by Anne Perry
He looked down. “And if Sebastian did see what happened on the Hauxton Road, there may be some way of finding out.” He met Matthew’s steady blue-gray eyes. “I have to try. Was he saying something to me that last evening on the Backs, and I wasn’t listening? The more I think of it, the more I realize he was far more distressed than I understood then. I should have been more sensitive, more available. If I’d known what it was, I might have saved him.”
Matthew clasped his hand over Joseph’s wrist for a moment, then let go again. “Possibly,” he said with doubt. “Or you might have been killed as well. You don’t know if it had anything to do with that at all. At least for this weekend, go and see Judith. She’s our world, too, and she needs someone, preferably you.” It was said gently, but it was a charge, not a suggestion.
Matthew offered to drive him, and no doubt Judith would have brought him back, but Joseph wanted the chance to be alone for the short while it would take him to ride there on his bicycle. He needed time to think before meeting Judith.
He thanked Matthew but declined. He walked briskly back to St. John’s to collect a few overnight things such as his razor and clean linen, then took his bicycle and set out.
As soon as he was beyond the town the quiet lanes enclosed him, wrapping him in the shadows of deep hedges, motionless in the twilight. The fields smelled of harvest, that familiar dry sweetness of dust, crushed stalks, and fallen grain. A few starlings were black dots against the blue of the sky, fading gray already to the east. The long light made the shadows of the hay stooks enormous across the stubble.
There was a hurt in the beauty of it, as if something were slipping out of his grip, and nothing he could do would prevent his losing it. Summer always drifted into autumn. It was as it should be. There would be the wild color, the falling of the leaves, the scarlet berries, the smell of turned earth, wood smoke, damp; then winter, stinging cold, freezing the earth, cracking and breaking the clods, ice on the branches like white lace. There would be rain, snow, biting winds, and then spring again, delirious with blossom.
But his own certainties had fallen away. The safety he had built so carefully after Eleanor’s death, thinking it the one indestructible thing, the path toward understanding the ways of God, even accepting them, was full of sudden weaknesses. It was a path across the abyss of pain, and it had given way under his weight. He was falling.
And here he was, almost home, where he was supposed to be the kind of strength for Judith that his father would have been. He had not watched closely enough, and John had never spoken of it, never shown him the needs and the words to fill them. He was not ready!
But he was in the main street. The houses were sleepy in the dusk, the windows lit. Here and there a door was open, the air still warm. The sound of voices drifted out. Shummer Munn was pulling weeds in his garden. Grumble Runham was standing on the street corner lighting his clay pipe. He grunted as Joseph passed him, and gave a perfunctory wave.
Joseph slowed. He was almost home. It was too late to find any answers to give Judith, or any wiser, greater strength.
He turned the corner and pedaled the final hundred yards. He arrived as the last light was fading, and put his bicycle away in the garage beside Judith’s Model T, finding the space huge and profoundly empty where the Lanchester should have been. He walked around the side and went past the kitchen garden, stopping to pick a handful of sharp, sweet raspberries and eat them, then went in through the back door. Mrs. Appleton was standing over the sink.
“Oh! Mr. Joseph, you give me such a start!” she said abruptly. “Not that Oi i’n’t pleased to see you, mind.” She squinted at him. “Have you had any supper? Or a glass o’ lemonade, mebbe? You look awful hot.”
“I cycled over from Cambridge,” he explained, smiling at her. The kitchen was familiar, full of comfortable smells.
“Oi’ll fetch you some from the pantry.” She dried her hands. “Oi dare say as you could eat some scones and butter, too? Oi made ’em today. Oi’ll fetch ’em to the sitting room for you. That’s where Miss Judith is. She in’t expecting you, is she? She din’t say nothing to me! But your bed’s all made up, loike always.”
He already felt the warmth of home settle around him, holding him in a kind of safety. He knew every gleam of the polished wood, just where the dents were, the thin patches worn into carpets by generations of use, the slight dips in the floorboards, which stairs creaked, where the shadows fell at what time of day. He could smell lavender and beeswax polish, flowers, hay on the wind from outside.
Judith was sitting curled up on the couch with her head bent over a book. Her hair was pulled up hastily, a little lopsided. She looked absorbed and unhappy, hunched into herself. She did not hear him come in.
“Good book?” he asked.
“Not bad,” she replied, uncurling herself and standing up, letting the book fall closed onto the small table. She looked at him guardedly, keeping her emotions protected. “I like my fairy tales with a little more reality,” she added. “This is too sweet to be believable—or I suppose any good, really. Who cares whether the heroine wins if there wasn’t any battle?”
“Only herself, I imagine.” He looked at her more closely. There were shadows of tiredness around her eyes and very little color in her skin. She was dressed in a pale green skirt, which was flattering because she moved with grace, but very ordinary. Her white cotton blouse was such as most young women choose in country villages: high to the neck, shaped to fit, and with minimum decoration. She was not interested in whether it pleased anyone else or not. He realized with a sense of shock the change in her in a few weeks. The regularity of her features was still there, the gentleness of her mouth, but the vitality that made her beautiful was gone.
“Mrs. Appleton’s bringing me some scones and lemonade. Would you like any?” He said it to break the silence; he was thinking how badly he had neglected her.
“No, thanks,” she replied. “I’ve already had some. Did you come home for anything in particular? I suppose they don’t know who killed Sebastian Allard yet? I’m sorry about that.” She met his eyes, trying to read if he was hurting.
He sat down, deliberately choosing his father’s chair. “Not yet. I’m not even sure if they’re getting any closer.”
She sat down also. “What about Mother and Father?” she asked. “Matthew doesn’t tell me anything. Sometimes I think he forgets I even know about it being murder, or about the document. We still get the papers, and the news is awful. Everyone in the village is talking about the possibility of war.”
Mrs. Appleton brought in his scones and lemonade, and he thanked her. When she had gone, he looked at Judith again and realized how little he knew her inner strengths and weaknesses. Could she bear the truth that they had no idea who had killed John Reavley, or that his whole judgment of the document could be flawed? He might have died for a simple crime of greed. Could she bear to know that war was a real possibility that nobody could measure? The whole future lay ahead clouded and uncertain—perhaps worse than that, even tragic.
A hard knot of anger clenched inside Joseph against his father. John Reavley should have had more sense than to tell Matthew he had a document that could rock the world, and then to drive unprotected along the road, for someone to kill . . . and not only him, but Alys as well!
“Well, are they right?” Judith demanded, breaking into his thoughts. “Are they right? Is there going to be a war? You can’t be so isolated in your ivory tower that you don’t know Austria and Serbia are on the brink!”
“I’m not.” He said it with the sharpness of his own anger and frustration. “Yes, they are, and I expect Austria will march into Serbia and conquer it again.”
“They’re talking about Russia getting involved as well if that happens,” she persisted.
“It’s possible all Europe could be involved,” he said, meeting her eyes. “It’s not likely, but if it does happen, then we may be drawn in. It’s also possible that they will come back from the br
ink, seeing what it will cost them.”
“And if they don’t?” She struggled to keep her voice level, but her face was white.
He stood up and walked over to the French windows opening onto the garden.
“Then we’ll have to conduct ourselves with honor and do what we’ve always done—send our armies to the battle,” he replied. “I daresay it won’t last very long. It’s not Africa, where there are vast stretches of open country to hide in.”
She must have risen to her feet also, because she spoke from just behind him. “I suppose not.” She hesitated a moment. “Joseph, do you think that was what Father knew about? I mean, something to do with the assassination in Sarajevo? Could he have stumbled onto the plan for that?”
Did she want to believe it? It would be far easier than supposing some new danger. It was a moment of judgment. Evasion, or the truth that he did not know? “Perhaps,” he agreed, walking out onto the grass. She followed him. The night was balmy and softly scented with the heavy sweetness of pinks and late lilies. “Maybe there was no date on it, and he didn’t realize it was planned for that day.”
“No, it wasn’t,” she said grimly. “That doesn’t have anything to do with England’s honor!” He heard the vibrancy in her voice. She was angry, alive again. “Don’t condescend to me, Joseph!” She caught his arm. “I hate it when you do that! Killing an Austrian archduke has got nothing to do with England.”
“It was your suggestion,” he pointed out, stung by her remark about his condescension, because he knew it was true. Evasion had been a mistake.
“And it was stupid,” she went on. “Why can’t you tell me I’m stupid honestly? Don’t always be so damn polite! I’m not your congregation, and you’re not my father! But I suppose you’re trying to be, and at least you’re somebody I can talk to properly.”
“Thank you,” he said drily. It was a backhanded compliment he had not deserved, and he was disturbed by how much it mattered to him.
They passed the border and were snared in the warm, sweet perfume. A barn owl swooped low between the trees and disappeared on soundless wings.
“Don’t you want to know what the document was?” she asked.
“Of course I do.” He said it automatically, and only afterward realized that if it was something their father had misjudged, then perhaps he would rather not.
He stopped at the edge of the lawn and she stood beside him, the moonlight on her face. “Then we ought to be able to find out where he got it, surely,” she said. “He can’t have had it very long, or he would have taken it to Matthew sooner.” Her voice was steady now, some inner resolve asserting itself.
“We’ve already tried to find out everywhere he went for several days before that,” he answered. “He saw the bank manager, Robert Isenham, and old Mr. Frawley, who keeps the curiosity shop up on the Cambridge Road.” He looked at her gently. “He and Frawley know each other pretty well. If Father had just discovered anything awful, Frawley would have known there was something wrong.”
“Mother went to see Maude Channery the day Father called Matthew,” she said seriously.
“Who is Maude Channery?” If he knew, he had forgotten.
“One of Mother’s good causes,” she answered, struggling for a moment to keep her voice level. “Father couldn’t bear her, said she was a fearful old fraud, but he drove Mother there anyway.”
“He’d have to, if it was far,” he pointed out. “Unless you did—and Mother would never go to visit anyone important in your Model T! Not if the Lanchester was available.”
“I could have driven her in the Lanchester,” she argued.
“Oh? Since when could you drive that?” he said, surprised. “Or more to the point, since when would Father have let you?”
“Since he couldn’t stand Maude Channery,” she retorted, a tiny flash of humor in her voice, there and then gone again. “But he didn’t. He took Mother. And when they came back he went straight to his study, and Mother and I had supper alone.”
He hesitated. The idea was absurd. “Surely you aren’t suggesting he got a document of international importance from an old woman who was one of Mother’s good causes?”
“I don’t know! Can you think of somewhere better to start? You haven’t got anything, and neither has Matthew.”
“We’ll go and see her tomorrow if you like,” he offered.
She gave him a wry look, and he knew it was on the tip of her tongue to tell him again not to be so condescending, but instead she simply accepted. She said that they would make it a morning call, before he could change his mind—and she would be ready at ten.
Joseph woke up early. It was a warm, blustery day, the wind full of the fine dust of the first crops being gathered. He walked down to the village and collected the Sunday papers from Cully Teversham at the tobacconists, and exchanged the usual pleasantries—a word about the weather, a spot of local gossip—and left to go home again. He passed a few neighbors on the way, and nodded good morning.
He intended not to open the papers until breakfast, but his curiosity overcame him. The news was worse than he had expected. Serbia had rejected Austrian demands, and diplomatic relations had been broken off. It seemed like the prelude to war. Russia had declared that it would act to protect Serbia’s interests. Who would win the Tour de France seemed like an issue from another era already sliding into the past, almost irretrievable even now, and a visit to Maude Channery was the last thing on his mind.
But he had promised Judith, and at least it would make up for some of the time he had been so absorbed with his own emotions that he had forgotten hers.
They set off at ten o’clock, but it took them until after half past to drive as far as Cherry Hinton. After making inquiries at the village shop, they found Fen Cottage on the outskirts, and parked the car just around the corner.
They had knocked twice on the front door before it swung open and they were faced by a short, elderly woman leaning heavily on a walking stick. It was not an elegant cane with a silver tip, but a plain, stout wooden affair, such as a man would use to bear his weight. Her face was set in irritation, and her frizzy white hair was pinned up in a style twenty years out of fashion. Her black skirts brushed the floor and looked as if she had inherited them from someone at least three inches taller.
“If yer lookin’ for the Taylors, they moved six months back, an’ Oi dunno where to,” she said abruptly. “An’ if it’s anyone else, ask Porky Andrews at the shop. He knows everythin’ an’ll likely tell you, whether you care or not.” She ignored Judith and looked Joseph up and down curiously.
“Mrs. Channery?” he asked. His days as a parish priest came back to his mind with cutting clarity. How often he had called on resentful people who were raw-tongued from pride, guilt, or the need to guard some pain they could neither accommodate nor share. “I’m Joseph Reavley, and this is my sister Judith. I believe you were a great friend of our mother’s.” He did not make it a question.
“Oh!” She was taken by surprise. The tart remark she had been going to make died on her lips. Something inside her softened. “Yes . . . well . . . well Oi suppose Oi were. Terrible thin’. Oi’m rale sorry. We’ll all miss her. Not much point in tellin’ you my sympathies. Won’t do no good.”
“I’d be glad to accept a cup of tea.” Joseph was not going to be put off.
“Then you’d better come on in,” Mrs. Channery responded. “Oi don’t serve on the doorstep.” And she turned around and led the way into a remarkably pleasant sitting room, beyond which lay a small, overcrowded garden backing onto the churchyard. He could clearly see a pale carved angel above the hedge, neatly outlined against the dark mass of yew trees.
Mrs. Channery followed his glance. “Humph!” she snorted. “On good days Oi think he’s watching over me . . . most times Oi say as he’s just snoopin’!” She pointed to the couch and another chair. “If you want tea, Oi et to put the kettle on, so you’d best sit down whoile Oi do. Oi’ve got biscuits. Oi’m not cutti
n’ cake at this toime in the mornin’.”
Judith swallowed her temper with an effort that was visible, at least to Joseph. “Thank you,” she said meekly. “May I help you carry anything?”
“Great heavens, choild!” Mrs. Channery exclaimed. “What d’you think Oi’m bringin’? It’s only elevenses.”
Anger flushed up Judith’s face, but she bit back her response.
Mrs. Channery swiveled on her heel and disappeared into the kitchen.
Judith looked at Joseph. “Mother deserves to be canonized for putting up with her!” she said in a savage whisper.
“I can see why Father loathed her,” he agreed. “I wonder why he came.”
“With a sword, in case it was necessary, I should think!” Judith retorted. “Or a packet of rat poison!”
Joseph’s mind worried at the question. Why had John Reavley come here? Judith could quite easily have driven Alys, and Alys would consider it a useful lesson for her in charitable duty. John tended to avoid unpleasant people, and his tolerance of rudeness was low. He admired his wife’s patience, but he had no intention of emulating it.
Mrs. Channery returned, staggering a little under the weight of a large and very well set tea tray. She had kept her word that there was no cake, but there were three different kinds of biscuits, and homemade raisin scones with plenty of butter.
Joseph leaped to his feet to help her, taking the tray before she dropped it, and setting it down on the small table next to a floral jug filled with sweet williams. The ritual of pouring, accepting, passing around the food and making appropriate remarks was all observed to the letter. It was several minutes before Joseph could broach the subject for which they had come. He had given it some thought, but now it seemed foolish. The only thing to be gained by this visit was the time spent with Judith. On the way over they had spoken of odd, unimportant things, but she had seemed to be easier, and once or twice she had actually laughed.
