He liked Pitt, he had to admit that, in spite of not wanting to, not agreeing with him over dozens of things. He had disapproved violently of Pitt’s appointment. He was not a gentleman and had no more right to expect the rest of them to obey him than any other ordinary policeman had. But on the other hand he had been reasonable—most of the time. He was eccentric, took a lot of getting used to.
But for better or worse, Tellman was part of Pitt’s life. He had sat at their table too often, shared too many cases, good and bad. And there was Gracie.
“Yes, of course I will,” he said with his mouth full of cake.
“Yer goin’ ter foller this Remus?” she pressed. “ ’E’s onter it … whatever it is. Mrs. Pitt’s tryin’ ter find out more about Mr. Fetters, but she don’t ’ave nothin’ yet. I’ll tell yer if she does.” She looked tired and frightened. “Yer won’t stop, will yer?” she insisted. “No matter wot! There’s nob’dy ter do it but us.”
“I told you,” he said, meeting her eyes steadily. “I’ll find out! Now, eat some of your cake. You look like a fourpenny rabbit! And pour the tea!”
“It in’t brewed yet.” But she poured it anyway.
CHARLOTTE OPENED the morning newspaper more out of loneliness than any real interest in the political events which filled it as the various parties prepared for the coming election. They were very hard on Mr. Gladstone, berating him for ignoring all issues except Irish Home Rule and apparently abandoning any effort towards achieving the eight-hour working day. But she did not expect the newspapers to be fair.
There was tragic news of a railway crash at Guisley, in the north. Two people had been killed and several injured. Doctors were on their way.
The New Oriental Bank Corporation had been compelled to withdraw funds and suspend certain payments. The price of silver was seriously down. They had sustained losses in Melbourne and Singapore. The liquidation of the Gatling Gun Company had affected them badly. A hurricane in Mauritius was the crowning blow.
She did not read the rest of it. Her eye moved down the page, and in spite of herself was caught by the dark type announcing that John Adinett was to be executed at eight o’clock that morning.
Instinctively she glanced at the kitchen clock. It was a quarter to eight. She wished she had not opened the paper until later, even half an hour would have been enough. Why had she not thought of that, counted the days and been careful not to look?
Adinett had killed Martin Fetters, and the more Charlotte learned about Fetters the more she believed she would have liked him. He had been an enthusiast, a man who grasped at life with courage and enjoyment, who loved its color and variety. He had a passion to learn about others, and it seemed from his writings that he was equally eager to share what he knew so that anyone else could see the same enchantment he did. His death was a loss not only to his wife—and to archaeology and to curators of ancient artefacts—but to anyone who knew him and to the world in general.
Still, ending the life of Adinett did not improve anything. She doubted it would even deter anyone else from future crime. It was the certainty of punishment that stopped people from killing, not the severity. Each one presumed he or she would get away with it, so the penalty was irrelevant.
Gracie came in from the back door, where she had been collecting herrings from the fishmonger’s boy.
“These’ll do dinner for us,” she said briskly, swirling through the kitchen and putting the dish into the larder. She continued talking to herself absentmindedly about what would do for which meal, how much flour or potatoes they had left, and if the onions would last. They had used a lot of onions lately to flavor very plain food.
She had been preoccupied recently. Charlotte thought it had to do with Sergeant Tellman. She knew he had been at the house the other evening, even though she had not seen him herself. She had heard his voice and deliberately not intruded. Having Tellman sitting in the kitchen, exactly as if Pitt were still at home, made her sense of loneliness even more overwhelming.
She was happy for Gracie, and she was very well aware, rather more than Gracie was herself, that Tellman was fighting a losing battle against his feelings for her. Just at the moment she found it difficult to make herself seem cheerful about anything. Missing Pitt was hard enough. The evenings seemed endless when she was not listening for his step. There was no one to tell about her day, even if it had been entirely uneventful. The high point might have been something as trivial as a new flower in the garden, or a piece of gossip, perhaps a joke. And if things somehow went wrong, perhaps she would not mention it, but the knowledge that she could made all the irritation seem temporary, something that could be ignored. It was odd how happiness unshared was only half as great, and yet any kind of misfortune alone was doubled.
But far worse than loneliness was her anxiety for Pitt, the ordinary day-to-day worry as to whether he was eating properly, was warm enough, had anyone to wash his clothes. Had he found somewhere even remotely comfortable and kind to live? The real misery in her mind was for his safety, not only from anarchists, dynamiters or whomever he was looking for, but from his secret and far more powerful enemies in the Inner Circle.
The clock chimed and she was dimly aware of it. Gracie riddled the stove and put more coal on the fire.
Charlotte tried not to think, not to imagine, and during the day she was quite good at it. But at night, the moment her mind was blank, the fears came rushing in. She was emotionally exhausted and physically not tired enough. She had never been to Spitalfields, but she pictured it all too easily, narrow dark streets with figures lurking in doorways, everything damp and flickering with movement, as if it were only waiting to catch the unwary.
She woke too many times in the night, aware of every creak in the house, of the empty space beside her in the bed, wondering where he was, if he were awake also, feeling his loneliness.
Sometimes the fact that she had to pretend she was all right for the children’s sake seemed an impossible task, at other times it was a discipline for which she was grateful. How many women down the centuries had pretended while their men were away at war, exploring unknown lands, at sea carrying goods over the oceans, or simply had run away because they were feckless and disloyal? At least she knew Pitt was none of these things and he would return when he could—or when she could find some answer to why Adinett had murdered Martin Fetters that was strong enough so even the members of the Inner Circle would have to believe it and the world in general would have no doubt left.
She closed the newspaper and pushed her chair away from the table just as Daniel and Jemima came into the room, eager for breakfast before going to school. There would be plenty to do today, and if not, then she would find it, or create it.
The kitchen clock rang a single chime. It was a quarter past eight. It had rung eight o’ clock and she had not heard it. John Adinett would be dead now, his body, broken-necked—like Martin Fetters—being removed, ready for an unhallowed grave, and his soul to answer for his acts before the judge who knows all things.
She smiled at the children and began to prepare breakfast.
It was just after ten o’clock and she was sorting out the linen cupboard for the second time that week when Gracie came upstairs to tell her that Mrs. Radley had called—except that that was unnecessary, because Emily Radley, Charlotte’s sister, was only a step behind Gracie. Emily looked devastatingly elegant in a dark green riding habit with a small, dark, hard-brimmed hat with a high crown, and a jacket cut so superbly it flattered every line of her slender figure. She was a trifle flushed from exertion, and her fair hair had come loose and had gone into curls in the damp air.