‘Mrs Weekes, I didn’t expect you today, though I am delighted you’ve come. See how I have tidied…’ He trailed off, so she knew she must look desperate.
‘Your mother has told me I must not come again. That I will no longer be admitted,’ she said breathlessly. ‘She said she’d already told you of this decision, but I wanted to… I wanted to be sure.’
‘She lies. She said nothing to me,’ said Jonathan.
‘I had feared as much.’
‘What has happened between you? You look as though she has hounded you up the stairs!’
‘I feel as though she has!’ Rachel almost smiled, but it would not come. She felt too desperate, too afraid. ‘I came to speak to… to speak to you, but she found me first and I… said some things to her about… about Alice. And about your grandfather. I let it be known that I had begun to suspect… That I had developed a greater interest in Alice’s disappearance than perhaps I should have.’ She stopped, shook her head and tried to put her thoughts in order. Will I accuse him outright, then? ‘But I fear that if we are to see each other henceforth, it will have to be in some other place.’
‘What things about my grandfather?’ Jonathan frowned. ‘No – you must not let her prevent your coming, Mrs Weekes!’
‘She is the mistress here, and if she tells the servants not to let me in… It would be impossible, to attend under such circumstances.’
‘I own this house, and the servants – not my mother. I will make them let you in.’ Jonathan’s eyes were intent, his voice rose indignantly. Rachel shook her head.
‘No. No, I could not. Not knowing that it angered her, that she had forbidden it. My husband… my husband would not permit it. She has some hold over him still – some powerful hold. He was in love with her, you see. Perhaps he still is.’
‘Who? Richard Weekes in love with my mother? Who says so?’
‘His father, Duncan Weekes. He’s known it of old. Since Richard was a young boy, he says…’ Rachel shook her head, still confounded by it. Josephine Alleyn, and Starling, and others no doubt… all called him theirs before I did; some might call him theirs still. It is as well that I love him not.
Jonathan thought for a while, and then gestured to the chairs by the window.
‘Come. Sit,’ he said, more gently. ‘Let us discuss this, please.’
‘It’s hopeless, sir. I can come here no longer – you must see, it would be impossible? If my husband forbids me – and he will, should your mother decree it – then we could not hope to keep our appointments secret.’
‘You must agree to still visit, however. You must.’
‘How can I?’ Rachel stared hopelessly at him. ‘I am not the mistress of my own destiny – it is bound to his. To him. He has already found out that I see his father against his wishes… I have not yet discovered what the full consequences of that will be. And he would find out in an instant if I went against him with regard to you, and your mother. He might beat me, sir. He might indeed do something worse.’
‘Mrs Weekes…’ Jonathan paused uncomfortably. ‘You must not let him. You must not abandon me so easily. I beg you. I… I cannot do without your friendship. That is, I would not want to.’
‘You would not?’ she breathed. They sat apart, not touching, but Jonathan did not look away from her, even for a second.
‘Your visits are the only thing that makes life bearable, Mrs Weekes. In all the long years since the war, no one else has managed to… return a fragment of my former self to me. I have been so afraid, all these years, of the… lost, dark places in my mind. In my memory. Only you give me the strength to look into them. Please. Do not abandon me now, at the behest of two people who cannot understand. Not when you have shown me that forgiveness is possible.’ After this he fell silent, and his face darkened, and Rachel thought of the letter in her pocket. It seemed to weigh more than a piece of paper should; her hands began to shake. Why do I not hand it over to him? Do I fear him, still? Do I fear the effect it might have? For a moment she wished she didn’t have it; she wished she knew nothing, that her face was hers and hers alone, and no question of a vanished or murdered girl could come between them. To be with Jonathan, there in that room, and to hear him say such things, would be enough to make life happy. Why couldn’t it have been so?
Rachel turned her face away. Outside, a man came with a taper on a long pole to light the streetlamp on the corner; the fog devoured its weak glow just a few feet from the flame. I was going to show the letter to Starling, not to Jonathan. Rachel wasn’t sure whether the letter would bring Starling any joy. Combined with what Duncan Weekes had told her, she knew that Starling would be newly convinced of Jonathan’s motive for killing Alice. She could have ruined them with what Duncan told her. No wonder they tried to stop all her letters. Yet still my courage near failed me when I was told I could see him no more. So she stayed silent a while longer, with the letter heavy in her pocket, and some other weight fettering her heart.
Jonathan cleared his throat softly.
‘Mrs Weekes, I must tell you something,’ he said. He was watching Rachel intently, and at once she sensed bad news.
‘What is it?’
‘I have been thinking a great deal about what you told me… about your sister, who was lost, and the possibility that she might have lived a second life, as Alice.’
‘Yes?’ Suddenly Rachel was alive with nerves; the blood seemed to swell in her veins.
‘Something had been plaguing me over it. Mrs Weekes, how old are you?’
‘I am twenty-nine, sir. I will be thirty next spring.’
‘Then it is as I thought. I fear that… Alice was not your twin sister; she could not be. Alice was a year and a half older than me. If she lives, she is thirty-five now. You are too young.’
And as simply as that, Rachel’s hopes were destroyed. There was silence after Jonathan spoke. The words fell dead from his lips, and landed at Rachel’s feet like little bones, cold and hard. There was a writhing feeling in her chest, and she gasped at it. Tears burned her eyes. Abi, no. Don’t go. But she couldn’t bargain or riddle her way around this; she could not argue it might not be so. Even after everything she’d heard from Duncan Weekes, and Bridget, after everything she had come to believe of Lord Faukes and Josephine Alleyn, still her mind had clung to the idea that they might all be lying, or mistaken; that it was all talk and rumours and no proof; that the little girl Lord Faukes had put into Bridget’s arms, and sponsored all her life, had indeed been Abigail. It had never occurred to her to check that most fundamental thing she and her twin had in common – their birthday. Rachel bowed her head and wept in utter disappointment; she felt so cold, and so tired.
Outside the window the world seemed to stretch away, endlessly grey and empty. Say something to me, she implored but the voice in her mind stayed silent. Then I am alone. She felt desolate then, as though she could never again move from the chair where she sat, because she would never have the strength to, would never have the cause. This was why my heart was numb. To save me from ever feeling this way again.
‘Do not weep so, Mrs Weekes. Please. It would have been a wondrous happenstance, I know, but… wondrous things rarely prove to be true,’ said Jonathan, gently.
‘Wondrous? Perhaps.’ Rachel shook her head. ‘But it was the one thing I was hoping for. You break my heart, sir.’