Anne Perry - Highgate Rise

“Nonsense. You are coming with me. It will do you good. It is a lovely day and the drive will be excellent.”

Charlotte gave duty a brief thought, then submitted to temptation.

“Yes-if you wish. It will only take me a few moments to change. Gracie!” And she hurried out to find the maid and request her to prepare the children’s tea for their return and peel the vegetables for the main evening meal.

Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould lived in a spacious, fashionable house, and her door was opened by a maid in a crisp uniform with lace-trimmed cap and apron. She recognized Charlotte and Emily immediately and showed them in without the usual formalities of prevarication. There was no question as to whether they would be received. Her ladyship was not only very fond of them both, she was also acutely bored with the chatter of society and the endless minutiae of etiquette.

Vespasia was sitting in her private withdrawing room, very sparsely furnished by current standards of taste-no heavy oak tables, no overstuffed sofas and no fringes on the curtains. Instead it was reminiscent of a far earlier age, when Vespasia herself was born, the high empire of Napoleon Bonaparte, before the Battle of Waterloo, the clean lines of the Georgian era and the austerity of a long, desperate war for survival. One of her uncles had died in Nelson’s navy at Trafalgar. Now even the Iron Duke was dead and Wellington a name in history books, and those who fought in the Crimea forty years later were old men now.

Vespasia was sitting upright on a hard-backed Chippendale chair, her dove-gray gown high at the neck, touched with French lace, and four ropes of pearls hanging almost to her waist. She did not bother with the pretense of indifference. Her smile was full of delight.

“Emily, my dear. How very well you look. I’m so pleased you have come. You shall tell me everything you enjoyed. The tedious parts you may omit, no doubt they were just the same as when I was there and it is quite unnecessary that any of us should endure them again. Charlotte, you will live through it all a second time and ask all the pertinent questions. Come, sit down.”

They both went to her, kissed her in turn, then took the places she indicated.

“Agatha,” she commanded the maid. “You will bring tea. Cucumber sandwiches, if you please-and then have Cook make some fresh scones with-I think-raspberry jam, and of course cream.”

“Yes, my lady.” Agatha nodded obediently.

“In an hour and a half,” Vespasia added. “We have much to hear.”

Whether they would stay so long was not open to argument, nor if any other chance caller should be admitted. Lady Vespasia was not at home to anyone else.

“You may begin,” Vespasia said, her eyes bright with a mixture of anticipation and laughter.

Nearly two hours later the tea table was empty and Emily finally could think of nothing else whatever to add.

“And now what are you going to do?” Vespasia inquired with interest.

Emily looked down at the carpet. “I don’t know. I suppose I could become involved in good works of some sort. I could be patron of the local committee for the care of fallen women!”

“I doubt it,” Charlotte said dryly. “You are not Lady Ashworth anymore. You’d have to be an ordinary member.”

Emily made a face at her. “I have no intention of becoming either. I don’t mind the fallen women-it’s the committee members I cannot abide. I want a proper cause, something to do better than pontificate on the state of others. You never did answer me properly when I asked you what Thomas was doing at the moment.”

“Indeed.” Vespasia looked at Charlotte hopefully also. “What is he doing? I trust he is not in Whitechapel? The newspapers are being very critical of the police at the moment. Last year they were loud in their praises, and all blame went to the mobs in Trafalgar Square in the riots. Now the boot is on the other foot, and they are calling for Sir Charles Warren’s resignation.”

Emily shivered. “I imagine they are frightened-I think I should be if I lived in that sort of area. They criticize everyone-even the Queen. People are saying she does not appear enough, and the Prince of Wales is far too light-minded and spends too much money. And of course the Duke of Clarence behaves like an ass-but if his father lives as long as the Queen, poor Clarence will be in a bath chair before he sees the throne.”

“That is not a satisfactory excuse.” Vespasia’s lips moved in the tiniest smile, then she turned to Charlotte again. “You have not told us if Thomas is working on this Whitechapel affair.”

“No. He is in Highgate, but I know very little about the case,” Charlotte confessed. “In fact it has only just begun-”

“The very best place for us to become acquainted with it,” Emily said, her enthusiasm returning. “What is it?”

Charlotte looked at their expectant faces and wished she had more to tell.

“It was a fire,” she said bleakly. “A house was burned and a woman died in it. Her husband was out on a medical call-he is a doctor-and the servants’ wing was the last to be damaged and they were all rescued.”

“Is that all?” Emily was obviously disappointed.

“I told you it was only the very beginning,” Charlotte apologized. “Thomas came home reeking of smoke and with fine ash in his clothes. He looked drained of all energy and terribly sad. She was supposed to have gone out, but it was canceled at the last moment.”

“So it should have been the husband who was at home,” Vespasia concluded. “I assume it was arson, or Thomas would not have been called. Was the intended victim the husband-or was it he who set the fire?”

“It would seem that he was the intended victim,” Charlotte agreed. “With the best will in the world, I cannot see any way in which we could”-she smiled with a touch of self-mockery — “meddle.”

“Who was she?” Emily asked quietly. “Do you know anything about her?”

“No, nothing at all, except that people spoke well of her. But then they usually do of the dead. It is expected, even required.”

“That sounds totally vacuous,” Vespasia said wearily. “And tells neither Thomas nor us anything about her at all-only that her friends are conventional. What was her name?”

“Clemency Shaw.”

“Clemency Shaw?” Vespasia’s voice quickened with recognition. “That name is familiar, I believe. If it is the same person, then she is-was-indeed a good woman. Her death is a tragedy, and unless someone else takes over her work, a great many people will suffer.”

“Thomas said nothing of any work.” Charlotte was acutely interested herself now. “Perhaps he doesn’t know. What work was it?”

Emily sat forward in her chair, waiting eagerly.

“It may not be the same person,” Vespasia warned.

“But if it is?”

“Then she has begun a fight to get certain laws changed regarding the ownership of slum housing,” Vespasia answered gravely, her face expressing what she knew from her own experience of the near impossibility of overcoming such vested interests. “Many of the worst, where there is appalling overcrowding and no sanitation at all, are owned by people of wealth and social standing. If it were more readily known, some minimal standards might be enforced.”

“And who is in its way?” Emily was practical as always.

“I cannot give you a detailed answer,” Vespasia replied. “But if you are determined to pursue it, then we should go and visit Somerset Carlisle, who will be able to tell us.” Even as she spoke she was already rising to her feet and preparing to leave.

Charlotte caught Emily’s eye with a flash of amusement, and they also rose.

“What an excellent idea,” Charlotte agreed.