Marguerite said quietly, ‘Might I ask, Mrs Grose, how much of this relationship between Tom Brett and my sister you knew of. You were in correspondence all the time she was at the Bretts, I believe.’
‘She confided that he was paying attention to her, that she reciprocated his feelings, of course.’
‘So,’ Marguerite continued, ‘even though Tom Brett had called here, even though I was so anxious after Elaine’s disappearance you did not think of telling me there had been strong feelings between them? When that relationship might have had a bearing on her disappearance?’
‘I did not think it had. In any case, it was not for me to tell you, if she had not,’ Mrs Grose said irrefutably. But she added, ‘Well, I can tell from the atmosphere in this room I am unwelcome. I am surprised, I must admit. I’m here to help all I can with Elaine, yet I feel that recently your attitude has been nothing but unfriendly. I think I’d better go up to my room to give you a good chance to work out exactly what it is you’re accusing me of.’
When she had gone Mrs Constantine said, ‘I notice there’s no word of her leaving, yet.’
‘I think she’d like to remain until Elaine returns,’ Marguerite said nervously.
‘Well, she can do that, I suppose. But her presence in this house oppresses me,’ declared Mrs Constantine. ‘She’s like a bird of ill omen. It’s not your fault, my dear. But please take a word of advice from an older woman – do not give up the post at Miss Greenslade’s.’
‘How strange. Mr Reeve advised the same thing only half an hour ago,’ Marguerite told her.
‘Did he now?’ said Mrs Constantine.
‘Oh – and I will not be here for supper tonight. I beg your pardon. I had forgotten. Mr Reeve has asked me to dine tonight, with some friends.’
‘Well, well,’ Mrs Constantine said.
* * *
Marguerite spent much of the rest of the day assisting with the clearing of kitchen drawers, cupboards and shelves which, begun on an impatient impulse of Mrs Constantine’s, threatened disruption. Mrs Grose did not appear all day.
That evening Marguerite changed her dress, arranged her hair and set out for Lion House.
The maid let her in. Henry greeted her with a long face, saying, ‘My dear Miss Selsden. My friends the Aliens have cancelled at the last moment. A child is ill. Please, do not disappoint me also. Stay, even if it is to eat your dinner and leave straight after.’
Marguerite laughed and said, ‘Thank you. I hope I’ll not bore you, by myself at table.’
‘You could never do that, I assure you,’ he told her.
They sat for a little while in the small drawing room, talking of the excavations, proceeding apace and both, by unspoken agreement, not mentioning the recent disturbing events surrounding Elaine Selsden.
They sat down to dinner. Over the soup Marguerite asked Henry how long he had been at Lion House. He replied, seven years, since the death of the uncle who had left it to him. This had brought him back from his colonial post in Africa and not, he said, a bit too soon, for he was by then approaching forty and past the age of good promotions. He added that the climate became harder to withstand as one grew older. He mentioned, ‘I built some roads and some schools and collected His Majesty’s taxes but, I own, had come to question the very reasons for my being there. I was obliged to send people to prison for not paying taxes to a king in England. I think they saw it as the unpleasant result of losing a tribal war. I was supposed to convince them it was for their own good. I came to wonder if their heretical idea, that as a losing tribe they were forced to pay, might not have some truth to it. Perhaps this was the cause of my less than meteoric rise through the ranks of the Colonial Office. However,’ he said carefully, ‘the less power one has, the less damage one is capable of doing. That is my way of looking at it, though you will think me very lazy and unambitious.’
‘I have seen power over others in its most extreme form, in Russia,’ she said. ‘If men are good, it can be beneficent. If not, the consequences are awful.’
‘And how long were you in Russia?’
‘For nine years,’ she told him. ‘I was in charge of the three princesses Kleber. The oldest is now sixteen. I think she will be married soon.’
‘Pardon me if I am too curious, but why did you elect to go so far from home?’ he asked her.
‘My first post was with a family in Yorkshire. I was uncomfortable there and had the notion, being young and bold, that I would go as far away, and see as much of the world, as possible. I replied to an advertisement in The Times, and in a remarkably short time was in St Petersburg. It’s strange how things happen. Once there I came to love it. There was glamour and excitement in the strangeness, the wildness, even the danger. But it now seems very far away. Sitting here in this country, which seems too small and fundamentally orderly, it is hard to imagine a place so ill-regulated, so eternally on the verge of precipitous events. Does Africa seem the same to you?’
He nodded. By now they had eaten a sole. Veal escalopes followed. Marguerite laughed, ‘Are we consuming the food of two other people? My appetite is weakening, Mr Reeve.’
‘Will you call me Henry?’ he asked her suddenly.
She hesitated. ‘I should like to,’ she said. ‘But if so – you will—’
‘No,’ he told her. ‘I shall keep to the formalities until you find yourself able of your own accord to ask me to call you by your Christian name.’ He leaned forward, his large brown eyes very earnest. ‘Perhaps I should not speak now – yet I must. Miss Selsden, I entertain a great regard for you. I should like … I should like the opportunity to know you better. Please do not feel alarmed. I could find no way to lead up to this, yet I could keep silence to longer. Believe me, I had to speak and I ask no reply, no continuation of this conversation – it is just … just that I think you admirable.’
She was, indeed, looking at him startled and wide-eyed. ‘Do not think of going,’ he said. ‘Please do not. Let things be now as they have been. We will talk of something else. I will not speak like this again. Tell me if you have any further thoughts of Miss Greenslade and Westwood Academy.’
‘Mrs Constantine advises me to take the post – as you did,’ Marguerite said faintly, her mind still on Henry’s praise of her and his desire to know her on a different basis. She paused, collecting herself. ‘I shall wait a week until my sister returns. Much will hang on her state, and her own plans, if she has any.’
‘That sounds the wisest course,’ he replied.
The telephone rang and he was called to answer it. While he was out of the room Marguerite sat, her plate neglected, thinking. Surely he should not have spoken to her like that. Yet he had not been embarrassing or unpleasant. Yet – they had been alone. But had they not been, how could he have spoken? Perhaps the worst thought was that she was in his debt, to some extent, because of his kindness. It was at this point that Marguerite suddenly appreciated the extent of her past difficulties – and still it was not over. Elaine would return, and she had no idea how ill she might be. And Mrs Grose had not left Strand. Solutions seemed very far away.
Not long afterwards, Henry came back into the room. He stood for a moment gazing at Marguerite. Then sat down, as if automatically. He looked at his plate, then back at her.
‘Is something the matter?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he said. ‘No – nothing to concern you. But you are not eating.’
‘I can do no more,’ she said.
‘Then, perhaps you will have a glass of wine with me in the drawing room and then I shall see you home. I am grateful to you for giving me your company, especially with the Aliens not here.’
And so they went into the little drawing room, where Henry had his port and Marguerite a glass of Madeira. She was still taken aback by his avowal. He persuaded her to describe the banquet held by her employers in St Petersburg to celebrate the engagement of two Russian nobles, one from the sophisticated cosmopolitan West, the other a Tartar princess (‘for su
ch people still exist,’ she assured him). As she spoke on she forgot her nervousness. She told of the drinking, the jewels, the speeches, the arrival of Tartar dancers, who leapt on the table to perform their wild dances, the search for an uncle of one of the couple who had wandered out drunk and when this was realised had to be found quickly and dug out of a snowdrift before he froze to death.
‘At the end of this affair,’ she said, ‘all the guests, including myself, were presented with gold watches, studded with diamonds. I tried to return mine next day but my employer pointed out that my host would see this as impolite. I was forced to keep it.’
‘My goodness, Miss Selsden, for a quiet-seeming, respectable young lady, what you have seen!’ he said laughing. ‘And from what you have said it is clear you speak Russian.’
‘An asset that I did not mention to Miss Greenslade, thinking it would not impress her as being of much use to her young ladies,’ she said.
‘And can you sing Russian songs?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘Then, next time you come here you will sing for us. There is a piano upstairs.’
‘I shall,’ she said, then rose. ‘But it’s time to leave.’
He took her arm as they walked the short distance back to Maiden Lane, and she did not pull away.
‘I will come in and say a word to Mrs Constantine,’ he said.
They had a cup of tea in the drawing room where, until their arrival, Mrs Constantine had been sitting with Mrs Grose. When they came in Mrs Grose was by the window, Mrs Constantine in her usual place doing some mending, which she put away when they came in. They chatted for a while, but Mrs Grose stayed where she was, and did not join in. At ten o’clock Henry left, saying, ‘I’m summoned to London tomorrow but will be back on the same day. May I look in in the evening, Mrs Constantine?’ Mrs Constantine agreed.
As soon as Henry had gone Mrs Grose stood up and swung round to face Marguerite. ‘You’re making very good progress with Mr Reeve, in Elaine’s absence,’ she said.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Marguerite replied.
‘Well, I understood from her letters to me that Mr Reeve was taking a considerable interest in her,’ Mrs Grose replied.
‘He was not. If that was what she wrote to you, she was wrong,’ Mrs Constantine stated firmly from her chair.
‘I beg your pardon,’ Mrs Grose said in an angry tone. ‘In that case, I – and Elaine – must have been very much mistaken.’
And she left the room.
Henry, meanwhile, took a detour on his way home. He stood gazing over Strand ramparts. Father Rawley had telephoned from a friend’s house to tell him Flora had been brought back from her honeymoon to London in a state of collapse. Rawley had told him Beth and Geoffrey Bennett were quite distraught, and he felt Henry, as their friend, would want to hear the news. Would Henry, he asked, care to come to London and stay with him? Henry had agreed, but now gazed down from the ramparts over the quiet countryside below with a sinking heart. He began to see a new life ahead of him, felt shoots of hope coming up such as he had not felt for many a year, since he had been a young man. Yet he had to go to London, for Rawley’s call to him sounded very much like an appeal.
Forty-Five
‘Flora is at the Kilmoynes’ house,’ Father Rawley told Henry. They were in his little parlour in the East End. ‘Beth and Geoffrey are anxious, of course, and, in the politest way in the world, Lady Kilmoyne is excluding them from any part in Flora’s care. They are told the doctor has said they may only visit her for short periods of time and when they venture to discuss her case Lady Kilmoyne points out that two highly qualified doctors are in charge and that they had better leave all decisions to them. But naturally they feel that having brought her up they should be involved. Nothing is being done which should not be done, but here one sees the disadvantages of marrying a daughter into a higher rank. The more influential family sees very clearly that the woman is part of their family now, not her own, and act accordingly.’
‘How is Flora? Henry asked.
‘She is under sedation, apparently. The chief doctor is Dr John Barnaby, a nerve specialist. He has a practice among the highest in the land, even the Royal family, it’s whispered. I say nothing as to his competence. But one of his more outstanding of qualities is his ability to keep a confidence. That is the understanding he is brought in on.’
‘Well, Jack,’ Henry said, ‘I understand your disquiet. But I don’t know what you think you or I can do. The princess is in her castle, guarded by legitimate guards. Geoffrey has told you about Mrs Grose. What Geoffrey doesn’t know, because I never told him, is that after the evening when Elaine Selsden related her tale of horror I wrote to my brother Charles in Boston, asking him his opinion. He sent me a cable saying his opinion was that Flora was in trouble – not likely to mend just because she was married.’
‘Why I wanted to see you,’ Father Rawley said energetically, ‘was to hear exactly what Mrs Grose said. If necessary we must go back to her, back to the governess, back to the roots of what happened at Bly. And get Charles in on the case, if possible. He usually comes in August, doesn’t he? Couldn’t you ask him to come over a little earlier this year?’
‘I could try – but he does have other matters to attend to,’ Henry responded. Then, impatiently, ‘Oh, damn it, Jack, I know I’m being a little surly. The truth is I stumbled into this affair by the sheer accident of Geoffrey’s former governess settling round the corner from me in Bly. And I’m getting fond of her sister.’
‘Really?’ questioned Father Rawley.
‘Really,’ Henry affirmed. ‘But of course I’ll write to Charles. If he won’t come to England straight away he will be able to recommend a reputable man here in London who can be introduced by the Bennetts as their own preferred specialist. I’m deeply sorry for Justin. First his bride practically faints at the altar, then collapses on the honeymoon. It would be hard for a young man to retain his pride in such a situation. What exactly seems to have happened?’
Father Rawley told him, ‘According to Justin, she saw an intruder in their bedroom in Venice, was seized with terror, went into something like a coma or a catalepsy. Having consulted a doctor, he was advised to bring her back to England. The intruder was never found. Inevitably, doubts are being raised as to whether he ever existed. Flora came back in a state of collapse. She’s in bed, not eating, and has scarcely spoken since. The Bennetts are at a disadvantage. There’s an implication, unspoken of course, that they married their niece into the Kilmoynes without revealing the fact that her nerves were unstable. This puts them at a great disadvantage as far as helping Flora is concerned. She appealed to me at her wedding breakfast – I deeply regret, now, I did not insist on finding a way of preventing them from going away.’
‘Who’s to say it wouldn’t have happened wherever they were? I’d better write to Charles and ask him to come as soon as he can. Meanwhile that housekeeper’s still at Strand. They don’t seem to be able to get rid of her. She’s waiting for the return of Elaine Selsden from Scotland, where she seems to have had a nervous collapse. I ask you, Jack, what’s going on? These women would be better shouting “Votes for women!” in the street, breaking windows, being forcibly fed in Holloway. At any rate we’d all understand a good deal better what ailed them.’
Father Rawley could not help disliking his tone: ‘Perhaps you’d like to tell Geoffrey and Beth that all their niece needs is a couple of pamphlets from the Women’s Social and Political Union and a short spell in prison.’
Henry apologised. ‘I’m sorry, Jack. I spoke thoughtlessly. I’ll come with you to the Bennetts’, of course, and do what I can. But what is there to do, old man? We’re relatively helpless.’ He could not help adding, ‘I very much want to be back at Strand soon.’
‘Do you?’ Father Rawley said.
Forty-Six
Flora Kilmoyne lay in a drugged sleep under a painted ceiling depicting a classical scene of cypresses, broken columns, nymphs, de
er, huntsmen. Her frail figure seemed barely visible under a light bedspread of dark-red silk in the large bed. A nurse sat by the fireplace, reading.
On her return from Venice she had been in a state of collapse. Later this stupor was interrupted by periods during which she was agitated, and paced the room, wringing her hands, speechless but for the few polite, docile, meaningless remarks she could summon when the demand came: ‘Thank you,’ or ‘I am very well.’ It was, as Dr Barnaby observed, as if she were in great pain and could respond only in this distracted way. One might say, he added, that she was in pain, though it was not physical. He diagnosed a deep melancholia and privately surmised that something had gone drastically wrong on the honeymoon. This was not uncommon in his experience when an ignorant young woman met an ardent bridegroom on the first nights after the wedding. He said as much to Lady Kilmoyne, who had come to much the same conclusion. She had already asked her husband to discuss this with Justin. Justin had told his father he could not believe he had offended Flora in any way.
Meanwhile, the only course was to sedate Flora and hope that nature would help provide a remedy. Dr Barnaby was not in favour of what he described as Viennese confessional mumbo-jumbo. His stated professional view was that it did not in his experience help patients to recover. Privately he knew such an approach could result in revelations best kept under wraps.
Meanwhile Flora lay on in bed, now restless, even under sedation. Her drugged dreams were penetrated by the whispers of the couple who had haunted her childhood, and the shadowy vision of her dead brother. Justin sat beside her for hours, holding her hand. Occasionally she would wake, turn her head to him, and her eyes would fill with tears. When the Bennetts came, she was always asleep – the nurse had orders to make sure this was so.
But gradually the whispers and the visions came to her less often. Five days after her return her drugged agitation had lessened. Dr Barnaby reduced the sedatives he gave her. To Lady Kilmoyne, anxious for a verdict upon the final outcome, he said, ‘I regret I cannot predict what will happen. We must take it day by day. Let us be happy she seems so much better, so quickly.’
Miles and Flora Page 19
