“To cover your own failure!” She spat the word. “That’s all that’s left. We sent him here to learn. That was your idea! We trusted you with him, and you let some creature kill him. I want justice!” Tears filled her eyes, and she turned away from him. “Nothing can bring him back,” she said hoarsely. “But I want whoever did it to suffer.”
Joseph could not defend himself. She was right; he had failed to protect Sebastian because he had seen only what he wanted to see, not any of the darker envies or hatreds that had to have been there. He had thought he was dealing with reality, a higher, saner view of man. In truth, he had been looking for his own comfort.
It was also pointless to argue about justice or to tell her that it would ease nothing. It was morally wrong, and she would almost certainly never know all the truths of what had happened. It would only add to her anger to tell her that mercy was the better part, just as she herself would need mercy when her own judgment should come. She was not listening. And if he was honest, his own rage at violence and senseless death was so close beneath the surface of his words that he would have been a hypocrite to preach to her. He could not forget how he had felt when he stood on the Hauxton Road and realized what the caltrop marks meant, and pictured it in his mind.
“I want them to suffer, too,” he confessed quietly.
She lifted her head and turned slowly back to him, her eyes wide.
“I apologize,” she whispered. “I thought you were going to come and preach at me. Gerald tells me I shouldn’t feel like that. That it’s not really me speaking, and I’ll regret saying it later.”
“Maybe I will as well.” He smiled at her. “But that’s how I feel now.”
Her face crumpled again. “Why would someone do that to him, Joseph? How can anyone envy so much? Shouldn’t we love beauty of the mind and want to help it, protect it? I’ve asked the master if Sebastian was in line for any prizes or honors that might have excluded someone else, but he says he doesn’t know of anything.” She drew her black eyebrows together. “Do you . . . do you suppose that it could have been some woman? Someone who was in love with him, obsessed with him, and couldn’t accept rejection? Girls can be very hysterical. They can imagine that a man has feelings for them when it is only a passing admiration, no more than good manners, really.”
“It could be over a woman—” he began.
“Of course it could!” she interrupted eagerly, seizing on the idea, her face lighting up, the rigid line of her body relaxing a little. He could see in the sun the sheen on the silk of her gown and how it pulled over her thin shoulders. “That’s the one thing that makes sense! Raging jealousy because a woman was in love with Sebastian, and someone felt betrayed by her!” She put out her hand tentatively and laid it on his arm. “Thank you, Joseph. You have at least made sense out of the darkness. If you came to comfort me, you have succeeded, and I am grateful to you.”
It was not how he had intended to succeed, but he did not know how to withdraw. He remembered the girl in the street outside Eaden Lilley’s, and what Eardslie had said about Morel, and wished he did not have to know about it.
He was still searching for an answer when Gerald Allard came from the quad gate of the garden, walking carefully along the center of the path between the tumbles of catmint and pinks. It was a moment before Joseph realized that his considered step was due to the fact that he had already partaken of more refreshment than he could absorb. He looked curiously at Joseph, then at his wife.
Mary’s eyes narrowed at the sight of him.
“How are you, my dear?” he inquired solicitously. “Good morning, Reavley. Nice of you to call. However, I think we should speak of other things for a little while. It is—”
“Stop it!” Mary said, her teeth clenched. “I can’t think of other things! I don’t want to try! Sebastian is dead! Someone killed him! Until we know who it was and the person is arrested and hanged, there are no other things!”
“My dear, you should—” he began.
She whirled around, catching the fine silk of her sleeve on a stem of the moss rose. She stormed off, uncaring that she had torn the fabric, and disappeared through the door to the sitting room of the master’s house.
“I’m sorry,” Gerald said awkwardly. “I really don’t know . . .” He did not finish.
“I met Miss Coopersmith,” Joseph said suddenly. “She seems a very pleasant young woman.”
“Oh . . . Regina? Yes, most agreeable,” Gerald concurred. “Good family, known them for years. Her father’s got a big estate a few miles away, in the Madingley direction.”
“Sebastian never mentioned her.”
Gerald pushed his hands deeper into his pockets. “No, I don’t suppose he would. I mean . . .” Again he stopped.
This time Joseph waited.
“Well, two separate lives,” Gerald went on uncomfortably. “Home and . . . and here. Man’s world, this.” His arm swept around in a wide, slightly unsteady circle. “Not the place to discuss women, what?”
“Is Mrs. Allard fond of her?”
Gerald’s eyebrows shot up. “No idea! Yes! Well, I suppose so. Yes, must have liked the girl.”
“You put that in the past,” Joseph pointed out.
“Oh! Well . . . Sebastian’s dead now, God help us.” He gave a little shrug. “Next Christmas will be unbearable. Always spend it with Mary’s sister, you know. Fearful woman. Three sons. All successes one way or another. Proud as Lucifer.”
Joseph could think of nothing to say. Gerald would probably wish later that he had never made such a remark. It was better not to acknowledge it now. He made the heat an excuse to leave Gerald wandering aimlessly between the flowers and go back into the house.
He went into the sitting room to thank Connie and take his leave, but when he saw the figure of the woman standing by the mantel, in spite of the fact that she was roughly the same height and build as Connie, he knew instantly that it was someone else. The words died on his lips when he saw the black dress, which was fashionable, with a broad sash at the waist and a sort of double tunic in fine pleats over the long, tapering skirt.
She turned around, and her eyes widened with something like relief. “Reverend Reavley! How agreeable to see you.”
“Miss Coopersmith. How are you?” He closed the door behind him. He would like the opportunity to speak to her. She had known a side of Sebastian that he had been totally unaware of.
She gave a little shrug, slightly self-deprecatory. “This is difficult. I don’t really know what I am doing here. I hoped I could be of some comfort to Mrs. Allard, but I know I’m not succeeding. Mrs. Thyer is very kind, but what do you do with a fiancee who isn’t a widow?” Her strong, rather blunt face was touched with self-mocking humor to hide the humiliation. “I’m an impossibility for a hostess.” She gave a little laugh, and he realized how close she was to losing her grip on self-control.
“Had you known Sebastian long?” he asked her. “I have, but only the academic side of his life.” It was odd to say that aloud; he had not imagined it to be true, but now it was unquestionable.
“That was the biggest side,” she replied. “He cared about it more than anything else, I think. That’s why he was so terrified there’d be a war.”
“Yes. He spoke to me about it a day or two before he . . . died.” He remembered that long, slow walk along the Backs in the sunset as if it had been yesterday. How quickly a moment sinks into the past. He could still see quite clearly the evening light on Sebastian’s face, the passion in the young man as he spoke of the destruction of beauty that he feared.
“He traveled widely this summer,” she went on, looking at the distance, not at Joseph. “He didn’t talk about it very much, but when he did you could feel how strongly he cared. I think you taught him that, Reverend, how to see the loveliness and the value in all kinds of people, how to open his mind and look without judgment. He was so excited by it. He wanted intensely to live more . . .” She hunted for the word, “More abundantly than one can being buried by the confines of nationalism.”
As she said it, he remembered Sebastian’s comments about the richness and diversity of Europe, but he did not interrupt her.
She went on, controlling her trembling voice with difficulty. “For all his excitement at the different cultures, especially the ancient ones, he was terribly English at heart, you know?” She bit her lip to gain a moment’s hesitation, trying to control herself before she went on. “He would have given anything he had to protect the beauty of this country—the quaint and funny things, the tolerance and the eccentricity, the grandeur and the small, secret
