Papa took her off the floor. He said: “Are you feeling quite well?”

“Fine, but I was dizzy for a moment.”

“Have you been smoking?”

Charlotte laughed. “Certainly not.”

“That’s the usual reason young ladies feel dizzy at balls. Take my advice: when you want to try tobacco, do it in private.”

“I don’t think I want to try it.”

She sat out the next dance, and then Freddie turned up again. As she danced with him, it occurred to her that all the young men and girls, including Freddie and herself, were supposed to be looking for husbands or wives during the season, especially at balls like this. For the first time she considered Freddie as a possible husband for herself. It was unthinkable.

Then what kind of husband do I want? she wondered. She really had no idea.

Freddie said: “Jonathan just said ‘Freddie, meet Charlotte,’ but I gather you’re called Lady Charlotte Walden.”

“Yes. Who are you?”

“Marquis of Chalfont, actually.”

So, Charlotte thought, we’re socially compatible.

A little later she and Freddie got into conversation with Belinda and Freddie’s friends. They talked about a new play, called Pygmalion, which was said to be absolutely hilarious but quite vulgar. The boys spoke of going to a boxing match, and Belinda said she wanted to go too, but they all said it was out of the question. They discussed jazz music. One of the boys was something of a connoisseur, having lived for a while in the United States; but Freddie disliked it, and talked rather pompously about “the negrification of society.” They all drank coffee and Belinda smoked another cigarette. Charlotte began to enjoy herself.

It was Charlotte’s mama who came along and broke up the party. “Your father and I are leaving,” she said. “Shall we send the coach back for you?”

Charlotte realized she was tired. “No, I’ll come,” she said. “What time is it?”

“Four o’clock.”

They went to get their wraps. Mama said: “Did you have a lovely evening?”

“Yes, thank you, Mama.”

“So did I. Who were those young men?”

“They know Jonathan.”

“Were they nice?”

“The conversation got quite interesting, in the end.”

Papa had called the carriage already. As they drove away from the bright lights of the party, Charlotte remembered what had happened last time they rode in a carriage, and she felt scared.

Papa held Mama’s hand. They seemed happy. Charlotte felt excluded. She looked out of the window. In the dawn light she could see four men in silk hats walking up Park Lane, going home from some nightclub perhaps. As the carriage rounded Hyde Park Corner Charlotte saw something odd. “What’s that?” she said.

Mama looked out. “What’s what, dear?”

“On the pavement. Looks like people.”

“That’s right.”

“What are they doing?”

“Sleeping.”

Charlotte was horrified. There were eight or ten of them, up against a wall, bundled in coats, blankets and newspapers. She could not tell whether they were men or women, but some of the bundles were small enough to be children.

She said: “Why do they sleep there?”

“I don’t know, dear,” Mama said.

Papa said: “Because they’ve nowhere else to sleep, of course.”

“They have no homes?”

“No.”

“I didn’t know there was anyone that poor,” Charlotte said. “How dreadful.” She thought of all the rooms in Uncle George’s house, the food that had been laid out to be picked at by eight hundred people, all of whom had had dinner, and the elaborate gowns they wore new each season while people slept under newspapers. She said: “We should do something for them.”

“We?” Papa said. “What should we do?”

“Build houses for them.”

“All of them?”

“How many are there?”

Papa shrugged. “Thousands.”

“Thousands! I thought it was just those few.” Charlotte was devastated. “Couldn’t you build small houses?”

“There’s no profit in house property, especially at that end of the market.”

“Perhaps you should do it anyway.”

“Why?”

“Because the strong should take care of the weak. I’ve heard you say that to Mr. Samson.” Samson was the bailiff at Walden Hall, and he was always trying to save money on repairs to tenanted cottages.

“We already take care of rather a lot of people,” Papa said. “All the servants whose wages we pay, all the tenants who farm our land and live in our cottages, all the workers in the companies we invest in, all the government employees who are paid out of our taxes-”

“I don’t think that’s much of an excuse,” Charlotte interrupted. “Those poor people are sleeping on the street. What will they do in winter?”

Mama said sharply: “Your papa doesn’t need excuses. He was born an aristocrat and he has managed his estate carefully. He is entitled to his wealth. Those people on the pavement are idlers, criminals, drunkards and ne’er-do-wells.”

“Even the children?”

“Don’t be impertinent. Remember you still have a great deal to learn.”

“I’m just beginning to realize how much,” Charlotte said.

As the carriage turned into the courtyard of their house, Charlotte glimpsed one of the street sleepers beside the gate. She decided she would take a closer look.

The coach stopped beside the front door. Charles handed Mama down, then Charlotte. Charlotte ran across the courtyard. William was closing the gates. “Just a minute,” Charlotte called.

She heard Papa say: “What the devil…?”

She ran out into the street.

The sleeper was a woman. She lay slumped on the pavement with her shoulders against the courtyard wall. She wore a man’s boots, woolen stockings, a dirty blue coat and a very large, once-fashionable hat with a bunch of grubby artificial flowers in its brim. Her head was slumped sideways and her face was turned toward Charlotte.

There was something familiar about the round face and the wide mouth. The woman was young…

Charlotte cried: “Annie!”

The sleeper opened her eyes.

Charlotte stared at her in horror. Two months ago Annie had been a housemaid at Walden Hall in a crisp clean uniform with a little white hat on her head, a pretty girl with a large bosom and an irrepressible laugh. “Annie, what happened to you?”

Annie scrambled to her feet and bobbed a pathetic curtsy. “Oh, Lady Charlotte, I was hoping I would see you, you was always good to me. I’ve nowhere to turn-”

“But how did you get like this?”

“I was let go, m’lady, without a character, when they found out I was expecting the baby; I know I done wrong-”

“But you’re not married!”

“But I was courting Jimmy, the undergardener…”

Charlotte recalled Belinda’s revelations, and realized that if all that was true it would indeed be possible for girls to have babies without being married. “Where is the baby?”

“I lost it.”

“You lost it?”

“I mean, it came too early, m’lady, it was born dead.”

“How horrible,” Charlotte whispered. That was something else she had not known to be possible. “And why isn’t Jimmy with you?”

“He run away to sea. He did love me, I know, but he was frightened to wed-he was only seventeen…” Annie began to cry.

Charlotte heard Papa’s voice. “Charlotte, come in this instant.”

She turned to him. He stood at the gate in his evening clothes, with his silk hat in his hand, and suddenly she saw him as a big, smug, cruel old man. She said: “This is one of the servants you care for so well.”

Papa looked at the girl. “Annie! What is the meaning of this?”

Annie said: “Jimmy run away, m’lord, so I couldn’t wed, and I couldn’t get another position because you never gave me a character, and I was ashamed to go home, so I come to London…”

“You came to London to beg,” Papa said harshly.

“Papa!” Charlotte cried.

“You don’t understand, Charlotte-”

“I understand perfectly well-”

Mama appeared and said: “Charlotte, get away from that creature!”