“So her mother was very young when she had Catriona out of wedlock. And she was a parlormaid, which means she didn’t come from a well-to-do family.”
“No, but she had a pretty face, and that’s all girls like that need to climb the ladder. Having a baby, though, makes it much harder, so she started the story that Catriona was her little sister. Wove a tale of woe and tragically dead parents and a wee bairn who had no one. Good soul that she was, she cared for the child, though she was little more than a child herself. The story helped her find men who would keep her in comfort. Then, eventually, she found herself a husband. A merchant with a fine house and a new baby, his wife dead of childbed fever. Catriona’s mother took his ring and his name and raised his little boy and soon popped out one of her own. A perfect little family. Well, except for Catriona.”
“Did the husband find out she was actually his wife’s daughter?”
“Oh, no. She kept that secret. But the way Catriona told the tale, it was a bit of a Cinderella story, only without the fairy godmother. She was expected to clean and tend the little ones, and she slept in the attic with the servants. Her mother always told her it was just for a little while, that her new husband would come to open his heart and home to Catriona. Bide her time, do as she was told, accept her place, and soon her pumpkin coach would arrive.”
“It never did, did it?”
“Of course not. Her mother only told her that to keep her from causing trouble. Catriona grew from a girl to a woman, and men started to notice her.”
I cringe. “Her stepfather?”
“No, he paid her no mind. But his male guests did, and again, her mother told her to tolerate it. Be a good girl. Do as you’re told. Let them grab you and fondle you and leer at you. When one tried to do more, Catriona decided that was enough. She was not ending up like her mother. She injured the man quite severely. Stabbed him with a knife.” She pauses. “She was always fond of knives.”
I still have her pocketknife, on me right now, in fact, along with my derringer.
Davina continues, “The fellow said he would not summon the constables . . . if his host let him take Catriona into his own household, as his maid. The stepfather agreed. Catriona made the mistake of thinking her mother would save her. She did not. She agreed this was for the best, and so Catriona told her stepfather that she was her mother’s child. Her mother called her a liar. Wept at the betrayal. All she had done for her ‘little sister,’ and this was how Catriona repaid her. Catriona was run out of the house with the clothing on her back and told if she ever returned, she’d be charged for hurting that man, maybe even hang.”
I wait for more, barely able to breathe, but Davina only sips her tea.
“That is the whole of it,” she says. “I found her after that. She changed her name, and I taught her how to survive, and she repaid my kindness by cheating me every chance she got.”
“What did she do to you?” I ask.
Davina waves a gloved hand. “This and that. She could not be trusted.”
Because she’d learned not to trust. Her mother had disowned her from birth. That might seem like overstating the matter, but it’s not. Her mother refused to acknowledge her as her daughter, and that started out as survival, but at some point, how easy would it have been for her mother to claim she was a young widow with a child? Instead, she hid Catriona in plain sight and then displaced her by taking another man’s child as her own . . . while making Catriona care for that child.
Cinderella story, indeed. Forced to play the role of servant to her own mother, watching the other child—and then a half sibling—grow up in middle-class luxury while she slept in the attic.
It would all end one day, though. Just be a good girl. Do as you’re told. Earn your reward. And when that reward came, it was being given to a man who’d tried to rape her.
Cast out when she refused. Utterly and permanently rejected by the mother who’d made all those promises.
Had Catriona betrayed Davina, too? Oh, I’m sure she had, but Davina’s response tells me they were petty grievances, undoubtedly earned by Davina’s own little betrayals. Davina didn’t take Catriona under her wing to be charitable. She used her, and Catriona gave as good as she got until Davina sold her out to a killer.
It doesn’t matter whether Davina realized Constable Findlay would try to kill Catriona. She set Catriona up for a revenge that was sure to get physical—at the very least, the sort of beating Roy intended to inflict on Dorrit. If a woman cheats a man, she needs to be shown why that’s a very bad idea.
Whatever Catriona did to Davina, it didn’t warrant that. If it did, Davina would be quick to defend herself with details of Catriona’s terrible crime against friendship. No, Davina sold Catriona out for money. Plain and simple, and the fact Catriona was using Findlay only gave Davina the justification she needed. He deserved to know, so she told him . . . for a price.
“We’re settled, then,” I say, as I rise from the table.
“I don’t think so, kitty-cat. There are so many more stories I could tell you about your old life. So many people you need to watch out for.”
“No,” I say flatly. “That wasn’t a question. It was a statement. We are done.”
She starts to answer. Then her gaze rises to my shoulder. I glance over to see Gray there.
“Did you get what you needed?” he asks me.
I nod. “I did. Thank you.”
He puts out his elbow for me to take. Then he gives Davina one last look and walks me from the pub, and she makes no move to follow.
Chapter Sixteen
I don’t tell Catriona’s story to Gray on the way home, and he doesn’t ask. I’m still mulling it through, and I want to sit with it for a while. Even then, will I tell him? I don’t know. Catriona wouldn’t want me to. Everything I’ve heard about the girl tells me she would rather be the villain of her story than the victim. Maybe I’ll let her keep that, as much as I can.
