Free Angels in the Gloom by Anne Perry Page A

remember her flying off the handle at Matthew when he was late home from a football match, and some other boy had been hurt. She was afraid it had been him. Judith came in complaining about something else, and she shrieked at both of them and told them they’d get no tea. Mrs. Appleton took them up plum pie and custard, but it was Mother who asked her to. I think it always was, it was just a fiction that it was Mrs. Appleton’s soft heart.”
    “Are you inventing that to make me feel better?” she demanded, terrified how much she needed it to be true. She wanted above all to be like her mother—to create safety, warmth, a sense of peace out of the uncertainty.
    “No,” he assured her, then his smile vanished. “They’ll pick up your fear, Hannah, even if they don’t know what about. They won’t be frightened as long as they think you aren’t, but if you crumble, so will they.”
    She looked away from him. He was right, but she needed more time. “Do you want to be the hero?” she asked.
    “Hero?”
    “Take up the pie and custard. It’s Mrs. Appleton’s day off.”
    “Yes… I’ll do that.” He touched her gently on the arm. “I’m sorry about the vase. I’ll see if the antique shop in the village has something like it.”
    “It doesn’t matter. It wouldn’t be the same.”
    “It wouldn’t to you. It might be for Luke,” he pointed out.
    Tears threatened to choke her again, and she said nothing. She was still frightened, still hurt, but her anger was at herself.
    Joseph went to bed early. He was tired after a very short time up, and the pain in his arm and leg was constant. He had said nothing, but Hannah knew it was there by the shadows in his face.
    She sat alone mending sheets, turning their sides to middle. It was a job she hated because she was always acutely aware of the seam when she lay along it, and she imagined others were as well. On the gramophone she was playing Caruso singing “O Sole Mio.” It had been a tremendous success a month ago. She knew that if Joseph could hear it upstairs he would like it, and she had left the door open on purpose. She was startled to hear the front doorbell ring. She put down her sewing and went to answer it, taking the needle off the record carefully as she passed. The sudden silence was breathless.
    The woman on the step was in her late twenties, but grief and weariness had added years to her. Her hair was pretty, but she had tied it up and back without care and pulled the wave out of it. In the light from the hall, her skin seemed to have no color. She was dressed in a plain dark blue blouse and skirt, and it was apparent at a glance that she had lost weight since Hannah had last seen her.
    “Abby! How are you?” she said quickly. “Do come in.” She stepped back to make the invitation almost a command. “You must have time for a cup of tea, or something.”
    Abigail Compton hesitated, then agreed as if the battle against such determination were one she knew she would lose. “I only came to ask if you could help to organize people for knitting more socks,” she said awkwardly. “It doesn’t matter how little time they can give, anything at all will help. Sometimes even children can do the straight bits, if an adult can turn the heel.”
    “Of course,” Hannah agreed. “Good idea. Would you like a cup of tea? I’m doing the mending and I hate it. I’d love an excuse to stop.” She smiled hopefully.
    “Just for a moment or two,” Abby accepted. “I’d like to sit down, I admit.” She looked ready to drop.
    “Kitchen all right?” Hannah led the way without waiting for an answer. Abby looked so wretched she determined to get her hot pie and cream as well. Her husband had been killed in France several months ago, but she looked as if the reality of it had struck her only now. There was an awkwardness in the way she moved, almost a clumsiness, as if she were only half aware of her limbs.
    The oven was still warm. Hannah took the apple