Perhaps it had been more of a facade than she realized, because now he was rattled. There was a thin edge of panic she could not miss, not for Ramsay Parmenter but for himself, because he had lent his name to recommending him.
"Why on earth would he do such a thing?" she asked, trying to comfort him that it could not be true. It seemed wildly at odds with the man she had met a dozen times every year. He was an intelligent and very worthy man. Lately he had seemed drier than usual. She hesitated to use the word boring; boring; if she did, she was not sure when she could stop. She might find a great many senior clergy boring. It was a rogue thought she dared not entertain. if she did, she was not sure when she could stop. She might find a great many senior clergy boring. It was a rogue thought she dared not entertain.
He looked at her impatiently. "Well, the obvious reason which springs to mind is that he was conducting himself improperly towards her," he replied.
"You mean he was having an affair with her?" Why did he always put things in such roundabout euphemisms? This obscured meaning, but it did not alter it.
He winced. "I should prefer you were not so blunt, Isadora," he said critically. "But if you must, then yes, it is what I fear. She was a handsome woman, and I have since learned that her reputation in that area is far from admirable. It would have been a great deal better if Parmenter had employed a young man for his translation-as I advised him at the time, if you recall?"
"I do recall," she answered with a frown. "You said it was an excellent thing to give a young woman an opportunity. It was most liberal and a good example of modern tolerance."
"Nonsense! That is what Parmenter said," he contradicted her crossly. "I find your memory a good deal less reliable than it used to be."
She remembered it very precisely. They had been sitting in this very room. Ramsay Parmenter had leaned forward in his chair and described Unity Bellwood"s academic achievements and his intention to employ her, on a temporary basis, with the bishop"s permission. Reginald had thought about it for a few moments, sitting with his lips pursed, staring into the fire. It had been November and particularly cold. The butler had brought brandy. Reginald had rolled it gently around in the gla.s.s; the firelight made it look like amber. Finally he had given his opinion that it was a liberal and advanced thing to do. Learning should be encouraged. The church should set the example in modern tolerance of all peoples, rewarding on merit.
She looked up at him now where he stood frowning, his collar a little high on one side, his shoulders raised in tension. It would not help to argue. He would not believe her anyway.
"The question is," he stated, "how can we limit the damage this will do to the church? How can we prevent the great work of the body of Christian men and women from being impeded by the scandal this may create if it is not handled to the best? Can you see the headlines in the newspapers? "Prospective bishop murders his mistress"?" He closed his eyes as if in physical pain, his face bleak and very pale.
She could imagine it, but her first thought was for Vita. Parmenter and the shock and distress she would feel, indeed must be feeling now. No matter how well Vita knew her husband, or what confidence she had in him, she could not help but be gripped by a terrible fear that he could be accused. Innocent people did sometimes suffer, even die. And Ramsay himself must be in a turmoil of emotions, every one of them painful, whether he was guilty of anything at all or absolutely nothing. It must be a living nightmare for him.
"Perhaps I could persuade him to plead madness," the bishop said aloud. He looked at Isadora. "He certainly must be quite mad. No sane man could embark on an affair with a woman of Unity Bellwood"s type, and then lose all touch with morality, his own lifelong beliefs and everything he has been taught, and in hysteria murder her. It would be a totally truthful plea." He nodded, determined to convince her. "One cannot blame madness, one can only pity it. And of course put the person under suitable restraint, naturally." He leaned forward. "He would be cared for in the best and safest inst.i.tution we can find. He would be treated with the necessary care. It would be the best thing for everyone."
She was dizzy with the speed with which he had moved from a question to a supposition and then to an a.s.sumption, and an answer where Ramsay Parmenter was judged and his sentence decided. It had taken less than three minutes. She felt detached from it, as if she were only in a sense present in the room. Part of her was far away, looking on at the quiet dignity of it with its deep wine patterned carpet, its gentle fire, the bishop standing with his hands clenched in front of him, rendering his judgment. He seemed so familiar in his physical presence, and yet a total stranger, a mind and soul she did not know at all.
"You don"t know anything about it yet." The words were on her lips before she had considered how he would react to them. "He may not be guilty of anything at all."
"I can hardly wait until he is charged, can I?" he demanded angrily, stepping back and closer to the fire. "I must act to protect the church. Surely you can see that? The damage will be appalling." He stared at her accusingly, as if she were willfully slow-witted. "We have enemies enough in the modern world without this sort of disaster. There are people on every side denying G.o.d, setting up citadels of the mind dedicated to reason as if it were a deity, as if it could answer all our desires and aspirations towards righteousness." He poked at the air. "Unity Bellwood was just one apostle of the mind without morality, the indulgence of the basest instincts of the body, as if learning somehow set one free from the rules which govern the rest of us. Parmenter was quite mistaken to imagine he could teach her better things, reform her, convert her, if you like. It was the supreme arrogance, and look how he has paid for it." He started to pace again, striding in decisive steps to the far end of the room, turning and coming back, turning and retracing his way exactly across the carpet. He was wearing marks in the pile of it. "Now I must think what is best for all. I cannot indulge the one at the cost of many. It is a luxury I do not have. This is no time for sentimentality."
"Have you spoken with him?" She was searching for something to delay him. Without realizing it, she had made a decision to fight him.
"Not yet, but of course I shall. First I must think what to say. I cannot go unprepared. It would be dishonest to him, and disastrous."
She felt even more separate from him, almost a stranger. And the most painful thing was that she wanted to be separate, apart from the thoughts he had as much as the action he would take.
"Well, perhaps he will tell you something which will explain it," she argued. "You must not act before that. You would look dreadful to have condemned him and then find he was innocent. How would people view the church then...to have abandoned one of your own the moment he was in trouble? What about honor, loyalty, or even compa.s.sion?" She said the last word harshly, unable to keep back her anger any longer and, in truth, unwilling to hide it.
He stopped in the middle of the floor, staring at her. He took a deep breath. He looked worried, even frightened.
She wanted to be sorry for him. It was a wretched situation. Whatever he did there was a strong possibility it would be wrong, and it would certainly be perceived as such by many. There were always people only too happy to criticize. They had their own reasons, political reasons. Church politics seethed with rivalry, hurt feelings, ambition, guilt, thwarted hopes. The bishop"s miter was in some ways as heavy and uneasy an ornament as a crown. Too much was expected of the wearer, a sanct.i.ty, a moral rightness beyond any mortal to achieve.
And yet as she looked at him she did not see a man struggling valiantly to do right in a dreadful dilemma. She saw instead a man seeking the expedient in case he was caught in the wrong, even a man relishing a certain self-importance as he thought of himself as the one person to save the reputation of the church under such pressure. There was even a certain joy of martyrdom in him. Not once had he expressed pity for any one of the Parmenter family, or grief for Unity herself.
"Do you suppose it will be misunderstood?" he asked seriously.
"What?" She did not know what he was talking about. Had he said something she had not heard?
"Do you think that people will misunderstand our reasons?" he said in what he must have supposed was a plainer form.
"Misunderstand what, Reginald?"
"Our counsel to Ramsay Parmenter to plead madness, of course! Where is your attention?" His face was furrowed with anxiety. "You sounded as if you believed they might see it as lack of loyalty or a certain cowardice, as if we had abandoned him."
"Isn"t that exactly what you are proposing to do...abandon him?"
He flushed red.
"No, of course it isn"t! I don"t know how you could even think of such a thing!" he responded angrily. "It is simply a matter of putting the church first, and that means not only doing what is right but doing what is perceived to be right. I would have thought after all these years you could have understood that."
Her own ignorance astounded her, not of her lack of sympathy with the argument, but her lack of perception of herself, and of him. How could she have known him so little as not to have seen this in him before? It was a shabbiness which hurt so deeply she could have wept with the loneliness and the disappointment of it.
He was talking to himself, voicing his thoughts aloud. "Perhaps I should speak to Harold Petheridge. He could bring some influence to bear. After all, the government has an interest in this." He started to walk again. "No one wants a scandal, and we should think of the family. This must be fearful for them."
She stared at him, wondering if he thought for a moment about Ramsay Parmenter himself, how frightened he must feel, how torn with doubts, confusion, and perhaps guilt. Could anyone feel more alone than he must? Would Reginald think of going to offer him some kind of spiritual strength, the support of a friend if he were innocent, the courage to stand and fight for his vindication? Or if he were guilty, then the office of a priest to listen to his confusion and his sin, and to help him seek some form of repentance, at least the beginning of the long road back. She had to believe there was a way. The man she knew might have lost his path and committed some fearful error, but he was not a wicked man, not to be abandoned like an object no longer needed. Was not the whole essence of the church"s purpose to preach the Gospel to all people and to cry repentance to all who would hear...and that was everyone.
"You are going to see Ramsay, aren"t you?" she said with sudden urgency.
He was at the far window. "Yes, of course I am," he answered crossly. "I told you that when you asked before. It is vital I speak with him. I need to know a great deal more about this situation, then I can make an informed judgment as to how we should deal with it...for the best." He straightened his jacket a little. "I am going upstairs to my study. I need to compose myself. Good night."
She did not answer, and he seemed not to notice. He went out and closed the door with a click.
4
THE MORNING AFTER Unity Bellwood"s death Pitt called at the office of the medical examiner. He did not expect to hear anything helpful, but it was a duty which must not be overlooked. It was another sharp early spring day, and in spite of the unpleasantness of his task, he walked with a lift in his step. So far he had seen nothing on the billboards, and the newspaper headlines were largely to do with Cecil Rhodes"s African politics, domestic economics and the perennial Irish Problem. Unity Bellwood"s death Pitt called at the office of the medical examiner. He did not expect to hear anything helpful, but it was a duty which must not be overlooked. It was another sharp early spring day, and in spite of the unpleasantness of his task, he walked with a lift in his step. So far he had seen nothing on the billboards, and the newspaper headlines were largely to do with Cecil Rhodes"s African politics, domestic economics and the perennial Irish Problem.
He went up the steps two at a time and along the corridors almost as if he were unaware of the carbolic and formaldehyde odor. He knocked on the examiner"s office door and went in. It was a small room, crowded with books on shelves, on the floor, and in piles on the desk.
"Good morning, Dr. Marshall," he said cheerfully. "Anything for me?"
Marshall, a small, spare man with a graying beard, looked up from the paper he was writing on, the quill poised in his hand.
"Aye, I have, and ye"ll not like it," he said with a smile of friendliness but no pleasure. "There are times I think my job is no" fit even for a man on a fine sunny day. But then there are times I"d sooner have it than yours. And this is one o" them."
"What did you find?" Pitt asked with a sinking heart. "Wasn"t it the fall that killed her? Don"t tell me she was strangled. There were no marks. I looked. Was she struck before she fell?" That was going to make accident impossible, even a quarrel resulting in a struggle and then a fall, which was what he hoped for. Parmenter"s lie could still possibly be explained and then concealed. It was only twenty-four hours. Shock could account for much distress and temporary mental aberration. It could be announced in such a way as to make it seem that Parmenter had acknowledged his part almost immediately.
"Oh, aye," Marshall said dryly. "Not a thing wrong with the la.s.sie except bruises, no doubt collected as she banged against the stairs and the banister and the wall as she went down, and of course a broken neck. If everyone were as healthy as she, I"d be out of a profession."
"Then what am I not going to like?" Pitt asked, moving books off the only other chair and sitting sideways on it.
"She was about three months with child," Marshall answered.
Pitt should have guessed it. It was the disaster he should naturally have foreseen. Unity"s reputation for radical thought could so easily have included the s.e.xual freedom that was fashionable among certain of the intellectual and artistic elite. Throughout history there had been leaders in thought and creativity who had not considered the usual restrictions of behavior as applying to them. And they had always had their acolytes. No wonder Ramsay Parmenter had found her dangerous.
Had he also found her attractive...irresistibly so?
It could as easily have been Mallory-or Dominic Corde. Pitt thought of Dominic as he had first known him: handsome, charming with such ease he barely knew he did it, and availing himself of far too many opportunities, too many willing young women. Had he really changed so much, or was the same weakness only masked by the clerical collar, not eradicated?
He was aware, even as the thoughts came to his mind, that they were motivated by personal feelings as well as reason.
"I don"t know," Marshall interrupted.
"I beg your pardon?" Pitt looked at him questioningly.
"I have no idea who the father was," Marshall elaborated. "No way to tell, but nasty, considering the household she was living in."
That was an understatement. Any one of the men would have been ruined by the scandal, possibly all of them if it were unresolved. This was exactly what Cornwallis had hoped to forestall.
"I suppose she would have known she was in that condition?" he said aloud.
Marshal made a slight gesture of doubt. "Probably, but I have met women who"ve gone to full term and been taken by surprise. But from what you say of this one, I expect she knew. Women usually do."
"I see." Pitt leaned back in his chair and shoved his hands hard into his pockets.
"Blackmail?" Marshall asked, watching him with sympathy. "Or a great love affair? Betrayal of the wife, a woman wronged after thirty years of loyal marriage?"
"No," Pitt said with a smile. "Not this time. I don"t think Vita Parmenter would be the sort of woman to allow such a thing to happen or to react with wounded violence if it did. Anyway, she is one of the only two members of the family who could not have pushed Unity. If you had said she was strangled after she fell, then she could have."
"No...just the fall," Marshall said definitely, sucking in his breath. "Which still leaves you with several possibilities. Thwarted love-If I can"t have you, no one will. Blackmail of any of the men in the house if he were the father of the child and she threatened exposure-or if he feared he was the father." He was looking at Pitt as he spoke. "Jealousy of another man because he was not the father and felt she had betrayed him with somebody else-and was a s.l.u.t, or worse." He c.o.c.ked an eyebrow. "Or jealousy of one of the women if the father were the curate. Or even possibly one of them to defend the father of the child from blackmail."
"Thank you," Pitt said sarcastically. "I had thought of most of those for myself."
"Sorry." Marshall smiled bleakly. "As I said, there are times when I think you have a worse job than I do. The people I deal with are at least beyond all mortal pain. And with this particular one, it would have been brief, a few seconds at most."
Pitt had known it, but it was still a certain satisfaction to hear it said aloud. It was one less hurt to think of.
"Thank you," he said, his tone without the cutting edge. "Is there anything else at all? Any evidence that could help? We know the time. We know what happened. I don"t suppose anything on the body gives an indication of who pushed her- height, weight, a thread of fabric, the mark of a hand?"
Marshall looked at him witheringly. "I can tell you that the stain we found on her shoe was a substance used for killing pests out of a greenhouse or conservatory."
"Since we found it on the conservatory floor, that doesn"t help," Pitt replied. "Except that Mallory said she was not there, and apparently she was. People often lie out of fear, not necessarily guilt."
"Have you thought that more than one of them may be involved?" Marshall suggested helpfully, his eyes wide and steady. "Perhaps the father of her child and someone willing to protect him?"
Pitt glared at him and rose to his feet, unintentionally sc.r.a.ping the chair on the floor. "Thank you for your information, Dr. Marshall. I shall leave you to your own task, before you think of anything more to make mine even worse." And then with a half smile he went to the door.
"Good day!" Marshall called out cheerfully.
Pitt went directly to Cornwallis"s office. It was necessary to inform him of Dr. Marshall"s finding. He doubted it would alter his instructions regarding the case, but it was necessary for the a.s.sistant commissioner to know. If it came to light later, as it almost certainly would, he would appear incompetent if he were not fully aware.
"How long?" he asked, standing beside the window, the patterns of early spring sunlight on the oak floor near his feet.
"About three months," Pitt replied, watching Cornwallis"s face and seeing him wince. He knew that for a moment he had hoped her condition had predated her arrival in Brunswick Gardens.
Cornwallis turned back towards Pitt, his face bleak. There was no need to spell out what it meant. Every one of the possibilities was potentially disastrous and certainly tragic.
"This is very bad," he said quietly. "What impression did you form of Parmenter? Is he a man likely to have been tempted by a young woman and then panic?"
Pitt tried to think honestly. He recalled Ramsay"s rather ascetic face, the deep grief and confusion in his eyes, the anger he betrayed in flashes when he spoke of Charles Darwin.
"I don"t believe so," he answered carefully. "He disliked her, at times intensely, but it seemed for her ideas-" He stopped, remembering Ramsay"s remarks about her immorality. But would he have made them if he himself were part of it?
"What?" Cornwallis demanded, his attention sharp.
"He felt she was immoral," Pitt explained. "But he did not say in what way in particular. He might not have meant s.e.xually."
Cornwallis raised his eyebrows in a look of disbelief.
Pitt did not argue. It was a fragile attempt and he knew it. He had understood Ramsay to mean unchast.i.ty at the time, not some intellectual dishonesty or selfishness, coldness or cruelty, or any of the other human sins. It was a convention of the language that the word immorality immorality usually conveyed only one meaning. usually conveyed only one meaning.
"I don"t think he would have mentioned it to me if he were involved," he pointed out. "Especially after she was dead. He would have to know we would discover her condition."
"You think he"s innocent?" Cornwallis was puzzled. "Or that this has nothing to do with it?"
"I don"t know," Pitt confessed. "If he is guilty, then he is brilliantly subtle in some aspects and uniquely clumsy in others. I don"t understand it at all. The physical evidence seems plain enough. Four people heard her cry out "No, no, Reverend.""
"Four?" Cornwallis asked. "You said the maid, the valet, and one of the daughters. Who"s the fourth?"
"Mrs. Parmenter. She avoided saying so directly, but she must have. She didn"t deny it, she was merely evasive about the words, naturally enough."
"I see. Well, keep me informed-" Before he could add anything further there was a knock on the door, and upon Cornwallis"s word, a constable put his head in and said that Sir Gerald Smithers from the Prime Minister"s office was here and wanted to see Captain Cornwallis urgently. Immediately behind him Smithers appeared, pushing past him and coming into the room with a smile that crossed his face and disappeared without trace. He was a very ordinary working man except for his air of supreme a.s.surance. He was beautifully dressed in a discreet and expensive way.
"Morning, Cornwallis," he said hastily. He glanced at Pitt. "Mr.... I"m glad you came here. Most convenient." He closed the door, leaving the constable on the outside. "Miserable business in Brunswick Gardens. Must all work together on it. I"m sure you appreciate that." He glanced at each of them as if it were a question, but did not wait for an answer. "Anything further?" he addressed himself to Cornwallis.
Cornwallis was tense, his body rigid, almost as if he were balancing himself against the pitch and roll of the quarterdeck.
"Yes. Unity Bellwood was three months with child," he replied.
"Oh." Smithers absorbed the shock. "Oh, dear. I suppose something of the sort was to be expected. Very unfortunate. What are you doing to contain the situation?"
"I have only just learned of it," Cornwallis answered with surprise. "I doubt we can keep it concealed. It may well prove to be the motive for the crime."
"I trust it will not come to that." Smithers waved his hand, the sunlight catching small, monogrammed, gold cuff links. "It is our responsibility to see that it does not." He looked at Pitt at last. "Is there any chance that it was simply an accident?"
"She was heard by four people to call out "No, no, Reverend!"" Pitt pointed out. "And there was nothing to trip over."
"What people?" Smithers demanded. "Are they reliable? Are they to be believed? Could they be mistaken on second thoughts?"
Cornwallis was standing as if to attention, his face bleak. Pitt knew him well enough to be aware the formality was a mask for dislike.
"One is Parmenter"s wife," he said before Pitt could reply.