Silence in Hanover Close - Anne Perry [7]
Pitt opened his mouth to retort, but saw the pointlessness of it reflected in Ballarat’s black eyes. He swallowed his temper. “Yes sir.”
He went out with his mind seething. Then the cold air hit his face, stinging with rain, and he was jostled by passersby on the dark pavements. He heard carriages clattering by, saw shops with windows lit and gas lamps burning in the streets, smelled chestnuts roasting on a brazier. Pitt heard someone singing a carol, and he was overtaken by other things. He imagined his children’s faces on Christmas morning. They were old enough now to be excited; already Daniel asked every night if it was Christmas tomorrow yet, and Jemima, with a six-year-old’s elder-sister superiority, told him he must wait. Pitt smiled. He had made a wooden train for Daniel, with an engine and six carriages. He had bought a doll for Jemima, and Charlotte was sewing dresses, petticoats, and a fine bonnet for her. Lately he had noticed that when he came in unexpectedly she pushed her sewing in a bundle under a cushion, and looked up far too innocently at him.
His smile broadened. He knew she was making something for him. He was particularly pleased with what he had found for her, a pink alabaster vase about nine inches high, simple and perfect. It had taken him seven weeks to save up enough. The only problem was Emily, Charlotte’s widowed sister. She had married for love, but her husband George had had both title and wealth. After the shock of her bereavement last summer it was only natural that she and her five-year-old son, Edward, should come on Christmas Eve to spend the holiday with her sister.
But what could Pitt possibly afford to give Emily that would please her?
He had still not solved the problem when he arrived at his front door. Pitt took off his wet coat and hung it on the hook, undid his sodden boots, and started towards the kitchen in his stocking feet.
Jemima met him halfway along the passage, cheeks flushed, eyes shining.
“Papa, isn’t it Christmas yet? Isn’t it even Christmas Eve?”
“Not yet.” He swung her up into his arms and hugged her.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, my sweetheart, I’m sure.” He carried her into the kitchen and put her down. Gracie, the maid, was upstairs with Daniel. Charlotte was alone, surveying the final touches to her Christmas cake, a wisp of hair curling over her brow. She smiled at him. “Any interesting cases?”
“No. An old case that will go nowhere.” He kissed her once; then kissed her again with growing warmth.
“Nothing?” she persisted.
“Nothing. It’s only a formality.”
2
AT FIRST CHARLOTTE accepted Pitt’s brief dismissal of his new case, because she was preoccupied with Christmas and all the arrangements. There was so much that had to be done in the kitchen: the hiding of carefully wrapped threepenny pieces in the plum pudding, the making of sweets, jam for tarts and chopped fruits for mince pies. And there were presents to finish and wrap in colored paper. On top of that, everything must be kept secret, to be a surprise on the day.
At any other time she would have been more inquisitive, and considerably more persistent. In the past Charlotte had involved herself in some of Thomas’s most complex and personally tragic cases, drawn in by deliberate curiosity or outrage at some event. It was only last summer that her sister Emily’s husband had been murdered, and that case had seemed endless. Emily herself had been the main suspect. George had had a short-lived but intense affair with Sybilla March, and Emily was the only one who knew it had ended the night before he died. Who could be expected to believe her when all the evidence was to the contrary? And Emily, in her efforts to win back George’s attention, had been so indiscreet with Jack Radley that she had deliberately given everyone the impression that she herself was romantically involved.
Charlotte had never been so afraid as during that period, nor felt true tragedy as close. When their elder sister Sarah had died