Anne Perry - A Christmas Visitor

Who was it, and what had transpired? If it was Gower, then had Judah’s death been the tragic and idiotic result of an explosion of rage at the injustice of the eleven years Gower had spent in prison for a crime he had not committed?

That was possible.

It was equally possible that it was not Ashton Gower at all, but someone else. Peter Colgrave? Or someone who had intended to buy the estate, and been prevented?

One thing was certain: Henry could not leave the matter secret now. The injustice burned like a fire inside him, demanding reparation. If he permitted Ashton Gower to carry the shame of the first crime, and then the fear of the stigma for the second, he would be more guilty than Gower could ever be, because he knew the truth.

“Why did you not do something when you heard of Judah’s death, and knew he could not right it?” he asked Overton.

“My dear Rathbone, I have no proof!” Overton replied, turning up his hands. “I saw the original deed, but it is destroyed now. Only the forgery remains. What could I say, and to whom? Judah Dreghorn could have, but he is dead.”

Of course. Henry should have seen it. Again he felt as if the ground had risen up and struck him, bruising him bone deep. It rested with him. There was no one else.

Slowly and a trifle shakily, he rose to his feet, thanked Overton, and made his way back to the station. He sat in the train all the way to Penrith thinking about it, mulling over anything and everything he could say to the family. None of it stopped the pain in the least, and none of it would be acceptable to them, or dull their anger with him.

He arrived at the house just in time for dinner. It was one of the most miserable of his life. The food was rich, succulent, as if preparing for the taste for the Christmas goose and all the added fare of the season, but it might have been so much stale bread, for any pleasure it gave him.

“We are accomplishing nothing!” Benjamin said miserably. “Gower is still blackening Judah’s name. I heard more of it today and I don’t see how we can stop him, except by going to law. Antonia?”

She looked sad and frightened. Henry knew her thoughts were even more of Joshua than for herself. Like any woman who had a child, her will, her emotions, her instinct were all to protect him. She must hurt for Judah also, but her first thought would be for the living. She would perhaps do her real mourning after he was safe.

“If it has to be,” she conceded, but Henry heard the reluctance in her voice, and she turned to him for confirmation that this was the only course.

He hesitated. He would have to tell her the truth, but he dreaded it, and he had not the words yet.

Naomi also looked at Henry, but in her eyes was the question formed by knowledge he had been to Kendal today. He had not told her, he had had no opportunity to speak to her alone, but in that glance she understood. Would she have the courage to risk the love of the family, and help him?

Ephraim filled the silence. “Only if there’s no other way,” he said grimly. “We won’t leave until we’ve cleared Judah’s name from this stupid charge, and proved to everyone that Gower killed him. Then he’ll be hanged, and no one will ever repeat anything he said.” He looked at Antonia with a sudden gentleness. “He was our brother, we’ll see justice for his sake. But you are as much a part of our family, and Joshua is the only Dreghorn of the next generation. We would never leave you unprotected.” That was his way of saying that he loved them. Such plain, emotional words were not in his nature.

“Thank you,” Antonia said warmly. “I know how eager you are to return to your work, and to the marvelous places you travel.”

Benjamin smiled. “When I go back to Palestine we’re going to be working in the streets of Jerusalem. We’re tracing the way Christ took on Palm Sunday, when he entered in triumph.” His face was lit with a fire that had nothing to do with the chandelier above the table. His mind saw the far-off glory of a different and deeper kind, and for a moment all anger was forgotten. The fire of his emotion burned away lesser, worldly griefs. “Next we are going to find and make certain of the garden where Mary Magdalene spoke to the risen Christ on Easter Sunday. Can you imagine? We will stand where she stood when He said ‘Mary,’ and she knew Him!”

“Perhaps that is where we are all trying to stand,” Naomi said very quietly. “Only I’m not sure it is a place, I think it is a matter of spirit, it is who you have become.”

There was another long moment’s silence.

“But it must be wonderful for you to see it, of course,” she added, as if not to spoil his excitement. She turned to Ephraim. “Where will you go next?”

He smiled very slightly—an inward pleasure. “The Rift Valley, in South Africa,” he answered. “The plants there are different from anywhere else on earth. I expect to see some wonderful animals, too, but I shan’t be studying them. We could find new foods, new medicines, and of course the beauty of them is staggering, shapes and colors you never see here.” His voice warmed and became more urgent, and without realizing it he was using his hands to echo the shapes he envisioned. “The variety of creation amazes me more and more every day. It’s not just the endless invention of it, it’s how every design has unique and absolute purpose! You know …” He stopped, realizing with a moment of self-consciousness how his love of it had swept him along. “Another time,” he finished. “When we have dealt with Gower.”

Again Henry tried to think how to begin what he must tell them, and his nerve failed. How blunt should he be? How immediate, or how gentle?

Ephraim had asked Naomi where she was planning to go, and his face was tense, as if he too were struggling with inner turmoil as to what he should say, and how. He feared another rejection. Henry could see that in the tight angles of Ephraim’s body, as he sat at the foot of the table. But like Henry, Ephraim was torn in two ways. If he let her go again without saying anything, when would he have another chance? Would he ever? What if she married someone else? The time while they were back here was painful, filled with anger and grief, and yet it would still slip by too quickly for him.

“Not quite a valley,” Naomi answered, and her face too lit with the excitement of her inner vision. “I’ve heard of a geological phenomenon unlike any other in the world: a gorge so deep you can see almost the whole history of the earth in it.” Her voice quickened. “The American Indians speak of it as a holy place, but then the whole earth is sacred to them. They treat it with a respect if we ever felt, we have forgotten. Perhaps we did anciently? Druid times? But this canyon is so beautiful it is beyond description, and bigger than anything we could imagine. I am going to see that, and climb down it to the river.” She stopped and turned to Antonia. “I’m sorry. We’re all getting carried away with our dreams. What are you going to do? You have a treasure as well, a whole new world to explore. What about Joshua and his music? Are we one day going to be a footnote in history as the family of the English Mozart?”

Antonia blushed, but it was with pleasure. “Perhaps,” she answered, meeting the mood with hope and optimism of her own. “As soon as he is old enough we … I … shall send him to the musical academy in Liverpool. It will be terribly hard to part with him, but it is the only way he will get the education that is right for him. I can go and spend time there now and then, to be near him. It is the right thing to do.” She looked to Henry for his agreement.

He realized how bitterly hard it was going to be for her to bring up such a remarkable child alone, make the decisions, try to be both mother and father to him.