Brunswick Gardens

3

CHARLOTTE PITT WAS relaxing in the parlor with her feet up on the sewing stool, the fire pleasantly warm and a most enthralling novel in her hands, when she heard the front door open and close. She put down the book with something close to reluctance, even though she was pleased to hear Pitt return. She had been right in the middle of a dramatic scene between two lovers.
Jemima raced downstairs in her nightgown calling out “Papa! Papa!”
Charlotte smiled and went to the door. Daniel, retaining his masculine dignity, was coming down slowly, grinning.
“You are early,” Charlotte observed as Pitt kissed her, then turned his attention temporarily to the children. Jemima was telling him excitedly about a lesson she had learned on Queen Elizabeth and the Spanish Armada. Daniel, at the same time, was trying to explain about steam engines and a wonderful train he wanted to see, and better still, to ride on. He had even learned the fare, and his face was bright with hope.
It was nearly an hour before Pitt was alone with Charlotte and could tell her the extraordinary news of the events in Brunswick Gardens.
“Do you really think the Reverend Parmenter lost his temper completely and pushed her down the stairs?” she asked with surprise. “Can it be proved?”
“I don’t know.” He stretched out further, balancing his feet on the fender. It was his favorite position. His slippers were scorched every winter. She was always buying new ones.
“Could she have fallen?” she asked. “People do fall downstairs … sometimes.”
“They don’t shout out ‘No, no!’ and someone’s name if they slip,” he pointed out. “And there was nothing there to trip over. The stairs are black wood, no carpet or stair rods to be loose.”
“One could trip over a skirt, if the hem were down …” she said thoughtfully. “Was it?”
“No. I looked at that. It was perfect.”
“Or even one’s own feet,” she went on. “Were the shoes all right? Nothing loose or broken, no wobbly heels or loose laces? I’ve tripped over my own feet before now.”
“No wobbly heels or laces at all,” he said with a slight smile. “Only a dark stain, which Tellman says comes from something spilled in the conservatory, and that means Mallory Parmenter lied about having seen her this morning.”
“Perhaps he was out of the conservatory for some reason for those few moments?” she suggested. “She went in, but she missed seeing him.”
“No, he wasn’t, or he would have trodden in the same thing when he went out,” he reasoned. “And he hadn’t. Tellman checked for that, too.”
“Does that mean anything?” she asked.
“Probably not, except that he was frightened and told a stupid lie. He didn’t know she called out.”
“Could she have called out ‘No, no,’ to one person and called the Reverend to help her?” she said quickly. “I mean ‘No, no!’ and then his name to call him to come to her?”
He sat up a little, his attention sharpening. “Possibly … just possibly. I shall at least hold it in mind. He admits quarreling with her very badly, but he swears he did not leave the study.”
“Why would Mallory want to kill her? The same reason?”
“No … he’s very dedicated to his calling, at least he appears so, but he has no doubts.” He stared into the fire, watching as the coals settled. He would have to put more on in a few minutes. “It seems from the little I know so far as if Parmenter was very troubled in his faith, and it was Unity Bellwood’s intellectual challenge to religion which angered him. Mallory seems to have no such conflict.”
“Well, who else is there?”
He pursed his lips and stared back at her; she could not read the expression in his eyes. They were bright and gray, and very clear.
“Who is there?” she repeated, a shiver of apprehension running through her.
“One of the daughters who disliked Unity, but not a great deal, so far as I know … and the curate.”
She dismissed the daughter. She knew him well enough to be certain it was the curate who was on his mind.
“Goon!”
He hesitated for a moment, as if unsure how to tell her. He drew in his breath and let it out slowly. “The curate is Dominic Corde …”
For just an instant, gone again before it was there, she thought he was making a bad joke, then she knew he was serious. There was a furrow between his brows that was only there when something troubled him and he did not understand it.
“Dominic! Our Dominic?” she said.
“I had never thought of him as ‘ours,’ but I suppose you could say so,” he agreed. “He has taken the cloth … can you imagine it?”
“Dominic has?” It did not seem possible. With a wave of memory so sharp it was as if it had carried her physically back ten years, she recalled being in her parents’ home in Cater Street, her mother’s exasperation because she would not behave appropriately and encourage suitable young men. She could not imagine loving anyone but Dominic then. She had cared for Sarah, of course, but been painfully jealous of her as well. Then Sarah had been killed, and the whole world had been thrown into turmoil. Dominic had shown his weaknesses. In the space of a week he had fallen from an idol of gold to one of clay. Disillusion had been bitter indeed, mixed as it was with grief and fear.
In the end she had learned to love Pitt, not as a dream or an ideal but as a real man, human, exasperating at times, fallible, challenging, but with a courage and honesty Dominic had never had. And for Dominic she had learned a friendship rooted in tolerance and a certain kindness. But Dominic giving his life to religion! That was beyond her power to imagine.
“Dominic is a curate in Reverend Parmenter’s house?” Her voice rose, her disbelief still sharp.
“Yes,” he replied, watching her carefully, searching her face. “Dominic is the other person who could conceivably have killed Unity Bellwood.”
“He couldn’t!” she said instantly.
A shadow crossed his eyes. “Probably not,” he agreed. “But someone did.”
She sat silently, trying to think of another explanation, something that would make sense of the little she knew, that would not sound silly and defensive when she said it, but nothing came. Pitt leaned forward and put more coal on the fire. Eventually, after twenty minutes with no sound but the ticking of the clock, the flames and settling of coal in the fire, and the wind splattering rain in gusts onto the window, she spoke about something else. Her sister Emily was on the Grand Tour, and her letters from Italy were full of anecdotes and descriptions. She told him about the latest, written from Naples and including vivid descriptions of the bay, of Vesuvius, and of her trip to Herculaneum.


At eleven o’clock the following morning, when courteous enquiry had assured her that Pitt would be busy pursuing the medical evidence and reporting to Cornwallis, Charlotte alighted from a hansom in Brunswick Gardens and pulled the bell at number seventeen. She could not help but notice the drawn blinds and the discreet crepe on the door, and that they had gone so far as to put straw on the roadway to muffle the horses’ hooves, even though Unity had not been a member of the family.
When a somber butler answered she smiled at him.
“Good morning, ma’am. May I be of any assistance?” he enquired.
“Good morning.” She produced her card and offered it to him. “I am sorry to trouble you at such an unfortunate time, but I believe there is a Mr. Dominic Corde staying here? He is my brother-in-law. I have not seen him for some years, but I should like to offer him my congratulations on his recent ordination.” She did not mention Unity’s death specifically. Possibly it had not been in the newspapers, and even if it had, a household such as this might disapprove strongly of ladies who read of such things. Ignorance was a far better approach.
“Certainly, ma’am. If you care to come in I shall see if Mr. Corde is at home.” He led her through the vestibule and across a most extraordinary hallway she would have liked to look at more carefully. He left her in a morning room only slightly less exotic. He took her rain-spotted hat and cloak and departed, presumably to ask the curate if indeed he had a sister-in-law, and if so did he wish to see her.
It was less than ten minutes before the door opened and she swung around to see Dominic, older, definitely touched with a little gray, and handsomer than she had remembered. Maturity suited him; whatever pain he had experienced had refined the callowness from him. The old arrogance had been replaced by something wiser. And yet it still seemed absurd to see a clergyman’s high, white collar around his neck.
Suddenly her voice dried in her throat.
“Charlotte!” He came forward with a rueful smile. “I suppose Thomas told you about the tragedy here?”
“Actually, I came to congratulate you on your calling and your ordination,” she said with slightly stiff politeness, and not a great deal of truth.
His smile widened, and now there was humor in it. “You were never a good liar.”
“Yes, I was!” she said instantly. “Well … not bad.”
“You were terrible!” He looked her up and down. “There is no need to ask how you are, you are obviously very well indeed. How is Emily … and your mother?”
“In excellent health, thank you. Mama has married again.” This was perhaps not the moment to mention that it was to a man seventeen years her junior, an actor, and a Jew.
“I am glad, it sounds wonderful.” He was obviously envisioning someone older than Caroline, probably a widower, solid and respectable—in fact, as unlike Joshua Fielding as possible.
Charlotte’s resolve vanished. “He’s an actor.” She blushed. “He’s a great deal younger than Mama, and extremely attractive.” She was very satisfied with the amazement on his face.
“What?”
“Joshua Fielding,” she elaborated, watching him with pleasure. “He’s one of the best actors on the London stage at the moment.”
He relaxed, his shoulders easing, the familiar smile curving his lips. “For a moment I believed you.”
“So you should,” she approved. “It is the precise truth, except that I omitted that Grandmama has never forgiven her, because he is Jewish and because she will not live under the same roof with them. She made such a fuss refusing to, that when Mama ignored her she had no choice but to leave. She lives with Emily and Jack now, and she doesn’t like it much because she has hardly anything to complain about, other than that she has no one to talk to. Actually, Emily and Jack are on holiday in Italy at the moment.”
“Jack?” he asked, looking at her with curiosity in his eyes, and something that for an instant was close to amusement.
“After George’s death, Emily married again, too. He is a member of Parliament,” she explained. “He wasn’t when she married him, but he is now.”
“Is it really so long since we last met?” His voice rose in surprise, but there was pleasure in his face and a happiness to see her. “You make it sound as if it were decades. Are you still the same?”
“Oh, definitely. But you are not!” She looked pointedly at the white collar.
He touched it a trifle self-consciously. “No. No, a lot has happened to me since then.” He did not elaborate, and for a minute there was a sudden uncomfortable silence, before the door opened and a most striking woman came in. She had very large, wide-set eyes and unusual features combining humor and strength. She was quite small in build, and extremely elegant. She wore dark colors, very plain, as if intending to create a sober effect, and yet the bodice was so beautifully cut it was anything but sober. Far from appearing like mourning, the gown enhanced the clarity of her skin and accentuated the grace of her figure.
Dominic turned as he heard her.
“Mrs. Parmenter, may I present my sister-in-law, Mrs. Pitt. Charlotte, Mrs. Parmenter.”
“How do you do, Mrs. Pitt,” Vita said politely, her eyes going quickly to Charlotte’s dark brown skirt, assessing neither her income nor her social rank, as other women might, but her skin, her eyes and lips, her very handsome shoulders and bosom. Her smile was cool.
“How do you do, Mrs. Parmenter,” Charlotte replied with a smile, as if she had not noticed. “I came to congratulate Dominic on his vocation. It is most excellent news. I know my mother and sister will be happy for him, too.”
“You must have lost touch for some time,” Vita observed, not quite critically but with a very slight arch of her perfect eyebrows.
“I am afraid we had. I am delighted for the opportunity to meet again, although I offer my sympathies on the news which has made it possible. I am deeply sorry.”
“I am amazed you know of it already,” Vita said with surprise. The very slightest smile curved her generous mouth. “You must read the very earliest editions of the newspapers.”
Charlotte put on an air of surprise. “Is it in the newspapers already? I did not know that. But then I have not seen them.” She left the suggestion unspoken that she did not do such things.
Vita was temporarily thrown off balance. “Then how did you know of our tragedy? It is hardly common discussion.”
“Superintendent Pitt told me because of the family connection. He is my husband.”
“Oh!” For a moment it seemed as if Vita were going to laugh. Her voice strayed dangerously near hysteria. “Oh … I see. That explains everything.” She did not expand on what she meant by that, but a curious expression filled her eyes and then was gone. “It was kind of you to call,” she added quietly. “I imagine you have much to learn since the last time you met. We are naturally not entertaining at present, but if you would care to take luncheon with us, you would be most welcome.”
Dominic shot her a glance of appreciation, and she smiled in answer.
“Thank you,” Charlotte accepted before she might change her mind.
Vita nodded to her, then turned to Dominic. “You will not forget to collect the black ribbon for us this afternoon, will you?” She touched his arm briefly with her fingers.
“No, of course not,” he said quickly, meeting her eyes.
“Thank you,” she murmured. “Now, if you will excuse me.”
When she had gone Dominic gestured to Charlotte to sit down, and he sat opposite her.
“Poor Vita,” he said with feeling, his face reflecting both his sympathy and the warmth of his admiration. “This is temble for her. But I expect you know that as well as I do.” He bit his lip, his eyes full of regret. “We have both experienced the same horror and the fear that grows worse every day. The thing about this is that we all know it must have been someone in the house, and it seems to have been Reverend Parmenter himself. I expect Thomas told you?”
“A little,” she conceded. She wanted to offer some kind of comfort, but they both knew there was none. She also wanted to warn him, but again, they had both already lived through all the dangers, the obvious ones of saying and doing something ill-judged, of telling less than the truth to cover the small acts of stupidity or meanness which one would so much rather others did not know of. And there were always some. And the less-obvious traps, the desire to be honest and to tell something one believed to be true, to find when it was too late that one had known only half the truth, and the rest of it altered everything. It was too easy to judge and too hard to teach oneself to forget. One saw far more than one wished to see of the weaknesses and the vulnerabilities of other people’s lives.
She leaned a little forward. “Dominic, be terribly careful,” she said impulsively. “Don’t do—” She stopped, smiling at herself. “I was going to say ‘Don’t do anything quickly,’ but that’s nonsense. Then I was going to say ‘Don’t try to solve it yourself,’ and ‘Don’t try to rescue anyone.’ I think I had better not say anything at all. Just do what you think right.”
He smiled back at her, for the first time since she had seen him again allowing himself to relax.
    But luncheon was agonizingly tense. The food was excellent. Course after course was served, beginning with soup, followed by perfectly cooked fish, then meat and vegetables, and no one did justice to any of it. Ramsay Parmenter had decided to eat with his family and their guest. He presided at the table, offering a stiffly worded grace before they began. Charlotte could not help thinking he sounded as if he were addressing a public meeting of town councillors, not a loving God who must know him infinitely better even than he knew himself.
Everyone echoed the “Amen” and began to eat.
“Had we better get some thick veiling as well as ribbons?” Clarice asked with her soup spoon halfway to her mouth. “I am sure Dominic wouldn’t mind fetching it from the haberdasher, would you?” She looked across at him.
“Not at all,” he agreed quickly.
“Don’t bother for me,” Tryphena said grimly. “I shall not be going anywhere that requires a hat.”
“You’ll require a hat for the garden if it rains,” Clarice pointed out. “And knowing England in spring, that is even more certain than death or taxes.”
“You are not dead, and you have no money, so you don’t pay taxes!” Tryphena snapped.
“Precisely,” Clarice agreed. “And I am rained on regularly.” She looked at Dominic. “Do you know what to get?”
“No. But I thought I would ask Mrs. Pitt to come with me, and I am sure she will know.”
“Please don’t trouble yourself.” Vita looked across at Charlotte with a smile. “We did not mean to impose upon you like that.”
Charlotte smiled back at her. “It would be a pleasure to help. And I should be delighted to have the opportunity to talk to Dominic and hear his news.”
“It is not very far to the haberdasher,” Tryphena said dryly, bending to her soup again. The light shone on her fair hair, making a halo of it. “Half an hour at the most.”
“Dominic is going to make the arrangements for Unity’s funeral,” Vita explained. “In the circumstances it seems more appropriate.” Her face pinched a little, but she did not add anything further.
“Funeral!” Tryphena jerked her head up. “I suppose you mean something in church, something pompous and self-important, with everyone wearing mourning to make a parade of the grief they don’t feel. That’s what you want the black: for. You are all hypocrites! If you couldn’t care about her and appreciate her when she was alive, what good is it to sit in solemn rows like crows on a fence pretending you do now?”
“That will do, Tryphena!” Vita said sternly. “We already know your feelings and we do not require to hear them again, certainly not at the table.”
Tryphena looked from her mother to Ramsay at the head. “Do you imagine your God believes you?” she demanded, her voice hard-edged and brittle. “He must be a fool if He’s taken in by your poses. I’m not! Nor is anyone who knows you.” She swiveled to face Mallory. “Why do you all treat your God as if He’s an idiot? You use stilted language and go on explaining yourselves over and over, as if He didn’t understand you the first time. You speak to Him the same way you speak to old ladies who are deaf and a bit senile.”
Clarice bit her lip and covered her mouth with her napkin. She made sounds as if she had something stuck in her throat.
“Tryphena, either hold your tongue or leave the table!” Vita said sharply. She did not even glance at Ramsay; presumably she had given up hope that he would step in to defend himself or his beliefs.
“So do you,” Clarice said challengingly, lowering her napkin again.
“I don’t talk to God at all!” Tryphena swung back to stare at her sister angrily. “It’s ridiculous. It would be like talking to Alice in Wonderland or the Cheshire cat.”
“You might get a better audience from the March Hare or the Mad Hatter,” Clarice suggested. “They would be mad enough to listen to you repeat yourself over and over on social finances, free love, artistic liberty and general license for everyone to do as they please and hope someone else will pick up the bits.”
“Clarice!” Vita said sharply, her eyes hard, her body stiff. “You are not helping! If you cannot say something appropriate to the occasion, please say nothing at all.”
“Clarice never says anything appropriate on any occasion,” Tryphena said with a sneer, bitter and full of hurt.
Charlotte knew what Tryphena was doing. For some reason Unity Bellwood’s death had wounded her more than she could contain, and her anger was against everyone else who did not share her loneliness and loss, or whose fear she could not see. Charlotte looked up at Ramsay Parmenter, sitting at the head of the table, nominally presiding, but in effect doing nothing.
She turned to Vita and saw a shadow of an old tiredness cross her features, and she wondered how many times before Vita had had to make the decisions, mark where the boundaries of behavior should be, when she had expected it of him. Perhaps that was the ultimate loneliness, not the bereavement of death but the isolation of failure to share in life, to find yourself linked to the shell of your dreams when the substance has gone.
“Well, fortunately the church will pick up our shortcomings and say all the appropriate things.” Mallory passed his soup plate to the maid who was collecting the dishes. “At least as far as it goes.”
“It goes far enough,” Dominic responded for the first time. “The rest is up to God.”
Mallory turned to him sharply. “Who gave us the sacraments of Confession and Absolution for our salvation, and Extreme Unction to fit us to accept His grace and be saved in the end, in spite of our frailties and sins.” His long, slender fingers were lying on the white linen of the tablecloth, stiff and held still with an effort.
“That’s totally immoral!” Tryphena said with disgust. “You are saying that in the end all it comes down to is magic. Say the right words and the spell will remove guilt. That is really and truly wicked!” She stared around at them each in turn. “How can any of you believe that? It’s monstrous! This is an age of reason and science. Even the Renaissance had more enlightenment than this…”
“Not the Inquisition,” Clarice pointed out, her dark brows lifted. “They burned anyone whose belief differed from theirs.”
“Not anyone,” Ramsay corrected pedantically. “Only those who had been baptized Christian and then reverted to heresy.”
“What difference does that make?” Tryphena’s voice rose in disbelief. “Are you saying that makes it all right?”
“I am correcting a misstatement,” he replied. “All we can do is the best we know, according to our faith and our understanding, and leave the rest. We shall have a funeral for Unity and observe the formalities of the Church of England. God will know that we have done what we believe right for her and will accord her His due mercy and forgiveness.”
“Forgiveness!” Now Tryphena’s voice was an octave higher and shrill with emotion. “It isn’t Unity who needs forgiving. It’s whoever killed her! How can you sit there and talk about forgiving as if she were the one in the wrong? It’s preposterous!” She pushed her chair back roughly, almost upsetting it, and stood up. “I can’t stay and listen to this. It’s a madhouse.” She swept out of the room without looking back, leaving the door swinging on its hinges and only just missing the footman coming in with the next course.
“I’m sorry,” Vita murmured, looking apologetically at Charlotte. “I am afraid she is very upset indeed. She and Unity were very close. I do hope you will excuse her.”
“Of course.” Charlotte made the only reply possible. She had endured enough family life to have sat through many such scenes. She blushed slightly now to remember a few she had created herself, more than one centered on her infatuation with Dominic. “I have suffered bereavement, and I know how very shaken you can be.”
Vita flashed her a bright, shallow smile. “Thank you. You are very generous.”
Clarice was looking at Charlotte curiously, but she did not say anything. The rest of the meal was finished with Dominic and Vita making polite remarks and Charlotte joining in in order to keep some semblance of courtesy. Ramsay agreed as was appropriate, and politely asked Charlotte’s opinion once or twice. Mallory made no attempt to join in, and Clarice kept a modest and uncharacteristic silence.
    In the afternoon Charlotte accompanied Dominic as he had invited her to. They rode in the second-best carriage. It was open, but the weather was dry and breezy, and with a rug over her knees, she was very comfortable. Dominic sat beside her after first giving the coachman his instructions.
“It was very nice of you to come,” Dominic began ruefully as they set off. “I wish we had not had to meet again in these circumstances. Luncheon was dreadful. We are all so raw, it seems the slightest touch and we lose control.”
“I know,” she said softly. “I do remember …”
“Yes, of course you do.” He smiled quickly. “I’m sorry.”
“So much has happened since we last met …”
“You don’t look very different.” He swiveled to face her as he said so, regarding her carefully. “Your hair is just the same.” There was admiration in his eyes, and she felt a warmth of pleasure which embarrassed her, but she would not have forfeited it.
“Thank you,” she accepted. She smiled in spite of herself. “A good few years have gone by, and I would like to think I have become a little wiser. I have two children—”
“Two?” He was surprised. “I remember Jemima.”
“I have a son as well, two years younger. His name is Daniel. He’s six and a half.” She could not entirely keep the pride or the tenderness out of her voice. “But you look different—very. What happened? How did you meet Ramsay Parmenter?”
The humor was reflected in his eyes, but there was hurt in there as well.
“Detecting again?” he asked.
“No.” This was not entirely truthful. “Detecting” had become a habit with her, but this time she was thinking primarily about Dominic and how this tragedy would affect him. Also, she could not rid herself of the image of Ramsay Parmenter’s face as he sat at the head of his dining room table seemingly adrift in a confusion which all but drowned him. “No,” she said again. “You have changed so much, extraordinary things must have happened to you. And I can see that you are very concerned for him, not simply because of how it will affect his family but for his own inner distress. You don’t believe he pushed her intentionally, do you.” It was a statement, not really a question.
He hesitated a long time before he answered, and when he did it was slowly; he was frowning, and looking not at her but straight ahead of him at the blur of the street and the other traffic.
“It is completely unlike the man I know,” he said. “When I first met Ramsay I was at the lowest point I have ever been in my life. Every day seemed a gray desert with nothing beyond the horizon but more of the same pointless struggle.” He was nervously chewing his lower hp as if even the memory of that time still disturbed him, the knowledge that it was possible to feel such an utter inability even to hope. It was an abyss whose existence was a fear in itself. The darkness of it was naked in his eyes.
She wanted to ask why, but it would be intrusive, and she had no right to know. She wondered if it had anything to do with Sarah’s death, even though it must have been several years after. She wanted to touch him, but that also would be too personal. It was too long since they had known each other so well, and one could not bridge that gap in an instant.
“I despised myself,” he went on, still not looking at her, and speaking only loudly enough for her to hear, but not the coachman in front of them.
“For feeling despair?” she said softly. “You shouldn’t. It is not a sin. Oh, I know religious teaching says it is, but sometimes one cannot help it. Perhaps self-pity is, but not genuine despair.”
“No,” he said with a dry laugh. “I didn’t despise myself for my misery; I was miserable because I despised myself. And I had cause.” His hands tightened in his lap. She could see the leather of his gloves shining as it stretched over his knuckles. “I have no intention of telling you how worthless I had become, because I don’t wish you to think of me like that, even in the past. But I had sunk into being completely selfish, thinking of no one else, living for the moment and my immediate appetite.”
He shook his head fractionally. “That is no life for any creature with the intelligence to think. It is less than human, a waste of life, a denial of the mind, the spirit, the soul, if you like. It is killing by neglect all that makes anyone worth valuing or loving. There is no kindness, no courage, no honor or grace or dignity in it.” He glanced at her, then away again. “I despised myself for being almost nothing of what I could have been. I was wasting all my possibilities. You can’t truly condemn anyone who had no chances, but you can those who had them and threw them away out of cowardice, laziness or dishonesty.”
Excuses came to her mind, but she saw in his face that he would not have found them a kindness, only a failure to comprehend, so she remained silent. They were coming into a street with shops on either side, and they would shortly reach the haberdasher.
“And Ramsay Parmenter helped you?” she prompted.
He straightened his shoulders again, a slight smile touching his lips as if the memory were sweet. “Yes. He had the charity and the strength of faith to see far more in me than I saw in myself.” He gave a jerky laugh. “He had the patience to persevere with me, to put up with my mistakes and my self-pity, my endless doubts and fears, and continually help me to the point where I believed in myself as strongly as he did. I can’t tell you how many hours and days and weeks that took, but he never gave up.”
“You didn’t take the cloth to please him, did you?” she asked, then wished the moment after that she had not. It was insulting, and she had not meant to do that. “I’m sorry …”
He turned to look at her, and he was smiling fully now. The years had suited him very well. His face was less beautiful in an obvious way, but the lines in it made it subtler, more refined. There was nothing bland or unfinished in him anymore. It was a greater beauty because it had meaning.
“You haven’t changed, have you.” He shook his head. “Still the same Charlotte, saying what you think the minute you think it.”
“I have changed!” she defended herself instantly. “I do it far less often. I can really be both tactful and devious, if it is called for. And I can say nothing and listen very well.”
“And not voice your own opinion when you feel passionately about stupidity or injustice or hypocrisy?” he asked with his eyebrows arched. “Or laugh at all the wrong times? Please don’t say so. I don’t want the world I know to have changed all that much simply because I have taken to the ministry. Some things should stay the same … always.”
“You are making fun of me, and we are at the haberdasher’s,” she said cheerfully, a little bubble of warmth inside her. “Would you like me to go in and purchase the ribbon and the veiling?”
“I should be greatly obliged.” He pulled several shillings from his pocket and held them out to her. “Thank you.”
She returned nearly fifteen minutes later, the footman handed her up, and she gave Dominic the package and the change. The carriage moved forward.
“No,” he answered the original question. “I did not join the ministry to please Ramsay. It would have been unworthy of him, or of me, and it certainly would have been of little use to the parishioners I would one day serve.”
“I know,” she said contritely. “I’m sorry I asked. I was afraid for you because it would be such an easy thing to do. We all feel gratitude an intense weight and want to repay. It is natural, and what better honor than to try to be like him? Haven’t we all done right things for wrong reasons at one time or another?”
“Oh, yes!” he agreed. “And wrong things for what we thought were right reasons. But I joined the ministry because I believe in all it teaches, and it is what I want to do with my life. Not out of gratitude to anyone, or as a refuge from the past or from failure, but because I love it. I have faith in its meaning and its purpose.” His voice was strong when he said it; there was no hesitation.
“Good,” she said quietly. “You had no need to tell me, but I am very glad you did. I am happy for you …”
“If you care for me in the slightest, then you should be—” He stopped and blushed hotly. “I … I didn’t mean …”
She laughed outright, even though her own cheeks were a little hot. “I know you didn’t! And, yes, of course I care for you. I have long considered you a friend as well as a brother-in-law. I am truly pleased you have found yourself.”
He sighed. “Don’t be too satisfied. I don’t seem to be any help whatever to poor Ramsay. What use is my faith if I can’t help another person, the one who gave me so much of what I have?” The frown was back between his brows. “Why am I so empty when it comes to offering him back some of all that he gave me? Why can’t I think of the right words? He did it for me!”
“Maybe there are no right words,” she replied, searching to say what she meant and yet not distress him, or lose in him the strength or the pity she admired.
The carriage came to a stop as they reached the crossroads. An open landau passed in front of them, a group of fashionable young ladies giggling and pretending not to stare at Dominic. They failed miserably. One of them was twisted around in her seat as they passed. Dominic himself seemed unaware of the stir he had caused. Last time she saw him he would not have been.
“Then there is a right time and a right gesture,” he argued urgently. “There is something I could do! He never gave up with me, and believe me, it would have been extremely easy. I was obstinate, argumentative, angry with myself and with him for wanting me to succeed and for believing that I could. It was such hard work! I resented him for making me do it, for making me believe there was a purpose in trying.”
“Did you want to be helped?” she asked.
He looked at her. “Are you saying Ramsay does not want to be?”
“I don’t know. Do you?”
His eyes widened, very dark.
“You are asking as if I think he murdered Unity.”
That was true. “Do you?” she pressed. “Why would he? Was she really so dangerous to his peace of mind? How can one doubter shake a true faith?” She searched his face. “Or is that not what it is about? Was she beautiful in any way, not necessarily conventionally?”
“She was …” A shadow crossed his eyes. Something in him ceased to be as open as it had, and she felt it immediately, a withdrawing from the intimacy of the moment before. “She was very full of … vitality, life …” He was seeking the right words. “It’s hard to think of her being dead.” He sounded surprised as he said it. “I suppose I don’t fully believe it yet. It will take a while … weeks, perhaps. Part of me expects her to come back tomorrow and give her opinion on all this, tell us what it means and what we should be doing.” He smiled fleetingly; there was humor in it, and a touch of bitterness. “She always had opinions.”
“And always gave them?” she asked.
“Oh yes!”
She looked at him steadily, trying to read his expression from his profile as he stared down at the leatherwork and the railing at the front of the carriage. She did not know whether he had liked Unity Bellwood or not. One moment there seemed a smoothness in his face, almost a relief she was gone, as though her death had taken some weight from him; then it changed to the sadness, the oppression one would have expected at the closeness of violent death. Once she caught a self-mockery about his mouth, but there was no explanation for it in his words.
“Did you work with her, too?” she asked, meaning had he liked her, but afraid to ask so directly. She had no right to probe his feelings. Their friendship was tenuous, more a thing of length of time than a depth of understanding or trust. They had many shared experiences, grief and terror which they both felt. Looking back on it now, it seemed the same, but at the time they had been very different, very separate, aware then only of aloneness.
“No,” he answered, still with his eyes forward, as if he were concerned where they were going. “It was Ramsay’s personal scholarship she was involved in. I had nothing to do with that. I expect I shall be posted to a church somewhere else quite soon. As it is for Mallory, my situation here is only temporary.”
She had a feeling he was leaving unsaid something far more important than the factual details he spoke about.
“But you must still have seen her at table and in the evenings, times when they did not work,” she pointed out. “You must know something of her and of what he felt for her.…” She was pressing him, but she was too anxious not to.
“Yes, of course,” he agreed, pulling the rug across her where it had slipped away. “As well as one knows anybody whom one … with whom one shares no common perception or belief. It all seems such a waste. We shall have to try to make sense of it for the others. I suppose that is my job … to make sense of pain and confusion, and people doing things which seem ugly beyond all possible explanation. Are you warm enough?”
“Yes, thank you.” Her comfort did not matter in the slightest; she was hardly aware of it.
“It takes a great deal of courage,” she said sincerely. For the first time since he had come to Cater Street courting Sarah, over fourteen years ago, she felt an admiration for him which was based on the man he was, not the beauty of his face. This time there was no mirage, no preoccupation with her own dreams or her needs for him to fulfill. She found herself smiling. “If I can help, please allow me.”
He swiveled to face her. “Of course.” He put his hand on hers in a momentary gesture of warmth. “I wish I knew how. I’m guessing it step by step myself.”
The carriage stopped. They had reached the undertaker’s establishment, and there were formalities to arrange, times, places, choices to be made. He alighted and offered her his hand.
    Isadora Underhill watched as her husband paced the floor of the withdrawing room, back and forth, every so often running his fingers through his thinning hair. She was used to his being preoccupied with anxieties of one sort or another. He was a little older than she, and bishop of a diocese where a great many influential people lived. There was always some sort of crisis which commanded his attention. Many duties were required both of him and of his wife, but when she was not needed she had learned to occupy herself in other pursuits both with people and on her own. She had great pleasure in reading, especially about the lives of men and women in other lands or of other times. During the spring and summer she spent many hours in the garden, doing more of the physical work than her husband thought suitable. But she had entered into a tacit conspiracy with the gardener that he would solemnly take credit for much that was actually her work if the bishop should happen to notice and comment, which was very infrequently. He did not know a hollyhock from a camellia, or have any but the faintest notion of what care went into the beauty which surrounded him.
“Really, it is quite the worst thing which has ever happened!” he said sharply. “I don’t think you are appreciating the seriousness of this, Isadora.” He stopped pacing and stood staring at her, his brows furrowed, small lines of anger around his mouth.
“I can see that it is very sad,” she replied, threading her tapestry needle with a deep rose madder silk. “It is always deeply distressing when a young person dies. And I daresay her scholastic skills will be sorely missed. I understand she was brilliant.” She put the skein away among the others.
“For heaven’s sake!” he said exasperatedly. “You have not been paying attention at all. That is hardly the point. Really, I think you could at least put your sewing away and listen with all your mind.” He waved his hand irritably at the tapestry roses. “That is of no importance. This is quite devastating.”
“I don’t see why death should devastate you,” she replied reasonably. “It is very sad, but regrettably we hear of death very often, and surely that is part of the blessing of having a faith that you—”
“It is not the wretched woman’s death which is the problem!” he cut across her, jerking his head in the air. He was wearing a dark suit, gaiters, and a very high white collar. “Of course it is sad, but we deal with death all the time. It is a part of life, and absolutely inevitable. We have all sorts of ways of coping with it, things with which to comfort ourselves and those who mourn. As I said, if you were listening, that is not the point.”
She heard the temper sharp in his voice, and behind it a fear more genuine and urgent than she could remember ever perceiving in him before. She pushed the silks towards the box in which she kept them. “Then what is the point?” she asked.
“I told you! She was pushed down the stairs and broke her neck. It now appears quite possible it was Ramsay Parmenter himself who did it.”
She was startled and suddenly quite tight and cold inside.She knew Ramsay Parmenter. She had always rather liked him; he was invariably kind, but she had sensed an unhappiness in him which she could not forget or dismiss. Now, in the space of a few words, it became pity.
“No, you did not tell me,” she said with acute sorrow. “That is indeed very terrible. What makes anyone think such a thing could have happened? Why? Why should Ramsay Parmenter push anyone downstairs? Was it an accident? Did he overbalance? He doesn’t drink, does he?”
The bishop looked thoroughly annoyed.
“No, of course he doesn’t drink! Whatever possessed you to say such a thing? For heaven’s sake, Isadora, it was I who pushed for him to be given a bishopric. The Archbishop of Canterbury is not going to forget that … nor is the Synod.”
She was unperturbed by his tone. Any suggestion of impropriety disturbed him, and she was used to it. “Canon Black drank a great deal,” she remembered. “No one knew it because he could walk quite steadily even when he was very much the worse for it.”
“That was malicious gossip,” he denied. “You of all people should know better than to listen to it, let alone repeat it. The poor man had an impediment in his speech.”
“I know he did. It is called Napoleon brandy.” She did not wish to be gratuitously unkind, but there were times when tact became cowardice and was intolerable. “You would have done him more good not to turn a blind eye to it.”
His eyebrows rose. “Leave me to be the judge of my duty, Isadora. Canon Black is in the past. There is nothing to be served by debating that issue again. At the present I have a far graver matter upon which I must make a judgment, and a very great deal will depend upon it. It is an enormous responsibility I have.”
She was confused. “What judgment can you make, Reginald? We must support poor Reverend Parmenter and his family, but there is nothing for us to do. Do you think I should call tomorrow, or is it too soon?”
“Certainly it is too soon.” He dismissed the idea with a flick of his well-cared-for hand with its large bloodstone ring. She was used to his hands, strong and square, with spatulate fingers, but she had never found them attractive. It was something about which she felt guilty.
“It only happened yesterday,” he went on. “I heard about it this morning, half an hour ago. The decision is what I must do. I have insufficient information. I have been going over and over in my mind upon Parmenter’s career. What could have unbalanced him to the point where such a thing can even be contemplated?”
She stared at him in disbelief. “What are you saying, Reginald? Are you suggesting there is something uglier than an accident?”
“The police are!” he replied sharply, his sandy eyebrows drawn together. “Therefore I must. I cannot evade reality, no matter how much I might prefer to. If the police bring charges against him, it may even be as dreadful as murder.”
She wanted to deny it, but that was foolish. Reginald would never have said it if it were not true. She looked at him as he swung around and started to pace back and forth again, clenching and unclenching his hands. She had never seen him so distressed or so worried; the muscles of his strong, thick body were knotted hard, his jacket stretched over his shoulders.
“Do you think it is possible?” she asked quietly.
He stopped. “Of course it is possible, Isadora. There is sometimes a darkness in people the rest of us have no idea exists.” He was angry with her because he had to explain, and yet he would have explained anyway, he always explained everything, and she had long ago stopped telling him she understood.
“Parmenter is a man who never achieved his potential,” he went on, wagging his finger. “Think back to when we both met him. He was brilliant. His whole future lay ahead of him. He could have risen to be a bishop then. He had all the talents necessary, the intellectual understanding and the personal ability. He preached superbly.” His voice was getting a sharper edge to it with every sentence. “He had tact, intelligence, judgment, dedication, and all the right sort of family background. He married very well. Vita Parmenter would be an asset to any man. And where is he now?” He stared down at her as if he expected her to supply the answer, but he did not wait. “He has lost the … the promise he used to have, the … the dedication to the purposes of the church. Somewhere he has gone astray, Isadora. I just wonder how far.”
She also had noticed a difference in Ramsay Parmenter over the years. But many people changed. Sometimes it was health, sometimes personal unhappiness, sometimes a disillusion or simply a weariness, a lack of hope. It took great courage to maintain all the fire and energy of youth. Still she found herself defending Ramsay. She did not even think to do it, it was instinctive.
“Surely we must assume it was an accident, unless we hear something which makes that impossible? We must be loyal to him …”
“We must be loyal to the church!” he corrected her. “Sentiment is all very well, in its place, but this is a time for principle. I have to consider the very real possibility that he may be guilty. We are all frail. We all have temptations and weaknesses, both of the flesh and of the spirit. I have seen far more of the world than you have, my dear. I know more of humanity and its darker aspects than you ever will, thank heaven. It is not what a woman should even be aware of, far less see. But I must be prepared to face the worst.” He lifted his chin a little, as if the blow were expected any moment, even in this quiet, comfortable room with the morning sun on a pot of early hyacinths.
She would have been angry were it not for the real fear she heard in the edginess of his voice and saw in the tight tracery of lines around his mouth. She had never known him to be so distressed before. During their thirty years of marriage she had seen him face many difficult decisions, many tragedies where he had to comfort the shocked and grieving and find the right words to say to everyone. She knew he had mediated in difficult internal rivalries between ambitious clerics, breaking bad news, both personal and professional, to many. He had usually found the way. His confidence had appeared to be serene and based upon an inner certainty.
Perhaps it had been more of a facade than she realized, because now he was rattled. There was a thin edge of panic she could not miss, not for Ramsay Parmenter but for himself, because he had lent his name to recommending him.
“Why on earth would he do such a thing?” she asked, trying to comfort him that it could not be true. It seemed wildly at odds with the man she had met a dozen times every year. He was an intelligent and very worthy man. Lately he had seemed drier than usual. She hesitated to use the word boring; if she did, she was not sure when she could stop. She might find a great many senior clergy boring. It was a rogue thought she dared not entertain.
He looked at her impatiently. “Well, the obvious reason which springs to mind is that he was conducting himself improperly towards her,” he replied.
“You mean he was having an affair with her?” Why did he always put things in such roundabout euphemisms? This obscured meaning, but it did not alter it.
He winced. “I should prefer you were not so blunt, Isadora,” he said critically. “But if you must, then yes, it is what I fear. She was a handsome woman, and I have since learned that her reputation in that area is far from admirable. It would have been a great deal better if Parmenter had employed a young man for his translation—as I advised him at the time, if you recall?”
“I do recall,” she answered with a frown. “You said it was an excellent thing to give a young woman an opportunity. It was most liberal and a good example of modern tolerance.”
“Nonsense! That is what Parmenter said,” he contradicted her crossly. “I find your memory a good deal less reliable than it used to be.”
She remembered it very precisely. They had been sitting in this very room. Ramsay Parmenter had leaned forward in his chair and described Unity Bellwood’s academic achievements and his intention to employ her, on a temporary basis, with the bishop’s permission. Reginald had thought about it for a few moments, sitting with his lips pursed, staring into the fire. It had been November and particularly cold. The butler had brought brandy. Reginald had rolled it gently around in the glass; the firelight made it look like amber. Finally he had given his opinion that it was a liberal and advanced thing to do. Learning should be encouraged. The church should set the example in modern tolerance of all peoples, rewarding on merit.
She looked up at him now where he stood frowning, his collar a little high on one side, his shoulders raised in tension. It would not help to argue. He would not believe her anyway.
“The question is,” he stated, “how can we limit the damage this will do to the church? How can we prevent the great work of the body of Christian men and women from being impeded by the scandal this may create if it is not handled to the best? Can you see the headlines in the newspapers? ‘Prospective bishop murders his mistress’?” He closed his eyes as if in physical pain, his face bleak and very pale.
She could imagine it, but her first thought was for Vita. Parmenter and the shock and distress she would feel, indeed must be feeling now. No matter how well Vita knew her husband, or what confidence she had in him, she could not help but be gripped by a terrible fear that he could be accused. Innocent people did sometimes suffer, even die. And Ramsay himself must be in a turmoil of emotions, every one of them painful, whether he was guilty of anything at all or absolutely nothing. It must be a living nightmare for him.
“Perhaps I could persuade him to plead madness,” the bishop said aloud. He looked at Isadora. “He certainly must be quite mad. No sane man could embark on an affair with a woman of Unity Bellwood’s type, and then lose all touch with morality, his own lifelong beliefs and everything he has been taught, and in hysteria murder her. It would be a totally truthful plea.” He nodded, determined to convince her. “One cannot blame madness, one can only pity it. And of course put the person under suitable restraint, naturally.” He leaned forward. “He would be cared for in the best and safest institution we can find. He would be treated with the necessary care. It would be the best thing for everyone.”
She was dizzy with the speed with which he had moved from a question to a supposition and then to an assumption, and an answer where Ramsay Parmenter was judged and his sentence decided. It had taken less than three minutes. She felt detached from it, as if she were only in a sense present in the room. Part of her was far away, looking on at the quiet dignity of it with its deep wine patterned carpet, its gentle fire, the bishop standing with his hands clenched in front of him, rendering his judgment. He seemed so familiar in his physical presence, and yet a total stranger, a mind and soul she did not know at all.
“You don’t know anything about it yet.” The words were on her lips before she had considered how he would react to them. “He may not be guilty of anything at all.”
“I can hardly wait until he is charged, can I?” he demanded angrily, stepping back and closer to the fire. “I must act to protect the church. Surely you can see that? The damage will be appalling.” He stared at her accusingly, as if she were willfully slow-witted. “We have enemies enough in the modern world without this sort of disaster. There are people on every side denying God, setting up citadels of the mind dedicated to reason as if it were a deity, as if it could answer all our desires and aspirations towards righteousness.” He poked at the air. “Unity Bellwood was just one apostle of the mind without morality, the indulgence of the basest instincts of the body, as if learning somehow set one free from the rules which govern the rest of us. Parmenter was quite mistaken to imagine he could teach her better things, reform her, convert her, if you like. It was the supreme arrogance, and look how he has paid for it.” He started to pace again, striding in decisive steps to the far end of the room, turning and coming back, turning and retracing his way exactly across the carpet. He was wearing marks in the pile of it. “Now I must think what is best for all. I cannot indulge the one at the cost of many. It is a luxury I do not have. This is no time for sentimentality.”
“Have you spoken with him?” She was searching for something to delay him. Without realizing it, she had made a decision to fight him.
“Not yet, but of course I shall. First I must think what to say. I cannot go unprepared. It would be dishonest to him, and disastrous.”
She felt even more separate from him, almost a stranger. And the most painful thing was that she wanted to be separate, apart from the thoughts he had as much as the action he would take.
“Well, perhaps he will tell you something which will explain it,” she argued. “You must not act before that. You would look dreadful to have condemned him and then find he was innocent. How would people view the church then … to have abandoned one of your own the moment he was in trouble? What about honor, loyalty, or even compassion?” She said the last word harshly, unable to keep back her anger any longer and, in truth, unwilling to hide it.
He stopped in the middle of the floor, staring at her. He took a deep breath. He looked worried, even frightened.
She wanted to be sorry for him. It was a wretched situation. Whatever he did there was a strong possibility it would be wrong, and it would certainly be perceived as such by many. There were always people only too happy to criticize. They had their own reasons, political reasons. Church politics seethed with rivalry, hurt feelings, ambition, guilt, thwarted hopes. The bishop’s miter was in some ways as heavy and uneasy an ornament as a crown. Too much was expected of the wearer, a sanctity, a moral rightness beyond any mortal to achieve.
And yet as she looked at him she did not see a man struggling valiantly to do right in a dreadful dilemma. She saw instead a man seeking the expedient in case he was caught in the wrong, even a man relishing a certain self-importance as he thought of himself as the one person to save the reputation of the church under such pressure. There was even a certain joy of martyrdom in him. Not once had he expressed pity for any one of the Parmenter family, or grief for Unity herself.
“Do you suppose it will be misunderstood?” he asked seriously.
“What?” She did not know what he was talking about. Had he said something she had not heard?
“Do you think that people will misunderstand our reasons?” he said in what he must have supposed was a plainer form.
“Misunderstand what, Reginald?”
“Our counsel to Ramsay Parmenter to plead madness, of course! Where is your attention?” His face was furrowed with anxiety. “You sounded as if you believed they might see it as lack of loyalty or a certain cowardice, as if we had abandoned him.”
“Isn’t that exactly what you are proposing to do … abandon him?”
He flushed red.
“No, of course it isn’t! I don’t know how you could even think of such a thing!” he responded angrily. “It is simply a matter of putting the church first, and that means not only doing what is right but doing what is perceived to be right. I would have thought after all these years you could have understood that.”
Her own ignorance astounded her, not of her lack of sympathy with the argument, but her lack of perception of herself, and of him. How could she have known him so little as not to have seen this in him before? It was a shabbiness which hurt so deeply she could have wept with the loneliness and the disappointment of it.
He was talking to himself, voicing his thoughts aloud. “Perhaps I should speak to Harold Petheridge. He could bring some influence to bear. After all, the government has an interest in this.” He started to walk again. “No one wants a scandal, and we should think of the family. This must be fearful for them.”
She stared at him, wondering if he thought for a moment about Ramsay Parmenter himself, how frightened he must feel, how torn with doubts, confusion, and perhaps guilt. Could anyone feel more alone than he must? Would Reginald think of going to offer him some kind of spiritual strength, the support of a friend if he were innocent, the courage to stand and fight for his vindication? Or if he were guilty, then the office of a priest to listen to his confusion and his sin, and to help him seek some form of repentance, at least the beginning of the long road back. She had to believe there was a way. The man she knew might have lost his path and committed some fearful error, but he was not a wicked man, not to be abandoned like an object no longer needed. Was not the whole essence of the church’s purpose to preach the Gospel to all people and to cry repentance to all who would hear … and that was everyone.
“You are going to see Ramsay, aren’t you?” she said with sudden urgency.
He was at the far window. “Yes, of course I am,” he answered crossly. “I told you that when you asked before. It is vital I speak with him. I need to know a great deal more about this situation, then I can make an informed judgment as to how we should deal with it … for the best.” He straightened his jacket a little. “I am going upstairs to my study. I need to compose myself. Good night.”
She did not answer, and he seemed not to notice. He went out and closed the door with a click.