Valley of the Ravens

by Nancy Buckingham

  Dazedly, I realized it was up to me to take control, to give orders to Phelps and the servants gathered in the doorway. To send for Thirza, not Jerome—oh, God, not Jerome—and have the doctor summoned, though I knew it was beyond any skill of his to revive Nadine. But in my debilitated state, the shock of finding Nadine dead was proving too much for me. The room began to spin, the floor began tilting and swaying beneath my feet. I would have collapsed had not two powerful arms caught and held me.

  Before unconsciousness closed over my head like a great engulfing wave, I saw Jerome standing above me, his gentian-blue Lefevre eyes burning down into mine.

  * * * *

  I had been waiting in my room now for a long time, at first resting on my bed, then wandering about aimlessly before trying to settle in the armchair. I had been brought here by Mary after my fainting attack, and since the girl had left my room nobody else had come near me. It seemed almost as if I’d been forgotten, but that was something for which I was thankful. I felt drained and exhausted. I dreaded the moment when I would have to come face to face with Thirza and Oscar, and recount to them what I knew about Nadine’s death.

  At least, I thought with relief, it appeared that justice would not depend solely upon my evidence.

  When I had heard Jerome and the doctor leaving Nadine’s room, I crept to my door, drew it open an inch or two, and peered through the crack.

  “This is a shocking business,” Dr. Bates was saying gravely. “In all my years of medical practice I have never seen the like. There will have to be an official inquiry, you understand that, Mr. Lefevre? The dose of arsenic which your wife received this time must have been a massive one. It is difficult to imagine how it could possibly ...”

  They passed beyond my hearing. But I had heard enough to feel confident that the circumstances of Nadine’s death would be fully investigated. The horrifying truth was bound to emerge.

  Time dragged by. I rose from my chair again and began a restless prowling. When I heard a tap on the door I was afraid it might be Jerome, and my heart began to thud. But it was the housekeeper come to ask if I would take anything to eat.

  “No, thank you, Mrs. Bardock. I have no appetite.”

  She studied me with concern, her head on one side.

  “Everyone has missed their dinner this evening, Miss Sarah, but in your case it is most important to keep your strength up. What about a bowl of nice hot chicken broth? It would do you good.”

  I shook my head. “No, I really couldn’t.” Then I asked diffidently, “How is Mrs. Sellick? How did she take the news?”

  “She was very distressed, poor lady, as you’d expect. She has spent the evening resting in her room,” Mrs. Bardock glanced at me inquiringly. “Would it not be best for you to get to bed, Miss Sarah? Shall I send Mary to you?”

  “No, I’ll manage by myself, thank you.”

  For a long while after the housekeeper had left me, I heard the sound of footsteps in the corridor, or doors opening and closing Of murmuring voices. Then I became aware that for an hour or more the house had been silent.

  I felt an upsurge of panic at the thought of the long night ahead. I would be unable to sleep, I knew that. Still fully clothed, I went to my door and looked out into the corridor. I could hear no sound, and there was only a faint glimmer from the wall lamps that were always left to burn all night.

  Standing at the head of the staircase, peering over the balustrade, I could see a thin shaft of light coming from the library, striking across the tesselated marble floor. I descended slowly, one step at a time, then tiptoed across the hall, not quite understanding why I felt this need to preserve the silence.

  Jerome was sitting slumped in a chair at the library desk, his head in his hands. He looked a broken man. I felt emotions of pity and tenderness stir within me, and at once I was ashamed. I forced myself to harden my heart against him.

  Jerome must have heard some sound I made, and his head jerked up quickly.

  “Sarah, I had no idea you were there.” He got to his feet and came around the desk toward me. “You should be resting.”

  “How can I rest?” I retorted. “Any more than you can. Considering what you have on your conscience, Jerome, I doubt if you will ever be able to rest again.”

  “I have a lot to feel guilty about,” he acknowledged in a low voice. “Yet I do not understand what you mean, Sarah.”

  “Did you leave Nadine to die alone?” I flung at him bitterly. “Or did you stay and watch her death agony, gloating that she would no longer stand in your way?”

  He stared at me in bewilderment. Then, as the meaning of my words penetrated, his face twisted into an expression of horrified disbelief.

  “You are suffering from the effects of shock, Sarah. Let me pour you some brandy.”

  “No, thank you,” I said coldly. “I have no need of alcohol to quiet a bad conscience. Not that I feel blameless, myself. I knew, last time, that the poisoning was no accident—for me, yes, but not for Nadine. You failed to kill your wife before, Jerome, and if only I had spoken out at once you would never have dared to try again.”

  “Pull yourself together, Sarah,” he commanded. “You are throwing out wild accusations that make no sense. In God’s name, whatever put it into your head that I could have done this dreadful thing?”

  “Nadine had become a burden to you,” I cried. “She stood in the way of what you wanted. You did not love her. It was nothing but guilt that bound you to her for so long.”

  Silence throbbed between us.

  “This is bitterly unfair of you, Sarah,” he said at last. “Whatever my true feelings for Nadine, I never at any time wished her dead. You cannot accuse me of that.”

  “You were unfaithful to her,” I protested. “You admitted as much to me the other day at the hunting lodge.”

  He said steadily, flatly. “You have no understanding, Sarah, of the physical pressures upon a man whose wife is a permanent invalid. But leaving that aside—I assure you Nadine lacked nothing from me that she had any sort of right to claim.”

  “She had a right to your love,” I insisted. “Yet you withheld that. Don’t imagine that I could not see through your pretense of being the devoted husband, Jerome. For all those charming little attentions you paid her, you withheld the true affection of your heart. That was a cruel and wicked thing to do. Moreover, it wasn’t only after Nadine became crippled that you were unfaithful to her—it was before her accident, too.”

  “No,” he said explosively. “That is not true.”

  “Yes, it is. You see, I know about Felicity. My poor sister believed that you loved her—and in your way, perhaps you did. But then Felicity became an embarrassment to you. When you discovered that she was carrying your child, you solved the problem as callously and cruelly as you solved the problem of an unwanted wife. You are a monster, not a man.”

  He was standing very still and the lamplight was thrown across his face, etching the gaunt outlines and leaving his eyes in deep shadow. His hands hung limply, and there was about him an air of utter defeat.

  “If you really believe such monstrous things of me, then I am lost,” he said huskily. “Now more than ever, Sarah, I need your trust, your loyalty. I need your love.”

  “My love?” I gasped. “How can you speak of that now?”

  “It is the only thing which would bring meaning to my life.” He took a step toward me, then halted as he saw how I recoiled from him. “I give you my word, Sarah, my solemn oath, that the things you have said of me are untrue. Completely without foundation!. In God’s name, tell me how I can convince you.”

  Jerome sounded so sincere that even though I had felt a deep conviction of his guilt, my heart flared with hope. Was it possible I could be mistaken?

  “Try to explain Nadine’s death in some other way, then,” I challenged him. “Do you seriously expect me to believe that the poisoning was an accident? A second time!”

  “I don’t know, Sarah—I don’t know! There’s to b
e a full investigation, and perhaps the truth will emerge. All I can do at the moment is beg you to believe me—it was not I who gave Nadine poison.” He looked at me with a helpless, bewildered expression on his face. “And this about your sister—I cannot understand what could have put such thoughts into your mind. If it’s really true that Felicity was having a child, then I swear to you that I was not the father. This is something to which you have never previously referred. How did you know about it, Sarah? Did Felicity tell you herself?”

  I shook my head. “No, she did not confide in me, but it makes more sense than any other explanation. And everything points to you. Felicity was in love, there is no doubt of that. I guessed it at the time from the way she behaved, and she admitted as much to Cynthia. But even to her, she refused to say who the man was. Cynthia decided this must have been because the man was married. Then afterward, when Felicity and Ned Tassell disappeared, Cynthia believed that it had been Ned all the time, and that Felicity was too ashamed to admit it. Cynthia told me she was convinced they must have been meeting secretly at the old hunting lodge. I think she was right, Jerome, only it wasn’t Ned Tassell, it was you. Otherwise, why have you abandoned the lodge and let it fall into ruin, if it weren’t that it reminded you of something you desperately want to forget? Why else should you avoid going near the place even now?”

  Jerome’s hands had clenched into tight fists. His breathing was shallow and jerky.

  “You are mistaken in thinking there was any such relationship between your sister and me. But about the hunting lodge ... I had better tell you everything, Sarah, so that you will understand.”

  I waited breathlessly, not knowing what to expect. Jerome paced away across the room, and when he spoke his voice came from the shadows.

  “It was on the afternoon of Nadine’s accident—that was nearly a year after Felicity had disappeared, and after you and your parents had left Farracombe. I had ridden over to Riversmeet Hall to see Sir George Westbrook, Richard’s father, and on the way back I decided to go by way of Ravens’ Valley. It was some time since I’d been to the hunting lodge, and I thought I would take the opportunity of seeing whether it needed any repairs. I was in sight of the lodge, but still some distance away, when I saw a man come out. He mounted his horse and rode off at a gallop. As there was mist in the airI could not see who it was, and I was very perplexed.”

  Jerome paused, staring hard at the fingernails of his left hand. I willed him to continue.

  “When I drew nearer to the lodge, I observed that a second horse was tethered there. A horse I recognized. Before I could dismount, the door opened again and someone else came out.” He closed his eyelids momentarily. “You can guess who it was, Sarah?”

  “Nadine?” I whispered.

  Jerome nodded slowly. “In those first few seconds Nadine was as startled as I, but then her manner changed and she became defiant. I guessed the truth at once—that the man I had seen was her lover. When I taxed Nadine with this, she laughed in my face.”

  “It must have been a terrible moment for you, Jerome,” I said quietly.

  “Yes, it was. Though I will not pretend with you, Sarah. Even before that day, our marriage was not all it should have been. As you know, I met and married Nadine abroad, and we lived in London for a time before coming to settle at Farracombe. At first Nadine loved Exmoor, but she soon became restless and bored. With my father unable to handle the affairs of the estate any longer, I was kept too busy to take her away again. But I endeavored to arrange what social activities I could—we entertained a good deal in those early days, as you will remember, Sarah, and Nadine made several trips to London with her brother.” He sighed. “Perhaps I was a fool not to realize that a woman of Nadine’s disposition would be driven to take a lover, if for no other reason than to bring the spice of danger into her life.”

  “But Nadine loved you, Jerome—she told me so. She said that she made a vow to herself when you married her that you would never regret it in the smallest degree.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Then it was a vow she found easy to break, Sarah. I did my best to make our marriage successful, but Nadine had a constant yearning for change and excitement which was impossible to gratify. I kept hoping that when she had a child, it would make all the difference to her. But alas, there was no sign of that until—”

  Jerome broke off abruptly. I knew from the look on his face that he had come to the part of his story which he found hardest of all to tell me.

  “That day by the hunting lodge in Ravens’ Valley,” he continued at length, “Nadine announced to me that she was pregnant. It was news for which I had been longing, Sarah, but my wife used it as a weapon against me. After what I’d just learned, the one agonizing question in my mind was—whose child? I asked Nadine for a direct answer, I demanded to know. But again she laughed at me and declared that I would have to wait and see—although, she added, it might be that I would never know for sure.”

  That child had not been born, however, for Nadine’s fall had resulted in a miscarriage. And I could not avoid the thought that, in the circumstances, this had been for the best.

  “Who was the man, Jerome?” I asked quietly. “Did Nadine ever tell you?”

  “No, she never told me, and I never again asked her. Perhaps this may seem strange to you, but I made no attempt to discover who he was. My wife was condemned to being a helpless cripple for the rest of her days, and my duty was to make her life as agreeable as her condition allowed, to give her every comfort she could possibly want. There was one thing, however, that I could never give her—a fact which did not escape your perception, Sarah—I could not give Nadine my love.”

  “Tell me about the accident,” I said. “How did it happen, exactly?”

  Jerome hesitated. “It was there, by the lodge. Nadine was in an impossible mood—filled with a wild, heady elation. And the more enraged I became at her betrayal, the more she took positive delight in torturing me with the fact that the heir to Farracombe might or might not be my child. In the end, I ordered her to get on her horse and ride home. But even when she was in the saddle she still hung back, taunting me. I shouted at her to start moving and gave her mare a switch with my riding crop. Unexpectedly, it reared up and bolted. Nadine was unable to regain control, and she was thrown to the ground.”

  Jerome’s face had paled at the memory of that dreadful moment, and I felt impelled to try and console him.

  “All this time,” I said, “you have been blaming yourself for what happened to Nadine. Yet it was an accident—what could you have done to prevent it?”

  “I should not have shouted at her. I should not have startled her mare.” In Jerome’s eyes there was an appeal for understanding—as if my opinion mattered to him desperately. “I have asked myself a thousand times, Sarah—why was I rooted to the spot when I could have pursued her and very possibly have saved her from falling? Heracles is a superb horse and would have responded to any demand I made. Why did I not act, Sarah? Was it because, at that moment, I hated my wife? Was it because I did not care if she were thrown, and lost the child she was carrying?”

  Instinctively, I put out my hand and touched his arm.

  “Jerome, you mustn’t talk in such a way. How could you possibly have reasoned all that out in your mind in those split seconds? You had just made a shocking discovery. It is no wonder that your reactions were slower than they might otherwise have been.”

  “If only I could be sure of that, Sarah. If only I could be convinced of it in my heart. You are right, of course, that I did not actually think those things at the time. But can one know what lies beneath the level of conscious thought?”

  I felt now, for the first time, that I could understand the strength of the guilt which had tormented Jerome all these years. To have suspected dark hidden forces locked within his mind must have made his life a perpetual nightmare. Yet I, viewing the events from outside, was sure he had no cause to feel remorse. I, who until a few moments ago had suspect
ed him of something more infamous still—of deliberate murder— knew that he was guiltless of Nadine’s accident—of her subsequent miscarriage. Jerome was incapable of evil, I was convinced of it.

  I said huskily, “I am desperately sorry that I ever doubted you, Jerome. But I beseech you, do not doubt yourself.”

  His features relaxed a little, softening into the palest ghost of a smile.

  “Thank you, my dear. I am deeply touched by your faith in me.”

  I felt an enormous sense of thankfulness that the gulf between us had been bridged, a wondrous lifting of my spirits that I could believe in Jerome once again. But there was still the vital, urgent question of Nadine’s death.

  “Someone must have given Nadine that poison, Jerome,” I said. “Who could it possibly have been? Who would want to kill her?”

  He paused before answering, and I sensed his extreme reluctance.

  “There is something you don’t yet know, Sarah,” he said finally. “Oscar has left the house.”

  “What do you mean? When did he leave?”

  “A couple of hours ago, it seems, though I did not learn of it until sometime afterward. Apparently, he packed a valise and took one of the horses. He was probably making for the station to catch the night train to London.”

  I hardly took in what Jerome was saying. One thought pounded in my brain—Oscar, the lighthearted, flirtatious, happy-go-lucky Oscar had deliberately killed Nadine.

  “I can’t believe it, Jerome. Surely it is not possible—her own brother”

  A sound from the doorway, a quick gasp of indrawn breath, made us both turn our heads. Thirza stood there, swaying unsteadily, her fingers clutching the doorframe for support.

  “You are wrong, Sarah,” she said in a tight, painful whisper. “Oscar was not Nadine’s brother.”

  There was a stunned pause. Then Jerome said carefully, “What are you saying, Aunt Thirza?”

  I think he believed, like me, that the shock of Nadine’s death had unhinged Thirza’s mind. He went forward to take her arm, but she put up her hand to fend him off.