Highgate Rise - Anne Perry [43]
Finally Charlotte was drawn, in spite of her resolution.
“No. It is arson and murder. A very respectable woman has been burned to death in Highgate. In fact her grandfather was a bishop,” she added with something unpleasantly like triumph.
The old lady looked at her guardedly. “What bishop would that be? Sounds unlikely to me.”
“Bishop Worlingham,” Charlotte replied immediately.
“Bishop Worlingham! Augustus Worlingham?” The old lady’s eyes snapped sharp with interest; she leaned forward in her chair and thumped her black walking stick on the ground. “Answer me, girl! Augustus Worlingham?”
“I imagine so.” Charlotte could not remember Pitt having mentioned the bishop’s Christian name. “There surely cannot be two.”
“Don’t be impertinent!” But the old lady was too excited to be more than cursorily critical. “I used to know his daughters, Celeste and Angeline. So they still live in Highgate. Well why not? Very fortunate area. I should go and call upon them, convey my condolences upon their loss.”
“You can’t!” Caroline was appalled. “You’ve never mentioned them before—you cannot have called upon them in years!”
“And is that any cause not to comfort them now in their distress?” the old lady demanded, eyebrows high, searching for reason in an unreasonable house. “I shall go this very afternoon. It is quite early. You may accompany me if you wish.” She hauled herself to her feet. “As long as you do not in any circumstances display a vulgar curiosity.” And she stumped past the tea trolley and out of the withdrawing room without so much as glancing behind her to see what reaction her remarks had provoked.
Charlotte looked at her mother, undecided whether to declare herself or not. The idea of meeting people so close to Clemency Shaw was strongly appealing, even though she believed the person who had connived her death, whoever had lit the taper, was someone threatened by her work to expose slum profiteers to the public knowledge.
Caroline drew in her breath, then her expression of incredulity turned rapidly through contemplation to shamefaced interest.
“Ah—” She breathed in and out again slowly. “I really don’t think we should permit her to go alone, do you? I have no idea what she might say.” She bit her lip to suppress a smile. “And curiosity is so vulgar.”
“Perfectly terrible,” Charlotte agreed, rising to her feet and clasping her reticule, ready for departure.
They made the considerable ride to Highgate in close to silence. Once Charlotte asked the old lady if she could inform them of her acquaintance with the Worlingham sisters, and anything about their present situation, but the reply was scant, and in a tone that discouraged further inquiry.
“They were neither prettier nor plainer than most,” the old lady said, as if the question had been fatuous. “I never heard any scandal about them—which may mean they were virtuous, or merely that no opportunity for misbehavior offered itself. They were the daughters of a bishop, after all.”
“I was not seeking scandal.” Charlotte was irritated by the implication. “I simply wondered what nature of people they were.”
“Bereaved,” came the reply. “That is why I am calling upon them. I suspect you of mere curiosity, which is a character failing of a most distasteful sort. I hope you will not embarrass me when we are there?”
Charlotte gasped at the sheer effrontery of it. She knew perfectly well the old lady had not called on the Worlinghams in thirty years, and assuredly would not now had Clemency died in a more ordinary fashion. For once a suitably stinging reply eluded her, and she rode the remainder of the journey in silence.
The Worlingham house in Fitzroy Park, Highgate, was imposing from the outside, solid with ornate door and windows, and large enough to accommodate a very considerable family and full staff of indoor servants.
Inside, when they were admitted by a statuesque parlormaid, it was even more opulent, if now a little shabby in various places. Charlotte, well behind her mother and grandmother,