He regarded Dominic anxiously, his eyes dark and troubled. “Can you help him, sir? This is a very terrible thing, and I swear I don’t know which way to turn.”
Dominic was every bit as confused. But it was his task to offer comfort, not to seek it. “I agree with you, Emsley.” He made an effort to smile. “There must be some other explanation.” He rose to his feet before Emsley could press him as to what it might be. “How is Mrs. Henderson?”
“Oh, very distressed, sir. We all are. Not that anyone liked poor Miss Bellwood so much. She could be very difficult. Unsettled people with her ideas.”
“Did she?”
“Oh yes, sir. Made mock of our prayers … ever so polite, never open, but let slip little remarks that made people worry.” His face pinched with distress. “Found Nellie in tears once. Her grandmother had just passed over, and Miss Bellwood was making remarks about Mr. Darwin’s notions. Poor Nellie was convinced her grandmother wasn’t going to heaven after all.”
“I didn’t know about that,” Dominic said quickly. He should have. If someone was bereaved right there under the same roof, how was he so blind he had not seen it and offered her some assurance himself? If he was not good for that, what purpose had he? “No one told me!”
“No, of course not, sir,” Emsley said calmly. “Wouldn’t want to trouble you with our worries. Mrs. Henderson gave her a talking-to. Good Christian woman, Mrs. Henderson, none of these silly modern fancies. Nellie was all right after that. Just avoided Miss Bellwood, and we had no more nonsense.”
“I see. I still wish I had known.” Dominic excused himself and went to speak to the rest of the staff individually. He spent some time with Nellie, trying to make up for his earlier shortcoming. He realized within a few moments that his effort had been unnecessary. Whatever Mrs. Henderson had said had been more than sufficient. Nellie harbored no uncertainties as to the nature and existence of God, or that, given time, He could ultimately forgive even Unity Bellwood her sins, which Nellie had no doubt were many.
“Were they?” Dominic asked innocently. “Perhaps I did not know her as well as I thought.”
“Yer’d want ter think well of ’er, sir,” Nellie replied with a nod. “It’s yer job. But it in’t mine. I see’d ’er plain. Got some terrible ideas, she ’as. Leastways, she ’ad. She’ll know better now, poor soul. But gave poor Mr. Mallory a terrible ’ard time, she did. Used ter make fun of ’im summink awful.” She shook her head. “I could never make out why ’e took it. Mus’ be summink ter do wiv ’is religion, I s’pose.” For her that explained everything. It was foreign, and no one should be expected to understand it.
He left Nellie and continued on his course, but none of the servants was able to help, except in the most negative sense. At the time which mattered, and was fixed very clearly at five minutes to ten, they were all accounted for and nowhere near the stairhead. The only two upstairs at all were Miss Braithwaite and the valet, Stander, and they would have had to pass Ramsay’s study door to reach the landing.
Was it possible that Ramsay really had pushed her? Had her constant erosion of his confidence, his belief in his faith and its root in reality, been wearing him down over the weeks and months to the point at which suddenly he had lost control and lashed out at his tormentor, at the voice which had robbed him of all the old certainties, the very meaning of all his work? Had he so lost touch with the realities of faith, the human spirit, the living emotion, that his despair had robbed him of all sense?
Dominic came into the hall again from the kitchen and the servants’ dining room. It was so familiar, for all its exotic design, so very functional with its umbrella stand, reminding one of the English climate and the practicalities of walking in the rain. The tall clock normally chimed the quarter hours, the daily needs of punctuality. Of course it was muffled now, with death in the house. The side table held the salver for calling cards. The hat stand stood in the corner, next to the settles where carriage rugs were sometimes kept. The mirror, for last-minute adjustments to the appearance, reflected the light. The window pole for the footman to close