Page 78 of The Vanished Sister

Caroline Osmond

Mrs. Watson had no idea when they arrived at the tea shop; she only looked up numbly when Miss Charlotte pressed a steaming cup into her hand, and noticed, via the large front display window behind the young woman, that she was now across the street from the post office.

“They do not serve potent potables here,” said Miss Charlotte softly. “But I told the proprietor that you’ve had some appalling news and she kindly poured a measure of brandy in here from her personal supply.”

Mrs. Watson gulped down half the cup—and then the remaining half. “There was another letter in that sealed envelope, wasn’t there?”

She might as well face it all at once.

The other letter was from Mrs. Whitehill.

To whom it may concern,

It was with both shock and sorrow that I learned of my friend Caroline Osmond’s secret—secrets, perhaps I should say: That she’d breached the vows of her marriage and conducted an affair while still a very young woman; and that because of this great indiscretion, she’d been unable to pursue justice for her murdered cousin.

Mrs. Osmond believed that were she to charge her children or her two oldest friends with making her story public, they would void the promises they make to her out of a desire to keep her reputation pristine even in death.

She, on the other hand, would rather render unto her cousin what she owed him and therefore chose to unburden herself to me, in the hope that I would give greater weight to justice over mere respectability.

I do believe in justice, but the execution of her wishes also put me in a quandary.

Mrs. Carstairs may be guilty, but her children are not. A scandal would cast a permanent shadow upon their lives and the lives of their descendants.

I have also inquired into the character of Mr. Carstairs and was told by Mrs. Osmond that he has a reputation of supreme gentlemanliness and is also known as a devoted husband. The surfacing of his wife’s misdeeds would no doubt also cause him untold pain, he whose only fault was to love someone who appeared entirely worthy of that love.

Therefore I decided, rather than decrying her wrongdoing from the rooftops, to write Mrs. Carstairs in private. As the mistress of Noble House, she has enjoyed decades of an enviable existence. It was time she repented and paid for the crime that enabled that existence in the first place.

Here I duplicate the letter I shall presently post to Mrs. Carstairs.

Dear Mrs. Carstairs,

We have never been introduced but we were both acquainted with the late Mrs. Caroline Osmond of Staffordshire, a cousin of your late husband Reverend Geoffrey Robinson.

Before Mrs. Osmond passed away recently, she implored me to make public your culpability in the matter of Reverend Robinson’s untimely death. But a scandal serves no one so much as the owners of newspapers. Therefore I consider a private and dignified end for you propitiation enough for the injustice Reverend Robinson suffered.

I believe three weeks sufficient time for you to make all necessary arrangements. If I do not read your obituary by then or soon thereafter, I shall have no choice but to make the matter public, as Mrs. Osmond originally intended.

May God forgive you.

Sincerely,

Amadea Whitehill

P.S. Mrs. Osmond was of the opinion that publicity was the only deterrent against retaliation on your part. But I believe in protecting the innocent and am therefore willing to take the risk. Know, however, that should anything happen to me, your crime will be made public and infamy will forever be associated with not only your name, but the names of those you hold dearest.

It is my belief that the above letter shall suffice in making Mrs. Carstairs realize that she has no path to follow other than the one I’ve laid out for her. Indeed, I can’t think of her except as having been racked by guilt all these years and relieved, if not actually grateful, now that her children are grown, that an outside impetus has at last come to make her face her crime.

However, having had very little experience with criminality and certainly never with murderers, I am forced to acknowledge that I may be overly optimistic in my views. Therefore I have prepared these letters, as well as other evidence safeguarded separately, in a manner I consider to be outside Mrs. Carstairs’s reach.

I hope they need never see the light of day.

Yours truthfully,

Amadea Whitehill

Twenty-Five

Dear Aunt Watson,