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“She seemed driven, or else had retreated, to the periphery of things. She fought for Octavia’s marriage in the first place, but after that it seems her resources were spent. Septimus might have fought for her, but he had no weapons.”
“And Harry was dead.” He took up the thread. “Leaving a void in her life nothing else could begin to heal. She must have felt an overwhelming despair, grief, betrayal and a sense of being trapped that were almost beyond endurance, and she was without a weapon to fight back.”
“Almost?” she demanded. “Almost beyond endurance? Tired, stunned, confused and alone—what is ‘almost’ about it? And she did have a weapon, whether she intended it as such or not. Perhaps the thought had never entered her mind, but scandal would hurt Basil more than anything else—the fearful scandal of a suicide.” Her voice became harsh with the tragedy and the irony of it. “His daughter, living in his home, under his care, so wretched, so comfortless, so un-Christian as to take her own life, not peacefully with laudanum, not even over the rejection of a lover, and it was too late to be the shock of Harry’s death, but deliberately and bloodily in her own bedroom. Or perhaps even in his study with the betraying letter in her hand.
“She would be buried in unhallowed ground, with other sinners beyond forgiveness. Can you imagine what people would say? The shame of it, the looks, the whispers, the sudden silences. The invitations that would no longer come, the people one calls upon who would be unaccountably not at home, in spite of the fact that their carriages were in the mews and all the lights blazing. And where there had been admiration and envy, now there would be contempt—and worst of all, derision.”
His face was very grave, the dark tragedy of it utterly apparent.
“If it had not been Annie who had found her, but someone else,” he said, “one of the family, it would have been an easy thing to remove the knife, put her on the bed, tear her nightgown to make it seem as if there had been some struggle, however brief, then break the creeper outside the window and take a few ornaments and jewels. Then it would seem murder, appalling, grieving, but not shameful. There would be acute sympathy, no ostracism, no blame. It could happen to anyone.
“Then I seemed about to ruin it all by proving that no one had broken into the house, so a murderer must be found among the residents.”
“So that is the crime—not the stabbing of Octavia, but the slow, judicial murder of Percival. How hideous, how immeasurably worse,” she said slowly. “But how can we possibly prove it? They will go undiscovered and unpunished. They will get away with it! Whoever it is—”
“What a nightmare. But who? I still don’t know. The scandal would harm them all. It could have been Cyprian and Romola, or even Cyprian alone. He is a big man, quite strong enough to carry Octavia from the study, if that was where it happened, up to her room and lay her on the bed. He would not even run much risk of disturbing anyone, since his room was next to hers.”
It was a startlingly distressing thought. Cyprian’s face with its imagination and capacity for humor and pain came sharply to her mind. It would be like him to want to conceal his sister’s act, to save her name and see that she might be grieved for, and buried in holy ground.
But Percival had been hanged for it.
“Was Cyprian so weak he would have permitted that, knowing Percival could not be guilty?” she said aloud. She wished profoundly she could dismiss that as impossible, but Cyprian yielding to Romola’s emotional pressure was too clear in her mind, as was the momentary desperation she had seen in his face when she had watched him unobserved. And he of all of them seemed to grieve most deeply for Octavia, with the most wounding pity.
“Septimus?” Monk asked.
It was the kind of reckless, compassionate act Septimus might perform.
“No,” she denied vehemently. “No—he would never permit Percival to hang.”
“Myles would.” Monk was looking at her with intense emotion now, his face bleak and strained. “He would have done it to save the family name. His own status is tied inextricably with the Moidores’—in fact it is totally dependent on it. Araminta might have helped him—and might not.”
A sharp memory returned to Hester of Araminta in the library, and of the charged emotion between her and Myles. Surely she knew he had not killed Octavia—and yet she was prepared to let Monk think he had, and watch Myles sweat with fear. That was a very peculiar kind of hatred—and power. Was it fueled by the horror of her own wedding night and its violence, or by his rape of the maid Martha—or by the fact that they were conspirators in concealing the manner of Octavia’s death, and then of allowing Percival to hang for it?
“Or Basil himself?” she suggested.
“Or even Basil for reputation—and Lady Moidore for love?” he said. “In fact Fenella is the only one for whom I can find no reason and no means.” His face was white, and there was a look of such grief and guilt in his eyes she felt the most intense admiration for his inner honesty, and a warmth towards the pity he was capable of but so rarely showed.
“Of course it is all only speculation,” she said much more gently. “I know of no proof for any of it. Even if we had learned this before Percival was ever charged, I cannot even imagine how we might prove it. That is why I have come to you—and of course I wished to share the knowledge with you.”
There was a look of profound concentration on his face. She waited, hearing the sounds of Mrs. Worley working in the kitchen and the rattle of hansoms and a dray cart passing in the street outside.
“If she killed herself,” he said at last, “then someone removed the knife at the time they discovered her body, and presumably replaced it in the kitchen—or possibly kept it, but that seems unlikely. It does not seem, so far as we can see, the act of someone in panic. If they put the knife back … no.” His face screwed up in impatience. “They certainly did not put the peignoir back. They must have hidden them both in some place we did not search. And yet we found no trace of anyone having left the house between the time of her death and the time the police constable and the doctor were called.” He stared at her, as if seeking her thoughts, and yet he continued to speak. “In a house with as many staff as that, and maids up at five, it would be difficult to leave unseen—and to be sure of being unseen.”
“But surely there were places in the family’s rooms you did not search?” she said.
“I imagine so.” His face was dark with the ugliness of it. “God! How brutal! They must have kept the knife and the peignoir, stained with her blood, just in case they were needed—to incriminate some poor devil.” He shuddered involuntarily, and she felt a sudden coldness in the room that had nothing to do with the meager fire or the steady sleet outside, now turning to snow.
“Perhaps if we could find the hiding place,” she said tentatively, “we might know who it was who used it?”
He laughed, a jerky, painful sound.
“The person who put it in Percival’s room behind the drawers in his dresser? I don’t think we can assume that the hiding place incriminates them.”
She felt foolish.
“Of course not,” she admitted quietly. “Then what can we look for?”
He sank into silence again for a long time, and she waited, racking her brains.
