A Christmas Secret

by Anne Perry

  “After you’ve paid,” she said harshly. “Not while you’re still committing them, and the innocent are suffering. Don’t tell me that’s God’s way, ’cos it isn’t. I know that, and so do you, Vicar.”

  “Yes,” he said a little tartly. “And the Reverend Wynter would have pointed that out to anyone who was continuing to do what was wrong.”

  “Exactly,” she agreed, staring at him. “But what if that person didn’t want to stop? What if they weren’t going to stop, no matter what?”

  He didn’t want to know, but he couldn’t avoid it simply because it was uncomfortable. If a priest refused to address sin, what use was he to anyone? He was here precisely to deal with weakness: physical or spiritual. He must face it, wherever it led him. He started to walk again, trusting his instincts though he could only dimly see the road.

  “What you say is true, Mrs. Paget. But I imagine you expect me to do more than agree in theory?”

  “You didn’t know the Reverend Wynter,” she said after another few steps. The emotion was carefully controlled in her voice now, and he could not see her face. It was dark all around them; only the yellow gleam of a few uncurtained windows shone warmly here and there, illuminating short distances, touching branches with gold and making the night beyond seem deeper. “He was a good man,” she went on. “He was brave and honest. He knew right from wrong, and he didn’t flinch from doing what he had to, even though he didn’t like it.”

  “Did he know things about more than one person?” he asked. He was trying to evade the issue and he knew it. Perhaps she did, too.

  “He might have known things about a lot of people,” she admitted. “But he knew that John and Genevieve Boscombe are living together in sin. He walked out on his first wife. Left her alone to fend for herself. Vicar never told a word, but I don’t come from Cottisham, and I know one or two other places as well. I recognized him.”

  “And told the Reverend Wynter?” he asked, shivering a little.

  “No, I didn’t,” she said stiffly. “But if I had, I’d have been doing those poor children a service.”

  “Branding them as illegitimate?” he said, disbelief making his voice hard. “The scandal would ruin the parents and make them all outcasts. How is that a service, Mrs. Paget?” They crossed the road together, side by side.

  “Only if the vicar told people,” she answered with exaggerated patience. “And he wouldn’t do that. You said so yourself.” There was triumph in her, but thin and shivery, full of hurt. “You haven’t been a vicar very long, have you,” she observed.

  He felt the heat burn inside him, despite the bitter edge of the wind. “No. What do you suppose the Reverend Wynter intended to do?” He wanted to know for himself, but also because it might lead him toward whoever had killed Wynter.

  “Face them,” she said simply. “Tell them they have to put things right. Go back and face Mrs. Boscombe, the real one, and care for her, make some restitution to her for what her husband did. Perhaps if he’s lucky, she’ll divorce him for his adultery with her that calls herself his wife now. If all that happens, then they can marry and make their children legitimate at last, by adoption or however it’s done. Not their fault, poor little souls.”

  He felt an intense pity, more than she could have understood. His own first marriage had been less than happy, as he understood happiness now. He had not left his wife, but he had certainly betrayed her more than once. She may well have expected it, but that excused nothing. He still had a guilt to expiate, and he knew and accepted it. That certain knowledge made him far quicker to forgive others, to understand ugliness and stupidity and try to heal it rather than destroy the perpetrator.

  “You are quite right,” he said to her gently. “That would be the correct thing to do, even if not the easiest.”

  “He never lacked courage.” She kept walking at a steady, even pace into the wind. “Takes courage to be a priest, Reverend Corde. Can’t just go around being nice to people. Sometimes that isn’t the real help.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Paget. I’m sure it isn’t,” he agreed.

  “I’m home now. Good night, Vicar.”

  “Mrs. Paget!” he said quickly. “You said the Reverend Wynter knew things about many people.”

  “So he did,” she cut across him. “But it’s no good asking me what things they were, or who they were about, because I don’t know. I just knew that one because I knew. I’ve lived in other villages, too. Good night, Vicar.” This time she turned and walked away briskly up the path toward the nearest cottage.

  “Good night, Mrs. Paget,” he said more to himself than to her.

  It was not a good night. He knew that after supper he would have to go see John Boscombe and ask him if what he had been told was the truth, because he felt sure that was what the Reverend Wynter was doing before he died. He had racked his brains to find another alternative, all the time knowing that there was none. Clarice had offered to come with him, and he had refused. She had no part in it, and no chaperone was necessary. She would worry, he knew that, imagining all kinds of anger and distress, but that was the burden of a priest’s wife, and she did not ask to be relieved of it.

  It was a hard walk to the Boscombes’ house. He did not dare take the shortcut through the woods, even if the stream was frozen. His arm ached from carrying the lantern and trying to hold it against the wind. He was welcomed in. The house was warm, although not as warm as the vicarage where they could afford to burn a little more coal.

  “How nice to see you, Reverend Corde,” Boscombe said immediately. “It’s a terrible night for visiting. What brings you? No one ill or needing help?”

  Dominic almost changed his mind. Maybe this was something the bishop should deal with, or whoever was given this living permanently. But if he evaded it, Clarice would despise him. Even now he could imagine her disappointment in him.

  He followed Boscombe inside to the parlor, where Genevieve was sitting sewing. She was patching the sleeves of a jacket. She put it away quickly as if to welcome him, but he saw from the quick flush in her face that she was ashamed. Were they really paying blackmail to someone? The vicar? Please God, no.

  Or to anyone else, perhaps from Boscombe’s home village? Even Mrs. Paget? But it was the Reverend Wynter who was dead. Mrs. Paget was very much alive.

  “Genny, please get the vicar a cup of tea, or soup,” Boscombe requested. “Which would you like?”

  How could Dominic accept the man’s hospitality, given out of their little, with what he had come to say? Guilt almost choked him. And who was he to blame a man for doing what he might so easily have done himself, had the temptation been there? Sarah was dead, however, and he was free to love Clarice as he wished, but due to luck, not virtue.

  “No thank you, not yet,” he prevaricated. “But I would like to speak to you confidentially, Mr. Boscombe. I beg your pardon for that, on such an evening.”

  “Don’t worry, Vicar,” Genevieve said quickly. “I have jobs to do in the kitchen. You just call when you’d like the soup.”

  “What is it?” Boscombe asked as soon as the door was closed and they were alone. “You look very grave, Vicar. Not more money gone, is it? Or did you find out who took it? I think the Reverend Wynter was inclined to let it go, you know. He could always see the greater picture, the one that mattered.”

  “Yes, I imagine he could,” Dominic answered. “It seems to me he thought past today’s embarrassment and saw the grief that could come in the future if present sins, however easy to understand, or even to sympathize with, were not put right.”

  Boscombe’s face paled. His eyes were steady on Dominic’s face.

  “I’m sorry,” Dominic said gently. “There is no record of your marriage in this parish. If I ask the bishop, will he find it in some other place?”

  Boscombe’s voice was husky, his eyes wretched. “No, Vicar. Genevieve is the wife of my heart, but not of the law. The Reverend Wynter knew that, and he wanted to find a way for us to make it right, b
ut I couldn’t stay on in office in the church once he knew.”

  “But you could stay until then?” The moment the words were out of his lips, Dominic wished he had not said them. It was a criticism Boscombe did not need, however justified.

  Boscombe blushed and looked down at his big hands. “I wasn’t the one who told him. I couldn’t bring myself to. I wanted to be happy,” he said softly. “That was the coward’s way, I suppose, but he asked me to help with the money and other tasks in the church. I couldn’t refuse without telling him why.” He twisted his fingers together, crushing the flesh till they were white. “I didn’t think you’d find out so quick.”

  “Did you kill the Reverend Wynter?”

  Boscombe’s head jerked up, his eyes wide. “No! God in heaven, man, how can you ask such a thing? He was my friend! He wanted us to put it right, and I told him I wasn’t leaving Genevieve for anything, church or no church. And I wasn’t going back to my first wife, either. If God sent me to hell, at least I’d have a life first. But go back and it would be hell now. And who would support Genny and my children?”

  “Who supports your first wife?” Dominic asked.

  “She had money of her own and no need of mine,” Boscombe said bitterly. “As she often reminded me.”

  “If she divorced you for your adultery and desertion, you would be free to marry Genevieve and make your children legitimate,” Dominic pointed out. “In the law, if not in the church. Wouldn’t it still be better?”

  Boscombe gave a sharp bark of laughter. “Do you think I didn’t ask her to? She’s not a woman to forgive, Reverend Corde. Not ever. As long as she lives she’ll hold me to bondage. My only choice is to live in sin with Genevieve, the best and gentlest, most loyal woman I know, or live in virtue cold as ice with a woman who hates me, and will make me pay every day and night of my life, because I don’t love her. The Reverend Wynter wanted me to make it right, for Genevieve’s sake, and my children’s. He told me they’d get nothing if I die, and I know that’s true.” He blinked several times. “I’ll just have to pray I don’t die. He was looking for a way for me to make it right with God, but he never found it before he died. I don’t know who killed him, but I swear to you before the Lord who made the earth and everything in it, it was not me. I loved the Reverend Wynter, and I’ve got enough on my soul as it is without adding violence to it.”

  Dominic believed him. It fit with what Mrs. Paget had told him, and what he had come to know of Wynter. Boscombe might have thought, in a moment’s desperation, that if Wynter were dead he could continue to live in peace. But he must have known that it would only be a matter of time before he was exposed. With murder on his hands and his heart, there would be no happiness ahead for him, or for the woman and the children he loved so deeply. Could Dominic find an answer for him? If Wynter, with a lifetime in the church, could not, then how could he, a novice? “I’ll try to find a way for you to sort it out,” he promised rashly. “Thank you for your honesty.”

  “If there were, we’d have found it by now,” Boscombe said miserably. “What are you going to say to the bishop?”

  “Nothing,” Dominic replied, again rashly. He stood up. “I’m concerned with finding who killed the Reverend Wynter. Anything else is between you and God. Living with a woman to whom you are not married may be a sin, but it is not against the law. We will address that problem later. Perhaps after Christmas they will move me somewhere else. I hope not, but I cannot choose.” He heard the roughness of grief in his own voice and was angry with himself. What had he to grieve over, when he was returning to the woman he loved, with no shadow over them or between them, except whatever he might create himself by being less than she believed of him? “First let us celebrate the birth of Christ, and leave other things until after that.”

  Boscombe held out his hand, blinking rapidly again. “Thank you.”

  Dominic gripped him hard. “But if I stay here, we will have to seek an answer one day.”

  “I know,” Boscombe replied. “I know.”

  The morning dawned bright. The sky was a pale, wind-scoured blue, and the ice crust on the snow was hard enough to support a child’s weight. The few ducks out, eager for bread, paddled across it without making a crack. Someone had been thoughtful enough to put out water for them, but it would need thawing every hour or two.

  Clarice had baked bread, a skill she was very proud of because it had not come naturally to her. Dominic took a loaf to old Mr. Riddington and found him frail and hunched up in his chair. He was grateful for the bread, but even more for the company in his chilly and almost soundless world. Dominic brought in more wood and coal, making them both a cup of tea. He found it was more than two hours before he could decently leave the old man.

  He went next door to check with Mrs. Blount and thank her for her kindness. Then he set out for home.

  He was close to the green again when he was aware of footsteps behind him. He heard every crack and crunch of the ice. He turned to see the small figure of Sybil Towers struggling to catch up with him. Her mittened hands were waggling awkwardly as she tried to keep her balance, her cape was trailing lopsidedly, and her hat was a trifle awry.

  It was the last thing he wanted to do, but he started back toward her. She looked so frantic and lonely, he had no choice.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Towers. Are you all right?” He offered her his arm. “It isn’t weather for hurrying, you know. Where are you going? Perhaps I can accompany you and see you don’t fall.”

  “You are too kind, Reverend Corde.” She grasped his arm as if it were a lifeline in a stormy sea. “Those poor ducks. I know Mrs. Jones is putting out bread and a little lard for them, such a nice woman.”

  “Which way are you going, Mrs. Towers?” he asked again.

  “Oh, over there.” She gestured vaguely with her free arm, nearly losing her balance again. “How are you settling in? Is Mrs. Corde finding the vicarage to her liking? A home matters so much, I always think.”

  “We both like it very much indeed,” he answered.

  “A good garden,” she went on. “Old trees make a garden, don’t you agree?”

  “Yes.” He nodded. “I expect in spring they are beautiful.”

  She told him how many blossom trees there were, then the various other flowers in season, all the way through to the tawny chrysanthemums, the purple Michaelmas daisies, and the offer of an excellent recipe for crab apple jelly. “One of my favorites, I confess,” she said with enthusiasm. “I prefer the tart to the very sweet, don’t you?”

  They were now well across the green and into the lane at the far side. They had passed several cottages; the way through the woods lay ahead, winding between the trees. Presumably it led eventually to open fields and perhaps a farm or two. He had realized half a mile ago that she was not actually going anywhere. She needed to talk to him, but could not bring herself to come to the subject easily. His hands were numb and his feet so cold he was losing sensation in them also, but he felt her need as sharply as the wind rattling the bare branches above them. Did she know something about the Reverend Wynter’s death? Was that what she was struggling to say?

  “Of course, we will probably not be here for very long,” he prompted her, surprised again by the regret in his voice. “Once the bishop finds a permanent replacement for the Reverend Wynter, we will return to London. From everything I hear, he was a most remarkable man, one whose shoes it will not be easy to fill.”

  “He was,” she said eagerly. “Oh, he was. So kind. So very patient. One knew one could trust him with anything.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “But I think perhaps you are the same, Reverend Corde. It seems to me you are a man who has understood pain.” She looked away from him, and he knew she was afraid she had been too bold.

  He hastened to reassure her. “Thank you. That is a very fine thing to say, Mrs. Towers. I shall endeavor to live up to it. At least I can say that I understand loneliness, and the grief of knowing that you have done something ugly and w
rong. But I also know there is a path back.”

  They walked in silence for several yards. Crows wheeled up in the sky, cawing harshly, then circled back into the lower branches again.

  “I was going to speak to the Reverend Wynter,” she said at last. “I wanted to make a confession, but…”

  “I think he knew that,” Dominic said for her, still holding her arm. “Let’s turn back, or we will have too far to go. All the earth is God’s house. You do not have to speak in a church for it to be a sacred trust.”

  “No, no, I suppose not. I kept doing little things wrong, you see, to find out if he would forgive them, before I…before I told him the real thing.”

  He walked a few moments, perhaps thirty or forty yards along the path, and then he prompted her again. “Was it you who took the pennies from the collection for the poor?”

  She drew in her breath with a little cry. “It was only pennies! I made it up, always! I gave extra…”

  He put his other hand over her arm, holding her more tightly. “That doesn’t matter. The books were never short. I know that. But you wanted to speak to him, and never quite found the resolve.” He did not use the word courage. “Perhaps now would be a good time?”

  She gulped again. “I…I committed a…a terrible sin when I was young. I’m so ashamed, and it can never be undone. I wanted to confess, but…but I…he was such a good man, I was afraid he would despise me…”

  “Then tell me, Mrs. Towers. I am not so very good. I understand very well what it feels like to sin, and to repent.”

  “I do repent, I do!”

  “Then cast it on the Lord, and be free of it.”

  “But I must pay!”

  “I think that is not for you to decide. What is it you did that is so heavy for you to bear?”

  “I had a love affair,” she whispered. “Oh, I did love him. You see, I am not Mrs. Towers. I never married. And…and…” Again she could not find the words.

  He guessed. “You had a child?”

  She nodded. “Yes.” She took a few more steps. “I only saw her for a few moments, then they took her away from me. She was so beautiful.” The tears were flowing down her face now. In moments the wind would freeze them on her cold skin. She must have been nearly seventy, and yet the memory was as sharp as yesterday.