No Graves As Yet by Anne Perry Read Free Book Online Page A

“Surely it will just be a matter of punishment, reparation, or something? It is an internal matter for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, isn’t it?”
    Corcoran nodded, withdrawing his hand. “Perhaps. If there is any sanity in the world, it will.”
    “Of course it will!” Orla said firmly. “It will be miserable for the Serbs, poor creatures, but it doesn’t concern us. Don’t alarm Joseph with such thoughts, Shanley.” She smiled as she said it. “We have enough grief of our own without borrowing other people’s.”
    He was prevented from replying to her by the arrival of Gerald and Mary Allard, close friends of the family whom Joseph had known for many years. Elwyn was their younger son, but their elder, Sebastian, was a pupil of Joseph’s, a young man of remarkable gifts. He seemed to master not only the grammar and the vocabulary of foreign languages but the music of them, the subtlety of meaning and the flavor of the cultures that had given them birth.
    It was Joseph who had seen the promise in him and encouraged him to seek a place at Cambridge to study ancient languages, not only biblical but the great classics of culture as well. Sebastian had grasped his opportunity. He worked with zeal and remarkable self-discipline for so young a man, and had become one of the brightest of the students, taking first-class honors. Now he was doing postgraduate studies before moving on to a career as a scholar and philosopher, perhaps even a poet.
    Mary caught Joseph’s eye and smiled at him, her face full of pity.
    Gerald came forward. He was a pleasant, ordinary-seeming man, fair-haired, good-looking in a benign, undistinguished way. Brief introductions were made to the Corcorans, who then excused themselves.
    “So sorry,” Gerald murmured, shaking his head. “So sorry.”
    “Thank you.” Joseph wished there were something sensible to say, and longed to escape.
    “Elwyn is here, of course.” She indicated very slightly over her shoulder to where Elwyn Allard was talking to Pettigrew, the lawyer, and trying to escape to join his contemporaries. “And unfortunately Sebastian had to be in London,” Mary went on. “A prior commitment he could not break.” She was thin, with fierce, striking features, dark hair, and a fine olive complexion. “But I am sure you know how deeply he feels.”
    Gerald cleared his throat as if to say something—from the shadow in his eyes, possibly a disagreement—but he changed his mind.
    Joseph thanked them again and excused himself to speak to someone else.
    It seemed to stretch interminably—the kindness, the grief, the awkwardness—but eventually the ordeal was over. He saw Mrs. Appleton, somber and pale-faced, as she said goodbye to the vicar and started back to the house. Everything was already prepared to receive their closest friends. There would be nothing for the staff to do but take the muslin cloths off the food already laid out on the tables. Lettie and Reginald had been given time off also, but they would both be back to help with the clearing away.
    The house was a mere six hundred yards from the church, and people straggled slowly under the lych-gate and along the road through the village in the quiet sunlight, turning right toward the Reavley home. They all knew each other and were intimately concerned in each other’s lives. They had walked to christenings, weddings, and funerals along these quiet roads; they had quarreled and befriended one another, laughed together, gossiped and interfered for better or worse.
    Now they grieved, and few needed to find words for it.
    Joseph and Hannah welcomed them at the front door. Matthew and Judith had already gone inside, she to the drawing room, he presumably to fetch the wine and pour it.
    The last person was ushered in, and Joseph turned to follow. He was crossing the hall when Matthew came out of John’s study ahead of him, his face puckered with concern.
    “Joseph, have you been in here this morning?”
    “The study?