No Graves as Yet_ A Novel - Anne Perry [71]
Joseph could think of nothing to say. Gerald would probably wish later that he had never made such a remark. It was better not to acknowledge it now. He made the heat an excuse to leave Gerald wandering aimlessly between the flowers and go back into the house.
He went into the sitting room to thank Connie and take his leave, but when he saw the figure of the woman standing by the mantel, in spite of the fact that she was roughly the same height and build as Connie, he knew instantly that it was someone else. The words died on his lips when he saw the black dress, which was fashionable, with a broad sash at the waist and a sort of double tunic in fine pleats over the long, tapering skirt.
She turned around, and her eyes widened with something like relief. “Reverend Reavley! How agreeable to see you.”
“Miss Coopersmith. How are you?” He closed the door behind him. He would like the opportunity to speak to her. She had known a side of Sebastian that he had been totally unaware of.
She gave a little shrug, slightly self-deprecatory. “This is difficult. I don’t really know what I am doing here. I hoped I could be of some comfort to Mrs. Allard, but I know I’m not succeeding. Mrs. Thyer is very kind, but what do you do with a fiancée who isn’t a widow?” Her strong, rather blunt face was touched with self-mocking humor to hide the humiliation. “I’m an impossibility for a hostess.” She gave a little laugh, and he realized how close she was to losing her grip on self-control.
“Had you known Sebastian long?” he asked her. “I have, but only the academic side of his life.” It was odd to say that aloud; he had not imagined it to be true, but now it was unquestionable.
“That was the biggest side,” she replied. “He cared about it more than anything else, I think. That’s why he was so terrified there’d be a war.”
“Yes. He spoke to me about it a day or two before he . . . died.” He remembered that long, slow walk along the Backs in the sunset as if it had been yesterday. How quickly a moment sinks into the past. He could still see quite clearly the evening light on Sebastian’s face, the passion in the young man as he spoke of the destruction of beauty that he feared.
“He traveled widely this summer,” she went on, looking at the distance, not at Joseph. “He didn’t talk about it very much, but when he did you could feel how strongly he cared. I think you taught him that, Reverend, how to see the loveliness and the value in all kinds of people, how to open his mind and look without judgment. He was so excited by it. He wanted intensely to live more . . .” She hunted for the word, “More abundantly than one can being buried by the confines of nationalism.”
As she said it, he remembered Sebastian’s comments about the richness and diversity of Europe, but he did not interrupt her.
She went on, controlling her trembling voice with difficulty. “For all his excitement at the different cultures, especially the ancient ones, he was terribly English at heart, you know?” She bit her lip to gain a moment’s hesitation, trying to control herself before she went on. “He would have given anything he had to protect the beauty of this country—the quaint and funny things, the tolerance and the eccentricity, the grandeur and the small, secret things one discovers alone. He’d have died to save a heath with skylarks, or a bluebell wood.” Her voice was trembling. “A cold lake with reed spears in it, a lonely shore where the light falls on pale sandbars.” She gulped. “It’s hard to believe they are all still just the same, and he can’t see them anymore.”
He was too full of emotion himself to speak. His thoughts included his father as well, and all the multitude of things his mother had treasured.
“But lots of people love things, don’t they?” She was looking intently at him now. “And there were parts of him I didn’t know at all. A terrible anger sometimes, when he thought of what some of our politicians were doing, how they were letting Europe slip