by Anne Perry
“That depends on how far away God is,” Clarice retorted, coming in through the door. “I could hear you halfway down the stairs.”
“What are you suggesting?” Tryphena asked her sister angrily. She resented the intrusion. “That God lives halfway down the stairs?”
“Hardly,” Clarice replied, her mouth twitching. “If He did, He could have stopped Unity from reaching the bottom, and she’d only have sprained her ankle instead of breaking her neck.”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Tryphena shouted, and turned on her heel and stormed out of the door at the farther side of the room, slamming the door so hard the pictures on the wall shook.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” Clarice observed contritely. “I never know when to hold my tongue. I’m sorry.”
Dominic did not know what to say. He had thought he was used to Clarice’s irresponsible notion of humor, but he found he was not. Part of him wanted to laugh, as a release from grief and anxiety, but he knew it was utterly inappropriate—in fact, quite shocking. He was guilty for not disapproving more than he did.
“It was very wrong of you, Clarice,” he said sharply. “Most thoughtless. Poor Tryphena is grieving for a friend, not just shocked and afraid like the rest of us.”
Clarice winced, and the misery was plain in her face. She turned away from him.
“Yes, I know. I wish I could say I had liked Unity, but I didn’t. I’m terrified of what will happen to Father, and it makes me say things without thinking.” She took a deep breath. “No, it doesn’t. I did that anyway … and I am thinking. That’s just the way my mind is.” There was defiance in her now. She turned back and looked at him very directly. “I wonder if we are all meant to wear black for dinner? I suppose I had better. But I’m not wearing it for a year,” she added. “A week is good manners, a year is hypocrisy. I refuse to be a hypocrite. I’d better go and see if Braithwaite can find me something.” She shrugged and turned to walk away.
Dinner was extremely difficult. Ramsay remained in his room, and whether he ate what was taken up for him or not, no one in the dining room knew. They sat around the long mahogany table in near silence. The servants brought the various courses and removed plates hardly touched. Vita tried to begin some trivial conversation, but no one assisted her.
“Cook will be insulted,” Tryphena observed, watching the dishes being taken away. “She thinks eating is the answer to any problem.”
“Well, not eating doesn’t help, except an upset stomach,” Clarice pointed out. “And other unmentionables. Being weak doesn’t make you any use. Nor does staying awake all night.”
“No one has stayed awake all night,” Mallory said patiently. “It only happened this morning. But if we do, it will be because we are too distressed and worried to sleep. God knows what is going to happen now.”
“Of course,” Clarice muttered.
“Of course what?” Mallory stared at her. “What do you know? What are you talking about? Did you hear something?”
“Of course God knows,” she explained with her mouth full of bread. “Isn’t He supposed to know everything?”
“Please!” Vita interrupted sharply. “Let us keep our ideas of God out of the dinner table conversation. I would have thought that subject had caused sufficient trouble for us all to be more than willing to leave it alone indefinitely.”
“I don’t know why we bother to try to talk at all.” Tryphena looked from one to the other of them. “We none of us know what to say, and we are all lost in our own thoughts anyway. We aren’t going to say anything we mean.”
“Because it is the civilized thing to do,” Vita replied firmly. “Something very dreadful has happened, but we are going to carry on with our lives with the courage and dignity we desire. And Tryphena, my dear, if you admire Unity as much as you seem to, you know she would be the last person to wish us to give in to our emotions. She had no time for self-indulgence.”
“Unless it was her own,” Clarice said under her breath. Dominic heard, but he hoped no one else had. He reached out sideways with one foot and kicked her sharply under the table.
She gasped as the toe of his shoe caught her ankle, but she knew better than to make any sound.
“Of course,” Dominic said aloud, “I shall be making the usual calls on parishioners tomorrow. Are there any errands I can do for anyone?”
“Thank you,” Vita accepted. “I am sure there are several things. Perhaps if you go near the haberdasher’s you could get some black ribbon.”
“Yes, of course. How much?”
“I think a dozen yards, thank you.”
He tried to think of something else normal to say, but nothing came to mind. It all sounded stilted and callous. He was aware of Tryphena looking at him with loathing, and Mallory studiously avoiding saying anything at all. It seemed he and Vita must carry on the conversation to prevent the silence from becoming unbearable.
“I shall write the appropriate letters tomorrow,” Vita went on, looking across the table at him, her eyes wide. “I shall ask Ramsay, of course, but I think as things are he may consider it more suitable for you to find out what the formalities are.”
“We all know what the formalities are, Mother!” Mallory jerked his head up. “We were practically born in the church. We know church rituals—breakfast, luncheon and dinner!”
“Not with the church, Mallory,” she corrected. “With Superintendent Pitt.”
Mallory flushed dull red and said nothing, bending to concentrate on his food, although he ate hardly any of it.
This time the silence was beyond rescue. Vita looked across at Dominic, but with resignation.
When he could decently escape, and knowing he could put it off no longer, Dominic left the dining room and went up to Ramsay’s study. If he hesitated he would lose his nerve. Surely if he had the calling he imagined, no situation should be beyond his ability to face it with honesty and a degree of kindness.
He knocked.
The answer was immediate. “Come in.”
Now he was committed. He opened the door.
Ramsay was sitting at his desk. He seemed almost relieved to recognize Dominic. Perhaps he had feared an encounter with one of his own family more.
“Come in, Dominic.” He waved towards one of the other chairs and marked the book he was reading with a loose piece of paper, then closed it. “It’s been a truly terrible day. How are you?”
Dominic sat down. It was difficult to begin. Ramsay was behaving as if there had been a simple domestic accident and Tryphena’s accusations were no more than the product of grief.
“I admit, I feel very distressed,” Dominic said frankly.
“Of course you do,” Ramsay agreed, frowning and fiddling with a pencil that lay between his hands on the desk. “Death is always a shock, especially of one so young and whom we all are accustomed to seeing daily. She was a very trying person, at times, but no one would have wished this upon her. I grieve that it happened so soon after I had quarreled with her.” He met Dominic’s gaze quite steadily. “It leaves me with a feeling of guilt because one cannot repair it. Foolish, I know.” His lips tightened. “My reason tells me not to feel such things, but the sadness remains.” He sighed. “I am afraid Tryphena is going to take it very badly. She had a great fondness for her. I did not approve of it, but there was nothing I could do.” He looked tired, as if he had been struggling for a long time and saw no end in sight, certainly no victory.
“Yes, she is.” Dominic nodded. “And she is very angry.”
“A common part of grief. It will pass.” Ramsay spoke with certainty, but of a flat, comfortless kind. There was no lift of hope in it for better times.
“I’m so sorry,” Dominic said impulsively. “I wish I could say something that would make sense of it, but all I can do is repeat what you said to me in my worst despair.” It still touched him deeply. “Take each day at a time, cling onto the faith of your own worth and build on it, no matter how slowly or how little each step.
You cannot go backward. Have the courage to go forward well. At the end of each day, praise yourself for that, and then let go … rest, and hope. Never let go of hope.”
Ramsay smiled bleakly, but his eyes were gentle. “Did I say that to you?”
“Yes … and I believed you, and it saved me.” Dominic remembered it only too vividly. It had been four years before. In some ways it was as sharp as yesterday, in others a world away, another life where he had changed from being one man to being another, totally different, with new dreams and new thoughts. He longed to be able to help Ramsay as Ramsay had helped him, to give back the gift now that it was so badly needed. He searched Ramsay’s face and saw no answering spark.
“I had a different sort of faith then,” Ramsay said, looking beyond Dominic as if he were talking to himself. “I have done a great deal of studying in the years since it became so spoken about I could no longer avoid it.” He shook his head a little. “At first, thirty years ago, when it was published, it was just the scientific theory of one man. Then gradually one began to realize how many other people accepted it. Now science seems to be everywhere, the origin and the answers to everything. There is no mystery left, only facts we don’t yet know. Above all, there is no one left to hope in beyond ourselves, nothing greater, wiser, or above all kinder.” He looked for an instant like a lost child who suddenly knows the full meaning of being alone.
Dominic felt it like a physical pain.
“I can admire the certainty all these old bishops and saints seem to have had,” Ramsay went on. “I can’t share it anymore, Dominic.” He sat oddly still for the emotions which must have been raging inside him. “The hurricane of Mr. Darwin’s sanity has blown it away like so much paper. His reasoning haunts my mind. During the day I look at all these books.” He waved his arm at them. “I read Saint Paul, Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas, and every theologian and apologist since. I can even go back to the original Aramaic or Greek, and for a little while I am fine. Then at night the cold voice of Charles Darwin comes back, and the darkness engulfs all the candles I’ve lit during the day. I swear I would give anything I possess for him not to have been born!”
“If he hadn’t said these things, someone else would have,” Dominic pointed out as gently as he could. “It was a theory ripe for its time. And there is a thread of truth in it. Any farmer or gardener would tell you that. Old species die out, new ones are created, by accident, or purpose. That does not mean there is no God … only that He uses means that can be explained by science … at least in part. Why should God be unreasonable?”
Ramsay leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “I can see that you are trying very hard, Dominic, and I am grateful to you for it. But if the Bible is not true, we have no foundation, only dreams, wishes, stories that are beautiful, but eventually just fairy stories. We must go on preaching them, because the majority of people believe them—and more importantly than that, they need them.” He opened his eyes again. “But it is a hollow comfort, Dominic, and I find no joy in it. Maybe that is why I hated Unity Bellwood, because at least in that she was right, even if she was wrong in everything else, and utterly, devastatingly wrong in her morality.”
Dominic felt as if he had swallowed ice. There was a bitterness in Ramsay he had never seen unmasked before, a depth of confusion which was more than mere tiredness or the shock of death and accusation, a fear far older and more familiar than anything this day had brought. It was the loss of inner belief, the core of hope that lies deeper than reason. For the first time he was touched by the possibility that Ramsay really could have killed Unity. It no longer seemed beyond the realm of the thinkable that she had assaulted his faith one time too many, and his loss had escaped his control and he had lashed out, she had slipped, overbalanced, and the next moment she had pitched down the stairs to lie dead at the bottom. It was a hideous mischance. They could have quarreled a hundred times and even physically struck each other without any serious injury done. Perhaps in the innocence of his intent Ramsay had not realized that it was at the very least a manslaughter—and the end of his career.
But it was still a far cry from murder.
How could Dominic begin to help? What could he say to reach Ramsay’s despair?
“You taught me that faith is a thing of the spirit, of trust, not knowledge,” he began.
“It was what I believed at the time,” Ramsay retorted with a dry laugh. He looked very directly at Dominic. “Now I am terrified, and all the faith on earth is not going to help. That wretched policeman seems to think that Unity was pushed, and that is murder.” He leaned forward earnestly. “I did not push her, Dominic. I never left the room until after she was dead. I cannot imagine any of the servants did …”
“They didn’t,” Dominic agreed. “They were all accounted for and in sight of someone else, or performing duties they could prove.”
Ramsay stared at him. “Then it could only be one of my family … or you. And both thoughts are dreadful. Faith may be gone, a dream from which I have awoken, but kindness is real, help to another person in their distress will always be precious and good and lasting. You are my one real success, Dominic. When I think I have failed, I remember you, and I know I have not.”
Dominic was hideously uncomfortable. He had wanted to speak honestly to Ramsay, to brush aside the usual politeness and trivialities with which real emotion was hidden, and now that it had happened he did not know how to face it. Such naked hunger for comfort embarrassed him; it was personal, a debt between them. Ramsay had given his hand and pulled Dominic out of the morass of his despair, a morass of his own making. Now Ramsay needed the same help, needed to know he had succeeded, that Dominic was what he wished him to be. And he was afraid Dominic had killed Unity Bellwood.
And he would know why!
“And Mallory is my son,” Ramsay went on. “How can I bear to believe it was he?”
Should Dominic remind him it was his name, or to be exact his title, that she cried out … not “Dominic,” not “Mallory.” The words came to his lips, and then he could not say them. It was futile. He had not killed her. If Ramsay had not, it left only Mallory … or the impossible … Clarice! No one else could have.
“There must be something they have not thought of,” he said miserably. “If … if there is anything I can do to help, please allow me to. Any duties …”
“Thank you,” Ramsay said quickly. “I think perhaps in the circumstances it is right for you to make the funeral arrangements. You might begin that tomorrow. I imagine it will be very quiet. She had no family, I understand.”
“No … no, I believe not …” It was ridiculous. They were sitting in a quiet study with its books and papers and the fire flickering in the hearth, making civilized remarks about the details for the funeral of a woman they each believed the other might have killed.
Except that Dominic found himself believing more and more wretchedly that Ramsay simply refused to recognize what had happened. He was still in a state of shock, with death, with the physical reality of it, and with the spiritual reality of what he had done.
Tomorrow it might be very different. He might wake to the knowledge and the fear of all the terrible consequences which would follow. Dominic knew the suspicion, the close, crushing terrors which would haunt the house until the truth was known. He had seen it all before, lived through it, the relationships that crumble, the old wounds recalled, the ugly thoughts that would not be dismissed, the trust eaten away day by day.
It was hard to remember that there had also been new friendships gained, honor and kindness where he had not looked to find it. At the moment there was only the breaking apart.
Ramsay was giving instructions for the conduct of the funeral, and Dominic had not heard a word of it.
3
CHARLOTTE PITT WAS relaxing in the parlor with her feet up on the sewing stool, the fire pleasantly warm and a most enthralling novel in her hands, when she heard the front door open and close. She put down the book
with something close to reluctance, even though she was pleased to hear Pitt return. She had been right in the middle of a dramatic scene between two lovers.
Jemima raced downstairs in her nightgown calling out “Papa! Papa!”
Charlotte smiled and went to the door. Daniel, retaining his masculine dignity, was coming down slowly, grinning.
“You are early,” Charlotte observed as Pitt kissed her, then turned his attention temporarily to the children. Jemima was telling him excitedly about a lesson she had learned on Queen Elizabeth and the Spanish Armada. Daniel, at the same time, was trying to explain about steam engines and a wonderful train he wanted to see, and better still, to ride on. He had even learned the fare, and his face was bright with hope.
It was nearly an hour before Pitt was alone with Charlotte and could tell her the extraordinary news of the events in Brunswick Gardens.
“Do you really think the Reverend Parmenter lost his temper completely and pushed her down the stairs?” she asked with surprise. “Can it be proved?”
“I don’t know.” He stretched out further, balancing his feet on the fender. It was his favorite position. His slippers were scorched every winter. She was always buying new ones.
“Could she have fallen?” she asked. “People do fall downstairs … sometimes.”
“They don’t shout out ‘No, no!’ and someone’s name if they slip,” he pointed out. “And there was nothing there to trip over. The stairs are black wood, no carpet or stair rods to be loose.”
“One could trip over a skirt, if the hem were down …” she said thoughtfully. “Was it?”
“No. I looked at that. It was perfect.”
“Or even one’s own feet,” she went on. “Were the shoes all right? Nothing loose or broken, no wobbly heels or loose laces? I’ve tripped over my own feet before now.”
