For a moment Adam’s heart simply stopped.
Could that be the answer to all of this? Could everything be explained by the simple, the common answer that his father had grown tired of his mistress and her son, had seen them as encumbrances and consequently decided to dispose of them?
Of any other man, he might have believed it. But not of his father. Never his father.
At that time, he reminded himself. She said ‘at that time’. Perhaps she means to say that she later changed her mind.
“Go on, Miss Campbell,” he said. His heart was in his mouth, but he was doing his best not to let it show.
“A child’s voice joined in the fray. I did not look, but I am certain that it must have been little Freddie. It seemed that all of them were arguing with each other, and with a great deal of passion. Then I heard a splash.”
The air between Adam and Miss Campbell seemed to have grown perfectly still, as though it, too, were listening intently. Adam barely dared to breathe the words, “and then what happened?”
“At that point, my alarm for the situation exceeded my fears of revealing myself, and I emerged from behind the trees to see what was going on. And I saw. I saw…”
“What did you see?” he demanded. He knew that the aggression in his tone was not improving the situation, and yet he could not help it. If Miss Campbell was lying, then it surely was a convincing lie, for he was listening to it so desperately that he was clinging to every word.
Miss Campbell turned her face toward the lake, as though she saw the whole thing once again, unfolding toward its tragic conclusion before her very eyes.
“I saw Mary Warwick struggling in the water. I did not see Freddie at all, but I could hear her screaming his name. And I saw…”
Here she broke off.
“I have not spoken for so long because I have long doubted the evidence of my own senses. It has taken things to reach this point for me to realize that I must trust in myself, and to be honest about what it was that I saw.”
“Tell me,” Adam commanded.
"I saw the Reverend Miller standing on that very pier.”
She said the words out in a rush, and then gasped in apparent relief, as if marveling at the sensation of what it felt like to carry the secret no longer.
She pointed to the little jetty sticking out into the water. “And the only thing that I can surmise from what I saw is that he pushed her in.”
Chapter 38
Charity had always loved the feeling that she had when she went into the church.
She loved the quietness, the coolness of the stone, the way the Sunday hymns seemed to echo as a memory down the nave. She loved the smell of the place — of old books and wooden pews, of sunlight filtered through stained glass.
Most of all, she loved the sense of perfect safety that she always felt there.
The church was ruled from above by God and maintained from within by her father. By their joint efforts, she had always felt, no harm could ever come to her so long as she was within its walls.
For a few moments after she entered, she merely sat in one of the familiar pews, smelling the scent of the wood and breathing in the heady fragrance of the white flowers that adorned the altar, feeling the tranquility of stillness. Her previous urgency to find her father had melted away as soon as she stepped inside, being replaced by a feeling of serenity.
In the whirlwind in which she had so recently found herself, serenity seemed to her like a precious commodity. Therefore, she allowed herself the luxury of revelling for a few moments in the quiet.
But, trickling back to her — slowly and then fast, like the building up of a flood — all her fears about her father returned. Where was he, and why had he broken with his usual routine?
She had thought that she might find him here, perhaps in conversation with some parishioner who had drawn him away from his usual pursuits. Or perhaps — she admitted this to herself — she had hoped to find him in prayer, asking God desperately how he might heal the breach with his beloved daughter, whom he had wronged so gravely and who was now gone from him.
But he was not there. Her domineering father, who all her life had filled every corner of her thoughts with his heavy presence, was absent, and it frightened her. Not that same aimless fright that she had dispelled when she stood outside the church.
No, this fear was more concrete and came from a different place in her heart. It was the fear that a child feels the first time she realizes that perhaps she needs to take care of her father even more than she needs her father to take care of her.
A sound, however, cut through the footsteps.
It was the sound of someone walking through the back of the church. The space was concealed by a heavy velvet curtain, but the footsteps were sufficiently sharp that the curtain did not muffle them.
She did not know what it was about the quality of the footsteps that caused her to hide. There was no reason for it that she could consciously name.
Yet as soon as she heard a sound, she hurried, her feet silent on the stone floor of the church and into the little vestry. There she stood, barely daring to breathe nor make any other sound at all, but listening intently to everything that unfolded.
Charity sat there in silence for a few moments, and the footsteps grew closer and closer before stopping abruptly.
The church was quiet for so long that eventually, she gained the courage to peep out of the vestry and see what was going on in the nave.
Her father was in one of the pews, entirely alone. He was kneeling, with his hands clasped before him and his head bent in supplication. She could see that his lips were moving silently, and by their shape and the way that he paused for breath, she could tell at once that he was reciting the Lord’s Prayer.
Once the familiar words had drawn to a close, he stopped and spoke aloud. He opened his eyes and looked straight ahead to where the cross hung on the wall, as though he hoped to converse directly with his maker.
“O, Lord,” he said, his voice cracking on the syllables, “I have sinned,” he said aloud.
Chapter 39
Adam’s mind was racing so fast that he could scarcely take in what Miss Campbell had just said.
He understood the logic of the words, but he was certain that she must have been mistaken.
Why, he had known the Reverend Miller since he was a boy. To be sure, he was not feeling as fond of the man as he once had, given how he had responded to Adam’s courtship of Charity.
Yet, he could scarcely blame him for that. After all, what reasonable father would want his daughter to be associated with — much less married to — a man whose own father believed him to be guilty of murder?
What he found less forgivable, however, indeed, what set Adam’s blood aflame with anger, was the way that the Reverend had cast Charity out of his house. He could scarcely have believed that any father could treat his child so coldly, if, of course, his own father had not done exactly the same thing.
He started to think about the Reverend a little differently. How the man had clearly lied to Charity, manipulated her in some fashion in order to get her to turn on Adam. How he had been seized by such a fit of rage as to cast his own daughter out of the house. And, of course, as Charity had pointed out, the circumstances of forcing a daughter out of the home were very different from those that applied to a son.
A very different picture of the Reverend Miller was beginning to form in his mind. Little by little, he found himself starting to believe Miss Campbell’s story.
But, he reminded himself, there was always a reason to exercise caution. Just believing the Reverend Miller might be deceitful and quick to anger, did not make him a murderer by default.
It was, however, as far as he was concerned, sufficient reason to confront the man himself and accuse him.
“If this is the truth then why did you not speak it before now?”
“Who would believe me?” Miss Campbell asked. It was evident by her countenance that she wished
her words to seem defiant, but her eyes betrayed a sense of desperation and vulnerability. “Who would believe the word of a young girl against an esteemed clergyman?”
“Besides,” she continued, “to accuse the Reverend Miller would be to threaten the father of my dearest friend with the gallows and expose Charity herself to the prospect of ruin. How could I do so to one I love as dearly as I love her.”
“All I ask,” she said steadily, “is that if I should repeat my allegation, and that the Reverend should be condemned for it, then you will take care of Charity. I know that you have promised this to her, but it is one thing for a young man to make vows to a lady when he has nothing to lose by it. If the Reverend goes to the gallows, then Charity will be left alone and destitute. You must ensure that she has the kind of life that she deserves.”
“Of course I mean to make sure that Charity is happy!” Adam cried passionately, “I mean to marry her!”
“And I hope that you do. But whether you marry her or not, you must swear to me that you will provide for her in every way that you can,” Miss Campbell responded. “I cannot force you, as I am not a man and therefore have no means of coercion. However, I must count upon your honor to do as you promise.”
“My life upon it,” Adam swore.
Miss Campbell looked at him for a long time. He detected that she was trying to get the measure of him, to decide whether he was the sort of man who could be trusted.
He could not blame her for making such an assessment for herself. After all, the clergyman of her parish, the most respected man in the community, was a murderous blackguard, and she was the only one who knew the truth of the matter.
But whatever test she was placing upon him with the examination of her eyes, he seemed to have passed it, for eventually, she said, “Very well, I believe you in what you say.”
“I am grateful for your confidence, and will ensure that it is not misplaced,” Adam replied fervently. “I hope that with your help, justice for Mary and Freddie may be obtained.”
He nearly referred to Freddie as ‘my brother’, but remembered that this was still a secret from all but him and his father.
“Miss Campbell,” he said, “will you come with me to the village? I take your allegation with the utmost seriousness and believe that further inquiries must be made. I must ask you to assist me in this matter.”
“I will assist you in any way I can, sir,” Miss Campbell replied, her eyes growing round to emphasize her words. “Ever since this dreadful thing took place, I have scarcely been able to sleep.”
“I have one final question,” he realized, abruptly. “If it was not a woman who did this terrible deed, then why was there found a scrap of material from the hem of a woman’s dress?”
Until this question could be answered, he was not prepared to discard his suspicions about Miss Campbell entirely.
She stared back at him, seemingly caught off guard by the question. “I know not,” she replied quietly.
Either she is telling the truth, he surmised, or she is indeed an excellent actress.
He decided that he would not mention the matter of the dress any further. The scrap of material in Freddie’s hand was the only concrete proof that existed to guide him in the right direction to what had really happened, and he was not going to surrender that guiding light to anyone, in case they might use it to manipulate him.
He accompanied Miss Campbell back to the Hall. There was no one about except the ever discreet Miss Reynolds, who made no query as to why Miss Campbell was with him but simply obeyed his order to have the carriage fetched so that the two of them might ride into the village, for there was a confrontation to be had.
At first, they called at the vicarage, but when the maid told them that the Reverend was not at home, the two of them set off immediately for the church.
* * *
Charity did not feel at ease with the idea of eavesdropping on her father while he was at prayer, and so she retreated from the door of the little vestry and sat down on one of the small wooden stools.
Perhaps her father would come in, and there would be a confrontation that would be unpleasant for both of them.
Perhaps he would not.
Charity might have been thrown into a frenzy of anxiety at the idea that she could be on the receiving end of her father’s rage. But now she met it with an unfamiliar sense of calm. If he was angry, he was angry. If he was not, he was not. There was very little that she could do to influence his behavior either way, and all that she could do was govern her own.
Perhaps it was the sight of her father kneeling in the pew and looking so alone, that had made her appreciate he was just a man, and no more than that. Perhaps it was the feeling that had been growing inside her ever since that precious conversation with Adam, when she had shared her dreams with him and sincerely believed, for the first time, that one day they might become husband and wife.
She wanted the version of herself that would be Adam’s wife, when the time came, to be the best manifestation of herself. And that meant letting go of some of the things that had always haunted her and made her feel small. The chief among those things, of course, being her relationship with her father.
She was lost in these thoughts, sitting on the little stool, when the sight of something unusual caught her eye.
She noticed that stuffed between the wardrobe where the vestments were kept, and the stone wall behind, there was some kind of black object. It was pushed very deeply, as though someone had intended to hide it from sight.
Charity stood up, taking care to keep her movements quiet, and reached out to pull the thing out. It was wedged very carefully, and the process of moving it dislodged a great deal of dust. It appeared that, whatever the object was, it had been there for a while.
She was just in the middle of shaking off the dust and doing her best to avoid coughing loudly and betraying her presence when a noise interrupted her.
She heard the door to the church bang open, in a way that church doors were rarely banged, and a voice that caught at her heart with its familiarity calling out in a loud voice, which echoed in the melodious acoustics of the church,
“Good evening, Reverend Miller. I have a matter which I wish to discuss with you.”
Chapter 40
When Adam entered the church with Miss Campbell at his side, his heart was pounding so fast, he felt as though it might echo throughout the church.
It occurred to him that, one way or another, he was very likely in the presence of a child-killer. Either Miss Campbell was lying, in which case she was more than likely responsible for the deaths of Mary and Freddie, or else she was telling the truth, and his old tutor was a monster, in a way that Adam would never have even thought possible before.
“I wish to speak to you about some allegations which have been raised against you,” he said, keeping his voice low and calm.
The Reverend Miller’s face did not change, except that he looked at Adam slightly quizzically, as if he was not expecting words of this kind to be leveled at him in a place like this.
“Do not worry,” Adam added. “I will behave in a way that is fitting for a house of God. But confront you I must, sir, for the sake of myself and, more importantly, of my father.”
At this, he turned to Miss Campbell, and said to her in his calmest voice, “Miss Campbell, might I ask you to repeat the story that you told me earlier today?”
She did so. Her voice was amplified by the acoustics of the church, to the extent that it took on a sonorous quality, one of an upright witness in a court of law.
The way she recounted the tale, with the exact same details that she had referred to earlier, gave Adam no hint of whether he ought to believe it or not. Had she adhered so closely to the story because it was the perfect truth, or because she was cautious not to be caught giving two versions of events?
He knew not what he believed anymore. He kept thinking of Charity and what she might make of all of this. He wished that she was with
him to offer him some advice on what he might best do.
When Miss Campbell had finally finished speaking, concluding with the words, “I saw Reverend Miller standing there, and I believe that he killed Mary and Freddie,” the church fell once again into a thick and interminable silence.
It was the Reverend Miller who finally spoke.
“What is it about Miss Campbell’s version of events that compels you?” the Reverend Miller said quietly. “Do you believe her merely because she has chosen to point the finger at me? I would remind you, Mr. Harding, that this is a case of one person’s word against another.”
Charity Falls for the Rejected Duke: A Historical Regency Romance Novel Page 22
