something grubbier and far less worthy.
“Oi think she knew something,” she said, looking away from him. “But it made her feel bad. She come to me after his death. She wanted me to say nothing, to save his good name, an’ Oi suppose his family from bein’ hurt.” Her mouth pulled a little at the corners, her face soft with pity. “He din’t love her, an’ she knew it. She thought he moight come to in time. Oi can’t think how awful that must be. But she still wanted to protect him.”
Joseph tried to imagine the same scene, the proud, almost plain Regina in her elegant mourning black, facing the barmaid with the oval face and the shining, almost pre-Raphaelite hair and asking her to keep silent over her friendship with Sebastian, to save his reputation. And perhaps something to salvage a little of her public pride, if not privately, to know he had preferred Flora as a confidante.
“Did he care about it so much?” he asked aloud, remembering his own conversation with Sebastian, only a few yards from here. It had been intense, there would be no question of that, but was it fears and dreams or a will to do anything? Flora had spoken of doing. “Was it really more than words?”
She stared at the grass in the fading light, and her voice was very low. “It were a passion in him,” she said. “In the end it were the most important thing in his loife . . . keep the peace, look after all this beauty what’s come to us from the past. He was terrified o’ war—not just the foighting an’ bombing.” She lifted her head a little and gazed across the shining river at the towers of the intricate, immeasurably lovely buildings and the limpid sky beyond. “The power to break an’ smash an’ burn, but the killing o’ the spirit most o’ all. When we’ve broke civilization, what have we got left inside us? The strength an’ the dreams to start over again? No, we haven’t. In smashing up all we got left o’ what’s wise, an’ lovely, an’ speaks to what’s holy inside us, we break ourselves, too. We get to be savages, but without the excuses that savages have for it.”
He heard Sebastian’s words echoed in hers, exactly as if it had been he again, walking silent-footed in this exquisite evening.
She turned to face him. “Do you understand?” she said urgently. It seemed to matter to her that he did.
For that reason he needed to answer her honestly. “That depends upon what you are prepared to do to avoid war.”
“Does it?” she demanded. “Ain’t it worth anything at all?”
“Did Sebastian think so?”
“Yes! Oi . . .” She seemed troubled, looking away from him. “What d’you mean, it depends? What could be worse’n that? He told me about some of the things in the Boer War.” She shuddered almost convulsively, hugging her arms around herself. “The concentration camps, what happened to some o’ the women an’ children,” she said in a whisper. “If you do that to people, what is there left for you when you come home, even if you won?”
“I don’t know,” he confessed, finding himself cold as well. “But I’ve come to the point where I can’t believe that appeasement is the answer. Few sane people want to fight, but perhaps we have to.”
“Oi think mebbe that was what scared him.” She stood still on the grass. They were opposite Trinity; St. John’s was dark against the sunset, and there was only a tiny sliver of light on the water under the bridge. “He was terrible upset over something the last few days. He couldn’t sleep; Oi think he was afraid to. It was as if he had a pain inside him that were so deep he weren’t never free of it. After that shooting in Serbia ’e were so close to despair that Oi was scared for him . . . Oi mean real scared! It was as if for ’im there were nothing out there but darkness. Oi tried to comfort him, but Oi din’t manage.” She looked back at Joseph, her eyes full of grief. “Is it a wicked thing to say . . . sometimes Oi’m almost glad he din’t live to see this . . . ’cos we’re going to war, aren’t we? All of us.”
“I think so,” he said quietly. It seemed a ridiculous conversation with the tremendous sunset dying on the horizon, the evening air full of the perfume of grass, no sound but the murmur of leaves and a whirl of starlings thrown up against the translucent blue of the sky. Surely this was the very soul of peace, generations mounting to this pinnacle of civilization. How could it ever be broken?
“He tried so hard!” There were tears of anger and pity in her voice. “He belonged to a very big sort o’ club fighting for peace, all over the world. An’ he would have done anything for ’em.”
Something tugged at his mind. “Oh? Who were they?”
She shook her head quickly. “Oi dunno. He wouldn’t tell me. But they had big ideas he was terribly excited about, that would stop the war that’s coming now.” She knotted her hands together, her head bowed. “Oi’m glad he din’t have to see this! His dreams was so big, an’ so good, he couldn’t bear seeing ’em come to nothing. He went almost mad just thinking o’ it, before they killed him. Oi’ve thought sometimes if that was why they did it.” She looked up and searched Joseph’s face. “Do you think there’s anyone so wicked they’d want war enough to kill him in case he stopped it?”
He did not answer. His voice was trapped inside him, his chest so tight it filled him with pain. Was that the plot his father had stumbled on? Had Sebastian known about it all the time? What price was it they were prepared to pay for a peace that John Reavley had believed would ruin England’s honor?
Flora was walking again, down over the slope of the grass toward the river, perhaps because the light was fading so rapidly she needed to be away from the trees to see where she was going. She belonged in the landscape, her blemishless skin like gold in the last echoes of the light, her hair an aureole around her head.
He caught up with her. “I’ll walk back with you,” he offered.
She smiled and shook her head. “It ain’t late. If Oi can’t go through the college, Oi’ll walk along the street. But thank you.”
He did not argue. He must see Elwyn. He was the only one who could answer the questions that burned in his mind, and there was no time to wait. The darkness was not only in the sky and the air, but in the heart as well.
He did not go back to St. John’s but cut across the nearest bridge back through Trinity to the street again, and walked as fast as he could toward the police station. His mind was still whirling, his thoughts chaotic, the same questions beating insistently, demanding answers.
He had to see Elwyn, whomever he had to waken, whatever reason or excuse he had to give.
The streets were deserted, the lamps like uncertain moons shedding a yellow glare on the paving stones. His footsteps sounded hollow, rapid, slipping a little now and then.
He reached the police station and saw the lights were on. Good. There were people, perhaps still working. The doors were unlocked, and he went straight in. There was a man at the desk, but Joseph ignored him, hearing the voice calling after him as he strode into the room beyond, where Perth was remonstrating with Gerald and Mary Allard and a man in a dark suit who was presumably their solicitor.
They turned as Joseph came in. Perth looked harassed and so tired that his eyes were red-rimmed. “Reverend—” he started.
“I need to speak to Elwyn,” Joseph said, hearing a thread of desperation in his voice. If the solicitor got to him first, then he might never hear the truth.
“You can’t!” Mary refused savagely. “I forbid it. You have brought nothing but ill to my family, and—”
Joseph turned to Perth. “I think he may know something about Sebastian’s death. Please! It matters very much!”
They stared at him. There was no yielding in Mary’s face, and the solicitor moved half a step closer to her, as if in support. Gerald remained motionless.
“I think Sebastian knew about the death of my parents!” Joseph said, panic coursing through him, threatening to slip out of control. “Please!”
Perth made a decision. “You stay here!” he ordered the Allards and the solicitor. “You come wi’ me,” he said to Joseph. “If he wants to see you, then you can.” And without waiting for possible argument, he went out of the room with Joseph on his heels.
It was only a short distance to the cells where Elwyn was being held, and in a few minutes they were at the door. The key was on a hook outside. Perth took it off and inserted it into the lock and turned it. He pushed it open and stopped, frozen.
Joseph was a step behind him, and taller. He saw Elwyn over Perth’s shoulder. He was hanging from the bars of the high window, the noose around his neck made from the strips of his shirt plaited together, strong enough to hold his weight and strangle the air from his lungs.
Perth lunged forward, crying out, although barely a sound escaped his lips.
Joseph thought he was going to be sick. Emotion—pity and relief—overwhelmed him with a crushing force. He barely felt the tears running down his face.
