Cut to the Quick (42 page)

"I wasn’t certain. I didn’t know what to think. When I asked you yesterday if you’d ever wanted to marry your cousin, I hardly knew myself which cousin I meant. But then I heard how you’d lashed out at Miss Craddock last night Guy thought you were overcome by resentment of her because she was going to marry Hugh. That wasn’t the conclusion I drew.”

”1 never wanted to marry Hugh. People thought I did, and I let them think so. Anything was better than their knowing it was Guy— it was always Guy I—” She swallowed hard. “I had nothing against Miss Craddock, before last night.”

“When Guy suddenly took it into his head to dance attendance on her.”

“Yes. You’d think I would be past caring. You’d think, after what I did to that girl, I would be too chastened and remorseful to be jealous on his account, ever again. But it's no good. There is no cure. I think when I’m dead and lie under the earth, my heart will still feel this same tearing pain, to think somewhere he’s giving his smiles, and his lips, and his— his body— to other women.

“Don’t think I admire him, Mr. Kestrel. Don’t think for a moment I even like him. I know he’s vain, selfish, irresponsible, willful. Do you know what it is to love someone unworthy? When you can’t respect the person you love, you can’t respect yourself. My only comfort was that at least he would never know. Now I’ve lost even that—now everything will have to come out. And that’s only right Who am I to have any modesty or dignity, ever again? But there was a time when I clung to the consolation that he had no idea how I felt. If he knew, he might try to take advantage of my weakness Or worse, he might not think it worth his while—he might not

feel anything but amusement and triumph to know I was in thrall to him, like so many others. You don’t know—you don’t know what it’s like for me to hear about his conquests! People don’t talk to me about them, it wouldn’t be seemly, but I hear things, and I know what he is. I know he’s had mistresses—so many!—and I hate them all! I hate them! Whores!”

She covered her face with her hands. Tears splashed through her fingers. “But I’m worse than any of them. Because I called myself a gentlewoman, I made a show of virtue. And all the time I would have sold my soul to be with him, just once, as the least of those women has been!”

“Isabelle—” He tried to hold her, comfort her—anything to stop this hemorrhage of pain.

She shook him off and moved away. Even now, she must shut him out, shut everyone out. She would never change.

She stood leaning her arm against a pillar, and her forehead agarnst her bent arm He followed her, and silently offered his handkerchief. She took it, wiped her eyes, and blew her nose “Thank you,” she said, turning toward him with the ghost of her usual cool, direct gaze.

“Is there nothing I can do for you?” he asked “There is something. I need a little time to compose myself before I face Uncle Robert. I’m going to my room. Would you wait here for a quarter of an hour, and then deliver my confession to him?” He started to say, of course he would. Then enlightenment broke over him He shook his head bleakly “I can’t. I’m sorry ”

“It seems a small thing. And you asked if you might help me somehow ”

“I can’t help you like that It isn’t a small thing I know what you’re asking me to do ”

“Then you must kntfw it’s the only right course Uncle Robert won’t suspect you of contriving with me You can’t kftow for certain what’s m my mind You can tell him afterward, with perfect truth, that you didn’t know what I intended ”

“I’m not concerned with what Sir Robert might think This is between you and me, and I tell you, I cannot do it Miss

Fontclair—Isabelle, you may well be acquitted. Juries are often lenient to women, even women whoVe killed in cold blood.”

“And what would become of me afterward? I should be a millstone round my family’s neck—an outcast—a prisoner counting the days till my release! I won’t live that way, Mr. Kestrel. I won’t wait for release when I can fly to meet it. Besides, it’s justice. The law might be lenient with me, but the law is weak and partial. I’m a murderess, Mr. Kestrel, and there are times when the fever comes over me again, and I’m glad—I'm glad I killed her! I deserve to die.” “You think so now. But it’s been only a week. You’re in shock —you have no perspective—”

“I’m not in shock. This isn’t a decision I’ve made suddenly. I always knew what I would do if I were found out. If I were a man, you would stand aside and let me do the honourable thing. You would even applaud me for it.”

“But you’re not a man, and I am, and it’s not in me to let you take your life. Let me go with you to Sir Robert, let me help you through whatever happens—”

She was shaking her head. She bent toward him, soft with entreaty, and clasped his hand between both of hers. “Please! I’ve never begged for anything before. Please, I beg of you! Have pity on me!” “Oh, God! I wish I could. I’m sorry.”

She let go of his hand. Her face closed up. It looked grey in the candlelight, and very still. “Then do what you must. Ring for a servant, and send for Uncle Robert. I’ll see him here.”

She turned away. He went to the door and pulled the bellrope that hung there. Across the room, he saw her bow her head, pluck at the sash of her gown. Suddenly she raised her arms. There was a flash of candlelight on steel.

He cried out, ran toward her, reached her in time to catch her as she fell. The pearl-handled knife that had belonged to her father— the knife that had killed Aim6e Deschamps—was buried in her breast.

He cradled her in his arms. Whether she saw or felt him, he could not tell. She did not speak any last words. Her eyes glazed over, and she died.

*33* Maud’s Family Bible

The servant who answered the library bell took one look at Isabelle lying lifeless in Julian’s arms, and raced off to fetch Sir Robert and Dr. MacGregor. When they rushed in, stunned and out of breath, Julian told them what had happened and turned over Isabelle’s confession to Sir Robert.

Official wheels began to turn. MacGregor examined Isabelle’s body and pronounced her dead. Sir Robert forced himself to read her confession, then summoned Senderby from Alderton to let him know the investigation was at an end. Rawlinson released Guy and Geoffrey from his office, and set about drawing up a formal statement for Julian to sign regarding Isabelle’s death. Meanwhile, Lady Fontclair gathered the family together and broke the news, patiently explaining to those who were too shocked to take it in, and comforting those who progressed more quickly from incredulity to grief.

For Julian, reaction set in with a vengeance. When all the questions and explanations were over, and he was no longer needed, he went back to the deserted library, from which Isabelle’s body had been removed. He put out the candles and sat for a long time, hiding his white face and shaking hands in darkness and solitude.

MacGregor hauled him out again and bore him off to the dining room. He sat him down at the table and thrust a glass of brandy

under his nose, waving away his protests that he was really all right. “Bosh! Nobody who’s been through what you’ve been through could possibly be all right. You can’t bamboozle me; I’m a medical man. Now, drink that down, before I have you strapped to the chair and administer it through a funnel.”

Julian smiled in spite of himself. “You’re a very violent man, Doctor. I had no idea.”

“I can be if I’m crossed. Are you going to drink that or not?” Julian drained the glass. The brandy burned through him, leaving behind a soothing, steadying warmth. He sat back and closed his eyes. Suddenly he wanted more than anything to go to bed and sleep for a long, long time. But he knew that, though his body was exhausted, his mind would not rest till he had cleared away the last shreds of mystery clinging to the murder. He had not read Isabelle’s confession, and was not sure he wanted to. But MacGregor had read it, and Julian asked him to fill in the details lacking from his picture of the crime. MacGregor nodded, realizing that the young man needed to understand before he could forget.

Isabelle had followed the sound of violent weeping into Julian’s room, thinking one of the maids must be having hysterics. Aimee, distraught and disheveled, flung herself at her, clinging to her gown and babbling wildly in French and broken English. It was not her fault. She had not wanted to sneak into the house through that hidden door in the wall. Guy made her do it, and she had been afraid to refuse. She did not want to lose him. He had promised to marry her.

Isabelle, her heart bursting, demanded to know if Aimee was Guy’s mistress. Aimee shrank away in shame, then burst into tears again and flung herself facedown on the bed. Isabelle stood over her, the sketching box under her hand. She reached inside. Her fingers closed round the knife—drew it out—plunged it into Aimee’s back. Just one swift blow—but it landed, by blind chance, where it was bound to be fatal.

“It’s hard to believe, even now,” said MacGregor. “I never really thought I knew or understood Isabelle—but to do this!”

“I can believe it, after talking to her tonight She was half mad

with jealousy and frustration. That banked-down passion ate away at her like a poison. She was like an animal that kills in a frenzy of pain or hunger or fear.”

“It’s a dangerous thing to go through life playing a role like that, suppressing natural feelings. Too much self-control is as bad as too little.”

“Are you suggesting there’s a lesson for me there?”

“Just a word to the wise,” said MacGregor, smiling.

He explained that, after Isabelle struck Aimee, she dropped the knife on the bed and turned Aim6e over on her back. Finding she was dead, she was horrified to think what she had done, and how she had dishonoured her family. She racked her brain for some way to hide her crime. Aimee had said there was a secret door in the wall, and Isabelle tried desperately to push the panel open, hoping to hide the body there. But the panel would not budge, and she dared not try too long. Time was slipping away; Guy might come back at any moment, or Julian might come home. She would just have to leave the body where it was.

She washed her hands and the knife at the washstand. There was no point in cleaning the blood off anything else. With a dead body lying there, what was the use of scrubbing the washbasin or the wall? But as she was about to flee, her eyes fell on Aimee lying across the bed. Hatred welled up in her again. Why should the girl be found like that, a victim to be pitied and avenged? She ought to be discovered tucked into a man’s bed, like the harlot she was. That was why Isabelle closed her eyes and slipped her under the covers.

She went away, leaving the door locked behind her and the key on the hall table. It seemed best to leave everything as nearly the way she had found it as possible. When she got to her room, she closely examined her clothes and sketching things, but the girl’s wound had bled so little, there were no telltale stains. She rang for her maid, dressed for dinner, and went downstairs.

“Imagine what it cost her to brave it out in the drawing room, waiting for the murder to be discovered!” MacGregor marvelled. “Wondering all the while if she’d left any clue behind to give her away! But she kept her head till the very end. She told the truth

whenever she could, admitted she went to that part of the house between half past four and six—even admitted she had her sketching box with her, with the knife in it. Her idea was, since she couldn’t be sure what was known about her movements and what wasn’t, she’d better own up to everything short of confessing to the murder." “She was an extraordinary woman.”

“She had courage, I’ll give her that.”

“How is the family getting on?”

“The last I saw of them, Miss Craddock had drawn her father off, to give the Fontclairs some privacy. They're in a pretty bad way. Who can blame them? Lady Tarleton was hit hardest. It was too much for her, finding out that a Fontclair had committed murder, and suicide on top of that. She fainted dead away when she heard the news. I had her put to bed. Lady Fontclair is sitting with her.” He got up. “Time I went home.” In reality, he thought it was time Kestrel got some sleep. “I’ll look m on you all again tomorrow.” “Tomorrow,” Julian repeated. He could not quite imagine there being any tomorrow. The end of the mystery seemed to bring the curtain down on Bellegarde and everyone in it, including himself. “But it isn’t over,” he said slowly. “I feel somehow there’s something left unfinished—some piece of the puzzle still missing.”

“You’ve been wrestling with the murder so long, you can’t take it in that it’s over and done with.”

Julian was in no fit state to argue He rose, feeling very light headed, and took up a candle. “You know, the murder’s been solved without Colonel Fontclair’s secret coming out.”

“Well, that's something the Fontclairs can be thankful for, Dutch comfort though it is.”

“But it means Craddock still has his hold over them If they want to salvage what's left of their family honour, they'll have to go through with the marriage ”

*

Craddock said as much next day, in the drawing room after break fast. All the Fontclairs and their guests were gathered there except Lady Tarleton, who was still too shattered to leave her room. The others divided into small groups Guy stuck close to his father,

looking ready to bare his teeth at Craddock or anyone else who might threaten to harm him. Lady Fontclair sat beside Sir Robert, her hand in his. The wave of disaster that had broken over them had drawn them together, in spite of her betrayal of his trust. He had loved and depended on her for too long to thrust her from him at a time like this.

Hugh stood close by his parents, but his eyes were on Maud. He wanted more than ever to catch her alone, not so much to apologize for the things he said yesterday—that seemed like a hundred years ago now—as to make sure she was not too distressed after last night’s tragedy. But he had had no opportunity, what with his own grief for Isabelle, and the need to help his family through this crisis. He only hoped it was not too late to mend the rift between them.

All the Fontclairs were dressed in mourning. Maud, doing her best with the clothes she had at Bellegarde, wore a sober dark green gown and a black ribbon in her hair. She had in her lap the withered old family Bible she had brought from London. She clasped it tightly, her eyes resolute, her breath coming quickly. Julian thought she looked like a diver about to plunge into a cold sea.