A Christmas Resolution

by Anne Perry

  Marlowe’s face flushed hot red. “She is an opinionated woman, a rebel against the laws of God, a troublemaker. I will not have her poisoning Clementine’s mind with her ideas.”

  “What ideas, Seth?” Roberson asked softly, but he could feel the emotion stirring in him: anger and distress. “Do you really believe she wrote that letter to you?”

  “It was a woman’s hand!”

  “And it was posted locally?”

  “It was delivered by hand. It was in my letterbox, here in my home, so whoever penned it knows my address. And it was written by someone who knows me well enough to be aware of what lies to invent that would hurt the most—and would poison Clementine against me. They were terrible things.” Now the color had drained from his face and he was shaking. Even the hands knotted in his lap were white-knuckled.

  Roberson felt a wave of pity engulf him. Seth had already suffered the loss of his first wife, whose death was by her own deliberate act. The sins of his daughter were, in his mind, a disgrace worse than death. Now, at last, a bright future, happiness with a young and truly beautiful woman, perhaps even children, were almost within his reach. No wonder a terrible fear gripped him.

  But Celia Hooper was not at fault. Roberson believed her absolutely. And she, too, had had to wait a long time for happiness. He also knew that John Hooper would not stand by and see her slandered without lifting a hand to help her. If Marlowe attacked Celia, he would pay a very heavy price for it.

  Marlowe was waiting, his anger and his fear seeming to grow.

  “Seth, you do not know it was Celia,” Roberson began again, this time more urgently. “You only believe it because you fear her influence on Clementine. If you accuse her, however obliquely, you will lay the whole matter wide open. The contents of the letter, whatever they are, would become public. Is that what you want?”

  Marlowe gripped the arms of the chair. “She won’t dare do that. They would force her to bring the charge, and her husband would lose his job in the River Police. Then how would they keep him from being tried and hanged for his part in the mutiny on the Mary Grace?” He sat more stiffly upright. “And even if they didn’t hang him, they would lose the roof over their heads, and everything else as well.” He smiled very slightly. “And how would her reputation fare then?”

  “Better than yours, Seth,” Roberson replied tartly. “And Clementine might be loyal to you in this, but you will have hurt her deeply. Is that what you want to do?”

  Marlowe hesitated. “Celia Hooper is not a suitable influence on Clementine. You can’t argue with that.”

  “Perhaps Clementine would be a good influence upon Celia,” Roberson suggested.

  “Clementine is young, alone, and vulnerable. I must protect her from that.”

  Was that true? Roberson thought of all he knew about Clementine. Pictures came to him from the past: Clementine with her face lifted to the sun, smiling at the warmth and light. Clementine finding the first primrose in spring, or laughing at lambs playing in the field, only a few days old and yet already sure-footed. Clementine with her arms around a crying child, whispering to him, or laughing heartily at a risqué joke, and then at Roberson because he was slow to admit he also thought it was funny. It dawned on him then that if Seth was so persuasive that he would not let her have women friends, he certainly would not let her keep her friendship with Roberson, and that thought hurt even more than he expected.

  The truth came with a unique pain. Once she was married to Seth Marlowe, all those moments would just be memories, growing old like carefully pressed flowers between the pages of a book, beautiful, but not alive anymore. Odd how, if you did it properly, pressed flowers, even years old, kept their color.

  The truth of it was that he loved Clementine. He had thought himself too old for her, too staid, and he did not want to lose the friendship they had by asking for something more. But he was the same age as Seth, and Seth had asked her, and she had accepted. If Roberson really loved her, then he would want her happiness, even if it was with Marlowe.

  Marlowe had been talking for some time and Roberson had not been listening. That happened rather often. He admitted it: he found Seth a bore.

  “I’m sure she will earn the respect of the other women in the church,” Marlowe was saying.

  “That sounds like a cold thing,” Roberson said with unusual honesty.

  Marlowe’s eyebrows shot up. “I beg your pardon?”

  Roberson was about to phrase the whole thought more charitably, then changed his mind and said quite clearly what he thought. “Clementine is young, Seth, barely over thirty. The respect of tightly corseted middle-aged church women is hardly the stuff of happiness. They don’t like the same things, they aren’t interested in the same things, and they don’t laugh at the same things. In fact, as far as I can see, most of them don’t laugh at all.”

  “Church is not the place for loud laughter and light-mindedness, Arthur. You know that as well as I do!” Marlowe answered. “The last thing you want is someone giggling in the church. It is an affront to God.”

  Roberson quite unaccountably lost his temper. “Don’t be so damnably stupid, Seth! The laughter of children is music to God.”

  “We are not children!”

  “Yes, we are. Underneath the somber clothes, we are actually all the same, and all different, and both noble and absurd, and we are always vulnerable,” Roberson stated with absolute assurance.

  Marlowe rose to his feet. “You are tired, Arthur, and a little distraught. This whole matter has upset you. I should do you the favor of forgetting this unfortunate conversation.”

  Roberson stood up, too. “I don’t doubt that you will, not for my comfort of mind, but for your own.” He knew the next words were cruel, partly because they were true. “But you would be wiser to remember it. Clementine is young and she is very well liked, not only by women who perhaps have forgotten how to laugh—maybe because life has disappointed them—but by the elderly who don’t care anymore what other people think, only what truly matters to them, and may not have much longer to enjoy it and give thanks.”

  “Have you been drinking?” Marlowe asked, his eyes narrowed. Then he had a sudden flash of inspiration. “You care for her yourself!” he said. It was almost a challenge.

  Roberson felt the heat flush up his face, to the degree that it was useless to deny it.

  Marlowe looked very directly into the vicar’s eyes. “Then I had better warn you: she has accepted my offer of marriage, and you are standing at the very gates of sin if you entertain any thoughts of influencing her against me for your own ends…however you may disguise that to yourself as being in her interest.” And with that he strode to the door and flung it open for Roberson to leave.

  * * *

  The next day, having only light duties, Hooper set out to learn what he could of Seth Marlowe’s past, in those years before he came to live in the same parish as Celia. It was simple enough to find this in parish records. Hooper was surprised to learn that it was no more than four years ago—or, to be precise, three years and ten months. Marlowe came from a parish across the river, and Hooper figured a trip to the Church of St. Stephen would be easy enough.

  It took a while to locate the vicar, the Reverend Mr. Soames, but once Hooper did, the man had no hesitation recalling Seth Marlowe. He was writing his sermon for the following Sunday and seemed delighted to have any excuse whatsoever for putting it aside. He was a big man with a handsome, almost white mustache, who wore his black cassock with the aplomb of a dowager in her best gown, and invited Hooper to come in and sit down by the fireside.

  “What can I do for you, Mr….Hooper…is it?” Soames asked, coming across the floor of the spacious vicarage sitting room with a fire blazing in the hearth. Christmas ornaments, colored paper chains, and red wax candles were much in evidence. He saw Hooper’s glance. “Ah, yes! For the gran
dchildren, you know. Besides, my wife likes it. Bit of a change from the regular round of cleaning up after one and thinking what to cook for dinner.” He smiled in an avuncular fashion. “What is it you would like to know about Mr. Marlowe? He was here for some two or three years. I hope he is not unwell?”

  “I think he is in excellent health,” Hooper replied, watching the reaction in Soames’s face, which as yet he could not read. It seemed kind, filled with good humor, and yet his hand on his lap was tight, fingers gripping at nothing but cloth.

  “Then what may I help you with?” Soames did not appear any more at ease, but his smile widened a little. “Who did you say you are, again? Mr. Hooper of…?”

  “I belong to the parish in which Mr. Marlowe now lives,” Hooper replied. He did not yet wish to mention the Thames River Police. As far as he knew, there was nothing that would have concerned them. Anonymous threatening letters were not in their purview.

  “And your concern about Mr. Marlowe?” Soames was a trifle more aggressive now, although the expansive smile did not change.

  “He is being harassed by someone in the form of a rather unpleasant letter—anonymous, of course. Such things usually are. It is not very serious, but it is unpleasant.”

  “Did Seth ask you to pursue this for him?” Soames was now openly incredulous. He shifted in his seat a little to face Hooper more directly.

  “No.” Hooper had planned to be honest in everything he could. “But he has accused my wife of being involved—in fact, of actually writing it.” Anger slurred Hooper’s voice, although he had not intended it to.

  “Oh dear.” Now Soames was taken off guard, clearly not having expected that. “I’m so sorry.” He drew his breath in, made a decision, and let it out again. “Naturally, your wife is innocent and distressed by it. I’m so sorry. You wish to know if it could be anyone from Marlowe’s past, here at St. Stephen’s?”

  “Yes,” Hooper agreed. “We need to put a stop to it. The longer it goes on, the more innocent people are going to be hurt. Which I suppose is the purpose of such letters. They stir up suspicions in everyone.”

  “Quite so.” Soames was clearly perceptive of the dangers, and yet Hooper had the distinct feeling that he was not entirely displeased. “And what makes you think that it might be someone from St. Stephen’s, rather than a present acquaintance that he has…upset?”

  “He upsets people?” Hooper asked as innocently as he could.

  “I’m afraid he was inclined to be a trifle…” Soames searched for the word, then said, “…judgmental. And he was not always as discreet as he could have been with his opinions. I imagine a few people would have been delighted to catch him out in something.” He started to smile and then rapidly changed his mind.

  Hooper affected not to have noticed. “In what might anyone have caught him out?” he asked, sounding only mildly curious.

  “Unfortunately, I don’t know.” Soames shrugged his heavy shoulders. “Most unchristian of me, but I would dearly have liked to…”

  This time Hooper did smile. “I like an honest man,” he said sincerely. “Any ideas?”

  Soames gave a weighty sigh and let it out slowly. “If his wife was as great a failure as he says, one can only feel sorry for him. He must have been a saint to have put up with her.”

  “What were her failings?” Hooper disliked asking this. He had never met the poor woman, but he felt a certain pity for her. It was easy to brand someone as a failure and look no further. When they believed it of themselves, it sooner or later became true.

  Soames sighed. “Everything. She was wayward, disobedient, immodest; she laughed too loudly and at the wrong things; she dressed badly; she was argumentative; she even lied, particularly to him. Above all, she was a bad mother. I hate to repeat that, but that was how Seth Marlowe saw her, and I presume that is what you want to know.”

  “Did other people see her that way?”

  “You may ask my wife, if you wish. She didn’t know Rose Marlowe because Rose died before her husband came here. But I believe she knew one or two people who did know her.”

  “Very generous of you,” Hooper accepted. “We’ve got to put a stop to these letters. They can do so much damage. And Marlowe is engaged to be married again. To a friend of my wife, a very nice young woman.”

  Soames looked startled. “Really? I wonder if the writer of the letter could be a previous admirer of his. How young is she? Marlowe must be over fifty by now, for heaven’s sake.”

  Hooper had a sudden vision of Arthur Roberson’s gentle face puckered with sorrow and something deeper. Anger? Jealousy? No, it was regret. He pulled his thoughts back to the present. “I’m not sure of her age, and I don’t believe she knew him before he arrived in our village. I should ask my own wife; she has known Clementine far longer than I have. I…” He had been going to mention Roberson but changed his mind. This man might well know him. “Thank you,” he said.

  * * *

  Mrs. Soames proved to be a quiet woman, even homely, but with a quick wit and a kind eye. Her hair was exceptionally beautiful—thick, light brown, and falling in soft waves that completely escaped the rather random pins she had put in it to hold it up.

  “So, Seth Marlowe is going to marry again?” she said with alarm.

  Hooper tried to keep his face expressionless and was not at all sure he succeeded. “Yes, and his friends are hoping it will bring him some happiness and ease the grief that seems to be always just over his shoulder.”

  “How well you put it, Mr. Hooper,” she responded with enthusiasm. “Not like a ghost that haunts him, as many people have said, but like a cloak he wears on purpose.” She put her head slightly to one side and looked at him more closely. “One wears a cloak, intending to hide something inside or to keep away the cold from outside. Or both, of course. Which had you in mind?”

  Hooper was taken aback. He had not expected such perception or such candor. It took him a second or two to decide how to answer. “I think he is more conscious of the threat from outside, Mrs. Soames. But I don’t know him; I’m basing my judgments on what other people have said. Mostly my wife, who has known him for several years, but not well, only as another parishioner.”

  He saw a spark of amusement in her eyes. “And you know someone who knows him any other way?”

  That carried a wealth of possible meaning.

  “The vicar was married to his sister. I imagine he knows Marlowe as well as possible,” he replied, holding her attention with his obvious sincerity.

  “You put it in the past, Mr. Hooper. Is she…no longer alive?” she asked. Now there was a distinct shadow in her face, dark with a sadness still lingering.

  Hooper did not intend to be evasive. “The vicar’s wife? She died some years ago.”

  For the first time, she hesitated. “In…in what manner, if I may ask? That is, if it is not confidential? I do not wish to probe.”

  He wondered what trespass she was afraid of committing. What had he awakened? Was there more to Una’s death than he had supposed? He found it impossible to think of Arthur Roberson involved with any kind of violence or deceit. If anything, he was too honest. He seemed to be vulnerability personified, the sort of man who must have an all-consuming faith to arm himself against the darkness in the world, even the quiet tragedies of village life: the small sins of unkindness, indifference, the creeping shadows of selfishness that exist anywhere there are people.

  But this was too important to be covered up by the little lies of politeness that make society run smoothly. Sometimes the price of comfort was too high. “If you met Clementine, the young woman who is to marry Marlowe, you would like her, I think,” he began. “And wish to protect her from making a mistake that could not be undone. And if you met Celia, my wife, I’m certain you would like her also. She is very brave, and far too perceptive, to be frank, for some people’s taste. You
would understand why she is afraid for Clementine, if she marries Marlowe.”

  Mrs. Soames’s face lit with a luminous smile. “Then I should be pleased to meet your wife,” she replied. “There are too few of us who are afraid of a lie more than the truth. Yes, there is a darkness in Seth Marlowe. And it is both inside him and outside, following behind him every step. I know no reason at all to suppose his sister, the vicar’s wife, died of anything other than illness, poor woman. But Rose, his own wife, died in much darker circumstances.” She frowned.

  “In the river?” He had pulled so many bodies out of the filthy, swift-moving waters of the Thames that visions came immediately to his mind. When a boat went down, and thank God that was not often, then usually all hands were lost. The tide was rapid, full of eddying currents and undertows. A woman in a long dress was like someone whose legs were bound: when the fabric filled with water, she was helpless. Above all that, the water was so polluted that it poisoned as many as it drowned.

  “Worse,” Mrs. Soames replied with a slight shake of her head. “In the sea.”

  “The sea?” He was startled. “In a ship that went down? Why is that worse? And please don’t skirt the truth. Your face gives you away.” That was a very personal observation, but her presence was far too intense to permit lies. Was she implying something else with this? Something even uglier than a simple tragedy? He did not know how he meant to finish the question.

  “No.” She pre-empted his conclusion. “Alone…in the water.” She met his eyes quite frankly, as if intentionally leaving him to draw his own conclusion.

  “Is that all you know?”

  “Yes, and also that it was in one of the seaside towns on the south coast. I don’t know which; it makes no difference. It was at a beach, where people walk, some even bathe, but it was late in the day, dusk falling fast, and deserted at that time.”