Anne Perry - Highgate Rise

Charlotte was stung by the manner more than the words. Lally Clitheridge was regarding her with the air one might show a rival who had tricked one out of a deserved advantage.

“I did not know her, Mrs. Clitheridge. But I know those who did. And why she chose to share her concern with them and not with her family and neighbors I am unaware-but possibly it was because they were almost as concerned as she and they understood and respected her feelings.”

“Good gracious.” Lally’s voice rose in amazement and offense. “Your intrusion knows no bounds. Now you suggest she did not trust her own family-but chose instead these friends of yours, whom you have been careful not to name.”

“Really, Lally,” Prudence said gently, knotting her hands together in her lap. “You are distressing yourself unnecessarily. You have allowed Flora Lutterworth to upset you too much.” She glanced at Charlotte. “We have had a rather distasteful encounter, and I am afraid hasty words were said. That young woman’s behavior is quite shameless where poor Stephen is concerned. She is obsessed with him, and does not seem able to comport herself with any restraint at all-even now.”

“Oh dear-that again.” Angeline sighed and shook her head. “Well of course she has no breeding, poor soul, what can you expect? And raised virtually without a mother. I dare say there is no one to instruct her how to behave. Her father is in trade, after all and he’s from the north; you could hardly expect him to have the least idea.”

“No amount of money in the world makes up for lack of breeding,” Celeste agreed. “But people will insist upon trying.”

“Exactly,” Charlotte said with a voice that cut like acid. “People with breeding can lie, cheat, steal or sell their daughters to obtain money, but people who only have money can never acquire breeding, no matter what they do.”

There was a silence that was like thunder, prickling the air and touching the skin in a cold sweat.

Charlotte looked at their faces one by one. She was quite sure, although there was no proof whatever, that neither Celeste nor Angeline had even the shadow of an idea where their family money came from. Nor did she believe that money was at the root of Prudence’s fear. She looked aghast now, but not for herself; her hands were quite still, even loose in her lap. She was staring at Charlotte in total incomprehension, for her devastating rudeness, not because she was afraid of her.

Lally Clitheridge was dumbfounded.

“I thought Stephen Shaw was the rudest person I had ever met,” she said with a tremor in her voice. “But you leave him standing. You are totally extraordinary.”

There was only one possible thing to say.

“Thank you.” Charlotte did not flinch in the slightest. “Next time I see him I shall tell him of your words. I am sure he will be most comforted.”

Lally’s face tightened, almost as if she had been struck-and quite suddenly and ridiculously Charlotte realized the root of her enmity. She was intensely jealous. She might regard Shaw as verbally reckless, full of dangerous and unwelcome ideas, but she was also fascinated by him, drawn from her pedestrian and dutiful life with the vicar towards something that promised excitement, danger, and a vitality and confidence that must be like elixir in the desert of her days.

Now the whole charade not only made Charlotte angry but stirred her to pity for its futility and the pointless courage of Lally’s crusade to make Clitheridge into something he was not, to do his duty when he was swamped by it, constantly to push him, support him, tell him what to say. And for her daydreams of a man so much more alive, the vigor that horrified and enchanted her, and the hatred she felt for Charlotte because Shaw was drawn to her, as easily and hopelessly as Lally was to Shaw.

It was all so futile.

And yet she could hardly take the words back, that would only make it worse by allowing everyone to see that she understood. The only possible thing now was to leave. Accordingly she rose to her feet.

“Thank you, Miss Worlingham, for permitting me to express my admiration for Clemency’s work, and to assure you that despite any dangers, or any threats that may be made, I will continue with every effort at my command. It did not die with her, nor will it ever. Miss Angeline.” She withdrew her hand, clutched her reticule a trifle more closely, and turned to leave.

“What do you mean, Mrs. Pitt?” Prudence stood up and came forward. “Are you saying that you believe Clemency was murdered by someone who-who objected to this work you say she was doing?”

“It seems very likely, Mrs. Hatch.”

“Stuff and nonsense,” Celeste said sharply. “Or are you suggesting that Amos Lindsay was involved in it as well?”

“Not so far as I know-” Charlotte began, and was cut off instantly.

“Of course not,” Celeste agreed, rising to her feet also. Her skirt was puckered but she was unaware of it in her annoyance. “Mr. Lindsay was no doubt murdered for his radical political views, this Fabian Society and all these dreadful pamphlets he writes and supports.” She glared at Charlotte. “He associated with people who have all sorts of wild ideas: socialism, anarchy, even revolution. There are some very sinister plots being laid in our times. There is murder far more abominable than the fires here in Highgate, fearful as they were. One does not read the newspapers, of course. But one cannot help but be aware of what is going on-people talk about it, even here. Some madman is loose in Whitechapel ripping women apart and disfiguring them in the most fearful way-and the police seem powerless either to catch him or prevent him.” Her face was white as she spoke and no one could fail to feel her horror rippling out in the room like coldness from a door opened on ice.

“I am sure you are right, Celeste.” Angeline seemed to withdraw into herself as if she would retreat from these new and terrible forces that threatened them all. “The world is changing. People are thinking quite new and very dangerous ideas. It sometimes seems to me as if everything we have is threatened.” She shook her head and pulled at her black shawl to put it more closely around her shoulders, as if it could protect her. “And I really believe from the way Stephen speaks that he quite admires this talk of overthrowing the old order and setting up those Fabian ideas.”

“Oh, I’m sure he doesn’t,” Lally contradicted strongly, her face pink and her eyes very bright. “I know he liked Mr. Lindsay, but he certainly never agreed with his ideas. They are quite revolutionary. Mr. Lindsay was reading some of the essays and pamphlets and things by that fearful Mrs. Bezant who helped to put the match girls up to refusing to work. You remember that in April-or was it May? I mean, if people refuse to work, where will we all be?”

Charlotte was powerfully tempted to put forward her own political views, in favor of Mrs. Bezant and explaining the plight of the match girls, their physical suffering, the necrosis of the facial bones from breathing the phosphorus; but this was neither the time nor were these the people. Instead she turned to Lally with interest.

“Do you believe they were political murders, Mrs. Clitheridge? That poor Mrs. Shaw was killed because of her agitation for slum reform? You know I think you may well be correct. In fact it is what I believe myself, and have been saying so for some time.”

Lally was very much put out of composure by having to agree with Charlotte, but she could not backtrack now.

“I would not have put it quite in those terms,” she said, bridling. “But I suppose that is what I think. After all, it makes by far the most sense out of things. What other reason could there be?”