Chapter 55
The Exact Circumstances
“Hear the truth, therefore, now, while you are unprejudiced.”
Jane Austen, Persuasion
Adam wanted her to rest. Clara insisted she at least eat something. Mr. Tauton and Mr. Goutier thought it would be prudent if she first gave her statement, and then took extra constables with her on her errand.
In the end, Rosalind agreed to stop at the Green Briar long enough to change her clothing and have Laurel and Mrs. Leigh between them clean and bandage her hands, and also find a pair of gloves large enough to fit over the fresh dressing.
As a concession to her lingering weakness, she agreed to let Adam drive her to the Kinsdales’ house on his way to the City police station where he meant to reconvene with Devon, Mr. Goutier, Mr. Tauton, and Mr. Layng.
She begged Clara to stay with Devon, and somewhat to her surprise, Clara agreed.
“I want to hear the whole story before I speak with Elizabeth,” she’d said. “Or Cynthia.”
So, when Rosalind climbed out of the carriage in front of the Kinsdales’ house, she was quite alone.
“I will only ask once,” said Adam as he helped her down. “Do you want me to stay?”
Rosalind took a deep breath. “Mrs. Kendricks is here, and the staff is all her people. She will take care of anything that comes up.”
Adam smiled his tiny, beautiful, crooked smile. “Probably better than either of us could.”
“Probably so.” Rosalind paused and looked into his eyes, seeing that he was whole and well, if a little battered and pale. “Will you be all right?”
“As long as I know that you will be,” he told her. “I’ll be back to fetch you in an hour. Will that be time enough?”
“I think so.”
He kissed her gloved and bandaged hands.
Rosalind stayed where she was and watched while he climbed, a little more stiffly than was his wont, up onto the box and touched up the horses.
It was only when he had rounded the curve of the Circus and rounded the corner into the next street that she turned and walked up the steps to the front door.
Duggin let her in. Mrs. Kendricks exclaimed over her, and embraced her and cried a little with her, a thing they would both resolutely deny happened when stories were told later.
“I trust Miss Cynthia is here?” Rosalind asked her.
“She hasn’t left her room,” said Mrs. Kendricks. “We’ve been watching closely.”
Rosalind pressed her friend’s hands and turned to face the stairs. She took a deep breath and put her hand on the railing, when movement caught her eye. She looked up. Cynthia stood at the top of the stairs looking down at her.
“I expect you wish to talk with me,” said Cynthia.
“I do,” said Rosalind.
“Well, do come up then.” With that, she turned and began climbing back toward the family rooms.
When Rosalind reached what had been the sisters’ private rooms, she found Cynthia sitting at the writing table by the window.
The drapes had been pulled open to allow the daylight in.
Cynthia was looking down on the narrow garden, and the crowd of statues and the empty pied-à-terre.
She looked, Rosalind thought, exhausted, grim, and entirely alone.
Rosalind reached into her sleeve and pulled out a handkerchief. She took out the broken ring on its ruined chain and laid them on the table.
Cynthia looked down. She blinked.
“May I take it that Elizabeth has been found?”
“Yes. And Nathanial Spence with her.”
“I see.”
Rosalind waited to see if Cynthia would say anything else.
Her head hurt, her hands hurt. Her legs were protesting at having to keep holding her upright.
She was now very much regretting that she had not stopped for anything more than a slice of bread and cheese.
She found she did not want to continue this conversation, that for one of the few times in her life, she really did not want to know anything more.
She wanted to leave this room, walk down the stairs and out the door, and have nothing else to do with this house, this family, these lives and these deaths.
But, of course, she could not do that.
“Why did you agree to lie for Elizabeth?” Rosalind asked.
Cynthia bit her lip.
“Because of bad luck,” she said finally. “Because there has been nothing but bad luck for me, and my son, and my poor lost Jack from the beginning.”
“Was Jack your husband?”
Cynthia started, but then covered her mouth, holding back another of her mirthless laughs.
“Johnathan Walsingham, but everyone called him Jack.” She laid her hand on top of the broken, begrimed ring.
“He was the admiral’s youngest brother. The boy at Kinsdale House who so alarmed my father is our son. ”
“Why did you choose to marry in secret?” asked Rosalind. “Did your father not approve of the match?”
Cynthia shook her head. “He did not, for so many reasons, all of them ridiculous, except possibly for the fact that Jack had no money of his own.” She bowed her head. “But Jack said he would quickly remedy that. He said as long as I was his, he could do anything.”
Rosalind nodded.
“We married in Lyme,” Cynthia went on. “Jack swore his brother to secrecy, took half my wedding ring and our marriage certificates as both proof and love token, and sailed away. He was sure—we were sure—he would come back with a fortune in prize money. But he didn’t.
” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “He didn’t come back at all. ”
“I’m sorry,” said Rosalind.
“Yes.” Cynthia’s fingers curled slowly around her ruined wedding ring.
“So am I. I think I shall never stop being sorry.” Her eyes were bright with the tears she would not permit to fall.
“When I got the news that his ship had gone down, I knew I was with child. I broke the news to his family. They offered to take me in, and dare my family’s opinion.
I should have accepted.” For the first time, anger sharpened her tone.
“But I was afraid and a fool and grieving and I could not think straight. I thought I’d wait until Clara was safely married to make a clean breast of my scandals.
So, I bore my son in secret, and I gave him to his aunt and uncle to raise, and I came back home as if nothing had happened.
” She looked toward the windows. “For three years, I pretended nothing at all had happened.”
“Until you arranged for the admiral to let Kinsdale House.”
Cynthia’s smile was bitter. “Clara took rather longer to make up her mind than anyone expected, and up until this very year, I was not sure what she’d eventually decide.
I thought with the admiral at Kinsdale House, I’d be able to manage to see my son more frequently.
If I could just bide my time, I’d be able to explain to Lord Casselmaine that there was a legitimate male heir to the Kinsdale estate.
His grace is a rational man. He would understand the way of it, and not fight the thing. ”
“Unlike your father,” said Rosalind. There it was, the real reason she had kept such a secret for so long. She knew Sir Anthony’s vanity, and his desperation. She feared her father would turn on her and attempt to brand her son a bastard, and that he might just succeed.
This realization led to another. “Did Elizabeth find out about your son?”
“Elizabeth had found my copy of the birth certificate,” she said.
“And my marriage certificate. I don’t know how long she’d known about them, but, after our father died she came to me and she informed me she had them both.
” Cynthia looked down at her fist. “She said she’d burn both papers if I did not help her.
I was to confirm the statement she swore out to the coroner, or she would make the world believe that my son was illegitimate. ”
Which would mean he could not inherit the Kinsdale estate, even as encumbered as it was. Rosalind waited, curious to see if Cynthia would say the rest.
Cynthia met Rosalind’s gaze, but what she saw there, Rosalind could not guess. Whatever it might have been, it was Cynthia who spoke next.
“And, yes, she also said that she would confess to the world that it was not Mrs. Lynn she heard arguing with my father.”
“It was you,” said Rosalind.
“Yes.” Cynthia rubbed her eyes with her free hand.
“After the admiral came to the house, after he showed himself to be at the very end of his patience—I was afraid of what he’d do next.
He might break his vow to Jack and tell everyone about my marriage, and about …
whatever else it was he knew. I realized then that matters had gone too far.
That my cowardice, my obedience to my father …
everything, it had clouded all my better judgment.
The Walsinghams had been so patient, and cared so much for my son.
… So, I decided I would be brave.” The ghost of a smile crossed her feet.
“The truth was, I knew that everything was falling apart as it was, so I thought I couldn’t do any more damage by confronting my father.
“And so I did,” Cynthia said. “I watched as Mrs. Lynn deposited him in his room. I watched Thrush leave, carrying his coat, and I went in. He was very surprised to see me. He was even more surprised when I told him I was done with silence and secrets. I told him about my marriage and my son and that I was done protecting him, or anyone else in our family.”
“What did he say?” asked Rosalind.
Cynthia’s expression hardened. “He raised his quizzing glass and he looked at me through it.” Each word was sharp as glass and just as clear.
“He sneered and he drawled and he described what he thought he saw in front of him. I was … well, I will not repeat it. But I ask you to imagine what it’s like, Miss Thorne, to hear your father turn on you with such disdain.
To hear him bleat about his injuries and how all his daughters showed was ingratitude when we should have given him everything …
“My temper shattered. I screamed at him. I don’t even remember what I said.
But he turned his back on me and said that I should leave his house.
Now, at once, with only the clothes I stood up in.
” She stopped. She drew in a short, sharp breath.
“I lost my mind, I think. I picked up a candlestick, and I swung it at him.”
Rosalind waited.
“I meant to kill him,” said Cynthia. “I’m sure that I did.
I hit him in the head, and he toppled over and lay still, and …
” She shook her head hard. “I don’t remember much after that.
I remember stamping out the candle flame because the carpet had caught.
I remember being back in the hallway. I remember waking in my bed, although I was sure I had not been asleep. I remember the sounds of screaming.
“I remember Elizabeth coming back in and telling me that father was dead and that she knew it was my fault. She knew about my marriage and had helped herself to my proof, and would hold on to it, ‘for safekeeping,’ she said.”
Cynthia stopped, and it was a long moment before she could go on.
“It was only afterward I found out that the admiral was dead,” she breathed.
“Only then I fully realized that if the greater world found out about my son … that they, that his grace, and Clara, and … everyone, would think I’d killed him because he was going to expose my secret.
Was perhaps going to say that the marriage was a sham and that my son was illegitimate. ”
“So you agreed to say it was Mrs. Lynn,” said Rosalind.
Cynthia didn’t bother to answer. “What will happen now?”
Rosalind drew herself up. She laid her hand over Cynthia’s fist, curled so tightly around her ring and the memory of her love.
“Now,” she said. “We will see that the truth is told.”
“And after that?” she whispered.
Rosalind pressed her hand. “After that, we will all find ways to heal.”