Southampton Row - Anne Perry [73]
“Is he there?” she demanded, her voice high and sharp beyond her control. Even as she heard it she knew she was being ridiculous, and yet she could not help it. He had only gone to pick fruit, as any child would. There was no need even to be worried, let alone panic. She was allowing imagination to take over her reason. “Is he?” she repeated only a fraction more calmly.
“I don’t know.” Daniel was looking at her anxiously now. “Do you want me to go up again and look?”
“Yes! Yes, please.”
Jemima landed on the grass and straightened up, regarding a small tear in her dress with irritation. She saw Charlotte looking at her and shrugged. “Skirts are stupid sometimes!” she said in disgust.
Daniel went back up the tree, nimbly, hand over hand. He knew exactly the way to go now. “No!” he called from the top. “He must have found another one, maybe better. I can’t see him!”
Charlotte felt her heart lurch and the beating of the blood in her ears was deafening. Her vision blurred. What if Voisey had taken revenge on Pitt by hurting Emily’s child? Or maybe he didn’t even know who was who! What should she do?
“Gracie!” she yelled. “Gracie!”
“Wot?” Gracie flung open the back door and came running out, fear wide in her eyes. “Wot’s ’appened?”
Charlotte swallowed, trying to steady herself. She should not panic and frighten Gracie. It was stupid and unfair. She knew she was doing it and still could not help herself. “Edward has gone . . . gone to pick strawberries,” she gulped. “But he’s not there anymore.” Her mind raced to find a reasonable excuse for the terror which Gracie must see and hear in her. “I’m afraid of the bogs out there. Even the wild animals get caught in them sometimes. I . . .”
Gracie did not wait. “You stay ’ere wi’ them!” She waved at Daniel and Jemima. “I’ll go look for ’im.” And without waiting to see if Charlotte agreed or not, she picked up her skirts and ran with amazing speed across the grass and out of the gate, leaving it swinging behind her.
Daniel turned to Charlotte, his face pale. “He wouldn’t go into a bog, Mama. You showed us what they look like, all green and bright. He knows that!”
“No, of course not,” she agreed, staring at the gate. Should she take Daniel and Jemima with her and go, too, or were they safer here? She should not leave Gracie alone to look for Edward. What was she thinking of! Don’t separate! “Come on!” She darted and grasped Daniel’s hand, almost pulling him off balance as she started towards the gate. “Jemima! Come with me. We’ll all go and look for Edward. But stay together! We must stay together!”
They were only a hundred yards along the lane, the small, straight-backed figure of Gracie another hundred yards ahead of them, when the dogcart came over the rise and with a flood of relief that brought tears to her eyes, Charlotte saw Edward sitting beside the driver, balancing precariously and grinning with satisfaction.
Now she was so furious with him for the fear she had felt that she would happily have spanked him until he had to eat supper off the mantelpiece—and breakfast, too! But it would be totally unfair; he had not meant harm. Looking at his pleasure, she forced back her emotions, called out to Gracie, then picked her way over the ruts in the track to speak to the driver, who had pulled up in seeing them.
Gracie came back and for a moment her eyes met Charlotte’s, and she blinked hard to mask the depth of her own relief. In that instant Charlotte realized just how much they had been hiding from each other, trying to protect, pretend it was not there, and she was filled with gratitude and a startling depth of love for the girl with whom she had so little in common on the surface, and so much in reality.
Pitt’s house in Keppel Street was exactly as always, not an ornament or a book out of place. There were even flowers in the vase on the mantel shelf in the parlor, and early sunlight poured through the windows onto the kitchen bench and splashed warm across the floor. Archie