Fallen Grace - Mary Hooper [77]
Filled with rage, yet clear-headed and fully aware of what she was doing, she pointed at her enemy and cried, ‘“Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord!”’
Sylvester Unwin screamed in terror, clutched his heart and fell to the floor, dead.
x
Chapter Twenty-Eight
‘Dead?’ James Solent repeated. ‘Sylvester Unwin dead? I don’t understand. When did he die? How?’
Because of the fog, James had been late getting to their usual meeting place – in fact, he had nearly decided that he wouldn’t go at all, for he’d felt sure that Grace would never venture out on such a night. About eight o’clock, however, a light breeze had blown up and begun dispersing the fog, and by nine o’clock when he was just about to leave the spot, the air was almost clear. Suddenly Grace appeared, running towards him, breathless and crying.
‘He’s dead because I killed him!’ Grace said, sobbing. ‘I didn’t mean to, but I did.’
‘You mean you . . . you stabbed him?’ James asked in dismay.
‘No.’ She tried to quell her sobs. ‘No, not that.’
‘Then how?’
‘I . . . I was in the coffin depository.’
James looked curious. ‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a warehouse at Waterloo where the coffins go before they catch the train to Brookwood.’ James still looked puzzled, so she added, ‘You see, he brought the forged adoption certificate to the funeral parlour this afternoon, and I took it and hid it in a coffin . . .’
James’s face was a picture of bewilderment.
‘They started looking for it and realised it must be with the bodies, but they were at Waterloo by then. So Sylvester Unwin went after it, and I went after him but got there first. I was hiding in an empty coffin and I sat up and he saw me and . . . and I think he died of fright.’
As she spoke, she watched James’s face nervously for his reaction. Was he going to tell her she must go to the police? Perhaps, as a representative of the legal profession, he would insist that he took her there himself. And then she would be locked up for ever and never see Lily again.
‘You were hiding from him – so why did you sit up in the coffin?’ James asked, endeavouring to understand.
Grace swallowed, her mouth dry. ‘I hated him so much, I wanted to frighten him.’ Then she corrected herself, saying, ‘What I wanted to do was kill him, although I didn’t really think he would die. But . . . he did.’
‘But why did you hate him so much?’ James still looked puzzled. ‘Because of the inheritance? Because of what he’s stealing from your family?’
Grace shook her head. ‘Not that. It’s something else. Something he stole which was . . . was even more precious than money. And he stole it from me, and from my sister, too.’
James looked at her closely, and then he offered her his arm. ‘I can see there is more to this than you are telling me,’ he said. ‘There’s a seat in a little garden along the road. Shall we perhaps walk to it and sit down for a moment?’
Grace nodded and they walked along the dark street in silence until they came to a paved garden with a stone horse trough and a small wooden bench.
‘Do you want to tell me the whole story?’ James asked, placing Grace on the seat and then sitting down beside her. ‘You don’t have to, but you might feel better for sharing it.’
Grace was silent for a long moment, trying to get her feelings under control, then sighed and said that she would tell him everything.
‘Lily and I were in an orphanage after our mother died,’ she began, ‘and were reasonably happy there. When I was fourteen we were moved to a training establishment where she was to be taught domestic work, and I was to learn to become a teacher.’ She paused, dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief, then went on, ‘We were told that our accommodation and training were funded by a wealthy and important man anxious to give working girls a start in life, and that we were very lucky to be there.’ She shuddered and, after a little while, continued in a small voice, ‘Unfortunately, this man believed that if he funded the training of a girl, it meant that he could . . .’ here she stopped and took a deep breath