Pentecost Alley by Anne Perry

sunlight streamed through the long windows onto a bowl of late delphiniums—the second blooming—catching their blue and purple spires. It had taken Jack a little while to forgive her for the risks she had run in that affair. She could hardly blame him. She could have been killed. She had known better than to offer any excuses, just apologies.
    If only something would arise in which she and Charlotte could help again. Lately she had hardly even seen Pitt. Since his promotion he seemed to have been involved in cases which concerned more impersonal crimes, crimes whose motives lay outside her world, such as the treason in the Foreign Office just a month or two ago.
    “What are we having for luncheon?” a querulous voice demanded from behind her. “You haven’t bothered to tell me. In fact, you don’t tell me anything! I might as well not be here.”
    Emily turned around to see the short, black figure of her grandmother standing just inside the doorway from the hall. The old lady had been obliged to move from her own home when Emily’s mother had remarried, and since Charlotte had not room for her, and Emily had abundant room and means, there had been no reasonable alternative. It was not an arrangement either of them cared for, Emily because the old lady was extraordinarily ill-tempered, and the old lady because she had determinedthat she would not, on principle. It was not her own choice.
    “Well?” she demanded.
    “I don’t know what is for luncheon,” Emily replied. “I left it to Cook to decide.”
    “Seems to me you don’t do anything around here,” the old lady snapped, coming forward into the room, leaning heavily on her cane, banging it down. It was a border-painted wooden floor, and she disapproved of it. Too ornate, she said. Plain wood was quite good enough.
    She was dressed entirely in black, a permanent reminder to everyone—in case they should forget—that she was a widow, and should be regarded and sympathized with as such.
    “Cook rules your kitchen, housekeeper runs your servants,” she said critically. “Butler runs your pantry and cellar. Ladies’ maid decides what you’ll wear. Tutor teaches your son, nursemaid looks after your daughter. All that done for you, and you still cannot find time to come and talk to me. You are thoroughly spoilt, Emily. Comes of marrying above your station first, and beneath it next. I don’t know what the world’s coming to.”
    “I’m sure you don’t,” Emily agreed. “You never did know much about it. You assumed one half and ignored the other.”
    The old lady was aghast. She drew herself to her full, but negligible, height.
    “What did you say?” Her voice was shrill with indignation.
    “If you wish to know what is for luncheon, Grandmama, ring down to the kitchen and ask. If you would care for something different, I expect they can accommodate you.”
    “Extravagance!” The old lady clicked her teeth disapprovingly. “Eat what’s put in front of you, in my day. It’s a sin to waste good food.” And with that parting shot she turned and stumped out of the room. Her heavy feet echoed on the polished parquet of the hallway. At leastthis way they had avoided discussing Caroline’s latest whereabouts, and the general selfishness of her having remarried and thrown everyone’s lives into consequent disarray. Nor had there been another diatribe about actors in general, or Jewish actors in particular, and how they were, if such a thing were possible, socially even more of a disaster than policemen. The only thing good about it, in the old lady’s vociferous opinion, was that at least at Caroline’s age there would be no children.
    No doubt at least one, if not all, of these subjects would arise over the luncheon table.
    Emily spent the afternoon writing letters, more for something to do than any necessity, and then went upstairs to spend a little time in the nursery with Evie, and then with Edward. She heard from him of his latest lessons