Highgate Rise - Anne Perry [160]
“You devil!” Hatch spoke from between his teeth. “You blasphemer! If I let you live you’ll soil every clean and pure thing. You’ll spew up your filthy ideas over all the good work that has been done—plant seeds of doubt where there used to be faith. You’ll tell your obscene lies about the bishop and make people laugh at him, deride him where they used to revere him.” He was weeping as he spoke, his hands still scrabbling at Shaw’s throat, his hair fallen forward over his brow, his face purple. “It is better that one man should die than a whole people wither in unbelief. You must be cast out—you pollute and destroy. You should be thrown into the sea—with a millstone ’round your neck. Better you’d never been born than drag other people down to hell with you.”
Pitt hit him as hard as he could across the side of the head, and after a brief moment of convulsing, wild arms flailing and his mouth working without sound, Josiah Hatch fell to the ground and lay still, his eyes closed, his hands clasped like claws.
Jack Radley pushed his way from the side of the room and came to Pitt’s aid, bending over Hatch and holding him.
Celeste fainted and Oliphant eased her to the ground.
Angeline was weeping like a child, lost, alone and utterly bereft.
Prudence was frozen as if all life had left her.
“Get Constable Murdo!” Pitt ordered.
No one moved.
Pitt jerked up to repeat his command, and saw out of the corner of his eye Emily going towards the hallway and the front door, where Murdo was patrolling.
At last life returned to the assembly. Taffeta rustled, whalebone creaked, there was a sighing of breath and the women moved a little closer to the men.
Shaw climbed to his feet, white-faced, his eyes like holes in his head. Everyone turned away, except Charlotte. She moved towards him. He was shaking. He did not even attempt to straighten his clothes. His hair was standing out in tufts, his necktie was under one ear and his collar was torn. His jacket was dusty and one sleeve was ripped from the armhole, and there were deep scratches on his face.
“It was Josiah!” His voice was husky in his bruised throat. “Josiah killed Clem—and Amos. He wanted to kill me.” He looked strained and there was contusion in his eyes.
“Yes,” she agreed, her voice soft and very level. “He wanted to kill you all the time. Lindsay and Clem were only mistakes—because you were out of the house. Although perhaps he didn’t mind if he got Amos as well—he had no reason to suppose he was out, as he did with Clemency.”
“But why?” He looked hurt, like a child who has been struck for no reason. “We quarreled, but it wasn’t serious—”
“Not for you.” She found it suddenly very painful to speak. She knew how deeply it would hurt him, and yet she could not evade it. “But you mocked him—”
“Good God, Charlotte—he asked for it! He was a hypocrite—all his values were absurd. He half worshiped old Worlingham, who was a greedy, vicious and thoroughly corrupt man, posing as a saint—and not only robbing people blind but robbing the destitute. Josiah spent his life praising and preaching lies.”
“But they were precious to him,” she repeated.
“Lies! Charlotte—they were lies!”
“I know that.” She held his gaze in an uncompromising stare, and saw the distress in his, the incomprehension, and the terrible depth of caring.
It was a bitter blow she was going to deal him, and yet it was the only way to healing, if he accepted it.
“But we all need our heroes, and our dreams—real or false. And before you destroy someone else’s dreams, if they have built their lives on them, you have to put something in their place. Before, Dr. Shaw.” She saw him wince at her formality. “Not afterwards. Then it is too late. Being an iconoclast, destroying false idols—or those you think are false—is great fun, and gives you a wonderful feeling of moral superiority. But there is a high price to speaking the truth. You are free to say what you choose—and probably this has to be so, if there is to be any growth of ideas at all—but you are responsible for what happens