Angels in the Gloom_ A Novel - Anne Perry [141]
“You don’t know that!” Corcoran shouted at him. “There’s nothing to prove it, except your word! You could be wrong. . . .”
Joseph turned back. He hated meeting Corcoran’s eyes and seeing the terror and the self-pity in them, but to look away now could be a cowardice he would never be able to mend. “No, I’m not wrong. You didn’t kill Blaine to save the project; you killed him to prevent him from eclipsing you. You have to be the center, all eyes on you.”
“Don’t testify!” Corcoran’s voice cracked. “You don’t have to! You are my priest. You can’t be compelled to!” His face was slick with sweat now and he was trembling. “Your father wouldn’t have done. He understood friendship, the supreme loyalty.”
Joseph thought of all the arguments in his mind. He thought of Archie at sea, and of Gwen Neave’s sons, and the loss and the grief still to come. Whatever betrayal he felt for himself, he owed them better than to run away now. He turned and walked to the door. He reached it and banged with both fists.
The guard came and let him out. Only when he was outside in the sun and in the wind of the courtyard did he realize that his face was wet with tears, and his throat ached so violently that he could not speak.
It was the first day of June, warm and still. A few clouds drifted like bright ships across the sky, sails wide to catch the sun. In the orchard the blossom was over, the fruit setting. The garden was dizzy with color and perfume.
Joseph was in his shirtsleeves, working with pleasure. It was good to feel his fingers in the earth pulling the thick, lush weeds, and to move with only a slight awareness of an ache, no pain, no fear of pulling on a muscle or tearing open the healing flesh. He could not stay much longer, only until he had testified for Admiral Hall, and then all this would be forfeited again and become just a treasure in the mind.
Hannah came out of the back door toward him, her face pale, her voice breathless.
“Joseph, there’s been an enormous battle in the North Sea, off Jutland. Our whole Grand Fleet against the German High Seas Fleet. They don’t know what’s happened yet. They don’t even know if we’ve won or lost, but lots of ships have been sunk on both sides.” She stared at him, eyes wide.
What should he say? Hope? Cling onto the belief in good until the last possible moment? And if it was smashed, if Archie and Matthew were among the thousands lost, what then? Did trying to prepare yourself ever do any good? Was the blow any less?
No. It always hurt impossibly, unbelievably. Would it have been easier to bear, quicker to recover from if he had imagined his parents’ deaths, or anyone’s? Would he have missed Sam’s friendship any less, been able not to lie awake in his dugout in the mud of Ypres and not wonder if Sam was still alive, imagine hearing his laughter, or what he could have said to this, or that?
He touched Hannah gently, both hands on her shoulders, but softly; the slightest pulling away would have released her. “Far more will come home than have been lost,” he said. “Think of them and don’t face anything else unless we have to.”
She controlled her fear with an effort so intense he could not only see it in her face but feel the power of it through her body. She blinked several times. “Thank you for not telling me to have faith in God.” She smiled a little twistedly. “I want a brother, not a priest.”
“Have faith in God, too,” he answered. “But don’t blame Him for anything that goes wrong, or imagine that He ever said it wouldn’t. If He promised you that Archie and Matthew would come back, then they will. But I don’t think He did. I think He said we would have all that we need, not all that we want.”
“All we need for what?” she asked, her voice trembling.
“To realize the best in ourselves,” he answered. “To practice pity and honor until they become part of us, and the courage to care to the last strength we have, to give everything.”
She frowned, “Do I want all that? Wouldn’t ‘pretty