“Finally, I realized it would be light soon, that servants would be stirring in the mews and in the kitchens. I wondered if I had been stupid. There may have been a way out of that garden, around the side of the house to the front. Or he could have gone through the house. Either way, I thought he was probably at home and in his own bed, while I skulked like some criminal in the dark and cold…
“When I went into that garden, I didn’t really expect to see him. I was just removing the last possibility before I went home in defeat. But I had resolved to speak to him in private, to bring all this out between us and stop it. Dawn was just beginning, the light gray rather than black, so they were obvious…”
Her voice dropped to little more than a whisper. “They sat on the step below the kitchen door, side by side, touching. Even their heads leaned against each other.” Involuntarily, it seemed, she clutched her heart, as though the image hurt in some way that was beyond disgust. “I didn’t even realize they were dead at first. Until I pushed his shoulder and he slumped forward…”
Jacintha’s gaze lifted, coming back into focus on Constance’s face. “He smelled of laudanum. So did Neville.”
“Then you recognized Neville?”
“Oh yes. He was still Gareth Neville beneath the filth and rags. And he held Terrence’s flask in his hand, resting on his knee. It was laudanum. I knew what they had done. They had killed themselves together. You were right about that, only it wasn’t an accident, as you said. I thought…I thought he had done it because Neville was so clearly dying and he could not bear life without him. Or perhaps he just could not bear lifewithme.
“I thought,What is wrong with me that Jason would not fight for me, that my husband of twenty years preferred death to life with me?And then I thought of the children. And so I did what I could, with shaking hands. I pulled them apart so that they were leaning away from each other instead of together, their heads at either side of the door. I took Terrence’s notecase from his pocket and forced myself to shove it into Neville’s. And while my hand was in there, I found Neville’s knife. Terrence had given it to him, you know, when they were boys, and Neville had given the flask to Terrence.” Her lips twisted. “Lovers’ tokens. He had never used the flask since Neville left, not until that night. I shoved it under the potting shed.”
She stopped talking, as though no longer capable of it. Constance continued for her, as gently as she could.
“And then you stuck Neville’s knife into Terrence’s back to make it look like robbery and murder. A scandal, but not such a terrible scandal as a lovers’ suicide.”
Jacintha gave a helpless little shrug. “I had no time to think. It was the best I could do. And then I fled back home, only just in time to avoid my own servants. It never entered my head that anyone could tell that the stabbing happened after death and was not the cause. I thought the smell of laudanum would dissipate, and no one would ever know.”
Her voice stilled. Perhaps there was some kind of relief in confession.
“I didn’t expect to care,” Jacintha whispered. “Nor to miss him. I just didn’t want the world to know that he was a suicide and a pervert. For the children’s sake. Thank you for telling them it was an accident.”
Constance said, “They call suicide a sin. I don’t believe that. It is the ultimate despair and worthy of pity, not judgment. In your husband’s case, it was not as much about Neville as about you and the children. He gave Neville his company into death and meant to die at home, breaking the blackmail cycle and saving you all from scandal. Only he misjudged the strength of the opium in the flask.”
Jacintha’s brow twitched. “Is that what you truly think?” she asked tragically.
“Yes.” Constance leaned nearer and took the widow’s hand. “There is no crime in love. It is not perversion, not disgusting nor dirty. It’s what we all crave. The crime was in the blackmail that made Terrence consider suicide as the only solution, for everyone he loved. And perhaps in Society’s self-righteous judgments.”
Jacintha’s face was serious, considering. Perhaps the view would help her, in time.
“You are kind,” she said, almost in surprise.
“So was Terrence. He was a good man.”
Jacintha swallowed, her eyes filling. “He was,” she whispered. She stood abruptly. “I have kept you long enough. Goodbye.”
She almost fled, looking neither right nor left. Constance followed more slowly, in time to see her open the door and walk briskly toward the waiting carriage. Also in time to see Jason Madly emerge from the open door of the waiting room and watch her go.
He looked smarter than before. He wore a cravat and a clean coat, and he had shaved.
Constance closed the door. “You didn’t fight for her, twenty years ago.”
“It would have been a worse crime to marry her,” Madly said bleakly. “I knew that even as we eloped. I wasn’t bought off. I just stood aside.”
“And went to the devil.”
“Oh, I was already there.”
“You don’t have to stay there.”
He looked down at her. “Does she hate me?”
“No. She thinks she was worth nothing to you because you let her go.”
He was silent, then said, “If I did not know better, Constance Silver, I would think you a romantic.”
And Constance laughed because, apparently, she was.
