“Well, there has been information disappearing from the Foreign Office,” Pitt said, his voice rising in frustration, “and the burglary at the York house needs a great deal more explanation than it’s had so far.”
“Then get on with it, man!” Ballarat snapped. “Either find out which friend it was, or better still, prove it wasn’t a friend at all! Clear Mrs. Veronica York of the slightest possible mark against her character, and we’ll all be thanked.”
Pitt opened his mouth to retort, but saw the pointlessness of it reflected in Ballarat’s black eyes. He swallowed his temper. “Yes sir.”
He went out with his mind seething. Then the cold air hit his face, stinging with rain, and he was jostled by passersby on the dark pavements. He heard carriages clattering by, saw shops with windows lit and gas lamps burning in the streets, smelled chestnuts roasting on a brazier. Pitt heard someone singing a carol, and he was overtaken by other things. He imagined his children’s faces on Christmas morning. They were old enough now to be excited; already Daniel asked every night if it was Christmas tomorrow yet, and Jemima, with a six-year-old’s elder-sister superiority, told him he must wait. Pitt smiled. He had made a wooden train for Daniel, with an engine and six carriages. He had bought a doll for Jemima, and Charlotte was sewing dresses, petticoats, and a fine bonnet for her. Lately he had noticed that when he came in unexpectedly she pushed her sewing in a bundle under a cushion, and looked up far too innocently at him.
His smile broadened. He knew she was making something for him. He was particularly pleased with what he had found for her, a pink alabaster vase about nine inches high, simple and perfect. It had taken him seven weeks to save up enough. The only problem was Emily, Charlotte’s widowed sister. She had married for love, but her husband George had had both title and wealth. After the shock of her bereavement last summer it was only natural that she and her five-year-old son, Edward, should come on Christmas Eve to spend the holiday with her sister.
But what could Pitt possibly afford to give Emily that would please her?
He had still not solved the problem when he arrived at his front door. Pitt took off his wet coat and hung it on the hook, undid his sodden boots, and started towards the kitchen in his stocking feet.
Jemima met him halfway along the passage, cheeks flushed, eyes shining.
“Papa, isn’t it Christmas yet? Isn’t it even Christmas Eve?”
“Not yet.” He swung her up into his arms and hugged her.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, my sweetheart, I’m sure.” He carried her into the kitchen and put her down. Gracie, the maid, was upstairs with Daniel. Charlotte was alone, surveying the final touches to her Christmas cake, a wisp of hair curling over her brow. She smiled at him. “Any interesting cases?”
“No. An old case that will go nowhere.” He kissed her once; then kissed her again with growing warmth.
“Nothing?” she persisted.
“Nothing. It’s only a formality.”
2
AT FIRST CHARLOTTE accepted Pitt’s brief dismissal of his new case, because she was preoccupied with Christmas and all the arrangements. There was so much that had to be done in the kitchen: the hiding of carefully wrapped threepenny pieces in the plum pudding, the making of sweets, jam for tarts and chopped fruits for mince pies. And there were presents to finish and wrap in colored paper. On top of that, everything must be kept secret, to be a surprise on the day.
At any other time she would have been more inquisitive, and considerably more persistent. In the past Charlotte had involved herself in some of Thomas’s most complex and personally tragic cases, drawn in by deliberate curiosity or outrage at some event. It was only last summer that her sister Emily’s husband had been murdered, and that case had seemed endless. Emily herself had been the main suspect. George had had a short- lived but intense affair with Sybilla March, and Emily was the only one who knew it had ended the night before he died. Who could be expected to believe her when all the evidence was to the contrary? And Emily, in her efforts to win back George’s attention, had been so indiscreet with Jack Radley that she had deliberately given everyone the impression that she herself was romantically involved.
Charlotte had never been so afraid as during that period, nor felt true tragedy as close. When their elder sister Sarah had died it had been a loss, sudden and stark, but imposed from outside, a chance event that might have stricken anyone. George’s death was different. It had seemed a failure from within; all their assumptions about safety and love had been shattered in a simple, reverberating act, touching everything and marring it all with doubt. What lack in Emily, what emptiness in the trust she had thought so deep, had turned George to another woman with such passion? Their reconciliation after had been so brief, so delicate and so private it had not had time to blossom, and no one else had known of it. And the next morning George was dead.
There had been no pity, no attention of concerned friends as when Sarah died. Rather there had been suspicion, even hate, all sorts of old enmities and mistakes raked up and added to in the fear that blame would run over and scald everyone, leaving other people’s secrets and weaknesses exposed—as indeed they had been.
It was six months ago now, and Emily had recovered from the shock. The social acceptance had returned; indeed, people fell over themselves to make up for their guilt at having been suspicious and their social cowardice at the time. But for all that, Society still required that widows be seen to mourn, especially those of men from old and titled families such as the Ashworths. The fact that Emily was not yet thirty would not in any way excuse her from remaining at home, receiving only relatives, and wearing unrelieved black. She must not attend any social functions that might appear frivolous or enjoyable, and she must maintain an attitude of gravity at all times.
She was finding it almost unendurable. To begin with, as soon as George’s murderer was found and the matter closed, she had gone into the country with Edward, to be alone and spend her time helping him to understand the death of his father and his own new position. With the autumn she had returned to the city, but all the usual parties, operas, balls, and soirees were closed to her. The friends who did call on her were sober to the point of stultification, and no one gossiped or discussed fashion or the latest play, or who was flirting with whom, considering those topics too trivial to disturb her grief. The time Emily spent sitting at home writing letters, playing the piano, or stitching endless needlework felt like a constant scraping of the skin, the source of a raging discontent.
Naturally Charlotte had invited Emily to come for Christmas with Edward, who would find the company of other
