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“We did not have a piano in Jamaica, so I could not play there. We were poor and my father could not afford to have me educated as he would have wished. We had our land and our house and our past glories, that was all. When I came to England I learned to play. I learned to become a lady, a cold and polite lady. Did you know, it is not considered proper to have feelings in England? You must suppress them, you must pretend to be indifferent, and sometimes if you pretend long enough then you begin to feel as if you are dead.”
Anger glittered a moment in her eyes and was gone again. Suppressed. She smiled at Max.
“I’m glad you’re not dead,” she said.
Marietta felt it then, the tragic air that enfolded Susannah. The silent suffering in the line of her mouth and the set of her shoulders. Susannah was in pain, but whether it was justified or not, real or illusion, Marietta could not tell.
“Max,” she murmured a warning.
But Max was beyond understanding such subtleties. “You’re glad I’m not dead?” he shouted, his voice so full of anger and betrayal that it made Marietta wince. “Then why did you pay Slipper to kill me! Do you hate me so much? What have I ever done to you, Susannah? You’re my sister…”
“You don’t understand, Max,” she said, and sighed. Her face was beautiful but it was also gaunt, as though her life was being eaten away from the inside. “This has nothing to do with my love for you or yours for me. This is to do with justice. Papa took me away from my father and our home. He took everything, so that he could use the money to save Valland House and rebuild his fortune. My father had nothing, but he had me, and then the duke stole me too. So my father took his own life. Where was the justice in that, Max? Papa…the duke said he was sorry, afterwards, and I know he felt guilty when he looked at me. I always remind him, you see, of the kind of man he really is.”
“But that’s in the past,” Harold began.
She turned on him, her dark eyes blazing. “I have never forgotten! It is always with me, always!”
“Susannah?” Harold was staring at her, his mouth working. “Why are you speaking like this? Max, why is she saying these things?”
“It’s all right, Harold.” At once the anger was gone and her smile gentle. “I want to explain. I want Max to know why.”
“Know what?” Harold whispered, but now there was dread in his face, as if he was beginning to realize they were entering a place from which there could be no return.
“That the reason I tried to take him away from Papa was because Papa had taken me away from my father and my home. What he did was wrong, and he needs to be punished for it. If I take Max from Papa, then he will understand. Then he will suffer.”
“You tried to kill me,” Max said bluntly.
“Of course,” she replied. “At first it was just a thought in my head, an impulse. The day I threw the coins into the lake for you and Harold to dive in and fetch, that was when I thought, what if I throw Max’s closer to the reeds? What if he gets tangled in them and drowns? No one could blame me for that, and I would have given my father what he wants from me. Justice. But you swim too well, Max. So then I made the hole in the boat when I knew you were going out in it, but that didn’t work either. There were other times, other accidents, but I didn’t really plan them. They just seemed to happen. I didn’t want you dead, you know, Max. This isn’t about you, you can see that, can’t you? You understand, don’t you Max?”
Harold made a sound and turned away, and Marietta saw that he was crying like a little child.
“Last year you tried to shoot me? Was that you, Susannah?” Max’s voice had taken on an emotionless quality, as if he was sleepwalking.
“Yes, I was always a good shot, but for some reason I missed or you moved, I forget. There was a timber that I pushed onto you from the stable loft. I saw it hit and you fell and…After that I…I didn’t try again. I felt sick afterwards. And anyway, Mama died. I was looking through her papers and I suddenly thought: What if there was a letter confessing that Max wasn’t Papa’s son? It just happened, and I pretended to find it and…I was as surprised as anyone when I was believed. Papa was so angry, and I was glad, because I could see that both of you understood then how it had been for me. How my poor father felt when he lost me. You can understand now what it means to be wrenched away from where you belong.”
“You wrote the letter?” Max shook his head. “I don’t believe—”
“Of course I did. I used to do your lessons for you and Harold, didn’t I, when we were children? So that you two could sneak off fishing or whatever it was you boys did. I was always very skilled at copying handwriting, Max, and I knew Mama’s as well as I knew my own. Have you forgotten?”
He said nothing; there seemed to be nothing to say. He felt as if the earth was shaking beneath his feet and in a moment it would collapse and take him with it. Susannah was so reasonable, her tone was calm and persuasive, and her words even made a terrible sort of sense. But Max felt chilled to the bone by her.
“When he read the letter, Papa disinherited you and sent you away just as I’d hoped he would, but I knew that it wouldn’t last. Papa loves you, Max. He loves you more than me, and more than Harold. He loves you best of all. He would never let you remain an outcast. His temper got the better of him for a while, but now it has cooled he will eventually recant.”
“So you hired Slipper?” Marietta had forgotten Dobson was there, but he came forward now. “You got him to attack Lord Roseby in the lane outside Aphrodite’s Club, and tonight you paid him to shoot him at Vauxhall Gardens.”
“That’s right.” Susannah gave him a smile. “I hired Slipper. I couldn’t bring myself to try again, not after the last time. So I found a man who would do it for me, and Slipper was very fond of me. He called me his duchess. Vauxhall Gardens seemed like a good idea, and Harold saw a letter inviting you there, Max, and he told me. And I told Slipper.”
She nodded at her own cleverness.
“Max.” It was Harold, recovered now, although his face was still flushed and stained with tears. There was a desperate light in his eyes. “Please, don’t listen to her. She’s not well, you know that. She hasn’t been well for years.”
“My dear Harold, you must not say that. Apologize.” With a reproving frown, Susannah held out her hand to him. Harold hesitated, and then reached to take it with shaking fingers. He bent and pressed his lips to her skin, squeezing his eyes shut, as if he would hide from the truth.
“Sometimes it is necessary to take matters into one’s own hands,” Susannah said. “Make one’s own justice. The dead demand it.”
Such cold-bloodedness was breathtaking.
Harold gave a sob and shook his head. Marietta knew that Harold could not have known the truth about his wife; he had been so besotted with her that he had believed she could do no wrong. Poor Harold was
