No Graves as Yet_ A Novel - Anne Perry [120]
“I’m sorry,” she said stiffly. “I had forgotten. I daresay your own loss has . . .” She had obviously been going to say something like “cramped your judgment,” but realized it made things no better. She left the sentence hanging in the air.
Normally Joseph would have accepted any apology, but not this time. “Made me think more deeply about reality,” he finished for her. “And see that no matter how much we love someone or regret lost opportunities to have given them more than we did, lies do not help, even when we would find them more comfortable.”
The color drained out of Mary’s face, and she looked at him with loathing. Even if she understood anything he said, she was not going to concede it now. “I have no idea what things you may regret,” she said coldly. “I do not know you well enough. I have heard no one speak ill of your parents, but if they have, then you should do all within your power to silence them. If you have not loyalty, above all to your own family, then you have nothing! I promise you I will do anything in my power to protect the name and reputation of my dead son from the envy and spite of anyone cowardly enough to attack him in death when they would not have dared to in life.”
“There are many loyalties, Mrs. Allard,” he answered, his voice grating with the intensity of his feelings: the misery and loneliness of too many losses of his own, the anger at God for hurting him so profoundly and at the dead for leaving him with such a weight to bear, the crush of responsibilities he was not ready for, and above all the fear of disillusion, of the disintegration of the love and beliefs dearest to him. “It is a matter of choosing which to place first. Loving someone does not make them right, and your family is no more important than mine or anyone else’s. Your first loyalty ought to be to honor, kindness, and some degree of truth.”
The hatred in her face was answer enough without words. She turned to Connie, her skin white, her eyes burning. “I am sure you will understand if I do not choose to remain for dinner. Perhaps you will be good enough to have a tray sent to my room.” And with that she swept out through the door in a rustle of black silk taffeta and the faintest perfume of roses.
Connie sighed. “I am sorry, Dr. Reavley. She is finding this investigation very hard indeed. Everyone’s nerves are a little raw.”
“She idealized him,” Gerald said, as much to himself as to anyone else. “It isn’t fair. No one could live up to that, nor can the rest of us protect her forever from the truth.” He glanced at Joseph, perhaps expecting him to read some apology in it, although Joseph had the feeling he was looking more for acceptance of his own silence. He was sorry for Gerald, a man floundering around in a hopeless task, but he felt far greater pity for Elwyn, trying to defend a brother whose flaws he knew while protecting his mother from truths she could not face and his father from looking impotent and sinking into self-loathing. It was more than anyone should have to do, let alone a young man who was himself bereaved and who should have been supported by his parents, not made to support them in their self-absorbed grief.
He glanced at Connie and saw a reflection of the same pity and anger in her face. But it was Joseph she was looking at, not her husband. Aidan Thyer was averting his gaze, perhaps in order to hide his distaste at Gerald’s excuses.
Joseph filled the silence. “Everyone’s nerves are a little raw,” he agreed. “We suspect each other of things that in our better moments would not even enter our thoughts. Once we know what happened, we will be able to forget them again.”
“Do you think so?” Aidan Thyer asked suddenly. “We’ve pulled off too many masks and seen what is underneath. I don’t think we’ll forget.” He looked momentarily at Connie, then back at Joseph, his pale eyes challenging.
“Perhaps not forget,” Joseph amended. “But isn’t the art of friendship very much the selecting of what is important and allowing some of the mistakes to drift away until we lose sight of