A Christmas Journey (4 page)

“Will you at least help me try?”

She looked at him standing, lean, oddly graceful, the lines deeper in his face in the morning light, and she could not refuse. “Of course.”

“Thank you,” he said solemnly.

“What?” Lord Salchester said with stinging disbelief when they were gathered together at the luncheon table. The first course was finished when Omegus requested their attention and began to explain to them his plan.

“Preposterous!” Lady Warburton agreed. “We all know perfectly well what happened. For heaven's sake, we saw it!”

“Heard it,” Sir John corrected.

She glared at him.

“Actually,” he went on. “It's not a bad idea at all.”

Lady Warburton swung around in her chair and fixed him with a glacial eye. “It is ridiculous. And if we find Mrs. Alvie guilty, as we will do, what difference will that make?”

“That is not the end of the issue,” Omegus exclaimed. Vespasia saw him struggling to keep the dislike from his face. “In medieval times not all crimes were punished by execution or imprisonment,” he went on. “Sometimes the offender was permitted to make a pilgrimage of expiation. If he returned, which in those dangerous times very often he did not, then the sin was considered to have been washed out. All men were bound to pardon it and take the person back among them as if it had not occurred. It was never spoken of again, and he was trusted and loved as before.”

“A pilgrimage?” Peter Hanning said with disbelief, derision close to laughter in his voice. “To where, for heaven's sake? Walsingham? Canterbury? Jerusalem, perhaps? Anyway, travel is a relative pleasure these days, if one can afford it. I'm not a religious man. I don't care a fig if Mrs. Alvie, or anyone else, makes a journey to some holy place.”

“You have missed the point, Peter,” Omegus told him. “I shall choose the journey, and it will not be a pleasure. Nor will it be particularly expensive. But it will be extremely difficult, particularly so for anyone who bears guilt at all for the death of Gwendolen Kilmuir. And if we profess any claim to justice whatsoever, we will not decide in advance who that is.”

“I agree,” Sir John said immediately.

“So do I,” Vespasia added. “I agree to both justice and forgiveness.”

“And if I don't?” Lady Warburton asked sharply, looking across at Vespasia, her brow creased with dislike, her mouth pinched.

Vespasia smiled. “Then one would be compelled to wonder why not,” she replied.

“I agree,” Blanche Twyford said. “Then it need never be spoken of beyond these walls. It will stop gossip among others who were not here, and any slander they may make against any of us, letting their imaginations build all manner of speculation. If we are all bound by what we agree, and the punishment is carried out here, the matter is ours. Surely you agree, don't you?”

“I suppose, if you put it that way,” Lady Warburton said reluctantly.

Lord Salchester agreed also.

Omegus looked at Bertie, the question in his face.

“Who is to be the judge of this?” Bertie asked dubiously. Today his elegance seemed haggard, his exquisite suit and cravat an irrelevance.

“Omegus,” Vespasia said before anyone else could speak. “He is not involved and we may trust him to be fair.”

“May we?” Bertie said. “Applecross is his house. He is most certainly involved.”

“He is not involved in Gwendolen's death.” Vespasia kept her temper with increasing difficulty. “Do you have someone in mind you prefer?”

“I think the whole idea is absurd,” he replied. “And totally impractical.”

“I disagree.” Lord Salchester spoke with sudden decisiveness, his voice sharp. “I think it is an excellent idea. I am quite happy to be bound by it. So is my wife.” He did not consult her. “It will be for the good of all our reputations, and will allow the matter to be dealt with immediately, and justice be served.” He looked a little balefully around the table at the others. “Who is against it? Apart from those either guilty or too shortsighted to see the ultimate good.”

Omegus smiled bleakly, but he did not point out the loaded nature of the challenge. One by one they all agreed, except Isobel.

Vespasia looked at her very steadily. “Any alternative would be much worse, I believe,” she said softly. “Do we all give our word, on pain of being ostracized ourselves should we break it, that we will keep silence, absolutely, on the subject after the judgment is given and should the price be paid? Then the offender, if there is one, begins anew from the day of their return, and we forget the offense as if it had not happened?”

One by one, reluctantly at first, they each gave their pledge.

“Thank you,” Omegus said gravely. “Then after luncheon we shall begin.”

They collected in the withdrawing room, the curtains open on the formal garden sweeping down toward the wind-ruffled water of the lake, and the trees beyond. It was the place where they could all be seated in something close to a circle, and the servants were dismissed until they should be called for. No one was to interrupt.

Omegus called them to order, then asked each of them in turn to tell what they knew of Gwendolen Kilmuir's actions, her feelings, and what she may have said to them of her hopes from the time she had arrived three days before.

They began tentatively, unsure how far to trust, but gradually emotions were stirred by memory.

“She was full of hope,” Blanche said a little tearfully. “She believed that her time of loss was coming to an end.” She shot a look of intense dislike at Isobel. “Kilmuir's death was a terrible blow to her.”

“So much so that she intended to marry less than a year and a half later,” Peter Hanning observed, leaning back in his chair, his cravat a little crooked, a slight curl to his lip.

“They had had some difficult times,” Blanche explained crossly. “He was not an easy man.”

“It was she who was not an easy woman,” Fenton Twyford interrupted. “She took some time to accept her responsibilities. Kilmuir was very patient with her, but the time came when he bore it less graciously.”

“A great deal less graciously,” Blanche agreed. “But he was mending his ways. She was looking forward to a far greater warmth between them when he was killed.”

“Killed?” Sir John said abruptly.

“In an accident,” Blanche told him. “A horse bolted, I believe, and he was thrown out of the trap and dragged. Quite dreadful. When she heard of it, poor Gwendolen was devastated. That was why it was so wonderful that she had a second chance at happiness.” She looked at Bertie with intense meaning.

He blushed miserably.

The tale progressed, each person adding colorful details until a picture emerged of the courtship of Bertie and Gwendolen, reaching the point when everyone expected an announcement. More than one person had noticed that Isobel was not pleased, even though she attempted to hide the fact. Now all the thoughts came to the surface, and she was clearly humiliated, but she did not dare escape. It would have been an admission, and she was determined not to make one.

But the tide swept relentlessly on. Even Vespasia was carried along by it until she was placed in a position where she must speak either for Isobel or against her. She had been forced to see more clearly now than at the time how deep the feelings had been on both sides. Under the veneer of wit and a kind of friendship, there had been a struggle for victory, which would have lifted either one woman or the other back onto the crest of a wave in society, assured of comfort and acceptance. The other would be left among the number of women alone, always a little apart, a little lost, hoping for the next invitation, but never certain that it would come, dreading the next bill in case it would not be met.

Without realizing why, Vespasia spoke for Isobel. Gwendolen was beyond her help, and many others were eager to take her part.

“We use what arts we have,” she said, looking more at Omegus than the others. “Gwendolen was pretty and charming. She flattered people by allowing them to help her, and she was grateful. Isobel was far too proud for that, and too honest. She used wit, and sometimes it was cruel. I think when Gwendolen was the victim, she affected to be more wounded than she was. She craved sympathy, and she won it. Isobel was foolish enough not to see that.”

“If Gwendolen was not really hurt, why did she kill herself?” Blanche demanded angrily, challenge in her eyes and the set of her thin shoulders. “That seems to be taking the cry for sympathy rather too far to be of any use!” Her voice was heavily sarcastic, her smile a sneer.

Vespasia looked at Bertie. “When Gwendolen left last night, after Isobel's remark, did you go after her to see if she was all right?” she asked him. “Did you assure her that you did not for an instant believe she was in love with your money and position rather than with you?”

Bertie colored painfully and his face tightened.

Everyone waited.

“Did you?” Omegus said in a very clear voice.

Bertie looked up. “No. I admit it. Isobel spoke with such … certainty, I did wonder. I, God forgive me, I doubted her.” He fidgeted. “I started to think of things she had said, things other people had said—warnings.” He tried to laugh and failed. “Of course, I realize now that they were merely malicious, born of jealousy. But last night I hesitated. If I hadn't, poor Gwendolen would be alive, and I should not be alone, mourning her loss.” The look he gave Isobel was venomous in its intensity and its blame.

Vespasia was stunned. It was the last response she had intended to provoke. Far from helping Isobel, she had sealed her fate.

Omegus also looked wretched, but he was bound by his own rules.

The verdict was a matter of form. By overwhelming majority they found Isobel guilty of unbridled cruelty and deliberate intent to ruin Gwendolen, falsely, in the eyes of the man she loved. There was sympathy for Bertie, but it was not unmixed with a certain contempt.

“And what is this pilgrimage that Mrs. Alvie is to make?” Fenton Twyford asked angrily. “I must say I agree with Peter. I really don't care where she goes, as long as it is not across my path. I can't stand a woman with a vicious tongue. It's inexcusable.”

“Very little is inexcusable,” Omegus said with sudden cutting authority, his face at once bleak and touched with a terrible compassion. “You have given your word before everyone here that if she completes the journey, you will wipe the matter from your memory as if it did not happen. Otherwise, you will have broken your word—and that also cannot be excused. If a man's oath does not bind him, then he cannot be a part of any civilized society.”

Twyford went white. He glanced around the table. No one smiled at him. Lord Salchester nodded in agreement. “Quite so,” he said. “Quite so.”

“Are we agreed?” Omegus inquired softly.

“We are,” came the answer from everyone except Isobel.

Omegus turned to her and waited.

“What journey?” she said huskily.

Omegus explained. “Gwendolen left a letter addressed to her mother, Mrs. Naylor. I have not opened it, nor will you. It's obviously private. You will take it to Mrs. Naylor and explain to her that Gwendolen has taken her own life, and your part in it. If Mrs. Naylor wishes to come to London, or to Applecross, you will accompany her, unless she will not permit you to. But you will do all in your power to succeed. She lives near Inverness, in the Highlands of Scotland. Her address is on the envelope.”

The silence in the room was broken by the sound of a sudden shower lashing the windows.

“I won't!” Isobel said in a rush of outrage. “The north of Scotland! At this time of year? And to … to face … absolutely not.” She stood up, her body shaking, her face burning with hectic color. “I will not do it.” For a moment she stared at them, and then left the room, grasping the door until it slammed against the farther wall, then swinging it shut after her.