by Anne Perry
“Mice?” Dominic was lost. “Mice are tiny. They squeak.”
A flicker of amusement lit Ramsay’s eyes for a moment, then died. “Maids scream, Dominic, if they see mice. I thought Nellie would crack the chandeliers.”
“Oh, yes, of course.” Dominic felt ridiculous. “I didn’t think …”
Ramsay sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Why should you? You were trying to be helpful. I realize that and appreciate it. You were giving me the opportunity to tell you if I had some appalling burden on my conscience—if, in fact, I did push Unity down the stairs, either intentionally or accidentally. It can’t have been easy for you to approach me on the subject, and I am aware of the courage it must have taken.” He looked straight back at Dominic. “Perhaps it is a relief to speak about it …”
Dominic felt panic rise up inside him. He was not equal to this. What if Ramsay confessed? Was Dominic bound by any oath of confidence, or even an unspoken understanding? What should he do? Persuade Ramsay to confess to Pitt? Why? Help him towards a repentance before God? Did Ramsay even understand what he had done? Surely that was the most important thing? Dominic looked at him and saw no harrowing guilt. Fear, certainly, and some guilt, some awareness of the enormity of the situation. But not the guilt of murder.
“Yes …” Dominic swallowed and nearly choked. He clasped his hands together in his lap, below the height of the desk, where Ramsay could not see them.
Ramsay smiled more widely. “Your face is transparent, Dominic. I am not going to lay a burden of guilt upon you. The worst I can confess to is that I am not sorry she is dead … not nearly as sorry as I know I should be. She was another human being, young and full of energy and intelligence. I mustn’t suppose that, in spite of her behavior to the contrary at times, she was not just as capable of tenderness and hope, love and pain as the rest of us.”
He bit his lip, his eyes full of confusion.
“My brain tells me that it is tragic that her life should have been cut off. My emotions tell me I am greatly relieved not to have to hear her arrogant certainty in the superiority of mankind over all else, most especially of Mr. Darwin. Passionately … intensely …” His fingers locked around his pen so violently he bent the quill. “I do not wish to be a random organism descended from apes!” His voice thickened, close to tears. “I wish to be the creation of God, a God who has created everything around me and cares for it, who will redeem me for my weaknesses, forgive my errors and my sins, and who will somehow sort out the tangles of our human lives and make a kind of sense of them in the end.” He dropped to a whisper. “And I can no longer believe it, except for moments when I am alone, at night, and the past seems to come back to me, and I can forget all the books and the arguments and feel as I once used to.”
Rain pattered against the window, and the moment after sunlight picked out the bright drops.
“She is not the cause of doubt in the world,” Ramsay went on. “Of course she is not. I had heard the arguments before she ever came to Brunswick Gardens. We all had. We had discussed them. I have reassured many a confused and unhappy parishioner, as no doubt you have, and will continue to.” He swallowed, pulling his mouth into a line of pain. “But she focused it all. She was so monumentally certain!” He was looking beyond Dominic now, towards the bookcase with the glass fronts shining in the sudden sun. “It is no one thing she said, rather the day-by-day air of being so terribly sure of herself. She never let slip a chance to mock. Her logic was relentless.”
He stopped for a moment. Dominic tried to think of something to say, then realized he should not interrupt now.
“She could demolish mine in any argument we had. Her memory was perfect,” Ramsay said with a shrug. “There were times when she made me feel ridiculous. I admit, Dominic, I hated her then. But I did not push her, that I swear.” He looked at Dominic steadily, pleading to be believed, and yet not willing to embarrass him by asking openly. And perhaps he was afraid to hear the answer.
Dominic was embarrassed. He wanted to believe him, yet how could it be true? Four people had heard Unity cry out “No, no, Reverend!” Had it not been a protest but a cry for help? Then it could only be Mallory who had pushed her.
Why? She had not touched his faith. His beliefs fed on opposition. To him it was only another confirmation that he was right. Every time she mocked him or checked his blind statements with logic, he simply restated them. If she did not understand, it was due to her lack of humility. If his reasoning was faulty, even completely circular, that was the mystery of God, and not supposed to be understood by man. If she made a scientific statement he disliked, he simply contradicted it. He might be angry, but he was never inwardly disturbed.
“Dominic, I did not kill her!” Ramsay repeated, and this time the fear and the loneliness were sharp in his voice, intruding into Dominic’s emotions.
This was a debt he must repay. But how, without endangering himself? And surely Ramsay, who had made him what he was, would not want to undo his creation by having him deny his honesty now.
“Then it was Mallory,” Dominic said, forcing himself to look at Ramsay’s eyes. “Because I did not.”
Ramsay covered his face with his hands and leaned forward over the desk.
Dominic sat motionless. He had no idea what to do. Ramsay’s distress seemed to fill the room. He could not possibly be unaware of it. To pretend would be inconceivable. Ramsay had never pretended with him, never evaded an issue or offered in-sincere words. Now, at this moment in this silent room, it was time to repay the obligation he had incurred. It was time to put into effect all the good ideas, the beliefs he had worked for so hard. What was the theory worth if, when he was faced with reality, he was unable or unwilling to meet it? It became a sham, just as hollow and useless as Unity Bellwood had claimed.
He could not allow that to be true!
He thought of reaching across the desk and touching Ramsay’s hand, of gripping it, then instantly abandoned the idea. They knew each other so well in some ways. Ramsay had seen the very depth of his own confusion and despair. He had not shrunk then even from holding him.
But that was different. Even as it had placed a bond between them, it had also set them apart, made Ramsay forever the guide, the invulnerable, the rescuer. To try to reverse that now would be to strip from him the last dignity. Dominic would not intrude.
He kept his hands where they were.
“If it was Mallory, we must face it,” he said aloud. “We must help him in any and every way possible. We must help him to acknowledge what has happened and, if we can, to understand it. Either he did it by accident or else it was intentional.”
His voice sounded cold, terribly rational. It was not what he intended.
“If it was meant, then he must have had a powerful reason. Perhaps she taunted him once too often, and he finally lost his temper. I expect he regrets it bitterly now. Every man has lost his temper at some time in his life. It is easy to understand, certainly with Unity.”
Ramsay lifted his head slowly and stared at Dominic. The older man looked ashen, his eyes haunted.
Dominic could barely control his voice. He heard himself speaking as if he were someone else, far away. He still sounded extraordinarily calm.
“Then we shall help him with the police and the law. He must know that we shall not abandon him, nor condemn him. I am sure he understands the difference between condemning the sin and the person who commits it. We shall have to show him the reality of that.”
Ramsay breathed in and out very slowly. “He says he did not do it.”
Dominic sat quite still. Did Ramsay think that he had? Is that what he was saying? It would be natural. For all their differences, however deep, Mallory was Ramsay’s son.
“Do you think Clarice did?” He was struggling to use reason. He must be sensible.
“No, of course not!” Ramsay’s face showed how absurd he considered the idea.
“I didn’t,” Dominic said steadily. “I did not especially l
ike her, but I had no cause to kill her.”
“Didn’t you?” Ramsay asked with a lift of curiosity in his voice. “I am not blind, Dominic, even if I appear to be absorbed in my books and papers. I saw how she was attracted to you, how she looked at you. She teased Mallory, provoked him, but he was too vulnerable to be a real challenge to her. But you were. You are older, wiser; you have known women before, a great many of them, so you told me when we first met. And I should have guessed it even if you had not told me. It is there in the assurance of your bearing with them. You understand women too well to be a novice. You rejected Unity, didn’t you?”
Dominic felt a flush of extreme discomfort. “Yes …”
“Then you were the perfect challenge for her,” Ramsay concluded. “She loved a battle. Victory was her ultimate delight. Intellectual victory was very sweet, and God knows she sought enough of those over me, and found too many …” His face tightened with momentary anger and humiliation, then smoothed out again. “But the power of emotional victory was more complete. Are you sure she did not provoke you too far, and it was you who momentarily lost your temper with her? I could understand your pushing her away from you, literally, physically, and causing the accident which killed her.”
“So could I,” Dominic agreed, feeling the fear rise inside him. So could Pitt. In fact, Pitt would enjoy believing it. It would let Ramsay escape, and Vita. It would be exactly what Clarice prayed for, escape for both her father and her brother. And, of course, Mallory would welcome it. Tryphena would not care as long as someone was blamed.
Dominic swallowed and found his throat tight. He had not pushed Unity. He had been nowhere near the landing when she fell, and he had no idea who had been. This was even worse than Cater Street. Then it had all been new. He had not known what to expect. He had been numb with the shock of Sarah’s death. Now he was very much alive, every nerve aware of the dreadful possibilities. He had seen the pattern before.
“But I did not push her,” he said again. “You are right, I am experienced.” He swallowed. His mouth was dry. “I know how to refuse a woman without panicking, without provoking a quarrel, let alone violence.” That was not strictly true, but this was not a time for going into qualifying explanations.
Ramsay said nothing.
Dominic cast around for what to say next. Ramsay all but stood accused of the crime. If he were innocent he must feel just the same sense of terror that had brushed by Dominic, only worse. Everyone had implicated Ramsay, even his own family. The police seemed to believe them. He must feel so alone it was beyond the imagination to conceive.
Instinctively, Dominic stretched out his hand and put it over Ramsay’s wrist, then when he realized what he had done, it was too late to pull away.
“Pitt will get to the truth,” he said firmly. “He will not allow an innocent man to be accused or to suffer arrest. That is why they sent him. He will not bow to pressure from anyone, and he never gives up.”
Ramsay looked mildly surprised. “How do you know?”
“He is married to my wife’s sister. I knew him a long time ago.”
“Your wife?”
“She is dead. She was murdered … ten years ago.”
“Oh … yes, of course. I’m sorry. For a moment I forgot,” Ramsay apologized. Gently he loosed his hand from Dominic’s, ran it over his head as if to brush back the hair which was too thin to need it. “I am afraid I am finding it very difficult to concentrate at the moment. This is like walking through a dark dream. I keep tripping over things.”
Dominic rose to his feet. “I will go and visit these people. Please … please don’t despair …”
Ramsay smiled bleakly. “I won’t. I suppose I owe you that much, don’t I?”
Dominic said nothing. The debt was his, and he knew it. He went out and closed the door softly.
His first call was to Miss Edith Trethowan, a lady whose age it was difficult to determine because ill health had robbed her of the vitality she might normally have enjoyed. Her skin was pale and her hair was almost white. Dominic had at first assumed her to be in her sixties, but one or two references she had made had embarrassed him for his clumsiness, and he had realized she was probably no more than forty-five. It was pain which had marked her face and bent her shoulders and chest, not time.
She was fully dressed, but lying on a chaise longue, as she usually did on her better days. She was obviously pleased to see him.
“Come in, Mr. Corde!” she said quickly, her eyes lighting. She waved a thin blue-veined hand towards the other comfortable chair. “How nice to see you.” She peered at him. “But you are looking tired. Have you been doing too much again?”
He smiled and sat down where she invited. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her why he looked weary, but it would only distress her. She liked to hear of happy things. Her own trials were as much as she could bear.
“Yes, I suppose I have,” he agreed with a shrug. “But I don’t mind. Perhaps I should use better judgment? But today is for visiting friends. How are you?”
She also hid reality. “Oh, I am very well, thank you, and in excellent spirits. I have just read some beautiful letters from a lady traveler in Egypt and Turkey. What a life she leads! I do enjoy reading about it, but I think I should be fearfully afraid to do it myself.” She gave a little shiver. “Aren’t we fortunate to be able to partake of all these things through other people? All the interest, and none of the flies and heat and diseases.”
“Absolutely,” he agreed. “No travel sickness, no lumping or bumping on the back of mules or camels, and no sleeping on the ground. You know, Miss Trethowan, I confess, above all I like to have decent plumbing …”
She giggled happily. “I do so agree. We are not all the stuff of explorers, are we?”
“And if nobody stayed at home, whom would they tell when they returned?” he asked.
She was greatly amused. She lay for half an hour talking of all she had read, and he listened attentively and made appropriate remarks every time she stopped long enough to allow him. He promised to find her more books on similar subjects, and left her feeling well satisfied. He had said nothing of religion to her, but he only thought of it afterwards. It had seemed inappropriate.
Next he visited Mr. Landells, a widower who was finding himself acutely lonely and growing more bitter by the week.
“Good morning, Mr. Landells,” Dominic said cheerfully as he was admitted to the chilly sitting room. “How are you?”
“My rheumatism is fearful,” Landells replied crossly. “Doctor is no use at all. Wettest year I can remember, and I can remember a fair number. Shouldn’t wonder if we have a cold summer, too. Happens as often as not.” He sat down stiffly, and Dominic sat opposite him. This was obviously going to be hard work.
“Have you heard from your daughter in Ireland?” Dominic enquired.
“Even wetter there,” Landells said with satisfaction. “Don’t know what she went for.” He leaned forward and put a tiny piece of coal onto the fire.
“I thought you said her husband had a position there. Did I misunderstand?”
Landells glared at him. “I thought you were supposed to cheer me up! Isn’t that what the church is for, make us believe all this is somehow for the best? God is going to make it all worth something!” He waved his rheumatic hand irritably at the world in general. “You can’t tell me why my Bessie is dead, and I’m sitting here alone with nothing to do and no one to care if I die tomorrow. You come here because it’s your duty.” He sniffed and glared at Dominic. “You have to. The Reverend comes by now and then because it’s his duty. Tells me a lot about God and redemption and the like. Tells me Bessie is resurrected somewhere and we’ll meet again, but he doesn’t believe it any more than I do!” He curled his lip. “I can see it in his face. We sit opposite each other and talk a lot of nonsense and neither of us believes a word.”
He fished for a large handkerchief and blew his nose loudly. “What do you know about growing old, finding
your body doesn’t work properly anymore and those you love are dead and there’s nothing to look forward to except dying yourself? I don’t want any of your platitudes about God.”
“No,” Dominic agreed with a smile, but looking at Landells very directly. “You want someone to blame. You are feeling lonely and frightened, and it is easier to be angry than to admit that. It is a nice releasing sort of emotion. If you can send me away thoroughly crushed, you will feel you have power over somebody … even if it is only power to hurt.” He did not know why he said it. He heard his words as if they were a stranger’s. Ramsay would have been horrified.
Landells was, too. His face flushed scarlet.
“You can’t speak to me like that!” he protested. “You’re a curate. You’ve got to be nice to me. It’s your job! It’s what you’re paid for!”
“No, it’s not,” Dominic contradicted. “I’m paid to tell you the truth, and that is not what you want to hear.”
“I’m not frightened,” Landells said sharply. “How dare you say that I am. I’ll report you to Reverend Parmenter. We’ll soon see what he has to say. He comes and prays for me, talks to me with respect, tells me about the resurrection, makes me feel better. He doesn’t sit there and criticize.”
“You said he doesn’t believe it, and neither do you,” Dominic pointed out.
“Well, I don’t, but that’s not the point! He tries.”
“I do believe it. I believe we will all be resurrected, you and Bessie,” Dominic answered. “From what I hear of her, she was a lovely woman, generous and wise, honest, happy and funny. She laughed a lot …” He saw the tears in Landells’s eyes and ignored them. “She would have missed you, had you died first, but she would not have sat around getting angrier and angrier and blaming God. Just suppose there is a resurrection … Your body will be renewed to its prime, but your spirit will be just the same. Are you ready to meet Bessie like this … never mind meeting God?”