There was a knock. It was the serving-boy, bearing a laden tray. “Set it down on the table,” instructed Aurora. “And will you ask the chambermaid to bring a pallet, and pillow and blankets?” Fumbling in her pocket for coins, her fingers touched the cold glass of the phial. She wondered if, by now, Celia had missed it.
The boy bowed and disappeared. Taking one of the bowls of soup and a piece of bread, Aurora went to her seat beside the bed. “Edward, I have brought food.”
He had not the strength to sit up, so Aurora placed her good arm behind his shoulders and raised him far enough to enable her to place soup-soaked bread in his mouth. The taste of the food gradually improved his demeanour. Aurora watched with relief as he chewed and swallowed with increasing appetite, and colour returned faintly to his cheeks.
By the time she set to her own bowl, the soup was cool, but she devoured it and wiped the bowl with her bread. She made Edward as comfortable as she could against the pillows, then poured two glasses of wine. She sat beside him and took his hand. “There is news I must tell you,” she ventured, watching his face. “It is of great import.”
Edward frowned. “What day is it today?”
“It is Tuesday.”
“Tuesday,” he repeated. “The same day that I killed Joe Deede, or another Tuesday?”
Aurora caressed his hand. “The same day. It is evening. You have slept for many hours and lost track of time. But yes, early this morning you went to fight a duel but were obliged to defend yourself against an assassin.”
He nodded, still unsure. “This morning?”
“Yes, this morning.” She paused, allowing him to absorb this. Then she tightened her grasp on his hand a little, and steadied her nerve. “Edward, did you hear what Joe Deede said as he died?”
His eyes settled upon her face with a questioning look. “Did he say … a woman’s name? Or was that my imagination?”
“It was not your imagination. He said the name ‘Honoria’.”
“Ah.” His gaze left her face and roamed restlessly around the room. “Honoria.”
Aurora wished she could leave him to sleep in peace. But though her heart quailed, she knew that no more time should pass without his hearing the truth. “Edward,” she began, “I did not know then of whom Joe was speaking. I had never heard of Honoria, any more than you have. But a great deal has happened while you were asleep. I went to Mill Street, and I have found out who Honoria is. Or was, as she is no longer living.”
Edward heard the shortening of her breath. His eyes fixed upon hers. “And who was she?”
“She was your mother,” said Aurora.
His gaze remained upon her face. She watched as surprise, bewilderment, questioning, distrust and, finally, understanding of a sort came in turn to his eyes.
“My real mother?” he asked warily.
Aurora nodded. “The woman you knew as your mother, Elizabeth, and the man you knew as your father, Henry, adopted you at birth and brought you up as theirs,” she explained. “But your real parents are Honoria, who was a mistress of King Charles, and her lover …”
She felt his hand grip hers, and he tried to raise himself off the pillows. “Josiah Deede!” he finished for her in astonishment. “It cannot be! That murderer cannot be my father!”
“Fear not,” Aurora assured him warmly. “Josiah is not a murderer. He is as great a victim of his children’s villainy as you are.”
The colour had gone from Edward’s face. Aurora could not imagine how her story must be affecting him. The physical discomfort in his shoulder must be as nothing to the distress in his heart. But as she watched his face, she saw understanding trickle across it. “So Joe Deede …”
Aurora nodded. “… was the blackmailer. And he was your father’s murderer. Or at least, he was complicit in his murder.” She leaned forward, ready to soothe him lest he become agitated. “Edward, there is more.”
He stared at her, his face as still as a mask.
“Celia denied to her father’s face that Joe could be guilty of any wrongdoing,” she continued. “She defended him vehemently, and she also denied that she herself knew about Honoria. But she was lying, Edward! I am sure of it. She was trying to protect herself, now that Joe is dead. But the truth is that she and Joe had assumed – wrongly, in fact – that if the truth were discovered, their inheritance would be passed to you. Then, if you should die, to me.”
She paused. The only sounds were of the ticking of the clock in the corner of the room, and Edward’s shallow breathing. He was listening intently. Aurora felt in her pocket for the phial of arsenic. “A few minutes after I was shown upstairs,” she continued, “tea was brought, but before Celia could serve it, Josiah told me that he had made provision for you in his will, though most of his fortune was to be left to his children. I am convinced Celia had no knowledge of this until that moment. Then Josiah collapsed, overcome, and the tea was abandoned anyway. But when Celia rushed to help him, she dropped this.”
She took out the little glass phial and the apothecary’s note. As Edward read the paper, every muscle in his face stiffened.
“I was about to give it back to her,” added Aurora gently, “but decided I had better keep it.”
Edward sank back against the pillows. “Good God, Aurora!” he said, his voice full of disbelief, sorrow and grief. “How everything now becomes clear!”
“Celia was Joe’s accomplice,” continued Aurora. “He must have confided in her when he found the document Josiah told me about today, which he and Henry Francis signed upon your adoption. Joe used it first to extort money from Josiah, and then to gain a fortune that was not his own. Now all that is left is to see that Celia is tried for the murder.” She held up the phial. “She thinks she has got away with it, but she is mistaken.”
He gripped her hand. “You cannot go back there alone!”
“I have no intention of doing so. I will go with representatives of the law and have her arrested.”
“No!” His face was stricken. “She will hang!”
“Yes, she will.” Suddenly, Aurora understood. “Oh, Edward … she is your sister!”
“If she hangs,” he said faintly, as if struggling to get the words out, “my family will be for ever disgraced, and my father – my blood father, Josiah Deede – ruined. Even the return of my fortune will not compensate for such misery. I cannot inflict it.”
Aurora was dismayed. “But what of the honour of your adoptive family, which you have laboured to defend – even to the point of fighting a duel!” she protested. “That will surely only be preserved if the murderer is exposed?”
“The murderer,” said Edward steadily, “is dead.”
So he wished to let the dead bury the dead. Josiah Deede would remain innocent of his daughter’s complicity in his son’s crimes. Edward’s fortune would be returned, and Celia, still a rich woman, would marry an equally rich man of the Roman faith and remain unpunished for the rest of her life. Aurora strove to understand her husband’s wishes. “You are magnanimous,” she said.
When she looked at him, she saw that tears shone in his eyes. “I am not, I fear,” he told her. “But neither am I vindictive. I wished for revenge, and now, I think you will agree, I have exacted a revenge more complete than I could ever have envisaged.”
Aurora considered. “I still believe Celia should be punished.”
“She has already been sorely tried by the death of her beloved brother,” he reminded her. “Further punishment we may leave, I think, to God.”
Still unconvinced, but seeing his decision was irrefutable, Aurora reached out. Gently, doing her best not to hurt his shoulder, she took his face between her hands. “Very well, no word of this shall pass my lips.”
He nodded, his eyes closing. Tears slid from under his eyelids; Aurora wiped them with her handkerchief as if he were a child, and they did not speak again.
She sat by the bedside in the candlelight until his breathing deepened and he slept, his ill-kempt hair like an
irregular stain on the pillow. Softly, she drew her finger over his jaw. It felt scratchy. Attending the barber had not been possible for several mornings past. Aurora’s heart was moved as she wondered how long it would be before Edward would be able to resume the life that had been so cruelly taken from him when his adoptive father died. She pictured his fathomless eyes with their hollow, haunted expression. “Dear God,” she whispered, “I pray that before many more days have passed, I will see joy upon his face.”
Sleep was not possible for her. The pallet the maid had left for her was comfortable enough, but when she removed her gown and lay down in her chemise, her thoughts would give her no peace. She could not rid her memory of scenes from the time she had spent as Edward’s wife. Her sisters’ excitement, Edward’s despair, her own dilemma, kind Mr Marshall and his gouty foot, Mrs Fellowes, Spring Gardens, the key which had unlocked not only the writing desk but the whole story of Honoria.
And Joe Deede.
She pondered on how strange it was that Joe’s fair face hid such a villainous soul, and Edward’s scholarly demeanour such a courageous one. And what did her own countenance hide? Round and round went reminders of the deceptions, falsehoods and disguise she had been obliged to practise in the name of seeing justice done. If she begged forgiveness, of her family and of God, surely they would forgive?
As she lay there listening to Edward’s breathing, moonlight slanted from the half-open shutters and the sounds of the city diminished as the hour grew later. Gradually, one thought began to overcome all others in Aurora’s head: when all was resolved, what would happen to her?
She had made a bargain with Edward. She had agreed to help him expose Henry Francis’s murder if he would respect her virtue and annul, on the grounds of non-consummation, a marriage based upon a trick. But less than a month later, everything had changed.
Her fate, she realized, was in Edward’s hands. This slightly built, sorrowful, bookish man had revealed himself to be the very man of action who had for so long filled her dreams. A man who rode a horse and wielded a sword, seamlessly slipping in and out of his roles as a consumptive, a Spring Gardens swaggerer, a defender of his father, his friend, his wife and now his sister. The indignation and compassion his story had aroused in her had increased when she saw the gentlemanly way he conducted himself and as she came to know his modesty and courage. But what she felt now was no longer indignation or compassion. It was as if Edward Francis had the power to work magic upon her heart.
How would she confess to him that she had changed her mind about the annulment of their marriage? And how would she bear it if his response was not the one she sought?
“Heavenly Father, forgive me!” cried out Edward suddenly. “I killed him! My dear Lord, I killed my brother!”
Though he was still not fully awakened from his dream, Edward was trying to sit up. Aurora threw back her blankets and went to his side. “It is all right, you are safe. You are safe, Edward. It is I, Aurora.”
His eyes were open, but saw nothing. His head slumped against Aurora’s breast. “Josiah Deede,” he said, more calmly. “I wish to see Josiah Deede.”
“I am persuaded he wishes to see you too,” Aurora assured him. She sighed, imagining the unsettling, unpredictable meeting that must take place. “But now, try to go back to sleep. Tomorrow morning, I will send for him.”
A Sovereign in Her Palm
Aurora helped Edward into one of Richard’s clean shirts. He made no sound, but his teeth were set into a grimace throughout. The bandage Aurora had made by tearing her cotton underskirt into strips had done its work, and no blood yet seeped through it. But he was not out of danger; she knew she must watch every minute for signs of fever.
For now, his face felt cool enough, and the perspiration on his forehead was produced only by the struggle to change his garment. Although his eyes still held something of the disconnected look of shock, they were clear. “How do I look?” he asked her. “Fit to be presented to …” – he gave her a quizzical look – “my father?”
“You look as you always do,” said Aurora. “A little paler, perhaps.”
“Then let him come up.”
Aurora went to call the servant, but turned when Edward spoke again. He looked at her, resolute, but still wary. “All may be well, Aurora,” he said softly.
“Aye, we must pray so.”
When Josiah Deede was shown in, he removed his hat and approached Aurora, his hand outstretched. “Good day, madam. Are you well?”
She shook his hand, noting the apprehension in his eyes, and, not for the first time, their impenetrable blackness. “Good day to you, sir,” she replied. “I am well, and I am glad to see you are recovered from your indisposition.”
Josiah nodded, his nervousness unabated. “I thank you, Mrs Francis.” Recognition and relief flickered in Josiah’s eyes as his gaze fell on Edward. He could see that his son was too badly injured to shake hands, so he gripped his hat brim with both hands and bowed stiffly. “Good day to you, sir,” he said.
Edward had not taken his eyes from his father’s face. He did not speak.
A tight feeling took hold of Aurora’s midriff as she sat down on the chair by the bed. Her fingers again closed around the glass phial, hidden in the folds of her skirt. Celia must surely know by now that it was missing, and very likely suspected Aurora had taken it. “Mr Deede,” she began, “Edward asked to see you, but he is not strong, and this visit must be brief.” She indicated the bench that stood against the wall. “Please sit down.”
“Thank you, I prefer to stand.” He planted his feet with his back to the fireplace, his deep-set eyes fixed upon Edward’s shoulder. “I am most humbly thankful that you wished to see me…” He paused, swallowing. “The more so now I see your injury is severe, Mr Francis.”
“Please address me by my first name, sir,” said Edward, who had to lean sideways against his pillows in order to avoid pressure on his upper arm. “I am in some discomfort, but as the matters I have to discuss with you are of great import, I could not forbear a moment longer.”
Josiah nodded. To Aurora’s dismay, his gaze fell on the sword-belt that rested against the wall, where Richard had left it. “Is that … the weapon?” he asked. Before Edward could speak, he added, “You must be skilled in wielding it. Joe was a more accomplished swordsman than most.”
Edward’s unease was clear. “My father – that is, my adoptive father – taught me well,” he began. He stopped, drew breath and went on. “There is a good long hall at Marshcote, as perhaps you are aware. We fenced up and down it on many afternoons when I was a boy. By the time I was fifteen, and my father’s rheumatism had overtaken him, I could take on most challengers. For sport, of course.”
He did not look at Aurora. He had never mentioned his fencing prowess before; indeed, he had denied it. In a rush of astonishment she understood why. If she had been aware of his skill, would she have cherished the hope that he might be the victor in the duel? Was that a worse torment than her conviction that without divine help, he would certainly die? Edward had clearly thought so, and perhaps he was right.
“I see,” said Josiah, sighing deeply. “I must offer you my most profound apologies, Edward, for what has happened in the past. I hope that you can find it in your heart to forgive me.”
Edward regarded his father with steady eyes and spoke with a steady voice. “Sir,” he began, “I can barely imagine the pain and grief this affair has caused you. As a gentleman and a Christian, I forgive you.”
Josiah bowed his head. “I thank you, as I thank God,” he murmured, his voice muffled by the frilled jabot he wore at his throat.
“But what I am about to say will perhaps bring you some comfort,” continued Edward.
Josiah looked up. He was frowning slightly. Aurora wondered what was in Edward’s mind.
“When he was mortally wounded,” said Edward, “Joe struggled to say the word ‘Honoria’ loud enough, and more than once, so that it would be plainly heard.”
“Yes?” asked his father, still unsure of Edward’s meaning.
“I am convinced, sir, that as he lay dying, Joe wished the story of Honoria to come out, so that we might be reconciled, you and I. Saying her name was a way of confessing his sins, according to your religion. He could not carry the burden of hatred and revenge as he went to meet his Maker.”
Josiah was gazing intently at his son. His eyes contained the mixture of darkness and brightness Aurora had so often seen in Edward’s own eyes. Beneath the bluff demeanour Josiah usually wore, and the contrite apprehension he had shown this morning, Aurora knew there lay an honourable, if misguided, man. Edward’s desire to spare him the final piece of the story, concerning the phial of poison, had been right. His battered heart would never have withstood it.
The effort of speaking had whitened Edward’s face, especially around his lips. Aurora knew he had begun to bleed through his bandage. “We know you are innocent in this matter, sir,” she assured Josiah gently. “Your sins are those of envy, intolerance and hatred, which you admit yourself. God will forgive you those, since you show true penance.”
Josiah’s eyes lingered upon her face for a moment, then he seemed to make a decision. “I will go to my attorney immediately. The matter of the inheritance must be settled. You may be assured,” he said, nodding towards Edward, “that not only will your own estate be returned, but I intend to bequeath a good portion of my own to you, having made very good provision for my daughter.”
“No!”
Edward’s protest was so unexpected that Aurora jumped. She and Josiah both looked at him in surprise.
“Thank you, sir,” he said to his father, “but I will accept no part of the Deede fortune. Let my own be returned to me, and I will be satisfied. I do not want your money, sir.”
Bewilderment crossed Josiah’s face, but he checked it. He put on his hat and made a low bow. “Very well, Edward, I will do as you say. You are more Henry’s son than mine, I see.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Edward. His voice was weak; he would soon sleep again.
Vice and Virtue Page 18