Property of a Lady(87)
Lee glanced down at her. ‘She’s remembering it all,’ he said. ‘A little at a time, but soon she will remember it all. I can’t allow that.’
‘If you make any attempt to hurt the child, be very sure I shall see you brought to justice.’
‘What could you do?’ he said, dismissively. ‘Who would listen to you?’
‘I mean it,’ I said. ‘Elvira is not to be harmed.’
I have spent the rest of the day and most of the night in a ferment of anxiety. I cannot believe William Lee will really harm his daughter—
But writing that, I’m reminded that she isn’t his daughter – or so Elizabeth said. Has that engendered in him a hatred towards her? And added to that is the fact that she knows he killed her mother. And that I saw it happen.
I have no idea what to do. I think he might try to silence me, although I don’t know how. But I believe I can protect myself against him.
What worries me is how I can protect Elvira.
27th November
Marston Lacy is buzzing with shock. No one knows the exact truth, but the word is that Elvira Lee has been admitted as a patient in Brank Asylum. Gossip and speculation is running everywhere like wildfire. Everyone insists it’s too incredible for belief, but then agrees that the poor scrap’s reason might have been overturned by the death of her mother. From there it’s been a short hop to people remembering that the Marston family – Elizabeth’s people – were not noted for their restraint or self-control. Old Roland Marston, say the older members of the community, was much given to boisterous behaviour and even fits of ungovernable rage.
It’s generally agreed that if Elvira’s mind has given way under the shock, it’s tragic that there’s no family to whom she could be sent. But William Lee’s parents are both dead, and so are Elizabeth’s – in fact, Roly Marston fell down of an apoplexy while rogering the barmaid from the Black Boar, and her mother expired from the shame.
For myself, I believe Elvira has started to remember more and more of what she saw the night her mother was killed, and that this is William’s way of ensuring she never talks of it. Then I remember that flare of vicious anger in his eyes and the way his grip tightened on the spade, and I’m dreadfully afraid for her.
Is it possible his action might be more altruistic, though? Is he afraid he might harm her, and is he therefore putting her beyond his reach? I don’t know. What I do know is that I would do anything to keep her safe from that terrible fury I glimpsed. He hates her – not only because he thinks she could speak the words that would hang him, but also because she’s a bastard from some unthinking liaison of Elizabeth’s.
I believe I shall now close these diaries, and this time it really will be for good. The lamps down here have burned very low, and shadows are creeping forward from the corners.
A few minutes ago I fancied I heard sounds above me. Could someone have broken into the workshop? But it’s unlikely. And I see that it’s past midnight, and that’s an hour inclined to make a man feel a little nervous.
The sounds have come again. Someone is up there. There are footsteps . . .
The trapdoor is being lifted – someone is coming down the stone steps towards me . . .
A sense of tidiness prompts me to take up Brooke Crutchley’s pen and make a closing entry in what is clearly a journal of many years’ standing. As I write that, I hear my wife jeering at me. ‘Tidiness, William?’ she would have said. ‘You never had an iota of tidiness in your entire body – you strew your belongings everywhere in the house with no consideration for anyone else.’
Perhaps she was right – occasionally she could be, the whoring bitch. But I believe I have a tidiness of mind – a scholar’s mind – and that’s what has compelled me to take the virgin pages from Crutchley’s desk and record what I have just done.
I have killed him. I stole out to his house in the village earlier on and hid in his workshop. I saw him open the trapdoor at the side of the old stove and descend the steps. And I thought – haha! my fine sly gentleman, so you have a bolt-hole, do you? But now I have you cornered.
He could not be allowed to live, you see. I’d like anyone who might ever read this to understand that. And once a man has committed one murder, the second does not seem so very bad. You can only be hanged once. You can only suffer hell for one eternity.
Brooke Crutchley knew I killed Elizabeth. And I believe him to be an honourable man – a man who would think the law should extort its due punishment. Two days ago, in the gardens of Mallow House, I knew I should have to silence him to prevent him talking. And tonight I have done precisely that.
It was remarkably easy. Murder is easy – the books never tell you that. Killing Elizabeth was easy – that blow to the head in the bedroom, then the push down the stairs. Several years of fury and jealousy were behind those two acts, of course. The taunting, the humiliations, the sheer bitter hatred . . . It is not given to all men to have rampant appetites or capabilities, and I was brought up to believe it was not within a lady’s nature to possess those appetites. (Street women are different – they are coarser-fibred, their sensitivities are less delicate. Or so I am led to believe.)
Killing Brooke Crutchley was easy as well. He had been diligently writing away in this room – and who would have thought an ordinary, rather stout clockmaker would have created this remarkable underground room? I have not inspected the books on the shelves in any detail, although I shall do so before I leave. But even a cursory glance by the flickering lamplight suggests he has some rare and curious treasures in his collection.