by Anne Perry
“Whatever you found out when you went upstairs to Valentine Furnival’s room before dinner—long before Thaddeus was killed.”
The blood fled from Damaris’s face, leaving her looking ill and vulnerable, and suddenly far younger than she was.
“That has nothing to do with what happened to Thaddeus,” she said very quietly. “Absolutely nothing. It was something else—something …” She hunched her shoulders and her voice trailed off. She pulled her feet a little higher.
“I think it has.” Hester could not afford to be lenient.
The ghost of a smile crossed Damaris’s mouth and vanished. It was self-mockery and there was no shred of happiness in it.
“You are wrong. You will have to accept my word of honor for that.”
“I can’t. I accept that you believe it. I don’t accept you are right.”
Damaris’s face pinched. “You don’t know what it was, and I shall not tell you. I’m sorry, but it won’t help Alexandra, and it is my—my grief, not hers.”
Hester felt knotted up inside with shame and pity.
“Do you know why Alexandra killed him?”
“No.”
“I do.”
Damaris’s head jerked up, her eyes wide.
“Why?” she said huskily.
Hester took a deep breath.
“Because he was committing sodomy and incest with his own son,” she said very quietly. Her voice sounded obscenely matter-of-fact in the silent room, as if she had made some banal remark that would be forgotten in a few moments, instead of something so dreadful they would both remember it as long as they lived.
Damaris did not shriek or faint. She did not even look away, but her skin was whiter than before, and her eyes hollower.
Hester realized with an increasing sickness inside that, far from disbelieving her, Damaris was not even surprised. It was as if it were a long-expected blow, coming at last. So Monk had been right. She had discovered that evening that Peverell was involved. Hester could have wept for her, for the pain. She longed to touch her, to take her in her arms as she would a weeping child, but it was useless. Nothing could reach or fold that wound.
“You knew, didn’t you?” she said aloud. “You knew it that night!”
“No I didn’t.” Damaris’s voice was flat, almost without expression, as if something in her were already destroyed.
“Yes you did. You knew Peverell was doing it too, and to Valentine Furnival. That’s why you came down almost beside yourself with horror. You were close to hysterical. I don’t know how you kept any control at all. I wouldn’t have—I don’t think-”
“Oh God—no!” Damaris was moved to utter horror at last. “No!” She uncurled herself so violently she half-fell off the settee, landing awkwardly on the ground. “No. No, I didn’t. Not Pev. How could you even think such a thing? It’s—it’s—wild—insane. Not Pev!”
“But you knew.” For the first time Hester doubted. “Wasn’t that what you discovered when you went up to Valentine’s room?”
“No.” Damaris was on the floor in front of her, splayed out like a colt, her long legs at angles, and yet she was absolutely natural. “No! Hester—dear heaven, please believe me, it wasn’t.”
Hester struggled with herself. Could it be the truth?
“Then what was it?” She frowned, racking her mind. “You came down from Valentine’s room looking as if you’d seen the wrath of heaven. Why? What else could you possibly have found out? It was nothing to do with Alexandra or Thaddeus—or Peverell, then what?”
“I can’t tell you!”
“Then I can’t believe you. Rathbone is going to call you to the stand. Cassian was abused by his father, his grandfather—I’m sorry—and someone else. We have to know who that other person was, and prove it. Or Alexandra will hang.”
Damaris was so pale her skin looked gray, as if she had aged in moments.
“I can’t. It—it would destroy Pev.” She saw Hester’s face. “No. No, it isn’t that, I swear by God—it isn’t.”
“No one will believe you,” Hester said very quietly, although even as she said it, she knew it was a lie—she believed it. “What else could it be?”
Damaris bowed her head in her hands and began to speak very quietly, her voice aching with unshed tears.
“When I was younger, before I met Pev, I fell in love with someone else. For a long time I did nothing. I loved him with … chastity. Then—I thought I was losing him. I—I loved him wildly … at least I thought I did. Then …”
“You made love,” Hester said the obvious. She was not shocked. In the same circumstances she might have done the same, had she Damaris’s beauty, and wild beliefs. Even without them had she loved enough …
“Yes.” Damaris’s voice choked. “I didn’t keep his love … in fact I think in a way that ended it.”
Hester waited. Obviously there was more. By itself it was hardly worth repeating.
Damaris went on, her voice catching as she strove to control it, and only just succeeding. “I learned I was with child. It was Thaddeus who helped me. That was what I was talking about when I said he could be kind. I had no idea Mama knew anything about it. Thaddeus arranged for me to go away for a while, and for the child to be adopted. It was a boy. I held him once—he was beautiful.” At last she could keep the tears back no longer and she bent her head and wept, sobs shaking her body and long despairing cries tearing her beyond her strength to conceal.
Hester slid down onto the floor and put both her arms around her, holding her close, stroking her head and letting the storm burn itself out and exhaust her, all the grief and guilt of years bursting its bounds at last.
It was many minutes later when Damaris was still, and Hester spoke again.
“And what did you learn that night?”
“I learned where he was.” Damaris sniffed fiercely and sat up, reaching for a handkerchief, an idiotic piece of lace and cambric not large enough to do anything at all.
Hester stood up and went to the cloakroom and wrung out a hand towel in cold water and brought it back, and also a large piece of soft linen she found in the cupboard beside the basin. Without saying anything she handed them to Damaris.
“Well?” she asked after another moment or two.
“Thank you.” Damaris remained sitting on the floor. “I learned where he was,” she said, her composure back again. She was too worn out for any violent emotion anymore. “I learned what Thaddeus had done. Who he had … given him to.”
Hester waited, resuming her seat.
“The Furnivals,” Damaris said with a small, very sad smile. “Valentine Furnival is my son. I knew that when I saw him. I hadn’t seen Valentine for years, you see, not since he was a small child—about Cassian’s age, or even less. Actually I so dislike Louisa, and I didn’t go there very often, and when I did he was always away at school, or when he was younger, already in bed. That evening he was at home because he’d had measles. But this time, when I saw him, he’d changed so much—grown up—and …” She took a deep, rather shaky breath. “He was so like his father when he was younger, I knew …”
“Like his father?” Hester searched her brains, which was stupid. There was no reason in the world why it should be anyone she had even heard of, much less met; in fact, there was every reason why it should not. Yet there was something tugging at the corners of her mind, a gesture, something about the eyes, the color of hair, the heavy lids …
“Charles Hargrave,” Damaris said very quietly, and instantly Hester knew it was the truth: the eyes, the height, the way of standing, the angle of the shoulders.
Then another, ugly thought pulled at the edge of her mind, insistent, refusing to be silenced.
“But why did that upset you so terribly? You were frantic when you came down again, not quiet shaken, but frantic. Why? Even if Peverell found out Valentine was Hargrave’s son—and I assume he doesn’t know—even if he saw the resemblance between Valentine and Dr. Hargrave, there is no reas
on why he should connect it with you.”
Damaris shut her eyes and again her voice was sharp with pain.
“I didn’t know Thaddeus abused Cassian, believe me, I really didn’t. But I knew Papa abused him—when he was a child. I knew the look in his eyes, that mixture of fear and excitement, the pain, the confusion, and the kind of secret pleasure. I suppose if I’d ever really looked at Cass lately I’d have seen it there too—but I didn’t look. And since the murder I just thought it was part of his grief. Not that I’ve spent much time with him anyway—I should have, but I haven’t. I know about Thaddeus, because I saw it once … and ever after it was in my mind.”
Hester drew breath to say something—and nothing seemed adequate.
Damaris closed her eyes.
“I saw the same look in Valentine’s face.” Her voice was tight, as if her throat were burned inside. “I knew he was being abused too. I thought it was Maxim—I hated him so much I would have killed him. It never occurred to me it was Thaddeus. Oh God. Poor Alex.” She gulped. “No wonder she killed him. I would have too—in her place. In fact if I’d known it was he who abused Valentine, I would have anyway. I just didn’t know. I suppose I assumed it was always fathers.” She laughed harshly, a tiny thread of hysteria creeping back into her voice. “You should have suspected me. I would have been just as guilty as Alexandra—in thought and intent, if not in deed. It was only inability that stopped me—nothing else.”
“Many of us are innocent only through lack of chance—or of means,” Hester said very softly. “Don’t blame yourself. You’ll never know whether you would have or not if the chance had been there.”
“I would.” There was no doubt in Damaris’s voice, none at all. She looked up at Hester. “What can we do for Alex? It would be monstrous if she were hanged for that. Any mother worth a damn would have done the same!”
“Testify,” Hester answered without hesitation. “Tell the truth. We’ve got to persuade the jury that she did the only thing she could to protect her child.”
Damaris looked away, her eyes filling with tears.
“Do I have to tell about Valentine? Peverell doesn’t know! Please …”
“Tell him yourself,” Hester said very quietly. “He loves you—and he must know you love him.”
“But men don’t forgive easily—not things like that.” The despair was back in Damaris’s voice.
Hester felt wretched, still hoping against all likelihood that it was not Peverell.
“Peverell isn’t ‘men,’ ” she said chokingly. “Don’t judge him by others. Give him the chance to be all—all that he could be.” Did she sound as desperate and as hollow as she felt? “Give him a chance to forgive—and love you for what you really are, not what you think he wants you to be. It was a mistake, a sin if you like—but we all sin one way or another. What matters is that you become kinder and wiser because of it, that you become gentler with others, and that you have never repeated it!”
“Do you think he will see it like that? He might if it were anyone else—but it’s different when it’s your own wife.”
“For heaven’s sake—try him.”
“But if he doesn’t, I’ll lose him!”
“And if you lie, Alexandra will lose her life. What would Peverell think of that?”
“I know.” Damaris stood up slowly, suddenly all her grace returning. “I’ve got to tell him. God knows I wish I hadn’t done it. And Charles Hargrave, of all people. I can hardly bear to look at him now. I know. Don’t tell me again, I do know. I’ve got to tell Pev. There isn’t any way out of it-lying would only make it worse.”
“Yes it would.” Hester put out her hand and touched Damaris’s arm. “I’m sorry—but I had no choice either.”
“I know.” Damaris smiled with something of the old charm, although the effort it cost her was apparent. “Only if I do this, you’d better save Alex. I don’t want to say all this for nothing.”
“Everything I can. I’ll leave nothing untried—I promise.”
12
ALEXANDRA SAT ON THE WOODEN BENCH in the small cell, her face white and almost expressionless. She was exhausted, and the marks of sleeplessness were plain around her eyes. She was far thinner than when Rathbone had first seen her and her hair had lost its sheen.
“I can’t go on,” she said wearily. “There isn’t any point. It will only damage Cassian—terribly.” She took a deep breath. He could see the rise of her breast under the thin gray muslin of her blouse. “They won’t believe me. Why should they? There’s no proof, there never could be. How could you prove such a thing? People don’t do it where they can be seen.”
“You know,” Rathbone said quietly, sitting opposite her and looking at her so intensely that in time she would have to raise her head and meet his eyes.
She smiled bitterly. “And who’s going to believe me?”
“That wasn’t my point,” he said patiently. “If you could know, then it is possible others could also. Thaddeus himself was abused as a child.”
She jerked her head up, her eyes full of pity and surprise.
“You didn’t know?” He looked at her gently. “I thought not.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “But if he was, how could he, of all people, abuse his own son?” Her incomprehension was full of confusion and pain. “Surely if—why? I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I,” he answered frankly. “But then I have never walked that path myself. I had quite another reason for telling you, one of very much more urgent relevance.” He stopped, not fully sure if she was listening to him.
“Have you?” she said dully.
“Yes. Can you imagine how he suffered? His lifelong shame, and the fear of being discovered? Even some dim sense of what he was committing upon his own child—and yet, the need was so overwhelming, so consuming it still drove him—”
“Stop it,” she said furiously, jerking her head up. “I’m sorry! Of course I’m sorry! Do you think I enjoyed it?” Her voice was thick, choking with indescribable anguish. “I racked my brain for any other way. I begged him to stop, to send Cassian away to boarding school—anything at all to put him beyond reach. I offered him myself, for any practice he wanted!” She stared at him with helpless fury. “I used to love him. Not passionately, but love just the same. He was the father of my children and I had covenanted to be loyal to him all my life. I don’t think he ever loved me, not really, but he gave me all he was capable of.”
She sank lower on the bench and dropped her head forward, covering her face with her hands. “Don’t you think I see his body on that floor every time I lie in the dark? I dream about it—I’ve redone that deed in my nightmares, and woken up cold as ice, with the sweat standing out on my skin. I’m terrified God will judge me and condemn my soul forever.”
She huddled a little lower into herself. “But I couldn’t let that happen to my child and do nothing—just let it go on. You don’t know how he changed. The laughter went out of him—all the innocence. He became sly. He was afraid of me—of me! He didn’t trust me anymore, and he started telling lies—stupid lies—and he became frightened all the time, and suspicious of people. And always there was the sort of … secret glee in him … a—a—guilty pleasure. And yet he cried at night—curled up like a baby, and crying in his sleep. I couldn’t let it go on!”
Rathbone broke his own rules and reached out and took her thin shoulders in his hands and held her gently.
“Of course you couldn’t! And you can’t now! If the truth is not told, and this abuse is not stopped, then his grandfather—and the other man—will go on just as his father did, and it will all have been for nothing.” Unconsciously his fingers tightened. “We think we know who the other man is, and believe me he will have the same chances as the general had: any day, any night, to go on exactly the same.”
She began to weep softly, without sobbing, just the quiet tears of utter despair. He held her gently, leaning forward a little, his head close to hers. He
could smell the faint odor of her hair, washed with prison soap, and feel the warmth of her skin.
“Thaddeus was abused as a child,” he went on relentlessly, because it mattered. “His sister knew it. She saw it happen once, by his father—and she saw the reflection of the same emotion in the eyes again in Valentine Furnival. That was what drove her to distraction that evening. She will swear to it.”
Alexandra said nothing, but he could feel her stiffen with surprise, and the weeping stopped. She was utterly still.
“And Miss Buchan knew about Thaddeus and his father—and about Cassian now.”
Alexandra took a shaky breath, still hiding her face.
“She won’t testify,” she said with a long sniff. “She can’t. If she does they’ll dismiss her—and she has nowhere to go. You mustn’t ask her. She’ll have to deny it, and that will only make it worse.”
He smiled bleakly. “Don’t worry about that. I never ask questions unless I already know the answer—or, to be more precise, unless I know what the witness will say, true or untrue.”
“You can’t expect her to ruin herself.”
“What she chooses to do is not your decision.”
“But you can’t,” she protested, pulling away from him and lifting her head to face him. “She’d starve.”
“And what will happen to Cassian? Not to mention you.”
She said nothing.
“Cassian will grow up to repeat the pattern of his father,” he said ruthlessly, because it was the only thing he knew which would be more than she could bear, regardless of Miss Buchan’s fate. “Will you permit that? The shame and guilt all over again—and another wretched, humiliated child, another woman suffering as you do now?”
“I can’t fight you,” she said so quietly he could barely hear her. She sat huddled over herself, as if the pain were deep in the center of her and somehow she could fold herself around it.
“You are not fighting me,” he said urgently. “You don’t need to do anything now but sit in the dock, looking as you do, and remembering, as well as your guilt, the love of your child—and why you did it. I will tell the jury your feelings, trust me!”