‘He was sent to Singapore almost immediately afterwards, like some hideous upper-crust version of transportation.’
Amy could see the old woman’s lip trembling as she told her what had happened next.
‘He contracted typhoid out there – I have no idea how, or why he didn’t respond to treatment. But he died within nine months of the par
ty. They flew his body back to England. I only found out about his death after the funeral.’
She looked down at her hands.
‘I was nineteen years old and I had lost the love of my life.’
The simplicity of her words made Amy catch her breath. She stood up and went to sit beside Georgia, putting her hand gently over hers.
‘He was buried in the grounds of the village church close to Stapleford, their family home,’ said Georgia, looking up, her eyes glistening. ‘I go to see him every year. Not on his birthday or Christmas – I’ve always worried I might run into one of them, although I doubt they ever go.’
‘Who? I mean, who are you worried about running into?’ asked Amy.
‘Oh, Clarissa or Christopher. The Happy Couple.’ She smiled, but her face was stiff.
‘The Happy Couple?’ frowned Amy.
‘Oh, they were married, didn’t I say? My cousin and Edward’s brother. In fact, you could say that Clarissa got everything she wanted.’
Amy didn’t know what to think. It had been a horrible story, a terrible way to treat someone in your family – and she could certainly see why Georgia hadn’t wanted anything to do with the Hamilton or Carlyle clan after that. All the same, she wondered if her bitterness – and the passage of the years – had begun to cloud everything.
‘I know it’s difficult to accept what happened, but . . .’
Georgia looked at Amy, her chin raised defiantly.
‘But what?’
‘Well, isn’t it about time you let it go?’
‘Let it go?’ said Georgia in disbelief. ‘But she was evil. Clarissa was evil.’
‘Evil?’
‘She lied, don’t you see that?’ said Georgia. ‘She lied about everything. Edward didn’t rape her.’
‘So you still don’t believe her story? None of it?’ asked Amy carefully. She didn’t want to upset her friend any more than she had to, but at the same time, it wouldn’t do Georgia any good to see out the rest of her days being so angry, lonely and estranged.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Georgia said quietly. ‘Which is easier to believe: that a young man gets drunk and sexually assaults a woman at a party, or that a woman is prepared to destroy a man’s life by claiming that he did?’
Amy didn’t know the answer to that one. Both crimes were heinous.
‘Well, I never accepted Clarissa’s story for one minute, and I never will,’ said Georgia, her voice fraught with emotion. ‘I never believed that Edward did what she said – no, it’s more than that. I always knew deep in my heart that he would never have done that. And he swore to me in his letters that nothing had ever happened with Clarissa. He said that yes, he had come into the walled garden looking for me, but he had gone straight out again when I wasn’t there.’
‘Then why did she do it? Even if she was that wicked, why do it? The scandal would have had an impact on her life, her prospects of marriage.’
‘You are absolutely right.’ Georgia looked at Amy with a new respect. ‘Clarissa didn’t mean for Edward to die. I think her plan spiralled out of control,’ she said, her mouth fixing like concrete.
She settled her hands back in her lap and took a deep breath.
‘Like you, I couldn’t fit the pieces together at first. And remember, this was the fifties; rape was much more difficult to prove – and to disprove. There was certainly no DNA testing. It really did come down to one person’s word against another’s.’
‘So no one was ever sure if Clarissa was raped?’
‘Exactly. This wasn’t about whether she consented to sex with Edward; it was whether she had sex with him all.’