Cardington Crescent - Anne Perry [96]
Then the noise came again; a tiny, thin plink. A pebble fell from above, touched the sill, and bounced out and into the void. She did not hear it land. Still she could see no one. They must be standing so close to one of the ornamental bushes that one shadow consumed them both.
An assignation for one of the housemaids? Surely not! A girl caught in such an act would lose not only her present position and the roof over her head, but her character also, which would preclude any future position as well. She would be reduced to the grim choices of a sweatshop or the streets, where she must live by thievery or prostitution. Even the hot flush of romance seldom inspired such dangerous abandon. There were better ways.
Whose window was above hers? Everyone had bedrooms on this floor—except Tassie! Tassie had kept her old childhood bedroom in the nursery wing upstairs, to leave sufficient guest rooms free.
Charlotte made up her mind instantly; any time for thought and her nerve would fail. She did not bother with underwear but grasped her warmest, plainest dark dress, climbed into it, and pulled on her boots and buttoned them, fumbling in the dark. She dared not light one of the lamps. Even with the curtains drawn the watcher outside might see it. She had no time to do more with her hair than tie it back. Then, having found her coat, she waited behind the door, straining her ears, till she heard the very faintest footfall on the landing.
She waited a moment longer, then opened the door and went out silently, closing it after her. At the head of the stairs she was just in time to see a shadow at the bottom turn and disappear, not towards the front but in the direction of the baize door and the kitchens. Of course—the front door had bolts on it which could not be fastened from the outside. In the scullery one of the servants would be blamed.
She ran down as quickly as she could, holding her skirts. She must be careful not to make a sound or get so close that Tassie might glance backwards and see her.
Was she sleepwalking? Or taken by some intermittent madness? Or quite sane, but about some dreadful business that splashed her with blood?
For a moment Charlotte hesitated. It was a delusion to say it could not be anything grotesque; horrors did happen, she knew it only too well. Before George’s death Pitt had been called to a case of murder so horrific even he had come home white-lipped and sick—a woman dismembered and left in parcels round Bloomsbury and St. Giles.
She was standing rigid, alone in the hallway. Ahead of her the baize door had almost stopped swinging. Tassie must be in the scullery by now. There was no more time to decide: either she followed her and learned the truth, or she went back to bed.
The door was perfectly still. If she did not hurry she would lose Tassie. Without allowing herself to think any longer she crossed the last few steps of the hall and pushed through the door and into the servants’ wing. The kitchens were deserted, smelling clean and warm; odors of scrubbed wood, flour, and, as she passed the stoves, coal dust. She could see the gleam of light on the scuttles from the streetlamp through the window. The scullery was piled with vegetables and buckets and mops. Her skirt caught against the handle of a pail and she stopped only just before it overbalanced and crashed down onto the stone floor.
The outer door ahead of her was closed; Tassie had already gone. Charlotte tried the handle and found it turned easily.
Outside the night was only a little cooler than the house. There was no breeze here in the high-walled yard. The sky was shredded with a few faint mares’ tails of cloud, but the half moon shed a milky light in which she could see the back windows, the housing of the chute down into the coal cellars, several bins for rubbish, and at the far side, the gate out into the areaway