‘She was innocent! And I will have the truth, for her sake and for mine, because this house – all our fortune – is mine, and if I think you are lying to me, ever again, I swear I shall put you out and you will end your days a washerwoman, or begging in the hedges.’
‘You would not! The shame of it!’
‘I have no shame left, Mother; I’m surprised to hear that you do. So speak truly now, and let us have it all. Am I my father’s son?’
‘Yes. You are… perfect. You are my salvation-’
‘Alice was your daughter. Yours… and my grandfather’s.’ To this, Josephine gave only more silence, as if she could not bear to say it.
Tears swelled in Jonathan’s eyes and dropped onto his cheeks. ‘But I loved her, Mother. I loved her so dearly. You knew that.’
‘She wasn’t meant to exist! I was… I was so young when she was born. She was taken away at once; it made me sick to even look on her, to hear her wail. Oh, I wanted to drown her right then! But my father told me she’d be adopted away and would never know of her parents. He told me this, and I believed him, like a fool. Then I married your father, and moved away from him, and… it was like waking from an evil dream. It was like life had started anew, and all the old tyranny could be forgotten. But my father, he… he kept her instead; he raised her up in comfort, close at hand. He loved her.’ As she said loved Josephine’s lips curled back from her teeth; she turned it into a curse word.
‘You didn’t know she was nearby, all those years? At Bathampton? You didn’t know Grandfather saw her regularly – that he took me to meet her?’
‘Of course I never knew! I would never have allowed it to continue – never! And he knew it… I was kept ignorant for that very reason. But when she… when she turned up at Box, asking after you, and after her benefactor, Lord Faukes… I knew then. I knew. My aunt Margaret had that milky pale hair, just the same as hers.’ Josephine’s eyes widened. ‘Only look at the miniature downstairs in the parlour and you will see.’
‘My grandfather was not at home when Alice called. You were cruel to her. Vicious to her.’
‘She asked me for news of you, her beloved… that’s what she called you. He is my beloved, and this silence is more than I can bear. When I realised what my father had done… that he’d let you know her… that he’d let that creature fall in love with you…’ Josephine stopped and put her hands to her midriff, clamping her jaws tight shut. She looked like she might vomit; spitting up these truths that revolted her so. ‘There was no quicker way to be rid of her, and to ensure she would renounce you, than to tell her. Half of the truth, if not all of it.’
‘But why did you not stop there? She wrote to me to say we could never wed, she wrote to me of her broken heart. Why was that not the end of it? Why send Richard Weekes after her, why kill her?’ Tears ran freely down Jonathan’s face; he didn’t seem to notice them.
‘I didn’t think… I didn’t think, when I told her. Your grandfather was furious with me… because, of course, she would tell you. She would tell you. We could not allow it. I wanted her sent away – far away. I wanted her reduced to a hedge whore, where no one would listen to her!’
‘She was innocent!’ Jonathan’s voice was raw.
‘She was an abomination! But your grandfather…’ Josephine shook her head incredulously. ‘He loved her too well. What fools and devils are men! He loved her, and would hear of no harm coming to her. But he made sure she could send no letters to you, while he thought on what to do about her. But he must have known, right away, that there was no solution. None but mine. And from her letters, we learned what Duncan Weekes had told her – that treacherous old fool. And we learned that she would tell it all to you, the first chance she got.’
‘So you sent Richard Weekes to ruin her.’
‘And if she would not be ruined willingly, then he would take her against her will, carry her away somewhere and stain her for ever. But he did better than that, wastrel that he is. He did better than that.’
‘He did better.’ Starling echoed the words in the silence that followed, unaware at first that she’d spoken out loud. Jonathan and his mother turned to her abruptly, as though both had forgotten she was present. ‘Even Dick Weekes wanted to please her, by the end. Did you know that? What he did to her tormented him, and I don’t think he could forgive himself. That’s the kind of person she was. Bridget always used to say that two wrongs never made a right, but that’s what happened with Alice. You and Lord Faukes so wrong, and Alice coming out so right. God must have taken pity on such a cursed birth and decided to bless her in every other way. By the time he killed her, even Dick Weekes wanted her heart,’ she said.
‘I care not whether he loved or hated her. What he did that day was the only good and useful thing he ever did,’ said Josephine.
‘A good thing?’ Jonathan whispered. ‘You say he did a good thing?’
‘It was for the best! Jonathan, my dearest boy – what life could you have had with her, knowing that you were so close related? Knowing that whatever feelings you had were a sin?’
‘Whatever feelings? Let me tell you what they were, Mother, though you have ever refused to hear it: I loved her. I loved her like part of my own soul. Or perhaps its whole… perhaps she was my whole soul, for it felt as though she took it with her, when she went.’
‘You must not say such things – the very words appal me! She was an abomination. She should never have lived, and did nothing better than to die!’
‘We could have lived on in this knowledge, grievous as it was! We could have called each other cousin, and quashed all thought of passion, and been content to know that the other was safe. Even now, even having seen my anguish all these years, even after I have pulled my mind apart to guess her fate, even now you exult in her death?’ Jonathan’s eyes bored into his mother’s, but Josephine never flinched.
‘She should never have been born. She did nothing better in her life than to die.’
‘Then I will see you no more. You are the abomination, Mother, and it is a symptom of your affliction that you cannot see it. Go away from me.’
‘What do you mean? Jonathan, my son, I-’
‘Go away from me!’ His roar split the air like a thunderclap. A tremor ran through Josephine; she tottered slightly, and raised one arm for balance. Then, with the immaculate care of one at a cliff edge, she turned and walked to the door.
‘We will speak again,’ she said, barely audibly, on the threshold. Then she left.
For a long time Starling didn’t dare move or make a sound. She had never seen such anger. She stayed where she was, in the corner of the bedroom with her back to the wall, and listened to the blood thumping in her ears. Behind it, the quiet sounds of the house awakening could be heard; the opening and closing of doors, the scrape of an iron in a fireplace. From outside came the keening of seagulls as they laid claim to the city’s rubbish. Their voices were high and woebegone. Gradually, the heaving of Jonathan’s chest decreased; he grew calmer, and sat under a pall of such deep sadness that it was almost tangible. If Alice was here she would cradle your head, and stroke your hair, and murmur of better things until your heart was less sore. But Starling didn’t dare. After ten minutes or so, Jonathan put his fingertips to his eyes and rubbed them hard.