by Anne Perry
Cater Street seemed like a world away. Hundreds of things had happened to him since then, good things and bad. But for the moment he could have been there, ten years younger, more arrogant, more frightened. He could be married to Sarah; they could all be afraid of the “Hangman,” who had killed again and again in the neighborhood. They could be looking at each other, wondering, suspecting, discussing things about frailties and deceits they would so much rather not know but could not forget.
Pitt had persistently uncovered everything until he knew the answer. He would do that now. And as before, Dominic was afraid, both of what that answer would be and of what the process of finding it would uncover about himself and those things in the past he would rather forget. It was easier here, in the Parmenter house, because they saw him as he wished to see himself: young in his calling, making occasional mistakes, but dedicated and whole of heart. Only Ramsay knew what had gone before.
Without making a conscious decision to do it, Dominic found himself going to the far end of the hall and through the door into the servants’ quarters. Since Ramsay was in his study, and hardly in a position or a frame of mind to do it, perhaps it fell to Dominic to reassure the servants, offer them whatever comfort and reminder of duty they needed. Mallory did not seem inclined to, and he already knew the feelings in the house over his conversion to “Popery,” as they called it, even though they had known him since childhood. Some of the more devout among them even regarded it as a betrayal. Perhaps that very fact made it cut the deeper.
The first person he encountered was the butler, a portly, usually comfortable man of middle years who managed the household with avuncular pleasantries masking an excellent discipline. However, today he looked deeply disturbed as he sat in the pantry checking and rechecking his cellar stocks, having counted the same things three times over and still unable to remember what he was doing.
“Good morning, Mr. Corde,” he said with relief at being interrupted. He stood up. “What can I do for you, sir?”
“Good morning, Emsley,” Dominic replied, closing the door behind him. “I came to see how everyone is after this morning’s events …”
Emsley shook his head. “I just don’t understand it, sir. I know what they’re saying, but I can’t see how it’s possible. I’ve served in this house for thirty years, since before Mr. Mallory was born, and I just don’t believe it, no matter what Stander and Braithwaite say they heard.”
“Sit down,” Dominic invited, and sat on the other chair to make Emsley comfortable.
“The sergeant came in here, sir,” Emsley continued, accepting gratefully. “Asked a lot of questions that seemed pointless. None of us know anything.” His lips tightened.
“None of you were near the stairs?” Dominic did not know what answer he hoped for. The whole thing was a nightmare from which there seemed no waking.
“No sir,” Emsley said grimly. “I was in Mrs. Henderson’s room going over some accounts with her. We needed more linen. Funny how it all goes at once. At least a dozen sheets. Best Irish linen, too. Still, they don’t wear forever, I suppose.”
“And Cook?” Dominic prompted, trying not to sound as he knew the police must have.
“In the kitchen.” Emsley shook his head. “All the kitchen staff were, or in the scullery. James was cleaning the knives. Lizzie was laying the fire in the withdrawing room; Rose was in the laundry room. She’d just turned the mattresses and changed the beds and taken the linen down. Margery was polishing the brasses, so she’d got them in the main pantry on the table, and Nellie was dusting in the dining room.”
It was ridiculous to think of one of the maids’ having pushed Unity down the stairs. But then it was absurd to think of Ramsay’s doing it, either.
“Are you sure?” he said, then, seeing the look of vulnerability on the butler’s face, wished he could think of some way of explaining himself. “No one could have seen or heard anything and be afraid to say so?”
“The police sergeant asked that, too,” Emsley said unhappily. “No, Mr. Corde. I know how fast a maid should be able to polish brasses. I’d know if she’d left her job. And Mrs. Henderson’d know if Rose wasn’t where she said, or Nellie.”
“How about the between maid, what’s her name, Gwen?”
“She was telling off the bootboy,” Emsley said with the shadow of a smile which vanished again instantly. “They were well heard by the kitchen staff. None of us knows what happened. I only wish we did.” He shook his head. “There’s got to be some explanation better than the one they’ve come up with. I’ve known Reverend Parmenter since before he married, sir. That Miss Bellwood was a mistake, I don’t mind saying. I didn’t care for it when she came here. I don’t think young women have any place in serious thought about religion.”
He looked at Dominic very gravely. “Don’t misunderstand me, Mr. Corde, I think women can be as religious as any man, in some ways more so. They have a simplicity and a purity about them, the best of them do. But they aren’t built for studying the deep things, and it only ends in trouble when they do. But then Reverend Parmenter wanted to be fair. A very fair man he always was, and open to reason, maybe a bit too open, poor man.” He regarded Dominic anxiously, his eyes dark and troubled. “Can you help him, sir? This is a very terrible thing, and I swear I don’t know which way to turn.”
Dominic was every bit as confused. But it was his task to offer comfort, not to seek it. “I agree with you, Emsley.” He made an effort to smile. “There must be some other explanation.” He rose to his feet before Emsley could press him as to what it might be. “How is Mrs. Henderson?”
“Oh, very distressed, sir. We all are. Not that anyone liked poor Miss Bellwood so much. She could be very difficult. Unsettled people with her ideas.”
“Did she?”
“Oh yes, sir. Made mock of our prayers … ever so polite, never open, but let slip little remarks that made people worry.” His face pinched with distress. “Found Nellie in tears once. Her grandmother had just passed over, and Miss Bellwood was making remarks about Mr. Darwin’s notions. Poor Nellie was convinced her grandmother wasn’t going to heaven after all.”
“I didn’t know about that,” Dominic said quickly. He should have. If someone was bereaved right there under the same roof, how was he so blind he had not seen it and offered her some assurance himself? If he was not good for that, what purpose had he? “No one told me!”
“No, of course not, sir,” Emsley said calmly. “Wouldn’t want to trouble you with our worries. Mrs. Henderson gave her a talking-to. Good Christian woman, Mrs. Henderson, none of these silly modern fancies. Nellie was all right after that. Just avoided Miss Bellwood, and we had no more nonsense.”
“I see. I still wish I had known.” Dominic excused himself and went to speak to the rest of the staff individually. He spent some time with Nellie, trying to make up for his earlier shortcoming. He realized within a few moments that his effort had been unnecessary. Whatever Mrs. Henderson had said had been more than sufficient. Nellie harbored no uncertainties as to the nature and existence of God, or that, given time, He could ultimately forgive even Unity Bellwood her sins, which Nellie had no doubt were many.
“Were they?” Dominic asked innocently. “Perhaps I did not know her as well as I thought.”
“Yer’d want ter think well of ’er, sir,” Nellie replied with a nod. “It’s yer job. But it in’t mine. I see’d ’er plain. Got some terrible ideas, she ’as. Leastways, she ’ad. She’ll know better now, poor soul. But gave poor Mr. Mallory a terrible ’ard time, she did. Used ter make fun of ’im summink awful.” She shook her head. “I could never make out why ’e took it. Mus’ be summink ter do wiv ’is religion, I s’pose.” For her that explained everything. It was foreign, and no one should be expected to understand it.
He left Nellie and continued on his course, but none of the servants was able to help, except in the most negative sense. At the time which mattered, and was fixed very clearly at five minutes to ten, they
were all accounted for and nowhere near the stairhead. The only two upstairs at all were Miss Braithwaite and the valet, Stander, and they would have had to pass Ramsay’s study door to reach the landing.
Was it possible that Ramsay really had pushed her? Had her constant erosion of his confidence, his belief in his faith and its root in reality, been wearing him down over the weeks and months to the point at which suddenly he had lost control and lashed out at his tormentor, at the voice which had robbed him of all the old certainties, the very meaning of all his work? Had he so lost touch with the realities of faith, the human spirit, the living emotion, that his despair had robbed him of all sense?
Dominic came into the hall again from the kitchen and the servants’ dining room. It was so familiar, for all its exotic design, so very functional with its umbrella stand, reminding one of the English climate and the practicalities of walking in the rain. The tall clock normally chimed the quarter hours, the daily needs of punctuality. Of course it was muffled now, with death in the house. The side table held the salver for calling cards. The hat stand stood in the corner, next to the settles where carriage rugs were sometimes kept. The mirror, for last-minute adjustments to the appearance, reflected the light. The window pole for the footman to close the upper sash, the bell rope, the telephone machine discreetly in the corner, all seemed so anchored in sanity. Even the potted palm was an ordinary one, a little overgrown, perhaps, but just like those common enough in thousands of houses. The screen and the floor he barely noticed, he had seen them so often.
He walked slowly up the stairs, one hand on the black wooden banister.
It was like Cater Street all over again. He found himself thinking of people and wondering if they could be feeling something utterly different from what they said, from the facade they presented. Even as his feet climbed from step to step, suspicions took shape in his imagination. Mallory’s behavior towards Unity did seem inconsistent. He remembered small cruelties she had displayed towards him. He should have hated her for it, or at least despised her. And yet it seemed he had gone out of his path to do her favors. Was that his way of battling against his own emotions, of trying to be the person he believed he should?
Vita must have loathed her at times, too. She could not have failed to see how Unity undermined the confidence and the happiness of both her husband and her son.
But Vita and Tryphena were the two members of the family who could not possibly have pushed her. They were both downstairs at the time. Lizzie swore to that. Not that Tryphena would have harmed Unity in any way. She was the only person in the house who truly grieved for her.
It was Tryphena whom Dominic now intended to speak with. No one else seemed to offer her any understanding. They were fairly naturally consumed in their own fears.
Unity had quarreled with Clarice several times, but it was over ideas, nothing violent or touching on the personal emotions or needs that mattered. It had all been on the surface of the intellect … at least that was how it had appeared. Perhaps that too was an illusion?
He knocked on Tryphena’s door.
“Who is it?” she asked sharply.
“Dominic,” he replied.
There was a moment’s silence, then the door opened. She looked disheveled, her fair hair falling out of its pins. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and she made little effort to conceal the fact that she had been weeping.
“If you’ve come to try to persuade me to alter my view of Father, or to try to defend him, you are on a fool’s errand.” She lifted her chin a little higher. “My friend is dead, a person I admired more than anyone else I’ve ever known. She was a bright light of honesty and courage in a society that is black with hypocrisy and oppression, and I am not going to allow her to be snuffed out and no one raise a voice to protest.” She glared at him as if he were already guilty.
“I came to see how you were,” he said quietly.
“Oh.” She tried to smile. “I’m sorry.” She pulled open the door to the small sitting room she shared with Clarice. “Just don’t preach at me.” She led the way in and invited him to sit down. “I really couldn’t stomach a sermon now. I know you mean well, but it would be insupportable.”
“I should not like to be so insensitive,” he said honestly, but with the shadow of a smile in return. He knew something of her dislike for what she regarded as the tedium and the condescension of the church. He had never met Spencer Whickham—Tryphena’s marriage and widowhood predated his acquaintance with the family—but he had heard about him from Clarice and seen the pain he had caused reflected in Tryphena now in a dozen different ways. Without having the slightest idea of it, the man had apparently been a natural bully. It was hardly surprising Tryphena had such a fierce admiration for Unity, who had both the will and the weapons to fight back where she saw masculine domination and what she saw as injustice.
“Can I say anything to help you?” he asked gently. “Even that there was much in Unity that I admired?”
She stared at him, her brows puckered, mastering her tears with difficulty. “Was there?”
“Certainly.”
“I feel so alone!” There was anger and pain behind her words. “Everyone else is horrified, of course, and frightened, but it is for themselves.” She jerked her hands angrily. They were small-boned and delicate, like her mother’s. This gesture was full of contempt. “They are all terrified there is going to be a scandal because Father did something appalling. Of course there will be! Unless they all get together and hush it up. That’s exactly what could happen, isn’t it, Dominic?” That was a question, but she rushed on without waiting for an answer. Her shoulders were stiff; he could see the strain on the fabric of her dress. It was floral. She had not yet thought to change to black.
“That’s what they’re all doing right now,” she went on. “They sent that important policeman from Bow Street, which is miles from here, just so they could keep it quiet.” She nodded her head. “You watch. Any time now the bishop will arrive full of false sorrow and bending all his mind on how he can deal with it discreetly, pretend it was an accident, and everyone will heave a great sigh of relief. Unity will be forgotten in their desire to save themselves embarrassment.” She spat the last word. “For all their cant about God and truth and love, they’ll save their own faces and do whatever is expedient.” She moved her hand again sharply. The tears spilled over her cheeks. “I am the only one who really cared about her, who loved the person she was.”
He did not interrupt her. She needed to say it and not be argued with. And in truth, he was horribly afraid she might be at least partly right. Certainly she was the only person who grieved for Unity rather than for the situation. He would not offend her, nor demean himself, by trying to say otherwise.
She gulped.
“You didn’t know what it was like for her!” It was an accusation, and she stared at him challengingly, her blue eyes bright and hard through the tears. “You don’t know how hard she had to fight to be allowed to learn, to be accepted, or what courage it took. It’s all so easy for you. You’re a man, and no one tells you you are not meant to have any intelligence.” She sniffed fiercely. “People don’t conspire silently to keep you out, looks and nods, unspoken agreements. You simply have no conception.” She was thoroughly angry now through her misery. “Unity made trouble,” she went on. “She showed you some of your own prejudices, the fear and oppression you exercise without even knowing it.” Her hands clenched. “You are so convinced you are righteous sometimes I could hit you! In your heart you are all glad she’s gone, because she asked questions and made you feel uncomfortable. She’d have forced you to look at yourselves, and you wouldn’t like what you’d see— because you’d see hypocrites. God! I’ve never felt so alone!”
“I’m sorry,” he said with as much sincerity as he could. He thought she was wildly wrong; she seemed to have caught Unity’s passions as if they were a contagion. But her feeling was real, of that he had no doubt at all, and it was that he addressed. “I
can see that you do mourn her more honestly than the rest of us. Perhaps you will be able to carry on her ideas and beliefs?”
“Me?” She looked startled, but then not entirely displeased. “I’m not fit to. I haven’t any education except to sew and paint and to manage a household.” Her face twisted with disgust. “Given a good housekeeper and a good cook, of course. Clarice was the one who studied … theology, of all the useless pursuits for a girl. I think she only did it to please Father and to show she was cleverer than Mallory.”
“Didn’t you learn French at school?”
“I had a French governess for a while. Yes, of course I speak French. But that’s no use, for heaven’s sake! Nothing ancient or theological is written in French.” She still dismissed it.
“Wouldn’t any branch of learning do just as well in which to succeed and make the same point about women?”
Her eyes blazed. “Is that what I am supposed to do? Are you now going to tell me Unity’s death is all part of God’s plan, which we are meant to accept but not to understand? Will it all be explained to me when I get to heaven?”
“No, I wasn’t,” he said tartly. “You don’t want to hear it, and I don’t think it’s true anyway. I think Unity’s dying was a very human plan, and nothing whatever to do with God.”
“I thought God was all-powerful,” she said derisively. “Which means that all this”—she flung out her arm—“is His fault.”
“You mean like a puppet master, pulling everybody’s strings?” he enquired.
“I suppose so …”
“Why?”
She frowned at him. “What?”
“Why?” he repeated. “Why would He bother? It sounds like a very pointless exercise to me, and hideously lonely.”
“I don’t know why!” She was exasperated with him. Her voice rose high and sharp. “You’re the curate, not me. You’re the one who believes in God. Ask Him! Doesn’t He answer you?” She was angry, but there was a ring of triumph in her now. “Perhaps you aren’t speaking loudly enough?”
