Highgate Rise tp-11 Page 10

  The manservant returned and showed him out into the autumn sunlight, thin and gold, and the wind scurrying dry leaves along the footpath. It took him half an hour’s brisk walk before he found a hansom to take him back into the city.

  4

  Charlotte did not enjoy the public omnibus, but to hire a hansom cab all the way from Bloomsbury to her mother’s home on Cater Street was an unwarranted extravagance; and should there be any little surplus for her to spend, there were better things that might be done with it. Particularly she had in mind a new gown on which to wear Emily’s silk flowers. Not, of course, that a cab fare would purchase even one sleeve of such a thing, but it was a beginning. And with Emily home again, there might arise an occasion to wear such a gown.

  In the meantime she climbed aboard the omnibus, gave the conductor her fare, and squeezed between a remarkably stout woman with a wheeze like a bellows and a short man whose gloomy stare into the middle distance of his thoughts threatened to take him beyond his stop, unless he were traveling to the end of the line.

  “Excuse me.” Charlotte sat down firmly, and they were both obliged to make way for her, the large woman with a creak of whalebone and rattle of taffeta, the man in silence.

  She alighted presently and walked in mild, blustery wind the two hundred yards along the street to the house where she had been born and grown up, and where seven years ago she had met Pitt, and scandalized the neighbors by marrying him. Her mother, who had been trying unsuccessfully to find a husband for her ever since she had been seventeen, had accepted the match with more grace than Charlotte had imagined possible. Perhaps it was not unmixed with a certain relief? And although Caroline Ellison was every bit as traditional, as ambitious for her daughters, and as sensitive to the opinions of her peers as anyone else, she did love her children and ultimately realized that their happiness might lie in places she herself would never have considered even tolerable.

  Now even she admitted to a considerable fondness for Thomas Pitt, even if she still preferred not to tell all her acquaintances what he did as an occupation. Her mother-in-law, on the other hand, had never ceased to find it a social disaster, nor lost an opportunity to say so.

  Charlotte mounted the steps and rang the bell. She had barely time to step back before it opened and Maddock the butler ushered her in.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Charlotte. How very pleasant to see you. Mrs. Ellison will be delighted. She is in the withdrawing room, and at the moment has no other callers. Shall I take your coat?”

  “Good afternoon, Maddock. Yes, if you please. Is everyone well?”

  “Quite well, thank you,” he replied automatically. It was not expected that one would reply that the cook had rheumatism in her knees, or that the housemaid had sniffles and the kitchen maid had twisted her ankle staggering in with the coke scuttle. Ladies were not concerned in such downstairs matters. He had never really grasped that Charlotte was no longer a “lady” in the sense in which she had been when she grew up in this house.

  In the long-familiar withdrawing room Caroline was sitting idly poking at a piece of embroidery, her mind quite absent from it; and Grandmama was staring at her irritably, trying to think of a sufficiently stinging remark to make. When she was a girl embroidery was done with meticulous care, and if one were unfortunate enough to be a widow with no husband to please, that was an affliction to be borne with dignity and some grace, but one still did things with proper attention.

  “If you continue in that manner you will stitch your fingers, and get blood on the linen,” she said just as the door opened and Charlotte was announced. “And then it will be good for nothing.”

  “It is good for very little anyway,” Caroline replied. Then she became aware of the extra presence.

  “Charlotte!” She dropped the whole lot, needle, linen, frame and threads, on the floor and rose to her feet with delight-and relief. “My dear, how nice to see you. You look very well. How are the children?”

  “In excellent health, Mama.” Charlotte hugged her mother. “And you?” She turned to her grandmother. “Grandmama? How are you?” She knew the catalogue of complaint that would follow, but it would be less offensive if it were asked for than if it were not.

  “I suffer,” the old lady replied, looking Charlotte up and down with sharp, black eyes. She snorted. She was a small, stout woman with a beaked nose, which in her youth had been considered aristocratic, at least by those most kindly disposed towards her. “I am lame-and deaf-which if you came to visit us more often you would know without having to ask.”

  “I do know, Grandmama,” Charlotte replied, determined to be agreeable. “I asked only to show you that I care.”

  “Indeed,” the old woman grunted. “Well sit down and tell us something of interest. I am also bored. Although I have been bored ever since your grandfather died-and for some time before, come to that. It is the lot of women of good breeding to be bored. Your mother is bored also, although she has not learned to resign herself to it as I have. She has developed no skill at it. She does bad embroidery. I cannot see well enough to embroider anymore, but when I could, it was perfect.”

  “You will have tea.” Caroline smiled across her mother-in-law’s head. These conversations had been part of her life for twenty years, and she accepted them with good grace. Actually, she was seldom bored; when the first grief of her widowhood had passed she had discovered new and most interesting pursuits. She had found herself free to read the newspapers for the first time in her life, any pages she wished. She had learned a little of politics and current affairs, social issues of debate, and she had joined societies which discussed all manner of things. She was finding time heavy this afternoon simply because she had decided to spend the time at home with the old lady, and they had until now received no callers.

  “Please.” Charlotte accepted, seating herself in her favorite chair.

  Caroline rang for the maid and ordered tea, sandwiches, cakes and fresh scones and jam, then settled to hear whatever news Charlotte might have, and to tell her of a philosophical group she had recently joined.

  The tea came, was poured and passed, and the maid retired.

  “You will have seen Emily, no doubt.” Grandmama made it a statement, and her face was screwed up with disapproval. “In my day widows did not marry again the moment their poor husbands were cold in the ground. Unseemly haste. Most unseemly. And it’s not even as if she were bettering herself. Stupid girl. That I could understand, at least. But Jack Radley! Who on earth are the Radleys? I ask you!”

  Charlotte ignored the whole matter. She was confident Jack Radley would flatter the old lady and she would melt like butter on a hot crumpet. It was simply not worth trying to argue the point now. And of course whatever Emily had brought her from Europe she would criticize, but she would be pleased all the same, and show it off relentlessly.

  As if aware of Charlotte’s well-controlled temper the old lady swiveled around and glared at her over the top of her eyeglasses.

  “And what are you doing with yourself these days, miss? Still meddling in your husband’s affairs? If there is anything in the world that is totally and inexcusably vulgar, it is curiosity about other people’s domestic tragedies. I told you at the time no good would come of it.” Again she snorted spitefully and settled back a little in her seat. “Detective, indeed!”

  “I am not involved in Thomas’s present case, Grandmama.” Charlotte took a fifth cucumber sandwich and ate it with relish. They really were delicious, thin as wafers, and sweet and crisp.

  “Good,” the old woman said with satisfaction. “You eat too much. It is unladylike. You have lost all the refinement of manner you used to have. I blame you, Caroline! You should never have allowed this to happen. If she had been my daughter she would not have been permitted to marry beneath her!”

  Caroline had long ago ceased to defend herself from such remarks, and she did not wish to quarrel, even though she was provoked. In fact it gave her a certain satisfaction to catch
her mother-in-law’s beady eyes and smile sweetly back at her, and see the irritation in them.

  “Unfortunately I had not your skill,” she said gently. “I managed very well with Emily-but Charlotte defeated me.”

  The old lady was temporarily beaten. “Hah!” she said, at a loss for words.

  Charlotte hid her smile, and took another sip of tea.

  “Given up meddling, have you?” The old lady renewed the attack. “Emily will be disappointed!”

  Charlotte sipped her tea again.

  “All cutpurses and thieves, I suppose,” Grandmama continued. “Been demoted, has he?”

  Finally Charlotte was drawn, in spite of her resolution.

  “No. It is arson and murder. A very respectable woman has been burned to death in Highgate. In fact her grandfather was a bishop,” she added with something unpleasantly like triumph.

  The old lady looked at her guardedly. “What bishop would that be? Sounds unlikely to me.”

  “Bishop Worlingham,” Charlotte replied immediately.

  “Bishop Worlingham! Augustus Worlingham?” The old lady’s eyes snapped sharp with interest; she leaned forward in her chair and thumped her black walking stick on the ground. “Answer me, girl! Augustus Worlingham?”

  “I imagine so.” Charlotte could not remember Pitt having mentioned the bishop’s Christian name. “There surely cannot be two.”

  “Don’t be impertinent!” But the old lady was too excited to be more than cursorily critical. “I used to know his daughters, Celeste and Angeline. So they still live in Highgate. Well why not? Very fortunate area. I should go and call upon them, convey my condolences upon their loss.”

  “You can’t!” Caroline was appalled. “You’ve never mentioned them before-you cannot have called upon them in years!”

  “And is that any cause not to comfort them now in their distress?” the old lady demanded, eyebrows high, searching for reason in an unreasonable house. “I shall go this very afternoon. It is quite early. You may accompany me if you wish.” She hauled herself to her feet. “As long as you do not in any circumstances display a vulgar curiosity.” And she stumped past the tea trolley and out of the withdrawing room without so much as glancing behind her to see what reaction her remarks had provoked.

  Charlotte looked at her mother, undecided whether to declare herself or not. The idea of meeting people so close to Clemency Shaw was strongly appealing, even though she believed the person who had connived her death, whoever had lit the taper, was someone threatened by her work to expose slum profiteers to the public knowledge.

  Caroline drew in her breath, then her expression of incredulity turned rapidly through contemplation to shamefaced interest.

  “Ah-” She breathed in and out again slowly. “I really don’t think we should permit her to go alone, do you? I have no idea what she might say.” She bit her lip to suppress a smile. “And curiosity is so vulgar.”

  “Perfectly terrible,” Charlotte agreed, rising to her feet and clasping her reticule, ready for departure.

  They made the considerable ride to Highgate in close to silence. Once Charlotte asked the old lady if she could inform them of her acquaintance with the Worlingham sisters, and anything about their present situation, but the reply was scant, and in a tone that discouraged further inquiry.

  “They were neither prettier nor plainer than most,” the old lady said, as if the question had been fatuous. “I never heard any scandal about them-which may mean they were virtuous, or merely that no opportunity for misbehavior offered itself. They were the daughters of a bishop, after all.”

  “I was not seeking scandal.” Charlotte was irritated by the implication. “I simply wondered what nature of people they were.”

  “Bereaved,” came the reply. “That is why I am calling upon them. I suspect you of mere curiosity, which is a character failing of a most distasteful sort. I hope you will not embarrass me when we are there?”

  Charlotte gasped at the sheer effrontery of it. She knew perfectly well the old lady had not called on the Worlinghams in thirty years, and assuredly would not now had Clemency died in a more ordinary fashion. For once a suitably stinging reply eluded her, and she rode the remainder of the journey in silence.

  The Worlingham house in Fitzroy Park, Highgate, was imposing from the outside, solid with ornate door and windows, and large enough to accommodate a very considerable family and full staff of indoor servants.

  Inside, when they were admitted by a statuesque parlormaid, it was even more opulent, if now a little shabby in various places. Charlotte, well behind her mother and grandmother, had opportunity to glance around with a more lingering eye. The hall was unusually large, paneled in oak, and hung with portraits of varying age, but no plates underneath to tell their names. An instant suspicion crossed Charlotte’s mind that they were not ancestral Worlinghams at all, merely dressing to awe a visitor. In the place of honor where the main light shone on it was by far the largest portrait, that of an elderly gentleman in very current dress. His broad face was pink fleshed, his silver hair grew far back on his sloping forehead and curled up over his ears, forming an almost luminous aureole around his head. His eyes were blue under heavy lids, and his chin was wide; but his most remarkable feature was the benign, complacent and supremely confident smile on his lips. Under this the plate was legible even as Charlotte walked past it to the morning room door. BISHOP AUGUSTUS T. WORLINGHAM.

  The maid departed to inquire whether they would be received, and Grandmama bent herself stiffly to sit in one of the chairs, staring around at the room critically. The pictures here were gloomy landscapes, framed samplers with such mottoes as “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity,” in cross-stitch; “The price of a good woman is above rubies,” framed in wood; and “God sees all,” with an eye in satin and stem stitches.

  Caroline pulled a face.

  Charlotte imagined the two sisters as girls sitting on a sabbath afternoon in silence, carefully sewing such things, all fingers and thumbs, hating every moment of it, wondering how long until tea when Papa would read the Scriptures to them; they would answer dutifully, and then after prayers be released to go to bed.

  Grandmama cleared her throat and looked with disfavor at an enormous glass case filled with stuffed and mounted birds.

  The antimacassars were stitched in brown upon linen, and all a trifle crooked.

  The parlormaid returned to say that the Misses Worlingham would be charmed to receive them, and accordingly they followed her back across the hall and into the cavernous withdrawing room hung with five chandeliers. Only two of these were lit, and the parquet wooden floors were strewn with an assortment of Oriental rugs of several different shades and designs, all a fraction paler where the pile had been worn with constant tread, from the door to the sofa and chairs, and to a distinct patch in front of the fire, as if someone had habitually stood there. Charlotte remembered with an odd mixture of anger and loss how her father had stood in front of the fire in winter, warming himself, oblivious of the fact that he was keeping it from everyone else. The late Bishop Worlingham, no doubt, had done the same. And his daughters would not have raised their voices to object, nor would his wife when she was alive. It brought a sharp flavor of youth, being at home with her parents and sisters, the callowness and the safety of those times, taken for granted then. She glanced at Caroline, but Caroline was watching Grandmama as she sailed up to the elder of the Misses Worlingham.

  “My dear Miss Worlingham, I was so sorry to hear of your bereavement. I had to come and offer my condolences in person, rather than simply write a letter. You must feel quite dreadful.”

  Celeste Worlingham, a woman in her late fifties with strong features, dark brown eyes and a face which in her youth must have been handsome rather than pretty, now looked both confused and curious. The marks of shock were visible in the strained lines around her mouth and the stiff carriage of her neck, but she had admirable composure, and would not give in to unseemly grief, at least not in pu
blic, and she considered this public. Obviously she did not recall even the barest acquaintance with any of her visitors, but a lifetime of good manners overrode all.

  “Most kind of you, Mrs. Ellison. Of course Angeline and I are very grieved, but as Christians we learn to bear such loss with fortitude-and faith.”

  “Naturally,” Grandmama agreed, a trifle perfunctorily. “May I introduce to you my daughter-in-law, Mrs. Caroline Ellison, and my granddaughter, Mrs. Pitt.”

  Everyone exchanged courtesies and Grandmama fixed her eyes on Celeste, then changed her mind and looked at Angeline, a younger, fairer woman with mild features and a comfortable, domestic look. Grandmama swayed back and forth on her feet and planted her stick heavily on the carpet and leaned on it.

  “Please sit down, Mrs. Ellison,” Angeline said immediately. “May we offer you some refreshment? A tizanne, perhaps.”

  “How kind,” Grandmama accepted with near alacrity, pulling Caroline sharply by the skirt so she also was obliged to sit on the fat red sofa a step behind her. “You are as thoughtful as ever,” Grandmama added for good measure.

  Angeline reached for the hand bell and rang it with a sharp, tinkling sound, and almost as soon as she had replaced it on the table the maid appeared. She requested a tizanne, then changed her mind and asked for tea for all of them.

  Grandmama sank back in her seat, set her stick between her own voluminous skirts and Caroline’s, and rather belatedly masked a look of satisfaction with concern again.

  “I imagine your dear brother will be a great strength to you, and of course you to him,” she said unctuously. “He must be most distressed. It is at such a time that families must support each other.”

  “Exactly what our father the bishop used to say,” Angeline agreed, leaning forward a little, her black dress creasing across her ample bosom. “He was such a remarkable man. The family is the strength of the nation, he used to say. And a virtuous and obedient woman is the heart of the family. And dear Clemency was certainly that.”