Read Callander Square for Free Online Page B

It is hardly a quarter past two,” she said with a smile.
    Emily snatched the linen and threw it on the sofa.
    “I have the most exciting news!” she said urgently. “I have been to the Balantynes’ and I have made the acquaintance of Christina and Lady Augusta; and infinitely more interesting, of a Lady Euphemia Carlton, who is peculiarly discomfited by talk of the babies in the square! I truly believe she knows something about it. She is laboring under some burden, I will swear to that! Charlotte, do you think I have solved it already?”
    Charlotte looked at her seriously.
    “Is Lady Carlton not married?”
    “Of course she is married!” Emily said impatiently. “But perhaps she is having an affair. Perhaps the children, the babies, would have betrayed it! Were they of any unusual appearance, such as a dark skin, or red hair, or the like?” Emily drew breath and rushed on before Charlotte had time to consider the question and reply. “Her husband is in the government. Perhaps it is a foreign lover, a Greek or an Indian or something. Maybe there are secrets involved. Charlotte, what do you think? She is very handsome, you know; not beautiful, but warm. She looks as if she might well fall in love and behave quite irresponsibly.”
    Charlotte looked back at her, thought deep in her face.
    “I shall have to ask, but I doubt Thomas will tell me—”
    “Oh, don’t be so feeble!” Emily said exasperatedly. “Don’t tell me you can’t persuade him! The man is besotted on you. Invent some reason! I need to know, else why should she do it? A woman does not kill her own children, or even bury the stillborn, without some overpowering reason.”
    “Of course not,” Charlotte agreed reasonably. “But Thomas will not imagine I ask out of idle curiosity. He is not as amiable as George, you know; nor anything like as innocent,” she added.
    Emily had never thought of George Ashworth as innocent; but on consideration she realized what Charlotte meant; only perhaps it was not so much lack of guile as lack of concern. He considered he knew what Emily would do in any given situation, and had explicit trust in her good sense. Pitt, on the other hand, had far more perception than to trust anything so erratic as Charlotte’s good sense.
    “Nevertheless, you will try,” she persisted.
    Charlotte smiled, her thoughts inward.
    “Of course. I have always expressed an interest in his work. I shall endeavor to help him.” Her smile broadened. “With a woman’s point of view, which of course he cannot get from his policemen.”
    Emily gave a sigh of relief that left Charlotte laughing.
    By the time Emily arrived in Callander Square on Friday afternoon she had heard from Charlotte the rather disappointing news that there was nothing remarkable about the appearance of the second baby, but a deformity of the head of the first one, the one buried the deeper. But her heart had lifted when Charlotte pointed out that since the unfortunate bodies had been in the earth for some time, it was impossible to tell if at birth they might indeed have had skin or hair of an unusual color. Emily had not considered the point of putrefaction, and the thought of it distressed her unexpectedly. Of course, the flesh would not remain. In fact, Charlotte pointed out that, according to Pitt, it was only the clay nature of the soil that had preserved them so far. It was an extremely disagreeable consideration.
    She had dismissed it from her mind when she presented herself at the Balantynes’ door. She was admitted immediately and was shown from the hall into the great reception room where a small crowd had already gathered, of both men and women. An enormous gleaming grand piano stood in the center, its legs decently masked. At a glance Emily saw Christina, Euphemia Carlton, Lady Augusta, and several others she knew from her own social round. She also recognized Brandy Balantyne, tall, slender, dark like his mother and sister, but with an easier