“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.
84
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, e
specially. 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.
Manus made an agreement with Lily that Charlotte would never swing or be imprisoned because of Nurse Dixon. Lily, despite her religious beliefs, was prepared to swear in a court of law that she had pushed Dixon. Manus said no one would believe her because she was so small, and what purpose would it serve taking blame when they could so easily say that Dixon fell accidentally? As the only two witnesses, they could say what they liked, and who was there to contradict them? If Charlotte insisted on confessing, they would tell that decent Inspector Declan Doyle that Charlotte, already disturbed by the death of her brother, was in a nervous state revisiting the scene of Victoria’s disappearance after all these years and didn’t realise what she was saying. Lily could emphasise that even as a little girl Charlotte used to take the blame for acts she didn’t commit, so sensitive was her nature. There could be no case against her.
“You must go and find her and put her mind at rest straight away. And then bring her back to me so I can comfort her,” said Lily.
Goodbye, Mary Anne. You gave me such joy that I can only repay you by leaving you. Your Aunt Iseult will care for you beautifully until your daddy comes back, then he will marry Niamh who will be good and kind to you and you won’t even remember that I ever existed, while all the time, unbeknown to you, I will be looking after you and keeping you from harm.
Goodbye, Lochlann. Thank you for the happiness you gave me at the expense of your own. I feel almost light-hearted at the prospect of setting you free.
Our mother can do without my good wishes. She never liked me. I didn’t blame her for favouring you and Harcourt – she had her reasons which I’ll tell you about when we meet – but she didn’t have to make it so obvious. She’ll be glad I’ve gone, thinking she’ll be able to get her hands on Mary Anne. I’d like to see her face when she reads my will.
“Before I start looking for Charlotte or fetching the doctor, I’ll have to check on the stables. Will you be all right staying here and keeping vigil over Nurse Dixon until I get back, Lily? I shouldn’t be long. I don’t want that new wild colt kicking the door down and trying to cross the river to get home. He could do himself some damage.”
“How can you even think of a horse at a time like this, Manus?”
Can you hear me, Victoria? You seem to have left me and gone back to the other side. Is that so you can get ready for me? I hope so.
There’s some animal creating a terrible din in the stables. I should go and check but I don’t have the time and I might have lost my touch, anyway, and be of no use.
Can you see me from where you are, Victoria? I’m heading towards the Dark Waterhole. It’s difficult to be sure exactly where I am. I won’t be sure I’m at the Hole until I step off the ledge. I can’t feel my feet and the water isn’t all that clear. I’m not looking forward to that first inhalation of water. How long before I stop struggling to breathe? Will I sink to the bottom or rise to the surface straight away or later? Will you have a word with God so that I don’t end up in that other place with Dixon, where I belong? He’ll listen to the request of an innocent child.
It’s as well Lily and I have a reputation for being truthful, upright citizens, Manus reflected as he made his way towards the stables to check on the colt. Everyone will believe us when we tell them that the fall was accidental and Charlotte is innocent.
We can’t have poor Edwina faced with another tragedy to add to her sorrows. She’s already had more than any human being should be expected to bear in two lifetimes.
Soon I’ll know exactly what you went through. Keep your eye out for me, Mary Anne. I mean Victoria. How could I make a mistake like that? You look so alike with your pretty faces and your dark curls that it’s hard not to confuse you at times, though I couldn’t admit that to many people. They would think I wasn’t in my right mind.
Your doll is securely tucked under my arm. I’ll make sure not to drop it.
Could that be Harcourt? It certainly looks like him.
I don’t believe it. What’s he doing on the avenue?
I don’t have time to pray. Harcourt, you’re too early. Go back. You’re supposed to wait for me on the other side. It’s all arranged. The time has come. Breathe out.
Guide me, Victoria, and when it’s all over have your hand out ready to catch me so that I don’t fly straight past you. I don’t want to end up lost in space, searching for you for all eternity, with no hope of finding you amongst the multitudes.
Are you ready?
Tyringham Park Page 39
