Brunswick Gardens

8

AN HOUR OR SO after breakfast on Monday, Dominic was walking up the stairs feeling annoyed because he could not find his penknife. He kept putting things down and forgetting where. It must be part of the strain they were all feeling. He was halfway up when he heard raised voices coming from Ramsay’s study. He could not distinguish the words, but it was clearly Ramsay himself and Mallory, and the discussion was acrimonious in the extreme. There seemed to be accusations and denial on both parts. Before he reached the top, the study door flew open and Mallory stormed out, slamming the door behind him. His face was flushed and his lips tight in a thin, furious line.
Dominic made as if to walk past him, but Mallory obviously wanted to continue a battle, and Dominic was an excellent target.
“Shouldn’t you be out with parishioners or something?” he demanded. “That would be more use than waiting around here trying to comfort Mother. There’s nothing you can say or do that will make any difference.” His eyebrows rose high. “Unless, of course, you can confess to having killed Unity? That would be really useful.”
“Only temporarily,” Dominic replied tartly. There were times when Mallory annoyed him intensely, and this was one of them. Mallory was very superior about belonging to the “one true faith,” and yet he allowed himself to be extraordinarily petty-minded and motivated by malice. “Because the police will almost certainly find out the truth in a while. Pitt is very good indeed.” He said it spitefully, and was rewarded with seeing the color ebb from Mallory’s face. He had intended to frighten him. At least half his mind believed Mallory was guilty of Unity’s death … more than he believed it could be Ramsay.
“Oh, yes,” Mallory said with as much sarcasm as he could muster and control. “I forgot you were related to the police. Your late wife, wasn’t it? What an odd family for you to marry into. Not a very good move for your career. I am surprised at you, seeing how ambitious you are, and keen to curry favor.”
They were standing at the stairhead. A maid passed below them across the hall carrying a mop and bucket of water. Dominic could just see the lace cap on her head. He turned back to Mallory.
“I married Sarah for love,” he said levelly. “It was several years before her sister married a policeman. And yes, it was an odd thing for her to do. But then Charlotte never did things to advance her social position. I don’t expect you to understand that.”
“A family of that sort, it would have to be love,” Mallory observed. “You would still be better employed now in going out and being some use in the parish. There is nothing here that I couldn’t do better.”
“Indeed?” Dominic affected surprise. “Then why haven’t you? All I have observed you doing so far is retreating into your room to study books.”
“Great truths are to be found in books,” Mallory replied loftily.
“Of course they are. And precious little good they do if that’s where they remain,” Dominic responded. “Your family needs your comfort, your reassurance and loyalty, not quotations out of books, however wise or true.”
“Reassurance?” Mallory’s voice rose sharply. “Of what? What can I reassure them about?” His mouth twisted in a smile that failed. “That Father did not kill Unity? I don’t know that. I wish to God I did. But someone killed her, and it wasn’t me. I assume it was you … I certainly want to think it was you!” Suddenly there was real terror in his voice. “She followed you around often enough, always arguing with you, mocking you, making intrusive, cruel little remarks.” He nodded. “I caught her eye more than once when she was looking at you. She knew something about you, and she was letting you understand that. I don’t know anything about you before you came here, but she did.”
Dominic felt the blood drain from his face, and he knew Mallory saw it. The victory was bright in the younger man’s eyes.
“It is you who should be afraid of Pitt,” Mallory said triumphantly. “If he is anything like as clever as you suggest, whatever it is Unity knew, he’ll dig it up.”
“You look as if you would like that, Mal.” Clarice’s voice cut across them from the stairs, below and behind them both. Neither of them had heard her come up, even though the wood was uncarpeted. “Isn’t that rather unchristian of you?” She opened her eyes wide as if the question were innocent.
Mallory colored, but it was temper more than shame.
“I suppose you would like it to be me?” he continued, his voice brittle. “That would suit you nicely, wouldn’t it? Not your beloved father you are so quick to protect all the time, and not the curate he created out of God knows what. Only your brother. Does that fit in with whatever your morality is?”
“It is not you believing it is Dominic I object to,” she replied quite calmly. “That may be honest, I don’t know. It is your pleasure in it, your sense of some kind of victory that you still find him entangled in darkness and tragedy. I had not realized you hated him so much.”
“I—I don’t hate him!” Mallory protested, but now he was defending himself, backed into a corner. “That’s a terrible thing to say … wrong—and … quite untrue.”
“No, it isn’t,” she said, coming up to the top step and onto the landing. “If you could have seen your own face as you spoke just now, you wouldn’t bother denying it. You are so afraid for yourself, you’ll blame everyone, and this is a wonderful chance to get back at Dominic because Unity found him so attractive, more attractive than you.”
Mallory laughed. It was an ugly, jerky sound, and there was no real amusement in it, only a tearing kind of humor at something that hurt, and that he could not share.
“You are stupid, Clarice!” he accused her. “You think you are so clever, but in reality you have always been stupid. You think you stand back and watch, and see everything. And you see nothing. You’re blind to Dominic’s real nature.” His voice was rising and getting louder. “Have you ever asked him where he was before he came here? Have you asked about his wife or why he chose to join the church now, at forty-five, and not in the beginning? Haven’t you ever wondered?”
Her face was grim and pale, but she did not look away from him. “I don’t take the same pleasure in unearthing people’s past weaknesses and grief as you do,” she answered unflinchingly. “I never even thought about it.” It was a lie. Dominic could see that in her eyes, and that she was hurt by it. He had not realized before that she was vulnerable. It had never occurred to him that, under the wild humor and the family loyalties, there was a woman capable of such feeling.
“I don’t believe you,” Mallory said flatly. “You are so desperate to have it be anyone but Father, you must have thought of Dominic.”
“I’ve thought of everyone,” she agreed very quietly. “But mostly I’ve thought about how we are going to cope with it when we do know. How are we going to treat that person? How are we going to treat each other? How are we going to make up for the things we have thought unjustly, the things we’ve said and can’t take back and can’t forget?” She frowned very slightly. “How are we going to live with the knowledge of what we have seen in each other this last week that is ugly and self-serving and cowardly, but we hadn’t ever had reason to see before? I know you better than I ever wanted to, Mal; and I don’t like all of it.”
He was angry, but much more deeply than that, he was hurt. He tried to find something to say to justify himself, and nothing was good enough.
She must have seen the wound in him. “It isn’t over yet,” she said with a little shrug. “You can always change … if you want to. At least … maybe you can.”
“I don’t want anyone to be guilty,” he said stiffly, his cheeks pink. “But I must face the truth. Confession and repentance are the only way back. I know I didn’t kill her, therefore it was either Dominic or Father … or you! And why on earth would you kill her?”
“I wouldn’t.” She lowered her eyes, and her face was full of confusion and fear. “Will you let me pass, please? You are blocking the way, and I want to go and see Papa.”
“What for?” he asked. “You can’t help. And don’t go in there telling him comfortable lies. It will only make it worse in the end.”
Suddenly she lost her temper, swinging around on him furiously. “I’m not going to tell him anything, except that I love him! It is a pity that you can’t do that! You would be a lot more use to everyone if you could!” And she whirled away, banging her elbow against the newel, and oblivious of it, marched across the landing to the far corridor and up to Ramsay’s door. She threw it open without knocking and disappeared inside.
“Perhaps you had better go and read another book,” Dominic said acidly. “Try the Bible. You could look for the bit which says ‘A new commandment I give, that ye love one another’!” And he started down the stairs towards the hall.
He met Vita coming out of the morning room with a bowl of hyacinths in her hands. She stopped in front of him, her eyes steady, wide and searching. He knew she must have overheard at least some of the quarrel, if only the raised voices.
“They’re getting dry in here,” she said pointlessly, not looking at the hyacinths. “I suppose it’s the fire. I think I should put them back in the conservatory for a while. Maybe there’s something else in there that would do.” She started to walk across the hall, and he went after her.
“May I carry that for you?”
She passed the bowl to him, and together they went into the conservatory. She closed the glass doors and led him to the garden end, where there were other pots of flowers on the bench. He put the hyacinths down.
“How much longer is it going to go on?” she said softly. She looked close to tears, as if she were mastering herself only with difficulty. “It is breaking us, Dominic!”
“I know.” He longed to be able to help. He could feel her pain and fear in the air as tangibly as the scent of the winter lilies and the paper-whites.
“You were quarreling with Mallory, weren’t you?” She spoke still looking down at the flowers.
“Yes. But it was nothing important, just nerves getting both of us.”
She turned and smiled at him, but there was reproof in her expression. “That’s kind of you, Dominic,” she said gently. “But I know that is not true. Please don’t try to protect me. I can see what is happening to us. We are frightened of the police, frightened of each other … frightened of what we may learn which will change the world we know forever.” She closed her eyes tightly; her voice trembled. “Something has started which we cannot stop, cannot control, and none of us can see the end of it. Sometimes I am so afraid I feel as if my heart will stop.”
What could he possibly say or do that would not make it worse, sound stupid or insensitive, offer false comfort neither of them believed?
“Vita!” He used her Christian name without realizing it. “There is only one thing we can do. Live each hour as it comes and do the very best we can. Behave with honesty and kindness, and trust in God that somehow in the end it will be bearable.”
She stared up at him. “Will it, Dominic? I think Ramsay is having some kind of breakdown.” She gulped. “One moment he is the man we are all used to, patient and calm and so reasonable it is … almost boring.” She shivered. “The next he loses his temper completely and is a different person. It is as if there is a terrible rage inside him against the world, against … I’m not sure … against God … because He is not there and Ramsay has spent so many years, so much time and energy, thinking He was.”
“I haven’t seen … anger,” he said slowly, trying to remember the times he had talked with Ramsay and the emotions there had been. “I think he’s disappointed because it isn’t as he thought. If he were angry, it would only be with people, those he may feel misled him. But if they did, then they were misled themselves. That can only make one sad … you cannot blame them.”
“You can’t, because you are honest,” she continued, a twisted little smile on her lips. “Ramsay is very confused, very … I am not sure. I think in a way frightened.” She searched Dominic’s face to see if he understood what she meant. “I feel so sorry for him. Does that sound arrogant of me? I don’t mean to be. But sometimes I can see the fear in his eyes. He is so alone … and I think also ashamed, although he would never admit it.”
“Doubt is nothing to be ashamed of,” he answered, keeping his voice very low. He did not want some passing servant to hear. “In fact, it takes a special kind of courage to keep behaving as if one believed when one can’t anymore. I don’t think there is any more terrible loneliness in the world than to lose one’s faith when one has once had it.”
“Poor Ramsay,” she whispered, knotting her hands together, looking down at them. “When people are afraid they do strange things, far outside the character you think you know. I remember my brother once, when he was afraid …”
“I didn’t know you had a brother.”
She gave a little laugh. “Why should you? I don’t speak of him very often. He was older than I, and he did not behave very well some of the time. My father was very upset and terribly disappointed. When Clive got into debt gambling once, and couldn’t pay, he lost his head completely and took silver from the house and sold it. Of course, he didn’t get nearly as much as it was worth, and Papa had to pay twice as much to redeem it. It was all horrible, and not like Clive at all. But he did it because he was frightened.”
Dominic felt a great heaviness inside him.
“You think Ramsay killed Unity, don’t you?”
She shut her eyes tightly. “I am afraid of it … yes. I know it could not have been you.” She made it a simple statement of fact, unquestionable. “And I don’t believe it was Mallory. I … Dominic, I heard her call out!” She gave a little shudder. “That in itself wouldn’t be enough, but I’ve seen him lose his temper.” Almost unconsciously her hand went up to her cheek, where the bruises were still dark and painful. “He had no control at all. He was a different person. He would never have done that to me in—in his normal self. He has never raised a hand to me in all our lives.” She shuddered. “Something is happening to him, Dominic. Something very terrible … as if there is something inside him which is broken. I—I don’t know what to do!”
“Neither do I,” Dominic admitted unhappily. “Perhaps I should try talking to him again?” It was the last thing he wanted to do, and he felt intrusive even thinking of it, but how could he leave her to face this alone? Ramsay was the man she loved, and she was watching him drown in some emotional vortex she could neither understand nor help. He was being sucked away from her, from them all. Dominic knew only too well what it was like to be dragged down and suffocated by despair. He had wanted to kill himself during those few weeks at Icehouse Wood. It was only cowardice which had held him back, not any love of life, or hope. But Ramsay had not backed away from him or allowed embarrassment to keep him from stretching out his hand.
“No …,” Vita said gently. “Not yet, anyway. He will only deny it, and it will make him upset. I am sure you have tried already … haven’t you?”
“Yes—but …”
She laid her hand on his arm. “Then, my dear, the kindest thing you can do is visit people who are expecting him. Do his duties that he is at present incapable of doing for himself. Keep up the dignity and respect he used to have for people, and do not let them see what has become of him. Do it for their sakes also. They need what he could do for them if he were himself. There are things to be organized, decisions to be made which are beyond him at the moment. Do it for him … for all of us.”
He hesitated. “I don’t really have the authority …”
She spoke with absolute certainty, her head high, her voice clear. “You must take it.”
He wanted to do that, to find an honorable excuse to leave the house with its suspicion and anger, the fear that seemed to permeate everything like a coldness into the bones. He did not want to quarrel with Mallory again, or face Tryphena’s grief, or try to think of a way to approach Ramsay without badgering or being intrusive or accusatory, and leaving him feeling even more alone than before.
The only person he found he could think of with any sense of relief, surprisingly, was Clarice. She was outrageous. Some of the things she said were appalling. But he could understand why she said them, and in spite of his better judgment, he did think they were funny, even if no one else did. There was an honesty of emotion in her which he respected.
“Yes,” he said decisively. “Yes, that would be the best.” And without allowing time for any further discussion he bade Vita good-bye and collected the necessary addresses and information, then took his hat and coat and left.
It was one of those spring days when the wind drives the clouds across the skies so that one moment everything is bathed in light and the next there is chill and shadow, and the moment after, silver and gold again as the sun slants on falling rain. He walked briskly. He would have run had it not been ridiculous, such was his sense of momentary freedom.
He fulfilled all his errands, extending them where possible. Even so, at half past five he had no further reason to remain away from Brunswick Gardens, and was home again by six.
The first person he encountered was Clarice. She was alone on the terrace in the early evening light. The terrace was sheltered and warm, out of the wind, and she was enjoying a few moments of solitude. His immediate thought was that he had intruded.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized, and was about to turn and leave.
“No!” she said hastily. She was dressed in muslin, near white, with a green-and-white shawl over her shoulders. He was surprised how it became her. It made him think of summer, cool shaded mornings when the light is clear, before anyone thinks of what will be done in the day.
She smiled. “Please stay. How were your visits?”
“Unremarkable,” he replied honestly. He never thought of being other than honest with Clarice.
“But nice to be out,” she said perceptively. “I wish I had some reason to escape. Waiting is the worst of it, isn’t it?” She turned away and stared at the lawn and the fir trees. “I sometimes think hell is not actually something awful happening, it’s waiting for something and never being absolutely sure if it will happen, so you soar on hope, and then plunge into despair, and then up again, and down again. You get too exhausted to care for a while, then it all starts over. Permanent despair would almost be a relief. You could get on with it. It takes so much energy to hope.”
He said nothing, trying to think.
She looked at him. “Aren’t you going to tell me it will all be over soon?”
“I don’t know that it will.” Then he was ashamed of being so candid. He should have tried to comfort her, instead of unburdening himself. He was behaving like a child, and he was nearly twenty years older than she. She deserved better of him than that. Why did he think of her as stronger? If he could protect Vita, then he should far more try to protect Clarice. “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I expect it will. Pitt will discover the truth.”
She smiled at him. “You are lying … not in a bad way! A white lie.” She shrugged a little, pulling her shawl tighter. “Please don’t. I know you mean to be kind. You are doing your pastoral duty. But take off your priest’s collar for a few minutes and be an ordinary man. Pitt may find the truth. He may not. We might have to live like this forever. I know that.” Her mouth curved very slightly, as if mocking herself. “I have already decided what to believe, I mean what I shall live with, so I don’t lie awake at night torturing myself, turning it over and over in my mind. I have to have a way to function.”
Half a dozen starlings flew up out of the trees at the end of the lawn and spiraled upward on the wind, black against the sky.
“Even if it isn’t true?” he said incredulously.
“I think it probably is,” she answered, staring ahead of her. “But either way, we have to go on. We can’t simply stop everything else and go round and round the same wretched puzzle. It was one of us. That is inescapable. We can’t run anymore; we are better accepting it. There is no point in thinking how dreadful it is. I have been lying awake a lot, turning it over and over. Whoever did it is someone I know and love. I can’t just stop loving them because of it. Anyway, you don’t! If you didn’t love someone anymore because they did something you found ugly, no love would last. None of us would be loved, because we all do things that are shabby, stupid, vicious from time to time. You need to love from understanding, or even without it.”
She was not looking at him but at the fading sunlight and lengthening shadows across the grass.
“And what have you decided?” he said quietly. Suddenly he dreaded that she was going to say it was he. He was amazed at how it would hurt. He cared intensely that she should not think he had had an affair with Unity here, under her father’s roof, and then, in a moment of rage and panic, pushed her to her death, even if she could believe he had not meant it. Certainly he would be intentionally allowing Ramsay to be blamed. And after all Ramsay had done for him, that was inconceivable.
He waited with the sweat prickling on his skin.
“I have decided that Mallory had an affair with Unity,” she said quietly. “Not love. I think for him it was a temptation. She wanted him, because he had sworn to be celibate and to believe something she found preposterous.”
The starlings wheeled back again and disappeared behind the poplar.
“She wished to show him he could not do it, and that it was all pointless anyway,” she went on. “She set out to seduce him from his path, and she succeeded. It was a kind of triumph for her … not only over Mallory himself but over all the male-dominated church that patronized her and shut her out because she was a woman.” She sighed. “And the terrible thing is that I can’t entirely blame her for that. It was stupid and destructive, but if you are rejected often enough, it hurts so much you lash out wherever you can. You pick the vulnerable people, not necessarily the ones that attacked you. In a way Mallory represents religion’s most easily wounded point: human vanity and appetite. She tried Papa’s doubt as well, but the victory over that was so much harder to see or measure.”
He watched her as if in a strange state of disbelief, and yet there was sense in what she said. It was the fact she said it which was extraordinary.
“Why would Mallory kill her?” he asked, his voice catching in a cough, his mouth dry.
“Because she was blackmailing him, of course,” she said as if the answer had been obvious. “She was with child. Pitt told Papa, and he told me. I daresay everyone knows now.” A gust of wind blew her hair and tugged at the loose ends of her shawl. She hugged it closer. “It would ruin him, wouldn’t it?” she went on. “I mean, you cannot start out in a great career as a Catholic priest leaving behind a pregnant woman you have seduced and then deserted. Even if it was really she who did the seducing.”
“Does he want a great career?” he said with surprise. It was irrelevant, but he had never thought of Mallory as ambitious. He had believed the contrary, that he was using the Catholic faith as a prop to hold him up, to fill the void in certainty and authority where he thought his father’s church had let him down—let them all down.
“Perhaps not,” she agreed. “But with that behind him, he wouldn’t even have a mediocre one.”
“Have you any reason for this belief?” he asked, uncertain what he expected her to say. He realized in some ways how little he knew her. Was she clutching at straws, being wildly brave or quite practical? He had been in the house for months, and he had known Ramsay for years. He had taken Clarice too much for granted. “If you have a fact …” he started, without thinking, moving closer to her. Then he realized that Mallory was her brother. Her loyalties could only be desperately tangled. He could see the complexity and the pain of it in her eyes.
“The way he behaves,” she said quickly. “He has quite changed since Unity’s death, which isn’t very intelligent. But then I don’t think Mallory is, in the ordinary living from day to day and dealing with people.” She looked down at her arms, huddled in the shawl. She was obviously cold. The sun had gone down behind the poplars. “He’s very good at books, like Papa,” she said as if to herself. “I can’t see it’s going to be the remotest use to him as a priest. But then there is a lot about the church that I can’t see. I’m sure she was making him do things.” She was obviously referring to Unity again. “She enjoyed it. I could see it in her face. The less he liked whatever it was, the more satisfaction it gave her. I can understand it.” She was struggling to be fair. “He can be impossibly pompous at times, and so condescending one would want to scream. I would probably have made him squirm a bit myself if I’d known how to.”
The wind was sighing in the trees, and neither of them had heard Tryphena come through the withdrawing room door onto the stones. She was wearing black, and she looked sickly pale. She was obviously extremely angry.
“I believe you would very easily have made him squirm,” Tryphena said bitterly. “You’ve always been envious, because you don’t know what to do with yourself. Mallory has found something he cares about passionately, something to give his life to. I know it’s ridiculous, but it matters to him.” She came forward onto the terrace. “And so have I. You have nothing. All the education you insisted Papa give you, and you do nothing but wander around criticizing and getting in the way.”
“There’s very little I can do with it!” Clarice retaliated, turning to face her sister. “What can a woman do, except be a governess? There are generations of us, each teaching the next generation, and nobody doing anything with the knowledge except passing it on again. It’s like that stupid party game of Pass the Parcel. Nobody ever unwraps it and uses what is inside.”
“Then why don’t you fight for freedom, as Unity did?” Tryphena asked, stepping further onto the terrace. She had changed into a wool dress and was not cold. “Because you haven’t the courage!” she answered her own question. “You just want somebody else to do it all for you and hand it to you when the battle’s over. Just because you think you were as good as Mallory in the schoolroom—”
“I was! In fact, I was better.”
“No, you weren’t. You were just quicker.”
“I was better. My exam marks were higher than his.”
“It doesn’t matter, because the most you could ever be would be a minister’s wife, if you could find a minister who would have you. But you don’t need any learning for that.” She dismissed it as worthless with a wave of her hand. “Only tact, a sweet smile and the ability to listen to everybody and look interested no matter how daft it is or how boring—and to never repeat anything anybody says to you. And you couldn’t do that if your life depended on it!” Tryphena’s look was withering. “No minister wants a wife who could write his sermons for him. And you can hardly teach theology—you aren’t supposed to be able to know about it. If you had any intestinal fortitude, you would fight for the right of women to be accepted as equals, on their own terms, instead of trying to blame Mallory for something that’s utterly ridiculous.” She was staring out at the dying light. “Unity would never have stooped to blackmailing anybody. That just shows how little you know of her.”
“It shows how little one of us knows of her,” Clarice said pointedly. “Somebody fathered her child. If you knew her so very well, I assume you knew who it was?”
Tryphena’s face tightened, the lines hardening. If the color had still been in the light one would have seen her blush. “We didn’t discuss that sort of thing! Our conversations were on a much higher level. I don’t expect you to understand that.”
Clarice started to laugh, a slightly hysterical note creeping into it.
“You mean she didn’t tell you she seduced Mallory, and then blackmailed him, for fun,” she jeered. “That hardly surprises me. It wouldn’t fall in with your hero-worshipping idea of her, would it? That isn’t the stuff great women martyrs are made of. Let the side down rather hard—it’s even a trifle grubby. When it comes down to it—”
“You are disgusting!” Tryphena said between her teeth. “You will blame anyone but your precious Papa. You’ve always been his favorite, and you hate Mallory because you think he betrayed Papa by joining the Church of Rome.” She gave a sharp little laugh. “It threw back all his love in his face. It showed up how weak his own faith really is, that he couldn’t even convince his own son, let alone a whole flock of his congregation. You can’t stand the truth! So you’ll even try to get our brother hanged rather than face it. You’ve never forgiven him because you think he had the chances you should have had and you could have used them so much better. You would never have disappointed Papa. It’s easy enough to think that when you didn’t have to live up to it and actually do anything!”
Clarice bit her lip, and Dominic could see that she kept her composure only with the greatest difficulty, and perhaps for the first moment she was too shocked to find words. Such rage was almost like a physical blow.
Dominic himself was shaking, as if he too had been attacked. He intervened without thinking first. His argument had nothing to do with reason or morality, simply outrage and a passion to protect. He turned on Tryphena.
“Whatever happened in the schoolroom has nothing to do with Unity! Whoever got her with child, it wasn’t Clarice. You are just furious because you thought she told you everything, and obviously she didn’t. There was something absolutely fundamental she omitted.” He was aware as he spoke that he was approaching extremely dangerous territory, but he rushed in anyway. “You feel left out because she didn’t trust you enough to tell you, so you are trying to blame everyone else.”
Tryphena looked at him with eyes blazing. “Not everyone!” she said very pointedly. “I knew her better than to imagine she would blackmail anyone. She wouldn’t stoop so low. None of you had anything she wanted. She despised you! She wouldn’t have … have soiled herself!”
“Of course,” Clarice said scathingly. “The Second Coming. Another Immaculate Conception? But if you’d read a little more theology, if you were as good a student as Mal, let alone as I was, you’d know the Lord is coming down out of the heavens next time, not being born again. Even to Unity Bellwood!”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Tryphena snapped. “And blasphemous! You may have studied theology, but you haven’t the faintest understanding of ethics.”
“And you haven’t of love!” Clarice retorted. “All you know is hysteria and self-indulgence and—and obsession.”
“Whom did you ever love?” Tryphena laughed, her voice rising out of control. “Unity knew what love was, and passion and betrayal, and sacrifice! She loved more in her life, cut off as it was, than you’ll ever know. You’re only half alive. You’re pathetic, full of envy. I despise you.”
“You despise everyone,” Clarice pointed out, catching at her shawl as the wind tugged it. Her hair was coming undone. “Your whole philosophy is based on the fact that you imagine you are better than anyone else. I can imagine how Unity hated being with child—to a mere mortal man. She probably threw herself downstairs hoping to lose it.”
Tryphena whirled around, eyes wide open, and slapped Clarice so hard across the face she knocked her off balance, made her stumble against Dominic.
“You evil woman!” Tryphena said. “You despicable creature! You’d say anything, wouldn’t you, to protect someone you love, whatever he’s done? You have no honor, no truth. Haven’t you asked yourself where Papa found your precious Dominic?” She waved her hand in his direction but without looking at him. “What was he doing there? Why would a man his age suddenly want to join the church and become a minister, eh? What has he done that is so terrible he wants to spend the rest of his life in penance? Look at him!” She jabbed her finger towards Dominic again. “Look at his face. Do you think he really gave up women and pleasure? Well, do you? It’s time you looked at the world as it is, Clarice, and not as your theological studies told you!”
Dominic could feel himself shivering, the fear icelike inside him. What had Unity told Tryphena? What would Clarice believe of him? And far worse in its real and terrible danger, what would Pitt learn? He could not keep the delusion anymore that Pitt would not at least find a part of him only too glad to be able to blame Dominic. He had never truly forgotten Charlotte’s early romantic dreams about him, though dreams were all they had been.
He wanted to fight back, but how could he? Where were the weapons?
Tryphena began to laugh, her voice high with hysteria.
“That’s why you are an atheist,” Clarice said quite calmly, cutting across the laughter. “You don’t like people, and you don’t believe that they can change and put the old things away. You don’t really believe in hope. You don’t understand it. I have no idea where Papa found Dominic or what he was doing, and I don’t care. All I care about is what he is like now. If his change was enough for Papa, it is enough for me. I don’t need to know about it. It is none of my business. Somebody got Unity with child—somebody in the last three months. About the only places she went outside here were the library or the concert hall or those dreadful meetings about politics. And you went to all of those. So it is almost certainly someone in this house. You knew Unity. Who do you think it was?”
Tryphena stared back at her, her eyes suddenly filled with tears. She was utterly alone again, the rage gone, swallowed up in loss. Anger did not drive the emptiness away for long, and when the anger evaporated she was left with even less than before.
“I’m sorry,” Clarice said very quietly, taking a step closer. “I said it was Mallory only because some kind of certainty is better than tormenting ourselves from one fear to another. I think he is the most likely. And if you wish to know what I think actually happened, I think it was an accident. I expect they quarreled and it ran away with them, and now Mallory is terrified to admit it.”
Tryphena sniffed, her eyes red-rimmed. “But I heard her call out ‘No, no! Reverend!’ ” She gulped.
Dominic passed her a handkerchief, and she took it without looking at him.
“She was calling for help,” Clarice said decisively.
Tryphena blinked. She gave a tiny shrug, more a gesture of pain than acceptance, and turned and left without glancing at Dominic.
“I’m sorry.” Clarice looked at Dominic. “I don’t suppose she meant most of it. Don’t—don’t think about it. If you don’t mind, I think I shall go up and see Papa.” And without waiting for an answer, she went through the withdrawing room door also.
Dominic stepped off the terrace and walked slowly across the grass in the growing darkness. The dew was heavy and soaked his shoes, and at the edges where the lawn had not yet been mown, it caught the bottoms of his trousers as well. He was barely aware of it. He should not be surprised at the sudden flash of temper tearing the skin off old wounds. Fear did that. It exposed all sorts of ugly emotions which might otherwise have lain unknown all life long. It showed resentments no one wanted to own. It brought to the tongue thoughts that in wiser or kinder times would have been suppressed and anyway were only partially true, born of his own fear and need as much as any truth.
There were things better not known.
He had not realized how hurt Tryphena was, how isolated she felt herself to be, how alone now that Unity had gone. Clarice had seen it. She was frightened, too, for her father and for Mallory, but she was kinder. She struck to defend, not to hurt for any pleasure in it. And she had certainly defended him. He had not expected her to. It gave him a sharp realization of pleasure that she should wish to.
He looked up as the clouds parted and a pale, three-quarter moon made him realize how dark it was. He could only just see the grass behind him, and the branches were black against the sky, the house a silhouette, the color gone.
Clarice surprised him. But then thinking back on the time he had known her, he had very seldom been able to predict what she was going to say or do. Her sense of the ridiculous was alarming. She would make outrageous remarks, laugh at embarrassing things, appalling things, see humor where no one else did.
He remembered individual instances, wincing at some of them, standing in the gathering darkness unaware that he was smiling. Once or twice he even laughed aloud. They were excruciating. Absurd. But when he thought of them, none he recalled had been made simply to draw attention to herself or to make herself seem superior. Certainly they were not always kind; if she thought someone a hypocrite, she exposed him without mercy. Laughter could destroy as well as heal.
He put his hands in his pockets and turned and walked back towards the house and the lights across the terrace. He went upstairs to his own room with the intention of studying. He preferred to be alone and it was the best excuse. However, when the door was closed and he picked up a book he found his eyes did not focus on the page. He was thinking about Mallory, and the more he turned over in his mind what Clarice had said, the more did it seem the likely answer. He knew he himself was not the father of Unity’s child, and he could not believe it was Ramsay. It was not that he imagined Ramsay to be too ascetic or too self-disciplined ever to feel the hungers for physical comfort, or that Unity could not possibly have tempted him. He believed that if Ramsay had yielded to such a thing, he would have felt so different afterwards that Dominic at least would have noticed. And frankly, he thought Unity would have been different also. The constant need to attain small victories over Ramsay would not have remained so sharp. She would have proved his vulnerability to both of them. It would never need testing again to that degree.
And when he looked back now, he could recall—even the day before she died—the look of pleasure in her face when she had found an error in one of his translations. It had been tiny, and something a second glance would have found and corrected, but her need to point it out had been there. And there were other instances. He could see her face in his mind’s eye so clearly, every expression of it familiar; it was difficult to realize she was dead. She had been so positive, so sure of everything she felt and thought she knew.
What did he feel now that she was gone? Certainly there was sadness. She had been so urgently alive. Any death was a loss, a diminishing. Death itself was a frightening change, a reminder of the fragility of all things, of all those one loved, above all of oneself.
But there was undeniable relief in him also. It was there in the relaxing of the muscles that had unconsciously been held tight for so long. There was even ease in the mind, in spite of the fears, as if a shadow had passed.
He stood up and went to the door. It could not simply be left, in the hope that they would settle to life as it had been before and somehow Pitt would find an answer and prove it. He might. He might allow his doubts of Dominic, and the evidence—and he was certainly clever enough to find it—to convince him of Dominic’s guilt.
He went along the passage and knocked on Mallory’s door. He was doing it in part for himself, but he also owed Ramsay all he could do to find the truth, whatever he did about it afterwards.
He knocked again. There was no answer.
He turned away, not sure if he was relieved or disappointed.
Braithwaite, Vita’s maid, was coming along the corridor. Her face was lined with strain, as if she had slept little in the last nine days. Her graying hair was pulled a little tight, as if she had dressed it without care. He wondered if she wished now that she had not spoken of what she had heard.
“Mr. Mallory is in the conservatory, Mr. Corde,” she said helpfully. “He took his books down there.”
“Oh.” Now there was no escape. “Thank you.” He turned and went down the stairs and across the hall. He could never pass this way without thinking of Unity and wondering. He hesitated only a moment, then went into the conservatory. Here it was dark, but he could see light through the leaves and knew it came from the iron table at the far end, where Mallory must be sitting.
He pushed past the palm fronds and lily leaves, his footsteps making very little sound on the slightly damp bricks, and what little there was was covered by the gurgle of water from the pool.
Mallory looked up when Dominic was almost there. He was sitting in the same chair he must have been in when Unity met her death, if he had told the truth. But there was the mark on Unity’s shoe which made a liar of him at least in his denial that he had seen her that morning.
“What do you want?” Mallory asked. He made no pretense at friendship. He resented Dominic’s favor with Ramsay, and he resented the way Dominic had taken over a certain leadership since the tragedy. The fact that he was older, and that Mallory himself had not wished for it, meant nothing.
Dominic wondered if Tryphena had told Mallory of their quarrel, and what Clarice had said. In the yellow light of the lamp, with its heavy shadows, he should have been able to read it in Mallory’s face, but he could not. There was too much emotion in it already: fear, anger, resentment, striving after a peace he felt he should have had, and guilt because he did not. His faith had not been equal to the test he had placed upon it. Dominic knew that from the missal he held open in his hand.
Dominic sat on the edge of the planting bench, ignoring the fact that it could be damp or dirty, or both.
“Pitt is going to find out,” he said gravely.
Mallory stared at him, and Dominic knew in an instant that he was going to bluff.
“Probably,” Mallory agreed. “But if you are expecting me to help you protect Father somehow, I can’t. It isn’t only a matter of whether I think it is right to do so, I don’t believe it would accomplish anything for more than a short time. In the end it would only make things worse.” He sat up a little straighter, his mouth tight, dark eyes defensive. “Face the truth, Dominic. I know you admire Father, probably because he held out a hand to you when you desperately needed it, and heaven knows, gratitude is a virtue we see too little of. But it cannot take the place of honesty or justice. It will always have to be at someone else’s expense.”
It was on the edge of Dominic’s tongue to say “You mean yours,” then he realized it was equally easily his own, and he said nothing.
“We have different faiths,” Mallory went on. “But something of the core of them must be the same. You cannot pass your sins on to another person. Christ is the only one who can take sins for another; we must each bear our own. That includes you and me, and Father. The law is not the only concern, and it shouldn’t even be our main one. Can’t we at least agree on that much?”
“We can.” Dominic leaned forward, elbows on his knees. The pool of lamplight was yellow around them, islanding them amid the leaves. The rest of the house could have been a world away. “Do you believe your father was Unity’s lover?”
Mallory hesitated, and the guilt was hot in his eyes. For an instant he wavered, but he knew Dominic had seen it. It was already too late to retreat.
“No.” He looked down at his hands.
There was silence except for the bubbling of the water in the pool and a slight, steady dripping somewhere on the leaves.
“Was she blackmailing you over it?” Dominic asked.
Mallory looked up slowly. His face was for once wiped of all conscious expression but fear.
“I didn’t kill her, Dominic! I swear! I wasn’t anywhere near the top of the stairs when she fell. I was in here, as I said I was. I don’t know what happened, and I don’t know why it happened. I honestly thought it was Father. I still do. And if it was not, then it must have been you.”
“It was not me,” Dominic said very quietly. “Did anyone else know she was blackmailing you?”
“Who?” Mallory looked surprised. “Clarice? She is the only other member of the family, because I can’t imagine any of the servants being responsible for Unity’s death.”
“They weren’t,” Dominic said unhappily. “We know where all of them were. And no, I don’t think Clarice would have.”
“Not to protect me, anyway,” Mallory said dryly. “Tryph might have, but she wouldn’t. She’s always thought she would make a better priest than I. She is cleverer, but that’s only a tiny part of what is needed. I’ve tried to show her that, but she doesn’t want to know. It’s a matter of faith. More than that, it’s obedience. She hasn’t any obedience.”
It was not the time to argue the relative merits of obedience and charity.
“Could it not have been an accident?” Dominic suggested, trying to offer him a way to admit to something lesser.
“It could have,” Mallory agreed. “Of course it could have.” He jerked up. “My God, it wasn’t me … accident or intentional.” His voice rose. “I wasn’t there, Dominic! If it was an accident, then it was still Father!” His long fingers opened and closed again. “See if you can get him to admit to it. I can’t, and heaven knows I’ve tried. He doesn’t even listen to me. It is as if he has shut himself off from the rest of us. All that seems to matter to him is his wretched book. He works away at those translations as if they were the most important thing in his life. I know he wants to publish before Dr. Spelling, but it hardly matters compared with murder in the house, and when one of us is responsible.” He looked wretched. For once there was no thought for himself, no pretense or guardedness at all. He looked almost boyish with his smooth cheeks and brow in the lamplight amid the shining, slanting leaves of the man-made jungle. “Dominic, I think he has had some mental collapse. He is no longer in reality—”
He got no further. There was a thin, high scream, cut off suddenly.
They both froze, waiting for it to come again.
But there was no sound other than the water.
Mallory gulped and swore, rising to his feet clumsily, knocking the missal onto the floor with his elbow.
Dominic started after him along the brick pathway back towards the hall. Mallory threw the door open and left it swinging as he strode across the black-and-white mosaic to where the withdrawing room door stood wide. Dominic was at his heels.
Inside, Vita was huddled over in one of the chairs. Her dark gray gown was soaked in blood all down the bosom and onto the skirt. Her arms and shoulders were dark with it, and even her hands were scarlet.
Tryphena had collapsed on the floor, but no one was trying to assist her. Perhaps it was she who had screamed.
Clarice was on her knees in front of her mother, holding her by the arms. They were both shaking violently. Vita seemed to be attempting to speak, but she could not catch her breath, all she could do was sob and gasp.
“Oh God!” Mallory stumbled as if he too might lose his balance. “Mama! What happened? Has somebody sent for the doctor? Get bandages—water—something!” Instinctively he turned to Dominic.
Dominic bent to Clarice, taking her by the shoulders.
“Let us see, my dear,” he said gently. “We must see where the wound is to stop it bleeding.”
Reluctantly, still shuddering, Clarice allowed herself to be helped up by Mallory, who clung onto her, his knuckles white. Still no one went to Tryphena.
“Let me see,” Dominic ordered, looking at Vita’s ash-white face.
“I’m not hurt,” she whispered, her voice grating in her throat. “At least—not much. Just—bruises, I think. I don’t even know. But—” She stopped and looked down at the blood all over herself, almost as if she had not really seen it before. Then she looked up at Dominic again. “Dominic—Dominic … he tried to kill me! I—I had to … defend myself! I only meant …” She swallowed with such a constriction of her throat that she choked, and he had to hold her while she coughed until she could find her breath again. “I only meant to fight him off” … just so I could get away. But he was insane!” She held up her right arm, where the imprint of a bloody hand showed clearly around her wrist. “He had hold of me!” She seemed amazed, as if she could still hardly believe it. “I …” She swallowed again. “I managed to reach for the paper knife. I thought if I could stab his arm, he would have to let go of me and I could escape.” Her eyes were fixed on his, wide and almost black. “He moved … he moved, Dominic! I only meant to stab his arm.”
He felt sick. “What happened?”
“He moved!” she repeated. “His arm was there! He was holding me. His hands were around my throat! The look in his face! It wasn’t the man I know at all. It wasn’t Ramsay! He was terrible, full of hate and such—such anger!”
“What happened?” he repeated more firmly.
Her voice sank. “I struck at his arm, to make him let go of me, and he moved. The knife caught his neck … his … throat, Dominic—I think he’s dead!”
They all remained frozen for seconds. A log blazed up in the fireplace in a shower of sparks.
Clarice turned her head and leaned against Mallory’s shoulder, and wept. He clung to her, burying his cheek in her hair.
On the floor, Tryphena started to sit up.
Dominic left Vita and went over to the bell rope and pulled it, far harder than he had intended, but his hands were tingling as if they were numb, and he was trembling.
“Get Emsley to bring some brandy and fetch the doctor,” he said to Mallory. “I’ll go upstairs.” He did not bother to ask Vita if it was the study. He assumed it was. Ramsay had barely left it in the last week.
He went along the top corridor and opened the study door.
Ramsay was lying near the desk, half on his back, one leg a little crooked under him. There was a gash on his throat and a wide, deep pool of crimson blood puddling on the carpet beside him. There was nothing in his hands, but there were smears of blood on them, staining his cuffs. His eyes were wide open, and he looked surprised.
Dominic knelt down and felt a desperate sadness engulf him. Ramsay had been his friend, had held out kindness and hope when he had needed it. Now he had drowned in an ocean Dominic had not even comprehended. He had watched it happen, and not been able to save him. His sense of loss filled him with pain—and a bitter knowledge of having failed.