And then I took out my sword.
It was fitting—ironic, perhaps—that it should have been the sword given to me by my father. These days, I rarely go anywhere without it. Years ago, Reginald asked me when I expected it to taste blood, and it has, of course, many times. And if I was right about Betty, then it would once again.
I sat on the bed and put the blade of the sword close to her throat, then clamped my hand over her mouth.
She woke. Immediately her eyes were wide with terror. Her mouth moved and my palm tickled and vibrated as she tried to scream.
I held her thrashing body still and said nothing, just allowed her eyes to adjust until she could see me, and she must have recognized me. How could she not, when she nursed me for ten years, was like a mother to me? How can she not have recognized Master Haytham?
When she had finished struggling, I whispered, “Hello, Betty,” with my hand still over her mouth. “I have something I need to ask you. To answer you will need to speak. For you to speak I’ll need to take my hand from your mouth and you may be tempted to scream, but if you scream . . .” I applied the tip of the sword to her throat to make my point. And, then, very gently, I lifted my hand from her mouth.
Her eyes were hard, like granite. For a moment I felt myself retreat to childhood and was almost intimidated by the fire and fury there, as though the sight of them triggered a memory of being scolded that I couldn’t help but respond to.
“I should put you over my knee for this, Master Haytham,” she hissed. “How dare you creep into a lady’s room when she sleeps? Did I teach you nothing? Did Edith teach you nothing? Your mother?” Her voice was rising. “Did your father teach you nothing?”
That childhood feeling stayed with me, and I had to reach into myself to find resolve, fighting an urge simply to put away my sword, and say, “Sorry, Nurse Betty,” promise never to do it again, that I would be a good boy from now on.
The thought of my father gave me that resolve.
“It’s true you were like a mother to me once, Betty,” I said to her. “It’s true that what I’m doing is a terrible, unforgivable thing to do. Believe me, I’m not here lightly. But what you’ve done is terrible, and unforgivable, too.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
With my other hand I reached inside my frock coat and retrieved a folded piece of paper, which I held for her to see in the near dark of the room. “You remember Laura, the kitchen maid?”
Cautious, she nodded.
“She sent me a letter,” I went on. “A letter that told me all about your relationship with Digweed. For how long was Father’s gentleman your fancy man, Betty?”
There was no such letter; the piece of paper I held contained nothing more revelatory than the address of my lodgings for the night, and I was relying on the low light to fool her. The truth was that when I’d re-read my old journals I’d been taken back to that moment many, many years ago when I had gone to look for Betty. She had been having her “little lie-in” that cold morning, and when I peered through her keyhole I’d seen a pair of men’s boots in her room. I hadn’t realized at the time because I was too young. I’d seen them with the eyes of a nine-year-old and thought nothing of them. Not then. Not ever since.
Not until reading it afresh, when, like a joke that suddenly makes sense, I had understood: the boots had belonged to her lover. Of course they had. What I was less certain of was that her lover was Digweed. I remember that she used to speak of him with great affection, but then so did everyone; he had fooled us all. But when I left for Europe in the care of Reginald, Digweed had found alternative employment for Betty.
Even so, it was a guess that they were lovers—a considered, educated guess, but risky, with terrible consequences, if I was wrong.
“Do you remember the day you had a little lie-in, Betty?” I asked. “A ‘little lie-in,’ do you remember?”
She nodded warily.
“I came to see where you were,” I continued. “I was cold, you see. And in the passage outside your room—well, I don’t like to admit it, but I knelt and I looked through your keyhole.”
I felt myself colour slightly, despite everything. She’d been staring balefully up at me, but now her eyes went flinty and her lips pursed crossly, almost as though this ancient intrusion were as bad as the current one.
“I didn’t see anything,” I clarified quickly. “Not unless you count you, slumbering in bed, and also a pair of men’s boots that I recognized as belonging to Digweed. Were you having an affair with him, is that it?”
“Oh, Master Haytham,” she whispered, shaking her head and with sad eyes, “what has become of you? What sort of man has that Birch turned you into? That you should be holding a knife to the throat of a lady of my advancing years is bad enough—oh, that’s bad enough. But look at you now, you’re ladling hurt on hurt, accusing me of having an affair, wrecking a marriage. It was no affair. Mr. Digweed had children, that’s true, who were looked after by his sister in Herefordshire, but his wife died many years before he even joined the household. Ours was not an affair the way you’re thinking with your dirty mind. We were in love, and shame on you thinking otherwise. Shame on you.” She shook her head again.
Feeling my hand tighten on the handle of the sword, I squeezed my eyes shut. “No, no, it’s not me who should be made to feel at fault here. You can try and come high-and-mighty with me all you like, but the fact is that you had a . . . relationship of some kind, of whatever kind—it doesn’t matter what kind—with Digweed, and Digweed betrayed us. Without that betrayal my father would be alive. Mother would be alive, and I would not be sitting here with a knife to your throat, so don’t blame me for your current predicament, Betty. Blame him.”
She took a deep breath and composed herself. “He had no choice,” she said at last, “Jack didn’t. Oh, that was his name, by the way: Jack. Did you know that?”
“I’ll read it on his gravestone,” I hissed, “and knowing it makes not a blind bit of difference, because he did have a choice, Betty. Whether it was a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea, I don’t care. He had a choice.”
“No—the man threatened Jack’s children.”
“‘Man’? What man?”
“I don’t know. A man who first spoke to Jack in town.”