Chapter 53
For a moment he did not speak, and Caroline scanned his face anxiously. Then he simply said, “Your late mama?”
Caroline nodded. “I’m afraid I was forced to push her into oncoming traffic this morning and she was trampled to death. At least, I’m pretty sure she is dead. I did not actually stop to ascertain the fact. Reg thought we should not tarry.”
Gervaise regarded her steadily for a moment, then said, “Let us return first to the solicitor’s office. You finished your session with Mr.—?”
“Roxby. But before we finished, I requested he draw me up a last will and testament.”
“You did?” He eyed her curiously. “Why?”
“Well…I had just found out I had a considerable estate,” she reminded him desperately. “Does that not sound like the sensible thing to do?”
“It does, and yet…I want to know what was going through your mind.”
She closed her eyes briefly. “It will sound like nonsense, I’m afraid.”
“I don’t expect it will.”
“I…I kept thinking of that white hand. That hand that hovered over my plate and snatched the letter away. Mama’s hand.
After that peculiar dream I had, whenever I remembered it, it filled me with such fear…
Such terrible, inexplicable fear. I thought, how many other times must that hand have snatched away letters meant for me?
“Mr. Roxby said they have been writing to me ever since I turned twenty-five. And I just knew I had to make a will, to keep my property safe from her. Does that make sense?” He nodded but did not ask who she had made her beneficiary.
“I left everything to you,” she volunteered, hoping it might soften the blow when it fell.
“And then you left?” he asked.
“I did,” she breathed out. “Reg was waiting for me outside but had wandered down the road as I had taken far longer than we had expected.”
“I see.”
“I was stood on the pavement, waiting for him, when…when a carriage drew up,” she continued, feeling sick at heart. She did not want to confess what came next. “Mama was inside and—and Sidney Price.”
“Who is Sidney Price?” he interrupted swiftly.
“Do you remember my mother’s personal maid, Goring? I think you met her once.”
He nodded. “She brought along your mother’s smelling salts that night.”
“Well, it turns out Sidney Price is her cousin. I overheard them conspiring in the shrubbery that morning we left on the mail coach. Do you remember my mentioning it?”
He frowned. “Yes,” he said shortly. “I do.”
“Well, he compelled me to get in their carriage and then—”
“Compelled you?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He seized hold of me and forced me inside. I lost my hat and cloak in the struggle. I heard Reg shout and knew he had seen, but we pulled away before he could help me.”
Gervaise did not speak for a moment. “Continue,” he said softly.
Caroline pressed her hands together in her lap. “Mama was…different. Frightening. She—”
“Take a sip of brandy,” Gervaise recommended.
She took a quick swallow of her drink and felt its warming effect as she struggled for words. “I suppose she was no longer pretending. Pretending to be gentle and mild, I mean. It was like the veneer was gone, stripped away, exposing what lay underneath it.”
“And that had always been ugly,” Gervaise murmured.
“Yes. But on top of that, she was unkempt and—and she looked and smelled unwashed,” Caroline continued with difficulty.
“I did not even recognize her at first.” He made no sound, merely waited for her to find the words.
“She—she confessed to things, quite matter-of-factly. That I had to die. That I should have died that day she drugged me, the day you came to dinner.”
She glanced across at Gervaise and saw he was sitting still as a statue. “That she always intended that Edgar should inherit my fortune. Sidney Price was supposed to kill me that day,” she admitted. “I was drugged and sent down to the pergola, but in that strange state of mind, I wandered off…”
Gervaise sat forward in his seat. “That vision you had…” he said suddenly.
“Was not a vision at all,” she confirmed. “It was Sophy, our maid. She was wearing my old bonnet and the green shawl I always kept by the kitchen door. She must have nipped out into the garden for a moment and…and…”
“Price attacked her by mistake,” Gervaise said harshly, then he was up and out of his seat, pulling Caroline into his arms. “Oh, my darling,” he uttered against her hair. “My poor darling.”
She let him comfort her in silence for a while, the only sound in the room the crackle of logs.
When he finally slackened his hold, he drew her to his sofa instead of letting her return to her own.
“Come sit here beside me,” he said, drawing her down onto the seat, and keeping hold of her hand.
“Does your brother know your mother came to London?” he asked quietly.
“No,” she quickly replied. “Edgar knew nothing about it. Mama made her way to London by stealth while Goring told everyone she lay on her sickbed and would see no one. Instead, she and Price lay in wait for Edgar to arrive in London with the Farises. Then they followed him to The Citadel and discovered my whereabouts.” She frowned.
“I wonder how Lord Faris discovered us there.”
“It would not have been hard for Jeremy,” Gervaise answered absently, as though his mind were on other things. “He knows all my friends and I had been broadcasting freely about the opening of the club.”
She nodded comprehendingly. “Of course.”
Gervaise’s expression turned grim again, and his hand tightened around hers. “You do realize,” he said, “that if you had not run away with me that next morning…”
Caroline gave a brief nod, and Gervaise released her hand, springing up off the sofa and taking a few steps toward the fire, before swinging back around.
“I can’t believe I’ve been so fucking stupid,” he burst out.
“You told me you had seen a dead body that day in the garden and I never listened to a single word of it!” He raked a hand through his black hair, disordering it considerably.
Caroline’s mouth dropped open. “But I told you it was a vision, not a real body.”
“I should have seen past that,” he said impatiently. “Your mind was disordered from the drug. You told me all about Goring and the man in the shrubbery, you even told me about the damned solicitor’s letter, and I never put any of it together!”
“But how could you? I did not reason any of it out myself…”
“That’s understandable,” he responded at once. “You were far too embroiled in the affair yourself to see the wood for the trees. Your mother’s treatment of you was always so vindictive, how should you have noticed any kind of escalation of hostilities?”
“Well, even so—”
“You also told me you were terrified that morning you ran away and I ascribed it all to the fact you had been drugged. God forgive me, I never even wondered why you had been drugged that day. Or if I did, I ascribed it to some petty motive, never an intent to murder!”
“Gervaise…” She held her hand out to him, and he returned to her side at once. “I have not even told you the worst of it, yet,” she said nervously as his fingers closed around hers.
“I find that hard to believe, but go on,” he said, sitting back down.
“You see, it turns out that this is not the first time Mama has killed,” she said with trepidation. “She told me she killed my father and Mr. Needham, and that after disposing of me, she would turn her murderous attentions next to Diana and even Edgar if he did not fall in line with her wishes.”
Gervaise looked more impatient than appalled. “Yes, I suppose that makes a certain sort of sense,” he agreed. “After killing twice without discovery, I suppose it started to seem a logical solution to all her problems.”
Caroline’s eyes widened. “I—yes, I suppose so,” she agreed weakly.
“Let us return to the carriage,” he said briskly. “I want to know what happened next.”
Caroline gulped. “Yes, I will tell you,” she said, then lapsed into unhappy silence.
“Did they tell you what they had planned for you?” he prompted.
“Yes. Mama had prepared some concoction for me to drink. I don’t know if it was intended to poison or merely to render me unconscious. Then, once it grew dark, Price had found some quiet spot to…well, tip my body into the Thames.”
Gervaise’s hand tightened on the arm of the sofa, and he breathed in then out again, rather noisily. Still, when he spoke, his voice was surprisingly calm. “Now tell me how you escaped,” he said. “I need to hear that part rather badly.”
“Well, the whole time Mama was speaking, I was waiting for the carriage to slow down,” Caroline replied.
“I knew I had to jump, that breaking a limb was far preferable to remaining in that carriage with them.
We approached a crossroads, and as soon as we came to a halt, I sprang for the door.
By great good fortune, Reg appeared at the same instance, pulling it open.
“He had procured a hansom cab and had been following us all the while. I ran for the cab while Reg fought with Price. Mama followed me,” she continued with difficulty.
“She was screaming and snatching at me as I dodged through the traffic. Finally, I turned around and…and I pushed her. I just wanted her to stop,” Caroline sobbed.
“To leave me alone. I pushed her…straight into the path of a moving carriage,” she whispered and fell silent.
Gervaise pulled her onto his lap, tucking her head under his chin.
“Thank God,” he said heavily. “Thank God.” His hands ran up and down her back and sides as though reassuring himself she was in one piece.
“It seems I owe Reg a debt I can never repay. We will have to find some role for him in our future household.”
Caroline lay silent against him, her heart beating fast. At some point the repercussions of all she had imparted would hit him, she just knew it. She needed to brace herself for their impact when they struck him. For the righteous indignation that would swiftly follow.
Gervaise reached into his jacket for his cigarette case. “Do you mind if I smoke?” he asked and she noticed his hand was shaking.
“No, of course not.” She made as though to move but his other arm tightened around her.
“No, don’t leave me,” he said. “I need you to stay right where you are for, oh at least twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes?”
“After that I promise I will have control of myself. Until that point, though, will you indulge me in this?”
She nodded and he smiled at her, placing an unlit cigarette between his lips. “You have a mind to be a generous wife, I see.”
“Oh yes,” she said quickly, glad she could reassure him on that score at least. “But after the twenty minutes—”
“Then you can take a nice bath,” he said soothingly, “and we can see to your comfort.”
She sat up straighter. “Before that, I will need to go to Scotland Yard,” she corrected him.
He hesitated. “I certainly need to make enquiries,” he stressed, “about any lives possibly lost in the coach incident earlier but—”
“No, Gervaise,” she said firmly. “I know only too well the disgrace it will bring down upon us, and I am truly sorry for it but…I owe it to Sophy.” When he said nothing, she urged, “The guilty parties must be punished for what they did to her. I cannot rest until I have seen justice is done.”
He breathed out heavily. “Very well. Let me send first for my legal man and he can meet us there.”
“Should I also send for Mr. Roxby?” she asked. “He could then furnish the police with the particulars. About my inheritance, I mean.”
Gervaise considered this, then shook his head. “We should let the police follow up that particular line of enquiry. We can supply his details and leave that up to them. I will ask Jeremy and your brother to meet us there, however,” he added decisively.
“They can help to corroborate that Mrs. Needham is supposedly in Cornwall, and your brother could…identify the body if need be. They would need confirmation other than your own that it is indeed her.”
Caroline hesitated. “You do not think we should break the news to Edgar first as a kindness to him?”
“No, I do not,” he replied shortly. “It would likely work in his favor if he can demonstrate his ignorance of all that has been going on.” He paused. “You are sure that he is wholly innocent?”
“Absolutely! His main concern last night was trying to convince me to return to Benham and help soothe the troubled waters between Mama and his new wife.”
Gervaise narrowed his gaze. “Was it indeed? And how precisely did he envisage you doing that?”
Caroline avoided meeting his eyes. “I think he was just desperate. It seems Diana and Mama detested one another and the whole place was plunged in turmoil.”
“And your dear brother wished to make it your problem to solve?”
“At least he had no notion Mama planned to kill me.”
Gervaise stiffened. “There is that,” he agreed dryly. “We must thank heaven for small mercies, it seems.”