The Cater Street Hangman - Anne Perry [114]
“Good afternoon, Inspector,” she said formally. She must keep control. “What can we do this time? Have you thought of some further questions?”
“No,” he smiled ruefully. “I can think of nothing else. I came merely to see you. I hope I do not need an excuse.”
She found herself embarrassed and unable to answer. It was ridiculous. No man had embarrassed her in this fashion except Dominic, and with Dominic it had been an empty confusion, without any end she could see. This time she hoped profoundly, with shaking heart, what the end might be.
She withdrew her hand. “Still, I should like to know if you have any further . . . information? Some beliefs perhaps?”
“Some,” he looked at the chair, questioning if he might sit down. She nodded and he relaxed into it, still watching her. “But it is only the faintest idea as yet. I cannot see it clearly, and perhaps when I do there will be nothing there.”
She wanted to tell him about the distress she felt for Martha Prebble, the sense of her deep pain that had filled the room, her own helplessness in the face of something she thought she had seen, but not understood.
“Charlotte? What is troubling you? Has something happened since I was here last?”
She turned to look at him. For once she was not quite sure how to put her thoughts into words, a failing she was not accustomed to. It was difficult to express the sense of oppression that had weighed on her during and after the Prebbles’ visit without sounding foolish, over-imaginative. Yet she wished to tell him, it would comfort her profoundly if he understood. Perhaps he would even be able to dismiss it, show her it was a fancy.
He was still waiting, apparently knowing she was seeking words.
“The vicar and Mrs. Prebble were here this morning,” she began.
“Natural enough,” he was listening. “He was bound to call.” He shifted his weight. “I know you dislike him. I must say I have the greatest trouble being civil to him myself.” He smiled wryly. “I imagine it is even harder for you.”
She glanced at him, not sure for a moment if he were mocking her. He was, but there was tenderness in his face as well as amusement. For a moment the warmth of it, the sweetness of pleasure it brought her drove Martha Prebble from her mind.
“Why should that have upset you?” he brought her back to the present.
She turned away, so his look should not disturb her. “I’ve always felt ambivalent about Martha.” She was seriously trying now to tell him what was still struggling for form in her mind. “Her talk about sin is so depressing. She sounds like the vicar, seeing evil where I believe there is only perhaps a little foolishness which passes anyway with time and responsibility. People like the vicar always seem bent on spoiling pleasure, as if pleasure itself were against God. I can see that some pleasures are, or that they beguile one from the things one ought to do; but—”
“Perhaps he sees that as his duty?” Pitt suggested. “It’s clear-cut, easier than preaching charity, and certainly easier than practicing it.”
“I suppose so. And if I lived with someone like him for a long time I should learn to feel the same way as Martha Prebble does. Perhaps her father was a vicar, too. I never thought of that before.”
“And what is your other feeling?” he asked. “You said you were ambivalent.”
“Oh, pity, of course. And I think some admiration, too. You know, she really does try to live up to all that that wretched man teaches. And more. She is always visiting, caring for the sick and the lonely. I sometimes wonder how much she believes what she says about sin, or if she just adds it out of habit, and because she thinks she ought to, because she knows he would.”
“I dare say she doesn’t know herself. But that is not all, Charlotte. Why did they disturb you especially today? They have always been like this; you could not have expected anything else.”
What was the unease she had felt? She wanted to tell him, indeed she needed to. “She was talking about