Put on the Armour of Light (14 page)

T
revor
let the others do the talking while he drove the carriage slowly down the streets lined with young elms that were stirring in the wind. Most of the houses were already in darkness. He dropped off Jackson and his girl in a flurry of umbrellas, leaving Maggie for last.

As they walked up the front steps of the Skene house, he held an umbrella over her, though it wasn't much help in the wind. Maggie could see her father nodding off over a newspaper in the parlour. She made to knock on the window to show that she was home but Trevor caught her hand and motioned her into the screened-in portion of the verandah where they were not visible from the window. Across the street the Hedlins' house loomed at them, stark in the momentary brightness.

“Maggie —”

“Shh! — one hundred, two one hundred, three — There it is,” she said, as the thunder cracked and then rumbled away.

“Don't shush me. I've been more than patient this evening.”

She thought he was joking, but then she saw his face.

“I'm sorry, Trev. There was such a lot going on at the dance.”

“My father was so keen on taking you through the promenade. Surprising.” He flicked rainwater off the sleeve of his coat. “What did you talk about?”

She felt her face flush. “Oh, you know. My studies and so on. He doesn't approve.”

“Did you tell him anything about me?”

“I think he was more interested in telling me to steer clear of you. At least I think that's what he was saying. Apparently he wants to protect you from the bluestockings of the world.”

“You didn't talk about me, then?”

“Don't you care what he said? Or do you share his opinions about educated women?” She punished her evening shawl by twisting it and throwing a fringed end over her shoulder. “And anyway, we hardly talked about you at all. After he asked if you were with me on the night of the murder he returned to the prospect of my eternal spinsterhood.”

He took his hat off with a gesture of frustration and shook the rain off it. “You think I should defend you? Shouldn't it be the other way around? You abandon me all evening, and then you pick this moment to exchange confidences about me with my father —”

“Trev, what are you talking about? I didn't abandon you. It was your father who practically insisted I walk with him. Why are you so upset? —” But he had already stalked down the stairs and up the walk. The thunder rolled again and the crowns of the young elms swayed back and forth with each new gust.

She didn't understand why this was happening. Trevor reached the boulevard and stopped, hands on hips, thinking and pacing with his hat held uselessly in his hand and the wind whipping the rain against his face. He turned and ran back up the walk and up the stairs.

“Trev —”

He pushed her gently back into the screened verandah. The kiss was both surprising and sweet — though his arms and shoulders and face were damp and his lips, as they pressed urgently into hers, felt cool. She wanted more of this but he went on to her eyes, her nose, her cheeks.

“I'm sorry,” he said, wrapping his arms tighter around her and whispering into her hair. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You couldn't know. You didn't do anything wrong and I'm an ass for taking it out on you.”

She broke away and searched his face for a long moment. She brushed the hair off his forehead. “I'd like to help you. Please let me.”

“I can't ask that of you, Maggie. I want to, but I can't ask that of anyone right now. I have to go.” He took the verandah stairs in one leap and the walk in three loose-limbed strides, pausing to run his hand down the horse's nose and steady it against the low rumbling of the thunder. Then he sprang up into the phaeton, shook the reins and the carriage moved off down the street.

Charles arrived back at the church with his suit damp but not soaked, having evaded the worst of the storm. So far the rain had been sparse enough that the wind had begun to dry it as soon as it hit the ground. There was worse not far off, as he could see by the undifferentiated flashes of brightness over to the west and by low grumbling, felt more than heard. There was no point in trying to settle in to sermon writing. Not yet, anyway. Too much had happened; half of his brain was still at the dance. He peeled off jacket, dickie, shirt, and undershirt and then reached for his work shirt, fresh from being laundered by the ever-faithful Mrs. Gough. As he pulled it over his head he savoured the feeling of it: soft, warm, and dry. Peter wasn't in their room. He had taken to working all hours and Charles would sometimes find him in the morning curled up in a blanket on the floor behind his drawing table. Charles walked down the hall in the direction of the sanctuary. When he opened it, there was Peter in his cocoon of light making templates for some mouldings.

“Must have been a good dance; you didn't leave after your chaperoning duties were finished.”

“As to that, the less said the better, but yes, yes. A fine dance, it made lots of money. Would you like a cup of tea?” Peter nodded and started to get up. “No, no. Stay where you are. I'll bring it through when it's ready.”

As Charles was waiting for the kettle to boil in the kitchen, he remembered his conversation with Setter. He put the tea things on a tray and backed through the sanctuary door with it. After they were a good way into the first cup, listening to the rain and watching the pointed windows pulsing with bluish light at long intervals, Charles stretched and sat back in his chair.

“I'd like to try something with you, if you'll let me. It's a technique for inducing a deep contemplative state. Very old. Used by some of the most ancient cloistered orders. It may even have been used by the desert fathers.”

“What's this? Dabbling in the black arts? Wouldn't your father call this ‘popish nonsense'?”

“My father long ago concluded that my soul is in peril, so leave him out of it. Think of this as a way inward. It might help you to recover some of your memories — you know — of that night.”

“Oh, come on, Charles.”

“Look, don't set your mind against it without giving it a chance. What harm can it do? If it doesn't work, you'll at least have a good sleep tonight.”

Peter sat back and sighed. “I suppose it's worth a try. Especially since you won't give me any peace until I say ‘yes.'”

Charles drummed his fingers on the drawing table. “That's the spirit.”

“Well then, what do I do?”

“Right. Are you comfortable? Good. Sit back in your chair. Close your eyes — now, tell your arms and legs to just be easy, easy and still.” He kept repeating soothing phrases while Peter concentrated on talking to his various appendages. “Now, think about some words that mean something to you. A short phrase or a sentence.”

“You mean, from the Bible?”

“That's what I use, but it could be something else. Something from a poem, say.” Charles reached over and turned down the coal oil lamps until all were off except one, which he turned down low so that they had only its dim orange glow in the surrounding darkness.

“This is ridiculous.”

“No it isn't. We're just trying to get into a contemplative state. Focus the mind by concentrating on a single thing. Clear out the rubbish.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I'm going to be your guide. I'll play Virgil to your Dante.”

Peter laughed. “Oh, no. Not encouraging. I hope we're not going anywhere warmish.”

“Stop stalling. Lean back. Relax.”

“Can I stop it whenever I want?” His face was suddenly that of a boy.

Charles leaned forward and brushed some saw dust off the table. “Yes. If you want to keep avoiding it.”

Silence. And then Peter nodded. “Let's go ahead, then.”

“Good. Good. Close your eyes again. Have you chosen your phrase?”

Peter thought for a moment. “Yes. All right.” He cleared his throat. “By the waters of Babylon, where we sat down, we wept when we remembered Zion.” He said it in a slight sing-song way, enjoying the rhythm in the phrases.

Charles was surprised, but pleased. “Yes, that will do nicely. Just keep repeating it to yourself slowly. Keep bringing it to mind. If it slips away just bring it gently back. And relax.”

Peter sat with his eyes closed, erect in his chair but still, his hands resting on the tops of his thighs. After some moments his breathing slowed.

“All right, I'm going to talk to you for a bit. The phrase is going to be there in the background, repeating itself while you're listening to me. You can bring it back to the foreground whenever you want. Are you feeling calm?”

“Mn hmm.”

“Good. Now, you're feeling perfectly calm and safe. Remember you used to tell me about lying beside the creek bed for hours on a summer day?”

“Uh huh.”

“How you used to watch all the little creatures in the stream?”

Peter nodded and the ghost of a smile crept over his face. His chest rose and fell slowly.

“Now, you're going to go back to that night and you're going to watch yourself just as if that other self were a strider bug or a tadpole in the creek.” Peter's mouth started working and his brows drew together. “Easy, easy now. Bring the phrase back and set it going again. That's right. You're safe here. Nothing can hurt you.”

The signs of unease slowly left Peter's face. His fingers relaxed where they had gripped his thighs.

“Now, you're watching yourself walk down Main Street. You're quite apart from what you see. Curious, but calm. Now you're in front of the Martland and Asseltine building. Tell me what you see.”

“Nothing much. More like feelings.” Peter's voice was thick, as if coming from a well. “Vague feeling of walking up the stairs. Mouldings on the stairway — always liked those — running my hand over them as I walked up.”

“What floor is the office on?”

“Third, I think, no — fourth.”

“All right, you're at the top of the stairs on the fourth floor.”

“No, nothing.”

“You're at the door to the outer office of Martland and Asseltine. Open it.”

“Nothing. I've been there before and I know the layout — but nothing from that night.”

“Describe the outer office.”

“A large open space behind a counter with desks and a big table for viewing blueprints. Wooden filing cabinets. A cabinet with cubbyholes to store rolled up blue prints and plans. Windows onto the street on the left. A fern that needs to be watered — dropping its leaves. But I wouldn't be able to see much of that.”

“Why?”

“The other times I went to see Asseltine at night the outer office was dark. Only the lights in his office were on — at the back. Asseltine to the left and Martland to the right. Wait! Something!”

“What?”

“Martland's door. ‘F.H. Martland'. I could see light inside through the etched glass.”

“What about Asseltine's office?”

“Dark, I think. Only Martland's office was lit.”

“Good. Good. Now, breathe easy. Just take a few deep breaths. Bring the phrase back.” Charles was trying to stay calm himself. He had to concentrate on making his voice even. “You're still safe here, remember. No. Keep your eyes closed. You're watching yourself, mildly curious, that's all. Nothing can harm you. You see the light on in Martland's office. Watch yourself walking toward the door.”

“I — I don't want to go in.”

“Why not?”

“I don't know. But I know I have to. I know I should.” Peter furrowed his brow and squinted with concentration. “Sounds, voices —”

“Whose voices? What are they saying?”

“Can't make out. Grunts. Things getting knocked over.”

“Are you in Martland's office now?”

“Um. I don't know. I don't think so. Still outside.”

“Are you one of the ones making those sounds? Are you in the fight?”

Peter's eyes were open. He was staring into the darkened sanctuary. “I don't think so. Charlie! I don't think I was.” He grabbed Charles's arm. “Damn. It's so vague. But I don't think I was!”

“N
o
, no, back up into the dining room. I have to get it around the corner.”

“I can't back up any more. My back's as backed up as it can get.”

Charles and Maggie were on opposite ends of the Skenes' parlour carpet, now rolled up and in a problematic transition between the hallway and the back door. Why Maggie had chosen this particular moment to beat the dust out of the carpet was still a mystery to Charles. Aunt Jessie had not said anything but he could tell she disapproved of such doings on the Sabbath. But the afternoon was fine after the storm, warm and sunny, and a person could do worse than spend a half hour beating the living daylights out of a carpet in the back yard where the honeysuckle bush was in full bloom. He had soothed Aunt Jessie by saying that he intended to discuss the texts for the vesper service with Maggie as they worked.

They laid the carpet down parallel to the clothesline and draped the first section over the line, which sagged noticeably but held. Charles took off his jacket and started rolling up his sleeves in a distracted fashion while Maggie began to fasten a long pinafore over her second-best Sunday dress. At lunch he had not said anything further to Maggie about what had happened at the dance but it became clear that she was not content to leave it at that.

“Why did you need to be so secretive about Mrs. Martland's portrait last night? It wasn't just to surprise Mr. Martland, was it?”

His first thought was to just palm her off with some vague story. But, somehow, when he looked at her straightening her pinafore, ready to do battle, he couldn't do that. He motioned her around to the other side of the carpet so that they were partly hidden from the house.

“The other day, when I was visiting Mrs. Martland?”

“Yes?”

“You remember I told you she seemed frightened. Well, there were some bruises on her face and I thought …”

“What?”

“I wasn't sure. That is, I could see that she'd been hurt and I suspected how, but I wasn't sure.” He dropped his voice slightly. “Now I'm sure.”

She was quite still. “It was him then.”

“Yes. And I suspect not for the first time, either.”

He told her how Rosetta Cliffe would take Agnes in and how he had offered to pick her up and take her to Rosetta's if only she would take that first step. He looked over at Maggie, who wore a look he couldn't interpret.

“Maggie?”

“Funny that I wasn't surprised. Sickened, but not surprised.”

“What do you mean?”

She sat down on the sun-bleached steps of the clothesline stoop and smoothed the folds of her pinafore.

“It was why I wanted particularly to talk to you. While you were at Mrs. Cliffe's booth last night I walked the promenade with Mr. Martland.”

“Yes, I was wondering about that.”

“At first he seemed so charming — I've hardly talked to him before — he asked me about my studies and — you know me. Never at a loss for words on that subject.”

“Yes?”

“He doesn't approve of girls taking higher education, but that wasn't it. That annoyed me, but I've certainly heard worse. It was more the way he said it … a feeling —”

“Did he say something hurtful?” All his protective instincts were engaged.

“No, no. At least, not on the surface. In fact he said he admired my determination. But he … he sneaked behind my defences. It wasn't fair. I thought we were having a pleasant conversation but all along — I realize now — he was just interested in whether I had serious designs on Trevor; he was just worming information out of me …”

There was that door again.
Charles was irresolute.

“And then Trevor was so strange after the dance.”

“In what way?”

“He was angry with me. I didn't give him my full attention at the dance but there was so much going on. I thought he'd understand, but he was angry. And he didn't want me to go on the promenade with his father. Charles, there's something really troubling Trevor. I think it has to do with his father, but he won't talk about it.”

“I don't wonder, with a father like Martland.”

“We have to help him. You have to talk to Trevor. He looks up to you. Couldn't you take him off for a brotherly chat?”

Of course he would have a brotherly chat with Trevor.
Handsome, rich and now, mysteriously suffering, Trevor
. He pushed that small stone of resentment around peevishly, trying not to acknowledge where it came from. And then he was thinking how that silly pinafore accentuated the slenderness of her waist and how extraordinarily well she looked with the sun on her hair, and how he would like to bury his face in its dark luxury. And then he was reciting Psalm 100 to himself, starting at the last verse and working backwards to the beginning, punctuating the inward recitation with resounding blows to the carpet. “… It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves …”

Later, when he was walking to Mrs. Gough's, he tried to discover what had changed or when it had changed. Wasn't his life focused, vital, charged with purpose? Right now it looked isolated, irrelevant, even a little pathetic — and lonely; that more than anything.

Mrs. Gough greeted him like the returning prodigal son and made him a cup of tea with some biscuits and jam. He paid her his rent for the month, drawing the bills from the section of his bill fold where he always placed his rent money on pay day. Then he took his second cup of tea upstairs to his rooms and sat in his reading chair. Everything was as before except for a little dust. He traced a line on the table beside his chair and found himself thinking of Maggie. What if she were there writing a letter at the desk? Or sitting beside him on a chesterfield. His arm would be around her. Perhaps she would be turned toward him, folded against him and resting her head, comfortably, easily, in the space between his chin and his shoulder. A butterfly seemed to be flying around inside his chest. He smiled absurdly. He laughed out loud. For a few minutes more he managed to keep this dear fantasy alive. And then down to earth.
I've got to get a grip on myself. Face facts
. He surveyed the second- and third-hand furniture of his worldly estate. How could she not be in love with Trevor?

But then the implications started seeping coldly into his brain. Marriage to Trevor would mean binding herself to that family. With Trevor caught in his father's magnetic field? A recipe for misery; she might even be in danger herself. There was Martland's strange behaviour to Maggie on the promenade. Something in his manner was threatening, unpredictable. He should counsel her against marrying Trevor, surely. He sighed. He might counsel away, but on this subject how much was his advice worth? Whichever way he turned in search of his duty to Trevor or to Maggie he found his own desires hiding like a little red devil in the long grass. There, too, was Jeremiah the prophet, wielding his pen of iron, cutting with his point of diamond, and saying, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?”

No blasted use. So, think of something else
. He looked at his desk, then wandered over and sat there, fingers drumming on the ink-stained blotter. When he tried to get something out of the centre drawer and found it locked, he remembered the mysterious package.
Yes, that's odd.
Charles backtracked mentally, reviewing the events of the last few days. First, he had received a package under mysterious circumstances and then shortly after that Eklund, a person he hardly knows, rummaged through his belongings and Peter's too. Just a coincidence? What if Eklund was the person who left the package for him? The figure that ran past him on Mrs. Gough's walk had been roughly Eklund's height and build. But no. If he had left the package, why didn't he just ask for it back? And why ever would Eklund choose him as its guardian? Perplexed, Charles fumbled for his keys in his pocket and unlocked the desk drawer. He took out the package, passing it back and forth from one hand to the other. Should he take it to the police? Was there a duty that overrode his duty to the unknown writer of the note? Should he open it? He fingered the abraded edge of the envelope where it had been scraped coming through the mail flap, then set the package down on the desk, took out his watch, looked at it, and hesitated one more time before returning the package to the drawer. It was almost time for him to meet Peter. He turned the key in the drawer lock and heard a metallic click as the small bolt shot home.