No Graves as Yet_ A Novel - Anne Perry [62]
“You can’t help it if someone falls in love with you,” Joseph protested, but he remembered the character attributed to the Greek god, the childishness, the vanity, the petty spite, as well as the beauty.
Eardslie looked at him with barely concealed anger. “You can help what you do about it!” he retorted. “You don’t take your friend’s girl. Would you?” Then he blushed, looking wretched. “I’m sorry, sir. That was rude.” He jerked his chin up. “But Perth keeps asking. We want to be decent to the dead, and we want to be fair. But someone killed him, and they say it had to be one of us. I keep looking at everyone and wondering if it was them.
“I met Rattray along the Backs yesterday evening, and I started remembering quarrels he’d had with Sebastian, and wondering if it could be him. He’s got a hell of a temper.” He blushed. “Then I remembered a quarrel I’d had, and wondered if he was thinking the same thing of me!” His eyes pleaded for some kind of reassurance. “Everybody’s changed! Suddenly I don’t feel as if I really know anyone . . . and even worse than that, in a way, I don’t think anyone trusts me, either. I know who I am and that I didn’t do it, but no one else knows!” He took a deep breath. “The friendships I took for granted aren’t there anymore. It’s done that already!”
“They are still there,” Joseph said firmly. “Get a grip on your imagination, Eardslie. Of course everyone is upset over Sebastian’s death, and frightened. But in a day or two I expect Perth will have it solved, and you’ll all realize that your suspicions were unfounded. One person did something tragic and possibly evil, but the rest of you are just what you were before.” His voice sounded flat and unreal. He did not believe what he was saying himself—how could Eardslie? He deserved better than that, but Joseph did not have anything to give that was both comforting and even remotely honest.
“Yes, sir,” Eardslie said obediently. “Thank you, sir.” And he turned and walked away, disappearing through the arch into the second quad, leaving Joseph alone.
The following morning Joseph was sitting in his study again, having written to Hannah, which he had found difficult. It was simple enough to begin, but as soon as he tried to say something honest, he saw her face in his mind and he saw the loneliness in her, the bewilderment she tried to hide and failed. She was not accustomed to grief. The gentleness she had for others was rooted in the certainties of her own life; first her parents and Joseph, then Matthew and Judith, younger than she and relying on her, wanting to be like her. Later it had been Archie, and then her own children.
She reminded him so much of Alys, not only in her looks but in her gestures, the tone of her voice, sometimes even the words she used, the colors she liked, the way she peeled an apple or marked the page in a book she was reading with a folded spill of paper.
Hannah and Eleanor had liked each other immediately, as if they had been friends who had simply not seen each other for a while. He remembered how much pleasure that had given him.
Hannah had been the first one to come to him after Eleanor’s death, and she had missed her the most, even though they had lived miles apart. He knew they had written every week, long letters full of thoughts and feelings, trivial details of domestic life, more a matter of affection than of news. Writing to Hannah now was difficult, full of ghosts.
He had finished, more or less satisfactorily, and was trying to compose a letter to Judith when there was a discreet tap on the door.
Assuming it was a student, he simply called for whoever it was to come in. However, it was Perth who entered and closed the door behind him.
“Morning, Reverend,” he said cheerfully. He still wore the same dark suit, slightly stretched at the knees, and a clean, stiff collar. “Sorry if Oi’m interrupting your letters.”
“Good morning, Inspector,” Joseph replied, rising to his feet, partly from courtesy, but also because he felt startled and at a disadvantage