“You will regret it,” she writes in a clear declaration of her intention.
Knowing what was to come allowed her to plan the scene, which in turn allowed her to gain the advantage over the larger man.
In that case, the shawl was a deliberate choice, and I try to picture the disconsolate widow inspecting her wardrobe as she attempts to decide which frippery is best suited to ending her lover’s life: the shawl by Madame Valenaire or the fichu from Madame Bélanger?
Well,thatis an absurd image, is it not?
A widow buried in the country and owning scarves by the two most fashionable modistes in London is a wild fantasy. It is implausible enough that she even has the one.
Oh, but itisimplausible.
Struck by the realization, I drop the last letter onto the counterpane and retrieve the first from the packet. As previously noted, it is succinct and contains little of interest. I pick up the next missive, which begins with an apology for ending their tryst so abruptly.
It was not what she had wanted.
“Alas, I had socks to darn,” she explains regretfully. “Having taken in the neighbors’ sewing, it was incumbent upon me to return it in a timely fashion.”
Even so, she looks forward to seeing him again soon, hopefully on Tuesday. “My ardent admiration for your form and acumen demands further expression.”
Dutifully, I reread all the dispatches, but I already know there are no other references to financial hardship. There is only breathless infatuation conveyed in declarations of profound longing and heightened wonder. In the sixth letter, she dedicates three lines to Mr. Keast’s manly chest, which she describes as strong and sheltering: “a respite from the world.”
But the sewing cannot be ignored.
If Eternally Devoted was forced to darn her neighbors’ socks, then she could not afford to buyanyshawl by Madame Valenaire, let alone one from the current season.
Perhaps it was a present from her lover?
Is that explanation any more plausible?
It is not, as even if Mr. Keast had the scratch to send to London for an expensive gift, he would have had little notion of the au courant style. A man with his head in a farmer’s almanac and livestock tabulations would not know Madame Valenaire from the village seamstress and would require the assistance of someone with either a subscription toLa Belle Assembléeor a residence in the capital. In that case, the steward would have required a confidante, presumably a member of the household, given the constraints of his schedule, and as nobody has come forth with the information, I think it is safe to say he did not go that route.
A generous benefactor seems equally unlikely, as the garment’s condition is simply too pristine to be a castoff. By all means, give the poor, poverty-stricken widow your Madame Valenaire shawl, but the one with the mango-chutney stain along the frayed hem.
Could it be stolen?
Eternally Devoted, with access to one of the great houses in her district, snuck into the dressing room of Lady Very Important or Mrs. Magnificently Wealthy and tucked the gossamer silk shawl into her pocket before creeping out again.
An act of such brazen larceny would create a very great uproar in the household, with one or more of the servants being turned out without notice, and word of the theft would spread quickly among the townsfolk. If the news had not reached Lower Bigglesmeade, then that is because Eternally Devoted resides too far away. Mr. Jenner identified the distance as seven miles, which is not an insurmountable expanse for a scandal to travel. If the widow lives farther afield, then meeting Mr. Keast regularly would have been prohibitively difficult.
Based on this analysis, I decide the shawl was not stolen.
How, then, did it come to be in the possession of an impoverished widow in a rural backwater?
Incapable of coming up with an explanation, I am forced to contemplate a shocking idea: Eternally Devoted is the invention of a murderer seeking to divert blame elsewhere. The effort is not without merit, as turning our eyes outward rather than allowing them to focus inward is the surest way for the culprit to escape detection.
If that is true, then the killer must live here, at Red Oaks.
It is a chilling thought.
Instinctively, I reject it.
But the idea persists because proximity accounts for so much: It explains how the steward found time in his perpetually busy schedule to dally with a lover, and how that lover was able to sneak in and out of the house regularly without raising suspicions.
As for the murderer, she has a robust sense of drama, as the abject tale of love and betrayal she tells in her letters bears many of the hallmarks of a gothic novel, with a cursed hero and heroine meeting beside a lonely pond?—
Oh, but a pond!
That is where Georgiana meets Lazarus inThe Fate of the Dark Dawn.
