I found letters, not insects.
The ones I’d sent to my sisters, my father. All were here.
Colin never sent them.
I flipped through them. They’d been opened, read, then carelessly creased and closed.
I’d lost contact with my sisters and my father these past four years. My husband had kept my letters. He didn’t think my words were worthy to be sent.How could you, Colin?
“Patience, what is it? And what is that? It’s a book.”
My face must seem so troubled. I hid within myself, something I’d learned to do on these shores. “Jemina, I’ll get it.”
I pushed past the dozens of letters, even fought the stinging of my eyes and drew out a book. The leather thing was brown with a torn spine. Stuck in its gold leaf pages was my final letter to Colin.
I set the book into Jemina’s hands, but the letter I kept. My heart pounded as I unfolded it.
The paper was stained with tears, old ones from the day I penned it. And new ones leaking now from my eyes.
My clever handwriting, the curly script of myd’s—dearest,disappointment,don’t.
All my words, all my heart—my wanting to leave him, my needing to go home, my hurts—all stared at me.
I felt the same, except I wished he’d been strong enough to hear me. I wished this hadn’t pushed him into the Thames.
I killed Colin. Here was the proof.
He was ill. Why else would he try to keep me away from everything?
Jemina was on the floor flipping through the pages of the book. “This makes no sense.” She counted her fingers. “No one would do this.”
“What didn’t Colin do?”
“These are IOUs in your husband’s name and Markham’s.”
“Yes. They owed money. We knew this.”
“But these have been canceled.” She lifted the vowels to me.
These debt markers had indeed been marked paid. “The papers indicated a man named Sullivan canceled them. How much debt? Is Hamlin encumbered to this Sullivan?”
“Still adding.”
Jemina’s fingers of both hands were involved. She’d have a sum in a moment or two.
“Patience, it’s at least 2,804 pounds, all paid by an A. Sullivan.” She stood next to me and pointed to entries in the book. “The debts are tied to Grapes, Brooks, Watiers, and Piccadilly. What are those? And look at the list of men’s names, varying amounts, and then this Sullivan’s mark.”
Why was Colin keeping a diary on this man? And why did that name Sullivan—A. Sullivan—sound familiar?
My dream. The voices. The ones condemning, threatening Colin—was one of the accusers this A. Sullivan?
Nauseous, dizzy, I tried to reason why Colin would have such records, but then I looked in the compartment at my letters, my unsent letters to my family. Maybe there was no reason. Maybe Colin was simply unwell.
“Patience, I see you. I see the fear in you. This diary and these canceled IOUs have to be what Markham wants. A. Sullivan would know. The Widow’s Grace must find him.”
In my heart, I knew this Sullivan person was the key. But my heart was never a good judge of anything.
Jemina took the diary from me. “Let’s put the mirror back. We’ll study this in our room.”
