Brunswick Gardens (11 page)

Dominic felt as if he had swallowed ice. There was a bitterness in Ramsay he had never seen unmasked before, a depth of confusion which was more than mere tiredness or the shock of death and accusation, a fear far older and more familiar than anything this day had brought. It was the loss of inner belief, the core of hope that lies deeper than reason. For the first time he was touched by the possibility that Ramsay really could have killed Unity. It no longer seemed beyond the realm of the thinkable that she had assaulted his faith one time too many, and his loss had escaped his control and he had lashed out, she had slipped, overbalanced, and the next moment she had pitched down the stairs to lie dead at the bottom. It was a hideous mischance. They could have quarreled a hundred times and even physically struck each other without any serious injury done.
Perhaps in the innocence of his intent Ramsay had not realized that it was at the very least a manslaughter—and the end of his career.

But it was still a far cry from murder.

How could Dominic begin to help? What could he say to reach Ramsay’s despair?

“You taught me that faith is a thing of the spirit, of trust, not knowledge,” he began.

“It was what I believed at the time,” Ramsay retorted with a dry laugh. He looked very directly at Dominic. “Now I am terrified, and all the faith on earth is not going to help. That wretched policeman seems to think that Unity was pushed, and that is murder.” He leaned forward earnestly. “I did not push her, Dominic. I never left the room until after she was dead. I cannot imagine any of the servants did …”

“They didn’t,” Dominic agreed. “They were all accounted for and in sight of someone else, or performing duties they could prove.”

Ramsay stared at him. “Then it could only be one of my family … or you. And both thoughts are dreadful. Faith may be gone, a dream from which I have awoken, but kindness is real, help to another person in their distress will always be precious and good and lasting. You are my one real success, Dominic. When I think I have failed, I remember you, and I know I have not.”

Dominic was hideously uncomfortable. He had wanted to speak honestly to Ramsay, to brush aside the usual politeness and trivialities with which real emotion was hidden, and now that it had happened he did not know how to face it. Such naked hunger for comfort embarrassed him; it was personal, a debt between them. Ramsay had given his hand and pulled Dominic out of the morass of his despair, a morass of his own making. Now Ramsay needed the same help, needed to know he had succeeded, that Dominic was what he wished him to be. And he was afraid Dominic had killed Unity Bellwood.

And he would know why!

“And Mallory is my son,” Ramsay went on. “How can I bear to believe it was he?”

Should Dominic remind him it was his name, or to be exact his title, that she cried out … not “Dominic,” not “Mallory.” The words came to his lips, and then he could not say them. It was futile. He had not killed her. If Ramsay had not, it left only Mallory … or the impossible … Clarice! No one else could have.

“There must be something they have not thought of,” he said miserably. “If … if there is anything I can do to help, please allow me to. Any duties …”

“Thank you,” Ramsay said quickly. “I think perhaps in the circumstances it is right for you to make the funeral arrangements. You might begin that tomorrow. I imagine it will be very quiet. She had no family, I understand.”

“No … no, I believe not …” It was ridiculous. They were sitting in a quiet study with its books and papers and the fire flickering in the hearth, making civilized remarks about the details for the funeral of a woman they each believed the other might have killed.

Except that Dominic found himself believing more and more wretchedly that Ramsay simply refused to recognize what had happened. He was still in a state of shock, with death, with the physical reality of it, and with the spiritual reality of what he had done.

Tomorrow it might be very different. He might wake to the knowledge and the fear of all the terrible consequences which would follow. Dominic knew the suspicion, the close, crushing terrors which would haunt the house until the truth was known. He had seen it all before, lived through it, the relationships that crumble, the old wounds recalled, the ugly thoughts that would not be dismissed, the trust eaten away day by day.

It was hard to remember that there had also been new friendships
gained, honor and kindness where he had not looked to find it. At the moment there was only the breaking apart.

Ramsay was giving instructions for the conduct of the funeral, and Dominic had not heard a word of it.

3

C
HARLOTTE PITT WAS
relaxing in the parlor with her feet up on the sewing stool, the fire pleasantly warm and a most enthralling novel in her hands, when she heard the front door open and close. She put down the book with something close to reluctance, even though she was pleased to hear Pitt return. She had been right in the middle of a dramatic scene between two lovers.

Jemima raced downstairs in her nightgown calling out “Papa! Papa!”

Charlotte smiled and went to the door. Daniel, retaining his masculine dignity, was coming down slowly, grinning.

“You are early,” Charlotte observed as Pitt kissed her, then turned his attention temporarily to the children. Jemima was telling him excitedly about a lesson she had learned on Queen Elizabeth and the Spanish Armada. Daniel, at the same time, was trying to explain about steam engines and a wonderful train he wanted to see, and better still, to ride on. He had even learned the fare, and his face was bright with hope.

It was nearly an hour before Pitt was alone with Charlotte and could tell her the extraordinary news of the events in Brunswick Gardens.

“Do you really think the Reverend Parmenter lost his temper
completely and pushed her down the stairs?” she asked with surprise. “Can it be proved?”

“I don’t know.” He stretched out further, balancing his feet on the fender. It was his favorite position. His slippers were scorched every winter. She was always buying new ones.

“Could she have fallen?” she asked. “People do fall downstairs … sometimes.”

“They don’t shout out ‘No, no!’ and someone’s name if they slip,” he pointed out. “And there was nothing there to trip over. The stairs are black wood, no carpet or stair rods to be loose.”

“One could trip over a skirt, if the hem were down …” she said thoughtfully. “Was it?”

“No. I looked at that. It was perfect.”

“Or even one’s own feet,” she went on. “Were the shoes all right? Nothing loose or broken, no wobbly heels or loose laces? I’ve tripped over my own feet before now.”

“No wobbly heels or laces at all,” he said with a slight smile. “Only a dark stain, which Tellman says comes from something spilled in the conservatory, and that means Mallory Parmenter lied about having seen her this morning.”

“Perhaps he was out of the conservatory for some reason for those few moments?” she suggested. “She went in, but she missed seeing him.”

“No, he wasn’t, or he would have trodden in the same thing when he went out,” he reasoned. “And he hadn’t. Tellman checked for that, too.”

“Does that mean anything?” she asked.

“Probably not, except that he was frightened and told a stupid lie. He didn’t know she called out.”

“Could she have called out ‘No, no,’ to one person and called the Reverend to help her?” she said quickly. “I mean ‘No, no!’ and then his name to call him to come to her?”

He sat up a little, his attention sharpening. “Possibly … just possibly. I shall at least hold it in mind. He admits quarreling with her very badly, but he swears he did not leave the study.”

“Why would Mallory want to kill her? The same reason?”

“No … he’s very dedicated to his calling, at least he appears so, but he has no doubts.” He stared into the fire, watching as the coals settled. He would have to put more on in a few minutes. “It seems from the little I know so far as if Parmenter was very troubled in his faith, and it was Unity Bellwood’s intellectual challenge to religion which angered him. Mallory seems to have no such conflict.”

“Well, who else is there?”

He pursed his lips and stared back at her; she could not read the expression in his eyes. They were bright and gray, and very clear.

“Who is there?” she repeated, a shiver of apprehension running through her.

“One of the daughters who disliked Unity, but not a great deal, so far as I know … and the curate.”

She dismissed the daughter. She knew him well enough to be certain it was the curate who was on his mind.

“Goon!”

He hesitated for a moment, as if unsure how to tell her. He drew in his breath and let it out slowly. “The curate is Dominic Corde …”

For just an instant, gone again before it was there, she thought he was making a bad joke, then she knew he was serious. There was a furrow between his brows that was only there when something troubled him and he did not understand it.

“Dominic! Our Dominic?” she said.

“I had never thought of him as ‘ours,’ but I suppose you could say so,” he agreed. “He has taken the cloth … can you imagine it?”

“Dominic has?” It did not seem possible. With a wave of memory so sharp it was as if it had carried her physically back ten years, she recalled being in her parents’ home in Cater Street, her mother’s exasperation because she would not behave
appropriately and encourage suitable young men. She could not imagine loving anyone but Dominic then. She had cared for Sarah, of course, but been painfully jealous of her as well. Then Sarah had been killed, and the whole world had been thrown into turmoil. Dominic had shown his weaknesses. In the space of a week he had fallen from an idol of gold to one of clay. Disillusion had been bitter indeed, mixed as it was with grief and fear.

In the end she had learned to love Pitt, not as a dream or an ideal but as a real man, human, exasperating at times, fallible, challenging, but with a courage and honesty Dominic had never had. And for Dominic she had learned a friendship rooted in tolerance and a certain kindness. But Dominic giving his life to religion! That was beyond her power to imagine.

“Dominic is a curate in Reverend Parmenter’s house?” Her voice rose, her disbelief still sharp.

“Yes,” he replied, watching her carefully, searching her face. “Dominic is the other person who could conceivably have killed Unity Bellwood.”

“He couldn’t!” she said instantly.

A shadow crossed his eyes. “Probably not,” he agreed. “But someone did.”

She sat silently, trying to think of another explanation, something that would make sense of the little she knew, that would not sound silly and defensive when she said it, but nothing came. Pitt leaned forward and put more coal on the fire. Eventually, after twenty minutes with no sound but the ticking of the clock, the flames and settling of coal in the fire, and the wind splattering rain in gusts onto the window, she spoke about something else. Her sister Emily was on the Grand Tour, and her letters from Italy were full of anecdotes and descriptions. She told him about the latest, written from Naples and including vivid descriptions of the bay, of Vesuvius, and of her trip to Herculaneum.