by Anne Perry
“Religious emotion very seldom makes sense,” Pitt reminded him, sitting in the opposite chair. “Didn’t you have to study that before you were allowed to wear that collar?”
Dominic flushed very slightly. “Yes, of course I did. But this is 1891, not the sixteenth century. We are in an age of reason, and Ramsay Parmenter is one of the most reasonable men I have ever known. When you have spoken with him more, you will know that, too. I cannot tell you anything about what happened. I was in my bedroom reading, preparing to go out and visit parishioners.”
“Did you hear Miss Bellwood call out?”
“No. My door was closed, and my room is in the other wing of the house.”
“Mrs. Whickham seems to believe her father could be guilty. And both the maid and the valet heard Unity call out his name,” Pitt pointed out.
Dominic sighed. “Tryphena will be much distressed at Unity’s death,” he said sadly. “They were very fond of each other. She admired Unity enormously. In fact, I think she adopted quite a few of Unity’s beliefs.” He took a deep breath. “The servants I cannot explain. I can only say that they must be mistaken. I don’t know how.” He was obviously confused by their evidence. He searched for something to explain it away and found nothing. He looked deeply unhappy.
Pitt could understand torn loyalties, the sense of shock at sudden death. It left most people physically shaken, emotionally raw, and mentally lacking the ability to think with their normal ease or to follow reason.
“I am not going to arrest him,” he said aloud. “There is insufficient evidence for that. But I must pursue it. There is too much to indicate murder for me to walk away.”
“Murder!” Dominic was ashen. He stared across at Pitt with eyes almost black. “That’s …” He dropped his head into his hands. “Oh, God … not again!”
For a moment both of them remembered Sarah, and the other dead women in Cater Street, and the fear and the suspicion, the crumbling of relationships and the pain.
“I’m sorry,” Pitt said, barely above a whisper. “There is no choice.”
Dominic did not speak.
The coals settled in the fire.
2
AFTER PITT LEFT, Dominic Corde was acutely aware of the distress which at least to some extent had been masked during the presence of strangers. Unity’s body had been removed. The police had seen everything they needed to and notes had been taken of the scene. Now the house was unnaturally quiet. The curtains and blinds were closed in decent respect for death, and to signify to all passersby and potential callers that this was now a house of mourning.
No one had wanted to continue with normal pursuits until the last formalities were completed. It looked callous—or worse, as if they might be afraid of something. Now they stood in the hall, self-conscious and unhappy.
Clarice was the first to speak.
“Isn’t it absurd? So much has happened and yet everything looks the same. Before this, I had a dozen things to do. Now every one of them seems rather pointless.”
“Nothing is the same!” Tryphena said angrily. “Unity has been murdered in our house by a member of our family. Nothing is ever going to be the same again. Of course everything you were going to do is pointless! How could it have meaning?”
“We don’t really know what happened …” Mallory began tentatively, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “I think we should not rush into saying things …”
Tryphena glared at him, her eyes red-rimmed, the tears standing out in them.
“If you don’t know, it is because you refuse to look at it. And if you start preaching to me I shall scream. If you come up with your usual platitudes about the mysteries of God and abiding God’s will for us, I swear I’ll throw something at you, and it will be the heaviest and sharpest thing I can find.” She was struggling for breath. “Unity had more courage and honesty than all the rest of you put together. Nobody can ever replace her!” She turned on her heel and ran across the mosaic floor and up the stairs, her heels loud on the wood.
“You might,” Clarice murmured, presumably referring to Tryphena’s replacing Unity. “I think you’d do it rather well. You’ve got just the same sort of wild ideas and you never listen to anyone else or look where you’re going. In fact, you’d be perfect.”
“Really, Clarice!” Mallory said impatiently. “That is uncalled for. She is distraught.”
“She’s always distraught about something,” Clarice muttered. “She lives her life being distraught. She was beside herself when her marriage with Spencer was arranged. Then when she decided he was a bully and a bore, she was even more beside herself. And she still wasn’t satisfied when he died.”
“For heaven’s sake, Clarice!” Mallory was aghast. “Have you no decency?”
Clarice ignored him.
“Aren’t you distressed?” Dominic asked her quietly.
She looked at him, and the anger melted out of her face. “Yes, of course I am,” she admitted. “And I didn’t even like her.” She looked at her father, who was standing near the newel post. He was still very pale, but he seemed to have regained at least some of his composure. He was usually a man of great calm, and reason always prevailed over emotion, self-indulgence, or any kind of indiscipline. So far he had avoided meeting anyone’s eyes. Naturally he was aware of what Stander and Braithwaite had told the police, and he must be wondering what the rest of his family made of the extraordinary charge. Now he could no longer put off some kind of communication.
“I don’t think there is anything new to be said.” His voice was husky, thin, totally lacking its usual timbre, his face white. “I don’t know what happened to Miss Bellwood. I sincerely trust that no one else in the house does either. We had best continue with our duties as far as possible in the circumstances, and bear ourselves with dignity. I shall be upstairs in my study.” And without waiting for any reply, he turned and left them, walking with measured and rather heavy tread.
Dominic watched him with a mixture of sadness and guilt because he knew of no way to help him. His admiration for Ramsay Parmenter was profound, and it had never been long absent from his mind. Ramsay had found him at a time of acute distress—despair would not be too strong a word for it. It was Ramsay’s patience and strength he had leaned on, and which had helped him eventually to find his own. Now, when Ramsay needed someone to believe in him and to offer a hand to lift and sustain him, Dominic could think of nothing to say or do.
“I suppose I might as well continue my studies, too,” Mallory remarked miserably. “I don’t even know what time it is. I don’t know why the maid muffled the clock. It’s not as if a member of the family were dead.” He shook his head and walked away.
Clarice left without explanation, going to the side door to the garden and closing it behind her, leaving Vita and Dominic alone.
“Did I do the right thing?” Vita asked softly, her voice little more than a whisper as she looked up at him. She was an extraordinary woman, not beautiful in an accepted way—her eyes were too large, her mouth too wide, her whole face a little short. And yet the longer one looked at her, the more beautiful she became, until the classic features of other women seemed too thin, too elongated, possessed of a uniformity which became tedious. “Should I have told that policeman nothing?”
He wanted to comfort her. She was in a most appalling situation, a dilemma no one should have to face. With the faith he had found in these last years, how could he advocate lying, even to protect a husband? The greatest loyalty of all must be to the right. That was never a question. The difficulty was in knowing what was the right, which of all the ways was the least evil. For that, one needed to be able to see the outcome, and too often it was impossible.
“Did you hear her cry out?” he asked.
“Of course I did.” She looked at him with clear, steady eyes. “Do you imagine I would say such a thing if I had not? I did not mean it was not true, I meant should I have kept silent?”
“I know that,” he
answered quickly. “I thought your knowing it was the truth would tell you that you must speak it … I think …” Would he have said it had he been in her place, had he been the one to hear the cry? Would gratitude and loyalty have held his tongue? What then? What if murder was provable in some other way, and then another person was blamed? Even if that did not happen, should murder go unknown, unpunished? “No, of course you had to speak,” he said with confidence. “I am just so terribly sorry that burden had to fall on you. I cannot imagine the courage it must have taken you, or how deeply you must be hurt now.”
She reached out and laid her fingertips on his arm.
“Thank you, Dominic,” she said softly. “You have no idea how you have comforted me. I am afraid we have terrible times ahead of us. I don’t know how we are going to bear it, except by supporting one another.” She stopped and gazed at him for a moment with her pain completely undisguised. “I don’t think we are going to persuade Tryphena … do you? I am afraid she is very angry and very hurt. She regarded Unity in quite a different light from the way the rest of us did. Her loyalties are very … torn.”
He would have liked to disagree with her, but a lie would be of no comfort; it might only make her feel more alone in her distress.
“Not yet,” he said quietly. “But she has barely had time to think or to realize that the rest of her family is going to need her.”
“We are, aren’t we, Dominic?” Her voice was tense, husky with fear as she realized more and more sharply what must happen. “This policeman is not going to go away. He is going to persist until he has the truth. And then he is going to act upon it.”
That was the one thing Dominic knew without any doubt at all. “Yes. He has little choice.”
She looked wistful, a half smile on her lips. “What miserable luck! We might have had someone foolish, or more easily impressed by the church, or diverted by difficulties, or afraid to say something uncomfortable and unpopular. And it will be unpopular. I have no doubt influence will be exerted—by Bishop Underhill, if no one else. I think it is largely on his recommendation that Ramsay may become a bishop himself.” She sighed almost silently. “Sometimes it is very hard to know what is right, what is best for the future. It is not always what seems best now. The world’s judgments can be very harsh.”
“Sometimes,” he agreed. “But they can be kind as well.”
Again the smile hovered about her lips, and then it vanished.
“You are going to tell me I shall find out who my true friends are?” A shadow of humor crossed her mouth. “When the scandal comes, newspapers are writing dreadful things about us and hardly anyone comes to call anymore?” She lifted one shoulder in a characteristically graceful gesture, but one of denial. “Please don’t. I really don’t think I wish to know. There are bound to be most unpleasant surprises, people I cared for and trusted, and believed that they cared for me.” She was looking away from him, across the extraordinary hall, her voice very low. “We shall discover cowardice in places we least thought, and prejudice, and all sorts of ugly things. I would far rather not know. I would prefer to look at smiling faces and not see behind them to the weakness or the fear or the spite.” She turned back to face him. “Dominic, I’m terribly afraid …”
“Of course you are.” He wished to touch her, but it would have been unseemly. It was the most instinctive way to offer comfort when there were no words that could help, but it was not a way available to him, not even with her, nor with any parishioner. He must find the words. “We all are. There is nothing to do but face each day with the best courage we can and love one another.”
She smiled. “Of course. Thank God you are here. We shall need you desperately. Ramsay will need you.” She lowered her voice still further, and there was a fragile edge to it. “How can this have happened? I know Unity was an exceedingly difficult young woman, but we have had difficult people here before.” She searched his eyes. “Heaven knows, we have had some curates who would drive a saint to desperation. Young Havergood was such an enthusiast, always shouting and waving his arms around.” She moved her hands delicately in imitation of the remembered curate. “I can’t count how many things he broke, including my best Lalique vase, which my cousin gave me as a wedding present And there was Gorridge, who was always sucking his teeth and making bad jokes.” She smiled at Dominic. “Ramsay was so good with them. Even Sherringham, who would keep on repeating things and remembered everything you ever said to him, but slightly wrong, just enough to ruin the meaning completely.”
Dominic was about to say something, but she moved towards the conservatory door and led the way in. The damp smell of leaves was very pleasant, almost invigorating. The conservatory was all glassed arches and white wood above the palms and lilies.
“What was so different about Unity?” Vita went on, walking along the brick path between the beds. Twenty feet away, the chair where Mallory had been studying was empty, but his books and papers were still there, piled on a white-painted, cast-iron table. She was moving very slowly now, looking down at the ground. “Ramsay has changed, you know,” she went on. “He is not the man he used to be. You couldn’t know that, of course. It is as if there is a dark shadow over him, something that eats away at the confidence and the belief he had before. He used to be … so positive. Once he was full of fire. The very quality of his voice would make people listen. That’s all changed.”
He knew what she was referring to: the secular doubts that had afflicted many people since the popularity of Charles Darwin’s theories on the origin of mankind, an ascent from lower forms of life rather than a unique descent from a divine Father in Heaven. He had heard the doubts in Ramsay’s voice, the lack of passion in his belief and in his reiteration of it for parishioners. But Unity Bellwood was not responsible for that. She was certainly not the only person to believe in Darwinism, or the only atheist Ramsay had encountered. The world was full of them and always had been. The essence of faith was courage and trust, without knowledge.
Vita stopped. There was a dark stain of something across the pathway, at least four feet wide and in a spreading, irregular pattern. She wrinkled her nose at the faint, sharp smell which still came from it.
“I wish that gardener’s boy would be more careful. Bostwick really shouldn’t let him in here. He keeps forgetting to put the tops on things.”
Dominic bent down and touched the stain with his finger. It was dry. The brick must have absorbed it. It was brown, like the mark on Unity’s shoe. The conclusion was inescapable. But why had Mallory lied about having seen her?
“What is it?” Vita said.
He stood up. “I’ve no idea. But it’s dry, if you want to walk over. It must have gone into the brick very quickly.”
She picked up her skirts anyway, and stepped over the stain lightly. He followed her into the open central area amid the palms and vines. She gazed past winter lilies, oblivious of their delicate scent, her face pale and set.
“I suppose it was the unbearable frustration,” she said quietly. “She went on and on, didn’t she?” She bit her lip, and there was acute sadness in her eyes and in the angle of her head. “She never knew when to allow a little kindness to moderate her tongue. It is all very well to preach what you believe to be the truth, but when it shatters the foundations of someone else’s world, it isn’t very clever. It doesn’t help; it only destroys.” She reached out and touched one of the lilies. “There are people who cannot cope with losing so much. They cannot simply rebuild. Ramsay’s whole life has been the church. Ever since he was a young man, it is all he has lived for, worked for, sacrificed his time and his means for. He could have been outstanding in university life, you know.”
Dominic was not sure if that was true. He had an uncomfortable feeling that Ramsay’s scholarship was limited. He had thought it brilliant when he had first known Ramsay, but gradually over the last three or four months, as Unity Bellwood had worked with Ramsay, Dominic had overheard remarks, discussions and arguments which he
had been unable to forget. He had tried not to be aware that she was quicker than Ramsay to see a possibility, an alternative meaning to a passage. She could grasp an idea she did not like, instead of refusing to consider it. She could make leaps of the imagination and connect unlikely concepts and then visualize the new. Ramsay was left angry and confused, failing to understand.
It had not happened often, but enough for Dominic now to think, painfully against his will, that academic jealousy might have been at the root of some of Ramsay’s dislike of Unity. Had her intellect, its speed and agility, frightened him, made him feel old, inadequate to fight for the beliefs he cared about and to which he had given so much?
Dominic’s own mind was confused, uncertain what to think. Violence was so unlike the man he knew. Ramsay was all reason, words, civilized thought. In all the time Dominic had known Ramsay, the older man’s kindness and his patience had never failed. Was it a veneer beneath which there was emotion only barely controlled? It was hard to believe it, yet circumstance forced it into Dominic’s mind.
“Do you really believe he meant to push her?” he asked aloud.
She looked at him. “Oh, Dominic, I wish I could say no. I’d give anything to be back in yesterday again, with none of this having happened. But I heard her, too. I couldn’t help it. I was just coming into the hall. She cried out ‘No! No, Reverend!’ And the moment after that, she fell.” She stopped, her breathing rapid and shallow, her face white. “What else can I believe?” she said desperately, staring at him with horror.
It was as if someone had closed a door on hope, an iron door without a handle. Until this moment some part of him had believed there was a mistake, a hysteria prompting ill-judged words. But Vita would never have confirmed such a thing. She had no love for Unity, no divided loyalties, and no one had questioned or pressured or confused her. He tried to think of an argument, but there was nothing that did not sound foolish.