but rather than consenting to the match—as any man of sense who did not wish to bring the shame of illegitimacy down on his family—Vicar Simeon Hale had instead condemned his daughter and ejected Philbrick from his house.
It was clear from Delia’s writings that not only was Hale the sort of Christian who believed women to be either virgins or whores, and erred on the side of whore just to make sure he didn’t unduly let some guilty woman get away with unpunished sin, but he was also quite likely a strong candidate for Bedlam. He preferred to punish Delia and her unborn child with a life of censure and unhappiness because he perceived Philbrick not pure enough a candidate for her hand. And very likely—though Kate had no notion if she was correct in this—would use her as an example to hold up to his followers as the picture of sin.
Though she had thought Delia a silly girl at first, as Kate read her outpourings of emotions on the page, she began to feel a great deal of sympathy for her. Kate had been young and foolish once. And though she hadn’t fallen in love against her family’s wishes, she had been utterly under her parents’ control, and had been pushed into accepting marriage to a man some twenty years her senior because they’d been in need of the funds the marriage would bring to them.
She’d never been subjected to the sort of cruelty Delia had endured, however—even from George Bascomb at his worst. It would be nice to think Hale’s backward views were rare, but the misogyny underlying them was all too common still. His was simply an extreme example of how much harm they could do.
Thus it was with some relief that she read Delia’s plans for an elopement, and when she saw that the marriage was a fait accompli, she’d given a little cheer.
The conclusion, which had arrived only two-thirds of the way into the notebook, had left her with more questions than answers, however. Because the journal ended before the birth of Delia’s child, there was no way of knowing whether it had lived. And it was clear from the dates of the expected birth and Philbrick’s death that he’d never come back to remove Delia from her father’s house. Nor was it clear why he’d left her there. And what had happened to Delia? Why did she stop writing?
Kate had a sinking suspicion that Delia had died in childbirth, or not long after.
Her heart ached for the girl whose short life had been marked by so few joyful moments.
Even with the remaining question, Delia’s journal had been illuminating on several points that had been unclear from the moment they’d learned about the Philbrick letters.
First of all, she was now convinced that if Delia’s child was alive, he or she was the “rightful” heir Fenwick Jones had spoken of. A look at the map revealed that Crossmere was not as far as the crow flies from Lewiston. Had Jones met Delia’s child by chance in the neighborhood? Though it was possible there was another connection between them, the geographical nearness could not be discounted.
There was also a good chance that if the letters Jones had asked about were between Philbrick and Delia, they were love letters. Since part of Philbrick’s legacy relied heavily on the tragic tale of his early death and his mourning sweetheart, the news that he’d married a girl young enough to be his daughter in a secret wedding, then abandoned her to her fate, the revelations in the letters would make them more valuable. At least to Kate’s mind. She was no expert on the valuation of memorabilia, but these letters had the potential to change the way the world viewed Sebastian Philbrick. She didn’t see how that wouldn’t make them more sought after.
If Green’s father, as Philbrick’s valet, had been aware of the marriage, then he’d have known the letters, whether he’d stolen them or been gifted them, were a veritable gold mine.
Was Delia’s child the woman whom Hettie Green had encountered in her brother’s study?
That remained to be seen. And the possibility changed everything they knew about this killer. Caro had just joined her for tea when there was a brisk knock on the door and Eversham entered the room.
Though it was clear from his damp hair and clean shirt that he’d washed up before coming to them, there were dark smudges beneath his eyes, and it was obvious