Highgate Rise (21 page)

Charlotte struggled for something to say, anything that would retrieve an awful situation. Privately she thought Shaw might well be right, but he had no business to say so here, or now. She was still searching her brain wildly when Aunt Vespasia came to the rescue.

“Saints are seldom easy to live with,” she said in the appalled silence. “Least of all by those who are obliged to put up with them every day. Not that I am granting that the late Bishop Worlingham was necessarily a saint,” she added as Shaw’s face darkened. She held up her hand elegantly and her expression was enough to freeze the rebuttal on his lips. “But no doubt he was a man of decided opinions—and such people always arouse controversy, thank heaven. Who wills a nation of sheep who bleat agreement to everything that is said to them?”

Shaw’s temper subsided, and both Celeste and Angeline seemed to feel that honor had been served. Charlotte grabbed for some harmless subject, and heard herself complimenting Celeste on the lilies displayed on the table, rather as if laid out above a coffin.

“Beautiful,” she repeated fatuously. “Where did you find such perfect blooms?”

“Oh, we grow them,” Angeline put in, gushing with relief. “In our conservatory, you know. They require a lot of attention—” She told them all at some length exactly how they were planted, fertilized and cared for. They all listened in sheer gratitude for the respite from unpleasantness.

When Angeline finally ran out of anything to add, they murmured politely and drifted away, pretending to have
caught the eye of another acquaintance. Charlotte found herself with Maude Dalgetty again, and then when she went to see if Prudence was recovered, with John Dalgetty, listening to him expound on the latest article he had reviewed, on the subject of liberty of expression.

“One of the sacred principles of civilized men, Mrs. Pitt,” he said, leaning towards her, his face intent. “The tragedy is that there are so many well-meaning but ignorant and frightened people who would bind us in the chains of old ideas. Take Quinton Pascoe.” He nodded towards Pascoe very slightly, to be sure Charlotte knew to whom he was referring. “A good man, in his own way, but terrified of a new thought.” He waved his arm. “Which wouldn’t matter if he were only limiting himself, but he wants to imprison all our minds in what he believes to be best for us.” His voice rose in outrage at the very conception.

Charlotte felt a strong sympathy with him. She could clearly recall her indignation when her father had forbidden her the newspaper, as he had all his daughters, and she felt as if all the interest and excitement in the world were passing her by and she was shut out from it. She had bribed the butler to pass her the political pages, without her parents’ knowledge, and pored over them, reading every word and visualizing the people and events in minute detail. To have robbed her of it would have been like shutting all the windows in the house and drawing the curtains.

“I quite agree with you,” she said with feeling. “Thought should never be imprisoned nor anyone told they may not believe as they choose.”

“How right you are, Mrs. Pitt! Unfortunately, not everyone is able to see it as you do. Pascoe, and those like him, would set themselves up to decide what people may learn, and what they may not. He is not personally an unpleasant man—far from it, you would find him charming—yet the arrogance of the man is beyond belief.”

Apparently Pascoe had heard his name mentioned. He pushed his way between two men discussing finance and faced Dalgetty, his eyes hot with anger.

“It is not arrogance, Dalgetty.” His voice was low but only just in control. “It is a sense of responsibility. To publish every single thing that comes into your hand, regardless of what it is or whom it may hurt, is not freedom; it is an abuse of the art of printing. It is no better than a fool who stands on the corner of the street and shouts out whatever enters his thoughts—be it true or false—”

“And who is to judge whether it is true or false?” Dalgetty demanded. “You? Are you to be the final arbiter of what the world shall believe? Who are you to judge what we may hope for or aspire to? How dare you?” His eyes blazed with the sheer monstrosity of any mere human limiting the dreams of mankind.

Pascoe was equally enraged. His whole body quivered with frustrated fury at Dalgetty’s obtuseness and willful failure to grasp the real meaning.

“You are utterly wrong!” he shouted, his skin suffusing with color. “It has nothing whatsoever to do with limiting aspiration or dreams—as well you know. But it does have to do with not creating nightmares.” He swung his arms wildly, catching the top of a nearby woman’s feathered hat and knocking it over her eye, and quite oblivious of it. “What you do not have the right to do is topple the dreams of others by making mock of them—yes—it is you who are arrogant, not I.”

“You pygmy!” Dalgetty shouted back. “You nincompoop. You are talking complete balderdash—which perfectly reflects your muddled thinking. It is an impossibility to build a new idea except at the expense of part of the old—by the very fact that it
is
new.”

“And what if your new idea is ugly and dangerous?” Pascoe demanded furiously, his hand chopping the air. “And adds nothing to human knowledge or happiness? Ah? Nincompoop. You are an intellectual child—and a spiritual and moral vandal. You are—”

At this point the heated voices had drawn everyone’s attention, all other conversation had ceased and Hector Clitheridge was wading towards them in extreme agitation, his
clothes flapping, his arms waving in the air and his face expressing extreme embarrassment and a kind of desperate confusion.

“Mr. Pascoe! Please!” he implored. “Gentlemen!” he turned to Dalgetty. “Please remember poor Dr. Shaw—”

That was the last thing he should have said. The very name was as a red rag to a bull for Pascoe.

“A perfect case in point,” he said triumphantly. “A very precise example! He rushes in—”

“Exactly!” Dalgetty chopped the air with his hands in excitement. “He is an honest man who abhors idolatry. Especially the worship of the unworthy, the dishonorable, the valueless—”

“Who says it is valueless?” Pascoe jumped up and down on the spot, his voice rising to falsetto in triumph. “Do you set yourself up to decide what may be kept, and what destroyed? Eh?”

Now Dalgetty lost his temper completely. “You incompetent!” he shouted, scarlet-cheeked. “You double—dyed ass! You—”

“Mr. Dalgetty!” Clitheridge pleaded futilely. “Mr.—” Eulalia came to the rescue, her face set in firm lines of disapproval. For an instant she reminded Charlotte of a particularly strict nanny. She ignored Dalgetty except for one glare. “Mr. Pascoe.” Her voice was determined and under perfect control. “You are behaving disgracefully. This is a funeral supper—have you completely forgotten yourself? You are not usually without any sense of what is fitting, or of how much distress you may be causing to innocent people, already injured by circumstance.”

Pascoe’s bearing changed. He looked crestfallen and thoroughly abashed. But she had no intention of leaving any blow unstruck.

“Imagine how poor Prudence feels. Is one tragedy not enough?”

“Oh, I am sorry.” Pascoe was shocked at himself and his penitence was transparently sincere. Dalgetty no longer entered even the edge of his thoughts. “I am mortified that I
should have been so utterly thoughtless. How can I apologize?”

“You can’t.” Eulalia was relentless. “But you should try.” She turned to Dalgetty, who was looking decidedly apprehensive. “You, of course, I do not expect to have any sensitivity towards the feelings of others. Liberty is your god, and I sometimes think you are prepared to sacrifice anyone at all on its shrine.”

“That is unfair.” He was sincerely aggrieved. “Quite unfair. I desire to liberate, not to injure—I wish only to do good.”

“Indeed?” Her eyebrows shot up. “Then you are singularly unsuccessful. You should most seriously reconsider your assumptions—and your resulting behavior. You are a foolish man.” And having delivered herself of her most formidable tirade to date, she was flushed, and handsomer than at any time since she was a bride. She was also rather alarmed at what she had dared to say, and the fact that she had rescued the whole assembly from a miserable and acutely embarrassing situation was only just becoming apparent to her. She blushed as she saw every eye on her, and retreated hastily. For once it would be ridiculous to pretend she had merely been helping her husband. He was standing with his hands in the air and his mouth open, but intensely relieved, and also alarmed and a little resentful.

“Bravo, Lally,” Shaw said quietly. “You are quite magnificent. We are all duly chastened.” He bowed very slightly in a small, quaintly courteous gesture, then moved to stand beside Charlotte.

Again Eulalia colored hotly. This time it was obviously with pleasure, but so acute and unaccustomed it was painful to see.

“Really—” Clitheridge protested. No one heard what he was going to say next, if indeed he knew himself. He was interrupted by Shaw.

“You make me feel as if we are all in the nursery again. Perhaps that is where we should be.” He looked at Dalgetty and Pascoe and there was humor in his face rather than anger.
If he resented Clemency’s funeral being interrupted by such a scene there was no trace of it in his expression. In fact Charlotte thought it might even have been a relief to him from the pain of the reality. He looked set now to prolong the tension and make matters worse.

“I think it is long past time we all grew out of it,” she said briskly, taking Shaw by the arm. “Don’t you, Dr. Shaw? Squabbling is quite fun at times, but this is a selfish and totally inappropriate place for it. We should be adult enough to think of others, as well as ourselves. I am sure you agree?” She was not sure at all, but she did not intend to allow him the opportunity to say so. “You have already told me about the magnificent conservatory the Misses Worlingham have, and I have seen the lilies on the table. Perhaps you would be generous enough to show it me now?”

“I should be delighted,” he said with enthusiasm. “I cannot think of anything I should rather do.” And he took her hand in his and placed it on his arm, leading her through the room to the far side. She glanced backwards only once, and saw a look of fury and dislike on Lally Clitheridge’s face so intense the memory of it remained with her the rest of the day. It was still powerful in her mind when she finally returned home to Bloomsbury, and gave Pitt her account of the day, and her impressions of it.

6

P
ITT WOKE
in the middle of the night to hear a loud, repeated banging which through the unraveling layers of sleep he realized was at the front door. He climbed out of bed, feeling Charlotte stirring beside him.

“Door,” he mumbled, reaching for his clothes. There was no point in hoping it was simply a matter of information he could accept, then go back to the warm oblivion of sleep. Anyone banging so fiercely and repeatedly wanted his presence. He pulled on trousers and socks; his boots were in front of the kitchen stove. He attempted to tuck in his shirt-tails, and lost them. He padded downstairs, turned up the gas on the lamp in the hall, and unbolted the front door.

The chill of the damp night air made him shiver, but it was a small discomfort compared with the sight of Murdo’s ashen face and the bull’s-eye lantern high in his hand, which threw its yellow light on the paving stones and into the mist around him. It picked out the dark shape of a hansom cab waiting at the curb beyond, the horse’s flanks steaming, the cabby shrouded in his cloak.

Before he could ask, Murdo blurted it out, his voice cracking a little.

“There’s another fire!” He forgot the “sir.” He looked
very young, the freckles standing out on his fair skin in its unnatural pallor. “Amos Lindsay’s house.”

“Bad?” Pitt asked, although he knew.

“Terrible.” Murdo kept his voice under control with difficulty. “I never saw anything like it—you can feel the heat a hundred yards up the road; fair hurts your eye to look at it. God—how can anyone do that?”

“Come in,” Pitt said quickly. The night air was cold.