When Love grows doubt

by Barbara Eckhoff

  Without having to think about it, Moira answered in a clear voice:

  "I love you. Even on our first night, at the ball outside in the garden, I thought you were very nice.

  I enjoyed that evening with you very much, but I had also seen the effect you had on the other ladies and I didn't think it was possible that you could be even remotely interested in me. I was therefore happily surprised when you came to visit me a few days later. In all the time that we've been married, I've never once betrayed you. I had the best and happiest days of my life with you and every time I thought that Dumfrey would leave me alone, he showed up again and entangled me deeper and deeper in something I wanted nothing to do with. Robert, I know I've hurt you deeply, and I'm sorry, but can't you feel my love for you?"

  Desperation was in her gaze. He seemed not to believe her. Was it a surprise? She had played nasty tricks on him. Robert didn't know what to say. On the one hand he wanted to believe her when she said she loved him, but then there was the night he had found her on the cliffs.

  "If you love me, then why did you try to take your own life?"

  Horrified, she looked at him.

  "Take my life? I would never do that, that would be sinning before God. How could you think such a thing?"

  "I found you up on the cliffs. You jumped over the precipice. Lucky or unlucky for you, there was a ledge below you that broke your fall."

  Robert watched closely to see what her reaction to his words were, but Moira did not feel caught, she was genuinely horrified by what he told her.

  "It can't be. Harried said that I had an accident."

  "That's what I told them, so that there wouldn't be gossip. But the fact is that you ran away and wanted to put an end to your life. Was I that repugnant to you?"

  Moira's mind was working at full speed, if only she could remember exactly what had happened. Her head was pounding, not making it any easier for her, but she had to convince Robert here and now that she was not a suicide threat. This idea was absolutely absurd.

  "I ran away from the police because I didn't want them to arrest me. I remember panicking."

  "Why would the police arrest you? They don't know anything about what you did."

  "You didn't tell them?"

  "No, except Samuel, who I had to tell two days ago, because he helped me get you off the cliff. Only you and I know what really happened. And I also told you that I wouldn't do anything as long as you were carrying our child."

  He winced inwardly at the thought of the baby. It saddened him that it was no longer there, but he could not let on to her.

  "I thought you had changed your mind and they had come to arrest me. Without a clear thought, I just started walking, and I think I was going to Eileen, to ask her to hide me for a while."

  Images began to form in her mind. Then the fog in her mind cleared and she remembered what had happened.

  "Yes, I was trying to get to Eileen and in my panic I kept turning around because I was afraid you would come after me, and then suddenly there was Dumfrey. I literally ran into him."

  "Dumfrey was there? Up on the cliffs?"

  "Yes, he held me down and talked something about how you were going to pay for ruining his business and that he was going to take me away because of it. When I told him that I had confessed everything to you and that there was no way I was going, he got so angry that he grabbed me and tried to drag me along. I was able to tear myself away, but I somehow lost my balance and then fell down the precipice."

  "My God, and the son of a bitch didn't help you? Who knows how long you'd been lying there. I discovered you there more or less by accident. He would have let you die."

  Tenderly he took her hand and led it to his lips.

  "I'm sorry, I really thought, you had wanted to end your life. And I'm glad you didn't."

  "I would never do our child any harm because I'm looking forward to it so much."

  Robert was fighting with himself. Maybe he should tell her now. The doctor had mentioned that it was not a good time to tell her,but could he continue to let her believe that the child was doing well? Moira suddenly cramped up painfully. Groaning, she closed her eyes.

  "What is it? Moira?"

  "I have such severe abdominal pain. There's something wrong. Robert, the baby! Something's wrong with the baby!"

  He could not stand by and watch his wife worried about the baby, who was long gone, and so he pulled her onto his lap and cradled her in his arms. She nestled her head on his shoulder and tried to breathe away the pain.

  "The doctor left you a painkiller. You should take it.“

  "No, it could harm the child. It will be fine, but I'm afraid that there's something wrong. These pains, I don't think it's normal. Please get the doctor."

  Robert struggled to keep his composure. He had to tell her, but it was the hardest thing he ever had to do.

  "Moira, there's no baby. You lost it. I'm sorry."

  It took a while for the meaning of his words to reach her, but then her inner tension of the last weeks discharged in a violent scream. Again and again she screamed out her despair and hammered her fists out of sheer desperation against his chest. He grabbed her hands, held them tightly until she had calmed down to some extent, and then pressed her tightly against his chest. There he let her be, as she cried her sorrow out of her soul. Her tears flowed in streams and wetted his shirt. Her reaction didn‘t leave him cold. His eyes became moist and he was not ashamed of his own reaction to the loss of their child. For a while they sat like that on the edge of the bed. She on his lap, her face leaning against his shoulder and he, holding her tightly against him with his eyes closed, gently rocking her back and forth. They had not been so close for a long time and it awoke feelings in them, which they had long thought to have lost. She listened to his calm heartbeat and slowly she calmed herself. The horror of the loss turned into a deep sadness. Quietly his words reached her ear and it was those words , that caused the first glimmers of hope to sprout in her.

  "We will have one again. When you are well again, we will try again. I love you Moira and I'm so thankful to God, that he didn't take you away from me. I could not have borne it and I promise you that I will finally put a stop to Dumfrey once and for all."

  "No, not you - we'll put a stop to him. We'll do it together. He has done so much to me, I want to be there too, when he's arrested."

  "That's way too dangerous."

  "You won't be able to stop me from doing it. I don't have to take my condition into consideration anymore."

  Struggling, she looked him in the eye and a smirk flitted across his face. There she was again, his Moira. Strong and stubborn. He loved her so much.

  "Okay. But we're going to need a good plan, to track him down and lure him out of hiding. But until that happens, you're going to make yourself get better. Now you should eat something and then rest again."

  "Will do, but not until you administer something vital."

  "And that would be?" asked Robert, visibly astonished.

  With a timid smile on her lips, she said.

  "A kiss from you.“

  This request he fulfilled with pleasure and so he closed her mouth with a long overdue passionate kiss. Many more followed that afternoon until they gave in to reason and Moira finally allowed herself the rest Dr. Simmons had prescribed.

  Chapter 29

  Moira awoke briefly when she felt a movement next to her and perceived a kiss on her cheek in twilight sleep, then immediately fell back into a deep restful sleep. When she woke up in the morning again, the

  headache had subsided and the abdominal pain had disappeared. She had the feeling of feeling better and therefore tried to sit up carefully in bed. She looked beside her on the mattress. It was empty, but when she ran her hand over it, she felt that it was warm. The pillow was still flattened by his head. Robert had spent the night with her and this made her overjoyed. Her stomach began to growl, another sign that her body was
recovering. Just as she was wondering whether she should eat something, there was a soft knock on the door and Albert entered. Seeing Moira sitting up in bed, he approached. He was laden with a handful of Robert's clothes and immediately headed for the closet.

  "Good morning, my lady. Your husband tells you that he is sorry to have left, but he had urgent work to attend to. He has been on the go quite early. Are you hungry? Can I get you something? I'll just tidy up your husband's clothes back into the armoire, and I'll bring the rest over later, if that's all right."

  "Did my husband arrange for this?" Moira asked curiously.

  "Yes. He said you‘re getting better and there would be no more need for him to spend the night in the other wing."

  "I'm very glad to hear that, Albert."

  And it actually pleased her that Robert had apparently decided to return to a normal married life again.

  "Yes, my lady, I'm pleased, too. You two are well suited to each other, and you should not begin your young marriage with so much grief."

  So he had had a hunch that something had been wrong with their marriage lately, and so she smiled

  gratefully at him. But if she had hoped to get more marriage tips from him, after all he had been married to Harried for over thirty years, she would be disappointed; she soon realized he had nothing more to say.

  It was the only personal response from him she would ever get to hear. Immediately he went back again to the proper distance from her, which he was entitled to by his work as a butler. In the afternoon, Dr. Simmons appeared at her house. He had been informed by Robert that his wife knew about the baby and that he could talk to her openly. The doctor had not been enthusiastic about it, since he had warned him about a depression and that Moira's condition was not stable enough. But when he saw the young woman sitting in bed, he was relieved to see that she was already in a much better condition than two days earlier.

  "I see you are already feeling better. That's good. Your husband told me that you've got your appetite back, too, so that's even better. If you don't mind, I'd like to examine you again, so we don't miss anything unpleasant."

  Moira told him about the fear she had of never being pregnant again and that she sometimes had the

  feeling that the child was still there. After the exam, Dr. Simmons was able to reassure her and said everything was fine. The reason that she felt she was still pregnant would have to do with the fact that she wanted to be pregnant and that she had not yet processed the whole thing. He advised her to give herself time to talk about the loss with her husband whenever she felt the need and then one day she would be ready to get pregnant a second time.

  "Enjoy the time together. Once the children are here, it's over for the two of you to have quiet togetherness. I can tell you a thing or two about that, because I have five of them and my wife says, that we should make it half a dozen. Moira, you are young and you have a young, healthy man. I can assure you, you'll be pregnant again faster than you can count to three."

  They both had to laugh at his joke and before he left, he assured her that there were no health concerns. That evening Robert came to bed earlier than usual. He undressed, crawled under her blanket and took her in his arms. He told her about his day, about how he had succeeded in concluding a profitable contract with one of the barons from the neighboring county and that he had therefore been on the road early this morning. Moira, on the other hand, told him about the examination and the doctor's findings, that everything was fine and she could have children again. Robert pressed a kiss on her mouth, which she immediately returned.

  "It's going to be okay, sweetheart."

  She snuggled closer to him and let her fingers playfully doft through his chest hair. It felt so good to be able to touch him again, to feel his closeness and apparently he felt the same, because she noticed how his breath suddenly went intermittently. She paused and wanted to pull her hand back, but Robert whispered in her ear:

  "Go on. I have had to do without your touch for so long. I long for you."

  "Robert I - I can't do this yet..."

  "Ssh, I know, but when you touch me...I can dream about what it's going to be like, when you're ready again."

  And so they fell asleep, snuggled close together. Two days later Moira had recovered so much that she could take a little walk in the garden. Eileen had come to visit and Moira had felt the need to tell her friend everything. She wanted to close this chapter and that was only possible when there were no more lies. So she also confessed to her that she had drugged Robert with an arsenic-laced sleeping powder without knowing it. Eileen was horrified and couldn't help but give her friend a good talking to, but was reconciled when she learned that the two of them had talked things out and now everything seemed to be okay again. At the sad news about the loss of the child, she took her friend in her arms, but expressed her confidence that her condition would change again quickly. They sat in the garden until early evening, when Samuel and Robert joined them, and the four of them talked for a while until Samuel left with his wife to go home.

  Two more days had passed, when in the afternoon Inspector Jennings rode onto the property again. Once again he was led into the writing room, where this time he found Lord MacIntyre and his wife.

  "I am glad to meet you in person today, My Lady, for I have come for you."

  Moira's heart almost stopped at these words.

  Robert, sensing what was going on in her mind, took her hand and gave it an encouraging squeeze.

  Before she could say anything, he greeted the inspector, offering him a seat in one of the armchairs by the window and led his wife over with him.

  "You told me the last time that you wanted to show my wife something."

  "Yes, I have it here."

  He pulled out the same jelwery box that he had shown Robert at the time, opened it, and turned it toward Moira so that she could see what it contained. Wide-eyed, she looked incredulously from Robert to the inspector and back into the small box. In front of her was her mother's jewelry. She touched it reverently with her fingers and carefully took out a necklace.

  "This-this is my mother's jewelry. Where did you get this? It disappeared from the safe."

  "So you're confirming for me that this is your parents' jewelry box?"

  "Yes, some of them are heirlooms, like this ring, for example," she took out a signet ring, "which bears my grandfather's initials.“

  Somewhat wistfully, she spotted a silver necklace with a small sapphire on it, and the ring that went with it. Robert, who was watching his wife closely, noticed how the whole thing was affecting her. Her eyes began to shimmer wetly.

  "My mother wanted to give this necklace to me as a

  wedding present. It had been a gift from her mother to her. Where did you find these things?"

  Robert intervened.

  „Before you tell my wife what you told me, you should tell her what else was in the box."

  "Of course. Besides the jewelry, there was a large sum of cash in it, which I didn't bring with me today

  because it's better off in the safe at the station. There was also a letter addressed to you containing the will of your parents. We found the box in Sir Dumfrey's safe, on his estate and I wanted to know if you have an explanation, how these things came to be there."

  "No, I can't explain that. Last time I saw these things was several years ago. I knew that my parents kept cash and jewelry in the safe, but after the fire the safe had been empty. If they turned up at Sir Dumfrey's, it can only mean that he somehow stole them. He was a guest of my parents the night of the fire. They had dinner together. I remember that so well, because I left the house after dinner to take care of the children in the orphanage. A few of them were sick with the flu and I was worried about them. I stayed there for the night and did not return to the house. What happened there after dinner, I cannot tell you. But I know from a reliable source that Dumfrey, in order to achieve his goals, manipulates people and


  anesthetizes them with sedatives."

  Robert inwardly drew in his breath. Why did Moira tell this to the inspector? Didn't she know that she was putting herself at risk when she told him everything. He tried to find a solution as quickly as possible but Moira was already talking.

  "So could it be that he did something like this to my parents?"

  "To rob the safe and disguise the crime, set the fire? Well, that I can imagine, and it's very probable that it took place in the same way. But unfortunately it is only conjecture, we can't prove it, and as long as we haven't arrested him, we can't question him. Where did you get this information that he likes to drug his victims with sleeping pills?"

  The inspector was surprised by what he had just heard. Nothing escaped him and Robert sweated. How would Moira answer now?

  "I want to tell you something, Inspector. My husband has known about this for some time, but I want to clear the air..."

  Robert couldn't believe it. Now it was all too late. The inspector would show no mercy if she were to reveal the poison plot, but Moira was determined to confess what she had done and so she began her story. She told the inspector every little detail of what she knew and what Dumfrey had asked of her and why. The inspector listened intently to her report, interrupting her only rarely when he had questions, but otherwise letting her continue her narrative.When she finished, Robert's heart was lifted, for she had concealed an important detail from the inspector. The arsenic. Nevertheless, the policeman got straight to the point.

  "My lady, what you have done is a crime, even though you were blackmailed. I also give you credit for your confession, although of course I am not thrilled that you have long since informed Lord MacIntyre about the matter, but he did not hint at it to me during the last visit. You should have enlightened me at once."

  "Should I have turned in my own wife? And after all and at last, except for me no one was harmed by it. I did not see the need to make a big fuss about it. My wife apologized to me and that was the end of it."