he witnessed. He knew his limitations, and he saw what he thought was his strength and his true vocation. He answered the call of the Church, using his gift for languages to study the original Greek and Hebrew of the scriptures. Souls needed healing as well as bodies. John Reavley was content with that, and deferred his dream to his second son.
But Matthew had refused outright and turned his imagination, his intellect, and his eye for detail toward the Secret Intelligence Service. John Reavley had been bitterly disappointed. He despised espionage and all its works, and equally those who occupied themselves with it. That he had called Matthew in his professional capacity to help him with a document he had found was a far more powerful testimony of his judgment of it than anyone else would understand.
It would have been a chance for Matthew to give his father a gift from his chosen calling, and it had slipped away forever. That was part of the pain etched in his face.
Joseph lowered his eyes. Perhaps understanding was intrusive at this raw moment.
“Have you any idea what it is?” he asked, investing his voice with urgency, as if it could matter.
“He said it was a conspiracy,” Matthew replied, straightening his back to stand upright. He moved away from the door, coming around the back of the car to where Joseph was, keeping his voice very low. “And that it was the most dishonorable betrayal he had ever seen.”
“Betrayal of whom?”
“I don’t know. He said it was all in the paper.”
“Had he told anyone else?”
“No. He didn’t dare. He had no idea who was involved, but it went as high as the royal family.” Matthew looked surprised as he said it, as if hearing the words aloud startled him with their enormity. He stared at Joseph, searching for a response, an answer.
Joseph waited a moment too long.
“You don’t believe it!” Matthew’s voice was hoarse; he himself sounded unsure if it was an accusation or not. Looking at his brother’s eyes, Joseph could see that Matthew’s own certainty was wavering.
Joseph wanted to save something out of the confusion. “Did he say he was bringing the document or that he would merely tell you about it? Could he have left it at home? In the safe, perhaps?”
“I would have to see it,” Matthew argued, rolling his shirtsleeves down and fastening the cuffs again.
“To do what?” Joseph pursued. “Wouldn’t it be better for him to tell you what it was—and he was perfectly capable of memorizing it for you—and then decide what to do, but keep it in the meantime?”
It was a sensible suggestion. Matthew’s body eased, the stiffness draining out of it. “I suppose so. We’d better go home anyway. We ought to be with Judith. She’s alone. I don’t even know if she’s told Hannah. Someone will have to send her a telegram. She’ll come, of course. And we’ll need to know her train, to meet it.”
“Yes, of course,” Joseph conceded. “There’ll be a lot of preparations.” He did not want to think of them now; they were intimate, final things, an acknowledgment that death was real and that the past could never be brought back. It was the locking of a door.
They drove back from Great Shelford through the quiet lanes. The village of Selborne St. Giles looked just the same as it always had in the soft gold of the evening. They passed the stone mill, its walls flush with the river. The pond was flat as a polished sheet, reflecting the soft enamel blue of the sky. There was an arch of honeysuckle over the lych-gate to the churchyard, and the clock on the tower read just after half past six. In less than two hours they would hold Evensong.
There were half a dozen people in the main street, although the shops were long closed. They passed the doctor with his pony and trap, going at a brisk pace. He waved cheerfully. He could not have heard the news yet.
Joseph stiffened a little. That was one of the tasks that lay ahead, telling people. He was too late to wave back. The doctor would think him rude.
Matthew swung the car left, along the side road to the house. The drive gates were closed, and Joseph got out to open them, then close them again as Matthew pulled up to the front door. Someone had already drawn the curtains downstairs—probably Mrs. Appleton, the housekeeper. Judith would not have thought of it.
Matthew climbed out of the car just as Joseph reached him, and the front door opened. Judith stood on the step. She was fair-skinned like Matthew, but her hair fell in heavy waves and was a warmer brown. She was tall for a woman, and even though he was her brother, Joseph could see that she had a uniquely fierce and vulnerable kind of beauty. The strength inside her had yet to be refined, but it was there in her bones and her level, gray-blue eyes.
Now she was bleached of all color and her eyelids were puffy. She blinked several times to hold back the tears. She looked at Matthew and tried to smile, then took the few steps across the porch onto the gravel to Joseph, and he held her motionless for a moment, then felt her body shake as she let the sobs wrench through her.
He did not try to stop her or find any comforting words. There was no reason that made any sense, and no answer to the pain. He tightened his arms around her, clinging as much to her as she was to him. She was nothing like Alys, not really, yet the softness of her hair, the way it curled, slightly choked the tears in his throat.
Matthew went in ahead of them. His footsteps faded along the wooden floor of the hall, and then they heard his voice murmuring something and Mrs. Appleton replying.
Judith sniffed hard and pulled back a little. She felt in Joseph’s pocket for his handkerchief. She took it out and blew her nose, then wiped her eyes, screwing up the linen and clenching it in her hand. She turned away and went inside also, talking to him without looking back.
“I don’t know what to do with myself. Isn’t it stupid?” She gulped. “I keep walking around from room to room, and going out again, then coming back—as if that would make it any different! I suppose we’ll have to tell people?”
Joseph went up the steps behind her.
“I sent Hannah a telegram, but that’s all,” she went on. “I don’t even remember what I said.” Inside she swiveled around to face him, ignoring Henry, the cream-haired retriever who came out of the sitting room at the sound of Joseph’s voice. “How do you tell people something like this? I can’t believe it’s real!”
“Not yet,” he agreed, bending to touch the dog as it pushed against his hand. He stood in the familiar hallway with its oak staircase curving upward, the light from the landing window catching the watercolors on the wall. “It’ll come. Tomorrow morning it will begin.” He could remember with sickening clarity the first time he had woken up after Eleanor’s death. There was an instant when everything was as it had always been, the whole year of their marriage. Then the truth had washed over him like ice, and something inside him had never been warm again.
There was a fleeting pity in Judith’s face, and he knew she was remembering also. He made an effort to force it away. She was twenty-three, almost an afterthought in the family. He should be protecting her, not thinking of himself.
“Don’t worry about telling people,” he said gently. “I’ll do that.” He knew how hard it was, almost like making the death itself happen over again each time. “There’ll be other things to do. Just ordinary housekeeping, for a start. Practical things.”
“Oh, yes.” She jerked her attention into focus. “Mrs. Appleton will deal with the cooking and the laundry, but I’ll tell Lettie to make up Hannah’s room. She’ll be here tomorrow. And I suppose there’s food to order. I’ve never done that! Mother always did.”
Judith was quite unlike either her mother or Hannah, both of whom loved their kitchens and the smells of cooking, clean linen, beeswax polish, lemon soap. For them, to run a house was an art. To Judith it was a distraction from the real business of living, although to be honest, she was not yet certain for herself what that would prove to be. But Joseph knew it was not domesticity. To their mother’s exasperation, she had turned down at least two perfectly good offers of marriage.
But this was not the time for such thoughts.
“Ask Mrs. Appleton,” Joseph told her. He steadied his voice with an effort. “We’ll have to go through the diaries and cancel any appointments.”
“Mother was going to judge the flower show,” she said, smiling and biting her lip, tears flooding her eyes. “They’ll have to find somebody else. I can’t do it, even if they were to ask me.”
“And bills,” he added. “I’ll see the bank, and the solicitor.”
