Miss de Vries raised her chin to the ceiling. She pressed her lips together.
“And he unburdened himself, didn’t he?” continued Mrs. King. “On his nearest and dearest, his own flesh and blood, his own kith and kin. On you and me.”
She’d looked forward to this moment, regardless of the risk. It would have been more prudent to keep her counsel, stay out of sight. But the urge to face Miss de Vries, bring everything out in the open, was too great. Besides, she had one fear, one deep concern. Had Mr. de Vries told his other daughter of the letter? Had she found it? If Miss de Vries had destroyed it, then Mrs. King needed to know.
Mrs. King wished Miss de Vries would show something in her face, her eyes. But Miss de Vries didn’t. Her voice was entirely controlled. “I’m famished. Let’s eat.”
She moved faster this time, champagne sloshing in her glass, and she tucked her hand into the crook of Mrs. King’s elbow. Lockwood sprang, following.
The supper room was on the other side of the ballroom, opening onto the balcony, steps hurtling down to the garden. Lights leaping in the trees. Walls gagged with white silk. The tables had been laid out Parisian style on long buffets. Fowls sliced and stacked on silver dishes. Fruit plunged in bowls of ice. Mrs. King touched a peach, felt the chill like a burn.
Miss de Vries took a knife. Picked a sliver of meat.
“Anything else to tell me, Mrs. King?”
“No.”
Miss de Vries tilted the knife in the air. “Clearly, you’ve taken leave of your senses.” Her eyes were bright.
“I haven’t,” said Mrs. King, taking a moment, watching her temper. “As well you know.”
“Prove it,” Miss de Vries said.
“Prove what?”
“What you said. What he told you.”
Mrs. King felt a quiver in her stomach. “So you accept he told me something.”
Silence.
“Well, I can’t,” Mrs. King said. “I didn’t write anything down. I’ve no witnesses. I’d rather know what he told you.”
Miss de Vries looked away. “Me?”
She needed to be pushed, to be provoked. “Come now, Madam,” said Mrs. King. “Tell me all about it. Tell me how it feels. Knowing that your father could be so spiteful.”
The noise from the ballroom surged and crashed over them like a wave. Miss de Vries’s expression changed. The words wounded her. But she simply shrugged.
“He wasn’t spiteful. One says spiteful things by accident. When one can’t hold one’s tongue.” She considered her knife, studied the reflection. “This was entirely deliberate. Papa sent for me. Directly after you, I expect. He told me he had a little something to tell me.” Her mouth twisted. “Just a little thing.”
Mrs. King felt her chest thrumming. Go on, she thought, goading Miss de Vries with her mind. Lockwood took one step closer. He was looking at Miss de Vries oddly, recalculating her.
“He told me he’d made a mistake,” Miss de Vries said.
Lockwood went very still.
“A mistake?” said Mrs. King.
“He told me he’d fathered a child. I said that wasn’t any concern of mine.”
Silence. Mrs. King allowed this to sit between them for a long moment.
It was strange, so enormously strange, to hear Miss de Vries speak of this matter at all. Mrs. King tried to picture the conversation between Miss de Vries and her father: a daughter’s dawning comprehension, the shimmer of betrayal. “It must have been a shock,” Mrs. King said, more gently. Miss de Vries’s eyes turned on her, a flicker of derision.
“Hardly. We’ve been paying your mother off for years. Hospital bills do stack up, you know. They send receipts.” She took a short, tight breath.
Mrs. King had never seen Miss de Vries express pain. Even when she was small, she never cried; she was trained too well for that. But this was pain: that’s exactly what it was. Mrs. King recognized it at once. She understood what it was to deduce something enormous, something that turned the world back to front. She felt a searing sense of kinship with Miss de Vries in that moment.
It made her ask the next question bluntly, not sidestepping it, not winding her way in. “Did he mention a letter?”
Miss de Vries turned, light shivering. “Papa spoke a lot of nonsense,” she said.
It wasn’t a denial.
Mrs. King stepped forward. “I’ll guess what he said, then. He got himself worked up. Said he couldn’t keep a secret. Wouldn’t meet his Maker without reconciling his affairs.”
Miss de Vries considered this. “No,” she said, reaching for a pear, polishing it idly against her dark sleeves.
“No?”
“He wasn’t thinking of his soul, Mrs. King. He was thinking of…” She shook her head again, a smile playing on her lips, something strangely close to disgust. “He was thinking of his future.”
She began peeling the pear. Her motions were faultless. She handled the blade with such dexterity, such absolute precision. Mrs. King couldn’t help but recognize that trait too.
“His future,” Mrs. King repeated.
“His name, his precious name, that wonderful thing he’d made for himself.”
Mrs. King frowned. “But there was no risk of anyone forgetting that.”
Miss de Vries’s eyes widened. She took a step back, let out a mocking laugh. “No risk?” She raised her hands. “But that’s too splendid! You are like him. Just as dense and self-involved as he was.” Her face darkened. “You think all this will last forever? This place, this house? The name ‘de Vries’？” She gave Mrs. King a long look. “It’ll be gone by next Whitsun, if I’ve anything to do with it.”
Mrs. King studied her. In that moment, she remembered the girl Miss de Vries had been. In the days when she still lived in the schoolroom, when she wore her hair loose and wild, when her skin was scuffed and greasy. When she was still being trained, when the governess was strapping rods to her back and shoving marbles in her mouth. Eyes hard and bright and furious, all angles and points, voice unsteady.
“I see,” Mrs. King said. She reached for Miss de Vries. She wanted to touch her, to cross the divide. There had always been a pane of glass between them: they had preserved it perfectly. “I understand.”
Miss de Vries drew back, a swift movement. She balanced the knife between her fingers, and said, with something approaching a laugh, “D’you know what he told me? ‘You’ve got it the wrong way round. Mrs. King’s the one with rights on you.’”
Lockwood’s mouth went slack, aghast. Guests tripped into the supper room, making for the buffet tables, voices shrill on the air. Miss de Vries stood upright, her carriage perfect, ignoring them. Eyes on Mrs. King, skewering her, anger coursing.
Mrs. King remembered what Mr. de Vries had said: Tell anyone you like. Urging Mrs. King to do it. Longing for her to destroy his other daughter. “He wanted to punish you.”
“Yes.”
“For wanting to be married.”
“For wanting to be free.”
“And?” said Mrs. King, gently. “What did you say?”
Miss de Vries laid down the knife. “I said, ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ He didn’t like that. I’d never spoken to him like that before. He started coughing.”