A young nursing sister stuck her head round the door. “Your sister is awake, Miss Parkinson, and asking for you.”
Rebecca got up and followed her. Rutledge, after a moment, went as well.
Sarah’s head was bandaged, her face pale, and by morning she’d have a very black eye. Her arm was in a cast, and she lay there trying to stand the pain.
“They can’t give me anything,” she said as her sister came into the room. “Not until they’re sure about the concussion. I can’t tell you how much it hurts. I feel sick with it.”
“I’m sorry, Sarah, truly—I had no way of knowing this would happen. I never meant for you to be hurt.”
“I thought I was going to die. It was terrifying. When the lorry struck the bicycle, I was thrown through the air. Can you imagine watching yourself die? And when I landed, there was such pain. I didn’t expect to live. But I did. For a reason. We might as well tell him, Becky. I want to get it off my conscience at least, but I can’t say anything without your consent. Please, will you let me tell him?” Her eyes were pleading, but dry. As if she’d already cried as much as she could.
Rebecca answered her with a coldness that startled her sister. “I thought we swore. On Mama’s memory. I thought it was agreed, Sarah.”
“You sound like Father, you’re as hard as he was.”
Rutledge stepped forward before Rebecca could vehemently deny the charge.
“There’s a solution here. I can take Rebecca into custody, and let the courts sort it out. The publicity will be painful, but that was your choice when you started all this.”
“Go ahead,” Rebecca told him defiantly.
Sarah said, “We neither of us killed him, you know. He was dead when we found him.”
Rebecca opened her mouth to deny it, but Sarah went on relentlessly. “He’d come to the house sometime in the night. We found his motorcar there the next morning. He hadn’t been there in two years, and we were horrified. When we went through the house looking for him, he was in Mama’s room, lying on her bed, and the room was filled with gas. We shut it off, opened windows—but it was too late. He was already dead, and had been for several hours.”
Her sister turned on her heel and went out the door.
Sarah watched her go, and then said, “It’s all true. I’ll swear to it under oath. What happened next was awful. We didn’t want him to be found there. Not in Mama’s bed. So between us we dragged him out of there and down the stairs.” She began to cry. “Do you know what it’s like to move a dead man? It was awful, but we were angry with him, and all we could think about was being rid of him. It was Rebecca’s idea to drive him away from the house. We got him into his motorcar, found the opera cloak in the attic and wrapped him in it, pulled his hat down over his face, and set out. I think we drove all day and part of the night. By that time we were beginning to come to our senses, but Rebecca wouldn’t take him back. I couldn’t bear to dump him at the side of the road. I wouldn’t have done that to a dog. And then we saw the wood. It seemed like a good idea, and we managed to get him that far. That’s when I glimpsed the abbey just beyond the trees, and I made her help me carry him there. Heavy as he was. She wouldn’t leave him in the nave. It was holy ground, and he didn’t deserve it. So we took him into the cloister and left him there, and she put the gas mask on his face, because she said it was his epitaph.”
He could picture them, the anger feeding on itself until they found the strength to do what had to be done. As the anger faded, a cold reality had set in, but Rebecca was still adamant. He had to be punished…
Sarah was saying, “When we got back to Berkshire, I waited by the side of the road in our motorcar, while Rebecca took his to the shed and left it, as if he hadn’t gone far and would be back soon. I was so exhausted, so anxious, I began to cry, and she told me I was not very brave. But then I saw she’d been crying as well, and she swore it was because she hadn’t killed him herself.”
“Did you believe her?”
“Of course I did—I was there with her when we found him. She couldn’t have been so shocked, if she’d already known. I saw her face. It wasn’t a lie.”
For the first time there was a ring of truth behind her words.
“Why does Rebecca hate your father so much?”
“She was older. She saw more. I don’t know. You must ask her.”
Sarah lay back against her pillows, exhausted. “Now it’s done. Over with. I can sleep at night.” She closed her eyes for a time, then said, “Are you still there, Mr. Rutledge?”
“I’m here.”
“When I was hurtling through the air, all I could think of was, God, let me live, and I’ll make amends, I swear I will.”
“It wasn’t a bad bargain.”
He stayed with her for some time, asking that a few more details be cleared up, but he couldn’t catch her in a lie or a mistake.
Afterward he found Rebecca in the waiting room, sitting there, he thought, like a martyr waiting to be led to the flames.
“I have no regrets.” It was all she said.
“No, I expect not. What had he done to you, Rebecca, that you could hate so well? I’d like to understand why a daughter could be—as your sister just said—so cold.”
She turned on him. “My mother lost a child when we were small. I didn’t know why she was ill, only that she stayed in her room with the curtains drawn for week after week. But then one day when I’d been a nuisance, the housekeeper we had then, Mrs. Fortner, told me what no one wanted us to know. The child was born alive, a boy. And so badly deformed that no one could bear to look at him. He died almost at once, and it was a blessing. My mother told my father it was because of all the things he did in the laboratory—that he’d brought something home that maimed and killed their son. And nothing was ever the same again.”
She broke down, alone and wretched and confused. “My mother was never the same either. And when she killed herself, she was holding the christening gown that was meant for my brother. Don’t tell me it was long ago in the past! She grieved for him until the day she died.”
Rutledge said, “He was born full term and died from natural causes. There was nothing in the doctor’s report to say he was deformed. I’ve read it.”
“But he was. The housekeeper was there.”
He remembered the words in the late Dr. Butler’s diary. “Had long talk with Parkinson, explaining situation. Question about who should see to burial. He left arrangements with me.”
What had that long talk been about?
And why had Parkinson slashed his hand in an angry moment in his lab?
Hamish said, “It isna’ wise to tell the lass aboot that.”
“I think your mother grieved for her son, and possibly even blamed your father for the child’s death. That much must be true. But the housekeeper created a monster for reasons of her own. She left shortly afterward, with no notice given. It’s likely your father discovered what she’d told you.”
Rebecca said, “I never told Sarah. I never wanted her to know. But I can remember the day, and the words spilling out of the housekeeper’s mouth, and her face leaning down to mine. I remember feeling sick, and not being able to eat my dinner. There must have been some truth to the story. Or my father would have come to me and tried to explain that Mrs. Fortner was lying.”
“He may not have known how to explain such cruelty. He could have told himself you’d forget in time. Remember, your father had suffered a great loss too. He couldn’t have been himself.”
After a moment, she got slowly to her feet. “I must talk to Sarah—”