Caroline came in at that moment, her face coloured from rushing, her hair a little astray. Edward looked up.
“What on earth have you been doing, my dear? You look like-there’s something on your nose.”
She brushed at it automatically, and made it worse.
Charlotte took a handkerchief and removed the mark from her. It was flour.
“Have you been cooking?” Edward asked with pained surprise. “What’s the matter with Mrs. Dunphy?”
“She’s got a headache. I’m afraid all this business has hit her very hard. She was fond of Lily, you know. Anyway, I rather like cooking. I came because I just remembered I promised to take a receipt for vegetable soup to Mrs. Harding, and I wondered if two of you would take it for me this afternoon?”
Charlotte liked Mrs. Harding. She was a sharp-tongued but very long-memoried old lady with endless recollections about all sorts of people she had known in her somewhat colourful youth, before she had married above herself, and settled to wealth and respectability. Charlotte doubted all the stories were true, but they were hugely entertaining.
“I’ll be happy to go, Mama,” she offered quickly.
“You must take Sarah or Emily with you.” Caroline looked at them both.
“I’m busy,” Emily replied. “I have sewing to do, since we are a maid short. There is linen to be mended.”
“And if Mrs. Dunphy is sick,” Sarah added, “then I shall stay at home and see if there is anything I can do for her. Perhaps I can talk with her, take her mind off it.”
Charlotte gave her a withering stare. She knew perfectly well her reasons were not to do with Mrs. Dunphy. Sarah thought Mrs. Harding was a disreputable old gossip, and she did not wish to know her socially. As far as the gossip went, she was perfectly correct. But had her stories been a little more up to date they might well have found her a readier audience.
“Charlotte doesn’t need company,” Edward said tartly. “It’s less than two miles away. Go straight there, Charlotte, and return as soon as it is civil for you to do so. I doubt there will be any need to explain. I expect the news is all over the neighbourhood. And don’t gossip! Old Mrs. Harding is an inveterate busybody. Give her the receipt, and wish her well, and then come home again.”
“I won’t have the girls walking in the street alone,” Caroline said firmly. “Either someone goes with her, or Mrs. Harding will have to wait. The streets are too dangerous.”
“Nonsense, Caroline! She’ll be perfectly safe,” Edward sat up straighter. “It’s broad daylight.”
“It was broad daylight when Mrs. Waterman’s maid was attacked!” Caroline rejoined. “I wonder you didn’t tell us about that, so we as well as the servants might have been warned.”
“My dear Caroline, where is your sense of proportion? This lunatic, whoever he is, attacks servant girls, girls of loose morals. No one could take Charlotte to be such a creature!”
“What about Chloe Abernathy? She wasn’t a servant!”
“Yes, I was surprised about her myself. I had always considered her to be proper enough, if somewhat light- headed. It shows how one can be deceived.”
“Because she was killed?” Caroline said with a lift of amazement in her voice.
“Precisely.”
That is a completely circular argument, Charlotte thought, almost forgetting herself so far as to say so. “You are saying she was killed because she was immoral, and she was immoral because she was killed!” she finished aloud.
“I am saying she was killed because she kept immoral company,” Edward looked at her with a frown, “and the fact that she was killed proves it. Are you frightened to go out alone?” This time there was concern in his voice. He was not unkind.
“Yes,” she said honestly. “I would prefer not to.”
Dominic stretched out his legs, and then stood up swiftly.
“If you like, I’ll come with you. I doubt I should be of any assistance whatsoever here, either with the linen or with Mrs. Dunphy, and certainly not in the kitchen.”
The journey with Dominic was marvellous, in spite of the heat which beat down from the August sun, and up in waves from the pavement. Mrs. Harding was delighted to see them, although for once her flow of gossip seemed to have been cut off at the source. Perhaps it was the very masculine presence of Dominic. She offered them refreshments, and they were glad to accept a lemonade before parting. She understood but regretted their need for haste; at least she said so, but Charlotte had the distinct feeling Dominic’s presence hampered her, although she obviously admired him-as indeed what woman would not?
On the way home Dominic himself had seemed a little put out at her reticence. He said he had heard she was the best gossip in the district, and was greatly disappointed in her. Charlotte tried to explain what she felt to be the reason and ended up by regaling him with the best stories she could remember, to his vast entertainment. He laughed with pure delight, and Charlotte was blissfully, painfully as happy as she had ever been.
They arrived home to find Sarah in a rage, Papa white-faced, Emily silent, and Mama absent in the kitchen.
The happiness vanished as if a door had been closed on it, though Dominic was still smiling, as if he had not felt the change.
“What’s the matter with everyone?” he asked, going over to open the French windows. “You need some air. It’s a perfect day.” Then he swung round, his face clouded. “You’re not still thinking about Lily, are you? I’m sure she wouldn’t want or expect us to stay glum for the rest of the summer.”
“This is hardly the rest of the summer, Dominic,” Sarah said tartly. “But it has nothing to do with Lily, at least not in the way you mean. The wretched police have been here again.”
Charlotte felt only anger, until she saw her father’s face. He seemed less angry than genuinely distressed.
“What for, Papa? Haven’t we told them all we know?”
He frowned, looking away from her.
“It appears they are not satisfied that it was this fellow she was walking out with or, if it was not him, then some lunatic.”
“Well, they can’t imagine it has anything to do with us,” Dominic said incredulously.
“I don’t know what they imagine,” Edward replied sharply. “I personally think they are using it as an excuse to be inquisitive, to exercise their curiosity.”
“What have they been asking?” Charlotte looked from one to the other of them. “Surely if they are impertinent we don’t have to answer them? Send them out of the house.”
“It’s all very well for you to speak!” Sarah snapped. “You were not here.”
“You could have been out, if you’d been prepared to come with me.” Charlotte was quite mild. She was delighted that Dominic had come instead, but a hint of resentment over the spoilt afternoon lingered at the back of her mind.
“Don’t worry, you haven’t escaped anything,” Sarah tossed her head a little. “They are coming back to see you.”
“I don’t know anything!”
“And Dominic.”
Charlotte turned to Edward. “Papa, what can I tell them? I never even saw Lily that day, that I can recall.” She felt a quick stab of shame. “And I didn’t know her very well at any time.”
“I don’t know what they want.” Once again Edward’s anxiety was more apparent than his irritation. “They asked all sorts of odd questions, about myself, and Maddock, and they were very keen to speak to Dominic.”
Dominic frowned, and a flicker of concern crossed his face.
“What about the other victims-apart from Lily?”
“Don’t be foolish!” Sarah said sharply. “They can hardly consider you had anything to do with it, except perhaps that you may have noticed something, some odd person hanging around the street perhaps. After all, you do travel up and down the street almost every day.”
A new and appalling thought occurred to Charlotte. Could the police possibly be idiotic, blind enough to think one of them-? Dominic and Papa were out frequently, passed Cater Street-.
Sarah saw it in her face.
