Anne Perry's Christmas Mysteries: Two Holiday Novels (27 page)

Boscombe’s voice was husky, his eyes wretched. “No, Vicar. Genevieve is the wife of my heart, but not of the law. The Reverend Wynter knew that, and he wanted to find a way for us to make it right, but I couldn’t stay on in office in the church once he knew.”

“But you could stay until then?” The moment the words were out of his lips, Dominic wished he had not said them. It was a criticism Boscombe did not need, however justified.

Boscombe blushed and looked down at his big hands. “I wasn’t the one who told him. I couldn’t bring myself to. I wanted to be happy,” he said softly. “That was the coward’s way, I suppose, but he asked me to help with the money and other tasks in the church. I couldn’t refuse without telling him why.” He twisted his fingers together, crushing the flesh till they were white. “I didn’t think you’d find out so quick.”

“Did you kill the Reverend Wynter?”

Boscombe’s head jerked up, his eyes wide. “No! God in heaven, man, how can you ask such a thing? He was my friend! He wanted us to put it right, and I told him I wasn’t leaving Genevieve for anything, church or no church. And I wasn’t going back to my first wife, either. If God sent me to hell, at least I’d have a life first. But go back and it would be hell now. And who would support Genny and my children?”

“Who supports your first wife?” Dominic asked.

“She had money of her own and no need of mine,” Boscombe said bitterly. “As she often reminded me.”

“If she divorced you for your adultery and desertion, you would be free to marry Genevieve and make your children legitimate,” Dominic pointed out. “In the law, if not in the church. Wouldn’t it still be better?”

Boscombe gave a sharp bark of laughter. “Do you think I didn’t ask her to? She’s not a woman to forgive, Reverend Corde. Not ever. As long as she lives she’ll hold me to bondage. My only choice is to live in sin with Genevieve, the best and gentlest, most loyal woman I know, or live in virtue cold as ice with a woman who hates me, and will make me pay every day and night of my life, because I don’t love her. The Reverend Wynter wanted me to make it right, for Genevieve’s sake, and my children’s. He told me they’d get nothing if I die, and I know that’s true.” He blinked several times. “I’ll just have to pray I don’t die. He was looking for a way for me to make it right with God, but he never found it before he died. I don’t know who killed him, but I swear to you before the Lord who made the earth and everything in it, it was not me. I loved the Reverend Wynter, and I’ve got enough on my soul as it is without adding violence to it.”

Dominic believed him. It fit with what Mrs. Paget had told him, and what he had come to know of Wynter. Boscombe might have thought, in a moment’s desperation, that if Wynter were dead he could continue to live in peace. But he must have known that it would only be a matter of time before he was exposed. With murder on his hands and his heart, there would be no happiness ahead for him, or for the woman and the children he loved so deeply. Could Dominic find an answer for him? If Wynter, with a lifetime in the church, could not, then how could he, a novice? “I’ll try to find a way for you to sort it out,” he promised rashly. “Thank you for your honesty.”

“If there were, we’d have found it by now,” Boscombe said miserably. “What are you going to say to the bishop?”

“Nothing,” Dominic replied, again rashly. He stood up. “I’m concerned with finding who killed the Reverend Wynter. Anything else is between you and God. Living with a woman to whom you are not married may be a sin, but it is not against the law. We will address that problem later. Perhaps after Christmas they will move me somewhere else. I hope not, but I cannot choose.” He heard the roughness of grief in his own voice and was angry with himself. What had he to grieve over, when he was returning to the woman he loved, with no shadow over them or between them, except whatever he might create himself by being less than she believed of him? “First let us celebrate the birth of Christ, and leave other things until after that.”

Boscombe held out his hand, blinking rapidly again. “Thank you.”

Dominic gripped him hard. “But if I stay here, we will have to seek an answer one day.”

“I know,” Boscombe replied. “I know.”

T
he morning dawned bright. The sky was a pale, wind-scoured blue, and the ice crust on the snow was hard enough to support a child’s weight. The few ducks out, eager for bread, paddled across it without making a crack. Someone had been thoughtful enough to put out water for them, but it would need thawing every hour or two.

Clarice had baked bread, a skill she was very proud of because it had not come naturally to her. Dominic took a loaf to old Mr. Riddington and found him frail and hunched up in his chair. He was grateful for the bread, but even more for the company in his chilly and almost soundless world. Dominic brought in more wood and coal, making them both a cup of tea. He found it was more than two hours before he could decently leave the old man.

He went next door to check with Mrs. Blount and thank her for her kindness. Then he set out for home.

He was close to the green again when he was aware of footsteps behind him. He heard every crack and crunch of the ice. He turned to see the small figure of Sybil Towers struggling to catch up with him. Her mittened hands were waggling awkwardly as she tried to keep her balance, her cape was trailing lopsidedly, and her hat was a trifle awry.

It was the last thing he wanted to do, but he started back toward her. She looked so frantic and lonely, he had no choice.

“Good morning, Mrs. Towers. Are you all right?” He offered her his arm. “It isn’t weather for hurrying, you know. Where are you going? Perhaps I can accompany you and see you don’t fall.”

“You are too kind, Reverend Corde.” She grasped his arm as if it were a lifeline in a stormy sea. “Those poor ducks. I know Mrs. Jones is putting out bread and a little lard for them, such a nice woman.”

“Which way are you going, Mrs. Towers?” he asked again.

“Oh, over there.” She gestured vaguely with her free arm, nearly losing her balance again. “How are you settling in? Is Mrs. Corde finding the vicarage to her liking? A home matters so much, I always think.”

“We both like it very much indeed,” he answered.

“A good garden,” she went on. “Old trees make a garden, don’t you agree?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “I expect in spring they are beautiful.”

She told him how many blossom trees there were, then the various other flowers in season, all the way through to the tawny chrysanthemums, the purple Michaelmas daisies, and the offer of an excellent recipe for crab apple jelly. “One of my favorites, I confess,” she said with enthusiasm. “I prefer the tart to the very sweet, don’t you?”

They were now well across the green and into the lane at the far side. They had passed several cottages; the way through the woods lay ahead, winding between the trees. Presumably it led eventually to open fields and perhaps a farm or two. He had realized half a mile ago that she was not actually going anywhere. She needed to talk to him, but could not bring herself to come to the subject easily. His hands were numb and his feet so cold he was losing sensation in them also, but he felt her need as sharply as the wind rattling the bare branches above them. Did she know something about the Reverend Wynter’s death? Was that what she was struggling to say?

“Of course, we will probably not be here for very long,” he prompted her, surprised again by the regret in his voice. “Once the bishop finds a permanent replacement for the Reverend Wynter, we will return to London. From everything I hear, he was a most remarkable man, one whose shoes it will not be easy to fill.”

“He was,” she said eagerly. “Oh, he was. So kind. So very patient. One knew one could trust him with anything.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “But I think perhaps you are the same, Reverend Corde. It seems to me you are a man who has understood pain.” She looked away from him, and he knew she was afraid she had been too bold.

He hastened to reassure her. “Thank you. That is a very fine thing to say, Mrs. Towers. I shall endeavor to live up to it. At least I can say that I understand loneliness, and the grief of knowing that you have done something ugly and wrong. But I also know there is a path back.”

They walked in silence for several yards. Crows wheeled up in the sky, cawing harshly, then circled back into the lower branches again.

“I was going to speak to the Reverend Wynter,” she said at last. “I wanted to make a confession, but…”

“I think he knew that,” Dominic said for her, still holding her arm. “Let’s turn back, or we will have too far to go. All the earth is God’s house. You do not have to speak in a church for it to be a sacred trust.”

“No, no, I suppose not. I kept doing little things wrong, you see, to find out if he would forgive them, before I…before I told him the real thing.”

He walked a few moments, perhaps thirty or forty yards along the path, and then he prompted her again. “Was it you who took the pennies from the collection for the poor?”

She drew in her breath with a little cry. “It was only pennies! I made it up, always! I gave extra…”

He put his other hand over her arm, holding her more tightly. “That doesn’t matter. The books were never short. I know that. But you wanted to speak to him, and never quite found the resolve.” He did not use the word
courage.
“Perhaps now would be a good time?”

She gulped again. “I…I committed a…a terrible sin when I was young. I’m so ashamed, and it can never be undone. I wanted to confess, but…but I…he was such a good man, I was afraid he would despise me…”

“Then tell
me,
Mrs. Towers. I am not so very good. I understand very well what it feels like to sin, and to repent.”

“I do repent, I do!”

“Then cast it on the Lord, and be free of it.”

“But I must pay!”

“I think that is not for you to decide. What is it you did that is so heavy for you to bear?”

“I had a love affair,” she whispered. “Oh, I did love him. You see, I am not Mrs. Towers. I never married. And…and…” Again she could not find the words.

He guessed. “You had a child?”

She nodded. “Yes.” She took a few more steps. “I only saw her for a few moments, then they took her away from me. She was so beautiful.” The tears were flowing down her face now. In moments the wind would freeze them on her cold skin. She must have been nearly seventy, and yet the memory was as sharp as yesterday.

He ached to do anything that would take away the pain. Could the compassion in his own heart speak for God? Surely God had to be better, greater than he was?

“Is that all?” he asked her.

“Is that not enough?” she said incredulously.

“Yes. And the penance you have already paid is enough also. More than enough. God forgave you long ago. And the Reverend Wynter would tell you that, were he here.”

“I wish I’d had the courage to tell him,” she said, swallowing hard.

“Did he not guess?” he asked.

“Oh, no. He knew I wished to say something, but he did not know what it was.” She sounded certain.

“He knew many people’s secrets,” he went on. They were now almost back to the far side of the village green. “Do you not think perhaps the father could have told him?”

“Oh, no, indeed not. The father…never knew. It would have been quite impossible for him to marry me. There was no purpose in my telling him about it. I simply went away. It is what girls do, you know.”

“Yes, yes. I do know.” He did not say any more. It was an age-old story of love and pain and sometimes betrayal, sometimes simple tragedy. It had happened untold times, and would happen again. Had it been here in this village?

Whoever the father was, she had protected him all these years. She would not betray him now, and it was not part of her penance that she should.

Dominic was still holding her arm, and he gripped it a little more tightly as they stepped into the rutted road, icy where wheels had pressed it down, deep between ridges.

“Thank you for speaking to me,” he said sincerely. “Please don’t think of it any further, except with love, or grief, but never again with guilt.”

She nodded, unable even to attempt words.

He left her at her door and turned to walk back toward the vicarage. He was quite certain that he had said to her exactly what the Reverend Wynter would have, and his admiration for the old man’s wisdom and compassion grew even greater.

How would Dominic follow in his footsteps and guide and comfort the people of this village—be strong for them, judge wisely, know the hearts and not merely the words?

He would be here for Christmas—that much he was certain of. What could he say that was passionate and honest and caught the glory of what Christmas was truly about? It was God’s greatest gift to the world, but how could he make them see that? There would be Yule logs and carols and bells, mulled wine, gifts, decorated trees, lights across the snow. They were the outer marks of joy. How could he make just as visible the inward ones?

He wanted Clarice to be proud of him; he wanted it with a hunger close to starvation. He must give her the gift she most wanted, too—finding the best in himself for both of them.