Tyringham Park (49 page)

Charlotte reached across and snatched the letter from Dixon’s hand.

“Go on, keep it if you want to. I can write a new one without any bother. You already know what’s in it, anyway.”

Charlotte tore open the envelope and read the first few lines that described her as a child murderer who was a threat to the safety of her own offspring.

“And I’ve one here for your mother. I’ll be delivering it by hand.”

Each word on the page activated the blade of the dagger slashing around inside Charlotte’s chest. Imagine Lochlann reading those words and turning to ask her if they were true. She thrust
the letter into her bag.

Fireworks were combusting inside her head and creating red sparks behind her eyes.

Imagine Mary Anne growing up and hearing of her mother’s wicked act.

She turned towards Dixon. “What did you say just then?” Her vision was now pulsing in and out of focus.

“I said I’ve written a letter to your mother as well. I’ll deliver it by hand tomorrow.”

Letter to her mother?

Delivering it by hand tomorrow?

If only it had been money she wanted.

“Then there’s Manus. It was because of you I didn’t marry him and have his children.” Dixon’s face showed a look of hatred. “It was because of you I ended up
with nobody to call my own when I was already an orphan without a family. Here am I now with no husband and no children. I’ll really enjoy telling Manus about you. Unless . . .”

“Unless?”

“I’m prepared to make a deal with you. I am prepared to destroy these letters and never tell anyone what happened to Victoria.”

“But you’ve already told Miss East.”

“Yes, pity about that. I couldn’t resist wiping that smug, superior look off her face. But you don’t have to worry about her. She didn’t believe me. And even if she did
you could trust her never to utter a bad word against you. Your secret is safe with her. As I was saying, I will destroy these letters and keep my mouth shut from now on if you pay me twenty
thousand pounds. No one will give me a job at my age and I find myself a little short. After all my hard-earned success I lost my life savings on a bad investment. You have to admit twenty thousand
pounds is little to ask to prevent Mary Anne being taken away from you. Cheap at the price if you ask me.”

Charlotte let out a primeval howl and launched herself at the unprepared Dixon, pushing her out onto the landing. “How dare you speak her name! How dare you mention her name and money in
the same breath? Hand over those letters, you vile woman!”

Dixon twisted her body to keep the bag containing the letters out of Charlotte’s reach while trying to shoulder her way back into the nursery.

Charlotte blocked Dixon’s movement and shoved harder, slamming her against the banister. It was the eight-year-old inside the raging thirty-four-year-old Charlotte who grabbed
Dixon’s neck with both hands and squeezed hard and bent her over the banister before Dixon had time to register what was happening. Dixon tried to struggle but after Charlotte applied more
pressure, cutting off her air supply for too many seconds, she remained still, angled so far over the handrail that her head hung upside down. She couldn’t lash out with her feet for fear of
changing the distribution of her weight and toppling backwards. The hand holding her bag was flailing around in the void, while with the other she tried without success to grasp the rail. Charlotte
had no hope of retrieving the bag without removing her hands from Dixon’s throat.

“I told you a lie,” Dixon whispered. “Teresa Kelly didn’t see you push Victoria into the river.” Breath. “I made that bit up.”

And I gave myself away by my reaction.

Charlotte loosened her grip but kept her hands in position. “What did she see exactly?”

“You carrying Victoria around behind the stables. That’s all she saw. As God is my witness, I’m telling the truth. She presumed I was walking in front of you. I swear
that’s what she thought.” She coughed. “I take back what I said. I only said it to get back at you. Let me go. I’ll burn the letters and never say a word to anyone. Your
daughter is safe with you. You can trust me. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“Then do it.”

“What?”

“Cross your heart and hope to die.”

Dixon made a feverish cross over her left breast.

Charlotte squeezed tighter. “Now hope to die,” she said, ramming her body tightly against Dixon’s to prevent her from struggling.

“Don’t, Charlotte dear. Don’t do it. Let her go.”

The voice came from the second-floor stairs straight underneath.

“Miss East, is that you?”

Tears filled Charlotte’s eyes and, distracted, she loosened her fingers a little.

Energy surged into Dixon’s body. “You heard her. Let me go,” she pleaded. “Trust me. I won’t say anything to anybody.”

“That’s one true thing you’ve said at last.”

Charlotte kept Dixon’s body balanced over the void. Her fingers, tightening and loosening alternately, stayed on either side of Dixon’s windpipe.

The door downstairs banged shut.

“That’s Manus, Charlotte dear.”

“Thank God,” whispered Dixon, relaxing.

“He’s coming to help you.” Miss East’s voice was closer. “Stay still until he gets here.”

Charlotte wanted to look down to see her old protector’s beloved face, but she couldn’t chance taking her eye off Dixon even for a second.

The clatter of ascending footsteps filled the stairwell.

Lily stood on the lower landing. Manus, who had taken the steps four at a time now stood beside the old housekeeper.

“Leave her to me, Miss Charlotte.”

It was Manus’s soft, beautiful voice.

Dixon smiled.

She thinks I’m going to let her go. That I won’t dare do anything to her while Manus is watching.

Charlotte tightened her grip and Dixon’s smile switched off.

“Let go of her, there’s a good girl,” Miss East pleaded. “Let Manus deal with her.”

“I’m coming up, Miss Charlotte. Stay steady.”

Manus was moving up slowly towards the entangled pair. Miss East stayed where she was, clasping her hands together in an attitude of prayer.

Manus was on the second-last step when Charlotte pushed hard on Dixon’s chin with one hand and gave Dixon’s shoulder a shove with the other, stepping to one side to allow
Dixon’s legs to flip over, and her body to fall unhindered into the dark stairwell and crash onto the flagstones three storeys below.

Manus’s outstretched arms, ready to grab a hold of Dixon, closed on emptiness. He leaned over the banister and stared down into the stairwell, and then looked back at Charlotte,
uncomprehending.

“Are you all right, Charlotte, dear?” Lily asked tenderly.

Manus took off down the stairs, the sound of his boots echoing around the stairwell.

“I’m truly sorry, Miss East, but I can’t stay. There’s something urgent I have to do.” Charlotte darted back into the nursery, and picked up her bag and secured it
under her arm. Then, without looking at Lily, she rushed past her to follow Manus down the stairs.

Manus was kneeling beside Dixon’s motionless body, feeling for a pulse. Charlotte kept her eyes on his hands as she couldn’t look him in the face. She felt an urge
to kneel down beside him to kiss his those sun-browned hands in gratitude for his kindness to her as a child, but she didn’t think he would appreciate the gesture from a woman he had just
witnessed committing a heinous crime.

“Is she dead?” asked Charlotte.

There was no sign of blood or protruding bones.

“There’s no pulse.” He crossed himself. “Poor unfortunate woman. God rest her soul.”

Charlotte reached down for Dixon’s handbag. “There’s something in it that belongs to me,” she said, ignoring Manus’s hand stretched out as if to block her. She
opened the bag, removed three letters, dropped the bag and left. She heard Manus calling after her, something about a doctor, but she ignored him.

Halfway between the nursery and the river she slowed down to read the letters addressed to her mother, Manus and Lily Cooper. They all contained the same accusation: that Charlotte had
deliberately murdered her pretty little favoured sister and the authorities should be informed so that any child in her care should be removed for its own safety.

It’s all true.

All of it. Every poisonous word is true. I have to admit it. Dixon is right. I am not a fit person to rear a child. I should have accepted Benedict’s death as the true judgement that it
was and left well alone. I didn’t deserve a second chance. I didn’t deserve a beautiful daughter like Mary Anne. What false reasoning made me think she could replace Victoria and make
everything better? Nothing can ever make anything better. I have been fooling myself. And I have been so happy. What right did I have to be happy?

The best I can do now is keep my secret safe. Miss East and I are the only living people who know what happened to Victoria and I would trust Miss East with my life not to tell. It’s a
consolation to me that Lochlann and Mary Anne will never have to suffer shame because of their association with me now that I know the secret will never be revealed.

When she arrived at the stretch of the river where Victoria had gone in, her legs went from underneath her.

There in front of her was the bank where she had stood helplessly, watching Victoria being carried away by the flood.

She crawled across the gravel onto the grass verge at edge of the bank. She took the letters from her bag and tore them into tiny pieces. She scattered them into the river and watched them drift
away.

She looked down into the river, then turned her head to focus on the spot in the distance where she had last seen Victoria.

I should have followed you in, my pet.

Victoria, it’s me. Charlotte. Your big sister.

Is it too late?

Will you come and talk to me?

Manus guided Lily to the rocking chair in the nursery and when she was seated told her that Dixon was dead. He took the red blanket from Victoria’s cot and shook the dust
out of it. “I’ll come straight back and bring you over to the cottage,” he said, draping the blanket over his arm. “You look as if you could do with a brandy.”

Was that really Charlotte who did that? Manus asked himself as he went back down the stairs. She was such a biddable child and Dixon was so good to her – it was hard to credit she could
have done such a thing.

I can feel your presence, Victoria
.

Thank you for coming so quickly. You don’t know how much it means to me that you are here. I was afraid you would turn away in disgust when you heard my voice
.
I’m sorry I
sent you on that long cold journey on your own. I wish I’d had the courage to go with you then. It would have saved a lot of people a lot of trouble if I had.

I think I’m suffering from delayed shock. Don’t go away, my dear little sister. I need to keep my head down for a bit longer so that I don’t pass out. I’ve been having
problems with my nerves lately.

That feels a bit better. I can sit up now. There.

It’s nice to feel you beside me. It’s a relief to be able to speak openly to you at last. Keeping secrets is such a tiring business.

It makes me sad to think that if Teresa had stopped to speak to us that afternoon how differently our lives would have turned out. Yours, especially. You would have had a chance at least to
live yours. I wouldn’t have done what I did, and we would have grown up to be close friends as well as sisters. I missed you all my life, even during those years when you hid from me.

I wish with all my heart that I had never pushed you.

I’ve just killed that horrible Nurse Dixon. You probably already know that seeing as you’re on the other side. I had to shut her up. She threatened to tell
everyone what I did to you so that my Mary Anne would be taken away from me. She blamed me for her single, childless state. Manus didn’t want her and she blamed me.

I deliberately pushed her over the banister outside the nursery. I could say her fall was an accident. I could say that pushing you into the river was an accident as well. Who could
contradict me when there were no witnesses? Miss East and Manus would lie about Dixon for me, I know. They would swear that I was nowhere near Dixon when she went over. Would I have the right to
ask the two of them to perjure themselves for me? Hardly, when I never came down to see them and I couldn’t even look either of them in the eye just now. I hope it’s nice where you
live, Victoria, and that you have a lot of friends. What do you do all day? Were you allowed to grow into an adult or are you still a young child? Where did your little body end up? You were being
swept along with alarming speed last time I saw you. It appears the fishermen were right when they said you were probably washed out to sea and your body would never be found.

I presume you met our brother Harcourt in heaven, even though you didn’t know him on earth. It might surprise you to know that you may well have shared the planet with
him for a few minutes, even though neither of you was aware of the other’s existence for obvious reasons. I didn’t work it out until years later. I’ll explain that puzzle to you
when I see you. We have a lot of catching up to do. The thought of meeting up with Harcourt makes me apprehensive now that our reunion is only hours away. We didn’t part on good
terms.

How bitter for me to leave Tyringham Park in this way, when I dreamed of living here for the rest of my life, with Lochlann installed as a country doctor, taking up hunting
and shooting, and Manus teaching Mary Anne to ride, and Miss East living in luxury, being treated like a queen.

It was a lovely dream, but now it can never be.

Believe it or not, my sweet little Victoria, the prospect of joining you isn’t as frightening as I thought it would be. Knowing you and Harcourt and baby Benedict are there ahead of me
makes it almost desirable.

If you are too ashamed to introduce me as your sister, I will understand, but please don’t abandon me altogether.