Anne Perry's Silent Nights: Two Victorian Christmas Mysteries by Anne Perry

phrased, and he did not mention that Faraday had courted her, too, although he wondered if perhaps she knew. “It seems she was unwilling to accept any marriage her brother recommended for her,” he finished. “And it was causing some ill-feeling, and a degree of financial stress.”
    “You mean Mr. Newbridge?” she said quickly.
    He did not know how to answer. He had been clumsy. In trying to tell her something of meaning he had put himself in a position where either he had to lie or admit that it also meant her brother, and her own suitor.
    Too quickly she understood. Her smile was self-mocking. “And John,” she added. “It is no secret that he courted her as well, although I think he became a little disillusioned with her some short time before her death. I think he requires in a woman more sense of the practical than she was willing to give.” She looked away from him and sighed in exasperation. “I’m sorry, that is such a foolish euphemism. Olivia was an individual, she had the courage at least to attempt to live her dreams. They were not so very unreasonable. She wanted to travel, but she would have worked to achieve that. Of course a vicar’s sister is not supposed to work at anything. What is there that a respectable woman can do?” There was an ache of longing in her voice, as if she were speaking of herself, not a friend she understood too well.
    “She had no real skills, and not a great deal of practical knowledge of the world,” she continued.“One cannot survive without at least some money. If one had been born poor one might at least have learned to do something useful. Sometimes I wonder if necessity might not be a better spur than dreams, don’t you think?” Without warning she turned to look at him, meeting his eyes with fierce candor. “Do you like what you do, Mr. Runcorn?”
    He was at a loss to answer her. He could feel his face flaming, as if she would see his emotions drowning him. “I … not always. I … it …” This was his one chance to be honest with her. “Sometimes it is terrible, painful, you see awful things, and cannot help.”
    “Isn’t that better than seeing nothing at all?” she demanded. “And at least you can try!”
    She was so vivid he almost felt as if he were touching her in the sharp air. Suddenly the words came easily.
    “Yes. And at times I succeed. I can’t bring back the dead, and catching the guilty doesn’t always make sense, or justice, but it eases, and it explains. Understanding gets rid of the sense of confusion, the helplessness to know what happened and why.”
    She smiled. “You are fortunate. You have something worth doing, even if you don’t always manage to complete it, at least you know you have tried.”
    He had never thought of it like that. Barclay had defined his job as clearing up the detritus of other people’s crimes and follies, a sort of sweeper-up of dirt. Melisande clearly saw something more. “Is that how you see it?” he asked uncertainly.
    She shook her head. “Oh, don’t think of John. Sometimes he takes pleasure in being offensive. He denigrates what he doesn’t understand. It’s a kind of … fear. We are all afraid of something, if we are honest.”
    “What was Olivia afraid of?” He hardly dared ask. Were they even speaking of Olivia, or of Melisande herself?
    She looked away again. “Of loneliness,” she answered. “Of failure. Of coming to the end of your life and realizing all the passionate, beautiful things you could at least have tried to do, but you didn’t have the courage. And then it’s too late …” She stopped, not as if she had no further thought, but as if she could not bear to speak it aloud.
    Perhaps he should have turned to the stark outline of the church, or even to the carved and ornamental gravestones beyond, but he did not. Her grief filled the air, and he knew it was not only a compassion for Olivia but also an acute awareness of her own suffering and emptiness. He had never