No Graves As Yet wwi-1 Page 12

  Joseph dreaded meeting them. He knew Mary’s grief would be wild and savage. She would feel all the pent-up, wounding rage that he did. The comforting words that she had said so sincerely to him at his parents’ funeral would mean nothing repeated back to her now, just as they had meant nothing to him at the time.

  Because he was afraid of the encounter, he went straightaway, within minutes of their car pulling up at the front gate on St. John’s Street. He saw Mitchell taking them solemnly through the first quad and the second toward the master’s house. Joseph met them a dozen yards from the front door.

  Mary was dressed in black, her skirt stained with dust at the hem, her hat wide, shading her veiled face. Beside her, Gerald looked like a man struggling to stand the morning after a drunken binge. His skin was pasty, his eyes bloodshot. He took a moment or two to recognize Joseph, then lurched toward him, momentarily seeming to forget his wife.

  “Reavley! Thank God you’re here! What happened? I don’t understand—it doesn’t make sense! Nobody would . . .” He tailed off helplessly, not knowing what else he meant to say. He wanted help, anyone who would tell him it was not true and release him from a grief he could not bear.

  Joseph gripped Gerald’s hand and steadied his other arm, taking some of his weight as he staggered. “We don’t know what happened,” he said firmly. “It seems to have been around half past five this morning, and the best thing I can say at the moment is that it was very quick, a couple of seconds, if that. He didn’t suffer.”

  Mary was in front of him, her black eyes blazing even through her veil. “Is that supposed to comfort me?” she demanded, her voice hoarse. “He’s dead! Sebastian’s dead!”

  Her passion was too fierce for Joseph to touch, and yet he was standing here in the middle of the quad in the July sun trying to find words that would be something more than a statement of his own futility. Where was the fire of his faith when he needed it? Anyone could believe on a calm Sunday in a church pew, when life was whole and safe. Faith is real only when there is nothing else between you and the abyss, an unseen thread strong enough to hold the world.

  “I know he’s dead, Mary,” he answered her. “I can’t tell you why or how. I don’t know who did it, or whether they meant to or not. We may learn everything except the reason, but it will take time.”

  “It’s the reason I want!” Her voice shook with fury. “Why Sebastian? He was . . . beautiful!”

  He knew what she meant, not only his face but the brilliance of his mind, the strength of his dreams. “Yes, he was,” he agreed.

  “So why has your God let some stupid, worthless . . .” She could not think of a word big enough to carry her hatred. “Destroy him?” she spat. “Tell me why, Reverend Reavley!”

  “I don’t know. Did you think I would be able to tell you? I’m just as human as you are, just as much in need of learning faith, walking with trust, not—”

  “Trust in what?” Her thin, black-gloved hand sliced the air. “A God who takes everything from me and lets evil destroy good?”

  “Nothing destroys good,” he said, wondering if it was true. “If good were never threatened, and even beaten sometimes, then there would be no good, because it would eventually become no more than wisdom, self-interest. If—”

  She turned away from him impatiently, snatching her arm back as if he had been holding her, and stalked over the grass toward Connie Thyer, standing at the doorway of the master’s house.

  “I’m sorry,” Gerald muttered helplessly. “She’s taking it . . . I . . . I really . . .”

  “It’s all right.” Joseph stopped his fumbling embarrassment. It was painful to see and he wanted it ended for both their sakes. “I understand. You had better go and be with her. She needs you.”

  “No, she doesn’t,” Gerald said with an instant’s extraordinary bitterness. Then he caught himself, blushed, and walked away after her.

  Joseph started back toward the first quad and was almost there when he saw the second woman, also veiled and in black. She was apparently lost, looking through the arch tentatively. She seemed young, from the grace of her posture, yet there was a dignity and natural assurance to her suggesting that in other circumstances she would have been very much in command of herself.

  “May I help you?” Joseph asked, startled to see her. He could not imagine what she could be doing here in St. John’s, or why Mitchell had ever let her in.

  She came forward with relief. “Thank you. That is very kind of you, Mr. . . . ?”

  “Reavley, Joseph Reavley,” he introduced himself. “You seem uncertain which way to go. Where is it you wish to be?”

  “The master’s house,” she replied. “I believe his name is Mr. Aidan Thyer. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, but I am afraid he is engaged at present, and likely to be for some considerable time. An unexpected event has changed everyone’s arrangements.” There was no need to tell her of the tragedy. “I shall convey any message to him when he is free, and perhaps you can make an appointment to call at another time?”

  She stood even straighter. “I am aware of the events, Mr. Reavley. You are referring to the death this morning of Sebastian Allard. My name is Regina Coopersmith. I was his fiancée.”

  Joseph stared at her as if she had spoken in an alien language. It was not possible! How could Sebastian, the passionate idealist, the scholar whose mind danced to the music of language, have fallen in love and contracted himself to marriage, yet never even mentioned it?

  Joseph looked at Regina Coopersmith, knowing he should be offering her some sympathy, but his mind refused to accept what she had said.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Coopersmith,” he said awkwardly. “I didn’t know.” He must add something. This superficially composed young woman had lost the man she loved, and in the most appalling circumstances. “I’m deeply sorry for your bereavement.” He knew how it felt to face that gulf of loneliness suddenly, without any warning at all. One day one had everything; the next day it was gone.

  “Thank you,” she replied with the ghost of a smile.

  “May I accompany you to the master’s house? It is through there.” He gestured behind him. “I expect the porter has your bags?”

  “Yes, thank you. That would be most courteous.”

  Joseph turned and walked with the young woman back into the sunlight and along the path. He glanced sideways at her. Her veil hid only part of her face; her mouth and chin were clearly visible. Her features were strong, but pleasant rather than pretty. She had dignity, resolve, but it was not a face of passion. What had made Sebastian fall in love with her? Could she have been Mary Allard’s choice for her son, rather than his own? Perhaps she had money and good connections with county families? She would give Sebastian the security and the background he would need for a career in poetry or philosophy, which might not immediately provide such things itself.

  Or perhaps there were whole areas of Sebastian’s nature about which Joseph had been entirely ignorant.

  The midday sun was hot and sharp, casting the shadows with hard edges, like the cutting realities of knowledge.

  CHAPTER

  FIVE

  In a quiet house on Marchmont Street, a man who liked to be known by those he trusted as “the Peacemaker” stood near the mantel shelf in his upstairs sitting room and stared with unconcealed fury at the rigid figure opposite him.

  “You searched his office and found nothing!” he said between his gritted teeth.

  “Nothing of any interest to us,” the other man replied. He spoke English with complete ease, but without colloquialisms. “They concerned things with which we already know. The document was not there.”

  “Well, it wasn’t in the Reavley house,” the Peacemaker said bitterly. “That was searched thoroughly.”

  “Was it?” the other asked skeptically. “When?”

  “During the funeral,” the Peacemaker replied, a dangerous temper audible in his voice. He did not like being challenged, particularly by someon
e considerably his junior in rank. It was only his respect for his cousin that made him tolerate this man to the degree he did. He was, after all, his cousin’s ally.

  “Well, you have the copy Reavley was carrying,” the man pointed out. “I’ll follow the son. If he knows where it is, I’ll find it.”

  The Peacemaker stood elegantly, looking as if he were at ease to anyone who glanced only casually. More careful scrutiny would have revealed tension in his body so great the fabric of his jacket was straining across his shoulders and his knuckles were white.

  “There is no time,” he said in a hard, level voice. “Events will not wait. If you can’t see that, you’re a fool! We must use it within the next few days, or it will be too late.”

  “One copy—”

  “I have to have both! I can hardly offer him one!”

  “I’ll get another,” the man offered.

  The Peacemaker’s face was white. “You can’t!”

  The other man straightened as if to leave immediately. “I’ll go back tonight.”

  “It won’t help.” The Peacemaker held up his hand. “The kaiser is in a rage. You’ll get nothing. You might even lose what we have.” It was spoken with the unmistakable tone of a command.

  The other man breathed in and out slowly several times, but he did not argue. There was anger in his face, and frustration, but it was not with the man known as the Peacemaker; it was with the circumstances he was forced to accept.

  “You dealt with the other matter?” the Peacemaker asked, his voice little more than a whisper. There was pain in his face.

  “Yes,” the man replied.

  “How did he get hold of it, anyway?” the Peacemaker asked, sharp frown lines between his brows.

  “He was the one who wrote it,” the other man answered.

  “Wrote?” The demand was peremptory.

  “Such things have to be written by hand,” the man explained. “It’s the law.”

  “Damn!” the Peacemaker swore, just one word, but it carried a weight of passion, as if it were torn out of him with physical pain. He bent forward a little, his shoulders high, his muscles tight. “It shouldn’t have happened this way! We shouldn’t have let it! Reavley was a good man, the sort we need alive!”

  “Can’t be helped,” the other explained with resignation.

  “It should have been!” the Peacemaker grated, hard bitterness undisguised. “We’ve got to do better.”

  The other man flinched a little. “We’ll try.”

  Late on Saturday afternoon Matthew drove from London back to St. Giles. It had been an unpleasant day, not from any cause that he had expected, such as news from Ireland or the Balkans, but from an increasingly immediate domestic problem. A bomb had been found in a church in the heart of Westminster, with the fuse lit. Apparently it had been the work of a group of women who were agitating in increasingly violent ways to be given the right to vote.

  Fortunately no one had been hurt, but the possibility of destruction was deeply disturbing. It had meant Matthew had been drawn from his investigation of Blunden and the political weapons that might have been used against him. Instead he had been busy all day with increasing the security in London itself, and had had to ask Shearing for permission to leave, which would not ordinarily have been the case on a weekend.

  His sense of exhilaration as he drove out of the heat and enclosure of the city was like an escape from captivity. He felt almost intoxicated as the Sunbeam Talbot accelerated on the open road.

  The weather was fine, another golden evening with great puffball clouds piling up in the east, with the sun blazing on them till they drifted like white galleons in the shimmering air, sails full set to the horizon. Beneath them the fields were already ripe with harvest.

  The light deepened across the broader skies of the fenland, almost motionless in the amber of sunset.

  Matthew drove into St. Giles, along the main street past the shining millpond, and turned along the road to the house. Mrs. Appleton met him at the front door and her face lit with pleasure.

  “Oh, Mr. Matthew, it’s good you’re here. An’ you’ll be staying?” She stepped back to allow him in, just as Judith came down the stairs, having heard the crunch of car tires on the gravel.

  Judith ran down the last couple of steps, Henry at her heels, his tail aloft. She threw her arms around Matthew, giving him a quick, fierce hug. Then she pulled back and looked at him more carefully.

  “Yes, of course I’m staying,” he said to Mrs. Appleton over Judith’s shoulder. “At least until lunchtime tomorrow.”

  “Is that all?” Judith demanded. “It’s Saturday evening now! Do they expect you to work all the time?”

  He did not bother to argue. It was a discussion they had had before, and they were unlikely to agree. Matthew had a passion for his work that Judith would probably never understand. If there was anything that fired her will and her imagination enough to give all of herself to it, then she had not yet discovered what it was.

  Matthew acknowledged the dog, then followed her into the familiar sitting room with its comfortable furniture and slightly worn carpet, colors muted by time. As soon as the door was closed, Judith asked him if he had discovered anything.

  “No,” he said patiently, reclining in the big chair that had been his father’s. He was self-conscious about sitting in it. He had always taken it when his father was not there, but now it seemed like a statement of ownership. Yet to have sat somewhere else would have been awkward also, a break with habit that was absurd, another difference from the past that had no purpose.

  She watched him, a tiny frown on her face.

  “I suppose you are trying?” There was a flash of challenge in her eyes.

  “That’s part of why I came up this weekend . . . and to see you, of course. Have you heard from Joseph?”

  “A couple of letters. Have you?”

  “Not since he went back.” He looked at her, trying to read her feelings from her expression. She sat a little sideways on the couch, with her feet tucked up, the way Alys had criticized and told her was unladylike. Was she as much in control as she looked, with her hair swept back from her calm brow, her smooth cheeks, and her wide, vulnerable mouth?

  Or was the emotion bottled up inside her, too raw to touch, but eating away at her will? She was the one of them who was still living here in the house. How often did she come down the stairs and find herself startled that there was no one to greet her except Mrs. Appleton? Did she hear the silence, the missing voices, the footsteps? Did she imagine the familiar touch, the smell of pipe tobacco, the closed study door to indicate that John must not be interrupted? Did she listen for the sound of Alys singing to herself as she arranged flowers and did the dozens of other small things that showed someone in the house loved it?

  He could escape. His life was the same as before, except for the occasional telephone call and the visits home. The difference was all inside. It was knowledge he could set aside when he needed to.

  It would be like that for Hannah also, and for Joseph. He was worried about them as well, but differently. Hannah had Archie to comfort her and her children to need her and fill her time.

  Joseph was different. Since Eleanor’s death something within him had retreated from emotions to hide in reason. Matthew had grown up with Joseph, who was seven years older and always seeming cleverer, wiser, and quicker. He had imagined he would catch up, but now in adulthood he began to think that perhaps Joseph had an intellect of extraordinary power. Understanding for which other people labored came to him with ease. He could climb on wings of thought into regions most people only imagined.

  But Joseph also retreated from the realities of certain kinds of pain, and in the last year he had escaped more completely. In fleeting, unguarded moments, Matthew had seen this remoteness in his brother’s eyes.

  Judith was watching him, waiting for him to continue.

  “I’ve been pretty busy lately,” he said finally. “Everyone’s preoccupied
with Ireland, and of course with the Balkan business.”

  “Ireland I can understand, but why the Balkans?” She raised her eyebrows. “It hasn’t anything to do with us. Serbia is miles away—the other side of Italy, for heaven’s sake. It’s a pretty revolting thought, but won’t the Austrians just go in and take whatever they want in reparation, and punish the people responsible? Isn’t that what usually happens with revolutions—either they succeed and overthrow the government, or they get suppressed? Well, anyone who thinks a couple of Serbian assassins are going to overthrow the Austro-Hungarian Empire has to be crazy.” She shifted her feet around the other way and settled further into the cushions.

  Henry got up from where he had been lying and rearranged himself closer to her.

  “It’s not they who would do it,” Matthew said quietly.

  “Who, then?” She frowned. “I thought it was just a few lunatic young men. Is that not true?”

  “It seems as if it was,” he agreed. “War is just the last in a chain of events that could happen . . . but almost certainly someone will step in with enough sense to stop it. The bankers, if no one else. War would be far too expensive!”

  She looked at him very levelly, her gray-blue eyes unflinching. “So why did you mention it?”

  He forced himself to smile. “I wish I hadn’t. I just wanted you to know I’m not making excuses. I don’t know where to begin. I thought I’d go over and see Robert Isenham tomorrow. I expect he’ll be at church—I’ll see him afterward.”

  “Sunday lunch?” she said with surprise. “He won’t thank you a lot for that! What do you want to ask him?”

  He smiled and shook his head. “Nothing so blunt as that. You wouldn’t make a detective, would you!”

  Her face tightened a little. “What do you think he knows?”

  Matthew became serious again. “Maybe nothing, but if Father confided anything at all, it would probably be to Isenham. He might even have mentioned where he was going or whom he was expecting to see. I don’t know where to start, other than going through everyone he knew.”