should have been more considerate.”
“Poor Ramsay,” she said slowly. “I thought I knew him, but I cannot have known him at all. There must have been a storm of darkness gathering inside him that none of us had the slightest knowledge of. How bitterly alone he must have been, carrying that burden.”
He was looking at her with a gentleness that was almost luminous. She saw it in his face, and the warmth blossomed up inside her until without thinking she was smiling at him.
The dining room door opened and the bishop came in, closing it with a bang.
“You had better excuse us, Isadora,” he said abruptly, glancing at her plate and almost-empty teacup. He took his place at the head of the table. “Mr. Cornwallis has some news, I gather.”
“I already know it,” she said without moving. “Would you like tea, Reginald?”
“I should like breakfast!” he said waspishly. “But first I suppose I had better hear whatever it is that has brought Mr. Cornwallis here at this hour of the day.”
Cornwallis’s face was bleak, the skin across his smooth cheekbones tight. “Ramsay Parmenter tried to strangle his wife yesterday evening, and in defending herself, she killed him,” he said brutally.
“Good God!” The bishop was aghast. He stared at Cornwallis as if he had struck him physically. “How …” He drew in his breath in a gulp. “How …,” he repeated, then stopped. “Oh dear.”
Isadora looked at him, trying to read his expression, to see in it the reflection of the sadness and sense of failure that she felt. He looked bland, as if he were thinking rather than feeling. She was aware of a gulf between them she had no idea how to cross, and far worse than that, she was not nearly sure enough that she even wished to.
“Oh dear,” the bishop repeated, turning his body a little further towards Cornwallis. “What a tragic ending to this whole unfortunate business. Thank you for coming so swiftly to inform me. It was most considerate of you. Most civil. I shall not forget it.” He smiled slightly, his earlier irritation forgotten in relief.
And it was relief. She could read it in him, not in his eyes or his mouth, he was too careful for that, but in the set of his shoulders and the way his hands moved across the tablecloth, no longer tense but loose-fingered. She was overcome by a wave of revulsion and then anger. She glanced at Cornwallis. His mouth was tight, and he sat upright, as if facing some threat from which he must guard himself. With a flash of insight she thought she knew what he was feeling: the same confusion as she was, a rage and a disgust he did not want, which embarrassed him but which he could not escape.
“Have some more tea,” the bishop offered, holding up the pot after he had helped himself.
“No, thank you,” Cornwallis declined without giving it a moment’s thought.
A servant came in silently and placed a hot dish of bacon, eggs, potatoes and sausage in front of the bishop. He nodded acceptance and she left.
“It was obviously as we feared,” the bishop went on, taking up his knife and fork. “Poor Parmenter. He was suffering from a steadily increasing insanity. Very tragic. Thanks be to God he did not succeed in killing his wife, poor woman.” He looked up suddenly, his fork balanced with sausage and potato. “I assume she is not seriously injured?” He had only just thought of it.
“I believe not,” Cornwallis replied tersely.
“I shall visit her in due course.” The bishop put the food into his mouth.
“She must be shattered,” Isadora said, turning to Cornwallis. “One can hardly imagine anything worse. I wonder if she had any idea he was so … ill.”
“It hardly matters now, my dear,” the bishop said with his mouth full. “It is all over and we need not harrow our minds with questions we cannot answer.” He swallowed. “We are in a position to protect her from further grief and distress at the intrusion of others into her bereavement and its causes. There will be no more police investigation. The tragedy has explained itself. There is no justice to be sought … it is already accomplished in the perfect economy of the Almighty.”
Cornwallis winced.
“The Almighty!” Isadora exploded, disregarding Cornwallis’s widened eyes and the bishop’s hiss of indrawn breath. “God didn’t do this! Ramsay Parmenter must have been sinking into despair and madness for months, probably years, and none of us