Callander Square Read Online Free PDF Page A

assure you, ma’am, I should not dream of introducing such a subject to a child,” he said honestly, although he forbore to say that if some child should mention the matter to him, he would not be averse to listening. He had usually found children much less affected by death than adults. And it was a rare child indeed that was not inveterately inquisitive, and would have extracted from the servants every last detail that was to be had, or even invented and embroidered upon.
    “Thank you,” she said courteously. “Children can be—hurt,” she was looking out of the window, “and frightened. There is so much that is ugly. The least we can do is protect them from it as long as we are able.”
    Pitt was of a totally different opinion. He believed that the longer you hid from the truth the less able you were to cope with it when it finally broke through all the barriers, like a dammed river, and carried away the careful structure of your life with it. He opened his mouth to argue, to say that a little at a time bred some tolerance to pain, a balance; but remembered his place. Policemen did not give advice in the upbringing of children to ladies who lived in Callander Square. In fact, policemen did not philosophize at all.
    “I’m afraid, ma’am, that they may well hear it from the servants,” he said gently.
    She frowned at him.
    “I shall forewarn the servants,” she answered. “Any servant who mentions such a thing will lose his or her position.”
    Pitt spared a thought for the unwitting maid who in a careless, garrulous moment might yield to childish insistence, or even petty blackmail, and thus lose home and job at one blow. Childhood would have given her no such protection from the unpleasant realities of life.
    “Naturally,” Pitt agreed sadly. “But there are other servants in the square, ma’am; and other children.”
    Instead of the anger he had expected, she merely looked suddenly tired.
    “Of course, Mr.—Pitt, did you say? And children will tell each other such gruesome stories. Still, I’m sure you will not frighten anyone unnecessarily. Do you have children of your own?”
    “Not yet, ma’am. My wife is expecting our first.” He said it with a ridiculous sense of pride and waited for her approval.
    “I hope everything goes well with her.” There was no light in her face. “Is there anything else I can tell you?”
    He was at a loss, deflated.
    “No, thank you. I shall almost certainly have to return; it may take us a long time to solve it, if we ever do. But that is all for today.”
    “Good afternoon, Mr. Pitt. Jenkins will show you to the door.”
    “Good afternoon, ma’am.” He bowed very slightly and went out to the waiting butler and the front door into the leafy square.
    The Doran house was utterly different from the other houses in the square. It was unbelievably cluttered with photographs, embroidery, flowers dried, cased in glass, pressed, growing in pots, and even some fresh and arranged in painted vases. There were also at least three birds in cages, all hung with fringes and bells.
    The door was opened by a middle-aged parlormaid. This one was an exception to the generality: by no twist of the imagination could she have been chosen for her looks; except that when she opened her mouth her teeth were perfect, and her voice was as rich and smooth as Devon cream.
    “We’ve been expecting you,” she said calmly, with a faint southwestern distortion of the vowels. “Miss Laetitia and Miss Georgiana are taking tea. No doubt you will be wanting to speak to them first, as a matter of course.” She did not seem to require an answer to that, and turned away, leaving him to close the door and follow her into the inner recesses.
    Laetitia and Georgiana were indeed taking tea. Georgiana was displayed fragilely on a chaise longue, bony as a halfpenny rabbit, and dressed in delicious mauves and grays. Tea was balanced on a three-toed, piecrust table at her elbow. She looked at Pitt