A Christmas Return Read online

  “He wouldn’t!” Rowena said fiercely, and as soon as the words were out of her mouth the certainty vanished from her face, and a terrible fear took its place. “Would he?” she whispered.

  Mariah understood her fear in a more immediate and personal way.

  “Men with appetites like that do not give them up, or perhaps I should say leave them unfed, just because of danger.”

  “How would you know, Mariah?” Rowena asked.

  It was Peter who intervened. “I think that is information you do not need, Grandmother, but few lives pass without pain. What Aunt Mariah says is true. The only issue here is, are you with us or against us? Must we do this alone?”

  She stared at him in amazement, with a dawning realization that he meant exactly what he had said. She started to deny, then accepted the futility of it.

  “So you will help?” he said. “Good. Now we must plan it carefully. The only possible time is the Christmas Eve party the village holds every year. I know already that they have made their arrangements. All I need to do is tell the vicar that we are having one or two extra guests. He will be delighted.”

  “Extra guests?” She looked puzzled.

  “Yes. People from Brocklehurst who know what happened there, and now have the courage to come forward and speak. We also need to make sure the Abbotts are going to be there. They deserve to know the truth.”

  “But after all these years—” Rowena began.

  “Have you forgotten Grandfather?” he asked, his eyebrows raised. “Or the fact that people who used to be your friends, twenty years ago and all your life before that, still believe that you could have killed him?”

  “Peter! How can you say that to me?” Rowena was shocked.

  “Because it is true,” he replied. “And we are going to fight against it and do everything possible to put it right.”

  Rowena looked at Mariah. “It is easy for you,” she said with a touch of bitterness. “No one is going to rip away your privacy and laugh at you! No one—”

  Again it was Peter who stopped her. “Grandmother, you are being completely unfair. You have no idea what Aunt Mariah may have revealed in order to get this matter admitted to and then persuade people to come forward. And neither do you actually know what griefs she may have suffered in her own life, far too deep to have told you about. You are being little better than the village gossip you so despise, leaping to conclusions about other people.”

  Rowena was not only startled, she was now angry, a flush coloring her face.

  “Peter! How dare you speak to me like that?”

  “Because you need Aunt Mariah’s help, and I am astounded that instead of gratitude, you are showing her only anger.”

  Mariah could hardly believe what she seemed to be hearing. She was half driven to interrupt, but the half that admired Peter was stronger. It was the only time she could remember being praised in such a way. Now, please heaven, she must earn it.

  She turned to Rowena. “We cannot manage without you. One of the people who is coming from Brocklehurst gave witness to Durward’s presence with her at the time of the murder there…”

  “Then he cannot have been guilty!” Rowena said immediately.

  “Of course he can!” Mariah’s resolution to keep her temper had not lasted long. “She lied! She too had been…unwise…in her response to him and he exaggerated it, and threatened to tell her husband and the rest of the village that it had been far more than what it was. She did it to protect herself, and because she had never really accepted that he was guilty. Only when I told her of Christina Abbott did she tell the truth. But she has the courage to come forward now.” She took a breath. “If she is the only one, it will be easier to refute her. But when you say Durward used you too, it is a pattern. I daresay there may be others, similarly used, who will then realize they are not alone and find the courage to come forward themselves.”

  There was a dawning understanding in Rowena’s face. “We could hurt him?” she said softly, almost under her breath.

  “We must. If we don’t, he will likely go on and kill other girls,” Mariah agreed.

  Rowena shook her head in disdain.

  “Yes,” Peter said bluntly. Then he leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “Thank you, Grandmother. Now we must make all the arrangements so the village Christmas party accomplishes more than it ever has in its long and happy past.”

  Christmas Eve dawned cold and bright. It was one of those motionless days in winter when everything looks as if it were painted on glass. The frost was glittering sharp on every leaf and twig, but Mariah was too nervous to do more than notice its beauty in odd reflections as she passed a window.

  Peter walked into the village to check at the inn and returned to say that Bessie Collins was there, with her husband, the current constable of Brocklehurst, and also her father, the constable at the time of the child abduction and murder twenty-five years ago. It took him some time to locate Mrs. Johnson because she had chosen to stay with a friend.

  “She looked very tense,” he added quietly over a lunch of Welsh rarebit. There was always something extraordinarily comforting about melted cheese on toast.

  “Can we rely on her?” Rowena asked. Today she looked strong, even though it might well have cost her a considerable effort. Her hair was beautifully dressed, coiled up on her head but not pulled tight. She had allowed its natural beauty to dictate its shape, and Mariah could not help admiring it. She hesitated. In their youth she had envied it. It always looked effortless, as if Rowena’s loveliness owed nothing to artifice.

  Peter appeared oblivious to such things.

  “I hope so,” she said a trifle ruefully. “Perhaps if you were to go and call on her, she might find reassurance in it?”

  Mariah could quite clearly see the fear in Rowena’s face and then the resolve. She held her own peace.

  “That would be a very good idea,” Rowena said after a moment. “It is always better to know that you are not alone in a battle.”

  Mariah smiled at her. “Indeed. And we must be prepared for Durward to fight. He has a great deal to lose.”

  “Not as much as the Abbotts lost,” Peter said drily, helping himself to another hot slice of toast and rich cheese sauce. “I can just remember Christina, although she was four years older than I was. I think she was the first girl in whom I could see something to admire. I wasn’t fond of girls then.” He smiled, remembering his childhood self. “They weren’t interested in the things that mattered, like railway engines, swordfights and model ships—or cricket. They especially weren’t interested in cricket!”

  “I shall go into the village as soon as we have finished luncheon,” Rowena said. “In the meantime, I must think what to say to Mrs. Johnson.”

  “You must do as you please.” Mariah had not been asked, but she spoke anyway. “But she knows what the purpose is of our being here, so to disguise it might seem disingenuous. Trust might be a better way.”

  “Thank you.” Instead of taking offense, Rowena sounded as if she was grateful for the advice. “I would ask you to accompany me, but I fear she might feel a little outnumbered. And confidences are more easily shared with two, rather than three.”

  “Of course,” Mariah agreed with relief. She wished to spend the afternoon with Peter, conferring on exactly how they were going to introduce the dangerous, emotionally dark and powerful subject that would provoke the accusations that were their whole purpose in attending.

  For the village Christmas party Rowena dressed in her very best. She was still a beautiful woman, when she wished to be. Her warm coloring was thrown into relief by the dark violet satin of her gown, and her bare throat was flattered by a high, collar-style necklace that hid the slight signs of aging in her neck.

  If envy had not been such a crippling emotion, Mariah might have allowed herself to envy her. She certainly had in the past. Now was different. Mariah would protect Rowena, for Cullen’s sake, for Peter’s, and also for her own. Mariah had never been
beautiful; that was not a choice. But courage was, and she had fought for that, and won.

  This evening she wore a dress of deep burgundy, a color so rich it lent her face a glow it did not usually possess. It had been a gift from her granddaughter Emily, who herself always dressed superbly, and she knew what suited everyone, even an elderly woman of no great stature or deportment, and whose hair had faded to an undistinguished gray.

  There was little time to fiddle with it in the glass now. It was time for battle.

  They traveled in Rowena’s small gig, but there was a good roof on it and the cold air did not swirl in through the isinglass windows. They arrived not so early as to seem overeager and found the village hall already well attended.

  Peter alighted immediately and offered his hand to his grandmother, then to Mariah. He gave Rowena an encouraging smile. He gripped Mariah’s arm a little more warmly, almost like a discreet salute as they turned and walked up to the entrance.

  The vicar greeted them, apparently without noticing anything different from years before. He had an excellent memory, and spoke to Mariah by name without prompting. But it flickered through her mind that perhaps word had already reached him of her rather unorthodox behavior. Still, she smiled back at him and made some meaningless pleasantry, as if all were as usual.

  Inside the hall were tables decked with food. There were scarlet candles lit and burning, garlands of leaves and ribbons, small silver-colored bells and brass trumpets. A nativity scene sat on a table, replete with angels and farm animals as well. Here in a small village, the animals were particularly loved. Some of them were losing their fur where they had been too much stroked by small hands, unlike the figures of Mary and the Christ Child, which were too precious even to touch; they were simply gazed at with wonder and awe.

  Mariah looked around her, filled with memories of this same hall, twenty years ago, and of other village church halls in the long past of her own childhood. She saw Mr. and Mrs. Abbott. They looked far more than twenty years older, and somehow smaller than she had remembered them. Grief seemed to have eaten away too much inside them.

  Then she saw Owen Durward, tall, dark-haired, his face as powerful, and as arrogant, as always. And as if by some kind of magnetism, he turned and looked directly at her. For a moment their eyes were locked in almost a declaration of war. Then he smiled and the darkness vanished. He was too far away to speak to her without drawing attention to himself, but he inclined his head a little in acknowledgment of her and smiled—or was it a baring of his teeth?

  She smiled back, but charmingly, as if he did not disconcert her in the least. She would act as if she had won, right from the beginning, from the first shot, as it were.

  The evening seemed to drag. Mariah saw Bessie Collins and Mrs. Johnson. Both seemed to her to look nervous. They remained together every occasion she saw them. But then, if she had had a friend who knew and understood her in the same circumstances, she too would have remained as close as was seemly.

  Mariah pretended to eat and enjoy the very generous food, but she found it hard to swallow even the roast goose, tender and full of flavor though it was. She made trivial conversation, inquired after people’s health and their families and barely heard their replies.

  Finally, Peter stood up at the slightly raised dais and rang his spoon on the crystal of his glass to request attention. After two or three attempts, everyone fell silent and turned to face him.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, friends,” he began. He stood under the light, with its warmth shining on his fair hair and his handsome face, suitably grave for the occasion. “It is twenty years since my grandfather, Cullen Wesley, died. I think all of you here knew him. I would like to raise a glass of this excellent wine in remembrance of his life, his love of this village and its people, and the services he performed for many of you.”

  He hesitated. Mariah willed him not to lose his nerve.

  “And also, in an even sadder remembrance,” Peter continued, holding his glass so the light caught in its facets and made it sparkle, “I would ask you to think of Christina Abbott. She was one of us. We lost her to an atrocity that has never been resolved.”

  He smiled with intense sorrow. “I was only ten when that happened. You may think it was of little meaning to me. You would be wrong. At ten I didn’t have much time for girls. They didn’t play cricket. They weren’t interested in guns or swords, or making model ships. They didn’t play at fighting. In fact, to me they weren’t much use for anything, except teasing, if you dared to.”

  There was a murmur of understanding, a little nervous laughter.

  “But Christina could tie the rigging on a model ship better than any boy,” he went on, his voice thick with emotions he did not attempt to hide. “And she could play the piano and make real music on it, not just scales up and down. She loved it, and you could tell that just by listening. You didn’t even have to see the smile on her face.”

  Mrs. Abbott was staring at him with tears on her cheeks.

  Mariah could see the grief in other people too, women unashamed to show it, men trying to pretend they were stronger, when clearly it touched them just as much.

  Peter went on quickly, “And she was pretty good at getting Cook to give her jam tarts, enough of them to share with hungry boys. I know, because I was one of those boys. And she was good at sums, better than I was. She was the first girl who spoke to me sensibly and made me realize that it was quite possible that one day I would actually like girls.”

  Mariah looked across the room at Durward. He appeared uncomfortable. Or did she just imagine that?

  “Actually, I already liked Christina,” Peter went on, now also struggling to keep his composure. “I wasn’t going to cry when they told me she was dead. Somebody had hurt her badly and then killed her, so she wouldn’t tell on them. At least I wasn’t going to cry where anyone could see me. But my grandfather knew, and he said it was all right to be more upset than you could hide when something really bad happened. It was bad then; it’s still bad.” He looked around the crowd as if seeking someone in particular. “And I didn’t know until this Christmas that something almost exactly the same happened five years before that in Brocklehurst, only forty miles away. Another girl was taken, raped and murdered…”

  There was a ripple of anger and dismay around the room. A man called out somewhere in protest.

  “Of course you are angry!” Peter agreed. “No, it isn’t a nice subject to raise at Christmas. It isn’t nice to raise it at all. But that crime was never solved either. Are we going to choose Christmas to tell her parents not to spoil our enjoyment by saying they still hurt? And it still matters!”

  The vicar pulled at Peter’s sleeve and Peter ignored him.

  “Constable Harris!” Peter went on, staring at the retired constable. “You thought, twenty-five years ago in Brocklehurst, that Owen Durward was guilty. But Mrs. Johnson told you that he could not be, because she could swear to his whereabouts at the time.”

  Constable Harris nodded.

  Everyone turned to stare at him.

  He moved forward, pushing people aside to stand next to Peter.

  “That’s right,” he agreed, facing the crowd. “She believed he was innocent, and she was prepared to lie to save him. And she’s told me since then that she was foolish enough to flirt with him. He threatened to tell not only her husband, but the whole village, that it had been far more than a mere flirtation. He was the town doctor. He would have been believed. He would tell things about her that only a lover, or a doctor, would know.”

  Now there were calls of outrage from a few people, but they were immediately silenced by others. Many turned to look at Mrs. Johnson, and she stood, scarlet-faced, tears in her eyes, but she did not deny it.

  Rowena pushed her way through the crowd until she stood on the other side of Peter.

  “I know how she feels,” she said, her voice wobbling but heard quite clearly, at least by those closest to her. “Because I made the same mistake.
I let Dr. Durward do the same thing to me, and I behaved foolishly. I was not intimate with him…” She clearly found the words difficult to say, and her face was burning with color. “He rebuffed what he thought was an advance. It wasn’t! But I found him dangerous, and so also attractive. And I was ashamed of that. He played on my embarrassment, and told my husband. Or at least that is what he said to me. He even said that it was the reason Cullen changed his mind about acting as his lawyer”—she swallowed and almost choked—“that my husband would not defend him because I had so clearly found him compellingly attractive.”

  There was now a considerable noise in the gathered throng.

  Surprisingly, for a woman so obviously humiliated, Rowena raised her voice above them.

  “That was not the reason! My grandson, Peter, discovered that my husband went to Brocklehurst the day before he resigned from the case. He learned about the other murder, of Mary Catherwood, which in every particular was the same as Christina’s. She too was taken, violated, and then killed. Owen Durward was suspected, but a married woman, who he had said was attracted to him, foolishly, embarrassingly so, prevented his being charged. Just as it looked as if my action had prevented my husband from continuing to defend him. The following day, Cullen was murdered and the question was raised that it was I who had killed him, because of my…my ill-judged behavior with Durward.”

  Peter put his arm around Rowena and hugged her quickly, then let her go. “We could not stop it before,” he said loudly, looking directly at Owen Durward. “But if it happens again, and it will, then we will be to blame, because we did not stop it now. Durward has been tried and found not guilty of killing Christina Abbott, so he cannot be tried again, whatever proof we find. But he was never charged with killing Mary Catherwood. The law will forget some crimes, after a long enough time has passed, but never the rape and murder of a child! Neither will we forget!”