in too many instances it was tempered by cruel remarks about foreigners and their different standards, as if the girl were to blame for her own death. Since the gossip had begun about the Church’s decision that she could not be buried with Catholic rites, the conclusion was that she must have committed suicide. The kindest speculation was that she was in love with someone who did not return her feelings. The cruelest that she was with child, that her fiancé had very understandably called off the betrothal, and in despair she had killed herself and her unborn baby.
Charlotte had seethed with anger, but all she could do was accuse the speaker of malice. And that would gain nothing, except enemies she knew she could ill afford, for Pitt’s sake as well as her own. If she was helpless, how much more so was Isaura Castelbranco?
“Did you learn anything?” she asked Pitt.
“Not that could be proof,” he replied.
“What else did Mr. Quixwood say about the party?”
“Only that Forsbrook was charming, flattered Angeles in the way most young women enjoy, but that she seemed to be upset by it. He implied that either she thought herself too good for Neville or her English was not sufficiently fluent for her to have understood him properly. The prevailing opinion was that she was too young, and too unsophisticated to be in Society yet, even when her mother was present at the same function, as she usually was. They suggested that perhaps Portuguese girls were more sheltered and less prepared to conduct themselves with appropriate grace.” He stopped, looking at Charlotte with a frown.
“That doesn’t mean anything. Everyone is saying whatever makes them feel most comfortable. It’s disgusting! How desperately alone she was … and her family is now.” She wanted to encourage him, but what was there to say? “There must be something you can do,” she tried. “Even indirectly, perhaps?”
Pitt raised his head.
“I haven’t given up.” His voice had an edge to it he failed to hide.
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I’m asking for miracles, aren’t I?”
“Yes. And your potatoes are boiling over.”
She leaped to her feet. “Oh blitheration! I forgot them. Now it’s too late to put the cabbage on.” She pulled the pan off the stove and lifted the lid cautiously. She jabbed the skewer into one. They were very definitely cooked, a little too much so. She would have to mash them.
Pitt was smiling. “We’ll just have more pickle,” he said with amusement. She was always teasing him that he used too much.
THE FOLLOWING MORNING PITT sat in his office studying the papers, mostly looking for information he could use professionally. Often Stoker selected articles for Pitt, to save him time.
“Lot about the upcoming Jameson trial,” Stoker observed drily, putting more papers on Pitt’s desk.
“Anything I need to know right now?” Pitt asked, hoping he could avoid reading them.
“Not much.” Stoker’s face creased in distaste. “Still haven’t solved the murder of Rawdon Quixwood’s wife. Sometimes I think I’d understand it if somebody murdered a few of these journalists, or the damn people who write letters expressing their arrogant opinions.”
Pitt looked at Stoker curiously. It was an unusual expression of emotion for him. More often he showed only disinterest, or occasionally a dry humor, especially at political contortions to evade the truth, or blame for anything.
Rather than ask him, Pitt turned over the pages of the first newspaper until he came to the letters to the editor. He saw with anger what Stoker meant. A good deal of space was devoted to the subject of rape.
One writer expressed the heated opinion that morality in general, and sexual morality in particular, was in serious decline. Women of a certain type behaved in a way that excited the baser appetites in men, leading to the destruction of both and to the general degradation of humanity. But the author conceded that rapists, if caught and the matter proved beyond any doubt, should be hanged, for the good of all. No names were mentioned, but Pitt noted that the writer lived in a neighborhood not two streets away from Catherine Quixwood.
“Why the devil does the editor print this sort of thing?” he demanded angrily. “It’s vicious, ignorant, and will only stir up ill feeling.”
“And produce more letters in answer,” Stoker replied. “Dozens of them, of all opinions. And loads of people will buy the paper, to see if their answer has been printed, or just for the fun of watching a scrap. Same thing