No Graves as Yet_ A Novel - Anne Perry [137]
“No,” he agreed quietly. They had reached the shade of the next archway and he was glad of it. “I think I have learned that. I wish I could help you with Mary Allard, but I’m afraid she is too fragile to accept the truth without it breaking her. She is a hard, brittle woman who has built a shell around herself, and reality won’t intrude easily. But I’ll be here. And if that is any help at all, please turn to me whenever you wish.”
“Thank you, I fear I will,” she replied. “I can’t see the end of this, and I admit it frightens me. I look at Elwyn and I wonder how long he can go on. She doesn’t seem even to be aware of his presence, let alone do anything to comfort him! I admit, sometimes I am so angry I could slap her.” She colored faintly; it made her face vivid and uniquely lovely. He was aware of her perfume, which was something delicate and flowery, and of the depth of color in her hair. “I’m sorry,” she said under her breath. “It’s very un-Christian of me, but I can’t help it.”
He smiled in spite of himself. “Sometimes I think we imagine Christ to be a lot less human than He was,” he replied with conviction. “I’m sure He must feel like slapping us on occasion—when we bring our grief not only upon ourselves, but upon everyone around us as well.”
She thanked him again with a sudden smile, then turned to walk away back into the sun toward the master’s lodgings.
Joseph sensed the tension mounting all afternoon. He saw Rattray carrying a pile of books. He walked quickly and carelessly, tripping on an uneven paving stone at the north side of the quad and dropping everything onto the ground. He swore with white-lipped fury, and instead of helping him, another student sniggered with amusement, and a third told him off for it sarcastically.
It was left to Joseph to bend down and help.
He met a junior lecturer and encountered several sarcastic remarks to which he replied calmly, and in his annoyance unintentionally snubbed Gorley-Brown.
The ill feeling finally erupted at about four o’clock, and unfortunately it was in a corridor just outside one of the lecture halls. It began with Foubister and Morel. Foubister had stopped to speak to Joseph about a recent translation he was unhappy with.
“I think it could have been better,” he complained.
“The metaphor was a little forced,” Joseph agreed.
“Sebastian said he thought it referred to a river, not the sea,” Foubister suggested.
Morel came by and had gone only a few steps beyond when he realized what he had overheard. He stopped and turned, as if waiting to see what Joseph would say.
“Do you want something?” Foubister asked abruptly.
Morel smiled, but it was more a baring of the teeth. “Sounds as if you didn’t hear Sebastian’s translation of that,” he replied. “That’s the trouble when you only get bits! It doesn’t fit together!”
Foubister went white. “Obviously you got it all!” he retaliated.
Now it was Morel’s turn to change color, only it was the opposite way, blood rushing to his cheeks. “I admired his work! I never pretended otherwise!” His voice was rising. “I still knew he was a manipulative swine when he wanted to be, and I’m not going to be hypocrite enough to go around saying he was a saint now that he’s dead. For God’s sake, somebody murdered him!”
There was a roll of thunder overhead and a sudden, wild drumbeat of rain. No one had heard footsteps approach, and they were all jolted into embarrassment when they saw Elwyn only a couple of yards away. He looked bowed with exhaustion, and there were dark smudges under his eyes, as if he were bruised inside.
“Are you saying that means he must have deserved it, Morel?” he asked, his voice tight in his throat and rasping with the effort of controlling it.
Foubister stared at Morel curiously.
Joseph started to speak, then realized that his intervention would only make it worse. Morel would have to answer for himself, if he could make his voice heard above the drumming of the rain on the windows and the gush of water leaping from the guttering.