Highgate Rise (18 page)

5

C
HARLOTTE DREADED
Grandmama’
S
attending the funeral of Clemency Shaw, but long as she considered the matter, she devised no way of preventing her. When she called upon them next she did suggest tentatively that perhaps in the tragic circumstances it would be better if the affair were as private as possible. The old lady gave that the contemptuous dismissal it deserved.

“Don’t be absurd, child.” She looked at Charlotte down her nose. This was an achievement in itself since she was considerably shorter than Charlotte, even when they were both seated, as they now were in the withdrawing room by the fire. “Sometimes I despair of your intelligence,” she added for good measure. “You display absolutely not a jot at times. Everyone will be there. Do you really imagine people will pass up such an opportunity to gossip at domestic disaster and make distasteful speculations? It is just the time when your friends should show a bold face and make it apparent to everyone that they are with you and support you in your distress—and believe you perfectly innocent of—of anything at all.”

It was such a ridiculous argument Charlotte did not bother
to make a reply. It would change nothing except Grandmama’s temper, and that for the worse.

Emily did not go, to her chagrin. But dearly as she would like to have, she acknowledged that her motive was purely curiosity, and she herself felt it would be indecent. The more she thought of Clemency Shaw, the more she became determined to do all she could that her work might continue, as the best tribute she could pay her, and she would not spoil it by an act of self-indulgence.

However she did offer to lend Charlotte a black dress. It was certainly a season old, but nonetheless extraordinarily handsome, cut in black velvet and stitched with an embroidery of leaves and ferns on the lapels of the jacket and around the hem of the skirt. Tacked in at the back was the name of the maker, Maison Worth, the most fashionable house in Europe.

Bless Emily!

And also offered was the use of her carriage so Charlotte would not be obliged either to hire one or to ride on the omnibus to Cater Street and go with Caroline and the old lady.

She had shared with Pitt both the few scraps of definite information and the large and very general impressions she had gained.

He was sitting in the armchair beside the parlor fire, his feet stretched out on the fender, watching through half-closed eyes the flames jumping in the grate.

“I shall go to the funeral,” she added in a tone that was only half a statement and left room for him to contradict if he wished—not because she thought he would, but as a matter of policy.

He looked up, and as far as she could judge in the firelight his eyes were bright, his expression one of tolerance, even a curious kind of conspiracy.

“I shall be in some respects in a better position than you to observe,” she went on.” After all, to most of them I shall be another mourner and they will assume I am there to grieve—which the more I know of Clemency Shaw, the more
truly I am. Whereas those who know you will think of the police, and remember that it was murder, and that there is so much more yet ahead of them that will be exceedingly unpleasant, if not actually tragic.”

“You don’t need to convince me,” he said with a smile, and she realized he was very gently laughing at her.

She relaxed and leaned back in her chair, reaching out her foot to touch his, toe to toe.

“Thank you.”

“Be careful,” he warned. “Remember, it is not just grief—it is murder.”

“I will,” she promised. “I’m going in Emily’s carriage.”

He grinned. “Of course.”

Charlotte was not by any means the first to arrive. As she alighted with Emily’s footman handing her down, she saw Josiah and Prudence Hatch ahead of her passing through the gate and up the path towards the vestry entrance. They were both dressed in black as one would expect, Josiah with his hat in his hand and the cold wind ruffling his hair. They walked side by side, staring straight in front of them, stiff backed. Even from behind, Charlotte could tell that they had quarreled over something and were each isolated in a cocoon of anger.

Ahead of them and passing through the doors as Charlotte crossed the pavement was Alfred Lutterworth, alone. Either Flora was not coming or she had accompanied someone else. It struck Charlotte as unusual. She would have to inquire, as discreetly as possible, after the cause.

She was welcomed at the door by a curate, probably in his late twenties, thin, rather homely of feature, but with such animation and concern in his expression that she warmed to him immediately.

“Good morning, ma’am.” He spoke quietly but without the reverential singsong which she always felt to be more a matter of show than of sincerity. “Where would you care to sit? Are you alone, or expecting someone?”

A thought ran through Charlotte’s mind to say she was
alone, but she resisted the temptation. “I am expecting my mother and grandmother—”

He moved to go with her. “Then perhaps you would like the pew here to the right? Did you know Mrs. Shaw well?” The innocence of his manner and the traces of grief in his face robbed his question of any offense.

“No,” she replied with complete honesty. “I knew her only by repute, but all I hear of her only quickens my admiration.” She saw the puzzlement in his eyes and hastened to clarify to a degree which surprised her. “My husband is in charge of the investigation into the fire. I took an interest in it, and learned from a friend who is a member of Parliament about the work Mrs. Shaw did to fight against the exploitation of the poor. She was very modest about it, but she had both courage and compassion of a remarkable degree. I wish to be here to pay my respects—” She stopped abruptly, seeing the distress in his face. Indeed he seemed to be far more moved by grief than were either of Clemency’s aunts, or her sister, when Charlotte had visited them two days before.

He mastered his feelings with difficulty, and did not apologize. She liked him the better for it. Why should one apologize for grief at a funeral? In silence he showed her to the pew, met her eyes once in a look for which words would have been unnecessary, then returned to the doorway, holding his head high.

He was just in time to greet Somerset Carlisle, looking thin and a trifle tired, and Great-Aunt Vespasia, wearing magnificent black with osprey feathers in her hat, sideswept at a marvelous angle, and a black gown of silk and barathea cut to exaggerate both her height and the elegance of her bearing. It was asymmetrical, as was the very ultimate in fashion. She carried an ebony stick with a silver handle, but refused to lean on it. She spoke very briefly to the curate, explained who she was, but not why she had chosen to come, and then walked past him with great dignity, took out her lorgnette and surveyed the body of the church. She saw Charlotte after only a moment, and lost further interest in anyone
else. She took Somerset Carlisle’s arm and instructed him to lead her to Charlotte’s pew, thus making it impossible for Caroline or Grandmama to join her when they arrived a few moments later.

Charlotte did not attempt to explain. She simply smiled with great sweetness, then bent her head in an attitude of prayer—to conceal her smile.

After several minutes she raised her eyes again, and saw well in front of her the white head of Amos Lindsay, and beside him Stephen Shaw. She could only imagine the turmoil of emotions that must be in him as he saw the agitated figure of Hector Clitheridge flapping about like a wounded crow. His wife was in handsome and serviceable black in the front row, trying to reassure him, alternately smiling and looking appropriately somber. The organ was playing slowly, either because the organist considered it the correct tempo for a funeral or because she could not find the notes. The result was a sense of uncertainty and a loss of rhythm.

The pews were filling up. Quinton Pascoe passed up the aisle, finding himself a seat as far as possible from John Dalgetty and his wife. Nowhere among the forest of black hats of every shape and decoration could Charlotte see any that looked as if they might belong to Celeste or Angeline Worlingham.

The organ changed pitch abruptly and the service began. Clitheridge was intensely nervous; his voice cracked into falsetto and back again. Twice he lost his place in what must surely be long-familiar passages and rumbled to regain himself, only making his mistake the more obvious. Charlotte ached for him, and heard Aunt Vespasia beside her sigh with exasperation. Somerset Carlisle buried his face in his hands, but whether he was thinking of Clemency, or the vicar, she did not know.

Charlotte found her own attention wandering. It was probably the safest thing to do; Clitheridge was unbearable, and the young curate was so full of genuine distress she found it too harrowing to look at him. Instead her eyes roamed upward over and across traceries of stone, plaques of long-dead
worthies, and eventually, with a jolt of returning memory, to the Worlingham window with its almost completed picture of the late bishop in the thin disguise of Jeremiah, surrounded by other patriarchs and topped by an angel. She recognized the bishop quite easily. The face was indistinct—the medium enforced it—but the thick curls of white hair, so like an aureole in the glass with the light shining through, was exactly like the portrait in the family hallway and it was unmistakable. It was a remarkably handsome memorial and must have cost a sizable sum. No wonder Josiah Hatch was proud of it.

At last the formal part of the service was over and with immense relief the final amen was said, and the congregation rose to follow the coffin out into the graveyard, where they all stood huddled in a bitter west wind while the body was interred.

Charlotte shivered and moved a little closer to Aunt Vespasia, and behind her half a step, to shield her from the gusts, which if the sky had been less clear, would surely have carried snow. She stared across the open grave with Clitheridge standing at the edge, his cassock whipping around his ankles and his face strained with embarrassment and apprehension. A couple of yards away Alfred Lutterworth was planted squarely, ignoring the cold, his face somber in reflection, his thoughts unreadable. Next to him, but several feet away, Stephen Shaw was folded in a mixture of private anger and grief, the emotion so deep in his face only the crudest of strangers would have intruded. Amos Lindsay stood silently at his elbow.

Josiah Hatch was taking control of the pallbearers. He was a sidesman and used to some responsibility. His expression was grim, but he did his duty meticulously and not a word or a movement was omitted or performed without ceremony. It was done to an exactness that honored the dead and preserved the importance above all of the litany and tradition of the church.

Clitheridge was obviously relieved to allow someone else to take over, however pedantic. Only the curate seemed less
than pleased. His bony features and wide mouth reflected some impatience that appeared to increase his grief.

Charlotte had been quite correct, there were about fifty people present, most of them men, and quite definitely neither Angeline nor Celeste Worlingham were among them; nor was Flora Lutterworth.

“Why are the Worlinghams not here?” she whispered to Aunt Vespasia as they turned at last, cold to the bone, and made their way back to the carriages for the short ride to the funeral supper. She had not been specifically invited, but she fully intended to go. They passed Pitt standing near the gate, so discreet as to be almost invisible. He might have been one of the pallbearers or an undertaker’s assistant, except that his gloves were odd, there was a bulge in one pocket of his coat, and his boots were brown. She smiled at him quickly as they passed, and saw an answering warmth in his face, then continued on her way to the carriage.

“I daresay the bishop did not consider it suitable,” Aunt Vespasia replied. “Many people don’t. Quite idiotic, of course. Women are every bit as strong as men in coping with tragedy and the more distressing weaknesses of the flesh. In fact in many cases stronger—they have to be, or none of us would have more than one child, and certainly never care for the sick!”