by ID Johnson
Meg’s tears had dried up by the time her mother finished speaking, and even though the reasoning seemed sound, Meg didn’t think it was much of an excuse. Her entire life she had been of the opinion her mother was also evil, just like her uncle, and she wasn’t able to budge her stance one bit based on these remarks. “Mother, we’ve decided we will marry before my birthday on one condition, and one condition only.”
Mildred’s face perked up just a bit as she turned to face her daughter. “What’s that?”
“You will testify to what you witnessed the day Bertram took advantage of me, just before I left to board Titanic.” The woman was already shaking her head back and forth. “If you want to show me that you truly do care about me, then you will do this. Otherwise, we will wait, and you will get nothing. And you can rest assured there will be no more wire transfers of funds from the Ashtons.”
“Mary Margaret, what you’re asking me to do… to testify against your uncle… you can’t be serious,” Mildred stammered.
“I’m quite serious,” Meg replied, standing. There was a loud noise overhead, like the sound of a large book or something else heavy falling on the floor, which caused Meg to momentarily look up, but she didn’t pay it much mind. “This is your one and only opportunity. You tell those officers everything you know, right now, and agree to testify in court, or else I walk out that door and the next time you see me, you will likely be sitting next to your very own attorney.”
Mildred inhaled deeply, her nose in the air, and Meg could see she was considering her options.
“Is Ezra in the carriage house?” Meg asked. “I need to speak with him.”
“I’m sure he’s out there somewhere,” Mildred replied.
“Very well. You have until I return to decide.”
“No need,” Mildred said, exhaling loudly. “I will tell them.”
Meg offered a small smile and nodded her head, relieved that her mother was at least motivated by money if not by love for her daughter.
“I’ll get Det. Weber and then meet you outside,” Charlie said, standing and looking at Meg to make sure she agreed.
She nodded and gave her mother one last glance before she headed off in the direction of the back garden.
Tessa was tidying a counter that didn’t need it and looked up and grinned as Meg passed her by with a humble smile in return. As soon as Meg opened the back door, her uncle’s dogs began to beg for attention, and she would’ve loved to approach the fence and scratch the heads of the two foxhounds had she not seen a familiar outline in the carriage house. Glancing behind her to see if Charlie was coming, and seeing that he wasn’t there just yet, Meg took a deep breath and stepped down off of the porch steps.
“Meggy? Is that you?” Ezra called as he began to head her direction. “Oh, thank goodness. We’ve all been so worried about you.” He looked up at the pristine spring sky, as if he was thanking God, and Meg had to hold back a snicker at his ridiculous antics.
They met a bit closer to the carriage house than the porch since she’d had a head start on him, and once he was before her, with his arms spread wide for an embrace, Meg wondered what she’d ever seen in him to begin with. He was quite handsome with his light blond hair and inquisitive eyes, but something about the way he held his mouth should’ve let her know that only lies would come out of it. He had the slack jaw of a deceiver.
He stood there with his hands spread wide, and Meg just looked at him for a moment, absently noticing scratches on the back of his hands and near his wrists, wondering how much work he’d been doing in the garden lately. “Please, don’t call me that,” she said, making no move toward his open arms. Eventually, he put his hands down. “I’ve only come to speak to you about Charlotte. I’m concerned for her well-being.”
“I’m quite concerned for her as well,” Ezra said, his head hanging low. He slipped his hands into the pockets of his trousers, ones Meg noted she had purchased for him. “I’ve told the police everything that I know.”
“The police know that your story is a fabrication, you realize?” Meg asked as the breeze sent the loose strands of her hair flying about. “You told them I went with you and Charlotte when you left, but when you decided to come back, Charlotte stayed with me in the car. Obviously, they know that isn’t true now. They know that you left before me, and that you took the car, the one they found wrecked and covered in blood.”
Meg heard a noise behind her and turned to see Charlie standing on the porch, leaning against the brick enclosure that surrounded the perimeter. A sigh of relief escaped her lips before she even realized she’d been holding it in.
“Who is that?” Ezra asked, his voice changing just a bit. “Is that… Charlie?”
“I believe Mr. Ashton would be a more appropriate way for you to address him,” Meg replied, her eyes cutting.
Ezra swallowed hard, as if he was just beginning to realize he might not be able to charm Meg in the same way he had before. “I told the police that my initial story was a fabrication I invented in order to keep your mother from worrying about your whereabouts. I gave them my adjusted story just a few days ago. I told them the truth this time, and I’m certain they are doing all they can to find Charlotte.”
He looked sincere, and for a moment, Meg wanted to believe him. She didn’t. “What is the truth, Ezra? Where is Charlotte?’
“I told you, I don’t know. Meg, you must believe I didn’t want to leave with her. I didn’t have a choice.”
“Am I to believe that Charlotte kidnapped you against your will?” she asked, the snicker back in her voice.
“No, of course not,” he replied, withdrawing his hands from his pockets to rest them on his hips. “Meg, she came to me that morning, after you were back in your room, and she said she needed help. Once she told me what the problem was, I knew I had to help her.”
That explanation made the rage well up inside her again. “She needed help—so you dropped everything to help her? Where were you when my uncle was carrying me up the stairs?” She was shouting now, and she glanced back at Charlie to see he’d taken a few steps in her direction. She shook her head at him to let him know she was all right.
“I tried to follow him, I really did,” Ezra said, moving closer to her himself. “Your mother stopped me. She said… she said if I did anything to intervene, she’d let my father go. Meg, what was I to do? My father was so ill. He needed the money he earned here to pay for his medication. Now… he’s on his deathbed, Meg. If I had tried to stop your uncle, my father would be out on the streets and likely dead.” He had tears in his eyes; his voice was imploring. He looked the picture of a son in misery, unable to help his father.
“So you chose to leave him behind when you took off with Charlotte—and my money, and my uncle’s auto—instead?” Meg questioned, clearly not buying his bleeding heart story.
“I told you, I didn’t have a choice, Meg. Charlotte came to me in tears. She didn’t know what to do.” He took a step closer and lowered his voice. “She was pregnant Meg—she is pregnant, I mean.”
Meg’s eyebrows shot up at both his admission and the way he had originally made the statement. She decided to focus on the former for now. “Was this your doing?”
He ran a hand through his blond hair and took a step back, looking down. “I don’t think so. We were always careful—I mean the one time that it happened, we were careful.” Meg shot him a look of disgust that should’ve let him know she didn’t believe his “one time” explanation, though his intellect was quickly falling into doubt now that he’d slipped up twice.
“Even one time wouldn’t be all right, though, now would it, Ezra? You and I had been pledging ourselves to each other for months by the time we decided to leave.”
“I know, Meg, but I thought—as long as you were engaged to… him—what difference did it make if I was having a little fun with Charlotte?” He nodded in Charlie’s direction, and even though Meg knew Charlie couldn’t hear the comment from that distance, it made
her stomach knot up. Perhaps Ezra had a valid argument.
Except that he didn’t. “You, more than anyone, except for maybe Kelly, knew I had no plans to marry Charlie. You knew I was only writing to him, and that was only because my mother wanted his money. You cannot blame your lack of self-control on me, Ezra Bitterly.”
“No, I’m not trying to, Meg, I promise you,” Ezra replied, stepping toward her again. “But I didn’t know if it was my child or not. There was a chance, a small chance, it was mine, but it could’ve also been your uncles, Meg.”
Meg’s eyebrows shot up again. “What do you mean? Was my uncle taking advantage of Charlotte as well?”
“No,” Ezra said, dropping his eyes once more and pushing at the soft grass with the toe of his work boot. “She did it for other things—money, little trinkets, that sort of thing. She thought that as long as your uncle liked her, she’d be able to stay employed here and still have a bit of freedom. She wouldn’t have to work so hard. Of course, your mother thought differently….”
“I don’t really care how my mother felt about Charlotte, Ezra,” Meg said, crossing her arms. She couldn’t believe Charlotte had been prostituting herself out to her uncle. It made her detest the girl even more, though it didn’t lessen her insistence on discovering what really happened to her.
“She knew if your mother found out she was carrying your uncle’s child, she’d lose her mind. She’d likely kill Charlotte, the same way she killed….” He stopped talking, and Meg felt all the blood rush out of her face.
“The same way my mother killed… whom?”
His mouth was hanging open, and his eyes were wide. It took a long time for him to say anything at all, but when he did, he was shaking his head slowly from side to side. “No one.”
“Ezra?” She took a slow step forward on an unsteady foot. “Whom do you say my mother killed?”
“No one,” he repeated.
She stared at him, her eyes repeating the question, but even without an answer, she knew what he had meant to say. “What do you know?” she asked, quietly, her voice just a whisper.
Ezra cleared his throat. “I don’t actually know anything, Meggy. I only know what I’ve heard, and what my father says he saw.”
“And what’s that?” Her voice was uneven, and she could feel her hands shaking where they were folded against her sides.
He licked his lips. “My father says, when we were younger, your mother used to take trips to the local druggist nearly every other week to procure arsenic. She used it on her face, like most women do, but she used… a lot of it. Then, my father said, after six months or so of that, your mother seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time pruning the oleanders.”
Ezra’s eyes darted over her shoulder and then returned to her face. Meg could feel large tears sliding over the wells of her eyes and bounding down her cheeks, but she didn’t move to wipe them away.
“There was never any proof, no investigation. It could’ve been… someone else. There were other servants working here then. Kelly’s mother. Your uncle even. My father didn’t know for sure. He said he’d never accuse her because he didn’t know. When the police questioned him that night, they only asked him if he saw anything suspicious, and they didn’t pay him much mind, what with his thick accent and the fact that he was only a gardener.”
She was still able to keep up with his words, but they’d begun to lose meaning. The feel of Charlie’s hand on her shoulder gave her courage. “Your father believes that my mother poisoned my father?”
Ezra nodded once, sharply.
Charlie’s grip tightened, and Meg pressed down hard on the lids of all of the boxes in her mind—including the one that held memories of her da. Thoughts of him pushing her on the swing, just under the tree there. The pram she’d pushed around the garden after he brought it back from his trip to New York. The lilacs he’d pick and tuck behind her ear, calling her his little flower when he did so. Without wiping the tears from her cheeks, Meg looked Ezra directly in the eyes and said, “What happened to Charlotte?”
“I don’t know,” Ezra mumbled, seemingly shocked that she’d reversed topics so quickly.
“What happened to her?” she asked again, more forcefully this time.
He took a full step back. “We… argued. She wanted me to take her to a physician in Essex. I didn’t want to. If there was a chance the baby was mine, I wanted to keep it. She wanted to end the pregnancy. We drove into the night, and then, she… she was bleeding. I pulled over. I wanted to help her, but she didn’t want my help. The arguing… it got worse. I finally got out of the car, Meg, and I began to walk. I thought, if she didn’t want my help, she could take care of herself.”
“You left her there, bleeding?”
“I didn’t have any choice,” he said, running his hand through his hair again. His sleeve slipped up a bit, and Meg noticed the scratches went even higher than she’d imagined. They looked old. She glanced around the yard to see if there’d been much pruning, but she didn’t notice any. “She didn’t want to listen to me. I thought it was better for me to leave than to stay there and continue to fight. I was hoping she’d make it to Essex. We were nearly there.”
“Did Charlotte even know how to drive an automobile?” Meg asked.
“Yes. I showed her how.” The comment caught Meg in the gut. Even though she no longer cared for Ezra, she did remember when he had taught her how to drive the same car. “She took off, and I caught a ride back here. I made up the story about you being with her because I didn’t want your mother to worry, and I thought Charlotte would never return. I didn’t think she’d want to face your uncle after she’d left, especially not if she thought I’d tell them she was expecting.”
“Where did you get that bruise on your neck?” Charlie asked, his hand never leaving Meg’s shoulder.
She hadn’t notice it before, but when Charlie mentioned it, she could see a black and blue streak just peeking out from his shirt collar. It was yellowing at the edges, as if it was beginning to fade.
“A branch struck me when I was cutting back the trees,” he said with a shrug. “Scratched my hands up right good, too,” he said, bringing them out of his pockets.
“Why weren’t you wearing gloves?” Charlie asked.
“I prefer not to wear gloves.” He shrugged again. “Meg knows that.”
She didn’t remember whether or not he normally wore gloves, but she wasn’t buying his story. “I believe Det. Weber would like to speak to you again.”
Ezra looked over her shoulder, as if he thought the detective might be standing behind her. “I’ve already told them everything I just mentioned to you. I shouldn’t mind speaking to them again, but I don’t really see the point.”
“I suppose they have their reasons,” Meg said. She brushed her hands up and down her face, finally wiping away the tear streaks. She’d weigh out what he’d mentioned about her parents later. For now, she needed to make sure Det. Weber had an opportunity to thoroughly question Ezra one more time. She cleared her throat. “Ezra, I want to thank you,” Meg began resting one hand on her hip.
“What’s that?” he asked, looking from her face to Charlie’s and then back again. “Thank me for what?”
“For leaving,” she replied. “If you’d stayed, if you’d carried through with what we talked about, I would’ve run away with you. If I’d left with you the night of Alise’s ball, or if you’d had the gumption to attempt to save me from my uncle and take me away the next morning, I would’ve missed out on my destiny. I never would’ve boarded Titanic. I never would’ve met Charlie. Thanks to your ineptitude, I will now leave here with the most wonderful man imaginable as my fiancé and return to a life in America with nothing but freedom and happiness on the horizon. So… as much as you hurt me, as horrible of a human being as I believe you to be, I at least must say thank you. I appreciate your cowardice more than you can possibly imagine.”
Ezra’s brow was furrowed and he stared at her in confusion.
“I concur,” Charlie replied, slipping his hand down around Meg’s waist. “Thank you very much for being the most pathetic bloke who has ever walked the earth.”
The door opened behind them before Ezra could formulate a sentence, and Jonathan stepped out, followed by Det. Weber. “I hate to interrupt, but your mother has finished her statement. Det. Weber has more questions for Mr. Bitterly, and I believe Officer Brown is ready to speak to you as soon as you are ready, Miss Westmoreland.”
Meg nodded at him, and then without even turning back to face the gardener, she said, “Goodbye, Ezra.”
Charlie followed her up the steps as Det. Weber began his inquisition. “Are you going to speak to your mother about Ezra’s accusation?”
“I suppose I have to,” Meg said, her breath catching.
They began to make their way through the kitchen, and Meg noticed Tessa had moved on to some sort of baking. She offered a smile but said nothing as they passed through. Meg made a mental note to make sure that Tessa received enough money that she wouldn’t have to work anymore. It was the least she could do for the woman who’d served her mother and put up with her uncle for so long.
Mildred was standing in the foyer speaking to an officer Meg didn’t recognize. The other officers Det. Weber had mentioned must have arrived, because several men in uniforms stood both inside the entryway and on the porch. Officer Brown was speaking to the ones on the porch, and Meg decided to wait for him to notice her rather than announce her presence and be forced to get on with her report of what happened with her uncle any sooner than necessary.
“Mary Margaret,” Mildred said, turning to face her daughter. “You’ve returned. Did you get everything taken care of with the Bitterly boy?”
Meg found it unamusing that her mother still addressed him that way after all of these years. “I did.”
