Highgate Rise - Anne Perry [138]
The parlormaid returned and told Charlotte that she would be received—a shade coolly, from her demeanor.
Angeline and Celeste were in the withdrawing room in very much the same postures as they had been when she had called with Caroline and Grandmama. They were wearing afternoon gowns in black similar to the ones they had worn then, good quality, a little strained at the seams, decorated with beads and, in Angeline’s case, black feathers also, very discreetly. Celeste wore jet earrings and a necklace, very long, dangling over her rather handsome bosom and winking in the light, its facets turning as she breathed.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Pitt,” she said with a formal nod of her head. “It is kind of you to come to tell us how much you admired poor Clemency. But I thought you expressed yourself very fully on the subject when you were here before. And I may remind you, you were under some misapprehension as to her work for the less fortunate.”
“I am sure it was a mistake, dear,” Angeline put in hastily. “Mrs Pitt will not have meant to distress us or cause anxiety.” She smiled at Charlotte. “Will you?”
“There is nothing I have learned of Mrs. Shaw which could make you anything but profoundly proud of her,” Charlotte replied, looking very levelly at Angeline and watching her face for the slightest flicker of knowledge.
“Learned?” Angeline was confused, but that was the only emotion Charlotte could identify in her bland features.
“Oh yes,” she answered, accepting the seat which was only half offered, and sitting herself down comfortably well in the back of the lush, tasseled and brocaded cushions. She had no intention of leaving until she had said all she could think of and watched their reactions minutely. This house had been bought and furnished with agony. The old bishop had known it; had Theophilus? And far more recently and more to the point, had these two innocent-looking sisters? Was it conceivable Clemency had come home in her desperate distress when she first learned beyond doubt where her inheritance had been made, and faced them with it? And if she had, what would they have done?
Perhaps fire, secretly and in the night, burning to its terrible conclusion, when they were safely back in their own beds, was just the weapon they might choose. It was horrible to think of, close, like suffocation, and terrifying as the change from mildness to hatred in a face you have known all your life.
Had these women, who had given the whole of their lives, wasted their youth and their mature womanhood pandering to their father, killed to protect that same reputation—and their own comfort in a community they had led for over half a century? It was not inconceivable.
“I heard so well of her from other people,” Charlotte went on, her voice sounding gushing in her ears, artificial and a little too highly pitched. Was she foolish to have come here alone? No—that was stupid. It was the middle of the day, and Aunt Vespasia’s coachman and footman were outside.
But did they know that?
Yes of course they did. They would hardly imagine she had walked here.
But she might have come on the public omnibus. She frequently traveled on it.
“Which other people?” Celeste said with raised eyebrows. “I hardly thought poor Clemency was known outside the parish.”
“Oh indeed she was.” Charlotte swallowed the lump in her throat and tried to sound normal. Her hands were shaking, so she clasped them together, digging her nails into her palms. “Mr. Somerset Carlisle spoke of her in the highest terms possible—he is a noted member of Parliament, you know. And Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould also. In fact I was speaking to her only this morning, telling her I should call upon you this afternoon, and she lent me her carriage, for my convenience. She is determined that Mrs. Shaw shall not be forgotten, nor her work perish.” She saw Celeste’s heavy race darken. “And of course there are others,” she plowed on. “But she was so discreet, perhaps she was too modest to tell you much herself?”
“She told