Catherine recalled an additional detail she had ignored for fourteen years.
The notice of Lydia’s supposed death described a fever that swept through a boardinghouse.
It arrived from a town Catherine had never visited, bearing a signature she could barely read.
Her husband’s handwriting appeared on the envelope, though he claimed only to have forwarded it.
When she asked for burial records, Richard said her grief had made her unreasonable.
She was twenty-seven then, newly married and isolated from her parents.
She accepted the explanation because the alternative required her to confront a man whose approval governed her home, travel, and money.
The admission did not excuse her silence, but she could finally see how that silence had served him.
That morning Mrs.
Fenwick entered with fresh linen.
Catherine asked whether she remembered Lydia’s visit.
The housekeeper became still.
“I remember her kindness toward the kitchen children,” she said.
“Did you ever see her after Richard told me she died?” Mrs.
Fenwick folded a pillowcase twice before answering.
“I saw a woman in the orchard one winter night, years later.
She wore a shawl like Miss Lydia’s.” Catherine reached for her hand.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Mrs.
Fenwick gently stepped back.
“Because I was told that if I spoke about it, the people I loved would be sold.”
The answer carried the weight of every difference between them.
Catherine could complain about confinement, but Mrs.
Fenwick, born enslaved and still owned by the Whitmores, had been threatened with the destruction of her family.
Catherine felt ashamed that she had once called the housekeeper stubborn for refusing to discuss family affairs.
“I am sorry,” she said.
Mrs.
Fenwick did not reply immediately.
“If you want to help someone,” she finally answered, “help Elijah Carter and his children.
Your husband has been asking where the carpenter goes after work.”
Catherine asked for a pen and sent a message requesting Elijah to repair the loose window frame.
When he entered, she directed him to leave the shutters open and work where anyone passing in the hall could see him.
“I have a question about the cellar wall,” she said quietly.
Elijah kept his eyes on the wood.
“You saw the name, ma’am.” “Did you see anything else?” He hesitated.
“There were scratches around the old coal platform.
The stone beneath it looks recently moved.” Catherine swallowed.
“And you think Lydia may be alive?” Elijah answered with care.
“I think that if she left that mark, she wanted someone to look behind the wall.” Catherine watched his hands holding the chisel.
