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“Nay! I remember you in leading strings, toddling about after your mother and that dog, the one with white-and-brown patches.”

“Ah, Cedric the spaniel.” Jerome smiled. The old lady seemed far more lucid than he had been led to expect.

Mrs. Nancarrow placed a cup of tea on the table beside her mother’s chair and, taking her hands, showed her where it was. She offered Jerome one, too, with a stick of shortbread in the saucer. He took it gratefully and, pulling up a chair, sat nearer to the old lady and said, “Mrs. Pennyweather, I was wondering if you recall the night my mother died?”

“Aye. I do. So sad that was.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“There was a terrible storm that night. My Tom, who was head gardener in those days, was worried about the roses being ruined by the storm. We was trying to cover them, but the wind was too fierce, and then the rain came; it was hopeless. The whole rose arbor was destroyed that night.” The old lady took a sip of her tea and stared into the past.

“Do you know what happened at the house that night?” he prompted.

“The wind was howling fit to bust, but we still heard her scream!” the old lady said, her face reflecting a remembered horror that made Jerome’s skin crawl.

“Did my mother jump, or was she pushed?” he asked, voicing the fear he’d lived with for twenty-two years.

The old lady shrugged. “Ellen Miller knew.” She turned her head to look straight at him, her blind eyes staring right through him. “I’d swear to it. Scared stiff she was that night.” She smiled. “I’m canny though. Never let on I knew anything. You never asked when he passed. Thought you didn’t want to know.”

Jerome swallowed. “I didn’t until now. Why? Do you know why he did it?”

“Mam—” The warning note in her daughter’s voice went unheeded.

Mrs. Pennyweather smiled again, and it made his blood run cold. “Did you say your name was Gareth?”

He swallowed. “I’m Jerome.”

“Ah the lad! I remember you, bright little fellow you was, always quick and charming as the day was long.”

She settled back with the tea, and he got nothing further from her but nonsense.

Shaken, he rose and set his cup of tea untasted down on the table. Mrs. Nancarrow had her arms crossed over her chest and she looked worried.

“She rambles,” she said. “It’s all nonsense.”

He looked at her and shook his head. “It’s not. I suspected—” He swallowed. “I suspected he had killed my mother, but I didn’t know for certain. That’s what she meant, isn’t it?” He nodded towards her mother.

Mrs. Nancarrow smiled sadly. “We don’t know. No one knows for certain. Only Ellen, and she’s gone.”

“But he was violent, his temper was legendary.” Jerome’s stomach clenched. His father’s rages had terrified him as a boy. As an adolescent, he learned to keep his distance. To his mother’s cost and his eternal shame. Guilt and responsibility threatened to choke him. “How did you all know I wasn’t the same?”

She smiled sadly. “We remember you.” She said it simply, and his eyes stung at the trust that implied. Do I deserve it? He’d left the place neglected for years, unable to face the dark secrets it harbored. Unable to face his own guilt. For not being here to protect her.

And now that you know, is it worse or better? The parallels between Mama and Charis—my God, how am I supposed to live with this?