Bluegate Fields - Anne Perry [113]
“Lord! We only got the one!” He dived through the doorway after her and trotted behind them exactly where Pitt had gone the day before, into the small, cold room with its sheet-covered table.
Emily strode in and whipped off the cover. She looked down at the stiff, bleached, puffed corpse, and for a moment she went as white as it was; then, with a supreme effort, she controlled herself long enough to allow Charlotte to look also, but she was unable to speak.
Charlotte saw an almost unrecognizable head and shoulders. Death and the water had robbed Albie of all the anger that had made him individual. Staring at him now, the emptiness lying on the table, she realized how much the will to fight had been part of him. What was left was like a house without furniture, after the inhabitants have taken away the things that marked their presence.
“Put it back,” she said to Emily quietly. They walked out past the constable, close to each other, arm in arm, avoiding his eyes so he would not see how much it had shocked them and taken all their confidence.
He was a tactful man, and whatever he saw or guessed he made no mention of.
“Thank you,” Emily said at the street door. “You have been most courteous.”
“Yes, thank you,” Charlotte added, doing her best to smile at him; she did not succeed, but he took the intention for the deed.
“You’re welcome, ma’am,” he replied. “You’re welcome, I’m sure,” he added, because he did not know what else to say.
Outside in the carriage, Emily accepted the rug from the footman and allowed him to wrap it around her feet and Charlotte’s.
“Where to, milady?” he asked without expression. After the Deptford police station, nothing else she could say would surprise him.
“What time is it?” she inquired.
“A little after noon, milady.”
“Then it is too early to go calling upon Callantha Swynford. We must find something to do in the meanwhile.”
“Would you care for luncheon, milady?” The footman tried not to make it too obvious that he cared for it himself. Of course, he had not just viewed a drowned corpse.
Emily lifted her chin and swallowed.
“What an excellent idea. You had better find us somewhere pleasant, John, if you please. I do not know where such a place may be, but no doubt there is a holstelry of some sort that serves ladies.”
“Yes, milady, I’m sure there is.” He closed the door and went back to tell the coachman that he had succeeded in obtaining luncheon, and implied by his expression what he thought of it all.
“Oh, my God!” Emily sat back into the upholstery as soon as the door was closed. “How does Thomas bear it? Why do birth and death have to be so awfully—physical? They seem to reduce us to such a level of extremity there is no room to think of the spiritual!” She gulped again, hard. “Poor little creature. I have to believe in God, of some sort. It would be intolerable to think that was all there was—just to be born and live and die like that, and nothing before or after. It’s too trivial and disgusting. It’s like a joke in the worst possible taste.”
“It’s not very funny,” Charlotte said somberly.
“Jokes in bad taste aren’t!” Emily snapped. “I couldn’t face eating, but I certainly don’t intend to allow John to know that! We’ll have to order something, and of course we shall eat separately. Please do not be clumsy enough to allow him to learn of it! He is my footman and I shall have to live with him in the house—not to mention whatever he might say to the rest of the servants.”
“I have no intention of doing so,” Charlotte replied. “And not eating will not help Albie.” She had seen and heard of more violence and more pain than Emily, cushioned by Paragon Walk and the Ashworth world. “And of course there’s a God, and probably heaven, too. And I most sincerely hope there is hell also. I have a great desire to see several people in it!”
“Hell for the wicked?” Emily said tartly, stung by Charlotte’s apparent composure. “How very puritan