The rest of the house was in complete stillness. There was not even a clock audible anywhere. No servants’ footsteps sounded across the hall beyond the door. The maid in the corner seemed like part of the elaborate decoration.

“Unity was very clever,” Vita began at last. “In a scholastic sort of way. She was a brilliant student of languages. Greek and Aramaic seemed as natural to her as English is to you or me. That was how she helped my husband. He is a theologian, you see, quite outstanding in his field, but his ability with translation is only moderate. He knows fully the meaning of a work, if it is religious, but she could grasp the words, the flavor, the poetic instinct. But she also knew quite a lot of secular history.” She frowned. “I suppose that happens if you study a language? You find yourself learning rather a lot about the people who spoke it… through their writings, and so on.”

“I should imagine so,” Pitt agreed. He was quite well read in English literature, but he had no knowledge of the classics. Sir Arthur Desmond, who had owned the estate on which Pitt had grown up, had been good enough to educate Pitt, the gamekeeper’s son, along with his own son, now Sir Matthew Desmond. But his learning had leaned toward the sciences rather than Latin or Greek, and certainly Aramaic had not entered his thoughts. The King James translation of the Bible was more than adequate to meet all religious enquiry. Pitt concealed his impatience with difficulty. Nothing Vita had said so far seemed in any way relevant. And yet it must be very difficult for her to bring herself to the point. He should not be critical of the cost to her of this honesty.

“The Reverend Parmenter was writing a theological book?” he prompted.