Mrs Grose’s voice interrupted. ‘Your prayers won’t serve you here, sir,’ she observed.
‘I believe prayer helps us wherever we may be,’ he said and continued. But he was afraid. He reached the end of the psalm: ‘Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.’
He finished; no ‘Amen’ came from the women. Instead, Elaine Selsden laughed.
‘Amen,’ he said. Then, feeling utterly drained, he stood, said a brief goodbye and, very disturbed, left the house as quickly as he could. He went straight to the church.
There, almost alone, he prayed earnestly, for half an hour. The exhaustion he had felt when with the women stayed with him. He was also very shocked.
The women had refused to pray with him. They had told him plainly the spirits of Quint and Jessell and the boy suicide, Miles, were at large. They believed Flora was being haunted. They believed it! And, he thought with horror, it seemed to him that they enjoyed the notion. And Elaine – Elaine! He had prayed and, when he had finished praying, she had laughed. Laughed!
He could not understand these women. He did not know who or what they were or why they were acting as they did. They had conspired to get rid of him as soon as possible. And they had succeeded, he realised. But why?
As he knelt there he understood that he must accept that these women believed themselves in league with the unquiet spirits of Quint and Jesell and Miles Bennett. There was no other explanation. What horrid pacts, complicities, fantasies had been created in the solitude of Bly so long ago? And what were they thinking, doing now, Mrs Grose and Elaine Selsden?
One thought struck at him insistently – he did not know what to do. He did not know what to do. He did not even know, God help him, if these women were truly in league with forces not of this world, or simply mad. But if they were? What then?
Deeply troubled and unhappy he stood up, left the quiet of the cathedral and returned to Lion House. He attempted to disguise his deep disturbance of mind as he crossed the lawn to where Henry, Mrs Constantine and Marguerite were sitting together, in the golden light of early evening. Shadows barred the grass as he approached.
Henry, he knew, must see his anxiety but he looked up, smiled and said, ‘Sit. I believe there is still some hot tea. What a summer we’re having.’
He sat down. Marguerite, leaning forward to hand him his cup of tea, asked, ‘Did you find out what you wished to know, Father Rawley?’
He shook his head. ‘I’m afraid I did not,’ he said.
‘Well, perhaps there is nothing concrete to discover. I suppose that is no great surprise. The events at Bly were long ago,’ Henry said.
After Marguerite and Mrs Constantine had left Rawley observed to Henry, ‘That is a very charming young lady. She seems a very different kettle of fish from the other Miss Selsden.’
‘I think so,’ Henry said. ‘But I think your visit disturbed you, Jack. There were things you weren’t mentioning while the two ladies were here. What were you hiding?’
‘I scarcely know myself. They would not cooperate with me. Mrs Grose is angry because she’s lost the cottage Geoffrey Bennett promised her. He’s given it to someone else. Miss Selsden seems resentful for some other reason. Mrs Grose is right in complaining they were left alone at Bly with the two children. But, Henry, they horrified me, those women. Miss Selsden virtually refused to speak to me. At the end, she laughed – laughed. Henry they are sinister.’
The garden seemed very quiet as he spoke. ‘What can you mean?’ asked Henry.
‘Well, simply that they believe the spirits of the governess, Miss Jessell, the servant Quint and the boy are still at large. But worse, infinitely worse – they rejoice in the thought.’
Henry sat back in his chair, horrified. ‘What an obscenity,’ he declared. ‘How they must have festered away together, down at Bly.’ He paused, then looked carefully at his friend. ‘I don’t suppose you believe them – that these horrors are prowling about?’
‘Can we say they’re not?’ Rawley asked.
‘Good God, Jack! You can’t tell me you believe that sort of thing!’
‘I am a clergyman, Henry,’ his friend responded mildly. ‘I’m certain of one thing, though. Flora believes it.’
‘What will you do?’
He sighed. ‘There are conventional methods—’
‘You, Jack, prancing about with bell, book and candle?’
‘I shall do what I have to,’ he said.
‘I prefer to put my faith in the medical skills of my brother, Charles.’
‘Then I shall be praying that he comes soon,’ Father Rawley told him.
Fifty
But Charles Reeve did not come to England, for a month later the country was at war. Now, with Justin and Thomas Kilmoyne both in France with their regiment, Flora and Lady Kilmoyne were at Fosse Hall. Flora was expecting a baby in March.
The two women sat out on the terrace on a warm afternoon in autumn. Flora was knitting a heavy khaki jersey. Lady Kilmoyne was reading. She looked up at her daughter-in-law and said, ‘I admire your skill, Flora.’
‘I was sent to a convent in Highgate for my schooling,’ she said. “The nuns were very enthusiastic about knitting and sewing.’ She added steadily, ‘When this is done I shall make one for Thomas. After all, winter will come all too soon.’
‘Half the regiment gone at Mons,’ Lady Kilmoyne remarked uncompromisingly.
‘Paris is saved,’ Flora said.
‘Let’s hope the experts at the War Office are correct and that this will soon be over.’
Flora nodded, but did not reply.
‘I shall ask your uncle and aunt for the weekend, and perhaps some others. We need company here, with Kilmoyne always in London about the nation’s business. And I believe I’ll have to shut the house up for the duration of the war, so many men from the estate are joining up. It’ll become impossible, shortly, to stay here with no one to do the work. So we might as well make the most of Fosse while we have the chance.’
‘What a good idea.’
Lady Kilmoyne studied Flora covertly. She looked very well; her pregnancy was giving her no trouble. Almost more important from Lady Kilmoyne’s point of view was that there had been no repetition of the ghastly state Flora had got into on her honeymoon. She had taken the news of Justin’s regiment’s posting to France with the courage expected of a soldier’s wife. And it was hard on her, Lady Kilmoyne had to admit, to find herself bride, a coming mother and the wife of an officer on active service, all within the space of three months. ‘We’ll pack up the house and go back to London before Christmas,’ she said decisively.
Fifty-One
Marguerite Selsden stood in the sunshine in the road at the end of the drive leading to the mighty red building of Westwood Academy. It was Saturday afternoon and she was free until lights out, at ten. She was on her way to visit Mrs Constantine.
In the end she had been very grateful to give up the rooms in Mermaid Street and move her trunk to her own small room at Westwood Academy. Her duties at the school were not too heavy, her colleagues friendly and the girls pleasant. But it was the calm, orderly life of the school Marguerite relished, and its distance, two miles, from Strand. For matters at Mermaid Street had become terrible during the time before she left to take up her post.
There had been an ugly scene almost as soon as she and Mrs Constantine returned to the house in the early evening of that June day when Father Rawley had paid his visit to Elaine and Mrs Grose.
Elaine had erupted into the hall, crying out, ‘How nice for you to have enjoyed tea in the garden at Lion House, while we were being interrogated by that seedy-looking clergyman. If I’d known what we were being tricked into I would have refused to see him.’
Marguerite was removing her hat, while Mrs Constantine was moving towards the kitchen. Mrs Constantine stopped in her tracks. Marguerite asked, ‘Was it unpleasant, Elaine?’
‘Not unpleasant, just unnec
essary,’ said Mrs Grose, who had come from the parlour behind Elaine. ‘Of course, you’re well in with Mr Reeve, aren’t you Marguerite? And Mrs Constantine was formerly his servant, so you comply with what Mr Reeve and his friends want, whatever the insult or unpleasantness to others.’
‘Insult?’ questioned Marguerite. ‘I am sorry. I did not think—’
‘Perhaps you did,’ Elaine said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘That you’re angling for Henry Reeve and will naturally do what he asks,’ Elaine told her.
‘Elaine!’ cried Marguerite.
‘Elaine!’ mimicked Elaine. ‘There’s no need to play the innocent maiden with me. Here, we’ve been subjected to an unwanted interview in a stuffy parlour—’
‘Stuffy!’ exclaimed Mrs Constantine. ‘Really!’
‘—while you enjoyed the facilities of Lion House, all because some spoilt whimpering girl in London has taken a funny turn on her honeymoon. And we’re supposed to be responsible. We’re interrogated, supposed to supply the answers and solve the family problem. Two helpless and unprotected women. And Mrs Grose has lost her cottage, too, as a result.’
‘Lost her cottage,’ Mrs Constantine said in alarm.
‘Yes. Mr Bennett has given the cottage he promised me to another,’ said Mrs Grose. ‘But do not alarm yourself – Elaine and I have made our own arrangements. We will not stay here any longer. It’s obvious we are unwelcome. And as for you, Miss Marguerite Selsden, I wonder what kind of a sister you think you are.’
‘Oh – Mrs Grose!’ exclaimed Marguerite.
‘Shall we all go and sit down?’ suggested Mrs Constantine.
And so they went into the parlour, where a bottle of Mrs Constantine’s prime Madeira, six bottles of which were given to her annually by her son, stood on the table, with two glasses. Someone, Elaine or Mrs Grose, had got it from the pantry. Mrs Constantine said nothing. Elaine and Mrs Grose sat beside each other on the sofa.
Marguerite asked Elaine, ‘What is happening?’
Mrs Grose said, ‘I have found a small house in Slope Street. Elaine and I will move into it and live there together. Elaine will get work as a teacher later. You have obtained a position for yourself at Westwood Academy, Marguerite, abandoning Elaine, without considering her future, so we saw no need to confide our plans to you. Of course, this will be a temporary arrangement, until Mr Brett comes for Elaine. After the wedding I will go to live near her – where she goes, I will go.’
‘If,’ Marguerite said in a low voice, ‘if – for any reason – he does not come?’
‘What makes you think he won’t?’ cried Elaine. ‘Have you done something? Said something? Have you destroyed my chances yet again?’
‘Of course he will come, lovie,’ Mrs Grose said, laying her hand on Elaine’s knee.
‘Of course,’ she said, as if recollecting herself, ‘of course he will come.’
Marguerite looked at Elaine, very pretty in a fresh pink dress, at Mrs Grose, solid in her dark blouse and skirt, and felt a pang go through her. The charge that she was attempting to attract Henry Reeve, she thought, was not fair, but did attack some very secret feelings of her own, and this seemed to her to put her at a disadvantage.
She knew she ought to warn them against the course they were taking. Slope Street was in the warren of small streets, almost alleys, going down to the quayside, a rough area housing fishermen and dock workers. The houses were unhealthy and neglected by their landlords. On any grounds it was not a suitable place for her sister to live. Nor, she felt instinctively, was Mrs Grose a suitable companion for her. The whole plan depended on its being a short-term arrangement, until Tom Brett came to marry Elaine. And Marguerite very much doubted that he would. How would it be for them, then, as they waited in Slope Street for his redemptive arrival? What if he did not come? And Elaine had no money …
While she struggled to find what to say, Mrs Constantine told them, ‘Slope Street is not a very nice place to live. If you like, I will look about for something more suitable.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Constantine,’ said Mrs Grose, ‘but we have decided. To be sure, Slope Street lacks the refinement of some other areas of the town, but it will suit us very well until Mr Brett comes.’
Mrs Constantine, accused of having a stuffy parlour and of having been Mr Reeve’s ‘servant’, when she was always keen to stress she had been his housekeeper, had been as generous as she felt able to be. And she wanted Elaine and Mrs Grose to leave as soon as possible. She said, ‘Very well. If that is what you want.’
Marguerite said, ‘Elaine, many of those houses are unhealthy, damp—’
‘It is temporary,’ declared Elaine. ‘We shall be gone in six months, perhaps sooner.’
And so for the next few days Mrs Grose and Elaine had organised the move. A relenting Mrs Constantine sent round a lad to whitewash all the walls of the two-bedroomed cottage, which stood in a short narrow street. Mrs Grose sent for her furniture from Bly. Marguerite tried over those days to talk to her sister, but was always repulsed. Elaine was angry with her. Elaine had conceived the idea she was acting against her. She made one last effort on the day of the move, while Mrs Grose was in Slope Street receiving her furniture from Bly. As Elaine bent over her trunk, packing, Marguerite stood in the bedroom doorway. ‘Elaine, if I have done anything to upset you, I apologise, but you must tell me what you think I have done. Let us talk.’
Elaine stood up, gazed at her angrily and said, ‘No, we have talked enough. You have already cut me out with Mr Reeve, helped me to be blamed for what has happened to Flora Kilmoyne, and damaged my cause with Tom’s father. Quite enough! I’ve noticed that when we talk, I suffer. The sooner I am away from you the better. You were kind when I was an invalid. But once I was better, what did you become? A jealous rival. A sister can be your worst enemy, we all know that.’
But Marguerite had not seen Henry Reeve since Father Rawley’s visit. She wondered if the doings and dealings in Mermaid Street, relayed to Lion House by Mrs Constantine, had made him think badly of her. Men cautioned each other against women by saying, when there was a particularly unpleasant mother in the case, ‘Like mother, like daughter.’ Perhaps, she thought sadly, it was just as likely, if one sister behaved as Elaine had done, that a gentleman might consider the other sister much the same as the first. She had to admit now that she had had some hopes of Henry Reeve, even if only as a friend. That friendship, or whatever it might have become, was probably now at an end. Elaine’s last, sharp words made her bitter. She said, ‘I don’t think you should go to Slope Street with Mrs Grose, Elaine. But if things go wrong, I hope you won’t come weeping to me.’ Then she turned and left the room.
Her own move to the school took place not long after Elaine and Mrs Grose left Mermaid Street. She heard from Mrs Constantine that Henry Reeve had gone away to Italy, but, although he had said goodbye to Mrs Constantine, he had not spoken to her. As she left Mrs Constantine’s for the last time she said sadly, ‘You will be glad to see the back of all of us, Mrs Constantine. But I am grateful to you, please believe that.’
Mrs Constantine had forgiven her, if the arrival of a carrier with a fruitcake and a cold fowl, with a note deploring school cooks, was anything to go by. This note also told her she would be welcome to visit whenever she was free.
And so, for the first time in three months, Marguerite was returning to Mermaid Street.
Mrs Constantine greeted the tall, quietly dressed woman with enthusiasm. ‘You look so well,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Very trim, and less strained than when I last saw you. Small wonder, after what went on here in the summer. Well, a little treat, or I hope it will be. When Mr Reeve heard you were coming he begged me to bring you over to Lion House for tea. If you’ll come. He’s back at the Colonial Office now, because of the war, and only comes to Strand at weekends. He spends the weekdays in London, staying with his friends the Bennetts.’
Marguerite said she would be very pleased to have tea at
Lion House. Before that, though, she thought she would briefly visit Elaine and Mrs Grose in Slope Street.
‘Do they know you’re coming?’ Mrs Constantine asked with some concern.
Marguerite shook her head. ‘I’ve had no communication with Elaine since the move. I sent her a note, giving her the exact address of the school, but she did not acknowledge it. I’d like to mend our fences, though. I don’t want this unhappy business to continue. Have you any reports of them?’
‘No,’ said Mrs Constantine. ‘Only that the neighbours say they are awake all night. I heard it through Jenny. She has some kind of cousin who lives in the street. Everybody in Strand is related.’
Marguerite was apprehensive as she walked from the respectability of the High Street, with its bank, churches and shops, down narrower streets to the harbour. She and Elaine had parted on bad terms. She was unsure of a welcome. Mrs Grose, she now saw, did not like her, had never liked her and had, in a sense, disputed with her for influence over Elaine. She reflected that if, after three months, Elaine was still waiting for Tom she might be in no good frame of mind.
As she entered the small, crowded streets by the dock, her doubts increased. She ought to have sent a message in advance, she thought, announcing her arrival. The streets were crowded. There was a smell of fish, and a bad, sour reek emanating from the old and plainly overcrowded houses. Slope Street itself, when she reached it, was narrow and short, with nine houses on either side. There was a further street crossing it at the end. Beyond that, she knew, lay the harbour. Gulls swooped over her as she walked down the street, passing first a public house, then, as she picked her way down over cobbles, a shop created from the front room of a house, selling second-hand goods, chairs and pots and pans. Old clothes for sale hung round the open door. Outside the next house was a battered pram containing a pale, sleeping baby. Next door children played in the open front doorway and along a gloomy passageway.
The only reason Elaine and Mrs Grose had moved to Slope Street was to get a low rent, Marguerite thought. After all, Elaine had no money and whatever funds Mrs Grose had must be small, if this choice of housing was any indication.
Miles and Flora Page 21
