“I see,” Kate said quietly. So it was the daughter’s industry that supported the mother’s household in Brantwood Street. The young woman had taken on quite a large responsibility.

Miss Rossetti’s mouth hardened. “You may think I am being unkind, but really, Mrs. Conway has made things so very difficult. And in spite of all, I do believe that Lottie loves her mother. She is not doing her duty, but is rather doing what her heart tells her to do.” Her voice became softer, her smile sentimental. “I understand this, I suppose, because I choose to live with my father, who needs me to see to his welfare. Father’s writing is important, and I am his secretary, as well as keeping his house.”

“But what of your writing?” Kate asked in some wonderment. “Are you planning another book?”

“No,” Miss Rossetti said, pulling herself up straighter. “It gets in the way of helping my father, and his writing is so much more important than mine. I imagine that Lottie has something of that feeling about the Clarion, which was her mother’s work.”

“Oh, dear,” Kate said ambiguously. “I had no idea.”

Miss Rossetti seemed to construe her remark to refer to Miss Conway. “Lottie is one of the bravest young women I know. She is not in the least bit conventional. She has the true Anarchist spirit; she believes in the freedom of the individual. She argues that marriage is a bourgeois tool to restrict a woman’s freedom, and she believes in free love.” She smiled slightly. “Yet she insists on taking care of her mother.”

Feeling that the implicit contradictions defied every logic, Kate went back to the question she had come to ask. “Have you heard from Miss Conway since the paper was raided?”

“Not a word,” Miss Rossetti said with a troubled look, “and I’m very anxious about her. It is not like her to be out of touch. I can only think that she is afraid that the police might be following her. I’m sure that she is reluctant to involve her friends, for fear the police might attempt to implicate them in the Hyde Park explosion.”

Kate took a calling card out of her bag and handed it to Miss Rossetti. “I will be going back to the country this week,” she said, rising. “The address is that of our town house, where my husband is staying. If you should hear from Miss Conway, I would very much appreciate it if you could send a note. If I am not there, it will be forwarded.” She paused. “I would like to help Miss Conway, if she will allow it. I am sure there is something I can do.”

“I doubt that she will accept help,” Miss Rossetti said, getting to her feet. “She is so fiercely independent. But I shall certainly send word if I hear from her.” She smiled. “And thank you for your recommendation to Duckworth. I’ll write immediately and let Olivia know. She’ll be delighted. And my father will be pleased, too.” She added, diffidently, “The money from the book is of some importance to us, as you might guess.”

As Kate put up her umbrella and walked to the corner to look for a cab, she wondered at the multiple ironies of what she had learned, not just about Charlotte Conway and her relationship to her mother, but about the woman she had just left. In her teens, Helen Rossetti had been the rebellious and free-spirited editor of an Anarchist newspaper; now in her twenties, she appeared to be a conventional and rather bourgeois young woman who worked as her father’s secretary. Perhaps, somehow or another, it seemed to Miss Rossetti that while a young woman might be free to explore the possibilities of a self-governing life, an adult woman must give in to the definitions imposed upon her by her family and by society. Perhaps she could live free and unfettered only in her imagination, or in her recollection of her younger, more adventuresome years.

Kate squared her shoulders and quickened her step. She, too, felt the allure of the comfortable domestic life, but she knew that she could never give in to it. She loved Charles, but she could never use him as a safe haven, for that would be false to the passion she felt for him. And she would never use her writing as a means of retreat, either. She would live in the world, explore every corner of it as freely as she could, and do her best to help other women free themselves from the constraints of their family’s and society’s expectations. There had to be some midway point between the self-centeredness of Mrs. Conway and the self-abnegation of Helen Rossetti.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

It was well past the lunch hour when Charles found the Little Moscow Café. It was entered from a rear alley off Whitechapel Road, next to the Post Office. Six narrow cement steps led down to a basement, a large, windowless room filled with diners seated at oilcloth-covered tables and in wooden booths around the walls. Painted pillars supported a low wooden ceiling, and gas jets illuminated the crowded room with a dusky glow. The walls and pillars were plastered with Russian posters, playbills, and newspaper clippings. In one corner, a balalaika player entertained with traditional Russian music. A menu board at the entrance announced in both Russian and English that diners today would be enjoying borscht, pirozhki (meat pie), golubtsi (stuffed steamed cabbage rolls), and yablochny rulet (apples, walnuts, and raisins wrapped in pastry).

A waiter bustled up. “Table for one, sir?”

“I am meeting Rasnokov,” Charles replied. “Is he here?”

“His usual corner,” the waiter said with a careless gesture. “You will have lunch?”

“Yes,” Charles said. “And I’ll have beer, please. Kars, if you have it.”

Rasnokov had finished his lunch and was smoking a Turkish cigarette over a cup of coffee. He looked up inquiringly as Charles approached. He was a tall man of indeterminate age, thin, with slightly stooped shoulders, and clean-shaven. He wore a rusty black suit and round steel-framed eyeglasses that gave him a studious look.

“My name is Sheridan,” Charles said. “I recently met a gentleman who suggested I look you up and ask if you had received a message from Smersk.”

Rasnokov tapped his cigarette into the ashtray with a long, delicate finger. His hands might have been the hands of a surgeon. “Sit down,” he said, in unaccented, expressionless English.

The waiter appeared at the booth with a bottle of beer. “Your lunch will be ready in a few moments,” he said to Charles. Rasnokov pushed his cup forward. The waiter put down the beer, produced a pot of coffee, and poured.

The balalaika player swung into a soft rendition of “Moscow Nights,” obviously a familiar favorite, since several of the diners began to sing the Russian words. Rasnokov stubbed out his cigarette. “What do you want?” he asked indifferently, under the music. “I don’t know you.”

“We have a mutual friend,” Charles replied. He raised his beer bottle as if in salute. “In Queen Anne’s Gate.”

“Ah.” Rasnokov’s face became regretful, as if Charles had said that a friend had died, or that Rasnokov should have to do something he didn’t want to do. “You have a proposition for me, then?”

“A question,” Charles said, and got right to it. “What do you know of the Hyde Park affair?”

There was a slight hesitation, and when Rasnokov spoke, there was a defensive edge in his voice. “I’ve already given that report.”

“You said, I understand, that two were involved in the business.”

“Yes, two. The boy and a Russian named Kopinski. Both of them worked at the Clarion. Kopinski instigated the bombing and provided the materials.” Rasnokov frowned, as if he were offended. “It’s all in my report, if you’d taken the trouble to read it.”