Catherine took the list and read every name aloud.
Some were familiar from the nursery register.
Others had never appeared in Richard’s books because the people were hidden between transfers.
Each name required care.
The work stretched beyond any single season or courtroom victory.
Before they parted, Catherine asked whether Lydia had ever believed she would escape the cellar.
Lydia considered the question.
“Some nights I believed I would die there,” she said.
“Other nights I remembered that there were people outside the wall whose names I still had to protect.” She looked at Catherine’s ankle.
“You fell because you finally approached the door he told you not to open.” Catherine smiled sadly.
“It was an ugly way to learn.” Lydia answered, “What matters now is what you do while you can walk.”
They returned to the house by different paths.
Their reconciliation was unfinished, and neither pretended otherwise.
Rebecca watched them from the porch and understood that forgiveness, if it came, would be a process rather than a scene.
The women could share memories without agreeing about the past.
They could also share work without asking those harmed by their family to applaud them.
Lydia carried that distinction with her when she returned to the table where Sarah and Miriam were organizing the next search.
Catherine followed after a moment and asked where she should begin.
Chapter 37: What Became of Richard
The legal proceedings continued through winter.
Sutter faced charges connected to falsified records, while Fane and Briggs were questioned over the movement of people under disputed papers.
Richard was required to produce accounts and answer testimony about payments that matched the transport ledger.
The proceedings did not deliver instant justice, and not every accusation led to a conviction.
Witnesses had to travel, officials disagreed about authority, and some documents had been destroyed before the investigation began.
Yet Richard could no longer control the story by shutting a cellar door.
His name appeared in records kept beyond his estate, and people he had tried to silence were being heard.
Richard denied knowledge of the coercion and blamed the merchants he had hired.
The receipts bearing his initials challenged that denial.
Catherine’s testimony established that he had deliberately concealed Lydia’s survival and had interfered with household records.
Lydia described the hidden passage and named the guards who had supervised it.
Mrs.
Fenwick identified payments and movements she had observed from within the household.
Their statements differed in some details, as memories honestly given often do, but they converged on the central acts.
