Brunswick Gardens (10 page)

He did not interrupt her. She needed to say it and not be argued with. And in truth, he was horribly afraid she might be at least partly right. Certainly she was the only person who
grieved for Unity rather than for the situation. He would not offend her, nor demean himself, by trying to say otherwise.

She gulped.

“You didn’t know what it was like for her!” It was an accusation, and she stared at him challengingly, her blue eyes bright and hard through the tears. “You don’t know how hard she had to fight to be allowed to learn, to be accepted, or what courage it took. It’s all so easy for you. You’re a man, and no one tells you you are not meant to have any intelligence.” She sniffed fiercely. “People don’t conspire silently to keep you out, looks and nods, unspoken agreements. You simply have no conception.” She was thoroughly angry now through her misery. “Unity made trouble,” she went on. “She showed you some of your own prejudices, the fear and oppression you exercise without even knowing it.” Her hands clenched. “You are so convinced you are righteous sometimes I could hit you! In your heart you are all glad she’s gone, because she asked questions and made you feel uncomfortable. She’d have forced you to look at yourselves, and you wouldn’t like what you’d see— because you’d see hypocrites. God! I’ve never felt so alone!”

“I’m sorry,” he said with as much sincerity as he could. He thought she was wildly wrong; she seemed to have caught Unity’s passions as if they were a contagion. But her feeling was real, of that he had no doubt at all, and it was that he addressed. “I can see that you do mourn her more honestly than the rest of us. Perhaps you will be able to carry on her ideas and beliefs?”

“Me?” She looked startled, but then not entirely displeased. “I’m not fit to. I haven’t any education except to sew and paint and to manage a household.” Her face twisted with disgust. “Given a good housekeeper and a good cook, of course. Clarice was the one who studied … theology, of all the useless pursuits for a girl. I think she only did it to please Father and to show she was cleverer than Mallory.”

“Didn’t you learn French at school?”

“I had a French governess for a while. Yes, of course I speak French. But that’s no use, for heaven’s sake! Nothing ancient or theological is written in French.” She still dismissed it.

“Wouldn’t any branch of learning do just as well in which to succeed and make the same point about women?”

Her eyes blazed. “Is that what I am supposed to do? Are you now going to tell me Unity’s death is all part of God’s plan, which we are meant to accept but not to understand? Will it all be explained to me when I get to heaven?”

“No, I wasn’t,” he said tartly. “You don’t want to hear it, and I don’t think it’s true anyway. I think Unity’s dying was a very human plan, and nothing whatever to do with God.”

“I thought God was all-powerful,” she said derisively. “Which means that all this”—she flung out her arm—“is His fault.”

“You mean like a puppet master, pulling everybody’s strings?” he enquired.

“I suppose so …”

“Why?”

She frowned at him. “What?”

“Why?” he repeated. “Why would He bother? It sounds like a very pointless exercise to me, and hideously lonely.”

“I don’t know why!” She was exasperated with him. Her voice rose high and sharp. “You’re the curate, not me. You’re the one who believes in God. Ask Him! Doesn’t He answer you?” She was angry, but there was a ring of triumph in her now. “Perhaps you aren’t speaking loudly enough?”

“That depends on how far away God is,” Clarice retorted, coming in through the door. “I could hear you halfway down the stairs.”

“What are you suggesting?” Tryphena asked her sister angrily. She resented the intrusion. “That God lives halfway down the stairs?”

“Hardly,” Clarice replied, her mouth twitching. “If He did, He could have stopped Unity from reaching the bottom, and
she’d only have sprained her ankle instead of breaking her neck.”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” Tryphena shouted, and turned on her heel and stormed out of the door at the farther side of the room, slamming the door so hard the pictures on the wall shook.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Clarice observed contritely. “I never know when to hold my tongue. I’m sorry.”

Dominic did not know what to say. He had thought he was used to Clarice’s irresponsible notion of humor, but he found he was not. Part of him wanted to laugh, as a release from grief and anxiety, but he knew it was utterly inappropriate—in fact, quite shocking. He was guilty for not disapproving more than he did.

“It was very wrong of you, Clarice,” he said sharply. “Most thoughtless. Poor Tryphena is grieving for a friend, not just shocked and afraid like the rest of us.”

Clarice winced, and the misery was plain in her face. She turned away from him.

“Yes, I know. I wish I could say I had liked Unity, but I didn’t. I’m terrified of what will happen to Father, and it makes me say things without thinking.” She took a deep breath. “No, it doesn’t. I did that anyway … and I am thinking. That’s just the way my mind is.” There was defiance in her now. She turned back and looked at him very directly. “I wonder if we are all meant to wear black for dinner? I suppose I had better. But I’m not wearing it for a year,” she added. “A week is good manners, a year is hypocrisy. I refuse to be a hypocrite. I’d better go and see if Braithwaite can find me something.” She shrugged and turned to walk away.

    Dinner was extremely difficult. Ramsay remained in his room, and whether he ate what was taken up for him or not, no one in the dining room knew. They sat around the long mahogany table in near silence. The servants brought the various courses and removed plates hardly touched. Vita tried to begin some trivial conversation, but no one assisted her.

“Cook will be insulted,” Tryphena observed, watching the dishes being taken away. “She thinks eating is the answer to any problem.”

“Well, not eating doesn’t help, except an upset stomach,” Clarice pointed out. “And other unmentionables. Being weak doesn’t make you any use. Nor does staying awake all night.”

“No one has stayed awake all night,” Mallory said patiently. “It only happened this morning. But if we do, it will be because we are too distressed and worried to sleep. God knows what is going to happen now.”

“Of course,” Clarice muttered.

“Of course what?” Mallory stared at her. “What do you know? What are you talking about? Did you hear something?”

“Of course God knows,” she explained with her mouth full of bread. “Isn’t He supposed to know everything?”

“Please!” Vita interrupted sharply. “Let us keep our ideas of God out of the dinner table conversation. I would have thought that subject had caused sufficient trouble for us all to be more than willing to leave it alone indefinitely.”

“I don’t know why we bother to try to talk at all.” Tryphena looked from one to the other of them. “We none of us know what to say, and we are all lost in our own thoughts anyway. We aren’t going to say anything we mean.”

“Because it is the civilized thing to do,” Vita replied firmly. “Something very dreadful has happened, but we are going to carry on with our lives with the courage and dignity we desire. And Tryphena, my dear, if you admire Unity as much as you seem to, you know she would be the last person to wish us to give in to our emotions. She had no time for self-indulgence.”

“Unless it was her own,” Clarice said under her breath. Dominic heard, but he hoped no one else had. He reached out sideways with one foot and kicked her sharply under the table.

She gasped as the toe of his shoe caught her ankle, but she knew better than to make any sound.

“Of course,” Dominic said aloud, “I shall be making the
usual calls on parishioners tomorrow. Are there any errands I can do for anyone?”

“Thank you,” Vita accepted. “I am sure there are several things. Perhaps if you go near the haberdasher’s you could get some black ribbon.”

“Yes, of course. How much?”

“I think a dozen yards, thank you.”

He tried to think of something else normal to say, but nothing came to mind. It all sounded stilted and callous. He was aware of Tryphena looking at him with loathing, and Mallory studiously avoiding saying anything at all. It seemed he and Vita must carry on the conversation to prevent the silence from becoming unbearable.

“I shall write the appropriate letters tomorrow,” Vita went on, looking across the table at him, her eyes wide. “I shall ask Ramsay, of course, but I think as things are he may consider it more suitable for you to find out what the formalities are.”

“We all know what the formalities are, Mother!” Mallory jerked his head up. “We were practically born in the church. We know church rituals—breakfast, luncheon and dinner!”

“Not with the church, Mallory,” she corrected. “With Superintendent Pitt.”

Mallory flushed dull red and said nothing, bending to concentrate on his food, although he ate hardly any of it.

This time the silence was beyond rescue. Vita looked across at Dominic, but with resignation.

    When he could decently escape, and knowing he could put it off no longer, Dominic left the dining room and went up to Ramsay’s study. If he hesitated he would lose his nerve. Surely if he had the calling he imagined, no situation should be beyond his ability to face it with honesty and a degree of kindness.

He knocked.

The answer was immediate. “Come in.”

Now he was committed. He opened the door.

Ramsay was sitting at his desk. He seemed almost relieved to recognize Dominic. Perhaps he had feared an encounter with one of his own family more.

“Come in, Dominic.” He waved towards one of the other chairs and marked the book he was reading with a loose piece of paper, then closed it. “It’s been a truly terrible day. How are you?”

Dominic sat down. It was difficult to begin. Ramsay was behaving as if there had been a simple domestic accident and Tryphena’s accusations were no more than the product of grief.

“I admit, I feel very distressed,” Dominic said frankly.

“Of course you do,” Ramsay agreed, frowning and fiddling with a pencil that lay between his hands on the desk. “Death is always a shock, especially of one so young and whom we all are accustomed to seeing daily. She was a very trying person, at times, but no one would have wished this upon her. I grieve that it happened so soon after I had quarreled with her.” He met Dominic’s gaze quite steadily. “It leaves me with a feeling of guilt because one cannot repair it. Foolish, I know.” His lips tightened. “My reason tells me not to feel such things, but the sadness remains.” He sighed. “I am afraid Tryphena is going to take it very badly. She had a great fondness for her. I did not approve of it, but there was nothing I could do.” He looked tired, as if he had been struggling for a long time and saw no end in sight, certainly no victory.

“Yes, she is.” Dominic nodded. “And she is very angry.”

“A common part of grief. It will pass.” Ramsay spoke with certainty, but of a flat, comfortless kind. There was no lift of hope in it for better times.

“I’m so sorry,” Dominic said impulsively. “I wish I could say something that would make sense of it, but all I can do is repeat what you said to me in my worst despair.” It still touched him deeply. “Take each day at a time, cling onto the faith of your own worth and build on it, no matter how slowly or how little each step. You cannot go backward. Have the courage to go forward
well. At the end of each day, praise yourself for that, and then let go … rest, and hope. Never let go of hope.”

Ramsay smiled bleakly, but his eyes were gentle. “Did I say that to you?”

“Yes … and I believed you, and it saved me.” Dominic remembered it only too vividly. It had been four years before. In some ways it was as sharp as yesterday, in others a world away, another life where he had changed from being one man to being another, totally different, with new dreams and new thoughts. He longed to be able to help Ramsay as Ramsay had helped him, to give back the gift now that it was so badly needed. He searched Ramsay’s face and saw no answering spark.

“I had a different sort of faith then,” Ramsay said, looking beyond Dominic as if he were talking to himself. “I have done a great deal of studying in the years since it became so spoken about I could no longer avoid it.” He shook his head a little. “At first, thirty years ago, when it was published, it was just the scientific theory of one man. Then gradually one began to realize how many other people accepted it. Now science seems to be everywhere, the origin and the answers to everything. There is no mystery left, only facts we don’t yet know. Above all, there is no one left to hope in beyond ourselves, nothing greater, wiser, or above all kinder.” He looked for an instant like a lost child who suddenly knows the full meaning of being alone.

Dominic felt it like a physical pain.

“I can admire the certainty all these old bishops and saints seem to have had,” Ramsay went on. “I can’t share it anymore, Dominic.” He sat oddly still for the emotions which must have been raging inside him. “The hurricane of Mr. Darwin’s sanity has blown it away like so much paper. His reasoning haunts my mind. During the day I look at all these books.” He waved his arm at them. “I read Saint Paul, Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas, and every theologian and apologist since. I can even go back to the original Aramaic or Greek, and for a little while I am fine. Then at night the cold voice of Charles Darwin comes
back, and the darkness engulfs all the candles I’ve lit during the day. I swear I would give anything I possess for him not to have been born!”

“If he hadn’t said these things, someone else would have,” Dominic pointed out as gently as he could. “It was a theory ripe for its time. And there is a thread of truth in it. Any farmer or gardener would tell you that. Old species die out, new ones are created, by accident, or purpose. That does not mean there is no God … only that He uses means that can be explained by science … at least in part. Why should God be unreasonable?”

Ramsay leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “I can see that you are trying very hard, Dominic, and I am grateful to you for it. But if the Bible is not true, we have no foundation, only dreams, wishes, stories that are beautiful, but eventually just fairy stories. We must go on preaching them, because the majority of people believe them—and more importantly than that, they need them.” He opened his eyes again. “But it is a hollow comfort, Dominic, and I find no joy in it. Maybe that is why I hated Unity Bellwood, because at least in that she was right, even if she was wrong in everything else, and utterly, devastatingly wrong in her morality.”