by Nicola Upson
She wore it almost as a badge of pride, a mark of her own achievement, and Josephine hated her for it. ‘You didn’t have to,’ she said scathingly. ‘You frightened her to death.’
‘Yes, I suppose I did. It all goes back to that night at the theatre, now I think about it. There was a character called Daisy in one of the plays. She was an arrogant, insensitive little bitch, just like Hester, and she died of fright. Hester played the charwoman who found her body – not very convincingly, I must say – but I suppose that sowed the seed. Funny how those little things get stored away. It was called The Person Unknown, and I remember thinking at the time how appropriate a description that was for women like me.’
‘Jesus, you disgust me.’ Josephine stood up and walked across to the window, torn between her urge to get away from the house and her need to retaliate somehow on Hester’s behalf.
‘Do I, Josephine? I’m not sure I care. What matters to me is that Hester knew real fear before she died, the sort of fear that’s been with me my whole life. You understand that, surely?’
She came over to join Josephine and stood quietly at her shoulder, their reflections side by side in the glass. The shadows of the room made each face pale and insubstantial, one a mirror image of the other, and the illusion of similarity gave Josephine a new strength, a determination to destroy once and for all the idea that there might be any sort of common ground between them. ‘Don’t even begin to suggest that I understand what you’ve done,’ she said, her voice low and steady. ‘You have no idea what real fear is. Anger, yes, and bitterness and regret, but we all have those. You’re not the only person who’s screamed against the unfairness of it all, who’s longed to hurt the thing that’s hurting them. But we don’t do it – that’s the difference. And neither of us has ever truly understood the fear that Hester felt in those last few hours, when she knew that her life was over.’
‘Don’t we?’ She searched Josephine’s eyes, and it was all Josephine could do not to flinch and look away. ‘I do, and I’ll admit that even if you won’t. I understood it from the moment that Cameron had his stroke and they told me how serious it was, from that first night when I sat by his bed and watched him breathe my life away.’
Josephine could not speak for a moment. She remembered how she had felt as she sat by her mother’s bedside during the final days of her illness, willing her to live, even though her face was contorted with pain and the morphia had ceased to make a difference. She had looked like a ghost under the sheets, a spirit who might drift away at any moment, and yet her hand had gripped Josephine’s with a strength that would not have been possible but for her reluctance to leave her daughter. Josephine had clung to her – from love, yes, but also from a selfish fear of what this would mean to her own life, and she tried now to be honest with herself in the face of Jane Peck’s accusation. She thought about the years that had passed since her mother’s death, about her father’s kindness and about the resentment that had faded, while the loss and the grief still had the power to engulf her, and she knew she had her answer. ‘There’s nothing to admit,’ she said, ‘because duty for me has always been about love. That’s the difference between you and I.’ For once, Jane Peck seemed silenced. Josephine had no appetite to continue the conversation any longer, but she needed to know everything. ‘After Hester died, you took her things and sold them,’ she said, although this hardly seemed to matter now.
‘So what if I did? All that pious nonsense in the will about the important things in life not being of monetary value . . . that’s easy enough to say when you’ve got money. What do you think it’s like to pay rent for the house you grew up in, the house your father worked hard all his life to own?’ She looked scornfully at Josephine. ‘You can afford to be your mother’s daughter when your father owns half of Castle Street, taking money off tenants like me, and you sit there in a fine house at the head of the town, looking down on the rest of us like God on His cloud. What makes you so special? I’ve worked whenever I could, just like you, and this house should be mine now. Shouldn’t I be allowed a little pride in this town after what I’ve done for my family? But no. Everyone talks, I know they do. Sometimes people don’t see you quite quickly enough, do they? They open their mouths and the poison’s out there, and it eats away at you. You know what that’s like.’
‘Yes I do. So did Hester.’
‘But Hester could run away. What choice did I have?’ She looked round the room, as if involving the house in a conspiracy to hold her prisoner. ‘You’re right, though. I should have been more like her. Hester was the sort of woman who took whatever she wanted and was rewarded for it. Well, I thought I’d have a go at being that sort of woman for a change.’
‘And where has it got you? You might scoff about Hester and her ghosts, but it’s Lucy Kyte who’ll make you pay. What a stupid mistake to make, selling that diary. Did you honestly think you’d get away with it?’
Miss Peck stared at her as though she were stupid. ‘Of course I’ve got away with it. Do you really think I’d be standing here talking to you like this if I thought there was something you could do about it? If you repeat this, I’ll deny it and no one will believe you. No one saw me at that cottage, and there’s nothing to link me with any of those things, not even the diary. I was always paid in cash, and I never used my real name. Even if anyone were to identify me as having sold them something, they couldn’t prove it was stolen.’ They were Archie’s words all over again, and Josephine’s heart sank. ‘I’ll just say that Hester gave them to me to make up for what happened between us. They weren’t listed in her will, so who can say what her intentions were regarding them? I’ll say they were a thank you for taking her place, for fulfilling her responsibilities.’ She laughed, sensing that the upper hand was hers again. ‘Thank yous are important, Josephine. Cameron never thanked me. Does your father thank you?’
‘He doesn’t need to.’
‘That’s a no, then.’ She pulled the curtains across the window and turned to face Josephine. ‘Twenty-five years I cared for that man. I washed him and fed him and emptied his bedpan, things that only a wife should do, and not once did he even look grateful. You don’t know what that’s like yet, of course – your father can still fend for himself. But how old is he, Josephine? In his seventies?’ Josephine walked over to the chair and picked up her bag, but Miss Peck caught her wrist and held it. ‘Let me tell you how it was for me. It might help you understand what you’ve got to look forward to. There’s a moment when the hatred takes over and you start to fight back. I got a little rougher when I moved Cameron, and sometimes I didn’t hear him when he needed a bedpan. I ate my dinner in front of him, and put his down just a little too far out of reach. I found ways to humiliate him. I knew he was embarrassed when I washed him, so rather than chatting away to take his mind off it like I used to, I let him see me looking at him and I enjoyed his shame.’
‘Let go of me.’
‘Not until I’ve finished. This is the most important part. There’ll be a time when you feel so tired and so desperate that you’ll do anything to put a stop to it. You’ll leave the window open a little bit longer than you should, forget his medication once in a while. Little things, as with Hester, but so easy in the end that you’ll wonder why you didn’t think of them years ago.’
Josephine stared at her in horror, too shocked to move now even though she had wrenched her arm free. ‘You killed your brother?’
‘No. You must get that right, even though this is strictly between us. I didn’t kill Cameron. I simply withdrew my care.’
‘I won’t let you get away with this.’
‘And who exactly do you think will believe you? They might pity me here, but they judge you. They think you’re hard, Josephine – hard and aloof. The times I’ve heard someone say that there’s nothing at all to like about you, that no one would ever guess you were your father’s daughter, not with him being such a kind man. That you don’t even care enough to visit your mother’s grave.’
The violence took Josephine by surprise, and she watched the livid red mark appear on Jane Peck’s cheek as if it had had nothing to do with her. She took a step forward, enjoying the fear on the other woman’s face as she backed against the wall, and put a hand against her throat, feeling the pulse quicken under her touch. ‘You’re right,’ she said, watching Jane Peck’s eyes widen in panic. ‘It’s much easier to hurt someone than I ever imagined it would be. But it takes a lot of effort to do what you did to Hester, and I really don’t see how anyone could think you were worth it.’
Josephine released her grip and turned to go, leaving Jane Peck gasping for breath behind her. As she reached the hallway, Peck managed to find her voice again for one last jibe. ‘All this and you didn’t even know Hester Larkspur. Doesn’t that make you the biggest fool of all?’
Her tone was much less confident now, but it was a hollow triumph and it shamed Josephine more than it comforted her. She slammed the door behind her, somehow managing to keep her tears in check until she was further down the street and out of sight.
24
It was still early when Josephine arrived at Stewart, Rule & Co. the next day, determined to have her say. She accepted that her chances of bringing Jane Peck to any sort of legal justice were slim, but her family had been with the firm for many years and she knew and trusted John MacDonald well enough to confide in him without too much risk of being treated like a lunatic. And if he doubted her word, then so be it; she had to try, for her own self-respect. At the very least, she could give his secretary a few nervous moments and remove her affairs to another solicitor; the thought of Jane Peck having anything further to do with her business, or her family’s, sickened her.
The solicitor was already at work, searching through a filing cabinet in a bewildered fashion, and it looked as if he had been there for some time. He glanced up when he heard the door, and smiled at his visitor. ‘I’m ashamed to admit it, Josephine, but I had absolutely no idea what she’d been doing all these years.’
‘I’m sorry?’ Josephine stared at him in confusion. After her defiance the night before, she hadn’t for a moment imagined that Miss Peck would say something of her own accord.
‘Jane. I didn’t have a clue how hard she worked. She’s only been gone a day and already I’m lost without her.’
Josephine looked at the desk by the door and noticed for the first time that it had been cleared of anything personal. ‘She’s left? Just like that?’
‘I’m afraid so. It was all rather sudden, and she was very apologetic about it, but her sister was taken ill the day before yesterday and she’s gone south to care for her. I offered to keep the post open again, but I gather it’s a long-term affair and she doesn’t expect to be back. Seems a bit rough on her to be landed with something like this so soon after Ronnie died, but you’d never guess it. She’s a bloody martyr, that woman – an example to us all. I’ll miss her.’
The testimonial was wasted on Josephine. ‘When did she tell you this?’
‘Yesterday morning, as soon as I got into work.’
‘And she’s definitely not coming back?’
‘No, she made that very clear. So if you fancy a change of career, now might be the time to mention it.’ He chuckled at his own joke and closed the drawer of the filing cabinet. ‘Blast it! I give up. It’ll turn up eventually. Now, what can I do for you? Is it something to do with Miss Larkspur?’
‘It was, but it can wait. You look as though you’ve got enough on at the moment.’ She turned to go before he could argue, but paused at the door. ‘I don’t suppose you have her sister’s details, do you?’
‘No, sorry. I’m not sure I could even tell you her name. But I dare say Jane will be in touch soon enough.’
Josephine doubted that very much, but she said nothing. There was no point in wasting any more time here; the horse had bolted with glowing references, and John MacDonald had convinced her that nothing she could say would make a difference. In any case, there was a part of her that was reluctant to share what had happened with anyone but Marta. It had been the same last night, when she had toyed with the idea of telephoning Archie to ask for his help; at the back of her mind, no matter how often she told herself that she was being ridiculous, there was a tiny sliver of shame that threatened her soul, and it would not go away. Jane Peck’s arrows had been deep and personal, and she could only trust the person who knew her most intimately with their pain; only Marta could convince her that there was nothing to be ashamed of, and she would do it not through logic or through argument, but through love, through a simple refusal to acknowledge that it could be any other way.
She hurried back the way she had come, bypassing Crown Cottage to get to Greenhill Terrace. The curtains were still drawn, as they had been when she left the night before, and the house was quiet and lifeless – so much so that Josephine wondered fleetingly if Jane Peck had treated her own fate with the same terrible finality that she had given to others’. She knocked again, louder this time, but the only answer came from the house next door. ‘You’re too late, I’m afraid,’ a woman called from the upstairs window. ‘Her train was at half six.’
‘Do you know where she’s gone?’ Josephine asked, although she already knew what the answer would be. She didn’t for a moment believe that Jane Peck had gone to her sister: by now, she would be heading for a different town with a different name, starting a new life with Hester’s money, and there wasn’t a damned thing that anyone could do about it. ‘She told me she’d come up on the pools,’ the woman added with a laugh, ‘but I think she was joking.’
‘I wouldn’t bet on it,’ Josephine muttered, and the neighbour looked at her curiously.
‘She mentioned you’d probably stop by, though. You are Miss Tey?’ Josephine nodded. ‘Hang on a minute – I’ll come down.’
She waited, wondering what sort of forwarding message had been left for her. The door opened, and the woman pointed to a wooden trunk in the hallway. ‘Jane said you’d have more use for this than she did. You’re welcome to leave it here until you can have it collected.’
‘Thank you.’ Josephine bent down and opened Hester’s clothes chest, given with love to her by Walter, the fake that Jane Peck had obviously not been able to sell. It was lined with red silk, but there was nothing inside.
‘She was certainly travelling light when she left,’ the neighbour offered good-naturedly, ‘but I suppose that’s the whole point of a new start, isn’t it? Good for her, I say, after everything she’s been through.’
‘Yes,’ Josephine said quietly. ‘Good for her.’
25
The peace and solitude of the cottage were like a balm to Josephine after everything that had happened. She returned to Suffolk a few days before Christmas, relieved to put some distance between herself and her home town, where, before she was even born, the seeds of her godmother’s death had been sown. The taxi from Hadleigh dropped her at the top of the hill and she looked down at Hester’s legacy to her, as apprehensive now as she had been on her very first visit. She had no idea how it would feel to walk into the cottage knowing exactly what had gone on there, and she could only hope that the images of fear and pain would fade with time.
It might have been her imagination, or simply a case of the wish fathering the thought, but, when she opened the front door and set her bags down inside, the house seemed more settled – its wrongs at least acknowledged, if not healed. And it was good to be there, to feel close again to the Hester she wanted to believe in: the friend her mother had loved; the actress Josephine admired; the wife who had grieved for her husband. She was still numb from her encounter with Jane Peck, and honest enough to see that some of the poison dripped in her ear had been justified – but she also remembered the original words of the will, the instruction to value what was important, to decide what had meaning: Red Barn Cottage and the life Hester had built there, her respect for its past and her willingness to honour women whom history had forgotten, seemed t
o Josephine to stand for all that was good about her godmother. Everything else, she had paid for.
Deaves and Son, or any combination of the above, had been as good as their word. The downstairs rooms were neatly packed away, just as she had left them, with no hint of a builder’s talent for reaching places that had nothing to do with the actual work; and when she climbed warily up to the first floor, dreading what she might find, she could not have been more thrilled. Short of knocking this end of the cottage down and starting again, the room where Hester had died was as transformed as it could ever be. The old elm floorboards – coffin wood, as Josephine always thought of it – had been taken up and replaced with new oak, the walls had been replastered and painted, and the fireplace opened so that it now served both this room and her bedroom. Best of all, despite his doubts and protestations, Mr Deaves had found a way to incorporate Josephine’s most difficult request into the work: the window in the gable end wall had been bricked up, and the light in the room now came from a new dormer built into the thatch, overlooking the garden and the farmland at the rear of the cottage; the window was finished off with an oak seat, its surface plain except for the grain of the wood. The slipper bath that Josephine had ordered stood in the middle of the floor and had obviously been brought in through the empty window space; it would never have come up the stairs, and she could see no way now of getting it out of the house if she ever changed her mind, but that seemed a very small price to pay. A reliable builder and a hot bath were appropriate to a season of miracles, and Josephine couldn’t wait to see Marta’s face when she found her Christmas present – and when she realised that, until modern life progressed a little further down the Stoke road, she would have to fill the bath by hand. She looked round the room, satisfied that she had done her best for Lucy’s demons and for Hester’s, and breathed in the smell of new wood, fresh paint, and peace.