yet.”
“But they have courage,” Joseph said quickly. “And they care—intensely!”
Beecher looked at his hands on the table. “Of course they do. Good God, if the young don’t care, there isn’t much hope for the rest of us! But they’re still selfish at times. More, I think, than you want to believe.”
“I know! But it’s innocent,” Joseph argued, leaning forward a little. “Their generosity is just as powerful, and their idealism. They are discovering the world and it’s desperately precious to them! Right now they are frightened they’re going to lose it. What can I tell them?” he pleaded. “How can I make that fear bearable?”
“You can’t.” Beecher shook his head. “You can’t carry the world, and you’d only rip a muscle trying—and still probably drop it. Leave it to Atlas!” He pushed his chair back and stood up. “Do you want another cider?” And without waiting for an answer, he took Joseph’s glass as well and walked away.
Joseph sat surrounded by murmuring voices, the clink of glass, and the occasional burst of laughter, and he felt alone. He had never realized before that Beecher did not like Sebastian. It was not only the dismissive words; it was the coldness in his face as he said them. Joseph felt distanced by it, cut off from a warmth he had expected.
He did not stay long after that, but excused himself and walked slowly back through the near darkness to St. John’s.
Joseph was tired, but he did not sleep well. He rose a little before six and dressed in old clothes, then went outside and down to the river. It was a breathless morning; even the topmost leaves of the trees were still against the blue of the sky. The clear, pale light was so sharp every blade of grass shone with the dew, and there was no mark at all on the shining surface of the water.
He untied one of the small boats and got into it, unlashed the oars, and rowed out past Trinity and on eastward into the spreading light, feeling the warmth on his back. He threw his weight into it, pulling steadily. The rhythm was soothing, and he picked up speed all the way to the Mathematical Bridge before turning to come back. His mind was empty of every thought but the sheer physical pleasure of the effort.
He was back in his rooms, stripped to the waist and shaving, when there was an urgent, almost hysterical banging on his door. He padded over barefoot and opened it wide.
Elwyn Allard was standing on the threshold, his face contorted, his hair flopped over his brow, his right hand raised in a fist ready to hammer on the closed wood again.
“Elwyn!” Joseph was horrified. “Whatever’s happened? Come in.” He stepped back to make room for him. “You look terrible. What is it?”
Elwyn’s body was shuddering. He gasped for breath and started speaking twice before managing to get the words out coherently.
“Sebastian’s been shot! He’s dead! I’m sure he’s dead. You’ve got to help!”
It took a moment for Joseph to absorb the meaning of the words.
“Help me!” Elwyn begged. He was leaning on the doorpost, needing it to support himself.
“Of course.” Joseph reached for his dressing gown from the back of the door and ignored his slippers. To think of bothering with clothes would have been ridiculous. Elwyn must be wrong. There might be time to salvage something—everything. Sebastian was probably ill, or . . . or what? Elwyn had said he had been shot. People did not shoot each other in Cambridge. Nobody had guns! It was unthinkable.
He ran down the steps behind Elwyn and across the silent courtyard, the dew on the grass nearly dry except where the buildings shadowed it. They went in at another door, and Elwyn started to scramble up the stairs, lurching from side to side. At the top he turned right and at the second door hurled his shoulder at it as if he could not turn the handle, although his hands grasped after it.
Joseph passed him and opened it properly.
The curtains were drawn back and the scene was bathed in the hard, clear light of the early sun. Sebastian sat in his chair, leaning back a little. The low table beside him was spread with books, not littered but lying carefully piled on top of each other in a neat stack, here and there a slip of paper in to mark a place. One book was open in his lap and his hands, slender and strong, brown from the sun, lay loosely on top of it. His head was fallen back, his face perfectly calm, no fear or pain in it. There were a couple of deep scratches on one of them. His eyes were closed. His fair hair seemed barely disturbed. He could have been asleep but for the scarlet wound on his right temple and the blood splattered on the chair arm and floor beyond from the gaping hole at the other side. Elwyn was right. With an injury like that, Sebastian had to be dead.
Joseph went over to the young man, as if even the futile gesture of help were in some way still necessary. Then he stood still, the cold seeping through his body as he stared in sick dismay at the third person he had cared for shatteringly destroyed within the space of two weeks. It was as if he had awakened from one nightmare only to plunge into another.
He reached down and touched Sebastian’s cheek. It was colder than life but not yet chill.
A choked gasp from Elwyn tore Joseph out of his stupor. With an intense effort he submerged his own horror and turned to look at the younger man. He was ashen-skinned, the sweat standing out on his lip and brow, his eyes hollow with shock. His whole body trembled, and his breath came raggedly as he struggled to retain some control.
“There’s nothing you can do to help him,” Joseph said, surprised at how steady his voice sounded in the silence of the room. There was still no one down in the quad, no feet on the stairs outside. “Go and fetch the porter.”
Elwyn stood still. “Who . . . who could have done this?” he said, gulping air. “Who would . . . ?” He stopped, his eyes filling with tears.
“I don’t know. But we must find out,” Joseph replied. There was no gun in Sebastian’s hand, nor did one lie on the floor where it would have slipped from his fingers. “Go and fetch the porter,” he repeated. “Don’t speak to anyone else.” He glanced around the room. His mind was beginning to regain some clarity. The clock on the mantel said three minutes to seven. They were one floor up from the ground. The windows were closed and locked, every pane whole. Nothing was forced or broken, nor had the door any marks on it. Already the hideous knowledge was on the edge of Joseph’s mind: This had been done by someone inside the college, someone Sebastian knew, and he must have let the person in.
“Yes,” Elwyn said obediently. “Yes . . .” Then he turned on his heel and stumbled out, leaving the door open behind him, and Joseph heard his feet loud and clumsy going down.
Joseph went over and closed the door, then turned and stared at Sebastian. His face was peaceful but very tired, as though he had at last shed some terrible burden and allowed sleep to overtake him. Whoever had stood there with a gun in his hand, Sebastian had not had time to realize what he was going to do, or perhaps to believe that he meant it.
Pain was too crippling for anger yet. His mind could not accept it. Who would do such a thing? And why?
Young men were intense, just at the beginning of life and everything was larger to them, more acute: first real love, the brink of ambition realized, triumph and heartbreak so sharp, the power of dreams incalculable, the soaring mind tasting the joy of flight. Passion of all kinds was coming into its own, but violence was only the occasional fistfight, a brawl when someone had had too much to drink.
This had a darkness to it that was alien to everything Joseph knew and loved of Cambridge, to the whole of life here and all it meant. Like a blow, he remembered what Sebastian had said about the heart being changed by war, the beauty and the light of it being destroyed by those who did not understand. It was as if he had in those brief words written his own epitaph.
The door opened behind him, and he turned to see the porter standing in the entrance, his hair ruffled and his face puckered with alarm. He glanced at Joseph, then stared past him at Sebastian, and the color drained from his skin. A gagging sound issued from his throat.
“Mitchell, will you please lock the room here, then take Mr. Allard”—he nodded to indicate Elwyn, a couple of steps behind him on the landing—“and get him a cup of hot tea with a good stiff drop of brandy. Look after him.” He took a shivering breath. “We’ll have to call the police, so no one else should go up or down this stair, for the time being. Will you tell the other gentlemen who use this way to remain in their rooms until informed otherwise. Tell them there’s been an accident. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Dr. Reavley . . . I . . .” Mitchell was a good man who had served at St. John’s for over twenty years and was up to meeting most crises appropriately—from drunken brawls and the odd dislocated or broken bone to the
