incidents she was referring to, and in each case she was right. The more he thought about it, the less did Mallory’s behavior seem in character. He hated the rain. He spoke often of how he looked forward to the warmer, drier climate of Rome; it was an incidental blessing of his vocation. Dominic had never known him to run errands for anyone else. Even his mother met with a polite refusal when she asked him to go to the apothecary. He was studying; it took precedence over everything. Dominic knew nothing about the green jacket. He seldom noticed what men wore—though always what women did. But the Rossetti picture was different. That was unforgettable.
How curious. So Mallory had done Unity a number of favors in spite of his apparent contempt for her. Dominic did not have to look far for an explanation that was believable. Unity had been a remarkably attractive woman. It had been far more than a beauty of face or coloring, it was a vitality, an intelligence, a constant awareness of the joy and the challenge of life. He still remembered it himself with pain. But he had not realized it had touched Mallory.
“Perhaps you are right,” he said aloud. “I didn’t know about that.”
“He was probably trying to convert her,” Clarice remarked dryly. “He could have beaten Father soundly if he won her for the Church of Rome after all the time she’s spent translating learned documents for the Church of England.”
“They were the same at the period of time they are dealing with,” he pointed out.
“I know that!” she said tartly, although it was obvious she had forgotten. “That’s why they need all these different translations. One for each sect, don’t you know,” she added, and with that she went up the stairs quickly and without looking back at him.
No one bothered with luncheon. Ramsay remained upstairs in his study. Vita wrote letters, Tryphena mourned in private, and Clarice went down to the music room and played the Dead March from “Saul” on the piano.
It would be nice to think the tragedy would be left as an unsolved mystery, something about which the truth could never be known. But Dominic recalled his past acquaintance with Pitt too vividly to nurse that illusion. Pitt had gone for now, but he would be investigating evidence, details, possibly things no one else had thought of. He would examine the body. He would see the mark on the shoes, and sooner or later, the mark on the conservatory floor. He would know about Unity’s going in to see Mallory. He would question and argue and reason until he knew why.
He would be very cautious, but he would probe into every detail of life in Brunswick Gardens. He would unearth any quarrel between Ramsay and Unity; he would uncover their personal weaknesses, all the little sins that might have nothing whatever to do with Unity’s death but were painful and so very much better hidden.
Dominic was alone in the library. He closed his eyes and could have been back in Cater Street ten years before, feeling the prickle of fear in the air around him. He remembered with a flush of embarrassment that Charlotte had been in love with him then. He really had not known it until it was almost too late. Pitt knew it. Dominic had seen it in his eyes. The shadow of dislike was still there.
Cater Street seemed like a world away. Hundreds of things had happened to him since then, good things and bad. But for the moment he could have been there, ten years younger, more arrogant, more frightened. He could be married to Sarah; they could all be afraid of the “Hangman,” who had killed again and again in the neighborhood. They could be looking at each other, wondering, suspecting, discussing things about frailties and deceits they would so much rather not know but could not forget.
Pitt had persistently uncovered everything until he knew the answer. He would do that now. And as before, Dominic was afraid, both of what that answer would be and of what the process of finding it would uncover about himself and those things in the past he would rather forget. It was easier here, in the Parmenter house, because they saw him as he wished to see himself: young in his calling, making occasional mistakes, but dedicated and whole of heart. Only Ramsay knew what had gone before.
Without making a conscious decision to do it, Dominic