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‘What did Toby do?’
‘Not Toby Feynsham. Ella.’
‘What didshedo?’
‘One should not rush to blame her,’ Miss Keele said. ‘Her twin brother had been murdered. And it is grotesque that she was subjected to public scorn because she did not faint, or weep, or have hysterics, as though women must express their grief in only the approved manner. Nevertheless, she was shockingly cold to Lenster, turning her back on the poor child in public. She was not an easy woman. She lacked the gift for friendship.’
Yes: Toby had got all of that for the pair of them. ‘It was a terrible time for us all,’ Jem offered.
‘I dare say. And if Lenster’s child gave her comfort, I am very pleased to hear it.’ Miss Keele tipped her head. ‘Perhaps, now she is no longer, ah…now she no longer has domestic responsibilities, she might wish to resume a life of the mind. Perhaps you could give me her address? I should like to write to her.’
Jem did so, with a little uncertainty. He hoped Miss Keele would phrase her letter tactfully. She obviously cared for Prue, though, and God, he’d have liked it if someone from Anselm’s had ever held out a hand to him.
He thanked Miss Keele and set off back down Park Street, mulling over what he’d learned.
Suppose Prue had considered finding an abortionist to deal with her unwanted child. Procuring abortion was punishable with anything up to a life sentence, for the woman and for the abortionist. That was the kind of secret he’d imagined lying behind Toby’s death, some threat so huge that murder was the only answer. Suppose Toby had gone to the police and said…
Said what, though?I hear Prudence Lenster of the women’s hall is considering an abortion? Surely not. That would be truly, deeply foul, and surely Toby had had no reason to be so vile to her. Unless he really thought she’d betrayed him by loving another man…
Or, of course, unless the child had been his.
Had Ella stopped speaking to Prue after the murder because of an affair with Toby? What would Toby have done if Prue had been carrying his child? Wouldn’t he at least have helped her financially? Except, of course, he’d lost his inheritance and had gambling debts. Presumably his grandfather wouldn’t have been pleased about an illegitimate child, but surely he wouldn’t have abandoned her to choose between the shame of being an unwed mother and the dangers of abortion?
It was a dreadful place and those were dreadful people, and you and I got caught in their games and paid for it.
Jem came up short against a motor car, and realised he’d reached Broad Street. He hadn’t even noticed the walk down, lost in his whirling thoughts. He’d have liked to keep going, but his foot was painful, and it was damned cold, though the claggy, drizzle-filled air was almost a relief, chilling a face that was reddening with anger and near-tears. The atmosphere was thickening with the promise of fog, and he wanted to sit down and think.
He went back into Blackwell’s since the prospect of his bare guestroom was uninviting. It had always been possible to treat the cavernous shop like a library; he found a seat and picked up a book at random to hold as if he were reading it.
Suppose Toby had learned Prue was carrying his child and intended to procure an abortion, and he had threatened her with the police. He hadn’t turned on her particularly that last night, but perhaps that in itself had been a punishment, or a demonstration of how little she meant.
If Prue had been desperate enough to consider abortion, with all the attendant risks, to what other extremes might she have been driven? Suppose she had gone after Toby and confronted him, slipping through the crowds at Summoner’s Gift unnoticed. Suppose he’d spoken to her with the sort of words he’d used on Jem, and the stiletto had been to hand…
Suppose all that, what would Jem do about it?
Nicky had said he wanted the murderer to get away with it. Right now, Jem could see his point. He wondered what Nicky knew.
He sat there, looking at the shelves without seeing, until his lower back protested at the immobility. When he eventually left, the street lights were already lit against the encroaching darkness.
He still couldn’t face his little bare cell and another lonely evening, aware of Nicky a few staircases away. Maybe he would go to the chapel; the medieval wood and stone and the heavy silence of centuries in its walls made it a good place to think. Maybe if he sat there, the God to whom he had long ago lost any connection might vouchsafe him a revelation. Divine inspiration had to come to someone, so why not Jem?
Or maybe he’d sit on the hard benches amid cold stone while his life ticked away.
Sorrow be to those who live
in longing for those they love.
He should go to the chapel and pray for the sense he was born with, but instead he headed to Staircase Thirteen, and when he knocked, Nicky let him in.
SEVENTEEN
Jem buried his head in Nicky’s chest as the chapel clock chimed seven in the evening. Nicky’s shutters muted the clamour of Oxford’s bells for the most part, but the chapel clock was almost above them and nothing could keep out its piercing brassy notes. ‘God above. How do you sleep through it?’
‘Habit makes anything endurable. We’re missing Hall. Or at least will be too late for it; nobody couldmissit per se.’
Jem had missed Hall, when it had meant the chatter of friends ringing off the ancient polished wood, but he couldn’t summon up any urge to dine among callow youths and strangers, and especially not in Nicky’s company. There would be stares, and Jem did not think he would be able to ignore stares.
Nicky had let him in wordlessly and locked the door without looking away from his face, and Jem had followed him to the bedroom. Jem didn’t think either of them had spoken a meaningful word for an hour or more, excepting Nicky’s repeated questions of, ‘Is this good?’ and Jem’s gasped or muttered answers. They’d lain in silence in between, in Nicky’s monastic cell of a bedroom, listening to one another breathe. It was the longest Jem had ever spent making love in his life, and he had no idea what to do now.
