Brunswick Gardens Read online

  Vita was looking at him with frightened eyes. “As the policeman said, there is nothing up there to trip over.”

  He knew that was true. He had gone up and down those stairs hundreds of times.

  “It is something I would much rather not face,” she went on softly. “But if I run away, it will only make it worse in the end. My father—you would have liked my father, I think—he was a truly great man. He always used to teach me that lies get more dangerous every day. Every time you feed them by another lie, they grow bigger, until in the end they become bigger than you are, and consume you.” She looked down at last, and away from him. “And dearly as I love Ramsay, I must honor my own beliefs as well. Does that sound selfish and disloyal?”

  “Not at all,” he said quickly. She looked very fragile in the dappled light through the leaves. She was a smaller woman than she at first appeared. The strength of her personality sometimes made one forget. “Not at all,” he repeated with greater conviction. “No one has the right to expect you to lie about such a thing in order to protect him. We must do what we can to contain the damage, but that does not include denying either the law of the land or God’s law.” He was afraid he sounded pompous. He would have said the same words to a parishioner without a moment’s hesitation, but with someone he knew well, saw every day, it was different. And she was in every way senior to him; that she was older in years did not matter, but she was so much senior in the life of the church.

  He was startled by her reaction. She swung around and gazed at him with wide eyes, bright, almost as if he had offered her some real and tangible comfort.

  “Thank you,” she said sincerely. “You don’t know how much you have strengthened me with your conviction of what is right and true. I don’t feel as if I am alone, and that is the most important thing. I can bear anything if I do not have to do it alone.”

  “Of course you are not alone!” he assured her. In spite of the chill of shock inside him, and a strange tiredness, as if he had been up all night, with her words a kind of ease spread through him, an unraveling of long-knotted muscles. He would never have wished such a tragedy upon anyone, least of all upon the family who had given him so much, but to have the strength and the compassion to be of help to them was the core of the faith he believed and upon which he built his calling. “I shall be here all the time.”

  She smiled. “Thank you. Now I think I must compose my thoughts for a while …”

  “Of course,” he agreed quickly. “You would prefer to be alone.” And without waiting for her response, he turned and went back along the brick path to the hall. He was crossing towards the library when Mallory came out. As soon as he saw Dominic his face shadowed.

  “What have you been doing in the conservatory?” he said sharply. “What did you want?”

  “I wasn’t looking for you,” Dominic replied guardedly.

  “I would have thought you’d be seeing what you could do to help Father. After this, he’s barely going to be able to carry on with his pastoral care. Isn’t that what your duty is supposed to be?” The criticism was sharp and brittle in his voice.

  “My first care is in this house,” Dominic replied. “As yours is. I was speaking to Mrs. Parmenter, trying to reassure her that we would all support one another during this time …”

  “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 assisting 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, reassure 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 Godless 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 passage 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 God 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 passing 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 assure 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 stand
ards 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 God’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 bumped 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.
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  “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 documents 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 prickle of fear in the air around him. He remembered with a flush of embarrassment 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.