Miles and Flora

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by Hilary Bailey


  They went into the parlour. Mrs Constantine, approving her lodger’s steadiness and common sense in this most difficult situation, offered port. ‘You’ve been looking very peaky, my dear. The strain has told on you.’

  Marguerite having refused, Mrs Constantine went on with a nod of her head upwards in the direction of where Mrs Grose was sleeping, ‘I don’t want to pry, but what was said between Mrs Grose and Mr Bennett? Can you tell me anything?’

  Marguerite’s expression was sad. She shook her head. ‘Alas, I can’t. The story is very horrible – but not mine to tell. It concerns the children, Miles and Flora, whom my sister was governess to in the house where Mrs Grose was housekeeper. The poor little boy killed himself.’

  Mrs Constantine was shocked. ‘What a dreadful thing. A person near to that would be haunted forever.’

  ‘Do you believe in ghosts, Mrs Constantine?’ asked Marguerite.

  ‘I’ve never been sure,’ she confessed. ‘The church says we should avoid superstition doesn’t it? But, well, I’ve never been quite sure. Well, anyway, my dear, sad as I shall be to lose you, I’m glad you’ve found a sensible way to continue.’

  ‘I hope so,’ said Marguerite.

  That hope was dashed only three days later, when a letter arrived from Elaine’s former employers in Edinburgh. Harold Brett wrote:

  My dear Miss Selsden,

  It grieves me very much to be obliged to write you this letter. Nevertheless, I cannot avoid the duty, for it concerns your sister, Elaine Selsden, formerly employed by us as a governess. She is here and so far we have obtained from her no name of any other friend and relative. How far the information I have to impart will come as a shock to you I have no way of knowing.

  You may be aware that I and my wife were recently much concerned to discover our son Thomas, a young man of twenty-five (four years younger than your sister, may I point out), had left his post with a company of timber exporters in Trondheim. I repeat, I do not know how much of your sister’s history in her employment with my family you are aware of, but I see no point in anything other than candour. The post in Norway was found by me two years ago purely as a means to remove Thomas far from your sister and her influence. He had formed an unhealthy attachment, encouraged, I believe by her. I need hardly tell you how unsuitable it was to have the son of the house enticed by the daughters’ governess, a woman considerably older than himself.

  I had plans and ambitions for my son, Miss Selsden, and those plans were, because of your sister’s manipulations and my son’s folly, irreparably damaged. After Thomas left, had I had my way she would have been dismissed out of hand. Any employer would have desired the same. However, due to my wife’s charitable intervention – she claimed Miss Selsden to be more foolish than criminal – your sister stayed in our employ. Incidentally, one of the conditions my son set when he agreed reluctantly to go to Norway was that Miss Selsden’s employment should continue for at least a year after his departure.

  And so your sister stayed on. I need hardly say how repulsive to me it was to have about me, and even more, my innocent young daughters, a woman of whose character I had such a low opinion. But I appeared to have no choice. I insisted she move from our house into lodgings nearby so that at least she did not sleep underneath an honest roof. I am aware this way of life was uncomfortable for her, and the daily walk to the house unpleasant in bad weather. Nevertheless, she did this. She might have left but chose not to do so. I suspect she thought to be close to Tom’s home and that way get news of him and be able slyly to trace his movements and doings. I regret that the walks to and from the house in inclement weather may have made their contribution to her later illness. However, I feel no remorse. I had been, I confess it, effectively forced to retain your sister by my wife’s appeals and Thomas’s declared resolve to return to Scotland if we did not keep her on and provide some security and income for her. Tantamount to blackmail, I confess it, and I yielded. I wish now I had been firmer. Of course, I did not know then what I do now about their relations. Had I done so I would not have been so tolerant. Nevertheless, I supposed – who would not? – that any woman with any pride, any self-respect, any spark of independence, would have sought and found another post as soon as possible, and quitted a household in which she was so plainly unwelcome. Not so. Your sister stayed on – and on – a perpetual reminder of kisses stolen in secret, notes passed, whispers, all the sordid business of a secret love affair.

  So much for the past, about which she may have informed you, though no doubt putting her own interpretation on matters, presenting the affair as something like Romeo and Juliet or Tristan and Isolde or some such nonsense. Or for aught I know she told you nothing, out of shame. However, whatever you may know, or not, it appears to me that when she absconded from your residence at Strand and went to London to meet my son, you had no knowledge of her plans or you would not have written to me at that time to ask if I knew of her whereabouts. And at the time, as I wrote you, I did not.

  Alas, I do now. Whether she later told you where she was I do not know. If you are still unaware of what she was doing I regret to have to tell you she was in London, living, unwed, with my son.

  The matter gets worse. She arrived here in Edinburgh, alone, without luggage and in an hysterical condition three days ago. Apparently she had not told Tom she was coming. She merely arrived at Carrick House, was let in and insisted – I was at my office – on an immediate interview with my wife. During the course of this she appealed to her to ensure that when she and my son married, we would not cast her off. Her manner was quite uncontrolled. Her demands and pleas were so distressing to my wife she caused me to be summoned from my office. When I arrived home your sister continued her harangue. She claimed I was hard-hearted, had no concern for my son’s happiness, still less her own, had conspired against her. She made it very plain, and I regret having to reveal this to you, that not only was the relationship between herself and Tom a guilty one now, but it had been so while they were under my roof, and she was governess here.

  At that time, Thomas, if you can credit it, was nineteen years old. Your sister was twenty-five. Imagine my horror when I discovered that for three years, here, while she was the governess of my two growing girls, she and Thomas were indulging in an illicit affair.

  I dealt with her as best I could. Because she was deeply distressed, and I feared the consequences of upsetting her further, I told her I would send for Thomas. The whole matter must be thrashed out between us. At this she began to shout and rave. She cried that all that was required was one word from me. How could I withhold it? she asked. I should not be calling Thomas home. I should be booking the church for a wedding as soon as possible. She said she ought, even now, to be buying a wedding dress, that my daughters should be told immediately that they had a new sister, so that their own dresses could be made. I cannot tell you what she said as what seemed to be long-dwelt-on fantasies came tumbling incoherently from her, along with reproaches and accusations directed at myself and my wife. She spoke of Thomas’s coming into my firm, the house she planned they should live in, the guests to be invited to the wedding. During the course of this speech she made confusing references to a family named Bennett, who were to come to her wedding – she would insist on it.

  I cannot tell you how dreadful this scene was. I cannot describe the state of your sister. She was like a madwoman. She strode up and down the room, words flowing from her in torrents. She wrung her hands, she wept. The scene gave unutterable distress to my wife. Nothing we said or did had the effect of calming Miss Selsden. Finally I was forced to summon our doctor, who made her take a strong draught. She was put to bed in the house. We had no alternative. You can imagine how disagreeable this was to all of us.

  I summoned Thomas from London. Next day, as we awaited his arrival, your sister seemed little better. She had been restless during the night. We had set the housekeeper to watch her and that reliable woman told us Miss Selsden had seemed to be having terrible nightm
ares, even though sedated. Next morning she continued to insist on her marriage, but her fantasies were little abated, her manner less wild and uncontrolled.

  We had not told her Thomas was expected for fear this would cause renewed frenzy. It was only when he was on the verge of arrival that we informed her he was coming. This news threw her into a terrible agitation. She screamed that we should have told her earlier, that Tom would be very angry with her for coming to us. Before we had a chance even to try to calm her, Thomas came in.

  Mrs Brett and I were greatly shocked at his appearance. He was thin, and his face was gaunt. He was weary and anxious. As soon as he entered the room Miss Selsden flung herself into his arms. She began to babble to him, telling him that we, his parents, had agreed to the wedding, the church was booked, we were making enquiries about the house she desired to live in with him. The cards of invitation to the wedding, she said, were about to be delivered. As she clasped him, pouring out her fantasies, I saw Thomas staring in embarrassed bewilderment, over her head at myself and his mother. My poor wife was standing stock still, an expression of horror on her face, a hand to her breast. I might add that the previous evening we had sent off our daughters to stay with an aunt, for fear they would see and hear too much. I had been obliged to leave urgent business to a clerk and did not anticipate getting back to my business quickly.

  It now proved impossible to have a private conversation with Thomas. Your sister would not leave him for a moment. All day she haunted him, following him from the room when he went out for a moment, refusing to allow me to speak to him, or his mother, without some interruption. If I or my wife even left the room she would make urgent enquiry as to where we had gone and attempt to find us and bring us back. She was not content to let any one of us out of her sight, nor to allow us to communicate with each other without her knowledge. It was as if she imagined we were all about to conspire to thwart her, as if she could not bear to be out of anyone’s thoughts for a moment. She was restless, her eyes darted everywhere, she would sit down beside Thomas, leap up, walk about, sit down again, grasping him. If we spoke to each other she would interrupt, imposing on us some unreality of her own.

  All day we were as good as trapped in our own sitting room, so dominated by her we might have been her captives.

  By evening it became plain that attempts to calm her by yielding to her were vain. There was no hope she would become calm and reasonable. All we saw ahead was a sleepless night. Elaine even threatened us with it. The days are so long. Shall we watch all night together and see the sun rise?’ What she meant was that she could not endure our departing to separate rooms where we would be able to communicate out of her presence and that she would not sleep herself in case we took advantage of her sleep to escape her control.

  How absurd you will think it, that your sister, a powerless person, could keep a respectable Edinburgh solicitor and his wife and their son, hostage in this manner. She beat us down by threatening us with her own madness. It could not go on. During the evening I insisted on calling the doctor. She disputed wildly with me before our housekeeper, who was to go to him. In the end I pushed the housekeeper from the front door. When the doctor came she refused his sedatives. I regret that finally, he and I, with the help of the housekeeper, pinned her down while the doctor administered an injection. It distresses me, Miss Selsden, to recount to you all this. But I must give you the detail so that you will understand what action we took next. I may say that during all her ramblings and ravings she did not once mention your name.

  Once she was asleep I managed to speak alone to my son for the first time. He was contrite; I was not too hard on him. We had suffered enough for one day. He told me that Elaine had summoned him from Norway saying she was bitterly unhappy, that your treatment of her was not good. She had no one else to turn to. He should not have given up his employment, of course. It was wrong and foolish. Nevertheless, I suppose he owed her some kindness, in view of their previous relations.

  In abandoning his employment he at least showed some sense of duty and obligation, albeit the object of these feelings was unworthy. In London, he told me, your sister was at first affectionate, and reasonable. He pointed out to her that approaching us, since he had impulsively given up his post in Norway, would be easier if he had got some other employment. He argued that then we might approve the marriage, however reluctantly. That was his opinion. I can’t say whether it was correct. Even if she were in her right mind, as evidently she is not, Miss Selsden is not the wife I would have wanted for my only son, for reasons I’m sure I need not explain.

  Thomas failed to find work. Their money was running out. They had been in London for only a few weeks when Elaine started to become discontented. Thomas told me it was then that she began to dwell on the details of the marriage of a young society girl, Flora Bennett, who was apparently about to marry into the peerage. She bought penny papers full of servants’ gossip and combed them for information about Miss Bennett, poring over them and commenting and speculating incessantly on the bride and groom, the wedding gifts, and all sorts of things of that kind. For the two weeks before she came to Scotland, apparently, she took to spending days and, at the last, a whole night away from their lodgings. When he asked her where she had been she would give evasive answers, or sometimes an explanation, such as that she had been looking for a position as a lady assistant in a shop. Thomas became bewildered and anxious about her state of mind.

  Poor Thomas brought this story out, shame-faced, but denying nothing, concluding, on a note of some despair, as if it were dragged from him, ‘I cannot marry her now. I know I should, but I cannot.’

  I told him, ‘You would be very foolish if you did. It is out of the question.’ Then he hung his head, appearing deeply ashamed. As indeed, he ought to have been, but it was a sad sight for a father to see. I then said we could decide nothing that night. We would have to try to settle something in the morning. And so we all retired to anxious pillows, leaving our reliable housekeeper again to a night of watching. Before going to my room I thanked her for cheerfully agreeing to another night without sleep. In return, she gave me a stern look and said, ‘In my opinion, there’s nothing an ordinary person can do for the woman. She’ll have to be locked up.’ The doctor had imparted much the same message to my wife on his departure. He told her your sister could not stay at large in the state she was in. She would require confinement and medical attention for a while.

  I must now inform you that this morning I told your sister she must enter a sanatorium to recover her health, while we proceeded with plans for the wedding in three weeks’ time. This was done on the advice of our doctor. I regret the deception, but saw no alternative. In this way your sister was induced to enter a private nursing home some fifteen miles from here. This place specialises in the treatment of nervous diseases and similar ailments. It is used by the best people in Edinburgh, is humanely run and I have every confidence the treatment is appropriate to her condition.

  You will see, I hope, there was no other course for me to follow. Had my son rejected Elaine she would have become desperate enough to do anything. One of the least serious consequences might have been the necessity to place her in a sanatorium, but there would have been infinitely more scandal and disruption. It became, let me assure you, impossible to keep her one hour longer in my house. My whole household had been disrupted. My servants, inevitably curious, would have ended up informing the entire neighbourhood of the disorderly events in my house, concerning a former governess and my son. You can imagine what the gossips of the neighbourhood would have made of this story, distressing my wife even further. I greatly deplore being forced to persuade your sister into a nursing home on the false grounds she was to be married, but it had to be done.

  This affair leaves us all, and you, I believe more than any, in a serious predicament. Your sister is in Scotland, undergoing treatment. I and my family can take no further responsibility for her. And there is, of course, the matter of cost. Would y
ou have the kindness to reply by the next post telling me what you propose to do? Ideally, you will bring her or cause her to be brought back to where she came from. I repeat, I cannot assume responsibility for her, and I impatiently await your response.

  Harold Brett

  Forty-Two

  Nothing in her relationship with her sister since reaching Strand had prepared Marguerite for such dreadful news. That Elaine had been removed from the Bretts to a sanatorium was terrible enough. But that she had evidently, during her employment at the house in Edinburgh, and while in charge of the family’s young daughters, been Tom Brett’s mistress was, to Marguerite, much more shocking. She remembered Elaine’s passionate words in Mrs Constantine’s parlour, after Henry Reeve had come to tea: ‘I must have something.’ Now she thought she understood them better. Elaine had been in love with Tom Brett, had not been able to deny her feelings. The Bretts had snatched Tom away – no wonder, Marguerite thought, poor Elaine craved ‘something’.

  For some time she sat in a chair, holding the letter, trying to understand fully what had occurred. She knew she must go to Scotland as soon as possible to rescue Elaine. She was not confused about what she had to do – it was that she could not understand what had happened. Was Harold Brett’s account true? How could Elaine have been so cruel as to leave her for six weeks, without a word? There was a knock at the door. Jenny must have told Mrs Constantine of the arrival of a letter from Scotland.

  As Marguerite stood in the doorway still holding the letter, Mrs Constantine took in her anxious face and said, ‘Not bad news, I hope.’

  ‘A dreadful letter, Mrs Constantine,’ Marguerite said. She felt she could not show it, with all its revelations of her sister’s instability and folly. She therefore summarised the contents as clearly as she could. As she spoke Mrs Constantine exclaimed occasionally.

 

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