Rose by Martin Cruz Smith

inquiries.”
    “Looking for John?” Lydia Rowland asked her mother.
    “Like setting a black sheep after a white,” Earnshaw said.
    “Does Charlotte know about this?” Lady Rowland asked her brother.
    Chubb set his spoon down. It rattled with the fury transmitted by his body. “The truth is that John Maypole was naive about the character of pit girls. The fact that more illegitimate children are born here than even in Ireland marks Wigan as a moral cesspool. They are women totally beyond the bounds of decency or social control. It is my duty, for example, to disburse church funds to unwed mothers who apply, making sure not to give money so lavishly as to encourage animal conduct. It would be a lesson to pit girls for me to withhold money from them, but since they refuse to request assistance the lesson is utterly lost.”
    There was a silence after Chubb’s explosion.
    “Do you think they’ll find a lake in Africa for Princess Beatrice?” Lydia Rowland asked Blair finally.
    “For Princess Beatrice?”
    “Yes. They’ve found lakes and falls to name for the rest of the royal family. The Queen and Albert, of course. Alexandra, the Prince of Wales, Alice, Alfred, Helena, Louise, Arthur, even poor Leopold, I think they all have something discovered and named after them. All but Beatrice, the baby. She must be feeling left out. Do you think there’s anything left worth finding and naming for her? It just makes it more personal if you can find your own lake on the map.”
    Lady Rowland gave her daughter’s hand a touch of maternal concern. “Dear, it doesn’t matter what Mr. Blair thinks.”
    Meat was followed by fowl. Fellowes chased a round plover egg around his plate with a knife and spoon. In the shifting lights of the candles Blair detected a Paisley pattern on the opposite wall like a watermark in black stone. Not Paisley, he realized, but ferns fossilized within the cannel. He moved the candelabra, and other small,graceful, intricately delicate fronds came into focus. They were seen best in the corner of the eye. On a second wall what he had first taken to be irregular striation was in fact ghostly fossil fish. Moving diagonally across another wall were the imprints of a great amphibian.
    He said, “If it’s all right, I’d like to visit the mine where you had the explosion.”
    “If you want,” Hannay said. “It seems a waste of time, since Maypole was never below. The last thing we’d allow is preachers down the shaft; the men’s work is difficult and dangerous enough. But when you want to, Leveret will arrange it.”
    “Tomorrow?”
    Hannay took a moment. “Why not? You can tour the surface too, and see the notorious pit girls in action.”
    Earnshaw rose to the bait. “I’m surprised, my lord, that you tolerate those women for a moment, considering the reputation they give Wigan. It seems to me that the question is not whether a handful of brazen women wear skirts or not, it’s whether Wigan joins the modern world.”
    Hannay asked, “What do you know about the modern world?”
    “As a member of Parliament, I know the spirit of the age.”
    “Such as?”
    “The upwelling political reform, the social conscience of modern theater and books, the call for elevated subjects in the arts.”
    “Ruskin?”
    “John Ruskin is a perfect example, yes,” Earnshaw agreed. “Ruskin is the greatest art critic of our time, and also a friend of the workingman.”
    “Tell him, Leveret,” Hannay said.
    Earnshaw was wary. “What?”
    “We invited Ruskin.” Leveret told the tale as deferentially as he could. “We invited him to give a lecture onthe arts to the workers. But when he arrived he looked out the window at Wigan and he wouldn’t leave the train. He refused. No entreaty made him budge. He stayed on the train until it left.”
    Hannay said, “It’s public knowledge that Ruskin couldn’t consummate his marriage, either. He does seem to be easily shocked.”
    Lady Rowland’s blush burned