Brunswick Gardens (14 page)

“Did you work with her, too?” she asked, meaning had he liked her, but afraid to ask so directly. She had no right to probe his feelings. Their friendship was tenuous, more a thing of length of time than a depth of understanding or trust. They had many shared experiences, grief and terror which they both felt. Looking back on it now, it seemed the same, but at the time they had been very different, very separate, aware then only of aloneness.

“No,” he answered, still with his eyes forward, as if he were concerned where they were going. “It was Ramsay’s personal scholarship she was involved in. I had nothing to do with that. I expect I shall be posted to a church somewhere else quite soon. As it is for Mallory, my situation here is only temporary.”

She had a feeling he was leaving unsaid something far more important than the factual details he spoke about.

“But you must still have seen her at table and in the evenings, times when they did not work,” she pointed out. “You must know something of her and of what he felt for her.…” She was pressing him, but she was too anxious not to.

“Yes, of course,” he agreed, pulling the rug across her where it had slipped away. “As well as one knows anybody whom one … with whom one shares no common perception or belief. It all seems such a waste. We shall have to try to make sense of it for the others. I suppose that is my job … to make sense of pain
and confusion, and people doing things which seem ugly beyond all possible explanation. Are you warm enough?”

“Yes, thank you.” Her comfort did not matter in the slightest; she was hardly aware of it.

“It takes a great deal of courage,” she said sincerely. For the first time since he had come to Cater Street courting Sarah, over fourteen years ago, she felt an admiration for him which was based on the man he was, not the beauty of his face. This time there was no mirage, no preoccupation with her own dreams or her needs for him to fulfill. She found herself smiling. “If I can help, please allow me.”

He swiveled to face her. “Of course.” He put his hand on hers in a momentary gesture of warmth. “I wish I knew how. I’m guessing it step by step myself.”

The carriage stopped. They had reached the undertaker’s establishment, and there were formalities to arrange, times, places, choices to be made. He alighted and offered her his hand.

    Isadora Underhill watched as her husband paced the floor of the withdrawing room, back and forth, every so often running his fingers through his thinning hair. She was used to his being preoccupied with anxieties of one sort or another. He was a little older than she, and bishop of a diocese where a great many influential people lived. There was always some sort of crisis which commanded his attention. Many duties were required both of him and of his wife, but when she was not needed she had learned to occupy herself in other pursuits both with people and on her own. She had great pleasure in reading, especially about the lives of men and women in other lands or of other times. During the spring and summer she spent many hours in the garden, doing more of the physical work than her husband thought suitable. But she had entered into a tacit conspiracy with the gardener that he would solemnly take credit for much that was actually her work if the bishop should happen to notice and comment, which was very infrequently. He did not know a
hollyhock from a camellia, or have any but the faintest notion of what care went into the beauty which surrounded him.

“Really, it is quite the worst thing which has ever happened!” he said sharply. “I don’t think you are appreciating the seriousness of this, Isadora.” He stopped pacing and stood staring at her, his brows furrowed, small lines of anger around his mouth.

“I can see that it is very sad,” she replied, threading her tapestry needle with a deep rose madder silk. “It is always deeply distressing when a young person dies. And I daresay her scholastic skills will be sorely missed. I understand she was brilliant.” She put the skein away among the others.

“For heaven’s sake!” he said exasperatedly. “You have not been paying attention at all. That is hardly the point. Really, I think you could at least put your sewing away and listen with all your mind.” He waved his hand irritably at the tapestry roses. “That is of no importance. This is quite devastating.”

“I don’t see why death should devastate you,” she replied reasonably. “It is very sad, but regrettably we hear of death very often, and surely that is part of the blessing of having a faith that you—”

“It is not the wretched woman’s death which is the problem!” he cut across her, jerking his head in the air. He was wearing a dark suit, gaiters, and a very high white collar. “Of course it is sad, but we deal with death all the time. It is a part of life, and absolutely inevitable. We have all sorts of ways of coping with it, things with which to comfort ourselves and those who mourn. As I said, if you were listening, that is not the point.”

She heard the temper sharp in his voice, and behind it a fear more genuine and urgent than she could remember ever perceiving in him before. She pushed the silks towards the box in which she kept them. “Then what is the point?” she asked.

“I told you! She was pushed down the stairs and broke her neck. It now appears quite possible it was Ramsay Parmenter himself who did it.”

She was startled and suddenly quite tight and cold inside.
She knew Ramsay Parmenter. She had always rather liked him; he was invariably kind, but she had sensed an unhappiness in him which she could not forget or dismiss. Now, in the space of a few words, it became pity.

“No, you did not tell me,” she said with acute sorrow. “That is indeed very terrible. What makes anyone think such a thing could have happened? Why? Why should Ramsay Parmenter push anyone downstairs? Was it an accident? Did he overbalance? He doesn’t drink, does he?”

The bishop looked thoroughly annoyed.

“No, of course he doesn’t drink! Whatever possessed you to say such a thing? For heaven’s sake, Isadora, it was I who pushed for him to be given a bishopric. The Archbishop of Canterbury is not going to forget that … nor is the Synod.”

She was unperturbed by his tone. Any suggestion of impropriety disturbed him, and she was used to it. “Canon Black drank a great deal,” she remembered. “No one knew it because he could walk quite steadily even when he was very much the worse for it.”

“That was malicious gossip,” he denied. “You of all people should know better than to listen to it, let alone repeat it. The poor man had an impediment in his speech.”

“I know he did. It is called Napoleon brandy.” She did not wish to be gratuitously unkind, but there were times when tact became cowardice and was intolerable. “You would have done him more good not to turn a blind eye to it.”

His eyebrows rose. “Leave me to be the judge of my duty, Isadora. Canon Black is in the past. There is nothing to be served by debating that issue again. At the present I have a far graver matter upon which I must make a judgment, and a very great deal will depend upon it. It is an enormous responsibility I have.”

She was confused. “What judgment can you make, Reginald? We must support poor Reverend Parmenter and his
family, but there is nothing for us to do. Do you think I should call tomorrow, or is it too soon?”

“Certainly it is too soon.” He dismissed the idea with a flick of his well-cared-for hand with its large bloodstone ring. She was used to his hands, strong and square, with spatulate fingers, but she had never found them attractive. It was something about which she felt guilty.

“It only happened yesterday,” he went on. “I heard about it this morning, half an hour ago. The decision is what I must do. I have insufficient information. I have been going over and over in my mind upon Parmenter’s career. What could have unbalanced him to the point where such a thing can even be contemplated?”

She stared at him in disbelief. “What are you saying, Reginald? Are you suggesting there is something uglier than an accident?”

“The police are!” he replied sharply, his sandy eyebrows drawn together. “Therefore I must. I cannot evade reality, no matter how much I might prefer to. If the police bring charges against him, it may even be as dreadful as murder.”

She wanted to deny it, but that was foolish. Reginald would never have said it if it were not true. She looked at him as he swung around and started to pace back and forth again, clenching and unclenching his hands. She had never seen him so distressed or so worried; the muscles of his strong, thick body were knotted hard, his jacket stretched over his shoulders.

“Do you think it is possible?” she asked quietly.

He stopped. “Of course it is possible, Isadora. There is sometimes a darkness in people the rest of us have no idea exists.” He was angry with her because he had to explain, and yet he would have explained anyway, he always explained everything, and she had long ago stopped telling him she understood.

“Parmenter is a man who never achieved his potential,” he went on, wagging his finger. “Think back to when we both met him. He was brilliant. His whole future lay ahead of him. He
could have risen to be a bishop then. He had all the talents necessary, the intellectual understanding and the personal ability. He preached superbly.” His voice was getting a sharper edge to it with every sentence. “He had tact, intelligence, judgment, dedication, and all the right sort of family background. He married very well. Vita Parmenter would be an asset to any man. And where is he now?” He stared down at her as if he expected her to supply the answer, but he did not wait. “He has lost the … the promise he used to have, the … the dedication to the purposes of the church. Somewhere he has gone astray, Isadora. I just wonder how far.”

She also had noticed a difference in Ramsay Parmenter over the years. But many people changed. Sometimes it was health, sometimes personal unhappiness, sometimes a disillusion or simply a weariness, a lack of hope. It took great courage to maintain all the fire and energy of youth. Still she found herself defending Ramsay. She did not even think to do it, it was instinctive.

“Surely we must assume it was an accident, unless we hear something which makes that impossible? We must be loyal to him …”

“We must be loyal to the church!” he corrected her. “Sentiment is all very well, in its place, but this is a time for principle. I have to consider the very real possibility that he may be guilty. We are all frail. We all have temptations and weaknesses, both of the flesh and of the spirit. I have seen far more of the world than you have, my dear. I know more of humanity and its darker aspects than you ever will, thank heaven. It is not what a woman should even be aware of, far less see. But I must be prepared to face the worst.” He lifted his chin a little, as if the blow were expected any moment, even in this quiet, comfortable room with the morning sun on a pot of early hyacinths.

She would have been angry were it not for the real fear she heard in the edginess of his voice and saw in the tight tracery of
lines around his mouth. She had never known him to be so distressed before. During their thirty years of marriage she had seen him face many difficult decisions, many tragedies where he had to comfort the shocked and grieving and find the right words to say to everyone. She knew he had mediated in difficult internal rivalries between ambitious clerics, breaking bad news, both personal and professional, to many. He had usually found the way. His confidence had appeared to be serene and based upon an inner certainty.

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;
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 glass; 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.