Southampton Row - Anne Perry [120]
“Courage, my dear,” Vespasia said gently, but her voice cracked. “I think this is going to be very hard, but we will not cease to fight. We will not allow evil to triumph without giving everything we have in the cause against it.”
He looked at her, frailer now than she used to be, her back ramrod stiff, her thin shoulders square, her eyes burning with tears. He could not possibly let her down.
“No, of course not,” he agreed, though he had not the faintest idea even where or how to begin.
CHAPTER
TWELVE
The next morning was one of the worst in Pitt’s life. He had finally gone to sleep holding on to his gratitude that at least Charlotte, the children and Gracie were safe. He awoke with them pictured in his mind and found himself smiling.
Then memory returned and he knew that Francis Wray was dead, possibly by his own hand, alone and in despair. He could remember him so clearly sitting at the tea table, apologizing for having no cake or raspberry jam to offer, and giving Pitt the precious greengage instead, with such pride.
Pitt lay on his back staring up at the ceiling. The house was silent. It was shortly after six, two hours before Mrs. Brody would come. He could think of nothing to get up for, but his mind would not let him go back to sleep. This was Voisey’s revenge, and it was perfect. Had Wetron known he was helping to accomplish it for him when he had sent Tellman to prompt Pitt to go back to Teddington a second time and ask around the village?
Wray was the perfect victim, a bereaved and forgetful old man, too honest to guard his tongue in his hatred of what was to him a sin against God in the calling up of the dead. Voisey would certainly have known the story of the young woman, Penelope, who had lost her child and in her grief sought a spirit medium who had used her, duped her, taken her money and then been caught in a cheap fraud. After all, it had happened in the very village where his sister lived! A situation too ideal to pass by.
Perhaps it was even Octavia Cavendish who had left the tract on Maude Lamont in Wray’s house. Simple enough to do, and right where Pitt would see it. They had both been led like lambs to the slaughter . . . and in Wray’s case it was literal. In Pitt’s it would be slower, more exquisite. He would suffer and Voisey would watch, taking his pleasure sip by sip.
It was stupid lying here thinking about it. He got up quickly, washed, shaved and dressed, then went downstairs in the silence to make himself a cup of tea and feed Archie and Angus. He did not feel like eating.
What would he tell Charlotte? How could he explain to her yet another disaster in their fortunes? His mind was almost numb with pain at the thought.
He was not aware of time as he sat letting his tea go cold, before finally standing up, fishing in his pockets to see what change he had, and going out to buy a newspaper.
It was still not yet eight o’clock, a calm summer morning, the light pale through the haze of the city, but the sun already high. It was the middle of summer, and the nights were short. There were many people up and busy, errand boys, delivery carts, peddlers looking for early business, maids banging around in the areaways as they put out rubbish, bossed around the bootboys and scullery maids, or told the tweenies what to do and how to do it. Every now and again he heard the hard thwack of someone beating a rug and saw a fine cloud of dust rise in the air.
There was a newsboy on the corner, the same one he knew from every other day, but this time there was no smile, no greeting.
“Yer’ll not be wantin’ it, I should think,” he said grimly. “I’m surprised, I’ll say that for yer. Knew yer was a rozzer, for all yer live in a nice area ’n all. Never thought yer’d ’ound an old