The Misbegotten (61 page)

‘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.

‘Starling,’ he said quietly.

‘Yes, sir?’ She suddenly felt almost shy of him, ashamed of everything that had gone on between them since Alice disappeared. Jonathan looked at her with red-rimmed eyes.

‘I feel as though my head might explode,’ he muttered.

‘You are injured, sir,’ she said.

‘Yes. But it’s not that. Will you . . .’ He paused, and for a moment seemed almost as shy as she. ‘If you sent word that I wished it, do you think Rachel Weekes would come to see me?’

‘I am certain of it, sir,’ Starling replied.

There was no answer to her ring at the front door of the Alleyns’ house, so Rachel let herself in through the servant’s entrance, bold as brass, and went all the way up the back stairs to the second floor. She felt like a thief, a trespasser intruding where she didn’t belong, but she had Starling’s note clenched tight in her palm. She carried it like a talisman from which hope and courage flowed. As she came through the door in the panelling and onto the landing, she froze. Mrs Alleyn was standing in front of the naked window at the end of the corridor, as still as a carving, with her back to Rachel and her face to the black glass. She must have heard Rachel’s approach, but gave no sign of it, and Rachel’s exclamation of surprise died on her lips. It was still dark enough outside that Josephine could have seen little but her own reflection, staring back at her. Rachel saw the ghostly echo of herself in the glass.
My own image
, she thought, sadly,
nothing more.
Suddenly, her heart tumbled into the pit of her stomach. Jonathan’s mother stood too still, was too removed.
Has he died after all?

‘Mrs Alleyn!’ she cried out, before she could stop herself. Josephine turned slowly. Her face was empty of expression; she didn’t seem surprised to see Rachel, and she said nothing to her. After this moment of dispassionate study, she turned away again. Rachel went a few steps closer and stopped right outside Jonathan’s rooms. ‘Your son has asked for me, Mrs Alleyn,’ she said. ‘Is he within? Mrs Alleyn?’

‘If he sent for you then go to him, and leave me be.’ Josephine’s voice was as cold and raw as a winter wind. With a shiver, Rachel knocked on Jonathan’s door and slipped through it at once.

The shutters in Jonathan’s rooms were closed, the fire was burning merrily and candles lit all the walls. Rachel was temporarily bewildered by the abundance of light and warmth where there had only ever been darkness and a stony cool before. There was a smell of beeswax, smoke and spiced wine.

‘Starling? Is that you? Is there still no word?’ Jonathan’s voice came from the bedroom. Rachel tried to answer him but joy stole the words. She walked in silence to the doorway where she saw him, sitting up in bed in a crumpled white shirt, one arm bound up with a splint. There was a long, stitched cut on his forehead, couched in bruises. He looked up and saw her, and for a long time he did not speak. He took a slow breath, and his eyes shone.

‘Mrs Weekes,’ he said, at last. ‘You have come.’

‘Could you doubt that I would?’ she said.

‘When last I saw you, you were running from me.’

‘I . . . I was upset. Everything you’d said . . . my sister, and Alice. I thought . . . I thought . . .’

‘I know what you thought.’

‘And do you know what I now know?’

‘Yes. Starling has told me all.’

‘Then you two are reconciled. I am glad.’ Rachel swallowed painfully.

‘Reconciled? I suppose we are. She and I should have been united in all of this, through all these years. It was only mistakes and suspicions; only lies and silence that drove a wedge between us. But to Alice she was a sister. So to me, perhaps, she should have been the same. In my own grief and disorder I never considered Starling’s plight, but she needed my protection. It was wrong of me. Selfish.’

‘In times of ordeal, such omissions can be forgiven. She will forgive you, I know. That you loved and never harmed Alice will be enough for her.’

‘And what of you, Mrs Weekes? Can you forgive?’

‘I have nothing to forgive you for. I accused you, wrongly. I led you into danger, and injury. I should ask rather that you forgive me.’

‘But I am a killer. You were right about that.’ Jonathan sounded grim, sickened. Rachel walked closer to his bedside, and he didn’t take his eyes from her.

‘How are you? The wound on your head looks quite . . . bad,’ she said. Jonathan grimaced.

‘It is not grave. It should be bandaged still, but the heat and pressure of it were too much, and I tore it off. In truth, my head thuds like cannon fire.’

‘I should go, and let you rest. Sleep and make yourself well.’

‘Seeing you makes me well,’ said Jonathan. ‘Don’t go yet.’ Rachel smiled, but then it faltered.

‘My husband is the one. All this time, he is the one who killed your Alice,’ said Rachel. Jonathan looked down at his hands.

‘I know. But he was not the only one. I . . . her heart. Did you know that Alice could not see colour? At least, not all colours. She tried to hide it from me, but I knew. As if a flaw like that could have made me think less of her. She was colour blind, and her heart was weak. She often used to grow faint if she got overexcited, or was shocked by something. Starling said . . . Starling said that was what killed her, in the end. Dick Weekes only hit her, and her heart could not cope with the fear.’ Anger made his voice shake.

‘Yes. She says Mr Weekes claimed not to have intended to take her life.’

‘Yet take it he did, but he was not solely to blame. You have seen the books on my shelves, Mrs Weekes. I told you that at one time I studied medicine, and anatomy, in order to . . . understand how human beings work. What drives us – where the soul resides, and if it can be lost.’

‘Yes, I remember.’

‘I have read that in unions where people are . . . too closely related, their offspring will often miscarry before birth, or be born weak, and flawed. And die young. It is the same in animal husbandry. Stock books are kept carefully, to ensure such consanguinity does not occur.’ He stopped with a gentle shake of his head.

‘You mean to say that . . . that Alice’s constitution was a result of her . . . unusual birth?’

‘It is just as I once said to you, Mrs Weekes. We are merely animals, after all, subject to the same rules that govern all of God’s creatures.’

‘Then you know of your grandfather’s . . . relationship to Alice?’ She gazed at him searchingly. He looked up, his face stricken.

‘His, and my mother’s. And so mine too. Starling has told me everything.’ Jonathan’s brows pulled together, which made him wince.

‘
Everything?
That was no kindness on her part!’ Rachel cried. ‘She need not have—’

‘Yes, there was need. It is better that I know,’ Jonathan interrupted.

‘What will you do?’ Rachel whispered.

‘Do? About this crime against Alice? I see precious little that I can do. The only one who could have declared my mother’s part in it is dead, Starling says. Drowned in the river.’

He hesitated then, and seemed to remember that it was Rachel’s husband he spoke so heedlessly about. ‘Forgive my callousness,’ he said.

‘There is nothing to forgive. He is dead. I . . . I have seen him with my own eyes.’

‘My condolences, Mrs Weekes,’ Jonathan said cautiously. Rachel thought for a moment.

‘I . . . I do not grieve,’ she confessed, in a small voice.
I am set free.

‘His father, Duncan Weekes, might speak against my mother, if I asked him to. If a case against her was to be made. He knows things about . . . my family . . . that nobody else knew, until these last few days. You are grown quite close to him, are you not? Do you think he would . . .’ Jonathan frowned. ‘But then, who would take his word, poor and drunk as he is, over my mother’s?’

‘Duncan Weekes lies next to his son. Sickness and poverty have taken him.’ As Rachel spoke, guilty tears crowded her vision.

‘And for him you do mourn. Poor creature,’ Jonathan murmured.

‘He was a good man, beneath his weaknesses and sins. A poor creature indeed.’

‘Then,’ said Jonathan, pausing to think, ‘then there is nothing to be done. I will see my mother no more. That will have to be punishment enough for her.’

‘She waits outside. She haunts your door like a sentry.’

‘I will not see her.’

‘What she did . . . what she did, she did to protect you.’

‘And to protect herself. To hide her sins. You cannot ask me to forgive her.’

‘I ask nothing. I only say . . . I only say that to have family is a blessing, and one not to be sloughed off without due thought.’

‘A mixed blessing at best, Mrs Weekes. And this day mine feels more like a curse. You have a deeply forgiving nature, Mrs Weekes, this I have come to learn. But you should not forgive indiscriminately. People must pay for their crimes.’

‘Indeed.’ Rachel studied him for a moment. ‘You have paid for yours, Mr Alleyn. I have met Cassandra Sutton.’

Jonathan shut his eyes for a moment, and looked ill.

‘Starling . . . Starling said as much,’ he said. ‘But you cannot forgive me. You do not know what I did.’

‘I know the outcome! A live, healthy child—’

‘The child of a murdered woman! A child robbed of her mother.’

‘Cassandra Sutton has a mother, and a father. No – you must listen. She has a mother and father who love her very much. She is bright, and sweet, well cared for. She has been robbed of
nothing.
Her current happiness is all your doing, and you should be proud.’

‘Proud?
’ Jonathan laughed then, a taut and empty sound. ‘There is nothing from that time, from that war, of which I can be proud.’

‘I know how you came to rescue Cassandra. Captain Sutton said—’

‘Captain Sutton does not know. Captain Sutton was not there, in that church. What occurred was between the child’s mother, and me. And you cannot forgive me, because you
cannot
know.’