No Graves as Yet_ A Novel - Anne Perry [98]
What other explanation was there? Where could he look? Who was there to ask?
His thoughts went immediately to Beecher. He could at least depend on him to be both honest and kind. Perhaps he would even honor Joseph’s silence if he was asked to.
He caught up with Beecher on his way across the quad toward the dining hall.
Beecher squinted at him. “You look awful,” he said with a half smile. “Anticipating something disgusting in the soup?”
Joseph fell into step beside him. “You’ve been teaching far longer than I have,” he began without ceremony. “What explanation might there be for two students coming up with the same highly individual translation of a passage, other than cheating?”
Beecher looked at him with a frown. “Has this something to do with Sebastian Allard?” he asked as they walked into the shadow of the archway and turned into the dining hall. Bright patterns of colored light danced on the walls from the coats of arms on the windows. There was a buzz of conversation and expectancy.
Beecher sat down at a table apart from the others, nodding to one or two other people, but giving nothing to his glance to suggest he wished their company.
“Possibly a conversation,” he said at last, just as a steward appeared at his elbow to offer him soup. “An experience shared that began a train of thought. They might even have read the same source book for something.” He declined the soup, picking up bread instead and breaking it apart.
Joseph also declined the soup. He leaned forward a little across the table. “Have you ever had that happen?”
“You mean is it likely? Whom are we talking about?”
Joseph hesitated.
“For heaven’s sake!” Beecher said exasperatedly. “I can’t give you an opinion if you don’t tell me the facts.”
Was Joseph willing to put it to the test? Was it even inevitable now? “Sebastian and Foubister,” he said miserably.
Beecher chewed his upper lip. “Unlikely, I agree. Except that Sebastian didn’t need to cheat, and I can’t see Foubister doing it. He’s a decent chap, but he’s also not a fool. He’s been here long enough to know what it would cost if he were caught. And if he did want to cheat, he’d pick someone less idiosyncratic than Sebastian.”
“How do I find out?”
“Ask him! I don’t know of anything else.” Beecher grinned suddenly. “Logic, my dear fellow! That rigid goddess you admire so much.”
“Reason,” Joseph corrected. “And she’s not rigid—she just doesn’t bend very easily.”
He went back to Foubister, carrying the paper with him.
“That’s an excellent line,” he said, disliking the duplicity. “What made you think of it? It’s quite a long way from the original.”
Foubister smiled. “There’s a line of trees a good bit like that,” he answered. “Over there in the Gog Magog Hills.” He gestured roughly to the south. “Several of us went up that way one Sunday and we saw them, outlined against a clear sky, and then a summer storm came up. It was rather dramatic.”
“Good use of opportunity,” Joseph observed. “Do it when you can, as long as it doesn’t destroy the spirit of the author. The way you have it here, I think it adds to it. It was the right feel.”
Foubister beamed. It lit up his dark face, making him suddenly charming. “Thank you, sir.”
“Who else was there and saw it?”
Foubister thought for a moment. “Crawley, Hopper, and Sebastian, I think.”
Joseph found himself smiling back, an easy, genuine feeling full of warmth. “I should have told you earlier,” he said. “It’s very good.”
In the middle of the afternoon Connie sent Joseph a note inviting him to join Mary Allard and herself for a cold lemonade. He recognized it as a plea for help, and steeled himself to respond. He closed his book, walked across the quad, and went in through the Fellows’ Garden, where he found Mary Allard alone.
She turned as she heard his footsteps on the path. “Reverend Reavley,” she acknowledged him, but there was no welcome in her eyes or her voice.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Allard,” he replied. “I wish