No Graves as Yet_ A Novel - Anne Perry [123]
“I know,” Joseph agreed quickly, guilt biting deep. He had written to both Judith and Hannah, but since he was only a few miles away, that was not enough.
There was a short burst of laughter from the next table and then a sudden silence. Someone rushed into speech, something completely irrelevant, about a new novel published. No one responded, and he tried again.
“Anything more on Sebastian Allard?” Matthew asked, his face gentle, sensing the slow discovery of ugliness, the falling apart of beliefs that had been held dear for so long.
Joseph hesitated. It would be a relief to share his thoughts, even if as soon as tomorrow he would wish he had not. “Actually . . . yes,” he said slowly, looking not at Matthew but beyond him. The light was fading on the river, and the firelike scarlet and yellow poured out across the flat horizon from the trees over by Haslingfield right across to the roofs of Madingley.
“I’ve discovered Sebastian was capable of blackmail,” he said miserably. Even the words hurt. “I think he blackmailed Harry Beecher over his love for the master’s wife. For nothing so obvious as money—just for favor, and I think maybe for the taste of power. It would have amused him to exert just a very subtle pressure, but one that Beecher didn’t dare resist.”
“Are you sure?” Matthew asked, his face puckering with doubt. There was not the denial in his voice Joseph hungered to hear. He had overstated the case deliberately, waiting for Matthew to say it was nonsense. Why didn’t he?
“No!” he replied. “No, I’m not sure! But it looks like it. He lied as to where he was. He’s engaged to a girl his mother probably picked out for him, but he’s got a girlfriend of his own in one of the pubs in Cambridge. . . .” He saw Matthew’s look of amusement. “I know you think that’s just natural youth,” he said angrily. “But Mary Allard won’t! And I don’t think Regina Coopersmith will, either, if she ever finds out.”
“It’s a bit shabby,” Matthew agreed, the flicker of humor still in his eyes. “A last fling before the doors of propriety close him in forever with Mother’s choice. Why hadn’t he the guts to say so?”
“I’ve no idea! I didn’t know anything about it! Anyway, he would never have married Flora, for heaven’s sake. She’s a barmaid. She’s also a pacifist.”
Matthew’s eyebrows shot up. “A pacifist? Or do you mean she agreed with whatever her current admirer happened to say?”
Joseph considered for only a moment. “No, I don’t think I do. She seemed to know quite a lot about it.”
“For God’s sake, Joe!” Matthew sat back with a jerk, sliding the chair legs on the floor. “She doesn’t have to be stupid just because she pulls ale for the local lads!”
“Don’t be so patronizing!” Joseph snapped back. “I didn’t say she was stupid. I said she knew more about pacifism and about Sebastian’s views on the subject than to have been merely an agreeable listener. He was drifting away from his roots at a speed that probably frightened him. His mother idolized him. To her he was all she wished her husband could have been—brilliant, beautiful, charming, a dreamer with the passion to achieve his goals.”
“Rather a heavy weight to carry—the garment of someone else’s dreams,” Matthew observed a great deal more gently, and with a note of sadness. “Especially a mother. There’d be no escaping that.”
“No,” Joseph said thoughtfully. “Except by smashing it, and there would be a strong temptation to do that!” He looked curiously at Matthew to see if he understood. His answer was immediate in the flash of knowledge in Matthew’s eyes. “It’s not