Then with horror paralyzing him quite literally, leaving him frozen on the step, he remembered the secret of these old warrens-and deliberately let go the rail and fell backwards down to the floor, bruising and battering himself, just as the trapdoor came down with its spearsharp embedded blades slicing the air where he had been the instant before, followed by her shrill scream of laughter.
He scrambled to his feet, blood surging through him, pain forgotten, and swarmed up the stairs, striking his hand between the blades and shooting the trap open. He fell up and out of the hole onto the attic floor only a yard away from where she crouched. Before she had time even to register shock he hit her as hard as he could with his clenched fist-and all the stored up anger, the pain and loss of her victims-and she rolled over and lay senseless. He did not give a damn about the difficulty of getting her down, or even whether his superiors would charge him with breaking her jaw. He had Clarabelle Mapes, and he was satisfied.
13
It was late the following morning when Pitt returned to Cardington Crescent. The euphoria of capturing Clarabelle Mapes had vanished, and in the dull, warm daylight he remembered that he had gone to Tortoise Lane to find out what Sybilla March had wanted there. And he had learned nothing. No amount of questioning was going to get anything more from Clarabelle, and none of the children had ever seen a lady like Sybilla.
The butler let him in and he asked that Charlotte be sent for. He was permitted to wait in the morning room. It was oppressive, curtains half drawn, pictures draped with black, black crepe fluttering in unlikely places like cobwebs stained with soot.
Charlotte came in, dressed in exquisitely fashionable lavender; it flickered through his mind that it was a gown of Aunt Vespasia’s altered a little at the bosom to fit Charlotte. Vespasia never wore black, even for death.
Charlotte was pale; there were smudges of tiredness under her eyes. But her face lit up with pleasure as she saw him, and he found it extraordinarily good. In a sense deeper than walls or possessions, wherever she was, he would be at home.
“Oh, Thomas, I’m so glad you’ve come,” she said immediately. “Everything is getting worse. We are looking at each other with terrible thoughts in our eyes and strings of words we want to mean, and can’t.” She turned and closed the door behind her and stood leaning against it, staring at him, biting her lips, her hands clenched tightly. “It isn’t Tassie. I’ve discovered what she does at night, where she goes and gets splashed with blood.”
A monstrous anger welled up inside him, sharp as a dagger, because it was principally fear, not only for her but for himself, fear of losing all that was most precious to him, all the deep, warm safety that supported every other courage and dream he held.
“You what?” he shouted involuntarily.
She closed her eyes, her face tight. “Don’t shout, Thomas.”
He strode forward and took her by the arm, pulling her away from the door and around to face him in the center of the room. He was hurting her and he knew it.
“You what?” he repeated fiercely. The very fact that she had remained by the door instead of coming to him and kissing him, that she had not replied with any righteous anger of her own, meant that she was conscious of her guilt. “You followed her!” he accused with certainty.
Her eyes opened wide and there was no apology in them.
“I had to find out where she went,” she explained. “And it was perfectly all right-she goes to help deliver babies! A lot of poor women, or unmarried women-girls-can’t afford a midwife. That’s why so many die. Thomas, it’s a wonderful thing she’s doing, and the people love her.”
He was too angry at the idiotic risk she had taken to be relieved that Tassie’s conduct was so innocent, where he had feared such horror. Without realizing it he was shaking Charlotte.
“You followed her to some woman’s home, alone, at night?” He was still shouting. “You … you fool! You imbecile! She could have taken you anywhere! What if she had been responsible for the woman whose body was found in bloody pieces in Bloomsbury? You might have been the next one!” He was so furious he could have slapped her, as one does a beloved child who has just escaped falling under the carriage wheels. In the rush of relief one dares to imagine all the possible dangers so narrowly missed. Memory of Clarabelle Mapes and the appalling labyrinth he had so lately left were stronger in him than this comfortable, civilized house. “You stupid, irresponsible woman! Do I have to lock you up before I can leave the house safely and be sure you’ll behave yourself like an adult?”
What had begun as guilt in her was now overridden by a sense of injury. He was being unjust and she was correspondingly angry in her own right. “You are hurting me,” she said coldly.
“You deserve to be thrashed!” he retaliated without altering his grip in the slightest.
She answered by kicking him sharply in the shins with the toe of her boot. He was so surprised he let go of her with a gasp and she stepped back smartly.
“Don’t you dare treat me like a child, Thomas Pitt!” she said furiously. “I am not one of your dainty ladies who do nothing all day and can be ordered to their rooms whenever you don’t like what they say. Emily is my sister, and she’s not going to be hanged for killing George if there is anything at all that I can do to help it. Tassie is in love with Mungo Hare, Beamish’s curate-he helps her with the deliveries-and she is going to marry him.”
He clung to the only other example of male reason and dominion he could think of.
“Her father won’t let her. He’ll never allow it.”
“Oh, yes, he will!” she retorted. “I’ve promised him you won’t tell anyone about his affair with Sybilla if he agrees, and if he doesn’t I shall make thoroughly sure all Society knows of it in detail. He’ll give Tassie his blessing, I assure you.”
“Do you?” He was incensed. “You take a great deal for granted! And what if I don’t choose to honor this promise you gave so freely on my behalf?”
She hesitated, swallowing hard, then met his eyes. “Then Tassie will not be able to marry the man she loves, because he is not socially suitable and has no money,” she said bluntly. “She’ll remain single and live here in bondage to that selfish old woman, keeping her company till she dies, and then doing the same for her father. Either that or she’ll have to marry someone she doesn’t love.”
She did not need to add that that was what might well have happened to her, had her father not been of a more amenable disposition than Eustace, and had her mother not pleaded her cause with force. Pitt was aware of it, and the knowledge robbed him of the justification he wanted. She had done exactly what he would have wished; it was the fact that he had been preempted that enraged him, not the act. But to say so aloud would be ridiculous- in fact, the complaint was ridiculous.
He chose to change the subject entirely, and play his best card. “I have solved the murder of the corpse in the Bloomsbury churchyard,” he said instead. “And captured the murderess, after a chase, with enough evidence to hang her.”
Charlotte was impressed, and she let her amazement and admiration show in her face. “I didn’t think that would be possible,” she said honestly. “How did you do it?”
He sat down sideways on the arm of one of the hide chairs. He was stiff after the bruising he had taken chasing Clarabelle Mapes, and he was surprisingly sore.
“It was a woman who kept a baby farm.”
She frowned. “A what?”
“A baby farm.” He hated having to tell her of such things, but she had chosen to know. “A woman takes out discreet advertisements saying that she loves children and will be happy to care for any infant whose mother, due to circumstances of ill health or other commitment, is unable to care for it herself. Often they add that sickly children are particularly welcomed and will be nursed as if their own. A small financial provision is required, of course, for necessities.”
Charlotte was puzzled. “There must be many women only too glad to avail themselves of such a service. It sounds like a charitable thing to do. Why do you say it with such disgust? Too many women have to work and can’t care for their children, especially if they are in domestic service, and the child is illegitimate-” She stopped. “Why?”
