Highgate Rise - Anne Perry [46]
Caroline closed her eyes and Grandmama surreptitiously poked her with her stick to keep her from intervening.
Charlotte let out a sigh.
Celeste looked taken aback.
“He was out on a call,” Angeline answered with total candor. “A confinement a little earlier than expected. He is a doctor, you know, in many ways a fine man, in spite of—” She stopped as abruptly as she had begun, a tinge of pride creeping up her cheeks. “Oh dear, I do beg your pardon. One should not speak ill, our dear father was always saying that. Such a wonderful man!” She sighed and smiled, staling mistily into some distance within her mind. “It was such a privilege to have lived in the same house with him and been of service, caring for him, seeing that he was looked after as such a man should be.”
Charlotte looked at the plump, fair figure with its benign face, a blurred echo of her sister’s, softer, and more obviously vulnerable. She must have had suitors as a young woman. Surely she would rather have accepted one of them than spend her life ministering to her father’s needs, had she been permitted the chance. There were parents who kept their daughters at home as permanent servants, unpaid but for their keep, unable to give notice because they had no other means of support, ever dutiful, obedient, ever loving—and at the same time hating, as all prisoners do—until it was too late to leave even when the doors were at last opened by death.
Was Angeline Worlingham one of these? Indeed, were they both?
“And your brother also.” Grandmama was unstoppable; her beadlike eyes were bright and she sat upright with attention. “Another fine man. Tragic he should die so young. What was the cause?”
“Mama-in-law!” Caroline was aghast. “I really think we—Oh!” She gave a little squeal as the old lady’s stick poked her leg with a sharp pain.
“Have you the hiccups?” Grandmama inquired blandly. “Take a little more of your tea.” She returned to Celeste. “You were telling us of poor Theophilus’s passing. What a loss!”
“We do not know the cause,” Celeste said with chill. “It appears it may have been an apoplectic seizure of some sort, but we are not perfectly sure.”
“It was poor Clemency who found him,” Angeline added. “That is another thing for which I hold Stephen responsible. Sometimes he is a touch too free in his ideas. He expects too much.”
“All men expect too much,” Grandmama opined sententiously.
Angeline blushed furiously and looked at the floor; even Celeste looked uncomfortable.
This time Caroline ignored all strictures and spoke.
“That was a most unfortunate turn of phase,” she apologized. “I am sure that you meant it was unfair to expect Clemency to cope with the discovery of her father’s death, especially when it was quite unexpected.”
“Oh—of course.” Angeline collected herself with a gasp of relief. “He had been ill for a few days, but we had not presumed it serious. Stephen paid scant regard to it. Of course”—she drew down her brows and lowered her voice confidentially—“they were not as close as they might have been, in spite of being father- and son-in-law. Theophilus disapproved of some of Stephen’s ideas.”
“We all disapprove of them,” Celeste said with asperity. “But they were social and theological matters, not upon the subject of medicine. He is a very competent doctor. Everyone says so.”
“Indeed, he has many patients,” Angeline added eagerly, her plump hands fingering the beads at her bosom. “Young Miss Lutterworth would not go to anyone else.”
“Flora Lutterworth is no better than she should be,” Celeste said darkly. “She consults him at every fit and turn, and I have my own opinions that she would be a good deal less afflicted with whatever malady it