Bluegate Fields (35 page)

It had to be Albie again, and Arthur Waybourne. There was nothing else important enough.

Athelstan suddenly reached out his hand and slapped the flat of his palm across Pitt’s cheek. It stung sharply; but Pitt felt foolish to have been surprised. He stood perfectly still, hands by his sides.

“Yes, sir?” he said steadily. “What is it that has happened?”

Athelstan seemed to realize he had lost every shred of dignity, that he had allowed himself to indulge in uncontrolled emotion in front of a subordinate. His skin was still suffused with blood, but he drew in his breath slowly and stopped shaking.

“You have been back to the Deptford police station,” he said in a much lower voice. “You have been interfering in their inquiries, and asking for information about the death of the boy prostitute Frobisher.”

“I went in my own time, sir,” Pitt replied, “to see if I could offer them any help, since we already know a good deal about him and they do not. He lived nearer our area, if you remember?”

“Don’t be insolent! Of course I remember! He was the perverted whore that that man Jerome patronized in his filthy habits! He deserved to die. He brought it on himself! The more vermin like that that kill each other off, the better for the decent people of this city. And it is the decent people we are paid to protect, Pitt! And don’t you forget it!”

Pitt spoke before he thought. “The decent ones being those who sleep only with their wives, sir?” He allowed the sarcasm to creep into his voice, although he had intended it to sound nave. “And how shall I know which ones those are, sir?”

Athelstan stared at him, the blood ebbing and flowing in his face.

“You are dismissed, Pitt,” he said at last. “You are no longer in the force!”

Pitt felt the ice drench over him as if he had toppled and fallen into the river. His voice replied like a stranger’s, involuntarily, full of bravado he did not feel.

“Perhaps that’s just as well, sir. I could never have made the suitable judgments as to whom we should protect and whom we should allow to be killed. I was under the misapprehension that we were to prevent crime or to arrest criminals whenever possible, and that the social standing or the moral habits of the victim and the offender were quite irrelevant—that we should seek to enforce the law—something about ‘without malice, fear, or favor.’ ”

A hot tide rose again in Athelstan’s face.

“Are you accusing me of favor, Pitt? Are you saying that I am corrupt?”

“No, sir. You said it,” Pitt replied. He had nothing to lose now. Everything that Athelstan could give or take had already gone. He had used all his power.

Athelstan swallowed. “You misunderstood!” he said with tight fury, but softly, suddenly startled into control again. “Sometimes I think you are deliberately stupid! I said nothing of the sort. All I meant was that people like Albie Frobisher are bound to come to a bad end, and there is nothing we can do about it, that’s all.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I thought you said that there was nothing we ought to do.”

“Nonsense!” Athelstan waved his hands as if to obliterate the idea. “I never said anything of the kind. Of course we must try! It is just that it is hopeless. We cannot waste good police time on something that has no chance of success! That is only common sense. You will never make a good administrator, Pitt, if you do not understand how best to use the limited forces at your disposal! Let it be a lesson to you.”

“I am hardly likely to make an administrator of any sort, since I have no job,” Pitt pointed out. Now the coldness of reality was setting in. Through the shock he began to glimpse the wasteland of unhappiness beyond. Ridiculously, childishly, there was a constricting ache in his throat. In that moment he hated Athelstan so much he wanted to hit him, to beat him until he bled. Then he would go out of the station where everyone knew him, and walk in the gray, hiding rain until he could control the desire to weep. Except that, of course, it would all come back again when he saw Charlotte, and he would make a weak, undignified fool of himself.

“Well!” Athelstan sniffed irritably. “Well—I’m not a vindictive man—I’m prepared to overlook this breach if you’ll behave yourself more circumspectly in the future. You may consider yourself still employed in the police force.” He glanced at Pitt’s face, then held up his hand. “No! I insist, don’t argue with me! I am aware that you are overimpulsive, but I am prepared to allow you a certain latitude. You have put in some excellent work in the past, and you have earned a little leniency for the occasional mistake. Now get out of my sight before I change my mind. And do not mention Arthur Waybourne or anything whatsoever connected with that case—however tenuously!” He waved his hand again. “Do you hear me?”

Pitt blinked. He had an odd feeling that Athelstan was as relieved as he was. His face was still scarlet and his eyes peered back anxiously.

“Do you hear me?” he repeated, his voice louder.

“Yes, sir,” Pitt answered, straightening up again to some semblance of attention. “Yes, sir.”

“Good! Now go away and get on with whatever you are doing! Get out!”

Pitt obeyed, then stood outside on the matting on the landing feeling suddenly sick.

Meanwhile, Charlotte and Emily were pursuing their crusade with enthusiasm. The more they learned, from Carlisle and other sources, the more serious their cause became—and the deeper and more troubled their anger. They developed a certain sense of responsibility because fate—or God—had spared them from such suffering themselves.

In the course of their work, Charlotte and Emily visited Callantha Swynford a third time, and it was then that Charlotte at last found herself alone with Titus. Emily was in the withdrawing room discussing some new area of knowledge with Callantha, while Charlotte had retired to the morning room to make copies of a list to be conveyed to other ladies who had become involved in their cause. She was sitting at the small rolltop desk, writing as neatly as she could, when she looked up and saw a rather pleasant-faced youth with golden freckles like Callantha’s.

“Good afternoon,” she said conversationally. “You must be Titus.” For a moment she had not recognized him; he looked more composed here in his own house than he had in the witness box. His body had lost the graveness and reluctance it had expressed then.

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied formally. “Are you one of Mama’s friends?”

“Yes, I am. My name is Charlotte Pitt. We are working together to try to stop some very evil things that are going on. I expect you know about it.” It was partly intended to compliment him, make him feel adult and not excluded from knowledge, but also she recalled how she and Emily had frequently listened at the door to their mother’s tea parties and afternoon callers. Sarah had considered herself too dignified for such a pursuit. Not that they had often heard anything nearly as startling or titillating to the adolescent imagination as the fight against child prostitution.

Titus was looking at her with frankness tinged with a degree of uncertainty. He did not want to admit ignorance; after all, she was a woman, and he was quite old enough to begin feeling like a man. Childhood with its nursery humiliations was rapidly being discarded.

“Oh, yes,” he said with a lift of his chin. Then curiosity gained the upper hand. This was a chance too good to waste. “At least I know part of it. Of course, I have had my own studies to attend to as well, you know.”

“Of course,” she agreed, laying down her pen. Hope surged up inside her. It was still not too late—if Titus were to alter his evidence. She must not let him see her excitement.

She swallowed, and spoke quite casually. “One has only so much time, and one must spend it wisely.”

Titus pulled up a small padded chair and sat down.

“What are you writing?” He had been well brought up and his manners were excellent. He made it sound like friendly interest, even very faintly patronizing, rather than anything as vulgar as curiosity.

She had had every intention of telling him anyway—his curiosity was a pale and infant thing compared with hers. She glanced down at the paper as if she had almost forgotten it.

“Oh, this? A list of wages that people get paid for picking apart old clothes so that other people can stitch them up again into new ones.”

“Whatever for? Who wants clothes made up out of other people’s old ones?”

“People who are too poor to buy proper new ones,” she answered, offering him the list she was copying from.

He took it and looked at it.

“That’s not very much money.” He eyed the columns of pence. “It doesn’t seem like a very good job.”

“It isn’t,” she agreed. “People can’t live on it and they often do other things as well.”

“I’d do something else all the time, if I were poor.” He handed it back to her. By poor, he meant someone who had to work at all, and she understood that. To him, money was there—one did not have to acquire it.

“Oh, some people do,” she said quite casually. “That is what we are trying to stop.”

She had to wait several moments of silence before he asked the question she had hoped for.

“Why are you trying to do that, Mrs. Pitt? It doesn’t seem fair to me. Why should people have to unpick old domes for pennies if they could earn more money doing something else?”

“I don’t want them to pick rags.” She used the term quite familiarly now. “At least not for that sort of money. But I don’t want them to be prostitutes either, most particularly not if they are still children.” She hesitated, then plunged on. “Especially boys.”

The pride of man in him did not want to admit ignorance. He was in the company of a woman, and one whom he considered very handsome. It was important to him that he impress her.

She sensed his dilemma and pushed him into an emotional corner.

“I expect when it is put like that, you would agree?” she asked, meeting his very candid eyes. What fine, dark lashes he had!

“I’m not sure,” he hedged, a faint blush coloring his cheeks. “Why especially boys? Perhaps you would give the your reasons?”

She admired his evasion. He had managed to ask her without sounding as if he did not know, which she now was almost sure was so. She must be careful not to lead him, to put words into his mouth. It took her longer than she had expected to frame just the right answer.

“Well, I think you would agree that all prostitution is unpleasant?” she began carefully, watching him.

“Yes.” He followed her lead; the reply she expected was plain enough.

“But an adult has more experience of the world in general, and therefore has more understanding of what such a course will involve,” she continued.

Again the answer suggested itself.

“Yes.” He nodded very slightly.

“Children can much more easily be forced into doing things they either do not wish or else of which they cannot foresee the full consequences.” She smiled very faintly so she would not sound quite so pompous.

“Of course.” He was still young enough to feel echoes of the bitterness of authority, governesses who gave orders and expected early bedtimes, all vegetables eaten—and rice pudding—no matter how much one disliked them.

She wanted to be gentle with him, to let him keep his new, adult dignity, but she could not afford it. She hated having to shred it from him like precious clothes, leaving him naked.

“Perhaps you do not argue that it is worse for boys than for girls?” she inquired.

He flushed, his eyes puzzled. “What? What is worse? Ignorance? Girls are weaker, of course—”

“No—prostitution—selling their bodies to men for the most familiar acts.”

He looked confused. “But girls are ... ” The color deepened painfully as he realized how acutely personal a subject they were touching.

She said nothing, but picked up the pen and paper again so he could have an excuse to avoid her eyes.

“I mean girls—” He tried again: “Nobody does that sort of thing with boys. You’re making fun of me, Mrs. Pitt!” His face was scarlet now. “If you are talking about the sort of thing that men and women do, then it’s just stupid to talk about men and other men—I mean boys! That’s impossible!” He stood up rather abruptly. “You are laughing at me and treating me as if I’m a baby—and I think that is very unfair of you—and most impolite!”

She stood up, too, bitterly sorry to have humiliated him, but there had been no other way.

“No, I’m not, Titus—believe me,” she said urgently. “I swear I am not. There are some men who are strange and different from most. They have those sorts of feelings toward boys, instead of women.”

“I don’t believe you!”

“I swear it’s true! There is even a law against it! That is what Mr. Jerome was accused of—did you not know that?”

He stood still, eyes wide, uncertain.

“He was accused of murdering Arthur,” he said, blinking. “He’s going to be hanged—I know.”

“Yes, I know, too. But that is why he is supposed to have murdered him, because he had that kind of relationship with him. Did you not know that?”

Slowly he shook his head.

“But I thought he attempted to do the same thing with you.” She tried to look just as confused, even though the knowledge was hardening in her mind every moment. “And your cousin Godfrey.”

He stared at her, thoughts racing through his mind so visibly she could almost have read them aloud: confusion, doubt, a spark of comprehension.

“You mean that was what Papa meant—when he asked me—” The color rushed back to his face again, then drained away, leaving him so white the freckles stood out like dark stains. “Mrs. Pitt—is—is that why they are going to hang Mr. Jerome?”

Suddenly he was totally a child again, appalled and overwhelmed. She disregarded his dignity entirely and put both arms around him, holding him tightly. He was smaller than he looked in his smart jacket, his body thinner.

He stood perfectly still for several moments, stiff. Then slowly his arms came up and held on to her, and he relaxed.

She could not lie to him and tell him it was not.

“Partly,” she replied gently. “And partly what other people said as well.”

“What Godfrey said?” His voice was very quiet.