A Christmas Visitor (11 page)

They sat around the dinner table with another delicious meal. Mrs. Hardcastle had made one of the local delicacies for pudding—a dish known as rum nicky—made of rum, brown sugar, dried fruit, and Cumberland apples.

Antonia spoke because it was her home and they were her guests. She would not allow them to sit uncomfortably in silence, but it was all trivia, little bits of news about sheep dog trials last summer, boat races on the lake, who had climbed which mountain, what weather to expect.

Henry was aware of Ephraim one moment looking at Naomi, the next carefully avoiding her eyes.
Whatever it was that he felt for her, she did not wish to acknowledge it, and yet Henry was absolutely certain that she knew.

And all the time at the back of his mind was the fear that they would all have to be told the possibility that in some way, through misplaced trust, inattention, some kind of carelessness, Judah had made an error, and Gower was not guilty of forging the deeds, which must mean that someone else was.

Who else profited? Peter Colgrave, that was obvious. Had anyone else thought they could buy the estate cheaply? Had anyone known of the Viking hoard, with its gold and silver coins, its jewelry and artifacts, not to mention its historic value? That was another thing to find out, if possible.

But sitting at the table, seeing their faces, the tension, the anger, and the grief, he dared not approach it yet. But how long could he wait?

After the meal was finished Antonia went upstairs to say good night to Joshua, and Henry knew from the evenings before that she would be gone for quite a long time, perhaps an hour or more. Joshua
was nine years old, still a child in his hurt and confusion, trying hard to earn the respect of his uncles, to behave like the man he thought they expected him to be.

And he was also intelligent enough to know that they were protecting him from something else. Henry had seen his face as they changed the subject when he came in while they were speaking of Gower, or the village. They did not know children. They did not realize how much he heard, how quick he was to catch an evasion, a note of unintended patronage. He could see fear, even if he could not give it a name.

Henry could remember how Oliver had constantly surprised him with his grasp of things Henry had assumed to be beyond him. He watched, he copied, he understood. Joshua Dreghorn was just as eager and as quick. Antonia knew that, and she was spending her time, and perhaps her emotions, with him.

Henry invited Naomi to accompany him for a short walk in the starlit garden, which she accepted. He held her cloak for her, then put on his own coat, and led the way to the side door.

“What is it?” she asked as soon as they were a couple of yards from the house. “Have you learned something?”

There was no time to approach it obliquely. “I went to see a clerk in Judah’s office in Penrith,” he answered. “I asked him exactly where the deeds had been since they were taken out of Geoffrey Gower’s safe.” He spoke quietly, although the crunch of their footsteps on the frost-hardened grass might well have disguised their voices, had anyone near an open window been listening. “There was time and opportunity for someone to have altered it … changed it for another.”

“You mean put a forgery in place of a genuine one?” She saw what he meant immediately, and there was fear in her voice. With the hood of her cloak up he could see little of her face.

“Yes,” he replied.

“You believe Gower?” It was a direct question, filled with incredulity, but asked nonetheless.

He could not answer immediately, not with complete honesty.

“Mr. Rathbone?” she demanded, gripping his arm and pulling him to a stop.

“I don’t believe Judah would have done such a thing, for any reason whatever,” he said unhesitatingly. Of that he was absolutely sure. “But he may have trusted people he should not have.”

Her voice was very low. “Have you told that to anyone else?”

“No.” He was smiling in the dark, but it was self-mockery, there was no pleasure in it at all. “I have spent all my ride back from Penrith and a good deal of the evening trying not to do so. But it is a possibility we have to face.”

“You are sure there was opportunity?”

“Yes.”

“Who? If not Gower, why would anyone else? He was the only one who would profit from such a stupid forgery!”

They started to walk again, heading farther away from the house, and anyone who might look out and see them.

“He made the date into the one that would mean
the property was his!” she went on, still holding his arm. “The other date would have left it as Peter Colgrave’s, as it was. Then we bought it. No one else had anything to gain from changing it.”

“There is no answer that fits the facts,” he told her. “Ashton Gower swears that the deeds were not forged, the expert says that they were. The forged date favors Gower.”

“Yes. Isn’t that proof?”

The thought he had been fighting against all day crystalized in his mind.

“What if the forgery is not a change at all?”

“But that makes no …” She stopped. “Oh, no! You mean if the forgery is an exact copy of the original, date included? So Gower was telling the truth when he said the deed was genuine? Then it was replaced by an obvious forgery, with exactly the same date, so Gower would be disbelieved—lose his land!”

“Yes.”

“That is terrible! But who? Colgrave?”

“Perhaps. Or anyone else who thought they might be able to buy the estate cheaply.”

“Judah bought it from Colgrave, at the price he asked. He was in a hurry for the money. I think he had debts. Maybe someone else expected to buy, and didn’t get the chance. That could be anyone!”

“Maybe someone else had already found the Viking hoard and knew what it would be worth,” Henry pointed out. “Colgrave didn’t, or he would have asked a far larger sum.”

“And Gower believes it was Judah.” Her voice was somber and tight with strain. “Perhaps he really didn’t do it, is that possible? Without knowing it, Judah sent an innocent man to prison!”

“Yes, it is possible.” He loathed admitting it. “Of course it is also possible that he is as guilty as sin of killing Judah,” he added. “Somebody did. No one else we know had a reason—except the real forger.”

“Perhaps Gower has enemies, too?” she suggested. “He’s a most disagreeable man. Is it possible he is the real intended victim, and Judah is only the means they use?”

“Yes, of course it is. And I don’t know where we would even begin to look for them!”

She bent her head. “This is terrible!” she said in a whisper. “We have to know! Don’t we?”

“I think so. Could you rest with it unanswered?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter for me. When it’s over, when we’ve silenced Gower, I’ll go back to America again. I have the excitement, the discovery, the sheer blazing beauty of it. There is a magic to the unknown like nothing else.” Her voice was filled with vitality.

It reminded Henry of Ephraim when he had spoken of Africa and the wild beauty of that country, too. Again he wondered why Naomi had chosen the safer Nathaniel with his softer ways.

“Do you miss it?” he asked aloud.

“I’ve been too busy to, so far,” she said honestly.

“We will have to tell them the possibility that the deeds were changed,” he said as they came to the end of the lawn and looked across at the glimmering light on the lake, visible only as movement, like black silk in the wind.

“I know. Antonia will be terribly hurt, as if we have suddenly abandoned her.” She sighed. “Benjamin
will be confused, but I think he can’t be utterly shocked. He’s too clever not to have thought of it, even if only to deny it.”

“And Ephraim?” he asked, knowing she would find that the hardest to answer.

She hesitated before she spoke. “He’ll be angry. He’ll think we have betrayed Judah. He doesn’t forgive easily.”

Henry looked at her, the little of her face he could see in the starlight, but all he could glean from her was the emotion he heard in her voice. Was it in general she thought Ephraim did not forgive, or was there some specific sin she spoke of? Had Nathaniel really been her first choice, or was he second, and she would not now make a decision, even for her own happiness, which she felt betrayed him? She had used the word herself, referring to Ephraim’s emotions.

He asked, even though it was intrusive. “You speak as if you know him well, and I can’t help seeing his feelings for you.”

She smiled. “You are wondering why I married Nathaniel, when Ephraim also asked me?”

“Yes,” he admitted.

“Because love is more than passion and excitement, Mr. Rathbone. If you trust your life and your love to someone, you need to admire their courage, and Ephraim has any amount of that. But if you are going to live with them every day, not just the good ones, but the bad ones as well, the difficult ones when you fail, make mistakes, feel bruised and afraid, you need to be certain of their kindness. You need someone who will forgive you when you are wrong, because you will be wrong sometimes.”

He did not interrupt. They stood side by side looking toward the water. It was cold and very clear, the stars tiny, glittering shards of light in the enormity of space.

“Ephraim has not been wrong often enough to understand,” she said almost under her breath.

“It seems to me you are not wrong very often, either,” he observed. “And yet you have a gentleness.”

This time he saw her smile. “I have been. I look like my mother. She behaved badly. I never knew
why, but I imagine sometimes how lonely she might have felt, or what made her do as she did. My father never forgave her for it, so even if she had wished to return her heart to him, he did not allow her to.”

He pictured another woman like Naomi, perhaps bored with nothing on which to use her intelligence, no adventure to take her from the domestic round, and possibly loved more for her beauty than for her inner self. How deeply had her unhappiness marked her daughter that she chose the gentleness of a forgiving man rather than the passion of one she feared might repeat her parents’ history?

“I see,” he said very gently. “Of course you did. We all need to be forgiven, one time or another. And we need to talk, to share our own dreams, as well as those of the one we love.”

She reached up very gently and kissed his cheek. “I always liked Nathaniel, and I learned to love him. I loved Ephraim from the beginning, but I don’t trust him to forgive my mistakes, and forget them, and to hold my heart softly.”

For a moment or two he did not speak. When he did, it was of the problem they shared, now a burden growing heavier by the minute.

“I think I shall go to Kendal tomorrow and see the expert who testified about the deeds.” He turned to face her. “Then I have to tell Benjamin and Ephraim what I find, and I suppose if it is irrefutable, Antonia, too.”

“Do you think Ashton Gower was imprisoned falsely?” she asked.

“I think that it is possible, and if it is true, then we must acknowledge it and try to redress as much of the injustice as may be reached now.”

“But somebody killed Judah!” she protested. “His body did not wash upstream! And if Gower really was innocent, does that not give him the most intense reason to seek revenge? Perhaps he didn’t mean to kill Judah, it was just a fight that ended when Judah slipped and fell, and for some reason Gower dragged his body all the way up to the higher crossing. But why would he do that?”

“Maybe at the time of Judah’s death there were
some signs in the snow that another person had been there, and even of the struggle,” Henry reasoned. “He could not afford to have it investigated, or at that time it might have been easy enough to show he was there, too. And with their history, who would believe him that it was accidental?”

“I think he is a loathsome man,” she said, beginning to walk slowly back toward the house. “But I am sorry for him. If it really was an accident, then if we could help him prove it, we ought to—oughtn’t we?”

“Yes.” He had no doubt.

“The family won’t like that.” There was certainty in her voice, too, and fear. She wanted to belong. She had loved them all since she had first known them. They were the only family she had. Like Antonia, she was otherwise alone.

“We don’t know yet,” he pointed out. “At least not beyond doubt. I’ll go to Kendal tomorrow.”

And with that they walked back up the grass and in through the door again to the warmth.