‘Isla Wilson?’
Clementine nodded and swallowed hard.
‘The woman in the paintings. You loved her.’
Clementine moaned as if in agony, and her breath caught the low flame and blew it out. Blackness consumed them once again. Beatrice heard Clementine sniff and inhale sharply, and then another match was lit. When the light showed her face, Beatrice could see that Clementine’s tears had dried.
‘What happened to her?’
‘Your husband.’
Beatrice recoiled at the venom in Clementine’s voice.
‘I read the letters Hamish wrote to Dougal. I don’t believe what you told me. Hamish did not do anything … unnatural to Dougal.’
‘That was the problem.’ A bitter smile twisted Clementine’s lips, and she turned to look up at the portrait glaring down at the pair of them. ‘Dougal was obsessed with him. I knew it from the start – we can tell, can’t we?’ She looked at Beatrice once again. ‘Unnaturals can spot each other.’
‘Dougal loved Hamish?’
‘He was infatuated with him. He was like a puppy, following Hamish everywhere, doing anything he asked, performing tricks.’ The flame burned out. ‘But Dougal wasn’t as innocent as we all thought.’
Beatrice heard the spent match drop onto the flagstones. Clementine lit another.
‘He went too far one day in Hamish’s chamber. I don’t know the details – declared his love for him, I imagine. Hamish was appalled.’ She laughed. ‘He thought of Dougal as a son.’
‘What did Hamish do?’
‘What he always did when things went wrong. He looked in his bible.’
Beatrice recalled the penultimate letter, the passage about finding a woman, the implication of it all now dawning on her. She swallowed, but the nausea was churning in her stomach.
‘I suppose no man likes to be rejected, do they? Their pride is too easily hurt. They are not as strong as us.’ Clementine’s fingers fluttered towards Beatrice’s arm but fell before touching her. ‘I told you Dougal could become angry, could become dangerous. I believe – I was told – that he was going to Hamish’s chamber in a temper. I don’t know what he was thinking he might achieve. Perhaps he was going to plead with him. Perhaps he was going to wreck the place. Anyway, he found Isla in the great hall, throwing sticks for the dogs. Isla loved the dogs.’ A gentle smile washed over Clementine’s face, but it soon vanished.
‘He dragged her into the study, and he raped her.’ Clementine levelled her cold gaze at Beatrice. ‘Just like that. No warning. I don’t think she could believe what was happening until it was over. We all thought him so … young.’
‘But why?’
‘Because he was angry? Because he wanted to hurt somebody because he was hurting himself? Because he wanted to prove something? Teach Hamish a lesson? Perhaps he thought that was what Hamish wanted him to do. I don’t know. I never asked him. She was just a maid to him, after all. She didn’t matter. He didn’t know what she was to me.’
Beatrice watched the flame tickle Clementine’s fingertips. The moment dragged on, and the flame burned lower, licking Clementine’s skin. Still, Clementine did not flinch. The flame wrapped over her forefinger and thumb, surrounding her pale flesh, until Beatrice could stand it no longer. She blew it out and waited in the blackness for Clementine to strike another.
‘I told Hamish what Dougal had done. And you know what he said? That Dougal should marry Isla. He truly thought that was the best thing to do.’
‘Why did Hamish send him away? You didn’t really try to save him, did you?’
‘I would have held Dougal’s head under the lake myself and watched him drown if Hamish had not stopped me. After everything Dougal had done, Hamish still loved him; he still felt like a father to him. If I hadn’t threatened them, I don’t think he’d have punished Dougal at all.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I said I would go to the police and tell them that Dougal and Hamish were sodomites. The news would spread like wildfire, even if there was no conviction.’ She smiled and gazed into the flame. ‘If there was one thing Hamish might possibly have loved more than Dougal, it was his reputation. I said if he did not throw Dougal out immediately, then I would ruin him.’
Clementine’s eyes glistened, but not in triumph.
‘Dougal never knew about his child?’
‘He was gone before we found out Isla was pregnant. Hamish saw it as an opportunity. He sent the staff away before Isla began to show. He thought we could pass the child off as our own. I said she should have got rid of it, but even Isla wanted to keep it. She didn’t know then that the bastard would split her in two, right there in the tower. It was our favourite place, you see. We always made love up there.’
Beatrice inhaled shakily. ‘And Gilroy? You raised him as your own?’
Clementine shook her head. ‘Hamish did. I couldn’t look at the boy. He had nothing of his mother in him.’
‘He is the heir to Dhuloch.’
Clementine bit her lip. ‘I didn’t know. Not until the will was read. Neither did I know that Hamish had lied to me for the last ten years.’
‘About what?’
‘Dougal. When I said I wanted him thrown out, I did not mean thrown with a purse full of money into an education and a respectable vocation. I wanted him to rot in the streets. I wanted him returned to his violent father and to while away the rest of his years in that fetid fishing village, hating his life. As I had grown to hate mine. I honestly thought Hamish had done that for me. I thought that for ten whole years he had understood some of my pain.’
‘The will said Hamish wanted Dougal to be Gilroy’s guardian.’
Clementine nodded. ‘Mr Barland also kindly informed me that Hamish sent Dougal a monthly allowance. Wasn’t he a good Christian?’
‘So you wrote to Dougal, telling him to come back to Dhuloch. You never told him about the will. What were you expecting to happen?’
‘I wasn’t expecting you.’ This time, Clementine’s fingers reached Beatrice’s cheek. Beatrice did not flinch. She leaned against the touch as tears rolled from her eyes and wet Clementine’s skin.
‘Did you kill Dougal?’
Clementine rubbed her thumb softly against Beatrice’s lips, her own tears now falling. ‘It was the right thing to do.’
Beatrice’s knees buckled. Unable to bear her weight, she slid down the door and onto the stone floor. The flame from the match died as she wept, and she heard Clementine’s desperate fingers striking and failing, striking and failing, her irritation ripping out of her throat. Finally, another match flared. Clementine dropped to the floor beside Beatrice.
‘He had not been punished. He was still just as mean as he always was. He took you as his wife for a reason, don’t you understand?’ Clementine held Beatrice’s face. ‘I couldn’t believe it when I saw you that first night. It was as if my Isla had come back to me. And he had you! He had you again! And he dominated you. Scared you. Hurt you. As if he was punishing you for what he had done all those years ago. That’s why he married you, Beatrice, because you reminded him of her.’
‘He was sorry.’
‘Not sorry enough. He deserved to die.’
Beatrice wiped the wet from her cheeks. There was nothing she could do about Dougal now. The pain of both Dougal’s and Clementine’s deception would come later, but for now she still had the strength that comes from numbing shock. She sniffed and pushed Clementine’s hands away from her.
‘Gilroy does not deserve to die. He is not his father.’
‘Of course he is. All boys grow into their fathers.’
‘You once told me we must defend the innocents, those who cannot defend themselves. A child has the right to live.’
‘Oh yes, Gilroy has an unnatural gift for survival, so it seems.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He was in the accident with Hamish. We didn’t think he’d last long, so we put him in the tower. But he sticks like a bad s
mell. Jean’s fault. I should have thrown her out before you came, but you see, Beatrice, there is softness within me. She would have nowhere to go. A pretty, destitute, mute girl – what sort of fate do you think she would have without me?’
‘We? Who helped you put Gilroy in the tower?’
Clementine shook her head as if the answer was obvious. ‘Alfred, of course.’
Fear silenced Beatrice. She felt the cold of the wooden door pressing against the back of her neck, felt the tendrils of the night air strangling her limbs. Clementine seemed to sense the shift too. Her face grew guarded, her expression unreadable. The match quivered in her hand.
Beatrice remembered Jean’s writing. They won’t let me leave. She remembered Clementine telling her how Alfred had been the only one to care for her. How had Beatrice not realised before?
Alfred … he was the one who was always watching. Always lingering in the shadows. Always prowling the corridors of Dhuloch and listening at closed doors. It was Alfred who had been watching from the stables when Clementine had followed Beatrice to the cottage, when Dougal had marched off into the rain for the night. Clementine could not have killed Dougal – she would not be strong enough, but Alfred would be.
A gun fired outside, the noise so loud that Beatrice felt it through the floor. Clementine’s eyes met hers above the flame for one second, then the light vanished. Before Clementine had time to do anything, Beatrice pushed herself onto the balls of her feet and lunged at Clementine in the blackness. Something cracked against the stone floor.
Beatrice did not linger. She ran for the door, arms outstretched, feeling her way as quickly as she could. Her fingers traced over iron nails and splintered wood until they reached the handle. From her pocket, she retrieved the key and wedged it into the lock. It stuck as she tried to twist it, and another gunshot sounded from outside. She twisted harder and drove her leg against the door, and finally the key turned. She ran outside and slammed the door behind her without looking back.
In the moonlight, she saw Jean with Gilroy still over her shoulder halfway down the track running back towards the castle. In the distance, the ghostly figure of the horse cantered out of the parkland. From the cottage doorway, Alfred’s silhouette stood against the light, and she could tell by his movements that he was reloading his rifle.
She grabbed Jean’s hand and pulled her. There was no time to take the boy between them, and it would have been too clumsy to run with him like that. So, as exhausted as she might have been, Jean continued to run with the child slung over her shoulder, though her pace was beginning to slow.
They could not go back inside the castle – they would be trapped. The path to the road was now blocked, and Alfred was gaining on them. Beatrice dragged Jean around the side of the castle. The snow was untouched here, and deep. With each step, their legs skewered through several feet of it until they could go no faster than a walk. But they could not turn back.
A bullet shot past Beatrice’s head, and she ducked instinctively, unable to hold her scream inside. Still, they persevered.
Beneath the snow, the ground was uneven. Their feet slipped on frozen rocks, caught on upturned stones, crashed into stumps. Jean fell, and the child tumbled into the snow, moaning slightly, but not loudly enough for Beatrice’s liking – he was fading fast. She tugged Jean to her feet, then hauled the child into her arms and stumbled onwards.
Her arms were on fire by the time they reached the shoreline. She stopped at the edge of the ice, staring out at the frozen black expanse before her.
There was nowhere else to go.
She watched, numbly, as Jean stepped onto the ice. The ice creaked with the unusual weight. Jean stepped again, and again, until she was several feet out onto the lake, and she turned back for Beatrice.
But Beatrice could not move. All that vast space before her, the moonlight showing just how far away any semblance of safety might be …
Her heart was thudding harder and faster than it ever had. Sickness bubbled up her throat and swam between her teeth. Air would not find her lungs. The boy squirmed in her arms.
She looked down to find Dougal staring up at her, and for a moment she wondered if Clementine might be right. Perhaps Gilroy would turn into the same kind of man. Perhaps it would be better to just let him drift away, here, peacefully, under the full moon.
Another gunshot forced the evil thoughts from her mind. Jean ran towards her, face puce with rage, and yanked the child from her arms. When Jean strode out onto the lake again, the ice moaned louder.
It could not hold their weight, could it? No, surely not. Beatrice would step onto it and it would break, and she would sink and drown and die in the cold, cold water, her lungs filling like Effie’s had filled until there was no air left.
Effie.
She reached for the pearl at her neck. It was as cold as the ice at her feet. Cold and hard and stable. Safe.
She stepped out. The ice shuddered. Jean looked over her shoulder at Beatrice, flashed a brief, panicked smile, then her face showed terror. Beatrice did not have to turn around to know that Alfred was behind them.
She started to run, the soles of her feet slipping on the frozen surface. She did not stop. She grabbed Jean’s arm and dragged her forward, and together they raced towards the clump of skeletal trees in the distance. If they could only reach the island! If they could reach the island, then Beatrice would have time to think of a way to save them.
Another shot fired but missed – she heard it some way out to their left as it smashed into the ice.
‘Stop!’ Clementine’s voice made her look back. She was struggling down the slope towards the shore, her nightgown clinging wetly to her body, her arms outstretched, her fingers grasping at the air.
Alfred was already on the ice, coming up fast behind them, raising his gun before him again. Beatrice saw the black hole of the barrel pointing straight at her.
‘No!’
Clementine’s scream made Alfred jump. The gun jerked, the shot fired, and the bullet crashed into the ice, sending cracks out from its heart like a thousand spiders’ legs. Alfred did not waver. He refilled the barrel.
The island was close now. Perhaps fifty feet? They would make it if they hurried.
Jean slipped. Her knee slammed onto the ice, and she dropped the child. Beatrice tried to help her up, but Jean fell down again, over and over – she could not stand.
The ice creaked around them. The cracks were starting to travel beneath their feet. Behind them, Alfred was beginning to stride out again.
Jean nudged the boy at Beatrice. Beatrice understood the woman’s self-sacrifice and had no time to object. She lifted the boy and shuffled over the ice as quickly and as carefully as she could. She heard the final gunshot, heard the bullet smash once again into the ice, then heard the sickening crack as the ice refused to take any more. With one last leap, she threw herself and the boy to the edge of the island, landing heavily on her knees and feeling a familiar stab of pain shoot up her thigh.
She rolled onto her back, pushed herself up with her hands, and saw Jean crawling along the breaking ice. Behind her, Alfred was still coming, but with each step he took, the ice split further.
‘Alfred!’ Clementine called.
His foot crashed through the ice. He fell into the lake but managed to grapple with the ice around him so his shoulders remained out of the water.
Clementine shrieked and stepped onto the lake.
‘Clementine, get back!’ Beatrice shouted.
Jean was only a few feet away now. Beatrice reached over for her hand and pulled her the final distance until she, too, reached safety. She hobbled straight for the child, hugged him close to her chest, and fiercely rubbed his body to try to warm him.
On the lake, Alfred was still struggling to pull himself free of the water. He tried to drag his body out, but each time he pulled, the ice gave way beneath him and his head sank under the water again.
‘Alfred!’ Clementine ran for him.
His head popped up. His hair was stuck to his head, and his skin was even paler than usual. He tried again to heave himself out, but he was weakening. The cold was stealing his strength. Clementine was only a few feet away from him. She lowered herself to the ice, then reached for him.
‘Clementine, get off the ice!’ Beatrice yelled, but it was as if she didn’t exist. Clementine grabbed Alfred’s hand and pulled hard. But she was not dragging him out; he was dragging her in.
‘Let go!’ Beatrice ran back to the lake, but Jean grabbed her skirt before she had chance to step onto the ice. ‘Clementine!’ Her voice broke. She screamed again. ‘Let go!’
She could see the strain on Clementine’s face as she struggled to pull Alfred out. His head had sunk below the ice now, and his arm was following. Clementine was inches away from the water herself, still trying to pull him out, still refusing to let go.
‘Clementine!’ Beatrice’s cry bounced back at her from the mountains as Clementine slid into the water.
Beatrice could only watch as Clementine’s sodden face popped up through the ice one last time and looked at Beatrice, her mouth gasping for air, her eyes wild with fear, before she slipped under again.
Chapter 24
November 1886
They met him at the train station – found him waiting on the platform, a small leather suitcase on the floor by his feet. Beatrice knew it was him even though his back was turned and she had not seen him for months. She could tell him apart from the crowd by his black woollen suit, gleaming top hat, and the cane with the silver eagle’s head, which he held in his gloved hand.
‘Gilroy,’ Beatrice said nervously. Why on earth should she be nervous? But she was always nervous whenever she met him in person. He turned to her and the sight of him took her breath away. Dougal looked back at her, his pale blue eyes shining, his full red lips smiling, his brown curls tickling the sides of his high cheekbones.
‘Mrs Brown.’ Gilroy leaned towards her and lightly pressed his cheek against hers. His skin was cool and slightly tacky but perfectly smooth. ‘And Simeon,’ he said, his smile tightening as he tentatively stroked the dog’s grey head before greeting Jean.
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