A Christmas Return Page 4

  “Perhaps I should put it differently. She will try with me. She wouldn’t dare to with you.” Then he gave a sudden, charming smile and opened the door. “I shall tell her you are staying. You have come to stand beside her, for old times’ sake. Loyalty in times of trouble, and all that. She’ll be enormously grateful, Mrs. Ellison. I think it’s going to be a very great deal of trouble.” His smile vanished completely, and he left, closing the door quietly.

  Mariah sat alone for some time. The footman came in and added a few more coals to the fire, along with a log of apple wood from the pile at the side of the hearth. She thanked him. She knew that she must wait until Peter had persuaded Rowena to participate in the battle. Mariah could not help. She would be too blunt, and maybe make Rowena withdraw altogether. Then it might take days, even weeks to change her mind. That would be too late. Durward would have made his case—and won.

  She hated that man with a fierceness that drowned her. He had not only killed Cullen, he was determined now also to ruin all that was left of him, his family and his reputation. Why? For his own survival? And perhaps the need to destroy a man so much better than he was himself?

  She understood hate and anger you could not control. She had no desire to remember herself being the victim of uncontrolled anger. The scars on her body faded with every passing year. But were there scars on her soul? That lay within her own control, at least at some point. Wasn’t that what Christmas was supposed to be about, really? Trees, cards, ornaments, pictures, even gifts, were all trivialities added on top, sometimes so much that the real gift was lost. It was about healing, forgiveness.

  She remembered some curate giving a sermon, a long-necked young man with a ridiculous name, like “Chicken” or something of the sort. She had been young herself then. He had reminded his listeners, passionately, that forgiveness meant having all past wrongs lifted from you, all debt, all stain, all guilt. It also meant forgiving those who had offended you, or perhaps more difficult, offended those you loved. And it did not depend in the slightest upon whether you believed they were sorry or not.

  She had wanted to argue with him. Now in her old age, she understood.

  Usually sermons were boring, something to be endured with as much grace as possible. But there were a few, a very few, that remained in the mind all life long.

  She must defend Rowena, and to a degree Peter, but not out of hatred for that miserable wretch Durward. Of course, if it turned out Durward was guilty, that was another matter!

  The footman came and removed the dishes.

  “I would suggest a walk, ma’am,” he remarked conversationally. “But the wind is bitter.”

  “Thank you,” she said absently. “I am awaiting Mr. Peter’s news of how Mrs. Wesley is.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Ellison. He informed me so. He asked me to have the spare room made up for you. Shall I send the gig to fetch your baggage from the inn?”

  She had packed her belongings in hope, then felt she was tempting fate. But she had left them as they were, neatly, with cases closed, because she was impatient to be on her way.

  “Thank you,” she accepted. “That would be most agreeable.”

  Peter eventually returned looking weary, but pleased with himself.

  “She is up and ready to receive you,” he told her. “If you don’t mind my saying so, I think you should avail yourself of the opportunity, just in case she changes her mind. She’s very…hurt by all of this.” His face tightened, as if he could feel the pain himself. “Many people who used to be friends have turned against her. She’s terribly isolated here. I come when I can, but it isn’t so often. She won’t leave, because Cullen is buried in the village graveyard. And this was his house, and where they were so happy. She doesn’t have the strength to start again in some new area where she knows nobody.” He shrugged. “Sometimes village gossip stays in its own place, but it only needs one person to travel; stay with a friend or a relative, and the whole thing spreads and starts over.” He gave a very slight smile. “And she wants to run away sometimes, but it passes. Why should she? This is her house, her garden that she’s loved and tended for fifty years. Most of it is actually her creation.”

  Mariah stood up, waving away the hand he offered to help her. “And why on earth should she let those beasts drive her out of her home?” she challenged. “It only looks easier to run away sometimes. It isn’t, really. And anyway, after the filthy newspapers have raked up the whole thing again, where would she go? Ireland? America?” She did not bother to wait for an answer. It was not really a question.

  He reached the door before her, in time to open it, then followed her along the hall and up the wide, shallow stairs without speaking again.

  Rowena’s bedroom was where it had always been, at the back of the house overlooking the garden, which had grown up and matured in the last twenty years, and was even more beautiful. The elm trees now shaded the lawn, or would, when they had leaves again.

  Rowena was sitting on the large bed, wearing a house gown of gentle colors, like a pile of fallen petals. She had always been a pretty woman. Her hair was still thick and waving softly, but the color had faded out of it, as it had from her face. Even though she had no more lines or wrinkles than Mariah, she looked older. The fatigue and fear ran deep inside her, too real to hide.

  “Good morning, Rowena,” Mariah said, and sat down on the chair by the side of the bed, very possibly where Peter had sat when he persuaded her to face the battle. “I am sorry it has taken me this long to visit you.” She had decided to get the apology over immediately. There was no purpose in mentioning that Rowena had not visited her either. It was all beside the point now. “But I will not leave until this business is over,” she added. It was good to give a promise. It would prevent her from leaving, no matter how hard it might become.

  “There is no reason why you should stay for this,” Rowena said quietly. Even with the stress, she had not lost the music in her voice, but she could not make the effort to smile.

  Mariah gave a little grunt, unaware of it until she heard her own voice in the stillness of the room. “Shall we consider that all the politenesses have been offered, and reach the point? Cullen was not a perfect man, but he was an extremely good one, and I don’t believe he ever stooped to a lie. Perhaps most importantly, he was ours—your family and my friend. This piece of vermin must not be allowed to soil his name. And he must not be allowed to soil yours either.” She made an effort to put a lift in her voice. “He did not expect a fight, but he most certainly will get one. We have nothing left to lose, except our honor if we do not try.”

  Rowena blushed and her eyes filled with tears. “My memories…”

  “He is not going to take your memories!” Mariah said tartly. “Unless you let him! What he will take is Cullen’s good name in this village, which was his home. And he’ll take yours too. You don’t need to be ashamed to show your face in the streets of your own village.” Her anger was evident now; her tone had a bite to it.

  Rowena shuddered. “I’m not a fighter like you, Mariah…”

  “You don’t have to be like me,” Mariah rejoined. “I think one of me is probably more than sufficient for most people. We will fight in an orderly manner, with intelligence and strength of will.” She was telling herself this as much as she was telling Rowena.

  Rowena looked away. “I don’t know what we can do. We cannot stop the man from trying to clear his name…and…” She trailed off into silence again.

  “And you are frightened of him,” Mariah finished for her, but gently, not with the sting of contempt she might have had even a year ago.

  Peter looked at her with pain in his face.

  Rowena turned away so only her profile was visible, a tear sliding down her cheek.

  It was time for the truth, Mariah’s own truth. She could not expect Rowena to face the terror inside her if she believed Mariah held her in contempt and had no understanding of her pain. Even this morning she had not thought it possible to speak o
ut, but now she saw that to speak a little of it, but not of the darkest secrets—never those!—was the only course of action. She took a deep breath.

  “I know what it is to be frightened,” she said quietly. She even considered reaching out to touch Rowena’s hand on the flowered coverlet, but that was too far outside the character she had always shown. Mariah clenched her own hands, below the level of the bed, where no one else could see them. It must be done.

  “I was terrified of my husband,” she said very quietly, avoiding looking at Rowena. “And too ashamed to tell anyone. I lived with it all my married life. The only time I ever fought back, he beat me so hard I never did it again. I allowed him to destroy everything in me that was good.”

  Rowena was too stunned to speak.

  It was Peter who interrupted her.

  “Much, perhaps,” he said softly. “But certainly not everything. And you will help us beat Owen Durward.” He hesitated. “Would it be too melodramatic to say that you have been to the edge and looked over? You will help us from falling in.”

  Ridiculously, Mariah felt tears sting her own eyes. She really must pull herself together!

  She could not answer him, or look into his face. The young man was robbing her of the cast-iron temper that had protected her from pity all her life.

  “We must assemble our facts and consider what needs to be done,” she said as calmly as she could. “Durward was charged and went to trial, so there must have been considerable evidence against him. Why was he ever suspected?” She turned to Rowena. “I don’t suppose Cullen told you any details, but you must have been aware of at least some of the evidence. It happened here in the village. Neither Peter nor I were here at the time, but you were. What do you know?”

  “I…I can’t really remember,” Rowena said hesitantly.

  Peter cut in before Mariah could. “You can try, Grandmother,” he urged. “We have to do this. The girl’s name was Christina Abbott. Her father was an architect. She was fourteen at that time.”

  “We all know that,” Rowena said hopelessly. “She disappeared late one afternoon. She had been doing some homework and when she finished it, she went to visit a friend. Mary…something. Mary Wade! She never got there.”

  “Where was her house, and where was Mary Wade’s house?” Mariah asked. If Rowena gave her the street names, she could still picture the village clearly enough to imagine which way the girl had walked.

  “Christina lived on Woodend Road to the west, and Mary about two doors beyond the church, to the east,” Rowena replied.

  Mariah thought for a moment. “Then she would have passed through the middle of the village, and passed your house here, and then the doctor’s surgery and his house on the west side, before getting to Mary’s house, or the church. How far did she get? Someone must have seen her!”

  “No one saw her after she passed here,” Rowena said quietly. “We are half a mile from the church, or less.”

  “Why was Durward suspected?” Mariah persisted. “Think back. The investigation happened here. There must have been questions. Talk?”

  Rowena thought for a moment. “She knew him,” she said slowly. “He was her doctor, of course. And she was ill every now and then, as everyone is.”

  “Was she pretty?” Mariah asked. “Friendly? Would she have trusted him?”

  “I think we…we all did.” Rowena frowned, trying to recall. “He was the village doctor, after all. And, yes…” Her voice grew a little unsteady. “She was pretty. I suppose most young girls are, in their own way, but she was prettier than most. She was graceful…she had beautiful hair…”

  “Was Durward the only doctor?” Mariah pressed.

  “After old Dr. McVeigh retired, yes, he was. Only for a while. But at that time, yes.”

  “Didn’t her mother go with her to the doctor’s?”

  “Yes, but if Christina met him in the street, for example, she would trust him.” Rowena’s voice was full of pain and regret. “She was not a foolish girl. She would not have trusted just anyone.”

  “Grandmother, how long was she missing?” Peter asked. “And where did they find her?” Now his voice was rough-edged too. It was clear that he found it difficult to ask.

  Rowena closed her eyes and her hand fumbled on the bedclothes as she tried to grasp on to something, finally knotting her fingers around a piece of the quilt.

  Mariah wondered whether to touch her or not. Perhaps she should not interrupt?

  “She was gone nearly a week before they found her,” Rowena answered in a voice tight with tension, almost hoarse. “In the copse of trees up by Benson’s farm. The police said she had been horribly violated, that she must have been dead most of that time. Four or five days, at the very least.”

  Peter sat silently.

  Even Mariah could think of nothing to say for several moments. She tried to imagine it and felt rage and pity choke her. She could not bear to think of it, and yet she must. Only pain was sharp enough to drive her forward.

  “Somebody did that to her!” Mariah responded, the emotion in her voice unmistakable. She had no power to disguise it. “Either Durward, or someone else. Whoever it was, he has never been caught. He is still out there, and who knows what he is doing now?”

  “Don’t say that!” Rowena shouted, suddenly strident.

  “Of course, a different culprit could be dead by now,” Mariah went on. “But Durward isn’t. He’s very much alive. Do you want him living back here in Haslemere?”

  “Don’t say that!” This time it was a whisper.

  “Whether I say it or not, it’s still true.” Mariah knew the matter had to be settled now, or it would remain with them all their lives. “We stop him here, or not at all.” She turned to Peter. “There must have been a reason the police arrested Durward and charged him. Have we found out any of that? Someone saw him near there, or he said something that was suspicious? Someone saw him with her? He had blood on his clothes? Scars or scratches he couldn’t account for? They wouldn’t arrest the local doctor without a very good cause.”

  Peter looked uncomfortable. “I did ask. I knew it would come up when some wretched reporter tracked me down; knew my name was Peter Wesley. I only found what was given in evidence at the trial, and of course it was all argued, contested, thrown into doubt. It had to have been, because he got off.”

  “Well, tell us anything you learned!” Mariah demanded. “We need to know what was said, and how it was ruled out, or explained away.”

  Peter looked at Rowena. “I’ll tell you downstairs. Grandmother doesn’t have to hear this.”

  Mariah did not move. “Yes, she does. She may know if it was true or not. And she may know how Cullen planned to get around it.” She looked at Rowena. “When Cullen took on the case, did he believe Durward was innocent?”

  Rowena’s face was white. “I’m not certain.” She hesitated. “He told us he believed the evidence was all circumstantial, whatever that means, but he certainly believed Durward should be defended honestly, and with all the skill he could bring to it. It was a very terrible crime…” She closed her eyes. “He could not tell me the details, but he said that if Durward was found guilty, he would unquestionably be hanged.” She gulped and swallowed. “He felt very strongly that one…that all of us…must be absolutely certain the charge, in all its details, was correct. He said it was better that a guilty man should go free than an innocent man should be hanged. I argued with him. I think it was because I knew Christina, and her family.” She raised her hand from the quilt, and then dropped it again. “I know that isn’t reasonable, or fair, and he told me that had nothing to do with it.” She looked at Mariah. “You knew Cullen. Do you think that made him all the more determined to defend Durward, because I could not have? I…I suppose I wanted him got rid of. I wanted Cullen to refuse to represent him!”

  Mariah knew what Rowena meant. Cullen would do it on principle. He would have stood up for the person no one else would defend. Rowena knew it too, which was why
she was now asking.

  “No, Grandmother,” Peter said, looking from one to the other of them. “You mustn’t blame yourself.”

  “Peter is right,” Mariah replied. “He might have thought the scales were tipped unfairly against Durward. Once you’ve hanged a man, it doesn’t matter how sorry you are, or how deeply you acknowledge your mistake, if there was one, you can’t get him back. I know he didn’t like hanging anyway, but this was a capital case…” As she said it, the memories of their discussion flooded her mind. It had been here, in this house, in the sitting room downstairs. Rowena had gone to bed. Mariah and Cullen had remained, talking by the fireside. It was winter, like this, and it was cold and dark beyond the richly curtained windows.

  They had talked about law and justice and the differences between them, about mistakes, honest or not, and miscarriages of justice that had ruined lives. She could hear his voice and see his face in the firelight, so alive with the passion of his beliefs. He was a beautiful man, not in the outward sense of perfect features, but inwardly, with his compassion, his intense love of fairness, his delight in loveliness of every sort, from the logic of mathematics to the touch of a kitten’s body as it purred to the sound of a violin in the hands of a master.

  If Durward had killed Cullen, would Mariah be happy to see him hanged for it? That was a subject she could not face at the moment. Thank God it was not her choice. She could be a detective, passionate to uncover the truth and prove it—but never a juror.

  But if Durward was here bent on ruining Cullen’s or Rowena’s reputation, then Mariah would fight against him with whatever weapons her hand could grasp.

  “And do we know why he refused to continue the case?” Peter said softly, looking first at Rowena, then at Mariah.

  “No,” Rowena replied. “I asked him. But he refused to speak of it. He said it would be unethical for him.”

  “Could it have been personal?” Peter could not yet let it go.

  “Cullen? No, never!” Rowena said fiercely, a flush of pink up her cheeks. “He defended many people he did not like at all. Sometimes they were guilty, but there were circumstances that made it less terrible than it looked. He always said that he was their advocate, never their judge.”