Brunswick Gardens Part 10

Wheatcroft clicked his tongue. "Very regrettable. Most unfortunate." He shook his head. "I must visit the Reverend Parmenter and convey my condolences. Distressing thing to have happen in one's home, most particularly to an a.s.sistant in one's work, of whatever quality. No doubt he will find someone more suitable quite quickly, but it is bound to be most disturbing. Poor young woman. How does this concern you, Superintendent?" He peered at Pitt over his spectacles. He was still standing and he did not offer a seat.

"We need to know more precisely what happened ..." Pitt began.

"Is it not plain enough?" Wheatcroft's eyebrows rose over his round, light brown eyes. "Can it take so much observation and deduction?"

"She fell downstairs and broke her neck," Pitt answered. "It appears she was pushed."

Wheatcroft took a moment or two to digest this startling information, then he frowned, his impatience returning.

"Why, for heaven's sake? Why should anyone push a young woman downstairs? And what can I possibly tell you? I am familiar with his scholastic reputation and her political and radical views, which I abominate. She should never have been permitted into serious study of theological matters." His lips tightened, and unconsciously the att.i.tude of his body had altered to be more rigid, as if under his rather ill-fitting jacket, his muscles were knotted. "It is not a fit subject for women. They are const.i.tutionally unsuited to it. It is not an area for emotion but for pure spirit and reason, free from the clouding of the natural feelings and prejudices." He mastered his own emotion with something of an effort. "Still, that is all past now and we cannot alter it. Poor Parmenter. Sometimes we pay heavily for our errors of judgment, and I am sure he intended only to be liberal in his views, but it does not pay."

"Was she not a good scholar?" Pitt asked, wondering if conceivably Ramsay had formed some attachment for her and employed her for personal rather than professional reasons.

Wheatcroft remained standing, as if he had no intention of allowing Pitt to be comfortable enough to forget he was an interruption. He lifted his shoulders very slightly, frowning as he spoke. "I thought I had already explained to you, Superintendent. Women are, by their nature, unsuited to serious intellectual study." He shook his head. "Miss Bellwood was no exception. She had a quick mind and could grasp the mere facts and remember them as well as anyone, but she had no deeper understanding."

He peered at Pitt as if trying to estimate his probable educational level. "It is one thing to translate the words of a pa.s.sage; it is quite another to be at one with the mind of the writer of that pa.s.sage, to grasp his fundamental meaning. She was not capable of that, and that is the essence of pure scholars.h.i.+p. The other is mere"-he spread his hands-"is merely technical. Very useful, of course. She might have served an excellent purpose in teaching young people the mechanics of a foreign tongue. That would have been the ideal place for her. But she was willful and headstrong, and would not be guided. She was a rebel in all things, Superintendent. Her personal life was completely without discipline. That in itself should demonstrate the point to you perfectly."

"Why do you suppose the Reverend Parmenter would have employed her, if he was such an excellent scholar himself?" Pitt asked, although he had little hope of a useful answer.

"I have no idea." Wheatcroft was obviously not interested in considering the matter.

"Might it have been a personal reason?" Pitt pursued.

"I cannot think of one," Wheatcroft said impatiently. "Was she the daughter of a relative, perhaps, or a friend or colleague?"

"No."

"No...I thought not. She was a different type of person altogether. From a liberal and artistic background." He said the words as if they were a condemnation in themselves. "Really, Superintendent, I don't know what it is you wish to hear from me, but I fear I cannot help you."

"What did you think of the Reverend Parmenter's academic publications, Dr. Wheatcroft?"

He spoke without hesitation.

"Excellent, quite excellent. Outstanding, in fact. He is a man of the most profound and intricate understanding. He has chosen to explore some of the deepest subjects and with exhaustive study." He nodded enthusiastically, his voice rising. "His work is taken most seriously by those few men who value such things in their true worth. His work will live long after him. His contribution is priceless." He fixed Pitt with a grim stare. "You must do all you can to deal with this matter with the utmost dispatch. It is all most unfortunate."

"It appears to be murder, Dr. Wheatcroft," Pitt said with equal severity. "To be right is more important than to be quick."

"One of the servants, I expect," Wheatcroft said irritably. "I am sorry to speak ill of the dead, but in this case, no doubt, to be honest is more important than to be charitable." He mimicked Pitt's tone. "She was a woman who believed self-discipline in matters of the fleshly appet.i.tes was neither necessary nor desirable. I am afraid such behavior gathers its own rewards."

"You are as good as your word," Pitt said acidly.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You have decidedly favored honesty above charity."

"Your remark is in poor taste, sir," Wheatcroft said with surprise and annoyance. "I find it offensive. Please be so good as to remember your position here."

Pitt wriggled his shoulders and changed his balance as if uncomfortable. He smiled, baring his teeth. "Thank you for your hospitality, Dr. Wheatcroft. It was remiss of me not to have mentioned it earlier."

Wheatcroft flushed.

"And for your a.s.sistance," Pitt went on. "I shall convey your condolences to the Reverend Parmenter next time I have occasion to question him on the matter, although I imagine he might appreciate it if you wrote them yourself. Good day, sir." And before Wheatcroft could retaliate, he turned and went back to the door, and the manservant showed him out.

He walked briskly as he left. He was extremely angry, both with Wheatcroft for his graceless behavior and with himself for allowing it to provoke him into retaliation. Except that he had enjoyed it considerably and hoped Wheatcroft was livid.

He arrived home in Bloomsbury a little before dark, still smoldering. After dinner, when Jemima and Daniel were in bed and he and Charlotte were sitting beside the parlor fire, she asked him the cause of his anger, and he told her about his visits to Glover and then Wheatcroft.

"That's monstrous!" she exploded, letting her knitting fall. "He says all that about her because she is a woman and he doesn't like what he imagines are her morals. And then has the colossal hypocrisy to say that she is incapable of detached reasoning but is governed by her emotions. He is the ultimate bigot!"

She warmed to the battle, pus.h.i.+ng the needles into the ball of wool to keep them safe. "If Unity Bellwood had to fight against people like that in order to find any position where she could use her abilities, no wonder she was difficult to get on with now and then. So should I be, if I were patronized, insulted and dismissed in such a way, not for what I actually did but simply because I was not a man."

She drew breath but gave him no chance to interrupt. "What are they afraid of?" she demanded, leaning forward. "It doesn't make any sense. If she is better than they are, or if she is worse, foolish or incompetent, what difference does it make if she is a man or a woman? Isn't the result the same? If she is better, they lose their position and she takes it. If she is incompetent, she loses a piece of work, or spoils it, and is dismissed. Wouldn't exactly the same be true if she were a man?" She waved her hand. "Well, wouldn't it?"

He smiled in spite of himself, not because his anger was ameliorated but at her outburst of righteous indignation. It was so characteristic of her. In that much at least she had not changed a whit since he had first met her ten years before. The spontaneity was exactly the same, the courage to sail almost unthinkingly into battle where she saw injustice. Anyone oppressed instantly had her support.

"Yes!" he said sincerely. "I begin to have some sympathy with Unity Bellwood. If she lost her temper now and again or took pleasure in every error Ramsay Parmenter made, and let him know it, I should find it very understandable. Especially if she really was cleverer than he." He meant it. Standing in Wheatcroft's study, he had been oppressed by an awareness of the impenetrable barrier which must have blocked Unity Bellwood's attempts to be taken seriously as a scholar, based not upon any limitations to her intellect but entirely upon other people's perceptions and fears. It was not surprising she had been consumed with an anger which had prompted her to provoke as much discomfort as she could in those men she found intolerably complacent in their security. And Tryphena's rage at injustice, her belief that Unity had been silenced for her challenge to vested interest, was equally easy to understand.

He looked up and saw Charlotte watching him, and he knew from her face that the same thoughts were in her mind.

"He could have, couldn't he," she said aloud. It was a statement. "She was so suffocated by injustice, she lashed out-the only way she could, with ideas he couldn't bear, challenging him! And he had not the intellect to argue against her, and they both knew it, so he lost his temper and struck at her physically. Perhaps he did not mean her to fall. It was all over in a few seconds, and he denied it because it seemed almost unreal, a nightmare."

"Yes," he said quietly. "He could."

The following day Pitt visited other people who had known Ramsay Parmenter for some time. In mid-afternoon he called upon Miss Alice Cadwaller. She was well into her eighties, but quicker of wit and observation than either of the previous two people he had spoken to, and certainly far more hospitable than Dr. Wheatcroft. She invited him into her small sitting room and offered him tea on an exquisite bone china service hand-painted with blue harebells. There were sandwiches about the size of one of his fingers, and cakes no more than an inch and a half across.

She was propped up in her chair with a shawl around her shoulders. She held her cup delicately in one hand and regarded him rather as an elderly and weather-beaten thrush might have.

"Well, Superintendent," she said, nodding a little, "what is it you want to hear? I do not care to speak unkindly. I always judge people by what they say of others. One's unkind comments reveal far more of oneself than one realizes."

"Indeed, Miss Cadwaller," he agreed. "But in cases of sudden and violent death, where justice must be served and injustice avoided, it is usually necessary to speak truths one would otherwise prefer to keep to oneself. I would like you to tell me your opinion of Ramsay Parmenter. I believe you have known him for at least twenty years."

"I have, in a manner of speaking," she agreed. "Shall we say I have observed him. It is not the same thing."

"You do not feel you know him?" He took a sip of his tea and a bite of his sandwich, trying to make it last for two.

"He had a public face which he showed to his paris.h.i.+oners," she explained. "If he had a private one or not I do not know."

"How do you know this was not his private face as well?" he asked curiously.

She looked at him with patient amus.e.m.e.nt. "Because he addressed me as if I were a public meeting, even when we were alone; rather as he addressed G.o.d...like someone he wished to impress but not to become too closely acquainted with, in case we should trespa.s.s upon his privacy or disturb his plans or his ideas."

Pitt kept himself from smiling only with great difficulty. He knew precisely what she meant. He had sensed exactly that same distance in Ramsay. But considering their relations.h.i.+p and the circ.u.mstances, he had expected it. For Miss Cadwaller it was different.

"I believe he was of the greatest help to Mr. Corde when he was in distress some few years ago," he observed, wondering how she would respond to the idea.

"That does not surprise me." She nodded. "Mr. Corde has spoken most highly of him. Indeed, his regard and grat.i.tude are most heartening. He is a young man of deep conviction, and I believe he will be of great service to the Lord."

"Do you?" Pitt asked politely. He could not imagine Dominic Corde as a minister. Preaching from the pulpit was one thing. It was almost like acting, which he had always thought Dominic would be good at, in a minor way. He had the eyes, the beautiful profile, the charm, the bearing, and an excellent voice. And he knew how to be the center of attention gracefully; it was in not being the center that he exhibited less grace. Ministering quietly to the needs of people was something very different.

"You find that surprising?" she observed acutely.

"I ..." He hesitated.

"I can see it in your face, young man." She smiled, not unkindly.

"Yes, I do," he admitted. Should he tell her they were brothers-in-law? It might prejudice her answers. Although looking at her wrinkled face with its bright eyes, perhaps it would have no effect whatever. Then he remembered with distinct discomfort her observation about remarks upon other people reflecting more upon the speaker than the object. "Please explain to me. I can see you have grounds for your belief."

"It concerned Miss Dinmont's brother," she said, taking another sip of her tea.

He waited.

"I am afraid he was not a very good man, but she still felt a great loss when he died. One does. The ties of blood cannot easily be dismissed, no matter how much one might care to. And he was her younger brother. I think she felt a great sense of failure over him."

"And Mr. Corde?"

"I sat with her for some time after the news came of her brother's death," she went on at her own pace. She could not allow some young policeman who needed the attention of a good barber to hurry her in explaining something of importance in principle, if not of any actual use. "She is a good churchgoer. Naturally, Reverend Parmenter came to offer her his comfort. There was to be a funeral, here in this parish."

He nodded and took another sandwich.

"She was very distressed," she continued. "The poor man had no idea what to say or to do when faced with real grief. He read various scriptures which were perfectly appropriate. I daresay he reads them to everyone who has been bereaved. But his heart was not in it. One can tell."

She looked sad, her eyes far away. "I had the profound impression he did not believe the words himself. He spoke of the resurrection of the dead as if it were a railway timetable." She set down her cup. "If the trains run on time it is very convenient, but it is not a miracle of G.o.d, it is not a matter for joy and eternal hope. It is very irritating if they do not, but it is not the end of all light and life. One will merely be obliged to wait rather longer. And railway platforms, while not being ideal, are by no means h.e.l.l, nor oblivion." She looked at him over the top of her teacup. "Although I have at times felt they were akin. But that was when I was younger and the reality of death seemed a great deal further away. And I was in a hurry then."

"And Dominic Corde?" he asked, smiling back at her and taking the last of the cakes.

"Ah...that was quite different," she declared. "He came later, I think two days later. He simply sat down next to her, took her hand in his. He did not read, but told her in his own words of the thieves on the crosses on either side of Our Lord, and then of Easter morning, and Mary Magdalene seeing Him in the garden and mistaking Him for the gardener until He spoke her name." There was a sudden misting of tears in her eyes. "I think it was knowing her name that made the difference. Suddenly poor Miss Dinmont realized that G.o.d knows each of us by name. Love is a personal thing, Thou and I, not a matter of arguments and teachings. That is the power which transcends all else. In those few moments she was comforted. Mr. Corde understood that. Reverend Parmenter did not."

"I see," he said gently, surprised at himself that he did see, perfectly.

"Would you like some more tea?" she offered.

"Yes, please, Miss Cadwaller, I would," he accepted, holding out his cup and saucer. "I think I understand something now about Reverend Parmenter which I did not before."

"Of course you do," she agreed, lifting up the pot and pouring from it. "The poor man lost his belief, not in what he was doing but why he was doing it. Nothing can replace that. All the reason in the world does not warm the heart, nor comfort grief and failure. The ministry is about loving the unlovable and helping people to bear pain and suffer unexplainable loss without despair. In the end it is about trust. If you can trust G.o.d, all else will fall in its place."

He did not argue or even comment. She had summed up in a few words all that he had been struggling to find. He finished his tea, talked a little more of commonplace things, admired her china and the embroidered cloth on the table, then thanked her and took his leave.

By five o'clock he was at the home of Bishop Underhill, trying to clarify in his mind what he could ask him that would teach him anything further about Ramsay Parmenter. Surely as Ramsay's bishop, Underhill would have insights more profound than anyone else? Pitt was afraid he might meet with a rebuff based on the sanct.i.ty and privilege of their relations.h.i.+p. He was prepared to be politely refused.

However, when the bishop came into the red and brown library where Pitt had been asked to wait, his air was anything but one of calm and a.s.sured denial. He closed the door behind him and faced Pitt with his features creased by acute anxiety, his thinning hair ruffled, his shoulders braced as if expecting an almost physical onslaught.

"You are the policeman in charge of this miserable affair?" he asked Pitt accusingly. "How long do you expect it to take before you can reach an acceptable conclusion? It is all very distressing indeed."

"Yes sir," Pitt agreed, standing almost to attention. After all, he was in the presence of a prince of the church. Underhill was due respect. "Any crime is distressing, and this one peculiarly so," he added. "That is why I have come here, in the hope that you can help me learn exactly what happened."

"Ah!" The bishop nodded, looking slightly more hopeful. "Do sit down, Superintendent. Make yourself comfortable, sir, and let us see what we can accomplish. I am very pleased you have come." He sat down on the red leather chair opposite the brown one on which Pitt had sat, and gave him his earnest attention. "The sooner we can resolve this, the better for everyone."

Pitt had an uncomfortable moment's thought that their ideas of resolution were not the same. He told himself instantly that he was being unjust.

"I am making enquiries as speedily as I can," Pitt a.s.sured the bishop. "But beyond the physical facts, which seem indisputable, it immediately becomes far less clear."

"I understand the unfortunate young woman was most difficult in manner and morality, causing ill feeling. She quarreled with Reverend Parmenter and fell down the stairs." He breathed heavily, his mouth closing in a tight line, the muscles of his cheek and jaw tensed. "You have no doubt she was pushed, I presume, or you would not take any further interest in the matter. A simple domestic tragedy does not require your investigation." A flicker of hope lit his eyes.

"There is no indication that she tripped, sir," Pitt replied. "But her cry, apparently accusing Reverend Parmenter, makes it necessary we investigate the incident more thoroughly."

"Cry?" The bishop's voice lifted sharply. "Precisely what did she cry out, Superintendent? Surely that is open to interpretation? Have you found any other evidence whatever to suggest that a man of Reverend Parmenter's reputation and learning would so lose his wits, all his life's work, as to push her? Really, sir, it defies belief."

"She cried out 'No, no, Reverend!'" Pitt replied.

"Could she not have slipped and called for his a.s.sistance, as the nearest person to her and the most likely to come to her aid?" the bishop said urgently. "Surely that is a far more likely explanation? I am sure if you put that to the person who heard the cry, they will confirm it to you." He said it almost in the tone of an order-and an a.s.sumption that it would be obeyed.

"That is not what they say, sir," Pitt answered, watching his face. "But it is possible she cried 'No, no' to the person who pushed her, and then called out to Mr. Parmenter to help her. But she did not use any words such as help help or or please." please."

"Of course." The bishop leaned forward. "She fell before she could. That is most easily explained. She may even have begun to and been cut off by her fall, poor creature. It seems we have resolved the matter already. Most excellent." He smiled, but there was no warmth in it.

"If it was not Reverend Parmenter who pushed her, then it was someone else," Pitt pointed out. "The servants are all accounted for, as are Mrs. Parmenter ..." He saw the bishop wince. "And Mrs. Whickham. This leaves Miss Clarice Parmenter, Mr. Mallory Parmenter, and the curate who is lodging there at present, Mr. Dominic Corde."

"Ah, yes...Corde." The bishop leaned back in his chair. "Well, it is probably young Mallory Parmenter. Very regrettable, but a lightly balanced young man of emotional instability. You will not be aware of his history, but he has always been of a doubting and argumentative nature. As a youth he quibbled over everything. He could accept nothing without making an issue over it." He drew his mouth tight in an expression of annoyance as memory became sharp. "One moment he was bursting with enthusiasm, the next he was equally full of criticism. Altogether an unsatisfactory young man. His rebellion against his father, his entire family and all its values, is witness of that. I cannot think why he should do something so violent and tragic, but I have never understood such behavior. I can only deplore and regret it." He frowned. "And, of course, pity the victims," he added hastily.

"Miss Bellwood was with child," Pitt said bluntly.

The bishop paled. The satisfaction drained from his face. "How very unfortunate. From some liaison before she was employed, I presume?"

"Since. I am afraid it is very probable the father was one of the three men in the house."

"Only of academic import now." The bishop stretched his neck, easing his collar as if it were tight. "We can never know who it was, and we must a.s.sume it was young Parmenter, and that was his reason for...killing her. It is the lesser sin, Superintendent, and there is no need to blacken the young woman's reputation by letting it become public now. Let us allow her to rest in peace, poor creature." He swallowed. "It is not a necessity, nor is it our place, to judge her weakness."

"It may be Mallory Parmenter," Pitt agreed, unreasonably angry deep inside himself. He had no right to judge the bishop; he had no idea what young Mallory had been like, or how he had tried his patience. All the same, his dislike was intense. "But it may not," he added. "I cannot act without proof."

The bishop looked agitated. "But what proof can you have?" he demanded. "No one has confessed. The act was not seen, and you have just told me any of three people could have been responsible. What do you propose to do?" His voice was rising. "You cannot leave the matter unsolved! All three men's reputations will be ruined. It would be quite monstrous."

"Can you tell me something further about Mallory Parmenter, something specific, Bishop Underhill?" Pitt asked. "And Dominic Corde, perhaps? Certainly you must know Ramsay Parmenter better than almost anyone else, in some ways."

"Yes...of course. Well...I'm not sure."

"I beg your pardon?"

A flicker of discomfort crossed the bishop's face. He started to explain himself. "I have known Mallory Parmenter for a long time, naturally. As a boy he was always a little difficult, lurching from one enthusiasm to another, as I have said. Most people grow out of it. He does not seem to have. Could not make up his mind what to do with his life. Indecisive, you see?" He stared at Pitt critically. "Considered going up to Oxford to study, but didn't. Never fell in love. No one would meet his impossibly high criteria. Lived in a world divorced from reality. An idealist. Never came to terms." He hesitated.

"Yes?" Pitt prompted after a moment.

"Unsound," the bishop finished, satisfied with the word. "Yes, unsound. Obvious enough now, I am afraid."

Pitt took that to refer to his conversion to Rome, but did not say so. "And Mr. Corde?" he asked.

"Ah. Yes. A most promising man." Underhill's voice was suddenly filled with satisfaction, a momentary smile on his mouth. "Most promising. Always a joy to see someone discover a true faith and be prepared to sacrifice all to follow it."