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“Where?”
“What?”
“Don't pretend to be stupid, Mr. Robinson. Where does he sell them? How much more plainly can I put it?”
“I dunno. On ‘is boat, in the post, ‘ow do I know?”
“Why not in shops as well?” she asked. “Wouldn't he use every place he could? If I had something I knew I could sell, I would offer it everywhere. Why wouldn't he?”
“All right, so ‘e would. Wot about it? That don't do us no good.”
With difficulty she forebore from correcting his grammar. She did not want to anger him any more than she had already.
“Is there not any law against such things, if it involves children, boys?”
“Yes, o’ course there is.” He looked at her wearily. “An’ ‘oo's goin’ ter force it, eh? Yer? Me? The cops? Nobody, that's ‘oo.”
“I am not quite certain that there is nobody,” she said softly. “You might be surprised what Society can do, and will, if it feels itself in danger, either financially or more important, in comfort and self-respect.”
He stared at her, surprise and the beginning of a new understanding dawning in his eyes.
She was not quite sure how much she wished to be understood. Perhaps she needed to change the subject rapidly, if she could do so and still learn from him what she needed to know. The wild idea that had begun in her mind was becoming stronger all the time.
“There is a law against it?” she repeated urgently.
“O’ course there's a law!” he snapped. “It don't make no difference. Can't yer understand that?”
“Yes, I can.” She wanted to crush him but could not afford to. She needed his help, or at the very least some co operation. “So it would have to be sold where the police would not see it.”
“O’ course it would,” he said in exasperation.
“Where?”
“Where? All over the place. In back alleys, in shops where it looks like decent books, financial books, ledgers, tracts on ‘ow ter mend sails or keep accounts, or anything yer like. I seen some as yer'd take fer Bibles, till yer looked close. Tobacconists sell ‘em, or bookshops, printers, all sorts.”
“I see. Yes, very difficult to trace. Thank you.” She stood up and turned to leave, then hesitated. “Down in the alleys by the riverside, I suppose?”
“Yeah. Or anywhere else. But only where folks go as knows wot they want. Yer won't find ‘em on the ‘Igh Street or any place as the likes o’ yer'd be going.”
She gave him a slight smile. “Good. Thank you, Mr. Robinson. Don't look so sour. I shall not forget your tea.”
Claudine was not happy to return home, but sooner or later it was inevitable; it always was.
“You are late,” her husband observed as soon as she entered the drawing room, having gone into the house through the kitchen rather than be seen at the front in her clinic clothes. Now she was washed and changed into the sort of late-afternoon gown she customarily wore. It was fashionable, well-cut, richly colored, and a trifle restricting because of the tightly laced corset beneath it. Her hair was also becomingly dressed, as that of a lady in her station should be.
“I'm sorry,” she apologized. There was no use explaining; he was not interested in reasons.
“If you were sorry, you would not keep doing it,” he said tartly. He was a large man, broad-bellied, heavy-jowled, a highly successful property developer. In spite of his years, his hair was still thick and barely touched with gray. She looked at his sneering expression and wondered how she could ever have found him physically attractive. Perhaps necessity was the mother of acceptance as well as of invention?
“You spend far too much time at that place,” he went on. “This is the third time in as many weeks that I have had to mention this to you. It will not do, Claudine. I have a right to expect certain duties of you, and you ar
e not behaving appropriately at all. As my wife, you have social obligations, of which you are not unaware. Richmond told me you were not at his wife's party last Monday.” He said it as a challenge.
“It was to raise money for charity in Africa,” she replied. “I was working for a charity here.”
He lost his temper. “Oh, don't be absurd! You insulted a lady of considerable consequence in order to go fetching and carrying for a bunch of whores off the street. Have you lost absolutely all sense of who you are? If you have, then let me remind you who I am.”
“I am perfectly aware of who you are, Wallace,” she said as calmly as she could. “I have spent years …” She nearly said “the best years of my life,” but they were not. Indeed, they had been the worst. “I have spent years of my life performing all the duties your career and your station required …”
