Brunswick Gardens

5

AT THE SAME TIME as Pitt was in Cornwallis’s office listening to Smithers, Dominic was in the withdrawing room in Brunswick Gardens talking to Vita Parmenter. The maids had already dusted and swept the room and the fire was beginning to burn up well. It was a bright morning, but cold, and Vita shivered a little as she moved restlessly back and forth, unable to sit.
“I wish I knew what that policeman was thinking,” she said, turning and looking at Dominic, her face puckered with distress. “Where is he? Who is he talking to, if not us?”
“I don’t know,” he said honestly, wishing he could comfort her instead of standing helplessly and watching her fear. “I really know very little of how they work. He may be finding out more about Unity.”
“Why?” She was confused. “What difference can it make?” She moved jerkily, one moment spreading her hands wide, the next knotting them together till it must have hurt her, nails digging into her palms. “Do you mean that because she was a loose-living woman in the past, he may think she behaved that way here?”
He was startled. He had not thought Vita knew anything of Unity’s past. It was peculiarly disturbing, but he should have realized that she must have heard Unity’s talk about moral freedom, the right to follow emotions and appetites, the nonsense she frequently talked about the liberating influence of passions and how commitment stifled people, women in particular. He had once or twice tried to argue with her that commitment actually protected people, most especially women, and she had withered him with her anger and contempt. Thinking of it now, it was foolish to suppose Vita had not seen or heard at least something of such attitudes.
She was standing on the edge of the Aubusson carpet looking at him with real fear in her wide eyes. She looked very vulnerable, for all the inner strength he knew she possessed.
“I don’t even know that that is what he is doing,” he answered quietly, stepping a little closer to her. “It is just a possibility. It must be common sense to look at the life of someone who has been … killed … when trying to discover who is responsible.”
“I suppose so.” Her voice was husky. “Does that mean … do you think … that it may not be Ramsay?” She stared up at him, her face white, her expression veering between hope and despair.
Without thinking he put out his hand and took hers, holding it gently. Her fingers were limp for an instant, then clung to him desperately.
“I’m so sorry!” he whispered. “I wish there were something I could do. Anything. I owe you so much.”
She smiled a very little—it was just a curving at the corners of her lips—but as if it mattered to her.
“Ramsay helped me when I was in the depths,” he went on. “And now there seems nothing I can do to help him.”
She lowered her eyes. “If he killed Unity, there is nothing any of us can do to help him. It …” She gulped. “It is the … the not knowing which is unbearable.” Then she shook herself. “That is a silly thing to say … and weak … we have to bear it.” Her voice dropped. “But, Dominic, it hurts!”
“I know …”
“All sorts of terrible things keep going through my mind.” She was still whispering, as if she could not bring herself to say things clearly, although there was no one else in the room. “Is it disloyal of me?” She searched his eyes. “Do you despise me for it? I think perhaps I despise myself. But I wonder if he was attracted to her … she … was very … very vibrant, very … full of ideas and emotions. She had beautiful eyes, didn’t you think?”
He found himself smiling in spite of the wretchedness of the situation. Unity’s eyes were so much less beautiful than Vita’s own. Unity had been voluptuous. He remembered her body with a shiver, and her lips.
“Not remarkable,” he answered with literal truth. “Far less so than yours.” He disregarded the color filling her cheeks. “And it is hard to believe Ramsay found her appealing. He disliked her opinions too much. She was very critical, you know.” He still held her hand, and she was gripping his hand. “If she found anyone in a mistake,” he went on, “she never refrained from telling them about it, and usually with pleasure. That does not predispose a man towards romantic ideas.”
She looked at him steadily for several seconds. “Do you really think not?” she said at last. “She was a little sharp, wasn’t she? A little cruel with her tongue …”
“Very!” He let his hand fall from hers. “I don’t think you should fear that. It is so far from the man we know.”
“They worked together a great deal …” She could not completely rid herself of the fear. “She was young, and … very …”
He knew what she meant, even if she was reluctant to use the words. Unity had been physically highly attractive.
“They did not actually work together so much,” he pointed out. “Ramsay worked in his study, and she quite often worked in the library. They conferred only when it was necessary. And there were always servants about. And, in fact, almost as long as Unity has been here, so has Mallory, so have I. The house is full of people. Not to mention Clarice and Tryphena. Pitt must know that, too.”
She did not look greatly comforted. The furrow of anxiety was still deep between her eyes, and her face was very pale.
“Did you ever see anything to suggest it?” he asked her, almost certain she would say no. He could not imagine Ramsay having any relationship with Unity except the very formal and rather unhappy one he had seen. On every occasion he could recall observing them together they had either been working, and the conversation had been academic and often based on disagreement of one kind or another, or else they had been in public and rather cool. There had been a lot of differences of opinion, carefully concealed beneath outward civility for the most part, but containing a sharp element of Unity’s need to prove herself right. Unity had taken distinct pleasure in making her points. She had never let an opportunity slip. She catered to no one’s feelings. Possibly it was intellectual integrity. He thought it more likely it was a much more childish desire to win.
Ramsay had taken losing a point, any point, badly. He had masked it with a pretense of indifference, but it was plain enough in his thinned lips and long silences. Any physical passion between them was unimaginable.
“No …” Vita shook her head. “No … I didn’t.”
“Then don’t believe it,” he assured her. “Don’t let it even enter your mind. It is not worthy of either of you.”
The ghost of a smile touched her mouth again. She took a deep breath and faced him. “You are very kind to me, Dominic. Very gentle. I don’t know what any of us would do without your strength to support us. I trust you as I can trust no one else.”
“Thank you,” he said with a rush of pleasure even the circumstances around them could not dampen. To be trusted was something he had long hungered for. In the past he had not been—and had not deserved to be. He had too often placed his own needs and appetites before anything else. He had seldom been spiteful, simply self-obsessed, thoughtless, behaving on impulse, like a child. Since Ramsay had found him and taught him so much, the things he desired had changed. He had tasted the depths of loneliness in the knowledge that those who valued him did so only for his handsome face and the appetites of theirs he could satisfy. He was like a good meal, hungered for intensely, eaten, and then forgotten. It had all been meaningless, devoid of the things which last.
Now Vita trusted him. She knew countless good and learned men dedicated to helping others, yet she felt he had strength and honor. He found himself smiling back at her.
“There is nothing I want more than to be of comfort to you during this appalling time,” he said with profound feeling. “Anything whatever that I can do, you have but to tell me. I cannot say what will happen, but I can promise to give you my support, whatever it is, and to be here to stand beside you.”
At last she seemed to relax, her body eased and the tension slipped away from her shoulders. Her back became less rigid. There was even a little color in her cheeks.
“It was a very blessed day for us when you entered this house,” she said softly. “I am going to need you, Dominic. I fear very much what that policeman is going to find. Oh, I believe you are right, Ramsay did not have any romantic relationship with Unity.” She smiled a little. “The more I think of what you said, the more foolish it seems. He disliked her too much for that.”
She was standing very still, about two feet away from him. He could smell her perfume. “In fact, I think he was afraid of her,” she continued. “For her quickness of mind and her cruel tongue, but most of all for the things she said about faith. She was terribly destructive, Dominic. I could hate her for that.” She drew in her breath and let it out in a shuddering sigh. “It is a wicked thing deliberately to mock someone else’s belief and systematically to take it apart and leave them with nothing but the broken pieces. I ought to be sorry she is dead, oughtn’t I? But I can’t be. Is that very wrong of me?”
“No,” he said quickly. “No, it is completely understandable. You have seen the damage she has done, and you are afraid of it. So am I. Life is quite hard enough for most of us. Faith is all that enables us to get through with some dignity and strength. It makes healing and forgiveness possible, and hope when we can see no end to difficulty or grief. To rob people of it is a fearful thing to do, and when the victim is someone you love, how much more must you feel it.”
“Thank you.” She touched his hand lightly, then straightening her shoulders, she turned and walked away towards the baize door and the butler’s quarters. Domestic necessities did not stop because of mourning, or fear, or policemen investigating the tragedies of your life.
Dominic went upstairs to see Ramsay. There must be practical duties with which he could help. Also perhaps there was some way in which he could offer, if not comfort, at least friendship. One thing at least, he could not run away. Ramsay must know he would not be deserted either from suspicion or cowardice.
He put his hand into his pocket for his handkerchief, but it was not there. He must have dropped it—an annoying circumstance because it was a good one, monogrammed linen from his better financial days. Still, it was barely important now.
He knocked on the study door, and when Ramsay answered, he went in.
“Ah, Dominic,” Ramsay said with a forced courage. He looked ill, as if he had slept little and his weariness was deeper than the merely physical. There was a hollowness around his eyes, but also within them. “I am glad you came.” He moved his hands briskly among the papers on his desk, as though whatever he was looking for was of great importance. “There are one or two people I would like you to see.” He looked up with a brief smile. “Old friends, in a sense, parishioners who need a word of comfort or guidance. I should be very obliged if you could find the time today. There it is.” He produced a piece of paper on which were written four names and addresses. He passed it across the desk. “None of them is far. You could walk if the weather is pleasant.” He glanced at the window. “I think it is.”
Dominic took the list, read it, then put it in his pocket.
“Of course I will.” He wanted to add something, but now that he was alone with Ramsay he did not know what. There was a generation between them. Ramsay was in every way his senior. He had rescued Dominic when he was in despair, so filled with self-loathing he even contemplated taking his own life. It was Ramsay who had patiently taught him a different and better way, who had introduced a true faith, not the bland, complacent, Sunday-only sort he was used to. How could he now tax Ramsay over this tragedy and press him to speak when he obviously did not wish to?
Or did he? He was sitting awkwardly in his large chair, his hands fiddling with papers, his eyes first on Dominic’s, then downcast, then up again.
“Do you wish to speak about it?” Dominic asked, wondering if he were trespassing unforgivably, but to sit in silence was such a cowardly thing to do.
Ramsay did not pretend to misunderstand.
“What is there to say?” He shrugged his shoulders. He looked bemused, and Dominic realized that behind the effort to be busy, to appear normal, he was also very frightened. “I don’t know what happened.” His face tightened. “We quarreled. She left the room in a temper, shouting back at me. I am ashamed to say I shouted at her equally abusively. Then I returned to my desk. I am not aware of hearing anything more. I disregard many of the household sounds, the occasional bang or squeal.” For a moment his concentration on the present was broken. “I recall one of them spilling a bucket of water on the carpet in the library. She had been cleaning the windows. She screamed as if she were being attacked by robbers.” He looked bemused. “Such rage. Everyone came running. And then there are always the mice.”
“Mice?” Dominic was lost. “Mice are tiny. They squeak.”
A flicker of amusement lit Ramsay’s eyes for a moment, then died. “Maids scream, Dominic, if they see mice. I thought Nellie would crack the chandeliers.”
“Oh, yes, of course.” Dominic felt ridiculous. “I didn’t think …”
Ramsay sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Why should you? You were trying to be helpful. I realize that and appreciate it. You were giving me the opportunity to tell you if I had some appalling burden on my conscience—if, in fact, I did push Unity down the stairs, either intentionally or accidentally. It can’t have been easy for you to approach me on the subject, and I am aware of the courage it must have taken.” He looked straight back at Dominic. “Perhaps it is a relief to speak about it …”
Dominic felt panic rise up inside him. He was not equal to this. What if Ramsay confessed? Was Dominic bound by any oath of confidence, or even an unspoken understanding? What should he do? Persuade Ramsay to confess to Pitt? Why? Help him towards a repentance before God? Did Ramsay even understand what he had done? Surely that was the most important thing? Dominic looked at him and saw no harrowing guilt. Fear, certainly, and some guilt, some awareness of the enormity of the situation. But not the guilt of murder.
“Yes …” Dominic swallowed and nearly choked. He clasped his hands together in his lap, below the height of the desk, where Ramsay could not see them.
Ramsay smiled more widely. “Your face is transparent, Dominic. I am not going to lay a burden of guilt upon you. The worst I can confess to is that I am not sorry she is dead … not nearly as sorry as I know I should be. She was another human being, young and full of energy and intelligence. I mustn’t suppose that, in spite of her behavior to the contrary at times, she was not just as capable of tenderness and hope, love and pain as the rest of us.”
He bit his lip, his eyes full of confusion.
“My brain tells me that it is tragic that her life should have been cut off. My emotions tell me I am greatly relieved not to have to hear her arrogant certainty in the superiority of mankind over all else, most especially of Mr. Darwin. Passionately … intensely …” His fingers locked around his pen so violently he bent the quill. “I do not wish to be a random organism descended from apes!” His voice thickened, close to tears. “I wish to be the creation of God, a God who has created everything around me and cares for it, who will redeem me for my weaknesses, forgive my errors and my sins, and who will somehow sort out the tangles of our human lives and make a kind of sense of them in the end.” He dropped to a whisper. “And I can no longer believe it, except for moments when I am alone, at night, and the past seems to come back to me, and I can forget all the books and the arguments and feel as I once used to.”
Rain pattered against the window, and the moment after sunlight picked out the bright drops.
“She is not the cause of doubt in the world,” Ramsay went on. “Of course she is not. I had heard the arguments before she ever came to Brunswick Gardens. We all had. We had discussed them. I have reassured many a confused and unhappy parishioner, as no doubt you have, and will continue to.” He swallowed, pulling his mouth into a line of pain. “But she focused it all. She was so monumentally certain!” He was looking beyond Dominic now, towards the bookcase with the glass fronts shining in the sudden sun. “It is no one thing she said, rather the day-by-day air of being so terribly sure of herself. She never let slip a chance to mock. Her logic was relentless.”
He stopped for a moment. Dominic tried to think of something to say, then realized he should not interrupt now.
“She could demolish mine in any argument we had. Her memory was perfect,” Ramsay said with a shrug. “There were times when she made me feel ridiculous. I admit, Dominic, I hated her then. But I did not push her, that I swear.” He looked at Dominic steadily, pleading to be believed, and yet not willing to embarrass him by asking openly. And perhaps he was afraid to hear the answer.
Dominic was embarrassed. He wanted to believe him, yet how could it be true? Four people had heard Unity cry out “No, no, Reverend!” Had it not been a protest but a cry for help? Then it could only be Mallory who had pushed her.
Why? She had not touched his faith. His beliefs fed on opposition. To him it was only another confirmation that he was right. Every time she mocked him or checked his blind statements with logic, he simply restated them. If she did not understand, it was due to her lack of humility. If his reasoning was faulty, even completely circular, that was the mystery of God, and not supposed to be understood by man. If she made a scientific statement he disliked, he simply contradicted it. He might be angry, but he was never inwardly disturbed.
“Dominic, I did not kill her!” Ramsay repeated, and this time the fear and the loneliness were sharp in his voice, intruding into Dominic’s emotions.
This was a debt he must repay. But how, without endangering himself? And surely Ramsay, who had made him what he was, would not want to undo his creation by having him deny his honesty now.
“Then it was Mallory,” Dominic said, forcing himself to look at Ramsay’s eyes. “Because I did not.”
Ramsay covered his face with his hands and leaned forward over the desk.
Dominic sat motionless. He had no idea what to do. Ramsay’s distress seemed to fill the room. He could not possibly be unaware of it. To pretend would be inconceivable. Ramsay had never pretended with him, never evaded an issue or offered in-sincere words. Now, at this moment in this silent room, it was time to repay the obligation he had incurred. It was time to put into effect all the good ideas, the beliefs he had worked for so hard. What was the theory worth if, when he was faced with reality, he was unable or unwilling to meet it? It became a sham, just as hollow and useless as Unity Bellwood had claimed.
He could not allow that to be true!
He thought of reaching across the desk and touching Ramsay’s hand, of gripping it, then instantly abandoned the idea. They knew each other so well in some ways. Ramsay had seen the very depth of his own confusion and despair. He had not shrunk then even from holding him.
But that was different. Even as it had placed a bond between them, it had also set them apart, made Ramsay forever the guide, the invulnerable, the rescuer. To try to reverse that now would be to strip from him the last dignity. Dominic would not intrude.
He kept his hands where they were.
“If it was Mallory, we must face it,” he said aloud. “We must help him in any and every way possible. We must help him to acknowledge what has happened and, if we can, to understand it. Either he did it by accident or else it was intentional.”
His voice sounded cold, terribly rational. It was not what he intended.
“If it was meant, then he must have had a powerful reason. Perhaps she taunted him once too often, and he finally lost his temper. I expect he regrets it bitterly now. Every man has lost his temper at some time in his life. It is easy to understand, certainly with Unity.”
Ramsay lifted his head slowly and stared at Dominic. The older man looked ashen, his eyes haunted.
Dominic could barely control his voice. He heard himself speaking as if he were someone else, far away. He still sounded extraordinarily calm.
“Then we shall help him with the police and the law. He must know that we shall not abandon him, nor condemn him. I am sure he understands the difference between condemning the sin and the person who commits it. We shall have to show him the reality of that.”
Ramsay breathed in and out very slowly. “He says he did not do it.”
Dominic sat quite still. Did Ramsay think that he had? Is that what he was saying? It would be natural. For all their differences, however deep, Mallory was Ramsay’s son.
“Do you think Clarice did?” He was struggling to use reason. He must be sensible.
“No, of course not!” Ramsay’s face showed how absurd he considered the idea.
“I didn’t,” Dominic said steadily. “I did not especially like her, but I had no cause to kill her.”
“Didn’t you?” Ramsay asked with a lift of curiosity in his voice. “I am not blind, Dominic, even if I appear to be absorbed in my books and papers. I saw how she was attracted to you, how she looked at you. She teased Mallory, provoked him, but he was too vulnerable to be a real challenge to her. But you were. You are older, wiser; you have known women before, a great many of them, so you told me when we first met. And I should have guessed it even if you had not told me. It is there in the assurance of your bearing with them. You understand women too well to be a novice. You rejected Unity, didn’t you?”
Dominic felt a flush of extreme discomfort. “Yes …”
“Then you were the perfect challenge for her,” Ramsay concluded. “She loved a battle. Victory was her ultimate delight. Intellectual victory was very sweet, and God knows she sought enough of those over me, and found too many …” His face tightened with momentary anger and humiliation, then smoothed out again. “But the power of emotional victory was more complete. Are you sure she did not provoke you too far, and it was you who momentarily lost your temper with her? I could understand your pushing her away from you, literally, physically, and causing the accident which killed her.”
“So could I,” Dominic agreed, feeling the fear rise inside him. So could Pitt. In fact, Pitt would enjoy believing it. It would let Ramsay escape, and Vita. It would be exactly what Clarice prayed for, escape for both her father and her brother. And, of course, Mallory would welcome it. Tryphena would not care as long as someone was blamed.
Dominic swallowed and found his throat tight. He had not pushed Unity. He had been nowhere near the landing when she fell, and he had no idea who had been. This was even worse than Cater Street. Then it had all been new. He had not known what to expect. He had been numb with the shock of Sarah’s death. Now he was very much alive, every nerve aware of the dreadful possibilities. He had seen the pattern before.
“But I did not push her,” he said again. “You are right, I am experienced.” He swallowed. His mouth was dry. “I know how to refuse a woman without panicking, without provoking a quarrel, let alone violence.” That was not strictly true, but this was not a time for going into qualifying explanations.
Ramsay said nothing.
Dominic cast around for what to say next. Ramsay all but stood accused of the crime. If he were innocent he must feel just the same sense of terror that had brushed by Dominic, only worse. Everyone had implicated Ramsay, even his own family. The police seemed to believe them. He must feel so alone it was beyond the imagination to conceive.
Instinctively, Dominic stretched out his hand and put it over Ramsay’s wrist, then when he realized what he had done, it was too late to pull away.
“Pitt will get to the truth,” he said firmly. “He will not allow an innocent man to be accused or to suffer arrest. That is why they sent him. He will not bow to pressure from anyone, and he never gives up.”
Ramsay looked mildly surprised. “How do you know?”
“He is married to my wife’s sister. I knew him a long time ago.”
“Your wife?”
“She is dead. She was murdered … ten years ago.”
“Oh … yes, of course. I’m sorry. For a moment I forgot,” Ramsay apologized. Gently he loosed his hand from Dominic’s, ran it over his head as if to brush back the hair which was too thin to need it. “I am afraid I am finding it very difficult to concentrate at the moment. This is like walking through a dark dream. I keep tripping over things.”
Dominic rose to his feet. “I will go and visit these people. Please … please don’t despair …”
Ramsay smiled bleakly. “I won’t. I suppose I owe you that much, don’t I?”
Dominic said nothing. The debt was his, and he knew it. He went out and closed the door softly.
    His first call was to Miss Edith Trethowan, a lady whose age it was difficult to determine because ill health had robbed her of the vitality she might normally have enjoyed. Her skin was pale and her hair was almost white. Dominic had at first assumed her to be in her sixties, but one or two references she had made had embarrassed him for his clumsiness, and he had realized she was probably no more than forty-five. It was pain which had marked her face and bent her shoulders and chest, not time.
She was fully dressed, but lying on a chaise longue, as she usually did on her better days. She was obviously pleased to see him.
“Come in, Mr. Corde!” she said quickly, her eyes lighting. She waved a thin blue-veined hand towards the other comfortable chair. “How nice to see you.” She peered at him. “But you are looking tired. Have you been doing too much again?”
He smiled and sat down where she invited. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her why he looked weary, but it would only distress her. She liked to hear of happy things. Her own trials were as much as she could bear.
“Yes, I suppose I have,” he agreed with a shrug. “But I don’t mind. Perhaps I should use better judgment? But today is for visiting friends. How are you?”
She also hid reality. “Oh, I am very well, thank you, and in excellent spirits. I have just read some beautiful letters from a lady traveler in Egypt and Turkey. What a life she leads! I do enjoy reading about it, but I think I should be fearfully afraid to do it myself.” She gave a little shiver. “Aren’t we fortunate to be able to partake of all these things through other people? All the interest, and none of the flies and heat and diseases.”
“Absolutely,” he agreed. “No travel sickness, no lumping or bumping on the back of mules or camels, and no sleeping on the ground. You know, Miss Trethowan, I confess, above all I like to have decent plumbing …”
She giggled happily. “I do so agree. We are not all the stuff of explorers, are we?”
“And if nobody stayed at home, whom would they tell when they returned?” he asked.
She was greatly amused. She lay for half an hour talking of all she had read, and he listened attentively and made appropriate remarks every time she stopped long enough to allow him. He promised to find her more books on similar subjects, and left her feeling well satisfied. He had said nothing of religion to her, but he only thought of it afterwards. It had seemed inappropriate.
Next he visited Mr. Landells, a widower who was finding himself acutely lonely and growing more bitter by the week.
“Good morning, Mr. Landells,” Dominic said cheerfully as he was admitted to the chilly sitting room. “How are you?”
“My rheumatism is fearful,” Landells replied crossly. “Doctor is no use at all. Wettest year I can remember, and I can remember a fair number. Shouldn’t wonder if we have a cold summer, too. Happens as often as not.” He sat down stiffly, and Dominic sat opposite him. This was obviously going to be hard work.
“Have you heard from your daughter in Ireland?” Dominic enquired.
“Even wetter there,” Landells said with satisfaction. “Don’t know what she went for.” He leaned forward and put a tiny piece of coal onto the fire.
“I thought you said her husband had a position there. Did I misunderstand?”
Landells glared at him. “I thought you were supposed to cheer me up! Isn’t that what the church is for, make us believe all this is somehow for the best? God is going to make it all worth something!” He waved his rheumatic hand irritably at the world in general. “You can’t tell me why my Bessie is dead, and I’m sitting here alone with nothing to do and no one to care if I die tomorrow. You come here because it’s your duty.” He sniffed and glared at Dominic. “You have to. The Reverend comes by now and then because it’s his duty. Tells me a lot about God and redemption and the like. Tells me Bessie is resurrected somewhere and we’ll meet again, but he doesn’t believe it any more than I do!” He curled his lip. “I can see it in his face. We sit opposite each other and talk a lot of nonsense and neither of us believes a word.”
He fished for a large handkerchief and blew his nose loudly. “What do you know about growing old, finding your body doesn’t work properly anymore and those you love are dead and there’s nothing to look forward to except dying yourself? I don’t want any of your platitudes about God.”
“No,” Dominic agreed with a smile, but looking at Landells very directly. “You want someone to blame. You are feeling lonely and frightened, and it is easier to be angry than to admit that. It is a nice releasing sort of emotion. If you can send me away thoroughly crushed, you will feel you have power over somebody … even if it is only power to hurt.” He did not know why he said it. He heard his words as if they were a stranger’s. Ramsay would have been horrified.
Landells was, too. His face flushed scarlet.
“You can’t speak to me like that!” he protested. “You’re a curate. You’ve got to be nice to me. It’s your job! It’s what you’re paid for!”
“No, it’s not,” Dominic contradicted. “I’m paid to tell you the truth, and that is not what you want to hear.”
“I’m not frightened,” Landells said sharply. “How dare you say that I am. I’ll report you to Reverend Parmenter. We’ll soon see what he has to say. He comes and prays for me, talks to me with respect, tells me about the resurrection, makes me feel better. He doesn’t sit there and criticize.”
“You said he doesn’t believe it, and neither do you,” Dominic pointed out.
“Well, I don’t, but that’s not the point! He tries.”
“I do believe it. I believe we will all be resurrected, you and Bessie,” Dominic answered. “From what I hear of her, she was a lovely woman, generous and wise, honest, happy and funny. She laughed a lot …” He saw the tears in Landells’s eyes and ignored them. “She would have missed you, had you died first, but she would not have sat around getting angrier and angrier and blaming God. Just suppose there is a resurrection … Your body will be renewed to its prime, but your spirit will be just the same. Are you ready to meet Bessie like this … never mind meeting God?”
Landells stared at him. The fire settled in the grate. It needed stoking again, but there was too little coal in the bucket. “You believe that?” the old man said slowly.
“Yes, I do.” Dominic spoke without doubt. He did not know why; it was a certainty inside him. He believed what he had read about Easter Sunday and Mary Magdalene in the garden. He believed the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaeus who had walked with the risen Christ and discovered it only at the last moment, when he had broken bread with them.
“What about Mr. Darwin and his monkeys?” Landells demanded, the expression in his eyes flickering between hope and despair, momentary victory and lasting defeat. Part of him wanted to win the argument; a larger, more honest part was desperate to lose.
“I don’t understand it,” Dominic confessed. “But he isn’t right if he says God did not create the earth and all that is on it, or that we are not special to Him but simply accidental forms of life. Look at the wonder and the beauty of the universe, Mr. Landells, and tell me it is chance and there is no meaning to it.”
“There’s no meaning to my life now.” Landells’s face crumpled. He was winning, and he did not want to.
“Since Bessie has gone?” Dominic asked. “Was there before? Was she no more than an accident, a monkey’s descendant gone gloriously right?”
“Mr. Darwin …” Landells began, then subsided in his chair, smiling at last. “All right, Mr. Corde. I’ll believe you. I don’t understand, mind, but I’ll believe. You tell me why the Reverend Parmenter didn’t say that, eh? He’s senior to you … a lot senior. You’re only just a beginner, you are.”
Dominic knew the answer to that, but he was not going to tell Landells. Ramsay’s faith was rooted in reason, and his reason had deserted him in the face of an argument more skilled than his own, growing out of a field of science he did not understand.
“I’m still right,” Dominic said firmly, rising to his feet. “Go and read your Bible, Mr. Landells … and smile while you’re doing it.”
“Yes, Mr. Corde. Will you pass it to me, please? I’m too stiff to get up out of this chair.” There was a flash of humor in the old man’s eyes, a parting shot of victory.
    Dominic visited Mr. and Mrs. Norland, had luncheon late, and spent the rest of the afternoon with Mr. Rendlesham. He returned to Brunswick Gardens in time for an early dinner, which was quite the most appalling meal he could remember. Everyone was present and extremely nervous. The day’s silence from the police had told upon their fears, and tempers were frayed even before the first course was cleared away and the second served. Conversation went in fits and starts, often two people speaking at once and then falling silent, no one continuing.
Vita alone tried to keep some semblance of normality. She sat at the foot of the table looking pale and frightened, but her hair was immaculately dressed as always, her gown soft gray trimmed with black, as was suitable to observe the presence of death in the household but not of a family member. Dominic could not help noticing once again what a lovely woman she was, how her grace and poise were better than conventional beauty. Her charm did not fade, nor had it ever become tedious.
Tryphena, on the other hand, looked terrible. She had taken no trouble at all with her normally lovely hair. At the moment it looked dull and disorderly, and her eyes were still puffy and a little pink. She was sullen, as if resenting everyone else’s failure to equal her depth of grief. She was dressed in unrelieved black, no ornament at all.
Clarice was also untidy, but then she had never had her mother’s sophistication of dress or manner. Her dark hair was often as unruly as it was now, but its natural sheen and wave gave it a certain beauty regardless. She was very pale and kept glaring from one person to another, and spoke to her father unnecessarily often, as if making a tremendous effort to be normal towards him and show she did not believe what everyone else might think. She only succeeded in drawing attention to it.
Mallory was absorbed in thought and answered only when addressed directly. Whatever his preoccupation, he did not allow anyone else to know it.
The table was set as always with the usual crystal and silver, and there were flowers from the conservatory in the center.
Dominic tried to think of anything to say which would not sound too callous, as if there had been no tragedy. They should be able to speak sensibly to one another, to talk of something more than the weather without quarreling. Three of them were men dedicated to the service of God, and yet they all sat at the table avoiding each other’s eyes, eating mechanically. The air was filled with fear and suspicion. Everyone knew that one of the three men there had killed Unity, but only one of them knew which, and he carried the burden of guilt and the terror that went with it.
Sitting there chewing meat that was like sawdust in his mouth, wondering how to swallow it, Dominic looked almost under his lashes at Ramsay. He looked older, more tired than usual, perhaps afraid as well, but Dominic could see no trace of guilt in him, nothing to mark him as a man who had killed and was now lying about it, allowing his friend, and worse, his son, to be suspected in his place.
Dominic turned to Mallory and saw his shoulders tense, neck stiff, eyes towards his plate, avoiding anyone else’s. He had not once looked at his father. Was that guilt? Dominic did not particularly like Mallory Parmenter, but he had thought him an honest man, if humorless and something of a bore. Perhaps it was largely a matter of callousness. Time would alter that, teach him it was possible to serve God and laugh as well, even to enjoy the beauties and absurdities of life, the richness of nature and of people.
Was he really such a coward as to allow his father to take his punishment for a crime of … what … passion?
“I suppose it is very hot in Rome?” Clarice’s voice cut across his thoughts. “You’ll get there in time for summer.” She was talking to Mallory.
He looked up, his face dark and angry.
“If I get there at all.”
“Why shouldn’t you?” Vita asked, her brow puckered as if she did not understand. “I thought everything was arranged.”
“It was,” he replied. “But I did not ‘arrange’ for Unity’s death. They may view things rather differently now.”
“Why should they?” Tryphena said boldly. “It has nothing to do with you. Are they unjust enough to blame you for something you didn’t do?” She set down her fork, abandoning her meal. “That’s the trouble with your religion; you think everybody is to blame for Adam’s sin, and now it looks as if he didn’t even exist, but you are still wandering around dipping infants in water to wash it away … and they haven’t the faintest idea what’s going on. All they know is they are dressed up, passed to a strange man who holds them up and talks over them, not to them, and then hands them back again. And that is supposed to make it all all right? I’ve never heard of such idiotic superstition in my life. It belongs in the Dark Ages, along with trial by ordeal and ducking witches and thinking it is the end of the world if there is a solar eclipse. I don’t know how you can be so gullible.”
Mallory opened his mouth.
“Tryphena …” Vita interrupted, leaning forward.
“When I wanted to wear bloomers to ride a bicycle,” Tryphena went on regardless, “because it would be very practical, Papa nearly had an apoplexy.”
She waved her hand, only just missing her glass of water.
“But nobody thinks it the least bit odd if you all dress up in long skirts with beads around your neck and sing songs together and drink something you say turns from wine into blood, which sounds absolutely disgusting, not to mention blasphemous. And yet you think cannibals are savages who ought to be—”
Mallory drew in his breath.
“Tryphena! That is enough!” Vita said sharply. She turned to Ramsay, her face creased with irritation. “For goodness sake, say something to her. Defend yourself!”
“I thought it was Mallory she was attacking,” Ramsay observed mildly. “The doctrine of the transubstantiation of the host is a Roman belief.”
“Then what do you do it for?” Tryphena countered. “You must believe it is something. Or why dress up in embroidered clothes and go through the whole performance?”
Ramsay looked at her sadly but said nothing.
“It is a reminder of who you are and the promises you have made,” Dominic said to her as patiently as he could. “And unfortunately we do need reminding.”
“Then it wouldn’t matter if it were bread and wine or biscuits and milk,” she challenged, her eyes bright and victorious.
“Not in the slightest,” he agreed with a smile. “If you meant what you said and came with the right spirit. Far more important you come without anger or guile.”
She was flushed. The triumph was slipping away from her. “Unity said it was just extremely good theater, designed to impress everyone and keep them obedient and in awe of you,” she argued, as if quoting Unity proved something. “It is all show and no substance. It is the desire for power on your part, and superstition on theirs. It makes them feel comfortable if they confess their sins and you forgive them; then they can start over again. And if they don’t, then they live in terror of you.”
“Unity was a fool!” Mallory said sharply. “And a blasphemer.”
Tryphena swung around to face him. “Well, I didn’t notice you saying that to her when she was alive. You’re suddenly very brave now she’s not here anymore and can’t reply for herself.” Her scorn was devastating. “You were quick enough then to do as she asked you. And I don’t recall your ever contradicting her in public in that tone of voice. What conviction you’ve suddenly developed, and fire to defend your faith.”
Mallory’s face was white and his eyes hot and defensive. “There was no point in arguing with Unity,” he said with a very slight tremor in his voice. “She never listened to anyone because her mind was made up before you began.”
“Isn’t yours?” Tryphena countered, glaring at him across the white linen and the glass and the dishes.
“Of course it is!” His eyebrows rose. “Mine is a matter of faith. That is quite different.”
Tryphena slammed down her fork. She was fortunate not to chip her plate.
“Why does everyone presume that their own belief is based on some virtuous thing like faith, which is all praiseworthy, and Unity’s belief is wicked and insincere and based on emotion or ignorance? You are so self-righteous it is sickening … and absurd. If you could see yourselves from the outside you’d laugh.” She threw the words at them, her face twisted with fury and knowledge of her own helplessness. “You’d think you were a parody. Except you’re too cruel to be funny. And you win! That’s the unbearable part of it. You win! There’s superstition and oppression and ignorance everywhere, and catastrophic injustice.” She stood up, glaring at them with tears in her eyes. “You all sit here eating your dinner, and Unity is lying on a cold table in a shroud, waiting to be buried. You’ll all dress up—”
“Tryphena!” Vita protested, and was ignored. She turned to Ramsay desperately, but he did nothing.
“… in your gorgeous gowns and robes,” Tryphena went on, her voice choking, “and play the organ and sing your songs and intone prayers over her. Why can’t you speak in a proper voice?” She stared at her father challengingly. “How can you speak like that if you really mean a thing you say? You’ll carry on like a bad oratorio, and all the time one of you killed her! I keep expecting to wake up and find this is all a nightmare, except I realize it’s been going on for years, one way or another. Maybe this is hell?” She flung her arms out, only just missing the top of Dominic’s head. “All this … hypocrisy! Though hell is supposed to be hot, maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s just bright and endless … nauseating.” She swung around to Vita. “And don’t bother to tell me to leave the room … I’m going to. If I stayed I should be sick.” And she knocked her chair over backwards and stormed out.
Dominic rose and picked up the chair. It would be pointless to try to make excuses for her.
Ramsay looked wretched, eyes cast down towards his plate, skin white around the lips, flushed in patches on his cheeks. Clarice was staring at him with naked distress. Vita kept her gaze steadily ahead of her, as if she could not bear any of it but could not escape.
“For someone who speaks so disparagingly of theater,” Clarice said huskily, “she manages to put on a highly dramatic performance. Overacting a bit, though, don’t you think? The chair was unnecessary. Nobody likes an actress who upstages the rest of the cast.”
“She may be acting,” Mallory retorted, “but I’m not!”
Clarice sighed. “What a pity. It would have been your best excuse.”
Dominic looked at her quickly, but she was turned towards Ramsay again.
“For what?” Mallory would not let it go.
“Everything,” she answered.
“I haven’t done anything!” he said defensively, then inclined his head towards his father.
There were two hectic spots of color on Clarice’s cheeks. “You mean you didn’t push Unity? I’ve been thinking about that. Maybe she was having an affair with Dominic.”
Vita glared at her daughter, her eyes wide and angry. She drew in her breath to say something, but Clarice continued loudly and clearly.
“I can remember lots of things, now I think about it, times when she sought his company, little looks, glances, standing very close to him—”
“That’s not true!” Vita interrupted her at last, her voice tight, as if her throat would barely allow the words through. “It’s a wretched and irresponsible thing to say, and you will not repeat it. Do you understand me, Clarice?”
Clarice looked at her mother in surprise. “It is all right for Tryphena to imply that Papa murdered Unity, but not to say that Unity was having an affair with Dominic? Why ever not?”
Dominic could feel his own face burning. He remembered those moments, too, with a clarity which horrified him and made him wish he were anywhere but at this table, with Vita looking hurt and dismayed, Mallory’s lip curled in loathing, and Ramsay avoiding everyone’s eyes, drowning in his own fear and loneliness.
“I suppose he got tired of her,” Clarice went on relentlessly. “All that political preaching can become a bit tedious. There are times when it is terribly predictable, and that is a bore. She didn’t listen, you see, and men hate a woman who doesn’t at least pretend she hangs on their words, even if her mind is miles away. It’s an art. Mama is wonderful at it. I’ve watched her hundreds of times.”
Vita blushed and seemed about to say something, but was too frozen in embarrassment.
No one except Dominic noticed the door open and Tryphena appear in the entrance.
“I daresay he found Mama was attractive,” Clarice went on in the prickly silence. “That’s it. Dominic fell in love with Mama …”
“Clarice … please …” Vita said desperately, but her voice was low, her eyes downcast.
Mallory stared at his sister, his attention at last truly caught.
“I can see it.” Clarice warmed to the drama. She sat back with her eyes closed, her chin lifted. She, too, was giving a fine performance. “Unity still besotted with Dominic, but he is bored with her and he’s moved on to someone more feminine, more alluring.” Her expression was rapt, a fierce concentration filling her. “But she will not give him up. She cannot bear rejection. She blackmails him with their past liaison. She will tell everyone. She will tell Papa; she will tell the church. He will be thrown out.”
“That’s nonsense!” Dominic protested angrily. “Stop it! You are talking completely irresponsibly, and none of it is true.”
“Why not?” She opened her eyes and turned on him. “Why shouldn’t someone else be blamed? If it’s fair to blame Papa, why not you, or Mallory … or me, for that matter? I know I didn’t, but I don’t know about the rest of you. Isn’t that why we are all sitting here wondering about each other, remembering everything we can and trying to make it have meaning? Isn’t that what we are all afraid of?” She flung her arms out in an expansive gesture, her eyes wide. “It could be any one of us. How can we protect ourselves except by proving it was somebody else? How well do we really know each other, the secret selves behind the familiar faces? Don’t stop me, Mallory!” He had leaned forward. She pushed him away impatiently. “It’s true!” She laughed a little wildly. “Maybe Dominic got bored with Unity, fell in love with Mama, and when Unity wouldn’t let him go, he killed her. And he’s only too happy to see Papa blamed for it, because it not only keeps Dominic from being hanged for it, it gets rid of Papa at the same time. Then Mama is free to marry him, and—”
“That’s absurd!” Tryphena said from the doorway, her voice loud and furious. “It’s quite impossible.”
Clarice swiveled to face her sister. “Why? People have killed for love before now. It makes far more sense than thinking Papa killed her because she was an atheist. Heavens, the world is full of atheists. Christians are supposed to convert them, not kill them.”
“Tell that to the Inquisition!” Tryphena snapped back, coming further into the room. “It’s impossible because Dominic wouldn’t have thrown Unity over. If she’d even have looked at him in that way, which is terribly unlikely, then she’d have been the one to get bored and break it off. And she wouldn’t stoop to blackmail. It is infinitely beneath her.” She looked at Clarice with loathing. “Everything you say just shows the poverty of your own mind. I came down to apologize, because I disturbed the meal, which was bad manners. But I can see that’s all rather pointless now, since Clarice has just accused one of our guests of having an illicit affair with the other and then murdering her in order to blame my father and marry my mother. What is a little thing like upsetting the dinner table?”
“Unity wasn’t a guest,” Clarice said pedantically. “She was an employee. Papa hired her to help with the translations.”
Dominic rose to his feet. He was surprised to find he was shaking. Even his legs felt unsteady. He gripped the back of his chair, knuckles white. He looked from one to another of them.
“One thing Clarice said is true; we are all afraid, and it is making us behave very badly. I do not know what happened to Unity, except that she is dead. Only one person here does know, and there is no purpose in us all protesting innocence or, unless we have some definite fact, in accusing anyone else.” He wanted to add that he had not had an affair with Unity, but it would only lead to a round of denials, exactly what he had suggested they do not do. “I am going to study for a while.” And he turned and left the table, still trembling inside and aware of a coldness of fear touching his skin. Clarice’s suggestion was preposterous, of course it was. But it was not unbelievable. It was a far better motive than anything attributable to Ramsay.
    A thoroughly appalling evening was compounded by the arrival of Bishop Underhill at quarter past nine. Both Dominic and Ramsay had no alternative but to go down to the withdrawing room to receive him. He had called in his official capacity to offer his sympathy and support to the whole household during their bereavement and in this most difficult time.
Everyone was gathered together; it was due to his rank in the church. They were all uncomfortable in their different ways. Tryphena glared at him. Vita sat demurely, pale-faced, eyes full of dread. Mallory tried to pretend he was not there. Clarice mercifully kept silent, sitting motionless except for the occasional glance at Dominic.
The bishop stood, awkwardly, uncertain what to do with his hands. One moment he held them together, the next gestured with them wide open, then dropped them, and then started again.
“I am sure all our sympathies are with you during this ordeal,” he said resonantly, as if he were addressing an entire congregation. “We shall pray for you in every way … in every possible way.”
Clarice put her hands up to her face and stifled something which may have been a sneeze. Dominic was sure it was laughter, and he thought he knew what pictures were in her mind. He wished he were free to do the same instead of being obliged to listen seriously and look as if he were full of respect.
“Thank you,” Vita murmured. “It is all so horribly confusing.”
“Of course it is, my dear Mrs. Parmenter.” The bishop seized on something specific to address. “One must seek always for honesty and the guidance of the light of truth to find our way. The Lord has promised to be a lamp unto our path. We must put our trust in Him.”
Tryphena rolled her eyes, but the bishop was not looking at her.
Ramsay sat in wretched silence, and Dominic felt agonized for him. He was like a butterfly on a pin, still alive.
“We must have courage,” the bishop went on.
Clarice opened her mouth and then closed it again. Her face showed her struggle to keep her temper, and for once Dominic could identify with her utterly. Courage to do what? Not offer the hand of friendship or any promise of loyalty or help. That the bishop had very carefully refrained from doing. He had spoken nothing but the most guarded platitudes.
“We will do all we can,” Vita promised, looking up at him. “You are very kind to come to see us. I know how busy you are …”
“Nonsense, Mrs. Parmenter,” he responded with a smile. “It is the very least I could do …”
“The very least,” Clarice said under her breath, then she added aloud, “We knew that you would do that, Bishop Underhill.”
“Thank you, my dear. Thank you,” he accepted.
“I hope you will help us to behave honorably and to have the courage to act only for the best?” Vita went on rather quickly. “Perhaps a word of advice now and then? We should appreciate it so much. I …” She left the words hanging between them, the uncompleted sentence witness to her distress.
“Of course,” the bishop assured her. “Of course I will. I wish … I wish I knew … my own experience …”
Dominic was embarrassed for them all, and ashamed of himself for how profoundly he loathed the bishop. He should have admired him, should have felt he was a rock of support, wiser than they, stronger, filled with compassion and honor. Instead, the bishop seemed to have hedged and evaded, given general advice they did not need, and scrupulously avoided committing himself to anything.
The bishop’s visit dragged out a further half hour, then, to Dominic’s intense relief, he left. Vita accompanied him to the door, and Dominic met her in the main hall as she returned. She looked exhausted and almost feverish. How she found the strength to keep her composure as she did, he could not imagine. It would be difficult to think of a more fearful dilemma than that in which she was placed. His admiration for her was boundless. He cast about for some way to tell her so which was not fulsome or merely a further cause for anxiety or embarrassment.
“Your courage is superb,” he said gently, standing close enough to her that he could speak softly and be heard by no one else. “We all owe you a great deal. I think perhaps it is your strength which makes this bearable.”
She smiled up at him with a sudden rush of pleasure he thought for a moment was absolutely real, as if he had given her a small but precious gift.
“Thank you …” she whispered. “Thank you, Dominic.”