Page 77 of The Vanished Sister

After all, life was fragile and people died in great quantities all around, sometimes at breathtaking speed. And my cousin had been suffering from a great fever and a slew of other symptoms.

As I listened to Mrs. Biggs, however, guilt surged through me like a great tide. Almost everyone in the Robinson household had been unwell on that day: The staff had abdominal troubles, Baby Rebecca was teething and fussy, Reverend Robinson was burning up—and his wife was run ragged looking after everyone.

I, healthy and hale, had not stayed to help. I had not even offered to fetch the physician once I learned that the nearest one had gone to visit family and the next nearest one was almost fifteen miles away. Instead I’d absconded to meet with T.

I broiled in my guilt for hours.

That night, tossing and turning, I suddenly stilled. I’d recently read an account of the prevalence of criminal atropine poisoning in India. In the article the writer had mentioned an old mnemonic that medical students used to remember relevant symptoms. I could vaguely recall “red as a beet,” “dry as a bone,” “blind as a bat,” and “hot as a hare,” among other bits and pieces.

When I last saw Reverend Robinson from the doorway of his sickroom, all the curtains had been drawn to keep out daylight, but I could still see that he’d been intensely flushed—red as a beet—which I’d assumed to be a result of his high fever—hot as a hare. His wife tenderly fed him water and broth and said that he was suffering from a great thirst—dry as a bone. At the same time she warned me not to come too close, as I did not want to catch the influenza myself and certainly not to pass it to my children.

What would I have seen, had I been a more dutiful cousin and approached his bed? Would I have noticed dilated pupils, the most classic symptom of atropine poisoning? Would I have realized that he was close to delirium? And the reason for the drawn curtains in the first place, was it not because light would have been too painful for him to bear—blind as a bat?

I was sitting upright in my bed by that point, shaking in the dark. My dear cousin had done so much for my mother and me, yet in his hour of suffering, I’d done nothing at all.

I’m not sure what drove me to take the next step, sincere penitence or simply more of my customary heedlessness. Without discussing the matter with anyone, I arranged for a meeting with Mrs. Carstairs.

On my way to the appointed time and place, I kept telling myself that this great dread I felt would lift the moment I saw Mrs. Carstairs. That one look at that sublime woman would let me know just how ludicrous I’d been to even have these thoughts.

She walked in wearing a beautiful mantle. To this day I can describe for you the snowflake pattern of beading on that lovely powder blue garment. She looked like the winter fairy come to life, frosty and impossibly beautiful.

That’s right, thought Mrs. Watson vaguely. Winter, and not summer, had always been Justina’s best season.

But my dread, if anything, only multiplied when faced with the perfection that was Justina Carstairs. I had carefully prepared what I planned to say to her, even writing down and memorizing large portions of it. However, all the cogent, organized sentences fled, and I was left with only a logjam of useless words.

In all the years since, I’ve always wondered why I hadn’t bolted for the exit. Why I’d stammered and stuttered my way through the reason that had brought me there.

Yes, why? Mrs. Watson wondered in despair.

She knew why, of course, the same love and care that had led her to where she was, at this moment, perilously close to the truth.

But all the same, dear God, why?

Mrs. Carstairs listened calmly to my incoherent narrative, at the end of which I asked, with desperate hope, surely I’d imagined all this?

Surely she could not have deliberately saved him from atropine poisoning only weeks before, to much loud acclaim of her domestic dedication, only to turn around and watch him die of exactly that?

Mrs. Carstairs was silent for some time. Then, instead of answering my question, she told me of an evening, a year or so before Reverend Robinson passed away, when she found him in his study, tossing letters one by one into the fire.

I could only stare at her as she said, “I asked him no questions. I only helped him feed those letters into the grate. They were so many. So many.”

She reached into her reticule and pulled out a letter. My soul departed my body as I recognized that familiar and beloved handwriting on the envelope.

She handed the letter to me, then rose and marched out in full majesty.

I sat trembling for a long time. Without her having ever said so, I understood that if I were to breathe a single word of my cousin’s unjust death, I would pay with my reputation and my marriage—my life, in fact.

My courage, which was always far smaller than my foolhardiness, shrank into nothing. I fled. And felt hunted even after I’d reached the safety of home.

Somewhere along the way I realized that by threatening me, she had, in fact, admitted to her evildoing. She knew that my doubts were too deep to be assuaged by a few words of assurance from her—at least not permanently. That at some point, I might start asking questions and talking to other people. But now she had silenced me.

For years I lived in fear, afraid my misdeeds would become common knowledge. From time to time I wondered why I was the terrified one, I who had surely not committed as grave a sin as she had. And then from time to time I would be stricken by renewed guilt, that I was letting Reverend Robinson’s memory evanesce without ever trying to do the right thing.

When my husband passed away, I still did not dare do anything. But now that my own health is failing, I have made the difficult decision that I will not carry this secret to my grave.

Even as I set everything down in writing, I wondered how I would proceed to the next step. But in reading back, I think I might have answered my own question. Surely I hadn’t mentioned Mrs. Whitehill for nothing. Surely it had been a hint from above.

Perhaps she is the one I can trust to make this story public. This is the only way Justina Carstairs will answer for what she did all those years ago and my dear cousin will at last have a measure of justice restored to him.