Bethlehem Road - Anne Perry [93]
“I love you, Aunt Vespasia, and there is nothing I would like in the world more than one day to become a little like you.”
It was several moments before Vespasia spoke, and when she did her voice was hesitant and a little throaty. “Thank you, my dear.” She sniffed very delicately. “I am sure you have made an excellent beginning—both the good and the bad. Now if you would be so good as to let go of me, I must find my handkerchief.” She did, and blew her nose in a less ladylike manner than usual, with her back to Charlotte. “Now!” she said briskly, stuffing the totally inadequate piece of cambric and lace up her sleeve. “I shall use the telephone to speak to Nobby and have her call upon Lady Mary Carfax again; I shall renew some political acquaintances who may be able to tell me something of use; you will call upon Florence Ivory; and then tomorrow we shall meet here at two o’clock and go together to express our condolences to the widow of Cuthbert Sheridan. It may even be that it was he who was the intended victim.” She tried hard to keep hope out of her voice—it had a certain indecency—and failed.
“Yes, Aunt Vespasia,” Charlotte said obediently. “Tomorrow at two o’clock.”
Charlotte set out for her visit to Florence Ivory with little pleasure. Indeed, the fear was strong inside her that she would either learn nothing at all or that her present anxieties would be strengthened and she would feel a greater conviction that Florence was both capable of such murders and likely to have committed them, with the help perhaps of Zenobia’s niece Africa Dowell. She herself hoped she might find that they were not at home.
She was to be disappointed. They were at home and willing to receive her; in fact, they made her welcome.
“Come in, Miss Ellison,” Africa said hastily. Her face was pale, but there were spots of color high on her cheeks, and smudges of shadow under her eyes, from fear and too little sleep. “I am so glad you have called again. We were quite concerned lest this latest horror should have turned you from our cause. The whole matter is a nightmare.” She led Charlotte towards the charming sitting room, with its flowered curtains and its plants. Sunlight streamed through the windows, and three blue hyacinths filled the room with a perfume so heady, at another time it would have distracted the attention.
Now however Charlotte had eyes and thoughts only for Florence Ivory, who sat in a rattan chair with cushions of green and white, a raffia basket in her hands, which she was mending. She looked up at Charlotte with a face more guarded than her companion’s.
“Good afternoon, Miss Ellison. It is very civil of you to call. May I presume from your presence that you are still engaged in our cause? Or have you come to tell me that you now consider it past help?”
Charlotte was a little stung; there was in Florence’s turn of phrase a whole array of assumptions which she found offensive.
“I shall not give up, Mrs. Ivory, until the matter is either won or lost, or until I find some evidence of your guilt which makes pursuing-it further morally impossible,” she replied crisply.
Florence’s remarkable face, with its widely spaced eyes full of haunting intelligence, seemed for a moment on the edge of laughter; then reality asserted itself and she gestured to the chair opposite and invited Charlotte to be seated.
“What else can I tell you? I knew Cuthbert Sheridan only by reputation, but I have met his wife on a number of occasions. In fact I may have been instrumental in her joining the movement for women’s suffrage.”
Charlotte observed the pain in the woman’s face;