But Joseph also retreated from the realities of certain kinds of pain, and in the last year he had escaped more completely. In fleeting, unguarded moments, Matthew had seen this remoteness in his brother’s eyes.
Judith was watching him, waiting for him to continue.
“I’ve been pretty busy lately,” he said finally. “Everyone’s preoccupied with Ireland, and of course with the Balkan business.”
“Ireland I can understand, but why the Balkans?” She raised her eyebrows. “It hasn’t anything to do with us. Serbia is miles away—the other side of Italy, for heaven’s sake. It’s a pretty revolting thought, but won’t the Austrians just go in and take whatever they want in reparation, and punish the people responsible? Isn’t that what usually happens with revolutions—either they succeed and overthrow the government, or they get suppressed? Well, anyone who thinks a couple of Serbian assassins are going to overthrow the Austro-Hungarian Empire has to be crazy.” She shifted her feet around the other way and settled further into the cushions.
Henry got up from where he had been lying and rearranged himself closer to her.
“It’s not they who would do it,” Matthew said quietly.
“Who, then?” She frowned. “I thought it was just a few lunatic young men. Is that not true?”
“It seems as if it was,” he agreed. “War is just the last in a chain of events that could happen . . . but almost certainly someone will step in with enough sense to stop it. The bankers, if no one else. War would be far too expensive!”
She looked at him very levelly, her gray-blue eyes unflinching. “So why did you mention it?”
He forced himself to smile. “I wish I hadn’t. I just wanted you to know I’m not making excuses. I don’t know where to begin. I thought I’d go over and see Robert Isenham tomorrow. I expect he’ll be at church—I’ll see him afterward.”
“Sunday lunch?” she said with surprise. “He won’t thank you a lot for that! What do you want to ask him?”
He smiled and shook his head. “Nothing so blunt as that. You wouldn’t make a detective, would you!”
Her face tightened a little. “What do you think he knows?”
Matthew became serious again. “Maybe nothing, but if Father confided anything at all, it would probably be to Isenham. He might even have mentioned where he was going or whom he was expecting to see. I don’t know where to start, other than going through everyone he knew.”
“That could take forever.” She sat quite still, her face shadowed in thought. “What do you think it could be, Matthew? I mean . . . what would Father have known about? People who plot great conspiracies don’t leave documents lying around for anyone to find by chance.”
A chill touched him. For an instant he was not quite sure what it was, but the unpleasantness was certain. Then he saw it in her eyes, a fear she could not put words to.
“I know he didn’t find it by accident,” he answered her. “Unless it belonged to someone he knew very well . . .”
“Like Robert Isenham.” She finished the thought for him. “Be careful!” Now the fear was quite open.
“I will,” he promised. “There’s nothing suspicious in my going to see him. I would do it anyway, sooner or later. He was one of Father’s closest friends, geographically if nothing else. I know they disagreed about many things, but they liked each other underneath it.”
“You can like people and still betray them,” she said, “if it was for a cause you believed in passionately enough. You have to betray other people rather than betray yourself—if that’s what it comes to.” Then, seeing the surprise in his face, she added, “You told me that.”
“I did? I don’t remember.”
“Yes, you do. It was last Christmas. I didn’t agree with you. We had quite a row. You told me I was naive, and idealists put causes before anything else. You told me I was being a woman, thinking of everything personally rather than in larger terms.”
“So you don’t agree with me, but you’ll quote my own words back at me in an argument?”
She bit her lip. “Actually, I do agree with you. I just wasn’t going to say so then. You’re cocky enough.”
“I’ll be careful.” He relaxed into a smile and leaned forward to touch her for a moment, and her hand closed tightly around his.
The morning was overcast and heavy with the clinging heat of a storm about to break. Matthew went to church, largely because he wanted to catch up with Isenham as if by chance.
The vicar caught sight of him in the congregation just before he began his sermon. Kerr was not a natural speaker, and the presence of overwhelming emotion in a member of his audience, especially one for whom he felt a responsibility, broke his concentration. He was embarrassed, only too obviously remembering the last time he had seen Matthew, which had been at his parents’ funeral. He had been unequal to the task then, and he knew he still was.
Sitting in the fifth row back, Matthew could almost feel the sweat break out on Kerr’s body at the thought of facing him after the service and scrambling for something appropriate to say. He smiled to himself and stared back expectantly. The only alternative was to leave, and that would be even worse.
Kerr struggled to the end. The last hymn was sung and the benediction pronounced, and row by row the congregation trooped out into the damp, motionless air.
Matthew went straight to Kerr and shook his hand. “Thank you, Vicar,” he said courteously. He could not leave without speaking to him, and he did not want to get waylaid and miss the chance to bump into Isenham. “Just came home to see how Judith is.”
“Not at church, I’m afraid,” Kerr replied dolefully. “Perhaps you could talk to her. Faith is a great solace at times like these.”
It was clumsy. There were no other “times like these.” How many people have both their parents murdered in a single, hideous crime? Of course Kerr did not know it was murder. But given Judith’s character, the last thing poor Kerr needed was an encounter with her! He would attempt desperately to be kind, to say something that would be of value to her, and she would grow more and more impatient with him, until she let him see how useless he was.
“Yes, of course,” Matthew murmured. “I’ll convey your good wishes to her. Thank you.” As he turned and left, he felt that was exactly what his mother would have said—or Joseph. And they would not have meant it any more than he did.
He caught up with Isenham in the lane just beyond the lych-gate. The man was easily recognizable even from behind. He was of average height, but barrel-chested with close-cropped fair hair graying rapidly, and he walked with a slight swagger.
He heard Matthew coming, even though his footsteps were light on the stony surface. He turned and smiled, holding out his hand. “How are you, Matthew? Bearing up?” It was a question, and also half an instruction. Isenham had served twenty years in the army and seen action in the Boer War. He believed profoundly in the Stoic values. Emotion was fine, even necessary, but it should never be given in to, except in the most private of times and places, and then only briefly.
“Yes, sir.” Matthew knew what was expected, and he meant this encounter to earn him Isenham’s confidence and to learn from it anything John Reavley might have told him, even in the most indirect way. “The last thing Father would have wanted would be for us to fall apart.”
“Quite! Quite!” Isenham agreed firmly. “Fine man, your father. We’ll all miss him.”
Matthew fell into step beside him, as if he had been going that way, although as soon as they came to the end of the lane he would turn the opposite direction to go home.
“I wish I’d known him better.” Matthew meant that with an intensity that showed raw through his voice, more than he wanted. He meant to be in control of this conversation. “I expect you were probably as close as anyone,” he continued more briskly. “Funny how differently family see a person . . . until you’re adult, anyway.”
Isenham nodded. “Yes. Never thought of it, but I suppose you’re right. Funny thing, that. Look at one’s parents in a different light, I suppose.” Unconsciously he increased his pace.
Matthew kept up with him easily, as his legs were longer. “You were probably the last person he really talked with,” he went on. “I hadn’t seen him the previous weekend, nor had Joseph, and Judith was out so often.”
“Yes, I suppose I was.” Isenham dug his hands deep into his pockets. “It’s been a very bad time. Did you hear about Sebastian Allard? Dreadful business.” He hesitated an instant. “Joseph will be very upset about that,
