A Christmas Visitor (7 page)

She did not speak of Nathaniel’s death, and neither Henry nor Ephraim asked, each waiting for the other to broach the subject of death, and break the news to her. They had half an hour’s truce with death while she described travel and adventure, hardship made the best of, and they found themselves laughing.

“I brought a gift for Joshua,” she said with a smile
that held a trace of self-mockery. “I think I chose it because I like it myself rather than because he will, but I didn’t mean it to be so. I like to give people things I would keep.”

“What is it?” Henry asked with genuine interest. What would this most unusual woman have brought, to go with Benjamin’s scripture in its carved and perfumed case, and Ephraim’s royal necklace of ivory and gold?

“An hourglass,” she replied. “A memento mori, I suppose you would call it. A reminder of death—and the infinite value of life. It is made of crystal and set with semiprecious stones of the desert. The sand that runs through it is red, from the valleys that look like fire.”

“It sounds perfect.” Henry meant it. “We spend too much of our lives dreaming of the past or the future. There is a sense in which the present is all we have, and we cannot hold it dearly enough. It sounds like a gift of both beauty and memory, like the other gifts he has been brought.”

“You think so?” She seemed to care for his opinion.

If Ephraim was not going to tell her, then he must.

“I do. But before we reach the village, I am afraid there is hard news we have to share.”

“What is it?” She saw that it was serious and the light vanished from her face.

Briefly he told her about Judah’s death and Ashton Gower’s accusations.

She listened very gravely, and spoke only when he had finished, by which time they were less than a mile from the house.

“What are we going to do about it?” she asked, looking first at Henry, then at Ephraim. “This man must be silenced from slander, and if he is in any way responsible for Judah’s death, then we must see that he answers for it! Apart from justice, Antonia and Joshua are not safe unless he is imprisoned again, and his words shown as lies.”

This time it was Ephraim who answered. “We have to prove he was there,” he said grimly. “It isn’t going to be easy because he will have made sure he told no one, and no one else would be out at such a place at night.”

“Why else would Judah go out there in the snow at night, except to meet somebody?” she asked.

There was no answer, and they were approaching the drive gates.

The next hour was taken up in the emotion of arrival and welcome, exchanges of concern, of grief, and of a depth of understanding between the two women, who had both experienced widowhood while still so young. Although they had known each other only briefly, and that several years ago, there was an ease in their communication as if friendship were natural.

They resumed the conversation in the late afternoon over tea by the fire with scones, hinberry jam, and slices of ginger cake, baked with spices and rich molasses from the West Indies.

This time Antonia joined in. “The more I think of it, the more certain I am that he intended to meet someone,” she said gravely. “I hadn’t remembered before, but he took out his pocket watch several times in order to check the time. I thought then that it was to see how long the recital had been, but he would not do that more than once.”

“The difficulty will be to prove that it was Gower,” Benjamin pointed out. “It is not the easiest place for them to meet, and frankly, a ridiculous time.”

“But Judah was there!” Antonia argued. “However absurd it is, it is the truth.”

“There is still something we do not know,” Henry insisted. “Either something important, or that we have misunderstood, and it is not what it seems.”

Ephraim’s face set hard. “Well, two things I am sure of: Judah would not have done anything unjust or dishonest; and the other is that Ashton Gower is a convicted forger, driven by hate and the passion for revenge on the family who legitimately bought his estate. Judah is dead, and Gower is alive and slandering his name.”

“None of that is at issue,” Benjamin agreed. “The problem is to prove it.” He turned to Antonia. “What was Judah wearing that night?”

She looked puzzled. “It was an evening recital. We were all dressed quite formally.”

“He didn’t change before he went out afterwards?”

“No.” She bit her lip. “I assumed he simply wanted
to walk a little after sitting in the hall all evening, and in the carriage on the way back. Why? How can that help?”

“I don’t know,” Benjamin admitted. “But there is no point in trying to find anything on the ground where it happened. All marks or prints will have disappeared long ago. His clothes will have been kept safely. I thought there might be something, a tear, even a note of a meeting, anything at all …” He tailed off, losing belief in the hope as he spoke.

“There could be a note,” Henry said, rising to his feet. “Sometimes things remain dry inside a pocket. If anything at all is legible, it might help. Let us at least look.”

“Of course,” Antonia agreed, standing also. “I didn’t know what else to do with them. I couldn’t bring myself even to clean them …” She gave a brief, tight little smile. “Maybe it is for the best?”

They followed her up the stairs and across the landing to Judah’s dressing room. Henry found it disturbing to go into a dead man’s private space, see his hairbrushes and collar studs set out on the tallboy,
cuff links in boxes, shoes and boots on their racks. His razor was set beside an empty bowl and ewer in front of the looking glass in which he must have seen his face so many times.

He glanced quickly at Benjamin, and saw reflected in his expression exactly the emotions he felt himself, the grief, the slight embarrassment as if they had intruded when Judah was no longer capable of stopping them. It was uncomfortable for reasons he had not expected.

In Antonia he saw only the pain of her loneliness. She must have been in here many times before.

Ephraim, several years younger than Judah, carried his loss inside him, concealed as much as he was able. His face was tight, muscles pulling his mouth into a thinner line, eyes avoiding others.

Naomi put her arm around Antonia. She had perhaps done exactly this same grim task, and knew how it felt.

It was left to Henry to go to the top of the chest of drawers where the dark suit was folded, dry and stiff from river water and heavy traces of sand and silt.

He opened the jacket and looked at it carefully. It had been little worn, perhaps no more than a year or two old, and made of excellent quality wool. It was beautiful cloth, probably from the fleeces of Lakeland sheep, but the label inside was that of a Liverpool tailor. It told him nothing at all, except the taste of the man who had worn it, which he already knew.

Then he looked in the pockets one by one. He found a handkerchief, stained by water, but still folded, so probably otherwise clean. There were two business cards, a shirt maker in Penrith and a saddler in Kendal. In the wallet there were papers, some of which looked like receipts, but were too smudged to read, a treasury note for five pounds—a lot of money; not that anyone had assumed robbery. The last item was a penknife with a mother-of-pearl handle set with a silver, initialed shield. Presumably any coins would be in his trouser pockets. Henry was about to look when Antonia’s voice stopped him.

“What’s that?” she said sharply. “The knife?”

He held it up. “This? A penknife. He would have one, to sharpen a quill.” It was a very usual thing to
carry. He did not understand the strain and disbelief in her face.

“That one!” she exclaimed, holding out her hand.

He passed it to her.

She turned it over, her eyes wide, her skin bleached of color.

“What is it, Antonia?” Benjamin asked. “Why does it matter? Isn’t it Judah’s?”

“Yes.” She looked at each of them in turn. “He lost it the day before he died.” The words seemed to catch in her throat.

Benjamin frowned. “Well, he must have found it again. It’s easy enough to misplace something so small.”

“Where did he lose it?” Henry asked her.

“That’s what I mean.” She stared at him. “In the stream. He was bending over and it fell out of his pocket. He searched for it, we both did, but we couldn’t find it again.”

Ephraim said what Henry was thinking. “Maybe that’s why he went back the night he died.” It was obvious in his face and his voice that he loathed admitting
it, but honesty compelled him. “It’s a very nice knife. And it has his initials on it. Perhaps it was a gift, and he cared very much about losing it.”

“I gave it to him,” Antonia said. “But he didn’t lose it at the stones where he was found.” She had to stop a moment to struggle for control of her voice.

There was utter silence in the small dressing room. No one moved. No one asked.

“It was by the bridge a mile and a half farther down. The two stones set across the water above it.”

“Farther down!” Benjamin was incredulous. “That doesn’t make any sense. It …” He did not say it.

Henry knew what they were all thinking. It was in their faces as it was in his mind. Bodies do not wash upstream, only down.

“Are you absolutely certain?” he said quietly.

“Yes.”

It was the proof they needed. Judah had been moved after he was dead, and left where it looked as if he had fallen accidentally.

“Are there any sharp rocks at the lower bridge where he lost the knife?” Henry pressed.

“No! Just water, deep … and gravel.” Antonia closed her eyes. “He was murdered … wasn’t he?”

Henry looked at Benjamin, then at Ephraim, then at last back at Antonia.

“Yes. I can think of no other explanation.” He felt stunned by the reality of it. Judah’s death had made no sense and they had all been convinced that Ashton Gower was capable of murder. Henry had believed it himself. But it was still different now that it was no longer theoretical but something from which there was no escape.

“What are we going to do?” Naomi asked. “How do we prove that it was Gower? Where do we begin?”

Ephraim put his hand up and pushed his hair back slowly off his brow. His eyes were unfocused, staring at something within himself.

Benjamin looked at Antonia, then at Henry. There was horror in his eyes and a deep, painful confusion. Death had hurt him, as he had expected it would, as
Nathaniel’s death had, but hatred and murder were apart from all he had known. They looked to Henry because he was older. He had an inner calm that concealed his emotions, and he did not betray the pain or the ignorance inside him. He had come to terms with it long ago.

“Tomorrow, when it’s light,” he replied. “We should go to the place where Judah lost the knife, and therefore found it, and see if we can learn anything. We can at least see how long it would take anyone to carry a body from there, upstream to the place he was found, and then go back to the village. If we follow in the steps of whoever did it, we may learn something about them.”

“Yes,” Benjamin agreed. “That’s where we should begin. In the morning.”

They set out together after breakfast. The light was glittering sharp, the lake gray, with silver shadows
like strokes from a giant brush. Underfoot the ice crackled with every step, hung in bright strands from the branches of every tree. The wind drifted ragged clouds, tearing them high, like mares’ tails.

They set out walking, Henry and Benjamin ahead, Ephraim alone after them, Antonia and Naomi last, high leather boots keeping their feet dry. No amount of care could keep their skirts from being sodden by the loose snow.

The route to the lower crossing was actually easier. They stood on the bank and stared at the wild, almost colorless landscape. Everything was black rocks, shining water, and bleached snow. Of course it would be possible to fall off the stones, but if one did, it would be far from any jagged edges. There were no rocks, no race or fall to cause the injuries Judah had suffered. The bottom of the stream here was pebbles and larger, smooth stones.

“That proves it,” Ephraim said grimly. “He couldn’t have fallen accidentally and hit his head here. Someone killed him, and then carried or
dragged him upstream to where he was found.” He looked along the bank as he said it, and everyone else’s eyes followed his.

“How?” Benjamin asked the obvious question. The ground rose sharply, and a hundred yards away there was a copse of trees straddling both sides. There was no path, not even a sheep track. “How could anyone carry a grown man’s body along there, let alone a big man like Judah?”

“On a horse,” Naomi said quickly. “That’s the only possible way. It’s steep, rough, and uphill.” She looked at Antonia. “A horse would leave marks in the snow, at both places. We can’t find out now about this place, but Wiggins would remember if there were prints of a horse’s hooves where Judah was found.”

“There was nothing,” Ephraim answered for her. “I asked, because I wanted to prove that he went there to meet someone.”

“Did it snow any more on that night to fill them in?” Benjamin asked.

“No.” This time it was Antonia who spoke. “If there were no prints, then there can’t have been anyone
else there. You can’t walk on snow without leaving a mark, whoever you are.” There was pain in her voice, as if a vestige of sense had been snatched from her just when she had thought she understood.