the mantelpiece and the fire. “She did not choose to tell anyone else what she was doing. She had her reasons.”
“But you knew?”
“Oh yes. She trusted me. We had been”-he hesitated, choosing his word carefully-“friends … for a long time.”
She wondered why he chose the term. Did it mean they had been more than merely lovers-or something less-or both?
He turned back and looked directly at her, without bothering to disguise the grief in his face, nor its nature. She thought he did mean “friends,” and not more.
“She was a remarkable woman.” He used her own words. “I admired her very much. She had an extraordinary inner courage. She could know things, and face them squarely, that would have crushed most people.” He drew in his breath and let it out slowly. “There is a terrible empty space where she used to be, a goodness no longer here.”
She wanted to move forward and touch him, put her hand over his and convey her empathy in the simplest and most immediate way. But such a gesture would be bold, intrusively intimate between a man and a woman who had met only moments ago. All she could do was stand on the spot and repeat the words anyone would use.
“I’m sorry, truly I am sorry.”
He swung his hands out wide, then starting pacing the floor again. He did not bother to thank her; such trivialities could be taken for granted between them.
“I should be very glad if you learned anything.” Quite automatically he adjusted the heavy curtains to remove a crooked fold, then swung back to face her. “If I can help, tell me how, and I shall do it.”
“I will.”
His smile returned for an instant, full of warmth.
“Thank you. Now let us return and see if Josiah and the aunts have been totally scandalized-unless, of course, there is something else you wish to say?”
“No-not at all. I simply desired to know if I was mistaken in my beliefs, or if there were two people with such an unusual name.”
“Then we may leave the wild seductiveness of the bishop’s library”-he glanced around it with a rueful smile-“and return to the propriety of the withdrawing room. Really, you know, Mrs. Pitt, we should have conducted this interview in the conservatory. They have a magnificent one here, full of wrought iron stands with palms and ferns and potted flowers. It would have given them so much more to be shocked about.”
She regarded him with interest. “You enjoy shocking them, don’t you?”
His expression was a curious mixture of impatience and pity.
“I am a doctor, Mrs. Pitt; I see a great deal of real suffering. I get impatient with the unnecessary pain imposed by hypocrisy and idle imaginations which have nothing better to do than speculate unkindly and create pain where there need be none. Yes, I hate idiotic pretense and I blow it away where I can.”
“But what do your aunts know of your reality?”
“Nothing,” he admitted, pulling his face into a rueful smile. “They grew up here. They have neither of them ever left this house except to make social calls or to attend suitable functions and charitable meetings which never see the objects of their efforts. The old bishop kept them here after his wife died; Celeste to write his letters, read to him, look up reference works for his sermons and discourses and to keep him company when he wished to talk. She also plays the piano, loudly when she is in a temper, and rather badly, but he couldn’t tell. He liked the idea of music, but he was indifferent to its practice.”
Even standing in the doorway his intense inner energy was such that he could not keep entirely still. “Angeline took care of all his domestic needs and ran the household, and read romantic novels in brown paper wrappers when no one was looking. They never kept a housekeeper. He considered it a woman’s place and her fulfillment to keep a home for a man and make it a haven of peace and security.” He waved his hands, strong and neat. “Free from all the evils and soil of the outer world with its vulgarity and greed. And Angeline has done precisely that-all her life. I suppose one should hardly blame her if she knows nothing else. I stand reproved. Neither her ignorance nor her sometime fatuity are her fault.”
“They must have had suitors?” Charlotte said before she thought.
He was tidying the curtains automatically and straightened up to look at her.
“Of course. But he saw them off in short shrift, and made sure the call of duty drowned out everything else.”
Charlotte saw a world of disappointment and domestic details, suppressed and confused passions forever overlaid by pious words and the irresistible pressures of ignorance, fear and guilt; duty always winning in the end. Whatever the Worlingham sisters did to occupy their minds and justify the arid years of their lives was to be pitied, not added to further by blame.
“I don’t think I would have cared for the bishop either,” she said with a tight smile. “Although I suppose he is like a great many. They are certainly not the only daughters whose lives have been spent so, with father-or mother. I have known several.”
“And I,” he agreed.
Perhaps the conversation might have gone further had not Caroline and Grandmama appeared in the doorway of the withdrawing room across the hall and seen them.
“Ah, good,” Caroline said immediately. “You are ready to leave. We were just saying good-bye to the Misses Worlingham. Mr. and Mrs. Hatch have already gone.” She looked at Shaw. “May we extend our condolences to you, Dr. Shaw, and apologize for intruding upon a family occasion. You have been most courteous. Come, Charlotte.”
“Good afternoon, Dr. Shaw.” Charlotte held out her hand and he took it immediately, holding it till she felt the warmth of him through her gloves.
“Thank you for coming, Mrs. Pitt. I look forward to our meeting again. Good day to you.”
“Perhaps I should-” Charlotte glanced towards the withdrawing room door.
“Nonsense!” Grandmama snapped. “We have said all that is necessary. It is time we left.” And she marched out of the front door, held open for them by a footman; the parlormaid was presumably occupied in the kitchen.
“Well?” Grandmama demanded when they were seated in the carriage.
“I beg your pardon?” Charlotte pretended mystification.
“What did you ask Shaw, and what did he say, child?” Grandmama said impatiently. “Don’t affect to be stupid with me. Awkward you may be, and certainly lacking in any degree of subtlety whatever, but you are not without native wit. What did that man say to you?”
“That Clemency was precisely what I had supposed her,” Charlotte replied. “But that she preferred to keep her work for the poor a private matter, even from her family, and he would be most obliged if I learned anything about who murdered her.”
“Indeed,” Grandmama said dubiously. “He took an uncommonly long time to say so little. I shouldn’t be the slightest bit surprised if he did it himself. There is a great deal of money in the Worlingham family, you know, and Theophilus’s share, as the only son, passed to his daughters equally. Shaw stands to inherit everything poor Clemency had.” She rearranged her skirts more carefully. “And according to Celeste, even that is not sufficient for him. He has set his cap on that young Flora Lutterworth, and she is little better than she should be, chasing after him, seeing him in private goodness knows how many times a month. Her father is furious. He has ambitions for her a great deal higher than a widowed doctor twice her age and of no particular background. Caroline, please move yourself farther to the left; you have not left me sufficient room. Thank you.” She settled herself again. “They have quarreled over it quite obviously, to any discerning eye. And I daresay Mrs. Clitheridge has had a word with her, in a motherly sort of way. It is part of the vicar’s duty to care for the moral welfare of his flock.”
“What makes you think that?” Caroline said with a frown.
“For goodness sake, use your wits!” Grandmama glared at her. “You heard Angeline say Lally Clitheridge and Flora Lutterworth had had a heated and most unpleasant exchange, and were hardly on speaking terms with one another. No doubt that was what it was about-anyone could deduce that, without being a detective.” She turned a malevolent eye on Charlotte. “No-your doctor friend had every reason to have done away with his wife-and no doubt he did. Mark my words.”
