Highgate Rise (27 page)

For all the possible motives to murder Shaw, including money, love, hate and revenge (if indeed someone believed him guilty of medical neglect, Theophilus Worlingham or anyone else), her thoughts still returned to Clemency and her battle against slum profiteers.

She was up to her elbows in suds, her pinafore soaked, and her hair falling out of its pins, when the front doorbell rang. Fishmonger’s boy, she thought. Gracie will get it.

A moment later Gracie came flying back up the corridor, her feet clattering on the linoleum. She swung around the kitchen doorway, breathless, her eyes wide with amazement, awe and horror as she saw her mistress.

“Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould!” she said squeakily. “She’s right ’ere be’ind me, ma’am! I couldn’t put ’er in the parlor, ma’am; she wouldn’t stay!”

And indeed Great-Aunt Vespasia was on Gracie’s heels, elegant and very upright in a dark teal gown embroidered in silver on the lapels, and carrying a silver-topped cane. These days she was seldom without it. Her eyes took in the kitchen, scrubbed table, newly blacked range, rows of blue-and-white china on the dresser, earthenware polished brown and cream, steaming tubs in the scullery beyond, and Charlotte like a particularly harassed and untidy laundry maid.

Charlotte froze. Gracie was already transfixed to the spot as Vespasia swept past her.

Vespasia regarded the mangle with curiosity. “What in heaven’s name is that contraption?” she inquired with her eyebrows raised. “It looks like something that should have belonged to the Spanish Inquisition.”

“A mangle,” Charlotte replied, brushing her hair back with her arm. “You push the clothes through it and it squeezes out the soap and water.”

“I am greatly relieved to hear it.” Vespasia sat down at the table, unconsciously arranging her skirts with one hand. She looked at the mangle again. “Very commendable. But what are you going to do about this second fire in Highgate? I presume you are going to do something? Whatever the reasons for it, it does not alter the fact that Clemency Shaw is dead, and deserves a better epitaph than that she was murdered in error for her husband.”

Charlotte wiped her hands and came to the table, ignoring the sheets still soaking in the tub. “I am not sure that she was. Would you like a cup of tea?”

“I would. What makes you believe that? Why should anyone murder poor Amos Lindsay, if not in an attempt to get rid of Shaw more successfully than last time?”

Charlotte glanced at Gracie, who at last moved from the doorway and reached for the kettle.

“Maybe they were afraid Shaw had realized who they were, or that he might realize?” she suggested, sitting down opposite Vespasia. “He may well have all the information, if he knew how to add it up and see the pattern. After all, he knew what Clemency was doing; she may have left papers which he had seen. In fact, that may be why they chose fire. To destroy not only Clemency but all the evidence she had collected.”

Vespasia straightened a little. “Indeed, that is something I had not considered. It is foolish, because it makes no difference to her, poor creature, but I should prefer not to believe she did not even die in her own right. If Shaw knows already who it is, why does he not say so? Surely he has not yet worked it out, and certainly has no proof. You do not suggest he is in any kind of collusion with them?”

“No—”

Behind Charlotte, Gracie was rather nervously heating the teapot and spooning in tea from the caddie. She had never prepared anything for someone of Great-Aunt Vespasia’s importance
before. She wished to make it exactly right, and she did not know what exactly right might be. Also she was listening to everything that was said. She was horrified by and very proud of Pitt’s occupation, and of Charlotte’s occasional involvement.

“I assume Thomas has already thought of everything that we have,” Vespasia continued. “Therefore for us to pursue that line would be fruitless—”

Gracie brought the tea, set it on the table, the cup rattling and slopping in her shaking hands. She made a half curtsey to Vespasia.

“Thank you.” Vespasia acknowledged it graciously. She was not in the habit of thanking servants, but this was obviously different. The child was in a state of nervous awe.

Gracie blushed and withdrew to take up the laundry where Charlotte had left off. Vespasia wiped out her saucer with the napkin Charlotte handed her.

Charlotte made her decision.

“I shall learn what I can about Clemency’s work, who she met, what course she followed from the time she began to care so much, and somewhere I shall cross the path of whoever caused these fires.”

Vespasia sipped her tea. “And how do you intend to do it so you survive to share your discoveries with the rest of us?”

“By saying nothing whatever about reform,” Charlotte replied, her plan very imperfectly formed. “I shall begin with the local parish—” Her mind went back to her youth, when she and her sisters had trailed dutifully behind Caroline doing “good works,” visiting the sick or elderly, offering soup and preserves and kind words. It was part of a gentlewoman’s life. In all probability Clemency had done the same, and then seen a deeper pain and not turned away from it with complacency or resignation, but questioned and began the fight.

Vespasia was looking at her critically. “Do you imagine that will be sufficient to safeguard you?”

“If he murders every woman who is involved in visiting or inquiring after the parish poor, he will need a bigger conflagration
than the great fire of London,” Charlotte replied with decision. “Anyway,” she added rather more practically, “I shall be a long way from the kind of person who owns the properties. I shall simply start where Clemency started. Long before I discover whatever someone murdered to keep, I shall draw other people in, you and Emily—and of course Thomas.” Then suddenly she thought she might be being presumptuous. Vespasia had not said she wished to be involved in such a way. Charlotte looked at her anxiously.

Vespasia sipped her tea again and her eyes were bright over the rim of her cup.

“Emily and I already have plans,” she said, setting the cup down in its saucer and looking over Charlotte’s shoulder at Gracie, who was self-consciously scrubbing at the washboard, her shoulders hunched. “If you think it advisable not to go alone, leave the children with your mother for a few days and take your maid with you.”

Grade stopped in mid-motion, laundry dripping in the sink, her back bent, her hands in the air. She let out a long sigh of exquisite anticipation. She was going to detect—with the mistress! It would be the biggest adventure of her entire life!

Charlotte was incredulous. “Gracie!”

“And why not?” Vespasia inquired. “It would appear quite natural. I shall lend you my second carriage and Percival to drive it for you. There is no point in doing it if you do not do it as well as possible. I am concerned in the matter. My admiration for Clemency Shaw is considerable. I shall require you to inform me of your findings, if any. Naturally you will also tell Thomas. I have no intention of allowing the whole thing to be swallowed up in public assumption that the intended victim was Stephen Shaw, and Clemency’s death can be dismissed as an error, however tragic. Oh!” Her face fell with sudden awful comprehension. “Do you think it is conceivable that that is why poor Lindsay was murdered? So we might well assume Clemency’s death was unintended? How cold-bloodedly deliberate.”

“I am going to find out,” Charlotte said quietly with a
little shiver. “As soon as Percival arrives with the carriage, I shall take the children to Mama’s, and we shall begin.”

“Fetch what they require,” Vespasia commanded. “And I shall take them with me on my return. I have no errands until this evening when the House rises.”

Charlotte got to her feet. “Somerset Carlisle?”

“Just so. If we are to fight against the slum profiteers, we require to know the exact state of the law, and what it is most reasonable to expect we may achieve. One may assume that Clemency did much the same, and discovered some weakness in their position. We need to know what it was.”

Gracie was scrubbing so hard the board was rattling in the tub.

“Stop that now, child!” Vespasia ordered. “I can hardly hear myself think! Put it through that contraption and hang it up. I am sure it is clean enough. For goodness sake, they are only bed sheets! Then when you have done that, go and tidy yourself up and put on a coat, and a hat if you have one. Your mistress will require you to accompany her to Highgate.”

“Yes ma’am!” Gracie heaved the entire lot of linen up, standing on tiptoe to get it clear of the water, dropped it in the clean water in the opposite tub, pulled the plug, then began to pay it through the mangle, winding like fury in her excitement.

Vespasia seemed completely unaware that she had just given a complete hour’s instructions to someone else’s servant. It seemed common sense, and that was sufficient to justify it.

“Go upstairs to the nursery and pack whatever is necessary,” she continued, speaking to Charlotte in almost the same tone of voice. “For several days. You do not want to be anxious for them while you are endeavoring to unravel this matter.”

Charlotte obeyed with a very slight smile. She did not resent being ordered around; it was what she would have done anyway, and the familiarity with which Vespasia did it
was a kind of affection, also an unspoken trust that they were involved in the affair together and desired the same end.

Upstairs she found Jemima solemnly practicing her writing. She had progressed from the stage of rather carefully drawing letters and now she did them with some abandon, confident she was making words, and of their meaning. Sums she was considerably less fond of.

Daniel was still struggling, and with immeasurable superiority now and again Jemima gave him assistance, explaining carefully precisely what he must do, and why. He bore it with placid good nature, imitating her round script and concealing both his ignorance and his admiration behind a frown of attention. It can be very difficult being four and having a sister two years older.

“You are going to stay with Grandmama for a few days,” Charlotte informed them with a bright smile. “You will enjoy it very much. You can take your lessons with you if you wish, but you don’t have to do them more than an hour or two in the mornings. I shall explain why you are not at school. If you are good, Grandmama might take you for a carriage ride, to the zoo perhaps?”

She had their immediate cooperation, as she had intended. “You will be going with Great-Aunt Vespasia, who is ready to take you as soon as you are packed. She is a very important lady indeed, and you must do everything exactly as she tells you.”

“Who is Great Vepsia?” Daniel asked curiously, his face puckered up trying to remember. “I only ’member Aunt Emily.”

“She is Aunt Emily’s aunt,” Charlotte simplified for the sake of clarity, and to avoid mentioning George, whom Jemima at least could recall quite clearly. She did not understand death, except in relation to small animals, but she knew loss.

Daniel seemed satisfied, and rapidly Charlotte set about putting into a Gladstone bag everything they would require. When it was fastened she made sure they were clean and wrapped up in coats and that their gloves were attached to their cuffs, their shoes buttoned, their hair brushed and their
scarves tied. Then she took them downstairs to where Vespasia was waiting, still seated in the kitchen chair.

They greeted her very formally, Daniel half a step behind Jemima, but as she took out her lorgnette to regard them, they were so fascinated by it they forgot to be shy. Charlotte had no qualms as she watched them mount into the carriage, with considerable assistance from the footman, and depart along the street.

Gracie was so excited she could hardly hold her comb in her hand to tidy her hair, and her fingers slipped and made a knot in the strings of her bonnet which she would probably have to cut with scissors ever to get it off again. But what did it matter? She was going with the mistress to help her detect! She had very little clear idea of what it would involve, but it would absolutely without question be marvelously interesting and very important. She might learn secrets and make discoveries concerning issues of such magnitude that people were prepared to commit murder in their cause. And possibly it would even be dangerous.

Of course she would walk a couple of steps behind, and only speak when she was invited to; but she would watch and listen all the time, and notice everything that anyone said or did, even the way their faces looked. Maybe she would notice something vital that no one else did.

It was some two hours later when Charlotte and Gracie descended from the second carriage. They were handed down by Percival, to Gracie’s intense delight; she had never ridden in a proper carriage before, still less been assisted by another servant. They walked up the path to St. Anne’s Church side by side at Charlotte’s insistence, in hope of finding someone there who might guide them in matters of parish relief, and thus to a more precise knowledge of Clemency Shaw’s interest in housing.

Charlotte had given the matter a good deal of thought. She did not wish to be open about her intentions and it had been necessary to construct a believable story. She had tussled with the problem without success until Gracie, biting her lip
and not wishing to be impertinent, had suggested they inquire about a relative who had been thrown on the parish as a result of widowhood, which they had just heard about and were anxious to help.

Charlotte had thought this so unlikely to be true that even Hector Clitheridge would doubt it, but then Gracie had pointed out that her Aunt Bertha had been in just such a predicament, and Gracie had indeed heard about it only two weeks ago. Then Charlotte realized what she meant, and seized upon the idea instantly.

“O’ course me Aunt Bertha din’t live in ’Ighgate,” Gracie said honestly. “She lived in Clerkenwell—but then they dunno that.”

And so after learning that there was no one in at the parsonage, they repaired to the church of St. Anne’s itself, and found Lally Clitheridge arranging flowers in the vestry. She turned at the sound of the door opening, a look of welcome on her face. Then she recognized Charlotte and the smile froze. She kept the Michaelmas daisy in her hand and did not move from the bench.