The Secrets of Armstrong House

by A. O'Connor

  She walked in and closed the door.

  “You spoke to Charles?” he asked eventually.

  “Yes, he told me you were here,” she said.

  “You look well. We can get the next train out of here.”

  Her eyes widened. “I’m not going back with you, Hugh. Not now, not ever!”

  “But – what are you doing here in that case?”

  “I’ve come to tell you just that! I knew you would never take Charles’ word for it, so I’ve come to tell you in person. Go home to London and leave me in peace and alone.”

  “But you’re my wife! You belong to me!”

  “I belong to nobody but myself. I thought marrying you would give me freedom, but all it did was give me a horrible and cruel prison. Do you honestly think I’d go back with you – back to your sordid life and awful ways?”

  “Yes, you have to!”

  “I’ve seen things with you I never even dreamed existed! You don’t even really want me back. You just want your Armstrong wife back so you can parade her around, thinking it will make you acceptable to society.”

  “And what does Charles say about this?”

  “Charles has nothing to do with it, but he completely supports me.”

  Emily got frightened as rage erupted across Hugh’s face.

  “Did he not tell you that you should go back with me? That you had to come back with me?”

  “Of course he didn’t! He hates you as much as I do.”

  “But I’ve just paid him £20,000 to get you back!” shouted Hugh.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I paid him £20,000 so that he would convince you to return with me,” raged Hugh.

  “What nonsense are you talking?”

  Hugh ran over to a drawer, opened it and took out a copy of the bank transaction. “See! I paid him £20,000 on the agreement that you would come back to me.”

  Emily read the bank transaction and fought to hide her shock. “Well, if you did pay him then you were a fool! He tricked you, because he certainly did not try to get me to go back to you – he encouraged me to stay away from you.”

  Hugh was in a blind rage. “It’s not the first time he took money off me for you! He owed me thousands in gambling fees in London, and we reached an agreement that I would cancel them if you married me.”

  “Charles would never do such a thing! Besides, he had no say on who I married.”

  “Well, he did! He convinced you to marry me when everyone said not to, and in exchange I cancelled his debt. He sold you to me, Emily!”

  Emily found herself feeling nauseous. Here in her hand was the evidence of a bank transaction for £20,000 paid that week to Charles. She remembered all the encouragement from Charles to marry Hugh.

  “And he knew all about me, before we got married,” said Hugh. “I’d brought him down to the East End where I was from. I showed him the warehouses of opium I owned. I brought him to the opium dens I owned and visited. I showed him the real me.”

  “I’m going home, Hugh. I suggest you do the same and I never want to see you again.” She turned and walked quickly to the door.

  “You’re not going anywhere. I’ve just paid £20,000 for you!” He crossed quickly to the door and blocked her. He started to move towards her.

  “Keep away from me!” she warned as he kept coming towards her. She desperately looked around the room and saw his coat thrown over the couch. She raced over to it and grabbed it, her hands flying into the inside pocket, hoping the revolver he usually carried would be there. It was. She grabbed it and pointed it at him.

  He stopped in his tracks.

  “Step out of my way, or I swear I’ll kill you.”

  Hugh stayed stationary as she moved slowly past him, pointing the gun at him all the time. She opened the door and edged out. She quickly placed the gun on the dressing table beside the door. Then she slammed the door shut and, panting, raced along the corridor and down the stairs.

  chapter 77

  Victoria was in the grocer’s shop, inspecting fruit and placing it into her basket. She looked at the time. It was nearly six in the evening. She had bumped into Mrs Foxe earlier and gone for something to eat with her in the new hotel opened in the town, which had delayed her.

  “Victoria,” said a voice beside her and she turned to see Dolly standing there.

  “Good evening, Dolly! How are you?” Victoria greeted her warmly.

  “Shhh!” urged Dolly as she looked around the grocer’s.

  It was empty of customers and the shopkeeper was distracted by a child crying.

  “I have to speak to you urgently,” whispered Dolly.

  “I’ll come by your bar when I’m finished here.”

  “Do not! Do you know Connery’s Castle, the ruin outside town?”

  “I do.” Victoria was confused.

  “I’ll meet you there in an hour.”

  “Can this wait until tomorrow? I’m already late getting home?” said Victoria.

  “It cannot! I have to see you this evening! Don’t tell anybody you were speaking to me!”

  Then Dolly turned and walked away quickly.

  Victoria drove out to Connery’s Castle. She parked beside the ruin and waited. She wondered what on earth Dolly wanted and hoped it wouldn’t take too long as Harrison would be worried about her. Seven o’clock came and went and there was no sign of Dolly. Another forty minutes went by and, annoyed, Victoria started the car and began to drive away. She was in no mood for practical jokes from Dolly Cassidy after her terrible encounter with Charles.

  At that moment she saw Dolly heading towards her on a bicycle and she stopped the motor car.

  “Sorry, I couldn’t get away,” gasped Dolly. “There were too many people still in the town and I couldn’t make them suspicious by being spotted coming out here.” Getting off her bicycle, she left it resting against the ruined wall of the castle.

  “What is all this about, Dolly?” snapped Victoria.

  Dolly got into the passenger seat beside her.

  “Well?” demanded Victoria.

  “Tell nobody we met this evening,” Dolly said urgently. “I’ve heard something and I have to tell you so you can act . . . Lord Charles is going to be killed tonight.”

  “What? By who?”

  “I can’t say! It’s one of the tenants he evicted. I get to hear everything in my line of work and there’s a conspiracy to kill him tonight.”

  “We must go to the police at once if this is true,” said Victoria.

  “No! If you go to the police, they’ll realise somebody informed, and my life won’t be worth living, if I’ll be left alive at all.”

  “But why tell me? Why not tell James?”

  “I haven’t spoken to James in months. I can’t be seen anywhere near him or any Armstrong with all this going on. I used to see you walk by the bar often in the afternoons and so I was watching out for you to catch you. Now, I have to be going before anyone suspects.”

  “But what can I do?” Victoria was panic-stricken.

  “Just get him away from Armstrong House tonight before it’s too late. They plan to kill him there tonight.”

  “And what about the others? Arabella, their daughter?”

  “They won’t touch anybody else or go near them. They have no gripe with anyone else. They’ll wait for their chance and kill Charles tonight. Now I have to go!” Dolly said, jumping out of the car.

  “Why are you doing this?” asked Victoria.

  “I could never live with myself in this life or the afterlife with the knowledge of a murder I could have stopped. Get him away from Armstrong House as quick as you can, before it’s too late,” Dolly said and she raced over to her bicycle and nervously cycled away as fast as she could.

  Harrison looked at the clock on the wall. It was half past eight. After Arabella had left he had sat numb for a long time. Her words repeated over and over in his mind. And then memories came rushing in. Charles and Victoria’s close friend
ship. How she always defended Charles even to him, especially to him. How she was always calling up to Armstrong House. How he called over to Ocean’s End, even when Harrison wasn’t there. He remembered she said Charles had given her a necklace. He went racing upstairs and went and pulled open her jewellery drawer. He anxiously opened jewellery box after jewellery box until he found a necklace he didn’t recognise. There was a note in with it. He read it: All my love, Charles.

  Numbness seemed to take over him as he stumbled back downstairs with the jewellery box. And then he collapsed in tears as he understood what Arabella had said was true. That his lovely, beautiful Victoria had betrayed him in the most terrible way.

  The clock ticked and the hours of the evening went by and there was still no sign of Victoria. Was she with Charles now? Where else would she be? Arabella’s filthy accusations grew louder – ‘fornicating’.

  He wiped away his tears as he heard Victoria rush through the front door calling, “Harrison? Harrison!”

  She raced into the parlour.

  “Harrison, I’ve heard the most terrible thing.”

  “Where were you till now, Victoria?” he questioned coolly.

  “Harrison, be quiet, I need to tell you something urgently.”

  “Where were you?” he screamed at her, giving her a fright.

  She saw his tearstained face. “Harrison, what’s wrong with you?”

  “Answer my question – who were you with all evening?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “You can’t say!”

  “I swore I wouldn’t say. But Harrison, you must listen to me, we have to –”

  “You were with him, weren’t you? Charles.”

  “Charles? Of course I wasn’t!”

  “Don’t treat me as a fool any longer,” he said, throwing the jewellery box on the table in front of her. He waved the note that had been in it in front of her. “All my love, Charles!”

  “I told you he gave me a necklace.”

  “You didn’t tell me about the note! The love note!”

  “Harrison, you’re being ridiculous, and we have no time for this tonight.”

  “How long has it been going on? Your affair with him?”

  “My affair!” Victoria was dumbfounded.

  “I’m so blind. It took Arabella to point it out to me – though she is an expert on deception herself.”

  “I have not been having an affair with Charles!”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Victoria’s heart felt like breaking at his accusations. “I admit Charles told me he is in love with me. But I was horrified and disgusted and told him so.”

  Harrison started shaking with rage. “And you never thought to tell me this?”

  “I didn’t want to upset you.”

  “Upset me! You’ve destroyed me!”

  “But nothing happened, I swear to you.”

  “And I don’t believe you!” Harrison sank down on the couch, cradling his head in his hands. “I can’t believe this has happened to me. Not again – not again!”

  Victoria looked at her husband, a raging mess on the couch. “Harrison, I’ve been told that somebody is going to try and kill Charles tonight. We have to go over to Armstrong House immediately and warn him and get him away from there.”

  Harrison bolted up and he glared at her with bloodshot eyes. “What rubbish are you spewing now?”

  “Charles is going to be killed by one of the tenants. I can’t say how I know, but it is the truth.”

  “You must think I’m the biggest fool in the world! Trying to distract from your sordid affair with this story.”

  “I’m not!”

  “You expect me to go over and meet your lover now!” Harrison was incensed.

  “Look, Harrison, all this misunderstanding can be sorted out tomorrow. But tonight we have a priority and that priority is to save a man’s life.”

  “You’re putting him before me?”

  “Harrison, we don’t have time for all this. Please, let’s go to Armstrong House and get to Charles before it’s too late,” she implored him.

  “I never want to see him again, ever. And I don’t care what happens to him.”

  “So you’ll let your brother be murdered?”

  “If anyone wants to kill him, good luck to them. If they don’t get him, then I will!”

  She looked at him, horrified. “If you don’t come with me, I’ll go on my own.”

  “If you walk out that door and go to him now, we’re over forever, and I’ll not be responsible for what I do,” he warned.

  She glared at him and then she turned and walked quickly out of the room. A few seconds later he heard the front door slam and the motor car start up.

  By the time Emily got back to Hunter’s Farm, Margaret had gone to bed. She wandered into the parlour and sat down. Her encounter with Hugh had been awful, but she always expected it would be. His revelation about Charles she could hardly believe. And yet she had seen the bank transaction for their latest deal. It all suddenly made sense to her. How Charles had manipulated her into marrying Hugh. How he had encouraged her all along the way. Her brother had sold her, as Hugh had said. And in doing so sent her into a disastrous marriage and ruined her life. Charles who she had always adored and admired. The one person she had always trusted and spoke openly with. And he had no regard for her and used that trust to betray her, fully aware of the kind of man he was letting loose on her. She got up and started pacing up and down. She had never been so angry in her life.

  Arabella walked into Prudence’s bedroom and found her writing at her desk.

  “It’s after ten, Prudence, it’s time you were in bed.”

  “But I’m writing a letter to Pierce, telling him everything that’s been going on.”

  “Try to leave out the more gory details, will you? You can finish it in the morning,” said Arabella, going over and kissing her.

  “Yes, Mama. Goodnight.”

  Arabella closed the bedroom door behind her and walked down the corridor. She decided the silence between herself and Charles had gone on long enough and she walked down the stairs to find him. She went into the drawing room and found him there, staring pensively into the fire.

  “I think we need to talk, don’t you?” she said, sitting down near him.

  “Yes, we probably do,” he agreed.

  “We can’t go on ignoring each other, in separate bedrooms,” she said.

  “No, you’re right. We gave it our best shot, but I think we have to admit failure.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Our marriage isn’t working any more. I’m not sure it ever did work, to be honest. We were thrown together in such drastic circumstances.”

  “I wouldn’t say that. I think we loved – and love – each other very much, but I never know what’s coming next with you.”

  “Well, you won’t have to worry about that any more.”

  She shook her head, confused.

  “Our marriage is over, Arabella. I’m leaving you.”

  Arabella felt as if she had been struck.

  “Oh no, Charles, you are not leaving me, that is one thing I can assure you of,” she said sternly, but with tears in her eyes.

  “Come on, Arabella, there’s no point in continuing with this farce of a marriage any more.”

  “You wouldn’t dare leave me!”

  He looked at her and smirked. “Do you really believe that? Do you honestly think there is anything in this world I would not dare do?”

  “You wouldn’t bring the scandal on the family. Your mother would never permit it!”

  “I’m afraid with Emily’s separation from Fitzroy, Mother is going to have to get used to her perfect family not being as perfect as she would like to portray. Besides, I’m not talking about the scandal of doing anything in court – we can just live completely separate lives and never see each other.”

  “You have the whole thing thought out!”

  “Yes, I’m sell
ing the estate and will probably move back to London. I’ll keep the house here for the hunt season and visit periodically as many gentry do with their country houses.”

  “And what about our children?” she demanded.

  “Pierce is in boarding school now, and I think it’s wise that Prudence be sent to boarding school as well.”

  “No!”

  “You don’t really have a choice in the matter. And I’m doing what’s best for them. We’ll share custody of them during the holidays.”

  “And what do you suggest will happen to me?” she demanded.

  “Do what you want, Arabella. You can stay here at Armstrong House if you want, as long as you keep out of my way on my returns.”

  “You’d leave me alone in this house that I can barely tolerate, with all this resentment you created with the locals, without my children, while you go off and live the good life in London?”

  “As I said, what you do is up to you,” he said.

  After the shock subsided she felt herself become angry. “I know what this is all about, Charles. I know why you’re really leaving me. I know all about you and Victoria!”

  “Have you been on the gin again? There is no me and Victoria.”

  “I know you’ve been having an affair with her.”

  “I thought you were going mad recently, but now you’ve just proved it!”

  “Oh, and I suppose there was no you and Marianne Radford either, was there?” she said, a bitter satisfied look crossing her face as his eyes widened and mouth fell open.

  “You see, you think you’re so clever. But I’ve been two steps ahead of you all these years. I knew all about you and Marianne. In fact it was me who told her husband about it and sent him up to find the two of you in the Blue Room!”

  “Why didn’t you say something at the time?” he whispered.

  “Because I didn’t have to! So don’t try and pull the wool over my eyes now about Victoria!”

  “There is no me and Victoria!”

  “I heard you together. I know; don’t deny it. I’ve told Harrison all about it. I told him how you and she were carrying on behind his back, making a fool of him!”

  “I can’t believe you!” he roared, jumping to his feet.