Kate Morton - The Clockmaker's Daughter

Lucy had still been looking at herself in the mirror when Lily Millington appeared behind her. She’d slipped the necklace from her throat and been about to put it back inside the box when the man, Martin, arrived and tried to take Lily with him. Lucy had dropped the Blue into her pocket instead. And there it was still, exactly where she’d put it.

Lucy had come to believe the inspector’s story about Lily Millington, but once she found the Radcliffe Blue, the stitch at the centre of the tapestry was cut and the rest of the picture, so carefully embroidered, began to unravel. Quite simply: without the theft of the heirloom, there was no motive. And while officials in New York had verified that a couple travelling under the names of ‘Mr and Mrs Radcliffe’ had arrived and been registered at the port, anyone could have used those tickets. The last person Lucy had seen holding them was that awful man, Martin. Edward had seen him fleeing from the house. He might have used one of the tickets and sold the other; he might have sold them both.

There was also the matter of the secret chamber in the staircase. For Lily Millington to have gone with Martin, she would have had to let him know where she was hiding and he to figure out the trapdoor. Lucy had needed instructions and even then it had been tricky. It would have taken time for the man to find Lily and further time for him to solve the lock’s puzzle. But Fanny had arrived so quickly, and Edward soon after that. There simply hadn’t been long enough for Martin to liberate Lily Millington.

Besides, Lucy had seen the way that Lily Millington had looked at Martin in genuine fear; she had seen, too, the way Lily looked at Edward. And Edward had loved Lily Millington absolutely; there was no doubting that. He had been a ghost of himself after she disappeared.

That Lily Millington had disappeared was not in question. No one had glimpsed her since that day at Birchwood Manor. Lucy had been the last person to see her, when she was locking Lily Millington inside the hideaway.

Now, back at Birchwood Manor, twenty years later, Lucy stood up and plaited her fingers together, flexing her hands in an old gesture of anxiety. She let them fall gently to her sides.

There was nothing for it; no use stalling now. If she were going to start a school in this place, and she felt very strongly that she must, then she had to know the truth. It would not change her plans. There was no way to go back and no point wishing things had turned out differently.

Lucy lifted the chair to one side and knelt down, regarding the stair’s rise.

It really was an ingenious design. There was no way anyone would find it if they did not know that it was there. During the Reformation, when Catholic priests were hunted by the Queen’s men, such places must have provided great comfort and safety. She had researched since and found that six men’s lives were saved by this very priest hole.

Bracing herself, Lucy pressed the edges of the rise and opened the trapdoor.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

As soon as she had looked inside the secret chamber, Lucy closed the panel again. Emotions, suppressed for so long, overwhelmed her and she let out a single great hiccupping gulp of grief: for all the years since finding the diamond, in which she’d carried alone the secret knowledge of what she’d done; for Lily Millington, who had been kind to her and who had loved her brother; and most of all, for Edward, with whom she had broken faith, leaving him all alone in the world by believing the inspector’s story.

When she could finally breathe again, Lucy went downstairs. She had known in her heart what she would find within the staircase hideaway. More importantly, she had known in her head. Lucy prided herself on being a rational woman: she had thus come armed with a plan. She had gone through each of the eventualities from the safe distance of London, and devised a clear set of tasks. She had thought herself prepared. But it was different, being here; Lucy’s hand was shaking too much to write the planned letter to Mr Rich Middleton of Duke Street, Chelsea. She hadn’t counted on that, the way her hands would shake.

And so she went for a walk to the river to steady her nerves. She reached the jetty sooner than she had expected and headed towards the woods. Without meaning to, Lucy realised that she was tracing, in reverse, the very path that she had run that day, from the photo shoot back to the house.

Within the copse was the clear spot in the woods where Felix had planned to take the photograph. She could picture them all now in their costumes. She could almost see herself, thirteen years old and filled with the burn of injustice, darting off across the wildflower meadow towards the house. Soon to find the diamond pendant, to take it from its velvet box and put it at her own neck, to show Lily Millington the hiding place and start the terrible ball rolling. But no; she refused to see her phantom thirteen-year-old self take flight. Lucy walked back towards the river instead.

When she had discovered the Radcliffe Blue within her suitcase in London, she had known immediately that she had to hide it; the trouble was deciding where. She had considered burying it on Hampstead Heath, putting it down a drain, throwing it into the duck pond in the Vale of Health – but her conscience picked holes in every idea that she had. She knew it was irrational to imagine that a wily dog might somehow discern the very place that she had buried the jewel, dig it up, and then carry it home; or that a duck might eat it, digest it, and then deposit it on the bank for an eagle-eyed child to find. It was equally irrational to believe that if such an unlikely scenario were to occur, the diamond would then be traced back to her. But guilt, Lucy had learned, was the least rational of the emotions.

And, in truth, the rediscovered heirloom leading attention back to Lucy was only part of her worry. What mattered more to her, and did so increasingly with each passing year, was how much suffering would have been for naught if the official scenario were now to be disproved. Lucy could not bear to think that Edward’s wandering might have been prevented; that if she had told the truth sooner he might have grieved for the loss of Lily Millington, but that he might then have been able to put her to rest and get on with his life.

No, the diamond had to stay hidden so that the story would continue to be believed. It had all gone too far now for anything else to be acceptable. But Lucy would know. And she alone would live with her knowledge. Given that there was no way of going back in time to do things differently, eternal guilt and isolation seemed like a fitting punishment.

She had intended to put the pendant in the box with everything else, but now, suddenly, as she stood by the edge of the Thames, such a different river here from the one she knew in London, she felt a need to be rid of it even sooner. The river was the perfect place. The earth gave up her secrets easily, but the river would carry its treasure out to the fathomless sea.

Lucy put her hand into her pocket and withdrew the Radcliffe Blue pendant. Such a brilliant stone. So very rare.

She held it up to the light one last time. And then she threw it into the river and started back towards the house.

The box arrived four days later. Lucy had placed the order in London before she left, telling the man that she would write again to let him know when and where she needed the item delivered. She had considered the possibility that the order would be unnecessary, the money wasted, but the odds, she decided, were not in her favour.

She chose a coffin-maker and undertaker by the name of Mr Rich Middleton of Duke Street, Chelsea, giving him specific instructions as to the unusually small dimensions required, along with a short list of other specifications.