Lydia Trent (16 page)

So
Evelyn had a brother, did she? And one of who some service was
required. What that service might be, the rest of the letters may
reveal, but we must return first to Malcolm Wade, who wrote, in early
September, quite out of spirits.

'Dear
E,

I
was very disappointed that you would give me no news of C the other
day. I know I was not a good father to her ten years back, but
believe me that I am desperate now to make amends.

I
know her husband died about three-and-a-half years after their
marriage, can not you at least tell me what name she goes by now? Did
she marry? Did she resume her maiden name? Or is she Catherine
Parrish still?

Given
my past conduct I am not surprised that you might wish to punish me –
but surely you can find a more noble way to punish me than in keeping
from me information about my eldest daughter?

Malcolm'

“
So
my sister is called Catherine Parrish, perhaps.” said Adeline. “I
wonder where she might be?”

The
fourth letter was again from Evelyn's hitherto unheard-of brother.
Dated in October, it read

'Evie,

Well
I am all ready, I have installed myself at the hotel you specified,
under a false name – if you should need to write to me then a note
to Mr Williams should find me.

If
I understood you correctly, I am to wait until a gentleman arrives
enquiring after a Mrs Parrish, at which point I am to – hum - take
such steps as I find necessary.

I
do say as I find this business weighs somewhat on my conscience,
however blood is thicker than water, and gold thicker than all, so I
remain your most obedient brother,

Nathan'

This
looked black indeed for poor Malcolm Wade, as the plot against him
began to take shape in Lydia's mind. That unfortunate gentleman wrote
to Evelyn, in better spirits, late in October.

'Dear
E,

Thankyou
and bless you for agreeing to meet once more, and for your promise to
share what you know of poor C at that time. I look anxiously forward
to the 5
^th
of next month, and until then remain your

M'

Finally,
establishing once and for all the chain of events, was that letter
and announcement that Lydia had seen once before, at the breakfast
table last November. 'It is done'. How fateful those words seemed now
as Lydia read again the story of the poor man who fell – who was
pushed, perhaps, by the unscrupulous brother of a murderous woman –
from a hotel window, and was taken up lifeless in the street below.

Adeline,
too, could no longer be blind to the truth.

“
So,
she has murdered my father.” she said, quietly, and began to cry.
Moving to console her, Lydia opened her mouth to speak to the
captain, who – was not there! At some point that gentleman, for
reasons unknown, had slipped quietly from the room.

“
And
he did not bid us goodbye!” cried Adeline in astonishment.

With
the shadow of a murderess haunting that house, Lydia and Adeline
could not hasten their departure enough. A note to Alfred had brought
the assurance that he would of course escort them as far as their
uncle's house, and he arrived in the fly which was to take the sad
party to the station. Lydia and Adeline bid a tearful goodbye to
Bessie – for she was to stay and keep watch on Mrs Trent and the
nurses, at the girls' especial request, whilst Maisy had been
promoted all at once from scullery-maid to ladies-maid, and
accompanied them.

Lydia's
hand was upon the door of the carriage, when she was surprised by an
unknown lady running up the drive, calling “Stop! Wait, I must
speak with you!” Lydia turned, and Adeline leaned out of the
carriage, as the lady came up with them.

“
I
am the woman you seek, I am Catherine Parrish!” and so saying, the
lady pushed back her bonnet to reveal the face of – the Captain!

The
girls were too surprised to do anything but bundle the lady into the
fly, that they might ask their questions on the journey.

They
had fairly begun moving along when all started to speak at once. The
Captain – I should say, Mrs Parrish – held up a slim hand to
still Adeline's eager questions, and Lydia's more pertinent ones.

“
Please,
please, be assured that I have not taken leave of my senses – I am
just as much a woman as either of you, upon my word, and if you will
listen, I shall tell you my story, which may go some way toward
explaining why I have hitherto concealed that fact.”

The
young ladies were more than willing to hear the story, indeed, they
were all agog, and accordingly stilled their tongues.

“
Some
portion of my history, albeit disguised, I have already given you,
Miss Trent.” began Catherine, with a slight bow toward Lydia.

“
I
hope now to give a fuller account of my early life and my unhappy
marriage. Yes, dear sister,” - for Adeline looked amazed - “I was
once a married woman. But let me begin at the beginning.

“
I
spent my early life in the village of Houghton, in Yorkshire. Of the
first few years of my life, I have none but happy memories, for my
mother – I should say, Adeline, our mother – was alive. Sadly,
due to a disastrously managed confinement, she lived only long enough
to say goodbye to the infant daughter she had brought into the world
but an hour before. That daughter was you.

“
It
was as if a light had been extinguished, and we did not know how dark
the world could be without that brightness. I, only five years old
myself, was left to care for my infant sister, whilst our father
turned to drink and low company for his consolation. All too well I
remember sitting by the fire, which was burning very low as the coal
scuttle was empty, with baby on my knee, waiting up anxiously for
father to come home. Sometimes he would come home in high spirits,
having won money at cards, and would dance me round the room and kiss
me and call me his good little Kitty. Sometimes he would come home
maudlin, and cry on my knee – imagine that, a grown man weeping in
the lap of a five-year-old girl! Other times he would be in a
thunderous temper, and hurl the fire-irons at me for daring to let
baby cry or letting the fire go out, or any other real or imagined
reason. Or he would be so fuddled by drink that I had to undress him
and put him to bed just like baby, or he would not come home at all,
and I would sit up all night and cry for my mamma.

“
Less
than a year after our mother's death, father married again. If I had
entertained the slightest hope that his second choice would stand in
the place of a mother to us, I was sadly mistaken, and sore
disappointed. I do not remember ever hearing one single word of
kindness from her. Indeed, I struggled to understand just why she had
married our father, as she betrayed not the slightest sign of
interest or affection toward either her husband or her stepdaughters,
or the most slender inclination to make our house in any way a home.

“
It
was no great surprise, therefore, when after but a year of marriage,
she disappeared from our house – but it was a shock indeed when it
was discovered that she had taken you, Adeline, with her. Though a
surprise, it did not seem to be a great blow to father, and I do not
think he ever made much search after either wife or daughter.”

At
this point in the narrative, there was a slight interruption, as the
party reached the station where they were to board the London train.
There was a brief discussion, when all at once Alfred decided the
matter by walking up to the ticket office and taking four tickets.

“
For
having been seen in the streets as a woman, you cannot go back to
being the Captain again at Allingham,” said Alfred simply, “and
so you may as well come with us. I daresay the girls' uncle will
receive you, you being Adeline's sister – or else you can resume
your male disguise and stay at an inn. I'll stand the blunt, if you
brought none away with you.”

Lydia
and Adeline were eager in approbation of this plan, and thus it was
that the London train carried away four, not three, passengers toward
the great metropolis.

“
Now
we are quite comfortable,” said Lydia, “pray do go on with your
story.”

“
Oh,
yes, do!” cried Adeline, “”You had just got to the part when
Mamma – I mean our stepmother – ran away.”

“
Ah,
yes. Well, there is nothing much interesting to tell of the next
eight or nine years, life went on in the same way as it had during my
father's widowerhood, except as time went by he drank more, gambled
more, and grew deeper in debt. From time to time he would win some
money, and some, though never all, of the bills would be paid, but he
always deluded himself into thinking that each win was the start of a
run of good luck, would live extravagantly for a while, and dig
himself deeper into debt.

“
By
the time I was in my teens, we were living in a debtors prison.
Though life was just as hard there as in the outside world, it had at
least this advantage – although when my father was in funds he
could get hold of drink, he at least could not gamble to any great
extent.

“
It
was about this time that father, desperate to find a way to get out
of prison, began to apply to our more distant relatives for aid. One
of these, a cousin, Martin Parrish, came to visit us. It seems he
took a fancy to me, for his visits became more and more frequent,
until at last he hatched the plan that was to be my undoing.

“
Mr
Parrish proposed that he would pay my father's debts, and bestow upon
him sufficient funds to start a new life in a different country, if I
would marry him. Knowing that, at barely fifteen years of age, I
would not begin to entertain the thought of being married to a man
twenty years my senior, not even for the sake of filial duty, he
instead devised a fiendish plot.

“
Mr
Parrish paid off the worst of the creditors, freeing my father from
prison. On his release, we set off to make a tour of Scotland,
father's excuse being that he had been so long imprisoned that he
pined for light and air. Mr Parrish was to join us in the highlands.

“
One
day, though the sky was threatening rain, we were to cross the
moorland to the next town on our route. It was a wild and lonely
journey of about thirty miles, with only one inn
en route
, and
barely a human habitation beyond a shepherd's hut to be seen. Father
contrived some business in the town which would delay him a couple of
hours, but he urged us to start upon our journey at once, saying he
would catch us up. Of course, when we were halfway there, it began to
rain heavily, and we were obliged to take shelter at the tiny inn,
after two miles very wet ride.

“
We
dried our outer clothes over the coffee-room fire, but the rain
showed no sign of ceasing that evening, and it began to grow dark. Mr
Parrish decreed that we must remain there for the night, for it was
by then too wet and too dark to see our road, and it would be all too
easy to lose our way. Alas, the room boasted but one set of rooms,
consisting of a bedroom and a sitting-room. 'We will have to tell
them we are man and wife.' said Mr Parrish, “I will take the
sitting-room, leaving you the bedroom, and your father will be along
shortly to make all right.'

“
Fool
that I was! I complied, thinking that as there were two rooms, though
in a single suite, that this would be a simple and practical way out
of our difficulties, and only found out the next morning, when my
father arrived, what a trap I had fallen into. For under Scottish law
at the time, a couple could be married, tightly and legally, simply
by stating that they were man and wife in front of witnesses. It is a
law which has saved the honour and reputation of many a young maiden,
but now, unwitting, that same law was the undoing of this one.

“
And
so I found myself an unwitting and unwilling bride at fifteen. I was
miserable, but not cast utterly into despair, for a little voice
whispered that at least I was away from my father, who treated me
only with contempt and neglect. This man must surely love me, to have
gone to such lengths and expense (though I only found out about the
money later, when it was cast in my teeth how I had been bought and
sold), which was more than my father did, and so I resolved to be as
good a wife as I possibly could at so young an age.

“
Alas,
it was not love, but a passing fancy. While I was out of reach,
Martin Parrish wanted me. Once I was his, he lost all value for the
toy he had so craved, and before I had been married three months I
found I had superadded jealousy and cruelty to contempt and neglect.
He drank more constantly even than my father, though gambling was not
a besetting sin with him. No, his addiction was violent control over
another human being.