by Anne Perry
Joseph walked out of the front gate and ambled aimlessly along the nearly deserted streets of the town. All the shops were closed in Sabbath decency. The few people he saw were soberly dressed and merely nodded to him respectfully as they passed.
Without intending to, he found himself on Jesus Lane, and instinctively turned right down Emmanuel Road. He strolled past Christ’s Pieces and eventually across St. Andrews Street, along to Downing Street toward Corpus Christi and the river again.
He was not really thinking so much as letting things run through his mind. It was still teeming with questions, and he had no idea where to find a thread to begin untangling even one answer. Perhaps it began with who had killed Sebastian, and why.
The longest day of summer was well past, and by half past six he was tired and thirsty, and the sun was lowering in the west. Maybe he had come to the pub near the millpond intentionally, even if it had not been consciously in his mind. He would be able to sit down here and have supper and a long, cool drink. In time he could make the opportunity to talk with Flora Whickham again. If Sebastian had known anything about the crash of the Lanchester, then she would be the one person he might have told, other than Elwyn, and there was no chance that Joseph could draw it out of him. He was locked inside his own misery and grief, and perhaps fear as well. If he held that lethal knowledge, it could be the catalyst for his own death if he spoke it aloud to anyone. And why should he trust Joseph? So far he had succeeded in nothing except proving that Beecher did not kill Sebastian or take his own life.
The pub was quiet—a few older men sitting over pints of ale, faces grim, voices subdued. The landlord moved among them quietly, filling tankards, wiping tables. Even for Flora there were no jokes.
Joseph had cold game pie with fresh tomatoes, pickles, and vegetables, then raspberries and clotted cream. The other tables were empty and the air was already hazed with gold when at last he was able to gain Flora’s attention undivided. It was deserted now, and the landlord granted her an early evening.
She seemed quite willing to walk along the Backs under the trees in the fading light. There was no one on the river, at least on this stretch, and the leaves flickered in the barest breeze. One minute they were green and shadowed, the next opaque gold. There was little sound but a whispering of the wind, no voices, no laughter.
“Is it true that Sebastian’s brother killed Dr. Beecher?” Flora asked him.
“Yes, I’m afraid it is.”
“In revenge over Sebastian?”
“No. Dr. Beecher didn’t kill Sebastian, and Elwyn knew that.”
She frowned, the golden light making her hair a halo around her troubled face. “Then why?” she asked. “He loved Sebastian, you know.” She shook her head a little. “He din’t hero-worship him; he knew his faults, even though he didn’t understand him much. They was a lot different.” She stared ahead of her at the light across the smooth sweep of the grass, the tiny motes of dust swirling in the air, the sun gilding the flat surface of the water. “If there’s going to be a war, an’ it seems loike from what people say that there is, then Elwyn would have gone to fight. He would have thought it was his duty an’ honor. But Sebastian would have done anything on earth to prevent it.”
“Did Elwyn know that?”
“Oi think so.” She waited a moment or two before she continued. “He din’t understand how much Sebastian cared, though. No one else did.”
“Not even Miss Coopersmith?” he asked gently. He did not know if Flora knew of her, but even if she had not, she surely never hoped for more from Sebastian than friendship, at the very most. The least would have been something grubbier and far less worthy.
“Oi think she knew something,” she said, looking away from him. “But it made her feel bad. She come to me after his death. She wanted me to say nothing, to save his good name, an’ Oi suppose his family from bein’ hurt.” Her mouth pulled a little at the corners, her face soft with pity. “He din’t love her, an’ she knew it. She thought he moight come to in time. Oi can’t think how awful that must be. But she still wanted to protect him.”
Joseph tried to imagine the same scene, the proud, almost plain Regina in her elegant mourning black, facing the barmaid with the oval face and the shining, almost pre-Raphaelite hair and asking her to keep silent over her friendship with Sebastian, to save his reputation. And perhaps something to salvage a little of her public pride, if not privately, to know he had preferred Flora as a confidante.
“Did he care about it so much?” he asked aloud, remembering his own conversation with Sebastian, only a few yards from here. It had been intense, there would be no question of that, but was it fears and dreams or a will to do anything? Flora had spoken of doing. “Was it really more than words?”
She stared at the grass in the fading light, and her voice was very low. “It were a passion in him,” she said. “In the end it were the most important thing in his loife . . . keep the peace, look after all this beauty what’s come to us from the past. He was terrified o’ war—not just the foighting an’ bombing.” She lifted her head a little and gazed across the shining river at the towers of the intricate, immeasurably lovely buildings and the limpid sky beyond. “The power to break an’ smash an’ burn, but the killing o’ the spirit most o’ all. When we’ve broke civilization, what have we got left inside us? The strength an’ the dreams to start over again? No, we haven’t. In smashing up all we got left o’ what’s wise, an’ lovely, an’ speaks to what’s holy inside us, we break ourselves, too. We get to be savages, but without the excuses that savages have for it.”
He heard Sebastian’s words echoed in hers, exactly as if it had been he again, walking silent-footed in this exquisite evening.
She turned to face him. “Do you understand?” she said urgently. It seemed to matter to her that he did.
For that reason he needed to answer her honestly. “That depends upon what you are prepared to do to avoid war.”
“Does it?” she demanded. “Ain’t it worth anything at all?”
“Did Sebastian think so?”
“Yes! Oi . . .” She seemed troubled, looking away from him. “What d’you mean, it depends? What could be worse’n that? He told me about some of the things in the Boer War.” She shuddered almost convulsively, hugging her arms around herself. “The concentration camps, what happened to some o’ the women an’ children,” she said in a whisper. “If you do that to people, what is there left for you when you come home, even if you won?”
“I don’t know,” he confessed, finding himself cold as well. “But I’ve come to the point where I can’t believe that appeasement is the answer. Few sane people want to fight, but perhaps we have to.”
“Oi think mebbe that was what scared him.” She stood still on the grass. They were opposite Trinity; St. John’s was dark against the sunset, and there was only a tiny sliver of light on the water under the bridge. “He was terrible upset over something the last few days. He couldn’t sleep; Oi think he was afraid to. It was as if he had a pain inside him that were so deep he weren’t never free of it. After that shooting in Serbia ’e were so close to despair that Oi was scared for him . . . Oi mean real scared! It was as if for ’im there were nothing out there but darkness. Oi tried to comfort him, but Oi din’t manage.” She looked back at Joseph, her eyes full of grief. “Is it a wicked thing to say . . . sometimes Oi’m almost glad he din’t live to see this . . . ’cos we’re going to war, aren’t we? All of us.”
“I think so,” he said quietly. It seemed a ridiculous conversation with the tremendous sunset dying on the horizon, the evening air full of the perfume of grass, no sound but the murmur of leaves and a whirl of starlings thrown up against the translucent blue of the sky. Surely this was the very soul of peace, generations mounting to this pinnacle of civilization. How could it ever be broken?
“He tried so hard!” There were tears of anger and pity in her voice. “He belonged to a very big sort o’ club fighting for peace, all over the
world. An’ he would have done anything for ’em.”
Something tugged at his mind. “Oh? Who were they?”
She shook her head quickly. “Oi dunno. He wouldn’t tell me. But they had big ideas he was terribly excited about, that would stop the war that’s coming now.” She knotted her hands together, her head bowed. “Oi’m glad he din’t have to see this! His dreams was so big, an’ so good, he couldn’t bear seeing ’em come to nothing. He went almost mad just thinking o’ it, before they killed him. Oi’ve thought sometimes if that was why they did it.” She looked up and searched Joseph’s face. “Do you think there’s anyone so wicked they’d want war enough to kill him in case he stopped it?”
He did not answer. His voice was trapped inside him, his chest so tight it filled him with pain. Was that the plot his father had stumbled on? Had Sebastian known about it all the time? What price was it they were prepared to pay for a peace that John Reavley had believed would ruin England’s honor?
Flora was walking again, down over the slope of the grass toward the river, perhaps because the light was fading so rapidly she needed to be away from the trees to see where she was going. She belonged in the landscape, her blemishless skin like gold in the last echoes of the light, her hair an aureole around her head.
He caught up with her. “I’ll walk back with you,” he offered.
She smiled and shook her head. “It ain’t late. If Oi can’t go through the college, Oi’ll walk along the street. But thank you.”
He did not argue. He must see Elwyn. He was the only one who could answer the questions that burned in his mind, and there was no time to wait. The darkness was not only in the sky and the air, but in the heart as well.
He did not go back to St. John’s but cut across the nearest bridge back through Trinity to the street again, and walked as fast as he could toward the police station. His mind was still whirling, his thoughts chaotic, the same questions beating insistently, demanding answers.
He had to see Elwyn, whomever he had to waken, whatever reason or excuse he had to give.
The streets were deserted, the lamps like uncertain moons shedding a yellow glare on the paving stones. His footsteps sounded hollow, rapid, slipping a little now and then.
He reached the police station and saw the lights were on. Good. There were people, perhaps still working. The doors were unlocked, and he went straight in. There was a man at the desk, but Joseph ignored him, hearing the voice calling after him as he strode into the room beyond, where Perth was remonstrating with Gerald and Mary Allard and a man in a dark suit who was presumably their solicitor.
They turned as Joseph came in. Perth looked harassed and so tired that his eyes were red-rimmed. “Reverend—” he started.
“I need to speak to Elwyn,” Joseph said, hearing a thread of desperation in his voice. If the solicitor got to him first, then he might never hear the truth.
“You can’t!” Mary refused savagely. “I forbid it. You have brought nothing but ill to my family, and—”
Joseph turned to Perth. “I think he may know something about Sebastian’s death. Please! It matters very much!”
They stared at him. There was no yielding in Mary’s face, and the solicitor moved half a step closer to her, as if in support. Gerald remained motionless.
“I think Sebastian knew about the death of my parents!” Joseph said, panic coursing through him, threatening to slip out of control. “Please!”
Perth made a decision. “You stay here!” he ordered the Allards and the solicitor. “You come wi’ me,” he said to Joseph. “If he wants to see you, then you can.” And without waiting for possible argument, he went out of the room with Joseph on his heels.
It was only a short distance to the cells where Elwyn was being held, and in a few minutes they were at the door. The key was on a hook outside. Perth took it off and inserted it into the lock and turned it. He pushed it open and stopped, frozen.
Joseph was a step behind him, and taller. He saw Elwyn over Perth’s shoulder. He was hanging from the bars of the high window, the noose around his neck made from the strips of his shirt plaited together, strong enough to hold his weight and strangle the air from his lungs.
Perth lunged forward, crying out, although barely a sound escaped his lips.
Joseph thought he was going to be sick. Emotion—pity and relief—overwhelmed him with a crushing force. He barely felt the tears running down his face.
Perth was scrambling to untie Elwyn, fingers clumsy, tearing at the knots, breaking his nails, his breath rasping in his throat.
Joseph saw the letter on the cot and went to it. There was nothing he or anyone could do for Elwyn. The envelope was addressed to him. He opened it, before Perth or anyone else should tell him he couldn’t.
He read it:Dear Dr. Reavley,Sebastian was dead when I got to his room that morning; the gun was on the floor. I knew he had killed himself, but I thought it was because he was afraid of going to war. He always believed we would. It looks now as if he was right. But I didn’t read his letter until afterward, when it was too late. All I could think of was hiding his suicide. Mother could not have lived with the knowledge that he was a coward. You know that, because you know her.I took the gun and hid it in the bucket at the top of the drainpipe in the master’s house. I never meant anyone to be blamed, but it all got away from me.Dr. Beecher must have realized. You heard what he said on the landing, about Sebastian and courage. By then I’d read his letter, but it was too late. I’m so sorry, so terribly sorry. There is nothing left now. At least this is the truth,Elwyn Allard
Wrapped inside it was another letter, on different paper, and in Sebastian’s hand:Dear Dr. Reavley,I thought I knew the answer. Peace—peace at any price. War in Europe could slaughter millions; what is one life or two to save so many? I believed that, and I would have given my own life gladly. I wanted to keep all the beauty. Perhaps it isn’t possible, and we’ll have to fight after all.I was in London when I heard the document had been stolen. I came back to Cambridge that night. They gave me a gun, but I made the caltrops myself, out of fence wire. Then it would look like an accident. Much better. It wasn’t difficult, just tedious.I went out on a bicycle the next day, left it in a field. It was all very simple—and more terrible than anything I could have imagined. You think of millions and the mind is devastated. You see two who lie broken, the spirit gone, and it tears the soul apart. The reality of blood and pain is so very different from the idea. I can’t live with who I am now.I wish it hadn’t been your parents, Joseph. I’m so sorry, sorrier than anything will heal.Sebastian
Joseph stared at the paper. It explained everything. In their own way Sebastian and Elwyn were so alike: blind, heroic, self-destructive, and in the end futile. The war would happen anyway.
Perth laid Elwyn on the floor, gently, a blanket under his head, as if it mattered. He was staring up at Joseph, his face gray.
“It’s not your fault,” Joseph said. “At least this way there doesn’t have to be a trial.”
Perth gasped. He tried to say something, but it ended in a sob.
Joseph put Elwyn’s letter back on the cot and kept Sebastian’s.
“I’ll go and tell them.” He found his mouth dry. What words could he possibly find? He walked out and back the short distance. Perth could send for somebody to help him.
As soon as he was in the room Mary stepped forward and drew in her breath to demand an explanation. Then she saw his face and realized with terror that there was something more hideously wrong.
Gerald moved behind her and put his hands on her shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” Joseph said quietly. “Elwyn has admitted to killing Dr. Beecher, because Beecher realized the truth of Sebastian’s death.”
“No!” Mary said stridently, trying to raise her arms and snatch herself away from Gerald’s grip.
Joseph stood still. There was no way to avoid it. He felt as if he were pronouncing a sentence of death upon her. “Sebastian took his own life. No
one murdered him. Elwyn did not want you to know that, so he took the gun and made it look like murder—to protect you. I’m sorry.”
She stood paralyzed. “No,” she said quite quietly. “That isn’t true. It’s a conspiracy!”
Gerald’s face puckered slowly as understanding broke something inside him. He let go of Mary and staggered backward to collapse onto one of the wooden chairs.
The solicitor looked totally helpless.
“No!” Mary repeated. “No!” Her voice rose. “No!”
Perth appeared in the doorway. “I’ve sent for a doctor. . . .”
Mary swung round. “He’s alive! I knew it!”
“No,” he said huskily. “For you. I’m sorry.”
She stood swaying.
Joseph reached to help her, and she lashed out at him as her legs buckled. She caught his face, but it was only a glancing blow.
“You’d better go, sir,” Perth said quietly. There was no anger in his face, only pity and an immense weariness.
Joseph understood and walked out into the cool, shrouding darkness and the protection of the night. He needed solitude.
The next day, August 3, Mitchell brought him the newspaper early.
“There’s going to be war, sir,” he said somberly. “No way we can help it now. Russia invaded Germany yesterday, and the Germans have gone into France, Luxembourg, and Switzerland. Navy’s mobilized, and troops are guarding the rail lines and ammunition supplies and so on. Reckon it’s come, Dr. Reavley. God help us.”
“Yes, Mitchell, I suppose it has,” Joseph answered. The reality of it choked like an absence of air, heavy and tight in his lungs.
“You’ll be going home, sir?” It was a statement.
“Yes, Mitchell. There really isn’t anything to do here for the moment. I should be with my sister.”
“Yes, sir.”
Before leaving he called briefly on Connie. There was very little to say. He could not tell her about Sebastian, and anyway, when he looked at her, he thought of Beecher. He knew what it was like to lose the only person you could imagine loving, and exactly how it felt to face the endless stretch ahead. All he could do was smile at her and say something about the war.
