“Celeste and the girls… and he must have meant Dimity. He must have meant Dimity, when he said he’d been in trouble already. They had an affair, that summer.”
“Dimity? The little village girl? But she was only a child! I can hardly believe he would…”
“Perhaps that’s what he meant by ‘trouble.’ ”
“But are you sure, Zach? Are you sure they had an affair?”
“She certainly insists that they did,” he said, and his grandma smiled sadly.
“Ah, but don’t you see? So did I. Until today, so did I.”
Zach left the almshouses a short while later, promising to return again soon. His grandmother’s words echoed in his head. So did I. What did it mean, then? That Dimity hadn’t been having an affair with him, either? But something must have happened for Aubrey to tell his grandmother about it. Trouble. That was how he described the love affair that Dimity had been reminiscing about all these weeks? But then, when he went AWOL during the war, it was Dimity he sought out, Dimity he stayed with, all the long years afterwards. Or was it just that Dimity was the only person left? The only person there when Charles got back, damaged and vulnerable and in need of shelter. And then Delphine had come back to live less than a mile away, thinking all the while that her father had been killed in action. Zach’s head ached. Dimity had kept her enormous secret, even from Delphine, the man’s own child. That had been a terrible thing to do. Zach drove with the knuckles of one hand pressed into his lips. And his own family, his father, his grandfather, had lived with a ghost of Aubrey that was only that. A ghost. Nothing real, nothing substantial. Had Aubrey really been so powerful that even the suggestion of him could live on like that? Clearly he had. And Zach’s artistic streak was a quirk of fate, not an inheritance. He felt something slip away from him then, something he’d been holding on to, carefully, for many years. He thought he would miss it, but instead he felt lighter.
Zach drove straight down to The Watch. It was getting late in the afternoon, and when there was no answer to his knock, he tried the door. It was unlocked, and he let himself in uneasily. Dimity locked it, normally. He’d always heard the rattle of bolts before she opened it. For the second time that day, he went upstairs calling her name, with a head so full of thoughts he was having trouble addressing any one of them clearly. He knew only that he had things he wanted to ask her; accusations, almost. Dimity hadn’t moved. She still lay on her side on the bed, and this time Zach rushed over to her with a jittery feeling, sighing with relief when he heard her breathing. Her eyes were open, staring at nothing. She blinked when Zach crouched down beside her. He gave her a gentle shake.
“Dimity, what’s wrong? Are you all right?” Without a word, Dimity swallowed, and struggled to rise. Zach helped her sit up. Her legs, as he guided them over the edge of the bed, were bone-thin. “Should I call a doctor?”
“No!” she said suddenly, and then coughed. “No doctor. I’m only tired.”
“It was a strange night,” said Zach, carefully. She nodded and looked down at the floor, her expression desolate. “I’m sorry,” he said. He didn’t know quite how to explain what he was sorry for. For discovering her secret, when she’d kept it so long. For taking it from her, he supposed.
“He was dead these past six years. I knew, but I… I dreamed that I didn’t know. I wished it,” she said. Tears swelled in her eyes and splashed onto her cheeks.
“You really did love him, didn’t you?” Zach murmured. Dimity looked up at him, and the pain in her eyes was tangible. One by one, the questions in Zach’s mind came loose and drifted away. She owed him nothing.
“More than life,” she said. She took a deep breath. “And I’d have done anything for him. Done anything to make it up to him.”
“To make what up to him, Dimity?” Zach frowned. Two more tears dropped onto her clasped hands.
“What I did,” she breathed, so quietly that he hardly heard her. “What I did.” She shook as a sob ran through her. Zach waited to hear more, but she was silent. Something Wilf Coulson had said to him came into his mind. “Now everyone will know. People will come, and they’ll know he was here. They’ll know I hid him. Won’t they?” She looked at him again, grief and fear scoring her face. Zach shook his head.
“They don’t have to, Dimity. If you don’t want me to tell anyone, I won’t. I promise.” Disbelief made her eyes grow wide.
“Do you mean it? Do you swear it?” she whispered.
“I swear it,” said Zach, feeling the weight of the promise circle his heart tightly. “The secret you and Charles kept is still yours to keep. And the pictures are Hannah’s property. She hasn’t betrayed you for them yet, and I’m sure she won’t now,” he said. Dimity nodded and shut her eyes.
“I’m so tired,” she said, lying back down on the faded sheets.
“Rest then. I’ll… come back and see you tomorrow.”
“Rest? Yes, perhaps. But they’ll be coming for me, you know,” she said, her voice small and fearful.
“Who will, Dimity?” Zach frowned.
“All of them,” she whispered, and then her face went slack in sleep. Zach pulled the blanket up over her, and touched his fingers to one grubby red mitten in brief farewell.
Troubled, and still of two minds as to whether or not he should call a doctor to visit Dimity, Zach drove into the village and was about to take the lane to Southern Farm when he saw a familiar figure, sitting on a bench with a small dog at his feet, and looking out to sea. Zach pulled up alongside and lowered his window.
“Hello, Mr. Coulson, are you well?” he said. Wilf Coulson clasped his hands around the whippet’s lead, and nodded with the minimum of good manners. “I know you told me not to ask you anything else about Dimity…”
“That’s right. I did,” said the old man warily.
“I’ve just been down to see her and she said something… Well, it reminded me of something you’d said and I wanted to ask you about it? Please?” Wilf Coulson gave him a complicated look-curiosity mixed with sadness and belligerence.
“What, then?”
“I asked you what little Élodie Aubrey died of, and you said natural causes but that there were some that said otherwise. I was wondering… what you might have meant by that?”
“Was it unclear?”
“No… but, who were these people? And what did they say? I won’t use this information, you understand. I mean, not for my book. I’m just trying to understand what Dimity’s going through… Will you tell me what you meant?” Wilf seemed to consider this, his jaw working slightly, cheeks moving in and out. But in the end he wanted to talk, Zach could see. He wanted to unburden himself.
“The doctor came into the pub, a couple of nights after it happened. Dr. Marsh, who’d been at the hospital with them. I was there, too, so I heard him talking. He reckoned she’d got gastric flu, but the day it happened Aubrey himself ran about saying they’d eaten the wrong thing and been poisoned. The older girl was often out picking things from the hedges, with Dimity.”
“The older girl? Delphine?”
“That’s her, that married the Brocks’ boy in the end. The doctor talked about the symptoms and I saw some looks exchanged, over his head. Aubrey had mentioned other symptoms too, and there were plenty in there that knew what it sounded like.”
“And what was that?”
“Cowbane,” Wilf said shortly. “Hemlock.”
“Jesus… you mean, Delphine picked it by mistake, and… and Élodie ate some?”
“Either that or…”