Paxton flung out his arms. “You have known the man all your life!” His voice cracked with incredulity. “He was your dead father’s best and dearest friend, and this is what you think of him?” Now there was derision in him, and stinging contempt. “What changed your mind, Reverend? A loss of faith in everything, perhaps even in God? What happened to you in the trenches, in the no-man’s-land you describe so well, the cold, the wet, the agony, being shot at?” He waved his arms. “And you were hit, weren’t you? Are you lashing out at a God the Father who did not protect you from all this?” He gestured again toward Corcoran. “Or at the father who died and left you to face this horror and deal with it alone? What changed you, Chaplain? What turned you into a betrayer?”
What had been the moment, exactly? Joseph searched in his mind and he knew.
“You are right when you said I tried to be all things to all people,” he replied with a strange, aching calm. “It was when I was talking with the minister in St. Giles, about what to say to a young soldier who has lost both his legs. Sometimes there is nothing you can do, except be there. He asked me if I was sure that there is a God, quite sure. Sometimes I’m not!”
There was a movement in the room. Corcoran’s stare did not alter.
“But there are things I am sure of,” Joseph went on, leaning forward a little. “The things Christ taught of honor, of courage, and of love are always true, in any imaginable world. And whether you choose to follow them with all the strength you have or not has nothing to do with anyone else. And if you stand alone, then you do. You don’t do it to give to this person or that, as a command, or out of obedience, and certainly not for reward. You do it because that is who you choose to be.”
Paxton started to interrupt him.
“You will never know how it hurts me to look at Shanley Corcoran and see him as he is,” Joseph overrode him. “But my alternative is to betray the good I believe, and I can’t do that out of loyalty to anyone. If I were to, then I would have nothing left inside me to offer to the men in the trenches, to those I love, or to myself. Judgment is the court’s, not mine, but I have told you the truth.”
Paxton knew he had lost, and he gave in with grace.
The verdict was immediate. Shanley Corcoran was found guilty of treason and sentenced to be hanged. He faced it with terror and self-pity, the sweat running down his face. He seemed to shrivel inside his clothes. For all the laughter, the warmth, and the intelligence he had had, there was a core of emptiness inside him, and Joseph could not bear to look at his nakedness.
Three Sundays must pass before the execution, but something had died there that day. An illusion of warmth and beauty had finally evaporated, leaving only a void.
As Joseph walked out onto the steps in the sun, he knew that he had acknowledged betrayal and survived. He had been forced to look within himself and had seen not a weak man trying to find his purpose in becoming whatever others needed of him, but a knowledge of good that did not depend upon anyone or anything else. He would love, and he would need people for many reasons, but not to heal his own doubts or to fill an emptiness within himself.
He walked into the street smiling, to return to his friends and his purpose.
About the Author
ANNE PERRY is the
FEATURING WILLIAM MONK
The Face of a Stranger
A Dangerous Mourning
Defend and Betray
A Sudden, Fearful Death
The Sins of the Wolf
Cain His Brother
Weighed in the Balance
The Silent Cry
A Breach of Promise
The Twisted Root
Slaves of Obsession
Funeral in Blue
Death of a Stranger
The Shifting Tide
FEATURING CHARLOTTE AND THOMAS PITT
The Cater Street Hangman
Callander Square
Paragon Walk
Resurrection Row
Bluegate Fields
Rutland Place
Death in the Devil’s Acre
Cardington Crescent
Silence in Hanover Close
Bethlehem Road
Highgate Rise
Belgrave Square
Farriers’ Lane
The Hyde Park Headsman
Traitors Gate
Pentecost Alley
Ashworth Hall
Brunswick Gardens
Bedford Square
Half Moon Street
The Whitechapel Conspiracy
Southampton Row
Seven Dials
Long Spoon Lane
THE WORLD WAR I NOVELS
No Graves As Yet
Shoulder the Sky
Angels in the Gloom
THE CHRISTMAS NOVELS
A Christmas Journey
A Christmas Visitor
A Christmas Guest
