Cain His Brother

Chapter 12

Ebenezer Goode woke very early the following morning, unable to sleep any longer because his mind was churning over the extraordinary events of the preceding day. He had not liked Caleb Stone; indeed, privately he had had little doubt that Stone was guilty of the murder of his brother exactly as he was charged. But there had been an extraordinary vitality in the man, a core of passion which made his death unexpectedly hard to accept.

He lay with the blankets up to his chin, turning over and over in his mind what Rathbone had said, and that odd fellow Monk. Did the nurse really know what she was talking about? Was it conceivable that Milo Ravensbrook could either have willed Caleb's death, or worse still, have brought it about?

The thought was especially hideous when he remembered the remarkable face of Lady Ravensbrook, the strength in it, the power of feeling and imagination, even ravaged by recent disease as it was. There was something in her which awoke an extraordinary interest in him. He found even while he was thinking of ways and means of discerning the truth, and the near impossibility of proving it, it was her features impressed on his closed eyelids, her expression, her mouth, even her voice in his ears. She had said barely a dozen words to him, and every inflection remained.

He rose at half past six, while it was still dark, sent for water from a very surprised housemaid, then shaved, washed, dressed and requested breakfast by quarter past seven. His cook was not in the least amused, and allowed it to be known. He did not care in the slightest, although good cooks were not easy to obtain.

He left the house at eight and walked briskly, swinging his rather handsome stick, and so deep in thought he passed a dozen acquaintances without seeing them, and addressed two more by their fathers' names.

By five minutes past nine he was outside Ravensbrook House, and saw his lordship leave in his own carriage. Goode mounted the steps and pulled the brass bell knob.

“Good morning, sir,” the footman said with only the merest surprise.

“Good morning,” Goode replied with a charming smile. “I am sorry to disturb the family so early, but there are matters which cannot wait. Will you ask Lady Ravensbrook if I may speak with her? I shall await her convenience, naturally.” He passed over his card.

“Lady Ravensbrook, sir?” The footman was uncertain he had heard correctly.

It seemed absurd. What could the lawyer have to say to Lady Ravensbrook?

“If you please.” Goode stepped inside and took off his coat and gave the man his hat. He had no intention of being turned away, and he was used to pressing his cause. He had not become one of London's leading barristers by being easily refused or overridden. “Thank you. So good of you. Should I wait in the morning room? Yes?” He had been here only once before, but he recalled it was the second door to the left. He assumed consent, and strode across the hall, leaving the footman holding his clothes, and with little choice but to accede.

He was obliged to wait nearly three quarters of an hour in the calm, ornate room with its heavy curtains and shelves of books, but when at last the door opened, it was Enid Ravensbrook who stood there. Instantly he felt guilty. She looked desperately afraid. Her lavender-colored gown hung on her, in spite of the fact her maid had taken it in as much as was possible without recutting it altogether. Her hair had lost its luster and even the cleverest dressing could not conceal how much of it had come out in her illness. Her skin had no color at all, but nothing could dim the intelligence in her eyes or the underlying strength in the lines of her cheekbones and jutting nose and jaw. She looked at him with unwavering courage.

“Good morning, Mr. Goode. My footman tells me you wish to speak with me.”

She closed the door and walked quite slowly, as if she were afraid of losing her balance.

He made half a gesture towards helping her, and knew instantly that he should not. He ached to reach out and give her his strength, but it would be an intrusion. He did not need to meet her eyes to know it.

She reached the nearest chair and sat down, smiling at last.

“Thank you, Mr. Goode. I am obliged to you. I hate being an invalid. Now, what is it you wish to say to me? I presume it is to do with poor Caleb. I knew him very little, and yet I cannot help grieving that he should die so.

Although, God knows, perhaps the alternative was worse.”

“But you knew Angus,” he said quickly. “With Lord Ravensbrook's regard for him, and his own gratitude and affection, he must have come here often.”

It had been a statement, as if he did not doubt it, yet the look on her face was one of uncertainty and denial.

“No.” She shook her head fractionally. “He came, of course, but not so very often, and he seldom stayed long. I am not sure if it was because Genevieve felt a certain… uncomfortableness here? I think my husband overawed her to a degree. He can be…” Again she hesitated, and he had a sudden sharp perception that it was not the words she was struggling with, nor even if she should express the thought to him, but the thought itself. It was something she had long avoided facing, because of its pain. He was stunned by how much it distressed him.

He hesitated. Perhaps it was not worth pursuing at such cost. It could all be left to the coroner to cover with polite decencies.

But the doubt lasted only a moment. He could not live with such cowardice, and it was not worthy of her.

He smiled, “Please, ma'am, tell me the truth as you feel it, as you saw it.

It is not a time for lies, however gently meant, or seemingly kind.”

“Isn't it?” She frowned. “Both Angus and Caleb are dead, poor creatures, and their hatred with them, whatever it was for. It is gone now…

finished.”

“I wish it were.” He meant it profoundly. “But there will have to be an inquest into Caleb's death. We need to know why suddenly he launched himself into such a violent and hopeless act.”

“Do we'?” Her face was calm, her inner decision made. “What does it matter now, Mr. Goode? It seems he never lived in peace. Cannot he now at least be buried and left to rest in whatever ease his soul can find? And we with him. My husband has known little but grief of one sort or another since he first took them into his home.”

“Even with Angus?”

“No. No, that was quite unfair of me. Angus brought him great joy. He was everything he could have wished.”

“But?” he said gently, insistently.

“He was!”

“There is a shadow in your voice, a hesitation,” he insisted. “What is it?

What was it in Angus, Lady Ravensbrook, which made Caleb hate him so passionately? They were close once. Why did they grow so hideously far apes?þ “I don't know!”

“But you guess? You must have thought about it, wondered. Even if only for the pain it brought your husband.”

“Of course I thought about it. I lay awake many hours wondering if there were some way they might be reconciled. I searched my mind. I asked my husband often, until I realized he knew as little as I, and that to speak of it gave him pain. He and Angus were not…”

“Not what?”

She spoke reluctantly. He was dragging the words out of her, and he knew it.

“Easy in each other's company,” she admitted. “It was as if the shadow of Caleb were always there, a darkness between them, a wound that could never be completely forgotten.”

“But you liked Angus?”

“Yes, yes I liked him.” Now the shadow was gone, she spoke wholeheartedly.

“He was extraordinarily kind. He was a man you could admire without reservation, and yet so modest he never put himself forward, was never pompous. Yes, I liked Angus enormously. I never saw him lose his temper or perform a cruel act.” The marks of grief were plain in her face, but simple loss, without doubt or underlying darkness.

He hated himself for persisting, and yet the nagging anxiety was in his mind like a toothache, dull and ever present, and sometimes giving a stab so sharp it robbed the breath.

“Never?”

“No,” she said as if she had not expected to feel so. “Never. I am not surprised my husband loved him. He was all he could have wished in a son, had he been granted one.”

“He must have hated Caleb for destroying him,” he said gently. “It would be understandable if he could never forgive such an act of treachery. Most especially since Angus still kept such loyalty towards Caleb.”

She turned away, her voice even lower. “Yes, I could not blame him. And yet he does not seem to feel the anger I do. It is almost as if…” He waited, leaning forward, the silence in the room prickling his ears.

She turned very slowly to look at him.

“I don't know what you expect me to say, Mr. Goode…

“The truth, ma'am. It is the only thing clean enough, the only thing which will in the end stand above all the pain.”

“I don't know it!”

“It was almost as if… what?” he prompted.

“As if he had known one day it must happen, and it was like a blow he had long awaited, and the reality of it is the end of the tension, almost a solace. Is that a terrible thing to say?”

“No. It is merely sad,” he said gently. “And if we were honest, perhaps something we might all say. One can become very tired.”

She smiled, for the first time some brightness reached her eyes.

“You are very kind, Mr. Goode. I think perhaps you are well named.” For the first time in many years, he felt the color warm in his face, and a strange mixture of pleasure and an awareness of how lonely he was.

Oliver Rathbone was in court when it reconvened. The benches for the crowd were almost empty. The newspapers were blaring headlines that Caleb Stone had tried to commit another murder, this time of the man who had been a father and a benefactor to him, and a greater justice had prevailed-he himself had become the victim. The matter was ended.

The judge looked for Ebenezer Goode, saw his absence, and raised his eyebrows at Rathbone.

“There is no one to defend, my lord,” Rathbone said with a shrug. He did not know where Goode was, and was privately a little disconcerted that he was not present. He had counted on his support.

“Indeed,” the judge said dryly. “Not an entirely satisfactory explanation, but I suppose it will have to suffice.” He turned to the jury and in formal manner told them what they all already knew. Caleb Stone was dead. There was no possibility of proceeding with the trial, since he could not now give evidence or speak in his own defense.

Therefore there could be no verdict. A mistrial was declared, the jury thanked and dismissed.

Rathbone saw the judge afterwards in his oak-paneled chambers, the early March sunlight shone pale through the high windows.

“What is it?” the judge asked with some surprise. “You have no more interest in this, Rathbone. Whatever we may believe of him, we cannot pursue Caleb Stone any further. He has made the only escape which is beyond us to retrieve.”

“I know that, my lord.” Rathbone stood in front of him looking down to where the judge sat in his leather chair, a small man with lines under his eyes. “All I want is to be sure that his escape was either an accident or of his own planning.”

“I don't understand you.” The judge frowned. “Ravensbrook said it was an accident, but if it was suicide, are you really so passionate in prosecution you want it proved?” His mouth tightened. “Why, man? You want him buried in unconsecrated ground? It is unlike you to be so vindictive.

It has nothing to do with providing for the widow, or allowing her to marry again, in due time, if she so wishes.”

“I don't believe it was suicide,” Rathbone answered.

“Murder?” The judge's rather tattered eyebrows rose in astonishment. “Did you not hear what happened? Lord Ravensbrook went in to see-“

“I know what he said,” Rathbone cut across him. “I was there within a few minutes of it. I saw Ravensbrook and saw the body. I think there is a possibility Ravensbrook murdered him.”

“Lord Ravensbrook?” The judge was not shocked, he simply did not believe it. “Do you realize what you are saying, Rathbone? Why on earth would Lord Ravensbrook murder anyone, let alone his own ward, appalling as the man was? And before the defense, which could conceivably have made a case for an accident.”

“That is something I intend to find out,” Rathbone said through his teeth.

“I have Monk on the case now.”

“You've taken leave of your senses,” the judge said with a sigh, leaning back in his chair as if he needed the softness of its leather padding to cushion his bones. “The idea has no foundation whatever.” His eyes narrowed. “Unless there is something quite extraordinary which you are concealing from the court. If there is, you place yourself in considerable jeopardy.”

“There isn't,” Rathbone replied with feeling. “I know nothing beyond what has already been revealed, but I believe that something exists. I would like the coroner to open the inquest, and then adjourn it so we may find the evidence to prove it.”

“And you expect me to tell him this?” The judge's pale blue eyes were wide with incredulity. “I'm sorry, Rathbone, but even if I did, without some evidence to support you, he would think me as mad as I think you. You'll have three days at the most.”

“It's not enough.”

“Maybe that's as well. Now if that is all I can do for you, allow me to prepare for my next case. Good day to you.”

Hester also rose early, and took a hansom to Genevieve's house. She had reason to believe she would be at home, since she was no longer required to help Enid, and there was no further business to be hoped for at the Old Bailey. In the prevailing tragic circumstances, she would hardly be either receiving social calls or making any. The business of Angus's death would have to wait upon legal procedure.

She was not disappointed. Genevieve looked pale and exhausted, but reasonably composed.

“How are you?” Hester said as she was led into the kitchen, the only room in the house with any warmth. It was spacious and full of agreeable smells of baking bread and fresh linen drying on the large airing rack across the ceiling, let up and down on a rope pulley fastened to the wall. There was no one else present. Presumably the cook had been allowed to go, in the interests of the increasingly stringent economy. A housemaid had answered the door, and perhaps there could be a woman come in to do the heavy work once or twice a week. No doubt the nurserymaid would be the last to be let go. A manservant would have been too expensive even to consider.

Genevieve smiled briefly, but there was an honesty in it.

“We shall manage. Once they grant that Angus is dead, we shall be able to appoint someone to manage the business and proceed with decisions. I daresay it will be difficult for a little while, but that will not matter.”

She met Hester's eyes with candor. “I have certainly been colder and hungrier before. The children do not find it easy to understand, but I shall explain it to them as well as I can.”

“Will it be Mr. Niven you ask to manage the business?” It was really none of her affair, but Hester inquired because she hoped it was.

Genevieve colored very faintly, but there was no awkwardness in her answer.

Without excusing herself, or explaining the necessity, she went over to the sink and started to peel potatoes. They were old, black in spots, and with too many eyes. There were also carrots and turnips on the bench.

“Yes. I have known him for a long time, and he is the most honorable of men,” she answered frankly. “I think Angus would have approved.”

“I'm glad.” Hester tried to smile, to soften what she had to say next, even though Genevieve had her back to her where she sat at the scrubbed wooden table.

Genevieve turned around, the knife in her hand. “What is it? What else can have happened?”

“Nothing. It is simply that it is not yet over. We do not know the truth, not all of it…”

“We never will,” Genevieve said bleakly, glancing at the kettle on the range, then resuming her peeling. “But even with Caleb alive, I don't think we would have. All I hoped for was to have the authorities accept that Angus was dead. I could have borne it if Caleb had not been proved guilty, unjust though that would be.”

“What was Angus like?” Hester said with sudden urgency. “How could he still care for Caleb, when Caleb hated him so much? Why did he keep going back to the East End? What childhood debt of honor, or guilt, kept him bound to someone who loathed him so passionately that he finally killed him?”

Genevieve stood rigid for several seconds, then put down her knife and moved to the large black cooking range. The kettle was beginning to steam.

She took a black-and-white china teapot out of the cupboard, rinsed it with boiling water, then spooned tea out of the caddy and poured the rest of the water from the kettle and let it steep. She brought out cups and then milk from the larder.

“I don't know,” she said at last. “I really don't. There were times when I thought he hated Caleb just as much, and I begged him never to see him again.” She sat down in the chair opposite and began to pour the tea. “At other times he was sorry for him, and yes, perhaps almost a little guilty.

Although he had no cause to be. Caleb could have had as much, had he chosen. It was not as if there were an inheritance and Angus had it at Caleb's expense.”

“There was nothing from their parents?”

Genevieve shook her head.

“If there was, it was so little, it was used long ago. Do you care for milk? Certainly Angus began his business by joining a firm, as any young man might do.” She passed the cup over. “Caleb could have done the same, except that he was so reckless, and so lazy in his studies, that he had not equipped himself to be of use. But again, that was his choice.” She was staring at Hester now. “Sometimes I think Angus was sorry for Caleb, and there were times when I knew he was afraid of him.”

Hester took the tea and thanked her. It was hot and fresh, and she was glad of it.

“It took a great deal of courage for Angus to return to Limehouse and find Caleb,” Genevieve went on. “After he had been badly hurt and he was, more than once. He was always tired, and depressed, and I begged him not to return.

It is not as if Caleb cared for him, or was even grateful for the help Angus gave him. It made me so angry… and then that distressed him. He said he could not help it. Caleb was his brother, his twin, and he was bound by a tie which he could not break. When I realized how it hurt him, I ceased to speak of it.”

She looked down again, ignoring her tea, her eyes brimming with tears.

“If you had known Angus, you would understand. There was a goodness in him, an honor unlike anyone else I have known. The only other man as gentle, and with anything like the same inward love of what is good, is Mr. Niven. I think that is why they were friends, and why I feel I can turn to him now.

Angus would have understood that.”

There was nothing further to pursue, except facts, and Hester was not even sure what use they would be. Nevertheless she asked Genevieve precisely in which street she had grown up, where and when she had first met Caleb, how she had met Angus, and all she could remember of that early relationship.

“I barely knew Caleb!” she said bitterly. “I swear to you that is the truth. He was a violent man, even for Limehouse. He frightened me. I think he frightened everyone. He was so like Angus in build and feature, and yet so unlike him in nature that no one could mistake one for the other. The way he walked, the way he stood, his voice, everything was wild and…

I don't know how to describe it.” She frowned, struggling with recollection. “As if he were always angry, as if there were something inside him so full of rage it was held in only by the frailest thread, and any provocation at all and it would explode and be free to hurt and destroy whatever stood in its path.” Hester did not interrupt her, but quietly sipped her tea and watched Genevieve's face.

“I suppose he must have had a gentler side,” Genevieve went on, her voice lower. “That poor creature Selina seemed to have cared for him.” She bit her lip. “I don't know why I speak of her like that. I started in the same place, just three streets away. I could easily have been there now, if I had never met Angus, and he had not had the patience and the love to teach me how to better myself, to speak well enough to pass as respectable, if not as a lady.”

She smiled ruefully, and began her tea at last. “He taught me how to carry myself, how to dress, how to conduct myself with others. I would never have passed for gentry, and have entertained in my own home, but over the years I have learned more confidence, and I don't believe I ever embarrassed him in front of his colleagues. You see, he was the opposite of Caleb, he had endless patience. I cannot remember him ever losing his temper. He would have considered it wrong, that he was betraying the best in himself.” “I wish I had known him,” Hester said sincerely. He might have been a trifle pompous, perhaps he lacked humor or imagination, but he must have been a man of immense kindness and an inner integrity which was both rare and beautiful. “Thank you for telling me so much.” She rose to take her leave.

“I am sorry to have had to ask you. It must have given you pain.” “And pleasure.” Genevieve rose also. “I like to talk about him. It is very sad when people cease to mention someone when he is dead. It is almost like denying he ever lived. I am glad you wanted to know.”

Monk already knew from Genevieve where Angus had grown up, and even before Ebenezer Goode had left his home, Monk was in a hansom bound for the railway station and the first train to the Berkshire village of Chilverley. It was a tedious journey, necessitating a number of changes and delays, moving from cozy waiting room with fire, to icy, wind-raked platforms, then chilly trains. It was quarter to eleven when he finally stepped off at Chilverley in a bright, hard wind.

“Chilverley Hall?” the stationmaster said obligingly. “Yes sir. About three miles north from here. That way.” He pointed half behind him. “Know Colonel Patterson, do you? You look like a military man, if I may say so.” Monk was astonished. Had it not been so contrary to his own interests, he would have let his temper have full rein.

“Colonel Patterson?” he said grimly. “This is Chilverley?”

“Yes sir, Chilverley, Berkshire.” He looked at Monk anxiously. “Who were you looking for, sir?”

“The family home of Lord Ravensbrook.”

“Oh, bless you, sir. It is the family home of the Ravensbrooks, but he don't live here no more. Sold it. Moved up to live in London, so they say.”

“I'm surprised it wasn't entailed,” Monk said irrelevantly.

“Daresay it might have been.” The stationmaster wagged his head. “But Lord Milo were the last o' the line. No reason why he shouldn't sell, if he wanted. Must have got a tidy sum for it.” He touched his cap respectfully as two gentlemen, one in a Norfolk jacket, the other in a greatcoat, went by and through the gate to the road.

“No brothers, or even cousins?” Monk had no reason to ask, it simply occurred to him.

The stationmaster turned back to him.

“No sir. Had one brother, younger than him, but he was killed, poor soul.

Accident it was, in Italy, or some such place.” He shook his head.

“Drowned, they say. Pity, that was. He were a very charming gentleman, if a bit wild. Very handsome, and a bit free with the ladies, and with his money. Still, a sad end for one so young.”

“How old was he?” Again it hardly mattered.

“No more than thirty-one or thirty-two,” the stationmaster answered. “It's all a long time ago now, well over quarter of a century, nearer thirty-five years.”

“Would you know if any of the old servants are still at the house?” “Oh no, sir. All left when his lordship did. Colonel Patterson brought his own household with him.”

“Is there no one I could find who lived in the house then?” Monk pressed.

“What about outside staff? Even a gardener, gamekeeper, coachman? Is it still the same vicar as it was then?”

The stationmaster nodded. “Oh, yes. Mr. Nicolson is still the vicar.

Vicarage is opposite the church, just beyond that second stand of elms.” He pointed. “Can't miss it. Just follow the road 'round. About two miles from here, sir.”

“Thank you. I'm obliged to you for your time and your courtesy.” And without waiting for any acknowledgment, Monk strode out in the direction the stationmaster had indicated.

The wind sighed through the bare branches of the elms and a cloud of rooks soared up into the air, disturbed by some predatory cat. Their black, tangled nests were low in the forks, towards the trunks. It had been a hard winter.

The vicar was an elderly man, but spry and bright-eyed. He greeted Monk over the hedge from where he had been looking hopefully at the green lawn and first spears of bulbs showing through.

Monk gave the briefest of explanations as to his purpose.

The vicar regarded him with a lively interest.

“Yes sir, of course I can. What a fine morning, isn't it? Won't be long before the daffodils come through. Love a good show of daffodils. Come into the parlor, my dear fellow. Got a decent fire going. Get the chill out of yourself.”

He came to the gate and opened it for Monk to walk through. Then he led him up a chipped stone path to the door, which was heavily bowered with honeysuckle, now a dark tangle of stems not yet showing green.

“In fact, would you like a spot of luncheon?” he invited, showing Monk the way inside, where it was immediately warm. “Hate to eat alone. Uncivilized.

Good conversation best for a meal, don't you think?” He went through the overcrowded hall and opened the door into a bright, chintzcurtained room.

“Wife died five years ago. Have to grasp at all the company I can. Know everyone here. Have done for years. Can't surprise each other anymore. Gets tedious in the winter. Don't mind in the summer, enough to do in the garden. What did you say your name was?”

“William Monk, Mr. Nicolson.”

“Ah, well, Mr. Monk, would you care for some luncheon, while you tell me your business here in Chilverley?”

Monk was delighted to accept. He was cold and hungry, and it would be far easier to stretch out a conversation over the table than sitting in even the most agreeable parlor.

“Good, good. Now please make yourself comfortable while I inform the cook!”

The Reverend Nicolson was so obviously happy to have company that Monk allowed at least half the meal to pass before he broached the subject of his journey. He swallowed the last of the cold mutton, pickles and vegetables and set his knife and fork down.

The maid appeared with hot, flaky apple pie and a jug of cream and set them on the table with evident satisfaction, taking away the empty plates. Then the vicar began his tale and Monk listened with amazement, anger, and growing compassion.