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“Are thee going to stand there gossiping all day? There’s work to be done. If thy hands be idle, thee can take the berries in to boil.”

“The jury didn’t debate more than a minute. They knew Mr. Croucher for what he is.” Unlike Hope and Caty and Elias. “He’s to be sent to prison for the rest of his life.”

Caty yanked at a weed, shaking dirt from the stem. “It’s nice there’s justice for some.”

“For Elma too.”

Caty straightened painfully, pressing her hands against the small of her back. “If there were justice for Elma, Levi would be in the graveyard and not in Massachusetts.”

“If thee had been in court today, Caty—” Watching Richard Croucher in the courtroom, without his silks and brocades, was like peeling back the skin of a fine red apple to see the rot and worms within; he had stunk of corruption. In the witness stand he’d been bold; in the dock, he was a craven, crawling thing. “He’s the very devil beneath that finery. Thee would have known, from his countenance alone.”

Caty snorted. “What can one tell from a countenance? Levi’s was pleasing enough, and look what was beneath it! There’s no denying Mr. Croucher is an unpleasant man—”

“Unpleasant?” He’d raped a girl in their house and threatened to kill her if she told. Hope had seen her bruises.

“—and thee knows I didn’t want Elias to go into business with Mr. Croucher and I never thought he was of good character, but that’s nothing to what Levi did to us. If thee needs look for a devil, thee need look no farther than Levi.” Caty folded her arms across her chest, daring Hope to contradict her.

Hope set her chin, feeling her temper rising. “Doesn’t it seem strange to thee to think we harbored two devils beneath this roof?”

“Our father wouldn’t wonder at it. Thee knows he thinks the world is thick with sinners, and nowhere more than here. Except perhaps Philadelphia,” Caty added after a moment.

Hope wasn’t going to be lured into a discussion of their father’s grudge against Philadelphia. “Thee cannot expunge what happened by blaming Levi,” she said, in a hard, low voice.

Caty set down her spade. “Does thee think I don’t blame myself?”

“Yes, but for the wrong things!”

Over and over again, Caty lamented how she’d been bamboozled by Levi, how she had been fooled by his charm, how she ought never have let him court Elma, should never have let Elma leave with him that night . . . conveniently ignoring what the whole city knew, that her own husband had debauched Elma and then conspired with the man who might have been Elma’s killer to hide his shame.

They might never know what happened to Elma that night, but they knew what had happened to Margaret Miller, here, in this house.

How did Caty not see?

The humidity and the heat and the tension made Hope feel like she was about to burst out of her own skin. She needed to get away from this house, from Elias skulking in corners, half-ashamed, half-defiant; from Caty, working like a fury so she’d never have to stop and think; from the ghosts of Elma and Levi, which stalked Hope through the corridors of the sprawling, unhappy house. They were living a half-life, all of them, in this mockery of a garden in which only the hardiest plants survived.

At home, her mother’s garden would be bursting with young lettuce and woolly sage leaves, bean vines twined around staves, the exuberant tops of carrots pushing up through the earth. In the woods, the wild raspberries would have turned from fuzz to orange buds, working their way to ripening.

Hope looked at her sister. “I’m going home to Cornwall.”

“In August, when the fever season starts,” Caty agreed, seizing on the change of subject with relief. “Thee can take the children for me.”

“Not just for the fever season, Caty.” The city had too many memories, some of them good, too many of them tainted. “Thee could come with me, with the children.”

“Thee knows what happened last time I left.” There was no mistaking the bitterness in Caty’s voice, although she quickly put it aside again. “Elias needs me here, to help him manage.”

“Close the boardinghouse,” said Hope recklessly. “Why stay here after what happened? It’s enough, Caty. Let’s go home.”

“What would we do in Cornwall, to earn our keep? We’d only be more mouths to feed.” Caty tried futilely to brush the dirt from her hands. “Thee weren’t to know. Mother didn’t want to alarm thee, but Father—it’s only right he has no time to spare for worldly things. It’s not the house—we still have the house—but the rest of it, the land and the farms and the rents, he’s had to deed them away to pay his debts.”

“All of it?” Their grandfather had left their father a wealthy man.

“Before he left for England.” Caty was wringing her hands in her agitation. “Mother does her best—but it would be hard on her if we all came home.”

Last summer, Hope had been distracted daydreaming about the handsome carpenter back in Greenwich Street. Home was home, as familiar and comfortable as a pair of well-worn shoes. If the oatmeal had been thinner or the stew more vegetable than meat, she hadn’t noticed. There was a great deal Hope hadn’t noticed. Hope vowed to herself that she wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

“She should have told me! Thee both should have told me! I have hands and a will!” Hope was sick of people protecting her, of all the well-meaning lies. Or not-so-well-meaning lies. “All the more reason to go back! Thee know I’m not afraid of work.”

“Would thee trim hats for the women of New Cornwall?” Caty grimaced at her, looking almost like her old self, the sister Hope remembered before Elias.