosen at random by the masses who haven’t the faintest idea what it means half the time.” She stood her stick up in front of her and crossed her hands over the knot, rather in the manner the Queen was wont to adopt. “I am against electing,” she announced. “It only brings out the worst in everybody. And as for women having the vote, that is preposterous! No decent woman would want it, because she would be quite aware that she had no knowledge upon which to base her judgment. Which leaves the rest … and who wants the nation’s fate in the hands of harlots and ‘new women’? Not that they aren’t after the same thing anyway.”

  “A minister in the church, Grandmama, not in the government,” Charlotte corrected.

  “Oh. Well, that’s better, I suppose. Although how he expects to keep Emily on a minister’s pay I’ve no idea.” She smiled. “Have to stop wearing those fancy gowns then, won’t she? No silks and satins for her. And no unsuitable colors anymore, either.” She looked thoroughly satisfied at the prospect.

  “Dominic, Grandmama, not Jack.”

  “What?”

  “Dominic, who was married to Sarah, not Emily’s Jack.”

  “Then why didn’t you say so? Dominic? That Dominic you used to be so in love with?”

  Charlotte controlled herself with an effort. “He is a curate now.”

  The old lady knew she had scored a point. “Well, well!” She breathed out with a sigh. “Nobody as righteous as a reformed sinner, is there? No more flirting with him, then, eh?” She opened her black eyes very wide. “What brought that about? Lost his looks, has he? What happened? Did he catch the pox?” She nodded. “Those who live longest see most.” Then her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “How did you find out, then? Went looking for him, did you?”

  “He knew the woman whose death is Thomas’s present case. I went to congratulate him on his vocation,” Charlotte replied.

  “You went to meddle,” the old lady corrected her with satisfaction. “And because you wanted to look at Dominic Corde again. Always said he was no good. Told Sarah that when she wanted to marry him, poor child. Told you, but did you listen? Of course not! You never do. And look what happened to you. Married a policeman. Scrub your own floors, I shouldn’t wonder. And get to a lot of places a decent woman wouldn’t be seen near. I’d be sorry for your mother if she wasn’t even worse! My poor dear Edward’s death must have deranged her mind.” She nodded again, still keeping her hands on her stick. “Marrying an actor young enough to be her son. I’d be sorry for her if I weren’t so ashamed. I daren’t go out of the house for the embarrassment of it!”

  Unfortunately, there was little to argue about that. Several of Caroline’s erstwhile friends had decided not to know her anymore. And she had ceased to care about it in the slightest. She still enjoyed the company of those whose friendship rode the wave of such eccentricity.

  “It is most unfortunate for you.” Charlotte decided to try a new approach. “I really am very sorry. I don’t suppose any of your friends will speak to you now. It is a disgrace.”

  The old lady stared at her with damning anger. “That is a terrible thing to say. My friends are of the old school. None of this modern selfish way. A friend is a friend for life.” She emphasized the last word. “If we did not remain loyal to each other, where would we be?”

  She sniffed and leaned a trifle forward over her stick. “I have seen a great deal more of life than you have, and I can tell you this new idea of women trying to become like men is all going to end in tragedy. You should stay at home, my girl, and look after your family. Keep your house clean and well run, and your mind the same.” She nodded. “A man has a right to expect that. He provides for you, protects you and instructs you. That is as it should be. If he falls a little short now and then, you must be patient. That is your duty. Everything depends on a man’s advantages and strength, and a woman’s humility and virtue.” She sniffed again. “Your mother should have taught you that, if she were fulfilling her calling,” she added meaningfully.

  “Yes, Grandmama.”

  “Don’t be impertinent! I know you disagree with me. I can see it in your face. Always thought you knew better, but you don’t!”

  Charlotte rose to her feet. “I can see that you are very well, Grandmama. If I speak to Dominic again I shall convey your congratulations to him. I am sure you are glad he has found the path of rectitude.”

  The old lady grunted. “And where are you going?”

  “To see Great-Aunt Vespasia. I am to take luncheon with her.”

  “Are you? You didn’t offer to take luncheon with me.”

  Charlotte looked at her long and carefully. Was there any point in telling her the truth? That her endless criticism made her company burdensome, that the only way to tolerate it without weeping was to laugh? That she had never once felt happier, lighter-hearted, braver or more hopeful because of it?

  “One would have thought you would have preferred your own family to some lady who is only related to you by your sister’s marriage,” Grandmama went on. “That says something for your values, doesn’t it?”

  “One would have hoped it, certainly,” Charlotte agreed. “But Great-Aunt Vespasia likes me, and I don’t think you do.”

  The old lady looked startled, a faint flush of pink in her cheeks.

  “I am your grandmother! I am family. That is quite different.”

  “Absolutely,” Charlotte agreed with a smile. “Relationship is a birthright; liking someone has to be acquired. I hope you have a pleasant day. If you want to read the scandal in the newspapers, it’s on page eight. Good-bye.”

  She left feeling guilty, and angry with herself for allowing the old lady to provoke her into retaliation. She took another hansom and sat for the whole journey seething with anger and wondering if Unity Bellwood had suffered with family like Grandmama. She knew the rage within herself and the passion to prove herself right that it engendered. To be continuously thwarted, told she was inadequate to the dream she treasured, that her role was forever limited, brought out the worst in her, a desire to justify herself at almost any cost. She entertained ideas of cruelty which would have horrified her in less-heated moments.

  Pitt had told her about the attitudes of the church academic he had spoken to, how he had patronized Unity and belittled her ability, stating, as of a proven matter, that because she was a woman she was necessarily of inferior emotional stability and therefore unsuited to higher learning. The compulsion to prove them wrong in that, and in anything and everything else, must have been overwhelming.

  She alighted outside Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould’s home, paid the driver, and walked up the steps just as the maid opened the door for her. Vespasia was the great-aunt of Emily’s first husband, but she had developed an affection for both Emily and Charlotte which had long outlasted George’s death and had grown with their every meeting. She was well over eighty now. In her youth she had been the greatest beauty of her generation. She was still exquisite and dressed with elegance and flair, but she no longer cared what society thought of her, and spoke her opinions with wit and forthrightness, which inspired admiration in many, anger in some, and downright terror in others.

  She was waiting for Charlotte in her spacious withdrawing room with its tall windows letting in the sunlight and the great sense of calm its pale colors and uncluttered surfaces credit
ed. She greeted her with pleasure and interest.

  “Come in, my dear, and sit down. I think perhaps to ask you to make yourself comfortable would be foolish.” She regarded Charlotte with amusement. “You look in far too high a temper for that. What has occasioned it?” She indicated a carved and upholstered chair for Charlotte, and occupied a chaise longue herself. She was dressed in her favorite shades of ivory and deep cream with long pearls almost to her waist. The entire bodice of her gown was made of guipure lace over silk, with a silk fichu at the throat. The bustle was almost nonexistent, as was so far in fashion as to be all but in advance of it.

  “I have been to visit Grandmama,” Charlotte replied. “She was appalling, and I behaved badly. I said things I should have kept to myself. I loathe her for bringing out the worst in me.”

  Vespasia smiled. “A very familiar feeling,” she sympathized. “It is remarkable how often one’s family can occasion it.” A ghost of laughter crossed her silver eyes. “Particularly Eustace.”

  Charlotte felt the tension ease away from her. Memories of Vespasia’s son-in-law Eustace March were mixed with tragedy, rage and mirth, and most recently high farce and an uneasy alliance which had ended in victory.

  “Eustace does have certain redeeming qualities,” she said, honesty compelling her. “Grandmama is impossible. I suppose she did concentrate my mind on aspects of Thomas’s new case.” She stopped, wondering whether Vespasia wished to hear about it or not.

  “Your luncheon rests upon it!” Vespasia warned with a glitter in her eyes. “I am very fond of you, my dear, but I refuse to sit and discuss the weather with anyone, even you. And we have no society acquaintances in common whom we may criticize with any degree of entertainment, and I do not care to speak of friends except to pass on news. Emily has written, so I have no need to enquire how she is. I know she is doing excellently.”

  “Very well,” Charlotte agreed with a smile. “Do you think a man whose religious faith is his profession and his status, as well as his moral code, would be so deranged by doubts, the attacks or the mockery of atheists as to lose control of himself and kill … in temper?” Had she stated the case fairly?

  “No,” Vespasia said with barely a hesitation. “If he appears to have done so, I should look for a motive more rooted in the real man, less of the brain and more of the passions. Men kill from fear of losing something they cannot bear to live without, be it love or status or money. Or they kill to gain the same thing.” Her expression was filled with interest, but no doubt whatsoever. “Sometimes it is to avenge a wrong they find intolerable or from jealousy of someone who has what they believe should be theirs. Sometimes it is hatred, usually based in those same feelings that somehow they have been robbed of love or honor … or money.”

  She smiled very slightly, just curling the corner of her lips. “They will fight over an idea, but only kill if their status is threatened, their belief as to how they perceive themselves in the world, in a way their life … or what makes it valuable to them, their conception of its importance.”

  “She threatened his faith,” Charlotte said with a little shiver. She did not want it to be true, but then there was not any answer that she did want—not one that was possible. “Isn’t that his status … as a clergyman?”

  Vespasia laughed with a slight lift of one thin shoulder under its ivory lace and silk. There was anger and pity in her eyes as well as amusement. “My dear, if every clergyman in England who had doubts were to resign his living there would be precious few churches left open. Those that were would be mostly in villages where the minister is too busy spending his time with the frightened, the sick and the lonely to read anything but the Four Gospels, and no time at all for learned disputations. He does not think about who God is, because he already knows.”

  Charlotte sat silently. She could not feel that Ramsay Parmenter had any such knowledge. Perhaps it was that absence, that hole at the core of what should have been, which had allowed his faith to collapse in upon itself so tragically.

  “It troubles you.” Vespasia’s voice was gentle. “Why? Is your anxiety for Thomas?”

  “Not really. He will do what he has to. It will be unpleasant, of course, but then these things always are.”

  “Then for whom?”

  She had never lied to Vespasia, even by implication or omission. To do so would destroy something which could never be replaced and which was of immeasurable value to her. She shifted her position very slightly on the chair.

  “There are three men in the house, any of whom could have been at the bend of the stairs when Unity fell,” she said slowly. “The second is Mallory, the son of the house, who is about to become a Roman Catholic priest …” She ignored Vespasia’s suddenly risen eyebrows, silver, arched and elegant. “The third is the new curate there … who is my brother-in-law, Dominic. He was married to my elder sister, Sarah, who was murdered in Cater Street.”

  “Go on, my dear …”

  There was no escaping Vespasia’s gaze, nor the feeling of heat creeping up her own cheeks.

  “I used to think myself in love with him before I met Thomas,” she began. “No, that is not quite true … I was in love, obsessively. I got over it, of course. I realized how … how shallow and fragile Dominic was, how easily he gave in to his appetites.” She was talking too quickly, but she did not seem to be able to help it. “He was very handsome indeed. He is even more so now. Something of the smoothness of youth is gone, a callowness. His face is … refined … by experience.”

  She met Vespasia’s clear, silver-gray eyes. She made herself smile back. “I feel no more than friendship for him now— indeed, I have for a long time. But I am afraid for him. You see, Unity was with child, and I know Dominic’s frailty. He wants passionately to succeed in his vocation, I believe that, I can see it and hear it in him. But one cannot cast off the temptations and needs of the body merely at will.”

  “I see.” Vespasia was very grave. “And what of the other two men, Mallory and the man of whom you spoke first? Could they not also be tempted?”

  “Mallory … I suppose so.” Charlotte gave a dismissive little shrug. “But not the Reverend. He’s at least sixty!”

  Vespasia laughed. It was not an elegant little murmur but a rich gurgle of hilarity.

  Charlotte found herself blushing. “I mean … I didn’t mean …” she stammered.

  Vespasia leaned forward and put her hand on Charlotte’s. “I know precisely what you mean, my dear. And I daresay from thirty-three, sixty seems like dotage, but when you get there it will look quite different. So will seventy—and even eighty, if you are fortunate.”

  Charlotte’s cheeks were still hot. “I don’t think the Reverend Parmenter is fortunate. He is as dry as dead wood. He is all arguments in the mind.”

  “Then if something awakens his passions at last, it will be all the more dangerous,” Vespasia answered, sitting back again. “Because he is unused to them and will have little experience in controlling them. That is when it is most likely to end in a disaster such as this.”

  “I suppose it is …” Charlotte said slowly, with a mixture of pain and relief. The realization of such an answer exonerated everyone else, but it left one person with the extra burden to bear. Yet still, for all the rationality of it, she found herself unable to believe it. “I could sense no passion in him,” she repeated. “Except the doubt. Although I realize that most of what I know of that comes from Dominic, still I think that is Reverend Parmenter’s overriding emotion. He and Unity used to quarrel terribly. They had a fearful row just minutes before she fell. It was overheard by several people. You see, she challenged his belief in everything to which he had given his life. That is an awful thing to do to anybody. It is saying, in effect, that they are worth nothing, that all their ideas are silly and wrong. If you believed that, you could hate them very much.”

  “If she really was the one to shake his faith, then yes, indeed, he could,” Vespasia agreed. “There is nothing quite so fright
ening as an idea or a freedom which negates your own sacrifice and obedience when it is too late for you to avail yourself of it. But from what you say, your Reverend was not in this position. Surely it is the initiators of the idea he should hate, not the followers?” She sighed. “Although you are quite right, of course. It was the unfortunate young woman who was standing at the top of the stairs, not Mr. Darwin, who was safely out of reach. I am very sorry. It sounds like a sad affair.”

  She rose to her feet with a little stiffness, and Charlotte stood instantly also, offering her arm to assist, and together they went into the breakfast room. It was filled with sunlight, and the perfume of narcissi blooming in a green glazed pot. Smoked salmon was already served with wafer-thin slices of brown bread, and the butler was waiting to pull out Vespasia’s chair for her.

  Charlotte felt compelled to go again to Brunswick Gardens. Her brain told her there was little she could accomplish, but she could not simply wait to see what happened. If she went she might learn something more, and knowledge would enable her to act.

  She was received somewhat coolly by Vita Parmenter.

  “How kind of you to call again, Mrs. Pitt,” she said. “It is generous of you to give up so much of your time.” “And take up so much of ours” was implied.

  “Family loyalties are very important in times of trouble,” Charlotte answered, and hated hearing herself mouthing such platitudes.

  “I am sure you are a very loyal wife,” Vita said with a smile. “But we cannot tell you anything that we did not already tell your husband.”

  This was dreadful. Charlotte felt herself blushing hot. Vita was a far sharper adversary than she had supposed, and as determined to protect her husband as Charlotte was to protect Dominic. Charlotte ought to have admired her for it, and reluctantly part of her did, in spite of her own discomfort. The two of them stood facing each other in the gracious, very modern withdrawing room, Vita small and elegant in soft patterned blue edged with black, Charlotte at least three inches taller in last year’s muted plum, which flattered her warm skin and mahogany-brown hair.