Highgate Rise tp-11 Page 4

  “A fire,” he replied, kissing her, touching only her face with his lips, not holding her where the smut and grime would soil her dress.

  She heard the weariness in his voice, and something more, an experience of tragedy.

  “A fire?” she asked, holding his gaze. “Did someone die in it?”

  “A woman.”

  She looked up at his face. “Murder?”

  “Yes.”

  She hesitated, seeing the crumpled, grimy clothes, still wet in places from the afternoon’s rain, and then the expression in his eyes.

  “Do you want to eat, wash, or tell me about it?”

  He smiled. There was something faintly ludicrous in her candor, especially after the careful manners of the Clitheridges and the Hatches.

  “A cup of tea, my boots off, and then later hot water,” he replied honestly.

  She accepted that as declining to talk, and hurried through to the kitchen, her stockinged feet making no sound on the linoleum of the passage, or the scrubbed boards of the kitchen floor. The range was hot, as always, and she put the kettle back on the hob and cut a slice of bread, buttered it and spread it with jam. She knew he would want it when he saw it.

  He followed her through and unintentionally stood in her way.

  “Where was it?” she asked.

  “Highgate,” he said as she walked around him to get the mugs.

  “Highgate? That’s not your area.”

  “No, but they are sure this was arson, and the local station sent for us straightaway.”

  Charlotte had deduced that much from the smell of smoke and the smudges on his clothes, but she forbore from mentioning it.

  “It was the home of a doctor,” he went on. “He was out on a call, a woman in childbirth unexpectedly early, but his wife was at home. She had canceled a trip to the city at the last moment. It was she who was burned.”

  The kettle was boiling and Charlotte heated the pot, then made the tea and set it to brew. He sat down gratefully and she sat opposite him.

  “Was she young?” she said quietly.

  “About forty.”

  “What was her name?”

  “Clemency Shaw.”

  “Could it not have been an accident? There are lots of accidental fires, a candle dropped, a spark from an unguarded hearth, someone smoking a cigar and not putting it out properly.” She poured the tea and pushed one of the mugs towards him.

  “On the curtains of four separate rooms, downstairs, at midnight?” He took his tea and sipped it and burned his tongue. He bit into the bread and jam quickly.

  “Oh.” She thought of waking in the night to the roar and the heat, and knowing what it was, and that you were trapped. How much more dreadful to think someone else had lit it deliberately, knowing you were there, meaning to burn you to death. The thought was so fearful that for a moment she felt a little sick.

  Pitt was too tired to notice.

  “We don’t know yet if they meant to kill Mrs. Shaw-or her husband.” He tried the tea again.

  She realized he must have felt all that she was now imagining. His mind would have conjured the same pictures, only more vividly; he had seen the charred rubble, the heat still radiating from it, the smoke still filling the air and stinging the eyes and throat.

  “You can’t do any more tonight, Thomas. She isn’t in any pain now, and you cannot touch the grief,” she said gently. “There is always somebody hurting somewhere, and we cannot take their pain.” She rose to her feet again. “It doesn’t help.” She brushed his hand with hers as she passed. “I’ll get a bowl of hot water and you can wash. Then come to bed. It will be morning soon enough.”

  Pitt left as soon as he had eaten breakfast, and Charlotte began the routine of domestic chores. The children, Jemima and Daniel, were seen off to their respective lessons at the same school along the road, and Gracie the maid began the dusting and sweeping. The heavy work, scrubbing floors, beating the carpets and carrying the coal and coke for the cooker, was done by Mrs. Hoare, who came in three days a week.

  Charlotte resumed the ironing, and when she had finished that, began on pastry baking, the daily making of bread, and was about to begin washing and preparing jars for jam when there was a clatter at the door. Gracie dropped her broom and ran to answer it, and returned a moment later breathless, her thin little face alight with excitement.

  “Oh, ma’am, it’s Lady Ashworth back-I mean, Mrs. Radley-back from ’er ’oneymoon-an’ lookin’ so grand-an’ ’appy.”

  Indeed, Emily was only a few steps behind, laden with beautiful parcels wrapped in paper and ribbons, and swirling huge skirts of noisy taffeta in a glorious shade of pale water green. Her fair hair showed in the fine curls Charlotte had envied since childhood, and her skin was rosy fair from sun and pleasure.

  She dropped everything on the kitchen table, ignoring the jars, and threw her arms around Charlotte, hugging her so fiercely she almost lost her balance.

  “Oh, I have missed you,” she said exuberantly. “It’s wonderful to be home again. I’ve got so much to tell you, I couldn’t have borne it if you had been out. I haven’t had any letters from you for ages-of course I haven’t had any letters at all since we left Rome. It is so boring at sea-unless there is a scandal or something among the passengers. And there wasn’t. Charlotte, how can anyone spend all their lives playing bezique and baccarat and swapping silly stories with each other, and seeing who has the newest bustle or the most elegant hair? I was nearly driven mad by it.” She disengaged herself and sat down on one of the kitchen chairs.

  Gracie was standing rooted to the spot, her eyes huge, her imagination whirling as she pictured ships full of card-playing aristocrats with marvelous clothes. Her broom was still propped against the wall in the passageway and her duster stuffed in the waist of her apron.

  “Here!” Emily picked up the smallest of the packages and offered it to her. “Gracie, I brought you a shawl from Naples.”

  Gracie was overcome. She stared at Emily as if she had materialized by magic in front of her. She was too overwhelmed even to speak. Her small hands locked onto the package so tightly it was fortunate it was fabric, or it might have broken.

  “Open it!” Emily commanded.

  At last Gracie found words. “Fer me, my lady? It’s fer me?”

  “Of course it’s for you,” Emily told her. “When you go to church, or out walking, you must put it ’round your shoulders, and when someone admires you, tell them it came from the Bay of Naples and was a gift from a friend.”

  “Oh-” Gracie undid the paper with fumbling fingers, then as the ripple of blue, gold and magenta silk fell out, let her breath go in a sigh of ecstasy. Suddenly she recalled her duty and shot off back to the hallway and her broom, clutching her treasure.

  Charlotte smiled with a lift of happiness that would probably not be exceeded by any other gift Emily might bring, even for Jemima or Daniel.

  “That was very thoughtful,” she said quietly.

  “Nonsense.” Emily dismissed it, a trifle embarrassed herself. She had inherited a respectable fortune from her first husband, the shawl had cost a trifle-it was so small a thing to give so much pleasure. She spread out the other parcels and found the one with Charlotte’s name on it. “Here-please open it. The rest are for Thomas and the children. Then tell me everything. What have you done since your last letter? Have you had any adventures? Have you met anyone interesting, or scandalous? Are you working on a case?”

  Charlotte smiled sweetly and benignly, and ignoring the questions, opened the parcel, laying aside the wrapping paper neatly, both to tantalize Emily and because it was far too pretty to tear. She would keep it and use it at Christmas. Inside were three trailing bouquets of handmade silk flowers that were so lush and magnificent she gasped with amazement when she saw them. They would make the most ordinary hat look fit for a duchess, or in the folds of a skirt make a simple taffeta dress into a ball gown. One was in pastel pinks, one blazing reds, and the third all the shade
s between flamingo and flame.

  “Oh, Emily. You’re a genius.” Her mind raced through all the things she could do with them, apart from the sheer pleasure of turning them over and over in her hand and dreaming, which was a joy in itself if she never got any further. “Oh, thank you! They are exquisite.”

  Emily was glowing with satisfaction. “I shall bring the paintings of Florence next time. But now I brought Thomas a dozen silk handkerchiefs-with his initials on.”

  “He’ll adore them,” Charlotte said with absolute certainty. “Now tell me about your trip-everything you can that isn’t terribly private.” She did not mean to ask Emily if she were happy, nor would she have. Marrying Jack Radley had been a wild and very personal decision. He had no money and no prospects; after George Ashworth, who had had both, and a title as well, it was a radical social change. And she had certainly loved George and felt his death profoundly. Yet Jack, whose reputation was dubious, had proved that his charm was not nearly as shallow as it appeared at first. He was a loyal friend, with courage as well as humor and imagination, and was prepared to take risks in a cause he believed right.

  “Put on the kettle,” Emily ordered. “And have you got pastry baking?” She sniffed. “It smells delicious.”

  Charlotte obeyed, and then settled to listen.

  Emily had written regularly, except for the last few weeks, which had been spent at sea on the long, late-summer voyage home from Naples to London. They had sailed slowly by intent, calling at many ports, but she had not mailed letters, believing they would not reach Charlotte before she did herself. Now the words poured out in descriptions of Sardinia, the Balearic Isles, North Africa, Gibraltar, Portugal, northern Spain and the Atlantic coast of France.

  To Charlotte they were magical places, immeasurably distant from Bloomsbury and the busy streets of London, housework and domestic duties, children, and Pitt’s recounting of his day. She would never see them, and half of her regretted it and would love to have watched the brilliant light on colored walls, smelled the spice and fruit and dust in the air, felt the heat and heard the different rhythm of foreign tongues. They would have filled her imagination and enriched her memory for years. But she could have the best of them through Emily’s recounting, and do it without the seasickness, the weariness of long cramped coach rides, highly irregular sanitation and a wide variety of insects which Emily described in repulsive detail.

  Through it all there emerged a sharper, kinder and less romantic picture of Jack, and Charlotte found many of her anxieties slipping away.

  “Now that you’re home, are you going to stay in the city?” she asked, looking at Emily’s face, flushed with color from sun and wind but tired around the eyes. “Or are you going to the country?” She had inherited a large house in its own parklands, in trust for her son from her marriage to Lord Ashworth.

  “Oh, no,” Emily said quickly. “At least-” She made a small, rueful face. “I don’t know. It’s very different now we’re not on a planned journey with something new to see or to do each day, and somewhere we have to be by nightfall. This is the beginning of real life.” She looked down at her hands, small and strong and unlined on the table. “I’m a little frightened in case suddenly we’re not sure what to say to each other-or even what to do to fill the day. It’s going to be so different. There isn’t any crisis anymore.” She sniffed rather elegantly and smiled directly at Charlotte. “Before we were married there was always some terrible event pressing us to act-first George’s death, and then the murders in Hanover Close.” She raised her fair eyebrows hopefully and her blue eyes were wide, but they knew each other far too well for even Emily to feign innocence. “I don’t suppose Thomas has a case we could help with?”

  Charlotte burst into laughter, even though she knew Emily was serious and that all the past cases in which they had played a part were fraught with tragedy, and some danger as well as any sense of adventure there may have been.

  “No. There was a very terrible case while you were away.”

  “You didn’t tell me!” Emily’s expression was full of accusation and incredulity. “What? What sort of case? Why didn’t you write to me about it?”

  “Because you would have been too worried to enjoy your honeymoon, and I wanted you to have a perfect time seeing all the glories of Paris and Italy, not thinking about people having their throats cut in a London fog,” Charlotte answered honestly. “But I will certainly tell you now, if you wish.”

  “Of course I wish! But first get me some more tea.”

  “We could have luncheon,” Charlotte suggested. “I have cold meat and fresh pickle-will that do?”

  “Very well-but talk while you’re getting it,” Emily instructed. She did not offer to help; they had both been raised to expect marriage to gentlemen of their own social status who would provide them with homes and suitable domestic servants for all house and kitchen labor. Charlotte had married dreadfully beneath herself-to a policeman-and learned to do her own work. Emily had married equally far above herself, to an aristocrat with a fortune, and she had not even been in a kitchen in years, except Charlotte’s; and although she knew how to approve or disapprove a menu for anyone from a country squire to the Queen herself, she had no idea, and no wish for one, as to how it should be made.

  “Have you been to see Great-Aunt Vespasia yet?” Charlotte asked as she carved the meat.

  Great-Aunt Vespasia was actually George’s aunt, and no immediate relative to either of them, but they had both learned to love and admire her more deeply than any of their own family. She had been one of the great beauties of her generation. Now she was close to eighty, and with wealth and social position assured she had both the power and the indifference to opinion to conduct herself as she pleased, to espouse every cause her conscience dictated or her sympathies called for. She dressed in the height of fashion, and could charm the prime minister, or the dustman-or freeze them both at twenty paces with a look of ice.

  “No,” Emily replied. “I thought of going this afternoon. Does Aunt Vespasia know about this case?”

  Charlotte smiled smugly. “Oh yes. She was involved. In fact she lent me her carriage and footman for the final confrontation-” She let it hang in the air deliberately.

  Emily glared at her.

  Blithely Charlotte refilled the kettle and turned to the cupboard to find the pickle. She even thought of humming a little tune, but decided against it on the ground that she could not sing very well-and Emily could.

  Emily began to drum her fingers on the scrubbed-clean wooden tabletop.

  “A member of Parliament was found lashed to a lamppost on Westminster Bridge….” Charlotte began to recount the whole story, at first with relish, then with awe, and finally with horror and pity. When she had finished the meal was done and it was early afternoon.

  Emily said very little, reaching her hands across the table to clasp Charlotte’s arm with her fingers. “You could have been killed!” she said angrily, but there were tears in her eyes. “You must never do such a mad thing again! I suppose whatever I think of to say to you, Thomas will already have said it? I trust he scolded you to within an inch of your life?”

  “It was not necessary,” Charlotte said honestly. “I was quite aware of it all myself. Are you ready to go and see Aunt Vespasia?”

  “Certainly. But you are not. You must change out of that very plain stuff dress and put on something more appealing.”

  “To do the ironing?”

  “Nonsense. You are coming with me. It will do you good. It is a lovely day and the drive will be excellent.”

  Charlotte gave duty a brief thought, then submitted to temptation.

  “Yes-if you wish. It will only take me a few moments to change. Gracie!” And she hurried out to find the maid and request her to prepare the children’s tea for their return and peel the vegetables for the main evening meal.

  Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould lived in a spacious, fashionable house, and her door was opened by a maid in a crisp
uniform with lace-trimmed cap and apron. She recognized Charlotte and Emily immediately and showed them in without the usual formalities of prevarication. There was no question as to whether they would be received. Her ladyship was not only very fond of them both, she was also acutely bored with the chatter of society and the endless minutiae of etiquette.

  Vespasia was sitting in her private withdrawing room, very sparsely furnished by current standards of taste-no heavy oak tables, no overstuffed sofas and no fringes on the curtains. Instead it was reminiscent of a far earlier age, when Vespasia herself was born, the high empire of Napoleon Bonaparte, before the Battle of Waterloo, the clean lines of the Georgian era and the austerity of a long, desperate war for survival. One of her uncles had died in Nelson’s navy at Trafalgar. Now even the Iron Duke was dead and Wellington a name in history books, and those who fought in the Crimea forty years later were old men now.

  Vespasia was sitting upright on a hard-backed Chippendale chair, her dove-gray gown high at the neck, touched with French lace, and four ropes of pearls hanging almost to her waist. She did not bother with the pretense of indifference. Her smile was full of delight.

  “Emily, my dear. How very well you look. I’m so pleased you have come. You shall tell me everything you enjoyed. The tedious parts you may omit, no doubt they were just the same as when I was there and it is quite unnecessary that any of us should endure them again. Charlotte, you will live through it all a second time and ask all the pertinent questions. Come, sit down.”

  They both went to her, kissed her in turn, then took the places she indicated.

  “Agatha,” she commanded the maid. “You will bring tea. Cucumber sandwiches, if you please-and then have Cook make some fresh scones with-I think-raspberry jam, and of course cream.”

  “Yes, my lady.” Agatha nodded obediently.

  “In an hour and a half,” Vespasia added. “We have much to hear.”

  Whether they would stay so long was not open to argument, nor if any other chance caller should be admitted. Lady Vespasia was not at home to anyone else.