A Christmas Resolution

by Anne Perry

  And she was shy about certain things. He liked that. It made him acutely conscious of the difference between a man and a woman. It was at once exciting and infinitely tender, and he wondered how he had ever waited so long even to seek marriage—except the answer was obvious: he was a solitary man. Only Celia, with her quiet grace, her sublime courage, was right for him.

  They had met quite by chance, on a very terrible case of kidnap, and one of the most appalling murders he had ever seen—and he had seen his share. The river was a dangerous place. People came from every corner of the earth, every continent and island, every ocean and clime. The Pool of London was the busiest dockland in the world, the heart of an empire that spanned the globe, with all the violence and greed that engendered. Yet the Exeter murder was still one of the worst.

  Sometimes he sat in the small house, her house and now theirs, watched her in the kitchen, and thought of her in the witness stand…and the lie she had told to save him, knowing the truth about his life at sea and saying nothing. She had done it partly for him, but also because she would not see an injustice done, no matter what it cost her. Quietly, in her own way, unperceived and unacknowledged, she was one of the bravest people he had ever known.

  And she was funny and gentle, wise and eccentric. Hooper knew why she did some of the things she did, but he refrained from commenting. It made her unusual, a mystery sometimes, but never a bore.

  He was concerned for her and the hurt he might cause her now. He had not said so, but he had met Seth Marlowe only half a dozen times, and he did not like the man. Hooper had learned that few people’s lives were as they seemed at a glance. If they were, if there were no painful secrets, no complex motives behind even the simplest actions, no loves or hates that bent memories and judgments, there would be no need for detecting skills and the River Police—or any other police, for that matter. Not much was as simple as it appeared at a glance. It was seldom a case of innocent or guilty; more often it was a matter of degree.

  He walked more briskly. He would catch a ferry at the next stairs down to the water, and then on to Wapping and the police station there. It was time to put all personal issues aside. Seth Marlowe was not a likable man, but his effect on Celia notwithstanding, Hooper was too full of his own happiness to wish him ill. If Clementine brought Marlowe any joy at all, he could only be better for it.

  * * *

  It was Thursday when Celia went into the church with her armful of flowers, although they were mostly leaves and berries. She had several sprays of holly. It was a shame to cut them, but the bush nearest her front door was enormous and could do with a trimming. And really, there was so little else. Laurel was green, but it always reminded her of wreaths, albeit for victory rather than death. But the symbolism was a little heavy. She had gathered half a dozen late chrysanthemums of a lovely tawny gold, but apart from these there was only hellebore, a beautiful flower in quite a variety of colors: white, yellow, pink, purple, and green. They grew best in the shade and always reminded her of mourning. Perhaps it was the colors. Today, she had cut the purple ones and those touched with pink.

  She put them down on the bench in the chilly side room kept for such chores. There was always a pair of secateurs there, as well as vases and a small sink with a cold-water tap. It was a pleasant task, and she looked forward to it. She enjoyed the challenge of trying to make the bouquets look rich, joyous, as if from an abundance. She disliked too much ribbon, which made a very obvious mark of the scarcity of flowers.

  She was about halfway through when she heard footsteps behind her. She did not expect the vicar, but she would have been pleased enough to see him. She turned round and froze. It was not the Reverend Mr. Roberson who stood a short distance from her, but Seth Marlowe. He was dressed in a well-tailored business suit of dark wool and carried his hat in one hand. He smiled, but it was gone in an instant, as if it were a bleak formality.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Hooper. I thought I should find you here. You are something of a creature of habit.”

  She was surprised. His words made it clear that he had come specifically to see her. It was a little chilling to think she was so predictable, and that he knew it. She felt immediately defensive.

  “A creature of habit.” She could hear the irritation in her own voice. “I would prefer to think of myself as reliable, someone who keeps my word. From your frequently expressed opinions on vice and virtue, I would have thought you might appreciate that.”

  “I do, Mrs. Hooper, if not finding reliability very interesting,” he replied. “It is the bare minimum of what one would expect.”

  Celia put the last chrysanthemum in the place she had chosen for it, then turned back to face him again. “I cannot believe your life is so devoid of things to do that you came all the way here to tell me that.” She nearly added more, then realized it would give away that she was angry. So, she stood silently, waiting for him to explain. Her earlier good intentions had entirely evaporated.

  “Of course not!” he snapped. “I’ve come for a very specific purpose, at a time when I would be able to have a confidential talk with you. You and I do not approve of each other nor, indeed, like each other.” He waved his hand as if brushing away crumbs. “But that is of no importance. I think you are a meddlesome and rather tedious woman. No doubt you think that I am over-strict in my judgments, and you are jealous of the esteem in which the vicar holds my opinions.” He gave a slight shrug. “I appreciate that you have been of considerable support to him at the time of his bereavement. I suppose you were of reasonable assistance, though, as you observed on Sunday, he had no notion of your…actions, and reputation…”

  She looked straight at Marlowe, standing too close to her in the small room. Her eyes were level, not for a second wavering. “Think what you wish, Mr. Marlowe. If you imagine I care in the slightest what that is, you are mistaken. I married for love, not out of desperation. I hope you can say the same. Clementine deserves a great deal more than filling a blank space in your life. I can’t help wondering if you need someone to fill it, and perhaps anyone will do.”

  It was his turn to blush, but it looked more out of anger than embarrassment. He took a half step toward her. “I came here to warn you to mind your own business regarding my marriage to Miss Appleby. Or any other part of my business, for that matter. Stick to arranging flowers, Mrs. Hooper, and laundering the linen. Clementine seems to find a mother figure in you, or perhaps an aunt would be more accurate.”

  Celia raised her eyebrows. “And what else is it you imagine I might do that apparently worries you so much?”

  “Gossip, Mrs. Hooper. Give advice that she does not need, and that you have no right to offer,” he replied immediately.

  Celia tilted her head. “Really, I find it offensive, Mr. Marlowe, that you would restrict a woman you purport to love from asking advice from other women, on matters that may be personal, and about which you can know nothing. Even though, as we are all aware, you have been married before.” She knew that would sting. He had spoken of his first wife, and referred with anger and grief to her many failings. His pain at her shame, her total fall from grace, was an agony that poured from him like a hemorrhage, bleeding momentarily out of control. It awakened pity and embarrassment, a memory no one wanted of how disastrously far the highest hopes could fall, striking anyone—even the most righteous, which Seth Marlowe certainly believed he was.

  “I think your experience of marriage is very slight, Mrs. Hooper.” There was a definite sneer on his face.

  “You mean very recent,” she corrected him. “And perhaps the more helpful for that. But I am happy for Clementine.” That was a lie that burned her tongue. She was terrified for her. “And I shall be happy to give her any advice she wishes.”

  “I have asked you courteously, Mrs. Hooper,” he answered stiffly. “If you do not give me the respect of obeying my wishes, then—”

 
“Obeying?” Celia interrupted incredulously.

  “Certainly, obeying. Clementine is to be my wife.”

  “If she wishes to obey you, that is her choice,” Celia said coldly. “I am not your wife, nor of any other relationship to you, and I should do what I think right.”

  “Your husband will teach you in time,” he answered, “if he is man enough. If not, he will come to live with the consequences.” He did not conceal a slight smile. “I presume you wish him to be happy, and to retain your…status.”

  Celia felt the first real chill run through her. If this was how Clementine’s marriage began, how would it continue? Love, honor, and obey—suddenly the words took on a darker meaning. She had made that exact vow herself, thinking only of advice, of wishes—never of any type of force.

  Marlowe was watching her closely. She realized for the first time that his eyes were pale gray, like stones.

  “I perceive you are beginning to understand,” he said with the slightest of smiles. “You will not give Clementine advice, except on such things as how to dress for the wedding, and on personal matters of…” He shrugged and let the sentence hang in the air, as if it did not need finishing. The thought was too delicate to be given words.

  “I should give Clementine advice as she asks for it,” Celia stated flatly. It was an insufficient answer, but she had nothing better.

  Marlowe stood quite still, and focused on the magnificent urn she had arranged of mostly leaves, with splashes of the glorious chrysanthemum color.

  “You are impulsive,” he said, as if the word carried a wealth of meaning too heavy and too subtle for defining.

  Celia could think of no reply.

  “That quality can lead you into a world of error, for which you might pay dearly.” He smiled, but it was an expression she did not know how to read.

  “Is that a threat, Mr. Marlowe? Are you saying that if I give Clementine any advice you do not agree with, you will hurt her? Or that somehow or other you will hurt me?” She said it incredulously, and in truth it was almost unbelievable.

  His eyebrows rose. “You will hurt yourself, Mrs. Hooper. If your behavior is less than she thinks worthy of you, then she will be bitterly hurt. She is young, generous-hearted, but she judges rashly; indeed, sometimes not at all.”

  “Qualities for which she is both loved and admired, Mr. Marlowe. I would think by you most of all.”

  “Generosity is very charming, particularly in those who are most in need of it, but in the end, the truth remains,” he answered, looking a little past her at the bench with its cut stalks and leaves sitting by the secateurs. He frowned, as if at the untidiness of it.

  “Were you not listening on Sunday, Mr. Marlowe?” Now there was a very hard edge to Celia’s voice. “The burden of the vicar’s sermon was that we must practice forgiveness. Did you not hear that?”

  He looked back at her. “After repentance, Mrs. Hooper. I fear that it is you who are hearing the message selectively.”

  “And I should repent of giving Clementine such advice as she might ask for? I assume you will know this by cross-questioning her as to our private conversations between women.”

  His expression was bitter. “I am sorry you forced me to say this, but I was not referring to future impulsiveness you might indulge, but to the past.”

  She knew what he was talking about: the Exeter case. She did not think of herself as emotional, and certainly not impulsive. In fact, others had said she was dull, even at times rather boring. She had never been known for having deep feelings, but at that moment in court, she had let the world see the depth of her passion.

  “The trial of Harry Exeter,” Marlowe said softly. He was looking straight at her now, unblinking. “You swore, in the name of God, and told a deliberate lie. Not a minor one, due to confusion or lapse of memory, but a deliberate lie, for your own emotional reasons.”

  The tide of heat rose, burning up her skin. “I do not read the gutter press, as apparently you do, Mr. Marlowe. And I imagine you will not allow Clementine access to such things.”

  “It is pointless to lie, Mrs. Hooper,” Marlowe went on. “Your guilt is scarlet in your face.”

  She scrambled desperately for something to say, any defense at all. But she could think of nothing to silence him. He had no right to know! How he must hate her to do this. And Clementine—would she even understand why Celia had done the only thing she could think of to see true justice? No, that was less than the truth. All that had filled her mind was that John Hooper would hang for doing something for which he had had no choice. And Harry Exeter, who had murdered Katherine so brutally, would go free. But if she had to do it again, even not knowing that Hooper loved her in return, she would make the same decision.

  She faced Marlowe, as if he were something revolting that had crawled out from under a wet stone. “You must do as you think right,” she replied. She meant it to sound icy, filled with contempt, but her voice shook too much to have any conviction.

  “The vicar will be disappointed,” Marlowe went on, studying her face. “He thinks so highly of you. He hid it well, but he was appalled to learn of your…lies. And your husband, complicit in the perjury—and it is perjury, you know—may find his own position in jeopardy.” The smile just touched his lips. “Has he any other skills, if they choose to dismiss him without honor? He could always become a dock laborer, I suppose.”

  “He did not lie.” She managed to force out the words between stiff lips. “And I was not his wife then, so he had no responsibility for my choices. In fact, he did not know it was a lie.” That was the truth.

  “Was that your reward for lying?” he asked, his eyebrows rising again. “Marriage?”

  She found her tongue. “Is that how you see marriage, as the reward for some otherwise appalling act?” She was surprised at herself, but she did not for one instant wish that she could take it back.

  His face drained of all color and his arm swung back sharply, as if he would strike her. Then he changed his mind and let it fall, fist still clenched.

  Celia was almost sorry. If he had hit her, even if not very hard, it would have put him irreparably in the wrong.

  “It is you who are at fault, Mrs. Hooper,” he said coldly. “You lied after swearing in God’s name to tell the truth. That cannot likely be forgiven, as if it were a slip of the tongue.”

  “No,” she agreed. “I did it because I believed it was the right thing to do, the lesser of two evils.”

  “Oh, really. Please do not expect me to believe that.” His expression was an open sneer.

  “I would have expected you to give me the benefit of the doubt, or to overlook it in the circumstances, as the judge did,” she retaliated. “Or, at least, I would have expected that until last Sunday. Now I expect nothing of you except cruelty and violence. You must be very afraid of something. Perhaps of Clementine finding out what kind of a man you really are.”

  “Are you threatening to tell her some vile story about me?” His voice grated. “Something to dissuade her from marrying me? You will fail. She loves me and sees a future ahead of her safer and far more respectable than anything in her past. She can hold her head up in the community.”

  The shadow of doubt fell upon Celia for an instant, a memory of Clementine standing with a group of women, but a little apart. Was it imaginable that they knew of her birth, of the mother who had raised her so carefully and with such love, but without a father? Could Marlowe know that? And would he tell people? Perhaps carefully, one or two at a time. That would make it impossible for Clementine to discover who knew, and once married to him she could not leave. Was that why his first wife had left? Some calculated cruelty that had robbed her of every other choice?

  She forced the words out. “Yes, she is well liked,” she said, her voice wavering a little. “Anyone who hurt her would be most unpopular.”

&
nbsp; “I’m glad you appreciate that.”

  “I do, but I wonder if you do.”

  He froze for an instant. Then a slow smile spread across his face. “You were under oath and you lied. That is a crime. I told her, with regret, that you were an unsuitable person for her to associate with, and unfortunately nothing you say can be taken as the truth.”

  Celia stared at him and was certain that he meant exactly what he said. Why? What was he so frightened that she would tell Clementine? Something that could injure him? “What is it?” she said. “What are you so dreadfully afraid of that you would stoop to blackmailing me like this? That is despicable.”

  His face lost the last vestige of color, and she knew in that instant that she had made a mistake, and there was no way to take it back. Any kind of a retreat at all would signal fear and vulnerability. This was absurd. She had seen Seth Marlowe almost every Sunday for years, ever since he had come to this area soon after the death of his wife. She had heard about Rose Marlowe from Rose’s sister-in-law, Una Roberson, especially in the last months, when Una knew she was dying. She was worried and needed someone to confide in. Celia had tried to comfort her.

  “Blackmail is an ugly word, Mrs. Hooper,” Marlowe said after a moment’s silence. “I am merely warning you that poor Arthur Roberson thought so well of you that to learn of your perjury would hurt him very deeply. He may not be able to hide it from the congregation. People will wonder what you have done, and speculation is seldom kind. I am sure you understand.”

  Thoughts raced through her mind. “No, it isn’t,” she said. “People speculate about all sorts of things.” She took a breath, as if the room were suffocatingly hot. “Such as what really happened to your wife and your daughter.”

  He stared at her, all expression draining from his face, leaving it haggard, as if he had aged decades as she watched him. “It was you.” Sudden understanding lit his eyes until they glittered between his narrowed lids. “Behind that so innocent smile, there is venom. The one person I never suspected. Well, you will not win. I forbid you to see Clementine or speak to her again, except in public.”