“Carleton already does that for Edwin. You’ve forgotten Edwin. Eversleigh is Edwin’s.”
“What do you think they plan for Edwin? A little pigeon shooting? No, perhaps that wouldn’t do. The last one was not a success.”
“Charlotte, this is madness.”
“There’s madness in this house, Arabella. The madness of greed and illicit passion and hatred and murder. Open your eyes and look. Who was the first on the scene when you were shot? He hadn’t far to come from the bushes, had he? Don’t you see? Death’s hovering over your head. Like a great black bird. Can’t you hear his wings? You first, then Edwin …”
“Oh, no … no …”
“They are together. I’ve seen them.”
I closed my eyes. I pictured Harriet moving stealthily along the corridor, a candle in her hand. I could hear Carleton’s voice: “… Rather late. I thought I wouldn’t disturb you …” I cried: “No. No!” But it could fit so easily.
“They have a meeting place. They leave notes there. In the arbour. I have seen some of them. That was how I came to find the wax dolls. It’s a sort of bravado that makes them go there. It’s like snapping their fingers at fate. Then, of course, not many people would want to go there after dark, would they? It satisfies their sense of the macabre … and at the same time it’s safe. That’s a good point. They don’t want to be discovered before they’ve completed their plans … their devious, hideous plans. Oh, Arabella, you look at me so strangely. I think you don’t believe me.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have told you. But how could I keep silent? I tell you death is right overhead. It’s come very near to you and you’ve escaped by the luck of the moment. It frightens me, Arabella. I don’t know what to do … to save you … to save Edwin. I know what is in their black hearts. I have seen them together, I have listened to them. But you doubt me. I tell you what. Let us go to the arbour … now. They leave notes there for each other. Perhaps she is there now … with him. Who can say? She said she was going riding, but is she, I wonder?”
“As soon as Carleton comes in I shall talk to him,” I said. “I shall talk to Harriet.”
“You cannot mean that. What would they say? Charlotte is lying. Charlotte is mad, and they might even convince you. They would be shocked to think they had not been careful enough to escape detection. But I know it would only postpone your fate. You are doomed, Arabella—you and your son Edwin. No matter what I reminded them of they would stand together against me … and you would believe them because you wanted to. You won’t give yourself a chance to see the proof … even now.”
“Show me this proof,” I said.
Her eyes lit up suddenly. “Oh, Arabella, I’m so glad you’re ready to look at the truth. Let us go to the arbour now. I saw her go in there before she went off. I know where they hide their messages. If he has not already been in to take it we shall find it. Come now.”
She put her arm through mine and together we went out of the house.
The arbour looked dismal in the dim light of a November afternoon, and I felt sick with fear as we went across the grass.
“It’s a horrible place,” said Charlotte. “I always hated it. Come on … quickly, Arabella.”
She pushed open the door and we went in. I was relieved that no one was there. She stopped and lifted the broken paving-stone.
“There’s nothing there,” I said.
“There’s another one over there. Look.”
I went to the spot where she pointed. She was right. I lifted the stone. There was a piece of paper there. I felt sick with horror. Something was written on it but I could not see what.
“It looks just like childish scribble,” I said.
I turned. I was alone, and the door was shut.
“Charlotte,” I called. I went towards the door.
I heard her voice: “It’s jammed. I can’t open it.” She was right. It would not budge. Then I noticed that the key which usually hung on a nail there was missing.
“I’ll go and get someone,” she called.
So I was alone in the arbour. I looked at the paper in my hand. Just a scrawl across it. What did it mean? A code of some sort, perhaps. What a foolish notion. It was like something Priscilla might have done.
I sat down on the bench. How I hated the place. Edwin … Harriet … and now Carleton and Harriet. History grimly repeating itself.
“I don’t believe it,” I said aloud. “I can’t believe it.”
I heard a sound. I was alert, listening. They must have come to release me. I called out. Then I heard a sound which made me cold with terror. It was the unmistakable crackle of wood and I saw that smoke was seeping into the arbour. The place was on fire.
I ran to the door and threw myself against it. It did not budge. I understood. It was locked from the outside.
“Oh, God,” I prayed. “What is happening to me? Charlotte. Charlotte … is it you, then, who are trying to kill me?”
“Let me out!” I cried. “Let me out!”
I hammered on the door. How firm the old wood was. The heat was getting intolerable. It could not be long before this wooden structure was ablaze.
I felt myself fainting, for the heat was becoming intense. This is the end, I thought. I should die without knowing why Charlotte hated me so.
I felt a rush of air suddenly. Then the flames roared up.
I was seized, picked up and carried into oblivion.
Old Jethro had killed Edwin, and Young Jethro had saved my life. Regaining my consciousness I was vaguely aware of him as he kneeled beside me, giving thanks to God. “A miracle,” he was shouting. “God has seen fit to show me a miracle.” I was carried into the house. He put me into Sally’s charge.
To have faced death once more and this time being saved only by Jethro’s miracle gave me a strangely exalted feeling. I suppose my mind was wandering and I was unaware that I was lying on my bed. Sally had sent for the doctor. I had suffered no burns, only a scorching of the skin of one hand. It was the smoke which had come near to suffocating me. Not more than a few minutes could have lapsed between the time Charlotte set the arbour alight and Jethro got me out. He had been watching us. It seemed that he had spent many hours of his days watching and praying at the arbour. He had seen Charlotte lock me in; he had seen her throw inflammable oil on the bracken about the arbour and on its walls and ignite the place. Then he had come straight in and got me out.
He was like a man possessed. He had prayed for a sign that his father was forgiven and taken into Heaven, and this he was sure was it. His father had taken a life and he had been given the chance to save one.
“Praise God in His Heaven,” he cried.
I was deeply shocked, said the doctor. I must lie quietly. I must take care.
And indeed I had every reason to be shocked. Within a short time murder had been twice attempted and I its victim. No one—except Sally—could say that my miscarriage was due to anything but natural misfortune, but that there had been two attempts on my life was obvious.
When Carleton returned to the house he came at once to my room.
When I saw his face I asked myself how I could ever have been so foolish as to have doubted him. If ever I needed proof that he loved me, it was there in his eyes for me to read.
He knelt by my bed. He took my hand, the one which was not bandaged, and kissed it.
“My dearest, what is going on? Is this a madhouse?”
“I think there is madness in it,” I said.
He knew that I had been shut in the arbour but when he heard that Charlotte had locked me in, he was astounded.
“Where in God’s name is she?” he asked. “We must find her. She will do someone an injury. She must have gone completely mad.”
But Charlotte had disappeared.
They searched for her but they could not find her. Carleton stayed by my bedside. He made me tell him everything that had happened. I could hold nothing back now. It all came tumbling out, my doubts, my suspicion
s, my fears, and as I talked and he listened there came to us a revelation and that was that we had been brought face to face with ourselves. We loved each other; no one had ever or could ever mean the same to us. Edwin had not really died in the arbour; he had lived on to stand between us. We had both of us built up our own image of Edwin and his importance in our life. I had convinced myself that I had truly loved him and that because he had deceived me I would never trust anyone again. Carleton had believed that I would never let him take that place which had been Edwin’s. I think we saw then how foolish we had been. How we had allowed a false conception to corrode our marriage.
Lying there in my bed with Carleton sitting beside me while we talked to each other in low, intense voices, laying bare our innermost thoughts, the revelation came to us. It was a chance to begin again, free from our shackles, to live again to find our happiness together.
One of the servants going into the library early next morning found a letter which was addressed to me.
My hands shook as I opened it, for I saw that it was in Charlotte’s handwriting.
“How did you get this?” I demanded.
“It was in the library, mistress,” was the answer, “propped up against the books on one of the shelves.”
I opened it and read:
Dear Arabella,
I owe you an explanation. When I had set fire to the arbour I came into the house and watched from one of the windows. When I saw Young Jethro carry you out I knew that was the end for me. Do you remember when you came with Edwin and Harriet you hid in that secret cavity in the library? Few people knew about it. It has been kept like that for family emergencies. … I went and hid myself there. I took paper and pen there and I am writing this to you now. I hate anything to be unfinished. So I don’t just want to disappear. If I did it would create one of those mysteries about which people speculate and make up all sorts of legends.
You know how it has always been with me. I am the outsider … the disappointment. Even my parents couldn’t hide their exasperation with me sometimes. I never shone at parties. I remember hearing my mother say once, “How are we ever going to find a husband for Charlotte?” I was fifteen at the time. I was so desperately unhappy I decided to take my life. Cut my veins as the Romans die. So you see when you found me at the parapet there it was not the first time I had contemplated taking my life. It was a sort of balm to my anger. They’ll be sorry then, I would say, and would be comforted contemplating their sorrow. People who constantly threaten a suicide for the discomfiture of others rarely do it. But there can come a time when there is no turning back.
I’m giving myself the luxury of writing to you now and I must resist the temptation to go on and on. I have to be brief.
I thought I was going to marry Charles Condey but Harriet spoilt that. If I had married him I might have settled down and become an ordinary wife—not very exciting, of course, but then Charles was not exciting. He was the one for me. How I hated her. I could have killed her. When I found out Edwin was her lover I was comforted in a way. I had not been the only one who had suffered. It shows you my nature, which is not at all admirable, I fear.
Then we came home and when I saw Carleton I admired him so much. He seemed to be in command of his life as I never could be. He is the sort of person I should have liked to be. My parents were always saying what a pity it was he was married to Barbary, and when she died I heard them say, “Now if Carleton married Charlotte, what a marvellous solution that would be.” I don’t think I should have thought of it as a possibility but for that. Then I started to think about it. Why not? It would be convenient. Married to Carleton. I thought that would be wonderful. I almost loved Harriet for preventing my marriage to Charles Condey.
Then you married Carleton so suddenly and unexpectedly because you’d always seemed to dislike each other. I hadn’t thought of you as a rival. It wasn’t that I hated you. I could never do that. I just hated life and fate or whatever you call it which had been against me from the start. I watched Harriet. I saw how she used people and I said to myself, why shouldn’t I use people too? Of course I know she is very handsome and amusing and people are attracted by her, but if you have none of these gifts you can be subtle and clever and work in the dark. So that was what I did. I thought that if you died Carleton would be so distressed he would turn to me. I believe my mother would have done everything she could to bring about a marriage between us. I knew how Carleton felt about you. I’d seen him watching you. I know him well. I know all people well. When you don’t have much life of your own, you watch other people … you live other people’s lives. The sound of his voice when he spoke of you … the look in his eyes. I knew that if you died he would not care very much, and if it was convenient, which it would have been, and if there was a little gentle persuasion from the family … someone to look after the children … it could well be. That was what I worked for. As for Harriet, he disliked her. I don’t know what it is about people like those two. They are both experienced with the other sex … both very attractive to people … and yet with each other there is an instant dislike. He hated Harriet being in this house. He hated her influence with you. I knew that he would never marry her—nor she, him, unless it was to get control of Eversleigh. And that was Edwin’s. She was proud to have her Benjie next in line, but she was leaving that to fate. She would never hurt Edwin. All she wanted was a place of comfort. That was what she had worked for all her life.
So it was you I wanted out of the way. I wanted Carleton. He saw how I liked the children. He once said to me: “You should have had children, Cousin Charlotte.” That seemed to me a signpost. I started to plan. I knew how things were between you. I understood you both well. He was angry because he thought you cared for Edwin as you never could for him, and you couldn’t forget how Edwin had deceived you and you thought Carleton was doing the same. You were both of you pouring poison into the marriage cup. You deserved to lose each other.
I used to dream of the years ahead, Carleton and I married, children of our own. That was what I wanted. Then I would be able to forget everything that led up to it. I’m telling you this because I hate loose ends. I want you to understand why I did what I did. I don’t want you to say: “Oh, Charlotte was mad.” Charlotte was not mad. Charlotte was clever. She knew what she wanted and she was only trying to get it. But things went wrong. I shot at you from the bushes, but you moved at the wrong moment and you were only wounded in the arm and that put you on guard which was not helpful to me.
Then I decided that I must act quickly because you were going to be very watchful after the shooting. I put the wax dolls in the arbour. I was going to make Sally suspicious of Harriet. I was going to make it believed that she was a witch. After all, people were only too ready to accept that. They would say it was witchcraft which made you lose the child … though I had no hand in that. Of course it wasn’t witchcraft that wounded you. But it could be said that the Devil guided Leigh’s hand. That was what people were saying. Then I thought of the arbour. That would have worked but for Young Jethro. Who could have believed that a mad man could have spoilt all my plans?
It’s over for me now. I am caught. What can I do? I have to put into practice what I had often thought of doing and failed to do before. This time there is no turning back.
As soon as it is dark I am going to creep out of this house. I shall walk to the sea. Look in the cave … you remember the cave? You hid there while you waited for horses to bring you to the house. There you will find my cloak … high on a rock where the tide cannot reach it. I shall have disappeared from you life forever. I am going to walk into the sea … and walk, and walk …
Good-bye, Arabella. You can be happy now. Learn to understand Carleton, as he will learn to understand you. Charlotte.
We found her cloak where she had said it would be. We went to the hidden cavity behind the library books. There she had left paper and pen, so we knew it was all as she had said.
Poor Charlotte, I think of her o
ften. Where the arbour was we have made a flower garden. The roses flourish there, and we have cleared away the charred bracken and it has become part of the garden. No one says it’s haunted now. Few remember that once an arbour stood there.
Harriet left us only a few weeks after Charlotte’s death.
The elder brother of Gregory Stevens was killed when his horse threw him and Gregory inherited lands and title. Harriet married him. They had long been lovers. They went, taking Benjie with them. Harriet told me that he was Gregory’s son.
I see them about twice a year. Harriet has lost her slim and willowy figure. She is in truth a little plump but I don’t think that detracts from her charm. She still retains that, and now that she is contented with life, having achieved her goal, seems to live very happily.
And I too. Carleton and I have our son, Carl. It is a good life. Not without its conflicts, of course. We rage against each other now and then, but our love deepens as time passes and we know that we belong to each other and nothing can alter that.
This morning I was at the arbour cutting roses to fill my basket, and I realized suddenly that I saw only the beautiful flowers now.
I had learned to bury the past, and when I did remember it, to see it as an experience which would show me the way to preserve the contentment which life was offering me.
I said something of this to Carleton. He was inclined to be flippant—but then he often is, I have discovered, when he is most serious.
I am content. Life is good. It is for us to keep it so.
Turn the page to continue reading from the Daughters of England series
The Plot
I WAS FIRST AWARE of mystery when my father, who had hitherto for the most part seemed unaware of my existence, suddenly decreed that Mistress Philpots, who had until this time been my governess, no longer possessed the required qualifications for the task, and must be replaced. I was astounded. I had never thought that my education would be of any great concern to him. Had it been my brother Carl, who was some four years younger than I, that would have been another matter. Carl was the centre of the household; he shared my father’s name—Carl being short for Carleton since it would have been misleading to have identical names in one household—and he was being brought up to be exactly like my father which, summed up in my father’s phraseology, was “making a man of him.” Carl must be complete master of his horse; he must lead the hunt; he must excel at archery and gunnery as well as drive a good ball in pall-mall. If his Latin and Greek were a little weak and the Reverend George Helling, whose task it was to instruct him, despaired of ever making a scholar of him, that was not of great importance. Carl must first and foremost be made into a man, which meant being as like our father as one human being could be to another. Thus when he made this announcement, my first reaction was not “What will Mistress Philpots say?” or “What will the new governess be like?” but amazement that his attention should have come to rest on me.
Philippa Carr - [Daughters of England 05] Page 37
