The Arnifour Affair

by Gregory Harris

  “Do get on with it,” she sniffed.

  “As you wish . . .” He slowly ambled around behind Lady Arnifour’s chair. “So what I’d like to know is if you ever told Elsbeth about Desiree Helgman?”

  Lady Arnifour turned her head so quickly that it sent her great stout wig in a slightly discordant direction. “I have no idea what you’re talking about!” She bolted up, affecting a look of deep offense even as she sent Victor a withering sideways glance.

  “Come now. . . .” Colin moved behind her again, forcing her to twist around. “There’s no need to be coy any longer,” he whispered before abruptly heading to the fireplace. “Very few secrets are able to be kept forever.”

  Lady Arnifour held herself steady, glaring at Colin without the slightest feint, and for a moment I thought she might storm from the room, but after a minute more she slumped back into her chair and heaved a grave sigh. Her fingers shot up to her temples and rubbed at them as though a searing pain had suddenly settled there, and I imagined it had. As I continued to watch her, I realized that she had become just as frail as Victor, that their mutual unraveling was as preordained as their lives together had been. “I have known a lifetime of betrayal, Mr. Pendragon.” She spoke in a voice that quivered with brittleness. “I am sure you are aware of that.”

  “I meant no offense,” he answered. “I am only seeking the truth, even if it is a truth you are eager to conceal.”

  She did not look up, but remained as she was: hunched over, her fingertips pressing at her temples. “The marriage I endured with my husband . . . ,” she said in a voice that was both flat and void of inflection, “. . . was happy for the span of about two years. Of course that was so long ago I may yet be remembering it with more charity than it deserves. The period after Eldon was born was . . . wonderful. A pristine, young family. And yet I’m sure my husband’s wandering eye had already gotten the best of him. I really don’t recall. Not until Kaylin. Samuel gave up all attempts at discretion while I was burdened with our second child. I never imagined such a complete and utter end to his interest in me, but that is exactly where I found myself, Mr. Pendragon: with two small children and a husband who came around only when he needed money.”

  “You mustn’t go on.” Victor leaned forward and touched her elbow tenderly.

  “It doesn’t matter.” She offered him a game smile, but otherwise made no move to shy away from his intimacy. “You’ve been my salvation,” she said. “You are a man of inestimable kindness. You see, Mr. Pendragon, Victor only responded to the plaintive tears of a young wife and mother all those years ago. He saved me, not once, but twice.”

  “No, no, it was you who saved me,” he rushed to correct.

  “Hush now,” she scolded with affection. “I’m telling the story.” She looked at us for the first time since withering in her seat and I recognized a liberation in her gaze I had never seen before. “Victor listened to me. He cared for me. And some time thereafter, when I realized I’d fallen in love with him, not only did he accept it, but he returned that gift a thousandfold. And I was certain we would be fine. I thought we would be permitted our indiscretion given the depth of my husband’s forays, but I was again deceiving myself. Little more than a year and a half after Kaylin was born I discovered I was once more with child. I knew the baby didn’t belong to my husband and, of course, so did he. My husband was many things, but he was not a fool.

  “We agreed I had to go away, so I created a story about a sister who’d been in a terrible carriage accident while with child, and then left my own small children. I moved into a flat in the city under that name: Desiree Helgman. It was a freeing time though it was also unbearably hard. I couldn’t see my children until after Elsbeth was born, not once. I had to placate myself by sending them letters regularly, making up stories of what I was doing and telling them how much I missed them, knowing their nanny would read the letters aloud. . . .” The thinnest smile tugged at one corner of her mouth. “But there was also joy in those months. Victor came to see me often and brought me food, and took care of me, and made me feel like a new wife on the brink of a new family all over again. That was wonderful. Me and Victor in that tiny apartment waiting for that child conceived in love to make her presence known . . . ,” she caught her breath, “. . . it was—” But her voice cracked and she dropped her eyes to her hands, which were fidgeting with the twinned ends of her tasseled belt, back and forth, as though they were attempting to weave something.

  “But I undid myself when she was born because I could not bear to let the midwife hasten that tiny baby away without taking one peek at her. I’d girded myself to give her up, but I still wanted to see her, to hold her, just once.” She took a deep breath and then pushed on. “I cradled her in my arms and smelled her sweet, soft skin, and stroked the fuzz dusting the top of her head.” She chuckled. “Her perfect, little fingers curled around my own . . .” Her smile dropped and her eyes clouded. “. . . I couldn’t let her go. That baby, that child, that perfect little girl . . .” She sagged back into her chair and closed her eyes. Her face was still, but it held a calmness that looked too long removed.

  “Shall I finish?” Victor asked softly.

  “No.” She gave him a gentle smile. “You’ve covered for me for long enough.”

  She looked back at Colin and me. “I bundled that baby up and brought her home with me to this house, my house, the ancestral home of four generations of Langhems, and told everyone my sister had died during the birth. I said there’d been no husband, so I’d done the only charitable thing I knew; I’d brought her home to raise as my own.

  “Samuel was outraged.” She glanced at her hands again and I finally understood where her story would inevitably end. “My husband told me that I would either pay him a handsome monthly stipend or he would ruin me. Simple. And that was when my antipathy for him became hatred. What was worst of all was that I had handed him the tool of my destruction myself. That baby . . . that innocent who had made me fall in love with her . . .” She shook her head. “Samuel knew just how to strike at me, how to make my life even more miserable than it had already become. And to tell you the truth, Mr. Pendragon . . . ,” she lifted her eyes and glared at him, “. . . if there was ever a time I wished my husband dead, it was then.”

  “Don’t . . . ,” Victor hushed her.

  “Why not? It’s the truth.”

  “Mother?” Kaylin was standing in the door. “Are you all right?”

  “Don’t come in.” Lady Arnifour buried her head in her hands. “These are such tawdry proceedings.”

  “Then by all means . . .” Eldon shoved past his sister. “If the Arnifours are to be flung into the mire I think we should all wallow together. And tell me, Mr. Pendragon, is it true that you’ve seen my father’s club burned to the ground and Mr. Vandemier laid up in the hospital?” He moved to the bar and poured himself a drink. “Can’t say I give a bloody piss about the latter, but the former has me sick. You know what that’ll cost me? Do you have any idea what that little parcel was worth?”

  “How dare you. People lost their lives!” Lady Arnifour snapped.

  “One of them could have been me,” he sneered. “I’d every intention of going there last night to have a word with that tosspot Vandemier—”

  “No doubt you were unconscious long before you could make good on that threat,” she shot back.

  “And there you have it.” He set his glass down. “A mother’s love.”

  “And you have become a despicable man.”

  “I am what you made me,” he said before turning back to Colin. “And there you have it, Mr. Pendragon, proof that rats aren’t the only mammals who devour their young.”

  “That’s enough, Eldon,” Kaylin spoke up. “Purge your demons somewhere else.”

  He scowled at her but kept quiet as she went and sat next to her mother. “They aren’t blaming you for this, are they?”

  “I deserve a little more credit than that,” Colin said, still hovering in
front of the fireplace. “I’m not so incompetent as to believe a woman of a certain age could have the stamina to ride out into the evening, strike two people down from the back of a horse, set a barn ablaze, and ride back without arousing suspicion.”

  “That is a relief.” Kaylin gave a tight smile as she pulled a lace handkerchief from the sleeve of her dress and began tugging it between her fingers. “Everyone here, including that inspector from Scotland Yard, believes that Nathaniel Heffernan is—”

  “Please don’t,” Lady Arnifour said. “You mustn’t speak of what you know nothing about.”

  “Do my ears deceive me?” Eldon moved across the room, his voice tight and accusing. “Is that some sort of veiled confession?”

  “And I was wondering . . . ,” she sallied right back, “. . . if it isn’t you who might have something to confess.”

  His face went rigid. “So that’s it, then? My own mother accuses me of murder?”

  “Excuse me . . . ,” Colin said, flicking his eyes around the room until he had everyone’s attention. “While I am sure this is serving some purpose, it is not serving mine, and I do have a few things I should like to have clarified so that we can put an end to all of this for good.”

  “Well, I’ve had enough.” Victor pushed himself to his feet. “I’m tired of hearing my boy’s name tossed up. You’ve already said he’s innocent, Mr. Pendragon, so I’ll have no more part in this.”

  “It’s too late for that.” Lady Arnifour gave him a pained smile. “You inhabit every part of this.”

  “Yes . . . ,” Colin started to slowly circle the room, ending up by the doors, which he quietly pulled shut, “I’m afraid that you do, Victor.”

  “Then it’s settled.” Kaylin made to rise from her seat. “I’ll have Mrs. O’Keefe send for the inspector and we’ll finish with this horrible business.”

  “I’m afraid it won’t be quite so easily done.” Colin remained at the doors. “And we’d best all be of the same mind before our dubious inspector is summoned.”

  I glanced at the faces around me: Lady Arnifour, veiled and grim; Kaylin, flushed with emotion; Eldon, locked behind his bottomless tumbler; and Victor, who looked worn to the bottom of his very soul. While they each harbored their own set of resentments, I couldn’t tell who was capable of so heinous a crime: a crime against two of their own.

  “First, let me state for the last time that Nathaniel Heffernan is innocent of these murders,” Colin said. “Nathaniel probably cared more for Elsbeth than anyone else in this room. He alone understood the binds of family. Certainly more than you, Victor. Your determination to keep the truth from ever being borne out prevented you from showing so much as a hint of affection to her, a profoundly regrettable decision on your part. Or you, Lady Arnifour, as you unwittingly found yourself encumbered by a child who came to represent the worst mistake of your life. You would have done yourself and the child far better to have followed your first instinct and given her away.”

  “What are you talking about?” Eldon asked, looking around at the assembled faces for an answer that would not be forthcoming.

  “Hush!” Lady Arnifour finally snapped. “That you insist on sitting here is reprehensible enough, but I do not owe you any explanations.”

  “Which does bring us to you, Eldon,” Colin quickly spoke up. “You have clearly chosen to climb into the bottom of a cask rather than face the ambivalence of your parents, wearing the wounds of your childhood like a badge of honor. Very different from your sister, Kaylin. My dear, you’ve allowed your mother to shroud you in a veil of fragility even as you extol the increasing howl of suffrage—”

  “Really, Mr. Pendragon,” she interrupted. “What horrible things you’re saying.” She twisted around to get a clear view of her mother. “And whatever does he mean about a child you should have given away?”

  Lady Arnifour stared across the room at Victor, her pallor ghostly white. “I’m afraid I’ve made some terrible mistakes, little one. I can only hope you will forgive me. . . .” Her eyes held Kaylin’s even as her face remained inscrutable. “Elsbeth was not your cousin. She was born to me. She was your half sister.”

  “What?!” Kaylin pulled back from her mother. “That can’t be—”

  “It’s true.”

  She looked about to swoon as she glanced from her mother to Victor, who had dropped his eyes and sagged forward in his chair. Nothing more needed to be said. The truth had been there all along.

  Lady Arnifour slowly began to speak again, telling the same story to her children that she’d already confessed to us. And once again there seemed to be something freeing in her words, and I understood that to be true. But while Lady Arnifour seemed to gain strength from the imparting of her story, neither of her children looked to be likewise affected. Eldon’s expression grew increasingly aghast while Kaylin started to cry softly into her handkerchief.

  “Mr. Pendragon is right,” Lady Arnifour finished with the assurance of hindsight. “I should have set her free from the start.”

  Several seconds crept past before Eldon turned and stumbled back to the bar. “Is there any bloody wonder I drink so much?” he mumbled to no one.

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” Kaylin said in a pitifully small voice. “How could you have let us think . . .”

  “I know.... I was wrong.... I should have . . . I just . . .” Her words trailed off in the absence of any reasonable explanation.

  “Did Elsbeth know?”

  “I don’t think so.... She never spoke to me about it.” She glanced over at Victor, but he kept his head down. “I suppose I can’t be certain. I have no way of knowing what your father may have told her.”

  “No wonder Father hated you,” Eldon said as he took a deep drink.

  “Eldon! . . .” Kaylin howled.

  “Let him say what he wants,” Lady Arnifour said. “What does he understand of love? The only thing he’s ever loved is a bottle.”

  “Whiskey is that only thing that makes living with you tolerable. It should have been you in that field that night—”

  “How dare you!” Victor leapt to his feet.

  “Enough!” Colin moved to the center of the room and for once I was glad to see him chastising this herd of cats. “Since I am no longer working for a fee I don’t feel the least obliged to subject myself to a moment more of this twaddle. I shall ask the questions and each of you will answer, and only after I’ve finished and left this house behind may you choose to continue this discourse. Failure to follow this directive will bring a rash of blue-suited bobbies and Yarders down upon your heads so quickly that you’ll each be explaining yourselves from now until the turn of the century. Are we clear?”

  No one answered.

  “Very good. Then I should like to know about the relationship between the Earl and Elsbeth; does anyone deny that they were having an affair?”

  The stoic faces that countered his question confirmed what we already knew.

  “Fine.” He allowed a tight smile. “I also know one of you had a row with Elsbeth about that affair the night she and the Earl were attacked. Would anyone like to confess? . . . Or shall I do it for you?”

  “There’s no need,” Victor spoke up. “We both know it’s me you’re talkin’ about. But I’ve got nothin’ to hide. And you’re right, Mr. Pendragon, I was no kind of father to Elsbeth and will have the rest a my life to think on it. But at least I tried to help her that one time. I knew she was goin’ out to that barn to meet the Earl. I also knew he was usin’ her ’cause he knew how much it was hurtin’ his wife. It was unforgivable—”

  “And this from the man who cuckolded him,” Eldon sneered.

  “Not another bloody word!” Colin snapped. “Go on, Victor.”

  “I confronted her that night after her argument with Nathaniel. Told her she was bein’ played a fool.” He shook his head. “She didn’t care what I had to say. Even denied it right to my face, but after a few minutes I could see she was takin’ some joy in it. I thin
k she was proud of herself. Thought she had it all figured out.” He rubbed his forehead. “Then she just started hollering that I had no right to say anything to her. And she was right. I was just the help to her. I never earned the right to say anything.” He slumped back in his chair and looked drained. “I was no one to her.”

  “Victor . . . ,” Lady Arnifour muttered.

  “And what about you, Eldon?” Colin said as he turned to the young man. “Did you ever argue with your father over his affair with Elsbeth?”

  “Me?! Now why the hell would I give a ruddy toss about what he was doing?”

  “Because he was ruining the estate,” Colin answered. “Your inheritance. But then he was holding you off with a threat of a different sort, wasn’t he? While you worried that someday you’d be left with nothing more than a mountain of debt and a house crumbling about your feet, your father was keeping you at bay by refusing to share in the profits from his lucrative clubs unless you did his bidding.”

  “Clubs?!” Lady Arnifour stammered.

  “Yes, I’m afraid Warren Vandemier’s been holding out on you.” A tight smile teased Colin’s lips. “But you know that already, don’t you, Eldon?”

  I was mystified as I turned to look at Colin, wondering if he was inventing things just to elicit a reaction from Eldon, until I saw Eldon flush in the span of an instant.

  “I assume Abby Roynton let that slip . . . ?” Eldon said as he struggled to regain his composure.

  Colin’s eyes flashed as a corner of his mouth curled up, making it clear that he had indeed garnered much more information from the seductive widow than he’d admitted to me.

  “That woman . . . ,” Lady Arnifour hissed.

  “What I want to know, Eldon . . . ,” Colin spoke over her, “. . . is what the argument was about between you and your father the night before the attack? At the Whitechapel club. The one a lovely young woman who worked there was only too eager to report to me.”

  “You would take the word of an addict?” Lady Arnifour reproached.

  “An addict can be far more honest than someone with something to hide. Am I wrong, Eldon?”