Brunswick Gardens Part 4

"Support one another?" Mallory's dark eyebrows rose, filling his face with sarcasm. "Isn't that rather absurd, considering that the highly objectionable young woman who was a.s.sisting my father has just met a violent death in this house? One of my sisters is all but implying that my father is responsible, and the other is as busy defending him and making irresponsible remarks she imagines are amusing. We have the police on the doorstep, and no doubt it will all only get worse." The dislike sharpened still further in his voice. "The best you can do is take the pastoral care off Father's shoulders so he doesn't have to leave the house. Then at least you will give us a little privacy to deal with our shock and grief, and those people Father is responsible for will have someone to minister to them."

Dominic felt his temper rising. All the differences of opinion he had had with Mallory over the months he had been in the Parmenters' home welled up in his memory, and the suppressed anger flashed to the surface. He was too raw with shock to control it.

"Perhaps if you were to set aside your studies for Rome for a few days and comfort your mother, rea.s.sure her of your loyalty, then I would not need to," he snapped back. "And I should feel free to perform my usual duties. As it was, you went off to read more books, which may be very enlightening, but it is hardly helpful!"

Mallory's face flushed pink. "I don't know what you found to say to her that could possibly help and still be even remotely true. Unity was a G.o.dless woman who insisted on parading her immoral and blasphemous views in our house. My father was wrong to employ her in the first place. He should have investigated what kind of woman she was before he took her on." He drew breath. A maid scurried across the back of the hall and disappeared along the pa.s.sage to the side door.

"A little time and effort, a few enquiries," Mallory went on, "and he could have known what she was like. Whatever her academic abilities, they were overwhelmed by her radical moral and political views. Look what she has done to Tryphena! That alone should be enough to condemn her." His lips tightened and his chin came up a little, showing the clenched muscles of his throat. "I know you have very liberal views in your church, allowing people to do more or less as they please, but perhaps now you can see the folly of that. We cannot help but be influenced by the wrong ideas around us. Mr. Darwin is accountable for more misery in the world than all the poverty and disease imaginable."

"Because he raised doubt?" Dominic said incredulously. "Does he make you doubt, Mallory?"

"Of course not!" And indeed there was no doubt in his eyes. They blazed with certainty. "But then I am of a faith which does not equivocate and hedge and trim its creed to suit the climate of the day. Father was not so fortunate. He had already committed himself, his life, his time and all his energy. He could not go back upon it, sacrifice it all."

"That's a piece of sophistry," Dominic said angrily. "If a faith is true, it ought to be able to withstand all the arguments thrown at it, and if it is not, how much you have invested in it is irrelevant. No human being can make G.o.d one thing or another."

"Perhaps you should go upstairs and comfort Father with that thought?" Mallory suggested. "You seem to have taken it upon yourself to lead the family, although I cannot imagine who asked you."

"Your mother. But if you had been there, no doubt she would have asked you," Dominic rejoined. "I did not know you disliked Unity so much. You always seemed very civil to her."

Mallory's eyebrows rose. "What did you expect, that I should be rude to her under my father's roof? She knew perfectly well what I thought of her views."

Dominic could recall several highly uncomfortable confrontations between Mallory and Unity Bellwood. They had centered mainly upon two subjects: her mockery of his absolute belief in the Roman Catholic Church and its teachings; and a far subtler taunting of the celibacy his choice would place upon him. It had been delicately done. Had Dominic himself known Unity less well, had he been Mallory's age instead of a widower of over forty with a more than pa.s.sing acquaintance with women, he might not even have known her deeper meaning under the banter. The suggestions were slight; the remarks had double meanings. He might not have understood her looks or her laughter, the hesitations close to him, and then the smile. Mallory himself was never entirely certain. He knew he amused her, and that it was a joke he did not share. It was not surprising he did not mourn her now.

"You think I was too mealymouthed to tell her," Mallory went on accusingly. "Let me a.s.sure you, I know what I believe, and I will permit no one to speak the blasphemy she did and not challenge them." He spoke firmly, pleased with himself. "She was utterly misguided, and the standards of morality she espoused were appalling. But I would greatly have preferred to persuade her of her error than see any harm come to her. As I imagine anyone would." He took a deep breath. "This is a very tragic day for all of us. I hope we shall survive it without greater loss." For a moment he looked very directly at Dominic. "I cannot offer my father any comfort. He needs faith now, and I disagree with him too profoundly to be of any service to him." In spite of his height, he looked very young, like a child who has outgrown his strength. The expression in his face was sad and confused beneath the anger. "We have been too far apart in the ways which matter most. You seem to have a belief rooted in something more than words and a way to earn your living in a respectable fashion. I have been racking my mind since I have been able to concentrate at all, but I can think of nothing to say to him. There are too many years of difference between us."

"Is this not the time to forget the differences?" Dominic suggested.

Mallory's body tightened up. "No," he said quickly, without even thinking about it. "For G.o.d's sake, Dominic! If Tryphena is right, it is possible he has just cold-bloodedly pushed a woman down the stairs to her death!" His voice rose close to panic. "What can anyone in his family say to him? He needs spiritual counsel! If he has done something terrible, he must come to some kind of terms with it and then search his soul for repentance. I can't ask him! He's my father!" He looked helpless, but his unhappiness focused on Dominic, so there was nothing Dominic could say that would help.

"You don't have Confession in your faith-you don't have Absolution!" Mallory went on with pent-up rage twisting his mouth. "You threw out all that when Henry VIII had to have his divorce to go after Anne Boleyn. You have nothing left for the times of worst trial, the dark of the night when only the blessed sacraments of the true church can save you!" He stood with his chin high, his shoulders squared. One might have thought he was facing an actual physical fight.

"If he did kill her, and any part of him meant to," Dominic replied, struggling in his own mind between refusal to believe such a thing and the incredible meaning of Vita's words, "then it will take more than anyone else's comfort or counsel for him to work through this towards any kind of peace with himself." He waved his hand sharply, dismissing the idea. "You cannot simply say 'I forgive you' and it all disappears. You have to see the difference between what you are and what you ought to be, and understand it! You must-" He stopped. Mallory was ready for a long theological argument about the true church and its mysteries, and the heresy of the Reformation. He had already drawn in his breath to begin. It was easier than talking about the realities which faced them.

"This is not the time," Dominic said firmly. "I'll go and see him when I've thought about it a little more."

Mallory shot him a disbelieving look and walked away.

Dominic turned and nearly b.u.mped into Clarice. Her hair was coming undone, and actually it would have looked rather becoming were her eyes not pink and her skin so pale.

"He used not to be so pompous," she said grimly. "Now he reminds me of the stuffed carp in the morning room. It always looks so surprised, like a vicar who has accidentally backed into one of the organ stops."

"Clarice...really!" Dominic wanted to laugh, and he knew it was entirely inappropriate. She herself still looked profoundly upset.

"Not you, too!" She pushed her hand through her hair and made it worse. "Tryphena is locked in her room, which I suppose is reasonable. She really cared for Unity, heaven help her. Although I suppose it is a good thing she did. Everyone should have at least one person to mourn for them when they die, don't you think?" Her eyes were full of pity, her voice hushed. "How terrible to die and have no one to weep, no one to feel as if they have lost something irreplaceable! I couldn't replace Unity, but then neither would I try. I think she was pretty odious. She was always mocking Mal. I know he asks for it, but he's too easy a target to be worthy of anyone who's worth anything themselves."

She was talking quickly, nervously, her hands twisting together. Dominic knew without asking that she too was afraid that her father might be guilty.

They were standing in the hall, by now far nearer the door to the morning room. He was aware that Vita must still be in the conservatory.

"I'm going up to see Father." Clarice made as if to move away and go towards the stairs. "Mal may think he wants a long theological conversation. I don't. If it were me, I should simply want to know that somebody loved me, whether I had lost my temper and pushed that miserable woman down the stairs or not." She said it defiantly, challenging him to disagree.

"So should I," he answered. "At least at first. And I think I would want someone to consider the possibility that I was innocent, and perhaps to listen to me if I needed to talk."

"You can't imagine pushing her down the stairs, can you?" She looked at him curiously. Her eyes were earnest, but there was the characteristic flicker of laughter there, far beneath the hurt, as if she were picturing it in some part of her mind, and the absurdity of it.

"Actually, I can imagine it only too easily," he confessed.

"Can you?" She was surprised, and he thought there was a hint of satisfaction also. Was it because she would rather it were he than her father? The thought chilled him. He was suddenly aware of being an outsider, the one person in the house who was not a member of the family. It was a shock that it should be Clarice of all of them who reminded him of it. She had seemed the warmest, the one who had the fewest barriers between herself and the world.

"I imagine we all could, if we were hurt," he said a little coolly. "Mallory certainly expressed plain enough satisfaction that she was gone."

"Mal?" Her eyebrows rose. "I thought he rather liked her, underneath all the arguments."

"Liked her?" Dominic was amazed.

"Yes." She turned and started towards the foot of the stairs. "He hung that Rossetti picture back in the library for her. He hates it. He hid it away in the morning room where none of the family ever go."

"Are you sure he doesn't like it?"

"Yes, of course I am. It is far too sensuous, almost provocative." She shrugged. "She liked it, but then she would."

"So do I. I think Rossetti's subject is lovely."

"She is, but Mal thinks she is wanton."

"Then why did he hang it back in the library?"

"Because Unity asked him to!" she said with a lift of impatience at his slowness. "He also went for her to pick up a parcel of books from the station...three times in the last two weeks. He was in the middle of studying, and it was pouring with rain. Why?" Her voice rose. "Because she asked him to! And he stopped wearing that green jacket he is so fond of...because she objected to it. So I am not entirely sure that he disliked her as much as you think."

He cast his mind back to the incidents she was referring to, and in each case she was right. The more he thought about it, the less did Mallory's behavior seem in character. He hated the rain. He spoke often of how he looked forward to the warmer, drier climate of Rome; it was an incidental blessing of his vocation. Dominic had never known him to run errands for anyone else. Even his mother met with a polite refusal when she asked him to go to the apothecary. He was studying; it took precedence over everything. Dominic knew nothing about the green jacket. He seldom noticed what men wore-though always what women did. But the Rossetti picture was different. That was unforgettable.

How curious. So Mallory had done Unity a number of favors in spite of his apparent contempt for her. Dominic did not have to look far for an explanation that was believable. Unity had been a remarkably attractive woman. It had been far more than a beauty of face or coloring, it was a vitality, an intelligence, a constant awareness of the joy and the challenge of life. He still remembered it himself with pain. But he had not realized it had touched Mallory.

"Perhaps you are right," he said aloud. "I didn't know about that."

"He was probably trying to convert her," Clarice remarked dryly. "He could have beaten Father soundly if he won her for the Church of Rome after all the time she's spent translating learned doc.u.ments for the Church of England."

"They were the same at the period of time they are dealing with," he pointed out.

"I know that!" she said tartly, although it was obvious she had forgotten. "That's why they need all these different translations. One for each sect, don't you know," she added, and with that she went up the stairs quickly and without looking back at him.

No one bothered with luncheon. Ramsay remained upstairs in his study. Vita wrote letters, Tryphena mourned in private, and Clarice went down to the music room and played the Dead March from "Saul" on the piano.

It would be nice to think the tragedy would be left as an unsolved mystery, something about which the truth could never be known. But Dominic recalled his past acquaintance with Pitt too vividly to nurse that illusion. Pitt had gone for now, but he would be investigating evidence, details, possibly things no one else had thought of. He would examine the body. He would see the mark on the shoes, and sooner or later, the mark on the conservatory floor. He would know about Unity's going in to see Mallory. He would question and argue and reason until he knew why.

He would be very cautious, but he would probe into every detail of life in Brunswick Gardens. He would unearth any quarrel between Ramsay and Unity; he would uncover their personal weaknesses, all the little sins that might have nothing whatever to do with Unity's death but were painful and so very much better hidden.

Dominic was alone in the library. He closed his eyes and could have been back in Cater Street ten years before, feeling the p.r.i.c.kle of fear in the air around him. He remembered with a flush of embarra.s.sment that Charlotte had been in love with him then. He really had not known it until it was almost too late. Pitt knew it. Dominic had seen it in his eyes. The shadow of dislike was still there.

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 rea.s.sure 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 bra.s.ses, 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 bra.s.ses. 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.surance 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 G.o.d, 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 pa.s.s 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 m.u.f.fled 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 anch.o.r.ed 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 embarra.s.sment." She spat the last word. "For all their cant about G.o.d 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."