Anne Perry - A Christmas Secret

“What you say is true, Mrs. Paget. But I imagine you expect me to do more than agree in theory?”

“You didn’t know the Reverend Wynter,” she said after another few steps. The emotion was carefully controlled in her voice now, and he could not see her face. It was dark all around them; only the yellow gleam of a few uncurtained windows shone warmly here and there, illuminating short distances, touching branches with gold and making the night beyond seem deeper. “He was a good man,” she went on. “He was brave and honest. He knew right from wrong, and he didn’t flinch from doing what he had to, even though he didn’t like it.”

“Did he know things about more than one person?” he asked. He was trying to evade the issue and he knew it. Perhaps she did, too.

“He might have known things about a lot of people,” she admitted. “But he knew that John and Genevieve Boscombe are living together in sin. He walked out on his first wife. Left her alone to fend for herself. Vicar never told a word, but I don’t come from Cottisham, and I know one or two other places as well. I recognized him.”

“And told the Reverend Wynter?” he asked, shivering a little.

“No, I didn’t,” she said stiffly. “But if I had, I’d have been doing those poor children a service.”

“Branding them as illegitimate?” he said, disbelief making his voice hard. “The scandal would ruin the parents and make them all outcasts. How is that a service, Mrs. Paget?” They crossed the road together, side by side.

“Only if the vicar told people,” she answered with exaggerated patience. “And he wouldn’t do that. You said so yourself.” There was triumph in her, but thin and shivery, full of hurt. “You haven’t been a vicar very long, have you,” she observed.

He felt the heat burn inside him, despite the bitter edge of the wind. “No. What do you suppose the Reverend Wynter intended to do?” He wanted to know for himself, but also because it might lead him toward whoever had killed Wynter.

“Face them,” she said simply. “Tell them they have to put things right. Go back and face Mrs. Boscombe, the real one, and care for her, make some restitution to her for what her husband did. Perhaps if he’s lucky, she’ll divorce him for his adultery with her that calls herself his wife now. If all that happens, then they can marry and make their children legitimate at last, by adoption or however it’s done. Not their fault, poor little souls.”

He felt an intense pity, more than she could have understood. His own first marriage had been less than happy, as he understood happiness now. He had not left his wife, but he had certainly betrayed her more than once. She may well have expected it, but that excused nothing. He still had a guilt to expiate, and he knew and accepted it. That certain knowledge made him far quicker to forgive others, to understand ugliness and stupidity and try to heal it rather than destroy the perpetrator.

“You are quite right,” he said to her gently. “That would be the correct thing to do, even if not the easiest.”

“He never lacked courage.” She kept walking at a steady, even pace into the wind. “Takes courage to be a priest, Reverend Corde. Can’t just go around being nice to people. Sometimes that isn’t the real help.”

“Yes, Mrs. Paget. I’m sure it isn’t,” he agreed.

“I’m home now. Good night, Vicar.”

“Mrs. Paget!” he said quickly. “You said the Reverend Wynter knew things about many people.”

“So he did,” she cut across him. “But it’s no good asking me what things they were, or who they were about, because I don’t know. I just knew that one because I knew. I’ve lived in other villages, too. Good night, Vicar.” This time she turned and walked away briskly up the path toward the nearest cottage.

“Good night, Mrs. Paget,” he said more to himself than to her.

I t was not a good night. He knew that after supper he would have to go see John Boscombe and ask him if what he had been told was the truth, because he felt sure that was what the Reverend Wynter was doing before he died. He had racked his brains to find another alternative, all the time knowing that there was none. Clarice had offered to come with him, and he had refused. She had no part in it, and no chaperone was necessary. She would worry, he knew that, imagining all kinds of anger and distress, but that was the burden of a priest’s wife, and she did not ask to be relieved of it.

It was a hard walk to the Boscombes’ house. He did not dare take the shortcut through the woods, even if the stream was frozen. His arm ached from carrying the lantern and trying to hold it against the wind. He was welcomed in. The house was warm, although not as warm as the vicarage where they could afford to burn a little more coal.

“How nice to see you, Reverend Corde,” Boscombe said immediately. “It’s a terrible night for visiting. What brings you? No one ill or needing help?”

Dominic almost changed his mind. Maybe this was something the bishop should deal with, or whoever was given this living permanently. But if he evaded it, Clarice would despise him. Even now he could imagine her disappointment in him.

He followed Boscombe inside to the parlor, where Genevieve was sitting sewing. She was patching the sleeves of a jacket. She put it away quickly as if to welcome him, but he saw from the quick flush in her face that she was ashamed. Were they really paying blackmail to someone? The vicar? Please God, no.

Or to anyone else, perhaps from Boscombe’s home village? Even Mrs. Paget? But it was the Reverend Wynter who was dead. Mrs. Paget was very much alive.

“Genny, please get the vicar a cup of tea, or soup,” Boscombe requested. “Which would you like?”

How could Dominic accept the man’s hospitality, given out of their little, with what he had come to say? Guilt almost choked him. And who was he to blame a man for doing what he might so easily have done himself, had the temptation been there? Sarah was dead, however, and he was free to love Clarice as he wished, but due to luck, not virtue.

“No thank you, not yet,” he prevaricated. “But I would like to speak to you confidentially, Mr. Boscombe. I beg your pardon for that, on such an evening.”

“Don’t worry, Vicar,” Genevieve said quickly. “I have jobs to do in the kitchen. You just call when you’d like the soup.”

“What is it?” Boscombe asked as soon as the door was closed and they were alone. “You look very grave, Vicar. Not more money gone, is it? Or did you find out who took it? I think the Reverend Wynter was inclined to let it go, you know. He could always see the greater picture, the one that mattered.”

“Yes, I imagine he could,” Dominic answered. “It seems to me he thought past today’s embarrassment and saw the grief that could come in the future if present sins, however easy to understand, or even to sympathize with, were not put right.”

Boscombe’s face paled. His eyes were steady on Dominic’s face.

“I’m sorry,” Dominic said gently. “There is no record of your marriage in this parish. If I ask the bishop, will he find it in some other place?”

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.”