“She wasn’t sick.”
“What do ye mean?”
“She never told me, but I knew the signs. She didn’t want to be no mother. Especially not … not now.” Bibby turned her face into the pillow. “I think she asked some gent to smuggle her in Savin. Heard of other girls doing it. Least ways she’d never have to worry about the child ending up at some baby farm.”
The horrors of such a thought shook Tom. “She killed the baby.”
“She didn’t have a choice.”
“And this was her ailment?”
“I don’t know. I’m not smart.” Bibby rocked back and forth an inch or two, still embracing the pillow. “All I know is that she was almost happy. Things always happen that way. He was going to marry her. She was right sure.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. He never had a name. She loved him. She said he loved her. She lies, though.” Bibby glanced up at Tom, her eyes puffy. “She was afraid if he found out about the baby—that it wasn’t his baby—it would change things. Guess she didn’t think it’d plague her like that. What she done.”
“Then Mr. Foxcroft came.”
“She stopped eating. She’d just lie there in her bed, not moving or anything. Mamma Lieselotte’d come up here and beat on her. Said if she didn’t start working again and making herself pretty that she could never leave and get married.”
“Then how did she—”
“End up dead?” Bibby pulled up the wrap that slinked off her bare shoulder. “I don’t know. All I know is she didn’t want to keep living and she didn’t.”
Thoughts tore through Tom, pieces that didn’t fit together. He couldn’t think about Mr. Foxcroft in a room as sad as this, ending the life of a girl who was only desperate.
He pulled at another thread instead. One he hoped would unravel answers. “Can ye tell me anything about the gentleman she loved?” If the man had been as devoted to Elisabeth as she believed, perhaps his passion had driven him to vengeance.
“Not much. Just this.” Bibby tossed back the pillow and hurried to a curved, tomb chest of drawers. She opened the last drawer. “Her things. The ones for her cousin. She never could stand the thought of her treasures being throwed away soon as her room was give to the next girl.”
Tom crossed the room and peered inside. A smeared powder box. Disarrayed ribbons. A couple childhood relics of worn, cutout animal illustrations. “What’s this?” Tom lifted a lock of coarse brown hair, tied with a string.
“That was his. The one she wanted to marry.”
“May I keep this?”
Bibby nodded. “Guess Elisabeth would like that. Just so long as it don’t get tossed into the hearth.”
“Was there anyone else of consequence? Anyone who might have cared deeply for her?”
“No one. Well. The father maybe.”
“Who was he?”
“Him I know.” Bibby shut the drawer with force. “He drinks too much of Mamma’s gin when he comes. He visits all of us. Owns his own business somewhere on the west side of the village.”
“What’s his name?”
Bibby’s whisper went hoarse, “Mr. Bartholomew Creagh.”
Evening time cast her under a spell. Dinner was the first meal she’d been able to eat without the remnants of fear choking her appetite, and the soft-cushioned wingback nestled her into sleepy comfort.
Lady Walpoole had retired.
Uncle remained scarce.
As the library windows darkened to a moonlit blue, and rain began a light drumming on the panes, only Lord Cunningham remained in company. He had persuaded her here with the argument that they had not finished Shakespeare’sVenus and Adonis.
