‘Sir…’ Starling whispered. ‘Sir, might I have one of her others? One of her other letters?’
‘What?’
‘I should dearly love to have one of Alice’s letters to keep. Just to have something of hers, you understand – some keepsake, touched by her hand.’
‘I have no other letters of hers.’ Jonathan frowned at her. ‘What letters do you think I have?’
‘All of hers – those that you wrote to her, and that she wrote to you. Yours she kept in a rosewood box in her room, and it vanished after she did. I thought you took it? Did you not take it, sir?’
‘No.’ Jonathan shook his head. ‘I did not take it. And hers to me I… I destroyed.’ His voice failed him for a moment. He shut his eyes. ‘All of them. When I returned and thought that she… when I believed, at first, what I was told of her conduct. I wish I had not. I… I wish I had not.’
‘But if you do not have them, who does? And what of the letter I took from you – one that you wrote to her, your last from Spain, from Corunna, soon before she died?’
‘I know not who took them. My grandfather, I daresay. And that letter from Corunna… I never sent it. She never saw it. It stayed in my pocket all the way back to Brighton, and then came with me to Bathampton after I received her letter. I never got the chance to send it. I have always had it.’
‘Oh.’ Starling felt even this small hope fade away. ‘Then that letter, recently returned to you by the Suttons, is all that exists of her; all there is to prove she ever lived, except what we remember.’
‘Yes. Between them, they did obliterate her.’ Jonathan looked down as he spoke, his brows shadowing his eyes, his mouth a bitter line. ‘Fetch my mother to me now.’ Silently, Starling obeyed.
She knocked softly on Mrs Alleyn’s door and was summoned inside at once. The older woman’s face was hollowed out by fatigue but her eyes lit with hope and happiness when Starling said that her son asked for her. Enjoy this, madam – your last moment without blame. Starling trailed her back to Jonathan’s room, and at the door Mrs Alleyn turned and frowned at her.
‘Why do you pester my steps like a tantony pig? Go now and bring up the beef broth, and some tea. And perhaps a little brandy.’
‘No, madam. I am no longer your servant,’ said Starling, and the words made her heart lurch with fear and elation both. A thrill that made her fingertips tingle. There. I have cast myself off.
‘What? How do you say no? Go at once, and-’ Something in the way Starling stood, resolute, with her face full of knowing, pulled Josephine up short. ‘Well then,’ she said instead, incredulous, but almost resigned. The first sparks of a terrible anger were in her eyes. ‘Be gone, if that is so,’ she said. Starling shook her head.
‘I serve your son now, madam. Only he can send me away.’ Josephine glared at her a moment longer, and turned a little paler. She must wonder what gives me the strength to speak to her thus. She must wonder, and she must know. It was not anger that blanched her, Starling saw then. It was fear. She pitied Josephine again, for what was to come, and for what she had suffered, the hand she’d been dealt. But it was none of Alice’s fault. The chickens will always come home to roost, Bridget used to say. With a haughty expression that looked like a mask Josephine carried on to her son’s bedside, and Starling went behind her like a vengeful shadow.
Jonathan had edged his way up the bed, to sit straighter. There was a glaze of sweat on his face and he was breathing deeply, flaring his nostrils.
‘Jonathan! Dear boy, it gladdens my heart to see you woken, and well,’ said Josephine.
‘Does it?’ His eyes were hard.
‘Of course… why would you think to question?’
‘Because you lie, Mother. You have lied to everyone all your life. You lied to my father, and you lied to the world, and you lie to me. You killed Alice Beckwith with a lie.’ There was a frozen moment, and then Josephine shot Starling a glare like the jab of a knife.
‘What has this wretch been saying to you? What lies has she told? She is a mendacious rat, a muckworm… I only kept her because your grandfather instructed me to…’
‘Grandfather told you to keep her?’ said Jonathan. He looked at Starling, and she had no need to say anything more. ‘And there, I thought you had done it to be kind. How foolish of me.’
‘Jonathan, what is the matter? Why do you attack me – I who have only ever loved and cared for you-’
‘I don’t think you’re capable of love,’ said Jonathan. He continued before Josephine could reply. ‘Richard Weekes has told me everything.’
‘What?’
‘I said Richard Weekes has told me everything. Your little puppet, that foolish boy who thought himself in love with you, all those years ago. He has told me you sent him to coax Alice away. To make her betray me in any way he could. To goad her into an elopement… and when that failed he killed her. On your instruction.’
‘Lies.’ Josephine’s voice was almost lost; it was a breathy whisper, crushed by fear and anger. ‘It is lies. How dare he… how dare he!’
‘Do you deny it?’
‘Yes, I deny it! It is base lies, every word!’
‘Alice came to visit you one day, to ask for news of me. You told her… you told her that she was my grandfather’s bastard. Didn’t you? You told her that and then sent her away. You thought that would end our connection to one another for ever. But Duncan Weekes met her that day too, and he told her something else. Do you know what else he told her?’ said Jonathan. Josephine only watched him now, her face as still as stone. ‘Do you know what your coachman saw, peeping through the curtains one day?’
‘Enough! I will hear no more!’ Josephine exploded. She threw up her hands as if to cover her ears; turned away from the bed and made for the door.
‘Stay!’ Jonathan shouted. ‘Mother you will stay!’ The command was like a whip crack which nobody might disobey. Starling shrank back from the bedside, seeking a friendly shadow in which to hide. There were none to be had. This might break him.
Josephine turned to face her son but came no nearer to the bed this time.
‘Do you deny it?’ said Jonathan. ‘I knew you for a liar. I’ve always known. But I never knew what you lied about, until now. And I can forgive you for it… of course I can. Such evil… such a sinful blight on our family, on all my memories, it turns my stomach to even think it! But it was not your doing. Not that part.’
‘I beg you, continue no further with this,’ Josephine whispered.
‘It’s too late for that. I know. Do you deny it?’ he demanded. In response, Josephine only stared at him, her eyes filling with tears. She took a long, shuddering breath.
‘You were never meant to know about your grandfather! My whole life I have guarded against your ever knowing!’ Her face distorted with horror.
‘I understand. I understand that you sought to… protect me. From such ugliness. But now I must have the truth. Because I have tortured myself, Mother. Do you understand? I have tortured myself for the loss of Alice for twelve long years, trying to think what happened to make her leave me. I even thought, in dark moments… I even thought I’d killed her! When I came back after Corunna, and my mind was disordered… I have lain here and thought myself a murderer, and a madman, and all the time you knew! You knew!’
‘She was an abomination.’ This was more like a growl than speech; low and brutal, vicious with hatred. Starling’s heart stirred at the sound of it. ‘When she came to Box and asked for my father, I knew at once she was some issue of his. But the more I looked at her, the more I thought…’ She trailed off, shaking her head. ‘I knew. I knew who she was, then, though I thought that child had been dispatched at her birth, into the far north. I confronted my father. I made him tell me… Oh, Jonathan! It stilled my very blood that she still walked the earth! She was an abomination!’