people have the right to know. You can’t ask men to give their lives, and lie to them how it will be.”
“Sometimes we can only take bits of the truth, and still survive,” he reminded her. “We have to fight, and for that we need courage, and hope. By the time he got back to England, he might have realized that, especially if he had spoken with you.”
She turned away quickly, her voice choking. “Do you think so? I’m sorry.” She stood up. “Please excuse me.” And she hurried from the room.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” Joseph apologized with contrition.
“Oh, it’s all right!” Belinda said hastily, her face white. “Eldon was too arrogant to listen to anyone, but it’s nice to imagine he might have. It’s all we have now.”
Joseph said nothing. Perhaps Prentice might never have grown wiser or kinder, or have matured into a man of anything like Richard Mason’s humanity, but it was still a tragedy that he had been robbed of the chance. Sam’s face was sharp in his mind. He was everything that Prentice was not. What he would have become was only a hope, his mother’s hope because she loved him, perhaps felt responsible for his failures as well as protective of the good she knew of him, the ability to struggle, to feel pain. One defended one’s own, it was part of the love that was belonging. It was instinct more powerful than reason, the passion that forgave, that never surrendered belief. It had saved many when nothing else could have.
Now was the time to change the subject and look at the photographs. He turned to them and regarded them quite openly. “It’s a wonderful gift, to be able to have memories kept like this,” he observed. “Happier times caught and held for us. Is this Henley?”
He heard Judith draw in her breath.
Belinda followed her gaze. “Yes. It was a good time. The year before last, I think.”
“A pretty young woman. Were she and Eldon close?”
Belinda looked at it more closely. “I don’t think so. I remember I liked her. She was fun.”
“Perhaps we should leave.” Judith was standing close behind them. She was facing Belinda. “I know why you wanted to talk, but I think it’s too soon. There’ll be other times.”
“I’ll stay up for you?” Belinda said, her eyes eager. There was fierce, shy admiration in them.
“It’ll be the middle of the night,” Judith said wryly. “Are you sure that’s still all right?”
“Of course! I couldn’t leave you to find your own way.” Then she blushed. “And I’d love to talk with you a little bit more, before you go back to see your sister.”
“If I may, I’d love to,” Judith agreed. “London’s got to be more fun than Cambridge anyway!” She meant it as a joke, and after a second’s hesitation Belinda smiled.
She accompanied them to the door, and bade them good night, hoping they would enjoy themselves. Judith hesitated before getting into the car on the passenger side, and Joseph closed the door firmly and went around to crank the engine and start up.
“No!” he said with a smile as he pulled out onto the road. “You are not driving. I don’t care how much better you are at it.”
She laughed, but it was hollow.
He glanced at her. There was a sadness in her face that was more marked now that she was away from the Prentice house, and the need to pretend. The shadows were more obvious in the passing streetlamps.
“Are you all right?” he asked softly, not because the question had any meaning, simply to let her know he was aware.
“No,” she said huskily. “Now I’m sure it was my fault he was killed. That photograph at Henley is almost the same as the one I saw, and told General Cullingford about, but it’s not exactly.” She was looking away from him. “There was an older woman there—I expect it was his wife—and it’s a different girl.”
“Are you certain?” The implication was frightening. It seemed that the Peacemaker had reached this far, in this minute detail. The original girl was indeed someone so close to him he could be identified from knowing who she was, and he had realized how Cullingford knew, and not only had he killed Cullingford, and probably Gustavus Tempany, but he had also substituted another picture for the one with her in it. The only other alternative was that it was all coincidence. Cullingford had been on a wild-goose chase, and died at the hands of some street thief with a knife. Tempany’s death the day after was just one of those extraordinary chances of timing.
He did not believe that.
“I think I am,” she replied. “That’s proof the Peacemaker killed him, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I think so.” He reached out and put his hand over hers. “I’m sorry.”
She sniffed and gulped. “I’ll have a good cry about it later. I don’t want to go to the party with a blotchy face.”
“Of course not,” he agreed. “We’re all hiding some wound or other. Head up, eyes forward.”
“How about you?” She turned to look at him. The tears brimmed over and slid down her cheeks, but she was searching to know if he was also hiding something too big and too heavy to bear.
“I know who killed Prentice,” he answered, wondering why he told her. He had thought he was going to tell no one, but the decision he had made in the boat was now impossible to live with. He must face Sam, and he was almost certain what he was going to do about it. It would hurt bitterly, almost unendurably. But he had watched hundreds of men bear wounds they would have thought beyond any strength to survive, and yet they had done it with dignity; they were ordinary men, some of them little more than boys. Men sent their sons and brothers and friends into horror unimaginable, and did it without crying against fate. So could he. The loneliness afterward was the price for all of them.
“Who was it?” she asked.
He shook his head very slightly. “I’ll deal with it. Let’s go to the party. Put on our best faces, and pretend it’s fun.”
She smiled at him, and reached over to kiss him on the cheek.
The party was fun, in an absurd, dreamlike way. All the women wore beautiful gowns, but the colors were subdued. It was unseemly to wear reds and pinks, as if denying other people’s loss, and yet everyone was pretending to a laughter and an ease they could not feel. Diamonds glittered, hair was perfect in the latest style, swept back, totally without curls except for the most discreet, just one on the brow, or at the nape of the neck. More would be unacceptable. The men were either in black, or uniform. Even though it was a formal dinner, nothing was more honorable than khaki, and Joseph was looked at with respect verging on deference.
The twenty guests were at one long table, so they might discuss information and ideas more easily. No attempt had been made to balance the numbers. There were fourteen men and six women. Their host was Dermot Sandwell, tall and lean, impossibly elegant in black and white, the light of the chandeliers gleaming on his fair hair.
“Good evening, Miss Reavley, Captain Reavley,” he said warmly as they entered the room where the reception was held. “It was very good of you to come,” he said to Judith in particular. “You will speak on behalf of a body of women we admire intensely. You have a nobility and a courage second to none.”
“We have men, too, Mr. Sandwell,” she reminded him. “Many of them are young Americans who came at their own expense, because they believe in what we are fighting for, and they care.”
“Yes, I know. And we will do more to give you the supplies and the support that’s appropriate,” he promised. “That’s why we need you here, to tell us exactly what that is. It’s time to stop guessing, doubling up some actions and omitting others. There is so much goodwill in the civilian population, people willing to do anything they can to help, but it is desperately in need of organization.” He turned to Joseph. “I see you are a chaplain. Are you home on leave?”
“Yes, sir, briefly,” Joseph answered. “I return in two days.”
“Where to?”
“Ypres.” There was no indiscretion in answering. Chaplains were often moved from one place to another, and a cabinet minister like Sandwell probably knew far more accurately than Joseph exactly which regiments were where, and what their numbers were.
“Front line?” Sandwell asked.
“Yes, sir. I think that’s where I should be.”
“Were you there for the gas attack?” Sandwell’s face was bleak, almost pinched. Joseph could not help wondering if he had lost someone he knew and loved in it.
