“We are very well, thank you. Our visit has nothing to do with your profession, Dr. Shaw.” There was now no purpose whatsoever in continuing with the tale of Gracie’s uncle. He would see through it and despise them both, not only for the lie, but for the inadequacy of it. “I did not come about myself.” She faced him boldly, meeting his eyes and being considerably disconcerted by the acute intelligence in them, and the directness of his gaze back at her. She took a deep breath and plunged on. “I have determined to pursue the work that your late wife was involved in regarding the housing of the poor, and their conditions. I would like to learn where she began, so I may begin in the same place.”
There was a full minute’s total silence. Matthew Oliphant stood by the fire with the Bible in his hand, his knuckles white where he grasped it, his face pale, then flushed. Gracie was rooted to the spot. Shaw’s expression flashed from amazement to disbelief, and then suspicion.
“Why?” he said guardedly. “If you have some passion to work with the poor or the dispossessed what is wrong with those in your own neighborhood?” His voice hovered on the edge of sarcasm. “Surely there are some? London is teeming with poor. Do you live in some area so select you have to come to Highgate to find anyone in need?”
Charlotte could think of no answer. “You are being unnecessarily rude, Dr. Shaw.” She heard herself mimicking Aunt Vespasia’s tone, and thought for an awful moment that she sounded ridiculous. Then she saw Shaw’s face and the sudden color of shame in his cheeks.
“I apologize, Mrs. Pitt. Of course I am.” He was contrite. “Please forgive me.” He did not mention either his bereavement or the loss of his friend; as an excuse it would have been cheap and beneath him.
She smiled at him with all the warmth and deep empathy that she felt for him, and the very considerable liking. “The matter is forgotten.” She dismissed it charmingly. “Can you help me? I should be so obliged. Her crusade is one in which I should like to become involved myself, and draw others. It would be foolish not to profit from what she has already done. She has earned much admiration.”
Very slowly, wordlessly, Matthew Oliphant sat down again and opened his Bible, upside down.
“Do you?” Shaw frowned in some inner concentration. “I cannot see that it will be much advantage to you. She worked alone, so far as I know. She certainly did not work with the parish ladies, or the vicar.” He sighed. “Not that poor old Clitheridge could fight his way out of a wet paper bag!” He looked at her gravely, a kind of laughing admiration in his eyes she found a trifle discomfitting. One or two rather absurd thoughts flashed through her mind, and she dismissed them hastily, a flush in her cheeks.
“Nevertheless I should like to try,” she insisted.
“Mrs. Pitt,” he said gently. “I can tell you almost nothing, only that Clemency cared very much about reforming the laws. In fact I think she cared more about them than almost anything else.” His face pinched a little. “But if, as I suspect, what you are really seeking is to discover who set fire to my house, you will not accomplish it this way. It is I who was meant to die in that fire, as it was when poor Amos died.”
She was at once fiercely sorry for him and extraordinarily angry.
“Indeed?” Her eyebrows shot up. “How arrogant of you! Do you assume that no one else could possibly be important enough in the scheme of things, and only you arouse enough passion or fear to be murdered?”
It was one sting too much. His temper exploded.
“Clemency was one of the finest women alive. If you had known her, instead of arriving the moment she was dead, you wouldn’t have to be told.” He was leaning forward a little, his shoulders tight and hunched. “She did nothing to incur the kind of insane hatred that burns down houses and risks the lives of everyone in them. For heaven’s sake if you must meddle-at least do it efficiently!”
“I am trying to!” she shouted back. “But you are determined to obstruct me. One would almost think you did not want it solved.” She pointed at him sharply. “You won’t help. You won’t tell the police anything. You stick to your wretched confidences as if they were secrets of state. What do you imagine that we are going to do with them, except catch a murderer?”
He jerked very upright, back straight. “I don’t know any secrets that will catch anyone but a few unfortunate devils who would rather keep their diseases private than have them spread ’round the neighborhood for every able and nosy busybody to turn over and speculate on,” he shouted back. “Dear God-don’t you think I want him caught- whoever he is? He murdered my wife and my best friend-and I may be next.”
“Don’t give yourself airs,” she said coldly, because suddenly her anger had evaporated and she was feeling guilty for being so ruthless, but she did not know how to get out of the situation she had created. “Unless you know who it is, as it appears poor Mr. Lindsay did, you are probably not in danger at all.”
He threw an ashtray into the corner of the room, where it splintered and lay in pieces, then he walked out, slamming the door.
Gracie was still standing on the spot, her eyes like saucers.
Oliphant looked up from his Bible and at last realized it was upside down. He closed it quickly and stood up.
“Mrs. Pitt,” he said very softly. “I know where Mrs. Shaw began, and some of where it led her. If you wish, I will take you.”
Charlotte looked at his bony, agreeable face, and the quiet pain in it, and felt ashamed of her outburst for its noise and self-indulgence.
“Thank you, Mr. Oliphant, I should be very grateful.”
Percival drove them; it was well beyond the area of Highgate and into Upper Holloway. They stopped at a narrow street and alighted from the carriage, once again leaving it to wait. Charlotte looked around. The houses were cheek by jowl, one room upstairs and one down, to judge by the width, but there may have been more at the back beyond view. The doors were all closed and the steps scrubbed and white-stoned. It was not appreciably poorer than the street on which she and Pitt had lived when they were first married.
“Come.” Oliphant set out along the pavement and almost immediately turned in along an alley that Charlotte had not observed before. Here it was dank and a chill draft blew on their faces, carrying the smell of raw sewage and drains.
Charlotte coughed and reached for her handkerchief-even Gracie put her hand up to her face-but they hurried after him till he emerged in a small, dim courtyard and crossed it, warning them to step over the open gutters. At the far side he knocked on a paint-peeled door and waited.
After several minutes it was opened by a girl of fourteen or fifteen with a gray-white face and fair hair greasy with dirt. Her eyes were pink-rimmed and there was a flicker of fear in the defiance with which she spoke.
“Yeah? ’Oo are yer?”
“Is Mrs. Bradley at home?” he asked quietly, opening his coat a fraction to show his clerical collar.
Her face softened in relief. “Yeah, Ma’s in bed. She took poorly again. The doc were ’ere yest’dy an’ ’e give ’er some med’cine, but it don’t do no good.”
“May I come in and see her?” Oliphant requested.
“Yeah, I s’pose. But don’ wake ’er if she’s sleepin’.”
“I won’t,” he promised, and held the door wide for Charlotte and Gracie to enter.
Inside the narrow room was cold. Damp seeped through wallpaper, staining it with mold, and the air had an odor that was sour and clung in the back of the throat. There was no tap or standpipe, and a bucket in the corner covered with a makeshift lid served the purposes of nature. Rickety stairs led upwards through a gap in the ceiling and Oliphant went up first, cautioning Charlotte and Gracie to wait their turn in case the weight of more than one person should collapse them.
Charlotte emerged into a bedroom with two wooden cots, both heaped with blankets. In one lay a woman who at a glance might have been Charlotte’s mother’s age. Her face was gaunt, her skin withered and papery, and her eyes so hollow the bones of her brow seemed almost skull-like.
Then as Charlotte moved closer she saw the fair hair and the skin of her neck above the patched nightshirt, and realized she was probably no more than thirty. There was a handkerchief with blood on it grasped loosely in the thin hand.
The three of them stood in silence for several minutes, staring at the sleeping woman, each racked with silent, impotent pity.
Downstairs again, Charlotte turned to Oliphant and the girl.
“We must do something! Who owns this-this heap of timber? It’s not fit for horses, let alone women to live in. He should be prosecuted. We will begin straightaway. Who collects the rent?”
