Free Murder by Sarah Pinborough Page B

not arisen (although it was clear that had upset her too, but how could I let her near the wharves? How could she see how little I concentrated there and how my mind was focused on whatever was behind that locked door that I trembled to open?) and that she was glad her father and I clearly found each other’s company interesting, but she was tired of spending evenings alone while we dined at the club
.
    I did not know how to answer that. As far as I was aware I had dined with Hebbert at the club only once, maybe twice; it certainly was no regular occurrence. I did not say this though; I opened my mouth to deny it, but found I could not speak the words.
    I know what you’re thinking, Edward – if you’re thinking anything other than I should be in an asylum by now – and that is that if I am suffering blackouts from my fever or something worse then perhaps I
am
dining with Dr Hebbert and simply not remembering it
.
    The vague spaces I sometimes occupy don’t work like that. And mystrands of memory related to them are always grim. Surely if I was dining so frequently with her father that it was upsetting Juliana then I would remember at least some of it? I wondered if it was a lie I had told her at some point and forgotten but it was not something that it would strike me to say. I know that when I returned from wherever I found myself late at night I would tell her I had been working late (another reason I could not allow her to come to my offices to help me), but I could not recall ever including her father in my terrible deceptions. Why would I? It would be so easy for her to prove wrong.
    I mumbled an apology, and did my best to make her feel better. She loves me very much and it hurts me terribly to see her so distressed. It is not the grand passion I had with Elizabeth – that was a first love, and I was different then – but I do love her and I wish that this terrible weight on my back and in my soul did not plague me so, that I could be a good future husband to her.
    At times, when the dream-like visions of what I am coming more and more to believe are recollections of my own actions overwhelm me, I think I should break off our engagement. Surely it is wrong of me to marry her knowing how troubled I am, but the idea of being alone – more alone than I feel already – terrifies me even more. It is as if Juliana and the normality of my life with her is the only anchor I have against this growing madness. And when the fever passes and my mind clears it is easier to dismiss all my terrible misgivings as flights of fancy. Then I think myself foolish for even considering giving her up.
    I ramble once again, but these letters are a comfort to me, perhaps as much because you do not answer them (although I hope you are well and there is no sinister reason for your lack of correspondence). They are like a confessional. If you are not receiving them then whoever is reading them – if anyone at all – is simply a stranger in another country and I care not what they make of my strange predicaments.
    I mentioned our visits to the club to Charles over dinner, a briefthrowaway remark, even though beneath my hopefully calm surface, I was trembling. He simply paused, and for a second I thought he was as confused as I was, but then something shifted and he smiled at me before saying that men must have their pursuits away from womenfolk, and then he moved the conversation on. I could barely eat after that. I know that it sounds strange that I am so certain I have not been spending several evenings with him this month, but I know in my bones I have not. But why would he lie? And if he had his own secret – a mistress, perhaps? – why would he involve me in his lie if he did not know me to have secrets of my own? Perhaps he knows that I would not expose him, but it seems to me a great risk. Deception, which has never been part of my nature previously, is becoming something on which I am an expert. I am so tired of the doubts that