A Christmas Journey Read Online Free PDF Page A

which a woman could earn her way.
    Suddenly Vespasia realized just what might be ahead for Isobel, and she felt cold and sick. “How will that help us?” she said huskily.
    He looked at her with great earnestness. “If I explain to everyone what I have in mind, and they agree, then they will all be bound by it,” he answered. “The punishment for breaking their word would be exactly that same ostracism which will be applied to whoever is found at fault in Gwendolen’s death. Anyone who refuses to abide by that brands himself as outside the group of the rest of us. No one will wish to do that.” He shook his head a tiny fraction, lips tight. “Don’t tell me it is coercion. I know. Few people accept the judgment of their peers without it. It will offer a way for us to prevent the pain, and perhaps injustice, that may result otherwise.” His voice became softer. “And as important, it will at least give Isobel, or Bertie if it is he to blame, a chance to expiate the act of cruelty they may have performed.”
    â€œHow?” she asked.
    â€œGwendolen left a letter behind,” he explained. “It is sealed, and will remain so. It is addressed to her mother, Mrs. Naylor, who lives near Inverness, in the far north of Scotland. We could post it, but that would be a harsh way for a mother to find out that her child has destroyed the life she labored to give.”
    Vespasia was appalled. “You mean they would have to go to this unhappy woman and give her the letter? That’s …” She was lost for words. Isobel would never do it! Neither would Bertie Rosythe. They would neither of them have the heart, or the stomach, for it. Not to mention making the journey to the north of Scotland in December.
    Omegus raised his eyebrows. “Do you expect to be forgiven without pain, without a pilgrimage that costs the mind, the body, and the heart?”
    â€œI don’t think it will work.”
    â€œWill you at least help me try?”
    She looked at him standing, lean, oddly graceful, the lines deeper in his face in the morning light, and she could not refuse. “Of course.”
    â€œThank you,” he said solemnly.

    â€œWhat?” Lord Salchester said with stinging disbelief when they were gathered together at the luncheon table. The first course was finished when Omegus requested their attention and began to explain to them his plan.
    â€œPreposterous!” Lady Warburton agreed. “We all know perfectly well what happened. For heaven’s sake, we saw it!”
    â€œHeard it,” Sir John corrected.
    She glared at him.
    â€œActually,” he went on. “It’s not a bad idea at all.”
    Lady Warburton swung around in her chair and fixed him with a glacial eye. “It is ridiculous. And if we find Mrs. Alvie guilty, as we will do, what difference will that make?”
    â€œThat is not the end of the issue,” Omegus exclaimed. Vespasia saw him struggling to keep the dislike from his face. “In medieval times not all crimes were punished by execution or imprisonment,” he went on. “Sometimes the offender was permitted to make a pilgrimage of expiation. If he returned, which in those dangerous times very often he did not, then the sin was considered to have been washed out. All men were bound to pardon it and take the person back among them as if it had not occurred. It was never spoken of again, and he was trusted and loved as before.”
    â€œA pilgrimage?” Peter Hanning said with disbelief, derision close to laughter in his voice. “To where, for heaven’s sake? Walsingham? Canterbury? Jerusalem, perhaps? Anyway, travel is a relative pleasure these days, if one can afford it. I’m not a religious man. I don’t care a fig if Mrs. Alvie, or anyone else, makes a journey to some holy place.”
    â€œYou have missed the point, Peter,” Omegus told him. “I shall choose the