Page 95 of The Vanished Sister

“ ‘Fine,’ ” Rebecca said, ‘don’t tell us about why you ran away. But you must explain why you told Reggie that I am Papa’s natural child. We spoke to Papa three days ago and he said that there was never anything improper between you two before you were married. One of you is lying and we’re not leaving until you give us an answer.’

“She took me by the sleeve to the parlor upstairs, where we could sit down and wait more comfortably. This was not something I’d ever done, imposing myself on someone else, even if it was the woman who more or less raised me. But for once, I felt as adamant as Rebecca did.”

Reginald Carstairs passed the knuckle of his thumb over his badly cracked lips. Perhaps instead of food, he was in greater need of some beef tea. “After a while Mamma came up the stairs, sat down in the parlor, and clutched at her temple. ‘Does it matter, Rebecca? You never saw Reggie in a loverly fashion. You wouldn’t have accepted him anyway.’

“I was aghast. How could it not matter? Rebecca endured a terrible marriage. Mine made both myself and Emaline miserable. Why was this woman, who had always been kind and patient toward me, so unabashed to have taken away the opportunity for us to avoid so much unhappiness?

“ ‘I never saw him as anything except a brother because I was told never to see him as anything except a brother,’ Rebecca cried before I could say anything. ‘By you, by my governess, both of you adamant that I should view him as a fraternal twin!’

“I grew angry at that point. I’ve never amounted to much. Perhaps I was never meant to, but that the purest love I’d ever felt turned out to be incestuous—that left a mark. Ever since then I’d felt like a character in a Greek tragedy, one destined for great misfortune. And I was convinced that if I pursued other goals, I’d only bring down that fated calamity that much sooner.

“But now? She wasn’t even disputing Papa’s claim. If Rebecca and I had never been related by blood, then why had she made me suffer through years of quiet despair?

“I jumped out of my chair. ‘Why did you lie to me? I’d always been so grateful that you came into our lives and made Papa happy and made everything beautiful. But are you in fact the evil stepmother that every fairy tale warns about?’

“Rebecca, too, was on her feet. ‘And why did you encourage me to marry early? I never questioned that advice before because I’d never met a mother who didn’t want her daughters married soonest. But why was being the mistress of Noble House good enough for you but something you actively thwarted for me, going so far as to invent that ridiculous lie?’

“Mamma tented a hand before her eyes. ‘Please, can we discuss this some other time?’

“ ‘When? Or are you simply going to tell us next time that it’s still not a good time?’ demanded Rebecca.

“ ‘If I do it’s for your own good,’ snapped Mamma.”

Reginald Carstairs covered his eyes. From beneath his hand tears seeped down. “Before I knew what I was doing, I’d grabbed Rebecca’s handbag and pulled out the derringer she’d been carrying around town. ‘Whatever you deemed to be for our own good has already done us a world of harm. You will not make any more such decisions for us. You will tell us the real reason and we will make our own judgment.’

“ ‘Put away that ridiculous thing, Reggie. What’s the matter with you?’ Mamma scolded. ‘Don’t wave a firearm around unless you plan to use it.’

“I was ridiculous and I shouldn’t have been waving it around.” Reginald Carstairs lowered his hand and stared at its wet, glistening edge, the hand that had held the derringer. “I’d always been a compliant child but I was seeing red. How dared she ask what was the matter with me. Everything the matter with me could be traced back to her egregious lie. And—”

His breaths grew shaky. He rocked back and forth. “I straightened my arm and fired off to my right. I meant to do that and to tell her, ‘See, I used it.’ But the bullet ricocheted—and she was dead instantly.”

He looked out of the window again, his arms around himself, his profile nearly flawless despite the toll the last few days had taken on him. Charlotte remembered Livia’s description of the Carstairs heir as “exquisite” and sighed. The poor fellow.

“And now—” His voice caught. “And now that great calamity I’d long dreaded has come true and I’ve brought it upon myself.”

Thirty

In the end, Justina’s death was deemed an unfortunate accident and no charges were brought against Reginald Carstairs. As the wedding petticoat was not considered meaningful evidence—the embroidered ribbons had never been seen again—Everett Carstairs, too, was free to go home.

Mrs. Watson lost her ability to sleep. Miss Charlotte had warned her of the cost of knowing the truth, but even she hadn’t been prescient enough to caution against the obligations that knowledge placed on Mrs. Watson.

The Carstairses had asked that Mrs. Osmond’s letter not be made public until after Justina’s funeral, but Mrs. Watson did not doubt that the truth about Mrs. Whitehill’s death—and that of Reverend Robinson’s—would eventually emerge. What tormented her now was the fate of Cordelia Carstairs and certain of Miss Charlotte’s guesses concerning events around the time of her death.

She and Penelope attended Justina’s funeral, held in Noble House’s private chapel, with only immediate family present. Beneath the baroque ceiling, painted with the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, each man occupied his own row: Everett Carstairs, his head bowed deeply, Reginald Carstairs staring ahead, his gaze unfocused, and Charles Carstairs, who had chosen a spot as far as it was possible from his brother, his palm over his eyes. In contrast, Rebecca Wellesley and Emaline Carstairs sat shoulder-to-shoulder, Emaline Carstairs patting Rebecca Wellesley on the hand.

Mrs. Watson had always taken it upon herself to give solace. But on this day, she stayed away from the younger Carstairses—she couldn’t help but feel that her arrival at High Burrow had doomed them, even if it had been Justina’s idea, and not hers.

The younger Carstairses seemed equally uncomfortable with her presence. They were more amenable to being introduced to Penelope, immediately calling her cousin, including Reginald Carstairs, still obviously reeling from the consequences of his one moment of carelessness.

After Justina’s interment in the family’s private cemetery, Emaline Carstairs invited Mrs. Watson and Penelope to return to the house with them. Mrs. Watson thanked her but declined the offer. Instead she pulled Rebecca Wellesley aside and gave her the sizable case that enclosed the seven-piece diamond parure.

“I’m sure you recognize this. It should be in your keeping, rather than mine.”

And then she left, Penelope in tow.

Mrs. Watson took to living with her head in the sand. She already knew too much of what had happened and didn’t need any speculation by strangers. Sometimes she wondered, however, if it wasn’t worse to live in her imagination than to simply grab the papers and read all the worst, tearing off the entire scab in one go.

A few days before Penelope was due in Paris for the start of the new term, Mr. Mears announced a caller, Mr. Everett Carstairs of Noble House.