Southampton Row - Anne Perry [123]
She snorted loudly, picked up the money off the table, then swiveled on the heel of her boot and went marching down the passage. He heard the front door bang loudly, no doubt so he would entertain no question as to whether she had left.
It was another miserable quarter of an hour before the doorbell rang. Pitt very nearly ignored it. It rang again. Whoever it was did not intend to accept refusal lightly. It rang a third time.
Pitt stood up and walked the length of the passage. He opened the door, ready to defend himself. Cornwallis stood on the step looking miserable but resolute, his face set grimly, eyes meeting Pitt’s.
“Good morning,” he said quietly. “May I come in?”
“What for?” Pitt asked less graciously than he meant. He would find criticism from Cornwallis harder to take than from almost any other man. He was surprised and a little frightened by how vulnerable he felt.
“Because I’m not going to talk to you standing here on the step like a peddler!” Cornwallis said tartly. “I’ve no idea what to say, but I’d rather try to think of something sitting down. I was so damned angry when I read the newspapers I forgot to have any breakfast.”
Pitt almost smiled. “I’ve got bread and marmalade, and the kettle’s on. I’d better stoke the stove. Mrs. Brody’s just given her notice.”
“The daily?” Cornwallis asked, stepping inside and closing the door behind him as he followed Pitt back down the passage.
“Yes. I’ll have to start fetching for myself.” In the kitchen he offered tea and toast, which Cornwallis accepted, making himself reasonably comfortable sitting on one of the hard-backed chairs.
Pitt stoked the stove with coal and poked it until it was burning brightly, then put a slice of bread on the toasting fork and held it to brown. The kettle started to whistle gently on the hob.
When they had a piece of toast each and the tea was brewing, Cornwallis began to talk.
“Did this man Wray have anything to do with Maude Lamont?” he asked.
“Not so far as I know,” Pitt replied. “He had a hatred of spirit mediums, especially those who give false hope to the bereaved, but so far as I know not to Maude Lamont in particular.”
“Why?”
Pitt told him the story of the young woman in Teddington, her child, her consulting of the spirit medium at the time, the violence of her grief and then her own death.
“Could it have been Maude Lamont?” Cornwallis asked.
“No.” Pitt was quite certain. “When that happened she could not have been more than about twelve years old. There’s no connection, except the one Voisey created to trap me. And I did everything to help him.”
“So it would seem,” Cornwallis agreed. “But I’m damned if I’m going to let him get away with it. If we can’t defend ourselves, then we must attack.”
This time Pitt did smile. Surprise and gratitude welled up inside him that Cornwallis should so fully and without question take his part. “I wish I knew how,” Pitt answered. “I have been considering the possibility that the real man behind the cartouche was Bishop Underhill.” He was startled to hear himself say it aloud, and without fear that Cornwallis would dismiss it as absurd. Cornwallis’s friendship was the only decent thing in the day. He knew inside himself that Vespasia would react similarly. He was relying on her to help Charlotte in what would be a very difficult time to bear—not only for herself, both in her anger and inability to help, and her pain for him, but also for the cruelty the children would endure from school friends, even people in the street, barely knowing why, only that their father was hated. It was something they had never known before and would not understand. He refused to think about it now. Terrible enough when he had to, no need to anticipate the pain when he could do nothing about it.
“Bishop Underhill,” Cornwallis repeated thoughtfully. “Why? Why him?”
Pitt told him his line of reasoning based upon the assistance the Bishop had given Voisey.
Cornwallis frowned. “What would take