Hearts and Diamonds

by Justine Elyot

  Yesterday, however, I could no longer contain myself.

  The day being sunny, I took myself into the garden with my needlework while D kept to his study, as he so often does. I had ordered a little tisane and some light sponge cake from the kitchen and the girls offered – unusually, but I took it as progress – to bring it up for me.

  I promised them cake if they were kind enough to do this, and they went to the kitchen with a great show of enthusiasm. Before they left, Susannah even called me ‘Mother’. ‘We should be pleased to, Mother.’ I was as happy as I have ever been in these weeks since my marriage, wondering if at last the difficult days were past and we could look forward to peace and family unity hereafter.

  You will perhaps have already grasped that this was not to be so.

  The tray was brought out with great care and ceremony, the prettiest china plate used for the cake. My tisane, in its delicate bone cup, looked a little paler than I was accustomed to, but I supposed the infusion may have been more than usually hurried by the girls in their excitement.

  They sat with me at the wrought iron table, watching eagerly as I divided up the cake and poured them pink lemonade from a jug they had asked to be made up whilst on their errand.

  Then, as I raised my own cup to my lips, their eyes were avid, almost gleaming, and I felt suddenly rather disturbed.

  ‘What is it, girls?’ I asked.

  They shrugged and looked impatient.

  ‘Take your tea,’ urged Maria. ‘Do not mind us.’

  I raised the cup once more, but before it met my lips, I became aware that it smelled quite unlike my customary herbal blend. In fact, the smell was strong, and familiar, but for a moment I could not place it.

  When I did, I dashed the cup down in horror.

  The girls’ faces fell.

  ‘Why do you not drink?’ asked Maria belligerently.

  ‘Oh, you little monsters, is it really possible . . .?’ I could not believe two well-bred little girls were capable of such a thing at first, but their guilty demeanours confirmed my worst suspicions.

  ‘We have done nothing wrong!’ they protested.

  ‘Nothing wrong? You see nothing wrong in . . . in . . . what you have done?’

  I had risen to my feet and my voice was sufficiently raised to draw the attention of my husband, who joined us on the patio with evident displeasure.

  ‘What have my daughters done?’ he growled. ‘Of what do they stand accused?’

  ‘My love, I can hardly say the words. It is too repulsive. Too indecent. Too altogether shocking.’

  ‘We have done nothing,’ the girls insisted.

  ‘Let us see if your father agrees,’ I said, handing him the teacup. ‘Look at this. Breathe in its scent. What do you think it is?’

  He did as requested. His response to the final question was too coarse to reproduce here, but suffice to say that it was composed of four letters and referred to the natural waste liquid of the body.

  ‘Maria? Susannah?’ He sought an explanation.

  ‘Papa, we have done nothing wrong. We went to the kitchen, asked for the tray to be made up, and brought it. That was all we did.’

  He turned to me, gruff, not meeting my eye.

  ‘You see. They are not guilty of any wrongdoing.’

  I was speechless. I could do no more than look wildly from husband to stepdaughters until my neck began to ache with tension.

  It has been useless to mention the subject to David ever since this scene was played out. He insists that somebody below-stairs was playing a prank, and he refuses to take the matter further. The girls, at least, have not been insufferable about it, but have kept away from me. Is this the most I can ask?

  It is unfair. Unfair and unjust, and I feel like the enemy in my own home.

  What am I to do? What could anybody do?

  These unnatural children have had nothing but kindness from me, but I resolve from henceforth to have no more to do with them. I will leave them to their own devices and be a stranger to them until their father deigns to take my part, or they start at their new school in September.

  What more can be done?

  ‘Shit,’ said Jason, apparently impressed. ‘They actually pissed in her teacup? That’s hardcore.’

  ‘They do seem awfully disturbed,’ said Jenna. ‘They need therapy. If only the Victorians believed in it. I feel sorry for them. And her. All of them. Except stupid Harville, of course, turning a blind eye. That won’t do anyone any favours.’

  ‘Who do you think kills her then? Surely not the kids. That’s crazy.’

  Jenna shook her head. ‘You’re very convinced it’s murder. It could be an accident. It might not even be her.’

  ‘So what was the diary doing in the cellar then? She took it down with her. Perhaps she knew they were going to kill her and she left it there as evidence. Come on. What’s the next entry?’

  May 12th

  At last I have won out and persuaded David that the girls must be sent away to school sooner than the autumn.

  I made no more mention of the last incident and all was quiet until two days since, when I joined David in the study after supper in order to speak seriously with him.

  ‘My love,’ I said, scarcely knowing how to say what was in my thoughts.

  ‘Do you care for brandy?’ he asked me, and I rather thought I did. Perhaps it would nerve me.

  ‘There is something I really must tell you,’ I continued.

  He looked displeased, as if he expected me to launch into a diatribe against the girls again, but I waved my hand to show this was not my intention.

  ‘No, I have nothing to say about the girls, not on this occasion.’

  ‘Then what, my love? Have we received an invitation?’

  ‘No. It is simply that this month, that which I would normally expect to come has not come and . . .’

  He looked more impatient still.

  ‘What do you expect to come? A letter? Some form of package?’

  I laughed with frustration and relief.

  ‘No, no, I merely mean . . . I think I may be . . . That is I cannot be sure . . . but . . .’

  At last his visage showed signs of comprehension.

  ‘Do you mean to tell me that . . .?’ He rose from his chair, and I rose to accept his outstretched hands. ‘A son?’

  ‘Well . . . a child,’ I said, laughing at his excitement.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. What am I doing? What am I saying? Sit down, you must sit down, in your condition . . .’

  ‘Of course, it is very early yet. Probably too early even to call the doctor.’

  ‘Nonsense, I shall have him called at once.’ He rang the bell pull above the mantel and a servant was dispatched to fetch the doctor straight away.

  ‘Oh no,’ I protested. ‘He must not let us disturb his evening. Another day will do just as well.’

  But David would not be dissuaded.

  What a happy evening, what kisses and fond words, what talk of names and schools followed.

  It was only interrupted by a loud crash from outside the door.

  Upon investigation, a bust had fallen from its plinth on to the hall floor. The sound of scurrying footsteps on the stairs could be heard as we picked it up and replaced it.

  ‘Walls have ears,’ said David grimly.

  ‘Oh, leave them be,’ I said. ‘They are to be big sisters. It is exciting news for them as well.’

  But the next day, after the doctor had been and gone and declared it too early to say for sure, but possible, if not even probable that I was expecting a baby, a terrible thing happened.

  I walked out on to the patio for my customary hour of reading. Before I had gone two steps, a large, heavy item fell and hit me upon the shoulder, later shattering upon the paving stones beside me. It proved to be a large pitcher of the sort used to fill the washbasins in the bedrooms. It did not quite knock me out, but I fell to my knees, shocked, and there cut my hand on a shard of the pottery.

>   ‘Oh help,’ I managed to cry, but nobody came to my relief for some time.

  It was Eliza who found me, still on my hands and knees, bleeding on to the patio stones.

  ‘Gracious heavens, ma’am, whatever’s happened?’

  She tore off a strip of her apron to bind my hand, then helped me to the patio chair.

  ‘Did you drop it?’ she asked, indicating the pitcher before going to clear up the worst of the breakage. ‘Why would you bring a thing like that out here?’

  ‘No, no,’ I said, once my breath had settled. ‘It fell. Or was thrown. From an upstairs window.’

  I looked up, but whoever may have been there was long gone.

  ‘Thrown? Oh, who would be so wicked?’

  She collected each shard in her apron and tied it tight.

  ‘Shall I bring you some water, ma’am? Or should I call the doctor? You look awful pale.’

  ‘Oh, I can’t disturb him again for nothing. He is already vexed with me for having him called out before.’

  Eliza smiled at me – the first time I think she had ever shown me more than indifference.

  ‘Blow him,’ she said. ‘If you needs a medic, you needs one.’

  ‘I don’t need one. Could you . . . Could you find my husband, please?’

  Eliza’s smile froze.

  ‘Yes, ma’am. Of course, ma’am.’

  After much fussing and fretting, and the establishment that I was really no more than bruised, accounting for the gash on my hand, David sat grave-faced opposite me in the drawing room.

  ‘I shall send for the girls,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, they will deny it . . .’

  ‘I know.’ He sent for them and, when they stood before him, told them of his intention to send them away to school.

  What alarum, what sobbing and wailing and protestations of innocence followed. But David was resolute. They even tried to appeal to me, but I could no longer bear to look upon them. What they had done could have killed me, or caused the loss of my child. It still might. What sympathy I had for them is now gone, and can never return.

  ‘God, this is awful,’ muttered Jenna. ‘What a household.’

  ‘Harville life,’ said Jason. ‘Born under bad stars, the lot of them. So I’m guessing the girls are innocent then, if they get sent away. They couldn’t have killed her.’

  ‘Maybe in the vacation? Or perhaps they manage to stay at home. Though I do find it hard to believe that two such young girls would . . .’

  ‘What about the jug though? That could’ve killed her. They were lucky not to be up for murder.’

  ‘It could just as easily have been an accident.’

  ‘Why would they have taken the jug over to the window? Leave it out.’

  ‘No, I suppose it’s a bit unlikely. Oh dear. Perhaps a prank that went wrong?’

  ‘Anyway, my money’s on his lordship himself. How many more entries are there? Are we getting near the end?’

  Jenna looked ahead. There were only two more entries. She swallowed, her eyes flicking away from the looping script as if it might taint her with guilt by association.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But there’s still no guarantee it’ll give us an answer.’

  ‘It might give us another clue.’

  ‘Yes. All right. Let’s finish it.’

  May 23rd

  What an altered atmosphere is in this house! The girls left a week ago, for Miss Marsham’s Academy for Young Ladies in Buxton, and there is such peace. I relish the simple pleasures of taking a turn in my garden without having to look over my shoulder or all about me for signs of ambush. No giggling in obscure corners, no fear of assault.

  David is at once more affectionate and he speaks incessantly of the baby’s arrival and how he shall be welcomed to the world. But his affections are sometimes too much for me, especially in the bedchamber. I do not welcome them there, for I fear damage to my child. He tries to persuade me otherwise but we have kept to our separate bedrooms these past few nights.

  Truth to tell, I am so excessively bilious that I can scarcely go two hours together without requiring a basin in which to expel the contents of my stomach. It is extremely difficult to maintain the appearance of elegance and grace in these circumstances, and I know the servants laugh about it behind my back.

  Unfortunately, their demeanour is no less surly than it ever was. Once the child is born, I will insist on David speaking to them about it. I feel that, once he has his son, he will deny me nothing.

  ‘Not many clues there,’ admitted Jason. ‘Unless he kills her for not putting out.’

  ‘At least he isn’t a rapist,’ noted Jenna. ‘Some husbands wouldn’t have taken no for an answer.’ She shuddered. ‘Awful times to be a woman.’

  June 10th

  All is over. Everything is done with. My life has changed beyond comprehension and will never be the same again.

  ‘Oho.’ Jason sat up. ‘Now we’re getting to it.’

  Jenna’s heart raced. She was surprised at how sick to the stomach she felt, and her fingers trembled on the flyleaf of the journal.

  ‘God, I’m not sure I can read this,’ she whispered. ‘I feel as if I know her now.’

  Jason stroked her arm.

  ‘I know what you mean. I’m kind of dreading it myself. But we have to know the worst. Perhaps, when we know it, we can get a decent burial for the poor cow.’

  ‘That’s a good point. Right.’ She took a long, deep breath and read on.

  My existence now will be one of mourning and of evasion. In one stroke, I am reduced once more from lady to nobody. Worse than nobody. A fugitive.

  Last night, the evening being excessively hot, I had difficulty in sleeping. I tossed and turned in perspiration-soaked sheets, using a bedpan to relieve my nausea. I think I was a little feverish. I fell into half-sleeps, with broken dreams in which my child was born a monster.

  Waking, sobbing, from one such nightmare, I resolved to put off the search for sleep until my mind was clearer. I got out of bed and thought I would go outside and walk in the moonlit garden until my senses were less fogged and my skin cooled.

  But as I walked along the corridor past David’s room, I heard the sound of voices. His voice, low as it is when he is amorous, and then a woman’s, languid in tone.

  I could not move, or breathe, or think.

  Why was a woman in my husband’s bedchamber? Was he ill? Did she attend to him?

  I clung to a dozen such tenuous explanations, but in the end I could not deceive myself.

  I bent and put my eye to the keyhole.

  Little could be seen, but what I could see was damning.

  I saw my husband’s back and his rear perspective. He was crouching over another body, the legs of which were over his shoulders. He lay on top of her. They were kissing, and as they kissed, he thrust forwards then retreated, over and again.

  There was nothing else they could be doing.

  I could not see who she was but I was determined to find out.

  Shaking and fearful of giving myself away by uttering a cry or bending over to retch, I hid myself in a curtained alcove and waited.

  The heat of the night was now my ally, for it kept me from wanting to move or wrap myself up. I could wait and wait, and while I did, my head cleared, my heart slowed and I was able to consider my position.

  I had an unfaithful husband. In that, I was not unusual.

  But I had an unfaithful husband who felt able to commit his infidelity in this very house, while I lay in my bed mere yards away.

  What wife could bear such humiliation? Not this one.

  And yet, what could I do? I could reproach him with it, but his reply would be that I had deprived him of his conjugal rights and thus had no grounds for complaint if he sought relief elsewhere. Many would agree with him and say that the blame lay with me. Perhaps it does.

  Nonetheless, adultery is adultery, and a vow is a vow.

  I heard their cries, his grunts, her cackling laugh. I
t pierced me deep, and I wondered if my child felt the pain of it through me, in his innocent sleep.

  I stood in my place and held myself still until at last the door handle turned and a woman in a coarse white gown came out. I saw her plait dangle down her back as she turned to kiss my husband a fond goodnight.

  Eliza.

  I did not come out of my hiding place until the door was shut and my husband out of view. I followed Eliza, softly, barefoot, down the back stairs. I had thought she might go to the attic, but she descended instead to the kitchen and went out into the garden, just as I had intended before coming upon the adulterers.

  The thought that she, too, needed to cool down, entered my head, enraging me beyond endurance.

  ‘Eliza.’ I spoke from the kitchen doorway, taking a grim pleasure in the little squawk of shock she uttered before turning to face me. ‘Does your own bed not suit you tonight?’

  A look of blank surprise was superseded by a hateful smirk.

  ‘Why, no, ma’am,’ she said in a low voice. ‘It’s ever such a hot night and a body needs the cool air after all that sweating.’

  ‘You . . .’ I could barely speak. ‘Hussy,’ came eventually on to my tongue.

  ‘Oh, me, is it? Me that’s the hussy? When you’re the one what came into this house and turned his head away from me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I came down from the doorstep and let my soles feel the grave cool of the patio flags. It was helpful in its way, giving me a sense of being anchored to the ground. Before, I had had the strangest feeling of weightlessness, as if I might fly up into the sky like a balloon.

  ‘Me and David. We’ve been lovers a long time. Ever since I first came here as under-housemaid. He was still in mourning then, but I soon soothed him. Years, I’ve loved him. Years, I’ve lived in hope, or as much as I dared. I suppose I knew, deep down, that if he married again it wouldn’t be me. Some fine lady, some rich widow. And then . . .’ She choked on the words. ‘You! A bloody governess. A nobody, no better’n me.’

  ‘You . . . You’re jealous?’ All sorts of intrusive thoughts crowded into my head, precipitated by the expression of naked hatred on her face.

  ‘I’m wronged,’ she said. ‘And I’m robbed. Robbed of what’s mine by right.’