‘Nothing. I warned the young man at our first interview that Flora’s much-loved brother had died young and that it upset her very much to speak of it. I suggested he might save her distress if he did not address the subject until she mentioned it herself. I said much the same to Lord Kilmoyne. You see, Henry, to have revealed this story, and Flora’s reaction to the tragedy, might have cast a sort of doubt … How can I put it? Flora is very sensitive; families of that kind prefer robust brides. They fear excessively for the future children of their marriages and have a firm, superstitious belief in hereditary insanity. And Justin is a soldier, and firmness of character is, rightly I’m sure, prized in a soldier’s wife. You see my difficulty. To conceal the story went against the grain. But to reveal it might have damaged Flora’s chances of happiness. I assure you, my decision to keep silent was not in order to secure an advantageous match for my niece. But she loves Justin. I thought after all, this is an old, sad tale, and once she is married, and happy, her fears and worries will no doubt dissolve.’
That would be the best outcome,’ his friend told him.
‘You seem doubtful.’
‘Well, there can be no guarantees in such an affair,’ Henry said.
‘I wish you had felt able to reassure me.’
‘So do I,’ he replied. There was a pause. ‘I don’t know that you could have done, or are doing, any more than you are,’ he added.
‘In the meanwhile,’ Geoffrey said, ‘I have had an appeal from the housekeeper who has been in charge of the house all the while, asking me not to sell it. Yet I must, while scarcely mentioning the matter to Flora. I shall add the sum gained to the money she will take with her when she marries, and hope Bly and everything connected with it will remain forgotten by all. Though not by me. I assure you,’ he added, ‘I have offered the housekeeper, Mrs Grose, a generous pension.’
‘She was there all the time?’
‘Yes,’ he confirmed. ‘Mrs Grose knows everything. But she has never said anything, and I’m sure she will not speak now. She is nothing if not loyal.’
‘That’s something then,’ Henry Reeve said, forcing himself to adopt a brisk tone. ‘This is an anxiety, Geoffrey, but when all’s said and done it may be one of those intense anxieties we have all had, which came to nothing. Later, we can barely remember they ever troubled us.’
Geoffrey Bennett looked out over the Park. A nursemaid was wheeling a perambulator across the grass. A small boy was running after her. Henry followed his eyes. ‘And the governess, who was in charge of the children at that time,’ he said gently, ‘what became of her?’
‘She took a post in Scotland after the boy’s death. I wrote her a reference which did not mention the event. I felt if I had done so no potential employer would ever have taken her on. She might have starved. I was uneasy about this, but I was still badly shocked, and in any case I could not make myself responsible for ruining the woman on an account of an event she could not have prevented. And I was suffering from great personal remorse. At the time I was incapable of wondering whether she was implicated. I was too preoccupied with my own faults. I try not to think now what may have resulted from that reference.’
‘You have no idea where she is or what happened to her?’
‘I do not even know if she is still alive.’
Seventeen
12 Mermaid Street
Strand
March 21st, 1914
My dear Mrs Grose,
I am so distressed for you. I can hardly bear this news. What can have prompted Mr Bennett to write suddenly that he wishes to sell Bly? I expect you are right in supposing this may have something to do with the coming marriage of his daughter. But to do it so brusquely, without any warning at all! His is brutal conduct indeed to a woman who has spent her adult life in his service.
I am surprised you do not want Elaine told. Surely you would like her to know about this very grave matter? I really think she is quite well enough to hear this news. That you wish to spare her reflects great credit on you, but you must not be too unselfish, you know. However, although I urge you to let me tell her – I would break it to her very gently, I assure you – I will do nothing without your permission.
You must be dreadfully shocked. I am relieved to hear that Mr Bennett has made good provision for your future. Distressing as it must be to think of leaving the house where you have lived for so long, which, if not your own home has been your only home in reality, it is encouraging to know that at least Mr Bennett is prepared to provide for you a cottage and the means to live. I understand this may be little comfort at present. I am not quite sure, though, what you mean by saying you believe the consequences of this may be awful. What do go mean by this? I am quite alarmed for you – but remember, you will always find a welcome here, in Strand.
My thoughts are with you,
Marguerite
Eighteen
12 Mermaid Street
Strand
March 23rd, 1914
My dear Mrs Grose,
I am sitting in our small drawingroom overlooking the street. From this height one can also see down into Mr Reeve’s garden, with its well-tended lawn, shrubs and budding trees. The house and the glass room where Mr Reeve reads and writes and conducts his studies, though, are not within sight. Or only so if one were to open the window and crane out, looking leftwards (hardly a suitable thing for a resident at Mrs Constantine’s house to do!).
It is evening. It is a great blessing that, now, the days are growing a little longer and that we shall see better weather. I can confess now what I hardly dared to before, my great anxiety for my sister since our arrival, in dead of winter. She was so frail, so plainly unwell, her well-being was gained, then lost so suddenly that it was alarming to one unaccustomed to serious illness. Without the kindness of Mrs Constantine and the goodwill of Dr Prothero, not to mention your own staunch support, albeit from afar, I should have been more anxious still. But now I think – I hope – we are winning our battle. Elaine can now walk further, feels stronger and has a better colour than before. Her progress seems steady. Nonetheless, sometimes she is very strange. At breakfast, which we were taking yesterday in her bedroom by the fire, she asked me, did I not think Mr Brett most handsome? When I replied yes, he seemed to me a good-looking man, she asked me, what would I think if she told me he had proposed marriage to her? And I said, ‘Well, I think you might well have accepted. Did he ask you to marry him, Elaine?’
Then she became angry with me and said, ‘Well, as to that, you should ask your friends, the Bretts.’
‘But they are not my friends. I never met them in my life,’ I exclaimed.
‘They could be writing to you, though,’ she said, almost triumphantly, as if she had caught me out.
I protested that they were not. Would I not, I asked her, have told her if I had received a letter from them?
‘Yes, of course you would,’ she replied.
I must confess this little exchange left me uneasy. I think perhaps this irritability and suspicion may be a phase in her recovery.
Of course I will not tell her of the proposed sale of Bly, as you requested again in your letter. I asked her yesterday how she had fared at Bly when she was there, with you, but she told me only that it was lonely, and that she was unhappy – that, without you, she would have been more wretched still. At that she became very nervous and began to speak rapidly of the Bretts, Mr Brett’s big beard, Mrs Brett’s coldness, the behaviour of the two girls she had in her charge. She again mentioned the younger Mr Brett, the son of the house. She wondered, could she find him in Trondheim? Perhaps by a ruse, such as writing to him at the Edinburgh house in another hand (her plan – I was to address the envelope) with a note on it that the letter must be forwarded, unopened. I asked, was it impossible for her to ask the Bretts directly for the young man’s address? She gave a laugh, then, rather high and artificial, and said, ‘No, that was the last thing—’
Later: I am sorry about the trailing
letters, the blot, following my last sentence. Elaine came into the room so quietly I did not hear her and when she was right by my shoulder asked me, was I looking into the garden of Lion House to see Mr Reeve walking?
‘Why no,’ said I. ‘It is too dark.’
‘He walks there at night sometimes,’ she informed me.
‘How do you know?’ said I.
‘I have seen him,’ she told me with assurance. ‘At night, when you are asleep in your room.’
I must have turned in my seat to look at her. ‘You should not be creeping about late, in the dark and cold,’ said I, in governessy tones.
‘Ah,’ she said, ‘but I do. I cannot go on like this, being kept shut up and spied on by you.’
This angered me, I confess, but I shut my mouth on the words I was about to speak and only said, ‘If a cross-grained attitude and irritable words are a sign of convalescence, as we’re told they are, then I’m glad to find you better, Elaine.’
At this she left the room. In the doorway she said, ‘Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to.’
I cried her name after her, but she was gone. Heavens! I do not know what to do. I must be patient but I cannot understand what is happening. I hope this phase will soon end.
I do hope your appeal to Mr Bennett not to sell Bly will move him. Surely he will take some heed of the words of such a trusted servant such as yourself. But, if your appeal fails, do remember you have those here at Strand who long to see you.
Affectionately,
Marguerite
Nineteen
24th March
Mrs Grose – I do not understand. You are surely upset – by what I cannot say. Mr Bennett, the owner, will sell the house, you say, for his daughter’s portion. But you add, the reason not to tell Elaine is that when she was governess to the two Bennett children there the boy she was in charge of died by his own hand.
Nor am I to mention this to her, you say, as remembering that time might adversely affect her health. As to that, I will not quarrel with you. But I must admit to feeling duped. All the time I believed affection and candour united us, you were in possession of a secret, years old, involving the two of you. You may say it was not your secret to tell, or that it was for my good you did not say, or hint, of this tragedy at Bly, while my sister was governess there. But here is a whole history of which I had not an inkling.
I think, if you will, you should provide me with details of what occurred. If you wish, I will promise not to tell Elaine. But the information will help me to help her. I feel sure of it. Please do as I ask.
Affectionately,
Marguerite
Twenty
‘She’s certainly very pure, old man,’ Thomas Kilmoyne, Justin’s older brother, told him. He put a slightly sardonic emphasis on the word ‘pure’. The brothers were sitting at the inn near Fosse Hall stranded by a downpour and the broken axle of the carriage they had hired to carry them from the station. Now they awaited the carriage from Fosse. The lad despatched on a horse from the inn had probably only just reached the house. In the meanwhile they were stranded where Justin and Flora had pulled up at on their visit to Fosse. Justin had complained he might as well make regular bookings there. They had ordered a fire and some beer. A dirty-faced girl of about eleven who had struggled in with a pan was clearing the ashes from the grate.
Justin took exception to his brother’s tone. ‘I don’t expect to marry an impure bride,’ he told him. ‘Perhaps you do.’
‘All I say is, Justin, that a girl can be a bit too pure, if you take my meaning. A pure bride – yes. A pure wife – I’m not so sure. Times are changing. A hundred years ago, perhaps, a man might marry a wife for money, or land, get a few sons on her and then go his own way and no one thought a penny the worse of him. He could shut up his wife in the country, gamble away her fortune, even bring his mistress into the house if he felt like it. The wife had to put up with him. But they expect better these days and more is expected of husbands. I don’t say whether that’s right or wrong, but I do say nowadays it’s wise to marry a girl with warm blood in her veins.’
‘I don’t think I wish you to speak of Flora in that way,’ Justin said hotly.
‘You raised the subject, old chap. That is, in response to an anecdote of my own, you instantly referred to your bride-to-be’s unblemished character. I saw a question in your eyes. Don’t challenge me. I’m your big brother, so I know. Now, I apologise if my way of addressing your unspoken question offends you. But this is a hard matter to discuss without some vulgarity.’
‘I don’t think I asked you to comment in that way on my future wife.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Thomas said unapologetically. ‘I thought you wished to but were too mealy-mouthed to say so.’
Two years separated the brothers Thomas and Justin. There was a strong resemblance between them. Both were tall and fair, and had the long, straight nose of the Kilmoynes, a nose built, someone had said, to fit exactly under the nosepiece of one of William the Conqueror’s Norman soldiers.
But, in spite of the closeness in age and appearance, the brothers were different in temperament. Thomas was the more outgoing, aggressive and bold. His reckless behaviour on the hunting field had earned him the local name of Thomas the Horse-Slayer. Justin, more introspective, was a man of thought as well as action. They had not got on particularly well as children and would not willingly have embarked on a trip to Fosse together if Lord Kilmoyne had not insisted on it. The reason for this was that the housekeeper at Fosse had telephoned that morning saying that something like half the roof had collapsed, rain was pouring through attics into three main bedrooms, water was beginning to flood down the stairs, and the electricity supply was affected. Kilmoyne was furious: thousands were spent annually on the upkeep of the house; the roof had recently been repaired yet plainly some serious defect had either been undetected or created by the builders. He insisted both sons drop everything and go immediately to examine the problem and deal with it. Then had come the storm and the broken axle. Under this trial Justin had become mournful, Thomas aggressive.
It was while they had been waiting at the inn that Thomas had related a story reflecting no credit on himself about how he and his former betrothed had deliberately marooned themselves on an island in a lake for the night. This led Justin, tentatively, to try to find out what physical liberties a young man might expect his fiancee to permit. He was becoming anxious for proof that Flora’s affection for him was not purely a matter of the spirit. He desired her, was anxious not to offend her by forcing embraces on her, but was all too conscious they would be married in a matter of months. He had, mistakenly, it seemed, said to Thomas, ‘She treats me still like a much-loved brother. We are together all the time, but the wedding is three months off. Do other engaged girls— what do other chaps do?’ That was when Thomas made his disagreeable remark about purity, and the argument began between the brothers. Nor could Justin deny, though he was trying to do so, that he had tacitly asked for comment from Thomas.
‘Let’s say no more of it,’ he muttered.
‘I’m sorry I spoke as I did,’ Thomas had the grace to say. ‘But seriously, Justin, you’re a bit wet behind the ears, aren’t you?’
‘You can’t treat your prospective wife like a tart,’ Justin muttered. ‘Well, Serena didn’t mind you cutting the painter and pushing off the boat, then spending the night on an island alone with you. She didn’t scruple, either, three months later, to tell you it was off and she was going to marry an American millionaire. But Flora’s not like that. Not many girls are. Not nice girls.’
‘I suppose sometimes you wish she was less nice, though,’ Thomas said calmly. Justin began to glare at him again. Thomas added hastily, ‘What I meant was, Justin, it’s a baffler, isn’t it, a real puzzle, for anybody, any man? Girls aren’t supposed to know too much about that sort of thing. Men do, of course, but girls are not supposed to. But then there’s marriage, which is, let’s face it, all about the sort of
thing the girls aren’t supposed to know. The girls have to know, but not know. They have to be warm, and cold at the same time; know enough, but not too much. I suppose women have a gift for that sort of thing. As for marriage, Justin, who can tell? A woman may warm up when she gets married – or not. You can’t tell. It’s a pig in a poke, old man, that’s well known.’ He looked up. ‘I think I hear carriage wheels.’
And so the wet journey to Fosse continued.
Lady Kilmoyne was lunching with Beth at Bedford Square. Beth had already undergone the ordeal of luncheon à deux with Venetia Kilmoyne at Grosvenor Square. Now it was her turn to entertain this great lady, hugely wealthy in her own right, part of a family that had been influential in the country’s affairs for three hundred years. She had been dreading the occasion for ten days.
Lady Kilmoyne was thin as a needle. She wore amber wool and an amber necklace, and had taken off her hat. She was, Beth understood, attempting not to be overwhelming in this middle-class household. She had refused much of Beth’s overelaborate meal on the grounds that she rarely ate very much at luncheon. She was cordial and spoke freely. Beth began to feel easier. They had discussed the hymns for the wedding, and tactfully made decisions about the reception, which ought to have been the Bennetts’ affair as uncle and aunt of the bride, but for practical reasons was to be held at Grosvenor Square and managed by Lady Kilmoyne. Beth was off guard when Lady Kilmoyne said rather suddenly, ‘Flora has no mother, of course. You have been a mother to her, and an excellent one since she was a child?’
‘Since she was eight years old,’ Beth replied.
‘So,’ said Lady Kilmoyne, ‘you will no doubt have told her as much as a girl should know.’
‘I have certainly tried,’ said Beth without conviction. She had been shocked by the turn of the conversation and was apprehensive about where it was leading.
Miles and Flora Page 7
