She started in a low and gentle voice. “I am going to share some discoveries with you now that will be shocking. I do not expect you to believe them or understand them at first. This might take some time to sink in. But I am so very, very sorry to have to tell you this. Your son is not who you think he is.”
“He is my son!”
“Oh, yes, he is your son, of course. But he is a man, and men get to choose who and what they might be. Oscar has chosen a dark path to walk...” Was it his choice, Adelia wondered, tailing off for a moment. Anyone who has done what he has done must be mad, surely? And in which case, he would deserve only sympathy.
She kept meaning to ask some learned clergyman what the true nature of evil was, and she also found herself avoiding the question when she did get the chance. What if she didn’t like the answer?
Lady Katharine was staring at Adelia now. “A dark path? What do you mean?”
Adelia thought she could already see understanding dawning in Lady Katharine’s eyes. The woman was not stupid, after all. Adelia said, “None of this is your fault. As mothers, we think we can control our offspring but there comes a time when other things take over. Their own inclinations, their experience at school, who knows.” She took hold of Lady Katharine’s hands. “We believe that Oscar had a hand in the death of Hartley Knight and that he also ... he also killed John Parker.”
Lady Katharine moaned.
Adelia thought she might as well tell her everything now. “And that he has been poisoning Lady Buckshaw for a long time, and that he was about to kill the Dowager Countess too.”
Lady Katharine squeezed her eyes shut. After a few moments, she said, weakly, “Why don’t I feel anything? Why don’t I feel surprised, or upset? Why am I not crying?”
“I think it is because you know it is true.”
“I didn’t know...”
“I know. But now many things must be making sense to you. And you lied about where Oscar was when Knight was killed. You said he was with you, but he wasn’t. You must have suspected something, even then. I am not saying you’ve covered anything up, but a part of you has always known he’s not quite right.”
“Why? Why would he do such things?” she whispered.
“As to that, we are still unsure. However, The Countess has had a hand in all of this. She is as culpable as anyone.”
“How so?”
Adelia sighed. “She arranged your marriage to Jacob Brodie, did she not? She knew, even then, he was unsuitable. It seems that she did it as some kind of self-imposed penance for the evil deeds her family had perpetrated upon the Brodie family in the past. The lapis lazuli is all fake and always has been, but some fraud must have been resting upon it – it’s hard to tell, with the records being lost. The trade collapsed, anyway, and no one wanted lapis, real or fake. The family’s fortunes were in tatters in the 1820s.”
“She was only a girl then.”
“She was, but she’s quick and clever now and must have been quick and clever then, too. I don’t think she had any hand in what happened next but she witnessed it. The family somehow swindled the Brodies out of vast amount of wealth. Business deals and loans, the paperwork of which is all lost. Bad things happened that led the young woman as she was to think about curses and repayments and how one cannot escape one’s sin.”
“But the family’s fortunes were restored.”
“Yes, at the cost of the Brodie family. The Brodies’ ruin was the Seeley-Woods’ gain. And then things must have gone ill for this family too. There were unsuitable matches, the lingering bad air, the swamps and the corruption in the land, the castle appearing to be so fine yet it’s not, is it? This idea of a curse seized The Countess and she decided she could only shake it if she made things up to the Brodies.”
“This is madness.”
“Yes, it is. Madness comes in many forms, I am finding. It’s not always the one who is screaming who is the one who is mad. And don’t we tell ourselves stories of our past over and over? And our memories shift over time, you know. That’s what she has done to herself. She married you to Jacob Brodie to make amends for herself in heaven.”
“The ...”
“Yes, quite. She was selfish in her actions and you have paid the price for that selfishness. But now we come to Oscar. He knew there was some secret and he felt sure that all The Countess’s silly talk of the curse was linked to the ice house where the lapis lazuli was stored. He grew quite obsessed with it, as far as we can tell. Hartley Knight knew what was in there, and kept an eye on it, as he had been in the family’s service for many years and his loyalty was to The Countess.”
“Did he know?”
“Know? I suspect he knew everything. Such servants often do. I also suspect – and this is conjecture until Oscar confirms it – that Knight refused to tell Oscar anything. Who knows what stories Oscar made up in his head? Who knows what he thought Knight was withholding from him? I don’t think it was as mundane as the actual truth. The truth was not worth killing over, but it was a secret, and Oscar had plenty of time on his hands to wonder about it. In the end, Oscar has built it up in his
