“We never said we come from London!” Gracie challenged him, but Tellman could hear the fear in her, the slight quiver, the higher pitch. He was only a yard away from the man now. The vinegar bottle was heavy in his hand. He swung it back, and as if he had caught the movement in the corner of his eye, the man swiveled and shot out his fist, sending Tellman sprawling backwards onto the ground, the vinegar bottle flying out of his grasp and rolling away on the grass.
“Oh, no you don’t, mister!” the man said, his voice suddenly altered to a vicious anger, and the next moment Tellman felt a tremendous weight on top of him, knocking the air out of his lungs. He was no match for the man in strength and he knew it. But he had grown up in the streets and the instinct to survive was above almost everything else; the only thing greater was the passion to protect Gracie. . and of course Charlotte and the children. He kneed the man in the groin and heard him gasp, then poked at his eyes with stiff fingers, or at any piece of flesh he could reach.
The fight was short, intense and absolute. It was only moments later that his hands reached the unbroken vinegar bottle and he finished the job, cracking the man over the head with it and laying him senseless.
He scrambled to his feet and staggered around to where the other horse was standing with a dogcart pulled across the track, and led it off onto the side. Then he ran back and with difficulty in the dark, took the bridle of their own horse and led it past, before climbing up onto the box again and urging it forward as fast as it was capable of going. The east was already fading a little ahead of them and dawn would not be far away.
“Thank you,” Charlotte said quietly, holding a shivering Jemima close to her and Daniel by the other hand. Edward was clinging on at the farther end. “I think he has been watching us almost since we got here.” Charlotte did not add anything further, or mention Voisey’s name, or the Inner Circle. It was in all their minds.
“Yes,” Gracie agreed, a quiet pride in her voice and in the stiff, square-shouldered way she sat. “Thank you, Samuel.”
Tellman was bruised, his blood was beating so hard he was dizzy, but above all he was astounded by the savagery which had driven him. He had behaved like something primitive and it was exhilarating, and frightening.
“You’re going to stay in Exeter until the election is over and we know whether Voisey has won or lost,” he answered.
“No, I think I shall return to London,” Charlotte contradicted. “If they are blaming Thomas for this man’s death then I should be there with him.”
“You’re to stay here,” Tellman said flatly. “That’s an order. I’ll send a telephone message to Mr. Pitt to say as you’re all right and safe.”
“Inspector Tellman, I. .” she began.
“It’s an order,” he said again. “Sorry, but that’s the end of it.”
“Yes, Samuel,” Gracie murmured.
Charlotte tightened her arms around Jemima and said nothing more.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Isadora sat at the breakfast table across from the Bishop and watched him toy with his food, pushing bacon, eggs, sausage and kidney around his plate. He did not look well, but then he so often complained of some minor ailment, and she knew that if she asked him he would tell her. She would be required, in ordinary civility, to listen and to offer some condolence. Kindness dictated she do more than that, and she could not bring herself to feel such a thing. So she ate her own breakfast of toast and marmalade, and avoided his eyes.
The butler brought in the morning newspaper and the Bishop motioned him to lay it on the table at his end, where he could reach it in a moment or two when he was ready.
“Take my plate away,” he directed.
“Yes, my lord. Is there something else you would prefer?” the butler asked solicitously, doing as he was bidden. “I am sure Cook would oblige.”
“No, thank you,” the Bishop declined. “I’m not hungry. Just pour the tea, would you.”
“Yes, my lord.” Again he did as he was bidden, and then discreetly withdrew.
“Are you feeling unwell?” Isadora asked before checking herself. It was so much habit with her that it required a conscious effort not to do so.
“The news is depressing,” he answered, but without picking up the paper. “The Liberals will win and Gladstone will form a government again, but it won’t last. But then nothing does.”
She must make the effort. She had promised him, and she sensed the fear in him across the table as if it were an odor in the air. “Governments don’t last, but neither should they,” she said gently. “The good things do. You’ve preached that all your life. You know it’s true. And the things that are destroyed, but in righteousness, God can rebuild. Isn’t that what the resurrection is all about?”
“That is the idea, the hope,” he replied, but his voice was flat, and he did not look up at her.
“Is it not the truth?” She thought that by provoking him into arguing it, the sound of his own words would strengthen him. He would realize that he did believe it.
“Really. . I have no idea,” he answered instead. “It is a habit of thought. I repeat it over and over every Sunday because it is my job. I can’t afford to stop. But I don’t know that I believe it any more than the members of my congregation who come because it is the thing to be seen to do. Kneel in your pew every Sunday, repeat all the prayers, sing all the hymns and look as if you are listening to the sermon, and you will seem to be a good man. Your mind can be anywhere. . on your neighbor’s wife, or his goods, or relishing his sins, and who will know?”
“God will know,” she said, startled by the anger in her voice. “And quite apart from that, you will know yourself.”
“There are millions of us, Isadora! Do you suppose God has nothing better to do than listen to our witterings? ‘I want this’ and ‘Give me that,’ ‘Bless so and so, which will release me of the necessity of doing anything about him.’ Those are the sort of orders I give my servants, which is why we have them in the first place, so we don’t have to do everything ourselves.” His face twisted with disgust. “That isn’t worship, it’s a ritual performed for ourselves, and to impress each other. What kind of a God wants that, or has any use for it at all?” There was contempt in his eyes, and anger, as if he had been let down unfairly and was just realizing the fullness of it.
“Who decided that it was what God wanted?” she asked.
He was startled. “It is what the church has done for the best part of two thousand years!” he retorted. “In fact, always!”
“I thought it was only meant to be the instrument of our growth,” she replied to him. “Not an end in itself.”
His brow creased with irritation. “Sometimes you talk the most arrant nonsense, Isadora. I am a bishop, ordained of God. Don’t try to tell me what the church is for. You make yourself ridiculous.”
“If you are ordained of God, then you should not doubt Him,” she snapped. “But if you are ordained of man, then perhaps you should be looking for what God wishes instead. It may not be the same at all.”
His face froze. He sat motionless for a moment, then leaned over and picked up the newspaper, holding it high enough to hide behind.
“Francis Wray committed suicide,” he said after a few moments. “It seems that damned policeman Pitt was hounding him over the murder of the spirit medium, imagining he knew something about it. Stupid man!”
She was horrified. She remembered Pitt; he had been one of Cornwallis’s men, one he was particularly fond of. Her first thought was for how it would hurt Cornwallis, for the injustice if it were not true, and for the disillusion, if by some terrible chance it were.
“Why on earth would he think that?” she said aloud.
“Heaven knows.” He sounded final, as if that closed the matter.
“Well, what do they say?” she demanded. “You’ve got it in front of you.”
He was irritated. “That was yesterday’s paper. There’s very little about it today.”
“What did they say?” she insisted. “What are they blaming Pitt for? Why would he think Francis Wray, of all people, would know anything about a spirit medium?”
“It really doesn’t matter,” he replied without lowering the paper. “And Pitt was quite wrong anyway. Wray
