Anne Perry - Highgate Rise

“Oh, Thomas!” She put the book aside and scrambled to her feet, disentangling her skirt with considerable difficulty. “Thomas, where on earth have you been? You smell terrible.”

“A fire,” he replied, kissing her, touching only her face with his lips, not holding her where the smut and grime would soil her dress.

She heard the weariness in his voice, and something more, an experience of tragedy.

“A fire?” she asked, holding his gaze. “Did someone die in it?”

“A woman.”

She looked up at his face. “Murder?”

“Yes.”

She hesitated, seeing the crumpled, grimy clothes, still wet in places from the afternoon’s rain, and then the expression in his eyes.

“Do you want to eat, wash, or tell me about it?”

He smiled. There was something faintly ludicrous in her candor, especially after the careful manners of the Clitheridges and the Hatches.

“A cup of tea, my boots off, and then later hot water,” he replied honestly.

She accepted that as declining to talk, and hurried through to the kitchen, her stockinged feet making no sound on the linoleum of the passage, or the scrubbed boards of the kitchen floor. The range was hot, as always, and she put the kettle back on the hob and cut a slice of bread, buttered it and spread it with jam. She knew he would want it when he saw it.

He followed her through and unintentionally stood in her way.

“Where was it?” she asked.

“Highgate,” he said as she walked around him to get the mugs.

“Highgate? That’s not your area.”

“No, but they are sure this was arson, and the local station sent for us straightaway.”

Charlotte had deduced that much from the smell of smoke and the smudges on his clothes, but she forbore from mentioning it.

“It was the home of a doctor,” he went on. “He was out on a call, a woman in childbirth unexpectedly early, but his wife was at home. She had canceled a trip to the city at the last moment. It was she who was burned.”

The kettle was boiling and Charlotte heated the pot, then made the tea and set it to brew. He sat down gratefully and she sat opposite him.

“Was she young?” she said quietly.

“About forty.”

“What was her name?”

“Clemency Shaw.”

“Could it not have been an accident? There are lots of accidental fires, a candle dropped, a spark from an unguarded hearth, someone smoking a cigar and not putting it out properly.” She poured the tea and pushed one of the mugs towards him.

“On the curtains of four separate rooms, downstairs, at midnight?” He took his tea and sipped it and burned his tongue. He bit into the bread and jam quickly.

“Oh.” She thought of waking in the night to the roar and the heat, and knowing what it was, and that you were trapped. How much more dreadful to think someone else had lit it deliberately, knowing you were there, meaning to burn you to death. The thought was so fearful that for a moment she felt a little sick.

Pitt was too tired to notice.

“We don’t know yet if they meant to kill Mrs. Shaw-or her husband.” He tried the tea again.

She realized he must have felt all that she was now imagining. His mind would have conjured the same pictures, only more vividly; he had seen the charred rubble, the heat still radiating from it, the smoke still filling the air and stinging the eyes and throat.

“You can’t do any more tonight, Thomas. She isn’t in any pain now, and you cannot touch the grief,” she said gently. “There is always somebody hurting somewhere, and we cannot take their pain.” She rose to her feet again. “It doesn’t help.” She brushed his hand with hers as she passed. “I’ll get a bowl of hot water and you can wash. Then come to bed. It will be morning soon enough.”

Pitt left as soon as he had eaten breakfast, and Charlotte began the routine of domestic chores. The children, Jemima and Daniel, were seen off to their respective lessons at the same school along the road, and Gracie the maid began the dusting and sweeping. The heavy work, scrubbing floors, beating the carpets and carrying the coal and coke for the cooker, was done by Mrs. Hoare, who came in three days a week.

Charlotte resumed the ironing, and when she had finished that, began on pastry baking, the daily making of bread, and was about to begin washing and preparing jars for jam when there was a clatter at the door. Gracie dropped her broom and ran to answer it, and returned a moment later breathless, her thin little face alight with excitement.

“Oh, ma’am, it’s Lady Ashworth back-I mean, Mrs. Radley-back from ’er ’oneymoon-an’ lookin’ so grand-an’ ’appy.”

Indeed, Emily was only a few steps behind, laden with beautiful parcels wrapped in paper and ribbons, and swirling huge skirts of noisy taffeta in a glorious shade of pale water green. Her fair hair showed in the fine curls Charlotte had envied since childhood, and her skin was rosy fair from sun and pleasure.

She dropped everything on the kitchen table, ignoring the jars, and threw her arms around Charlotte, hugging her so fiercely she almost lost her balance.

“Oh, I have missed you,” she said exuberantly. “It’s wonderful to be home again. I’ve got so much to tell you, I couldn’t have borne it if you had been out. I haven’t had any letters from you for ages-of course I haven’t had any letters at all since we left Rome. It is so boring at sea-unless there is a scandal or something among the passengers. And there wasn’t. Charlotte, how can anyone spend all their lives playing bezique and baccarat and swapping silly stories with each other, and seeing who has the newest bustle or the most elegant hair? I was nearly driven mad by it.” She disengaged herself and sat down on one of the kitchen chairs.

Gracie was standing rooted to the spot, her eyes huge, her imagination whirling as she pictured ships full of card-playing aristocrats with marvelous clothes. Her broom was still propped against the wall in the passageway and her duster stuffed in the waist of her apron.

“Here!” Emily picked up the smallest of the packages and offered it to her. “Gracie, I brought you a shawl from Naples.”

Gracie was overcome. She stared at Emily as if she had materialized by magic in front of her. She was too overwhelmed even to speak. Her small hands locked onto the package so tightly it was fortunate it was fabric, or it might have broken.

“Open it!” Emily commanded.

At last Gracie found words. “Fer me, my lady? It’s fer me?”

“Of course it’s for you,” Emily told her. “When you go to church, or out walking, you must put it ’round your shoulders, and when someone admires you, tell them it came from the Bay of Naples and was a gift from a friend.”

“Oh-” Gracie undid the paper with fumbling fingers, then as the ripple of blue, gold and magenta silk fell out, let her breath go in a sigh of ecstasy. Suddenly she recalled her duty and shot off back to the hallway and her broom, clutching her treasure.

Charlotte smiled with a lift of happiness that would probably not be exceeded by any other gift Emily might bring, even for Jemima or Daniel.

“That was very thoughtful,” she said quietly.

“Nonsense.” Emily dismissed it, a trifle embarrassed herself. She had inherited a respectable fortune from her first husband, the shawl had cost a trifle-it was so small a thing to give so much pleasure. She spread out the other parcels and found the one with Charlotte’s name on it. “Here-please open it. The rest are for Thomas and the children. Then tell me everything. What have you done since your last letter? Have you had any adventures? Have you met anyone interesting, or scandalous? Are you working on a case?”

Charlotte smiled sweetly and benignly, and ignoring the questions, opened the parcel, laying aside the wrapping paper neatly, both to tantalize Emily and because it was far too pretty to tear. She would keep it and use it at Christmas. Inside were three trailing bouquets of handmade silk flowers that were so lush and magnificent she gasped with amazement when she saw them. They would make the most ordinary hat look fit for a duchess, or in the folds of a skirt make a simple taffeta dress into a ball gown. One was in pastel pinks, one blazing reds, and the third all the shades between flamingo and flame.