by Annie Groves
Clumsily Ellie ran towards him, unable to accept what she could see, crying out as she did so.
‘Henry, no! Please God, no! No! Oh, no, no, no…’
PART FOUR
THIRTY-EIGHT
Ellie stared blankly at the breakfast table. There was a newspaper lying there neatly folded, which, for some reason, was trembling violently.
The newspaper, The Times, pristine and ironed, couldn’t possibly own its presence to Maisie, whom she had never been able to teach that a newspaper was to be read before being used in lighting fires. No, it must have been put there by the awesomely efficient retired butler, whom Iris, in her usual fashion, had managed to find and had immediately dispatched to the Charnock household, and the trembling, Ellie recognised numbly, was generated by her and not the newspaper.
Wilson, the temporary butler, came in bearing fresh tea and toast. Ellie felt her stomach heave, but she forced herself to thank him. After all, it wasn’t his fault that she felt the way she did; that she was gripped in this appalling vice of disbelief and pain and anger.
Oh, such dreadful anger. There was so much of it that her very skin felt tight against her bones with the pressure of it, not allowing her even to think. She knew its taste – heavy, sour, bitter. It burned inside her like acid, eating away at her. Anger against Gideon, against Henry, against his father and her own mother, against Connie, but most of all anger against herself.
Anger and guilt.
The hand she had reached out to pick up her cup of tea started to tremble so violently she had to pull it back.
Her whole body was trembling wretchedly now, her teeth chattering. It had been months now, but inside her head, everything was as horribly fresh as though it had happened yesterday.
Ellie stood up, her stomach heaving with nausea.
She knew she must have run to find someone, to tell them what had happened, but she had no clear memory of having done so, only of finding that the house was suddenly full of people: her father-in-law; Henry’s cousin, George, and his wife; her own cousin Cecily’s husband, Paul, looking grave and professional; and Iris, equally professional but somehow managing to stop Maisie’s noisy sobbing, and to produce cups of tea for everyone.
That had been three months ago. And since then…
Ellie closed her eyes.
From the moment he had learned that Henry had taken his own life, Jarvis Charnock had done everything he could to dissociate himself from his son. Henry was a weakling, whom Jarvis had always privately doubted that he had sired – a weakling who had inherited his mental instability from his mother. That’s what he had told everyone who would listen. And according to him Henry had been mentally unstable. What other possible explanation could there be for him taking his own life?
Ellie had shown her father-in-law Henry’s letter but he had torn it up and thrown it on the fire, forbidding Ellie ever to mention its contents to anyone!
‘I thank God that I have been spared the calamity of him providing me with grandsons who might well have been infected with his own madness,’ he had told Ellie viciously.
And that had been the line that he and George had stuck to unyieldingly. With pious sighs and shaken heads, with sombre looks and in hushed whispers, they had let it be known that they had been concerned for Henry’s mental health for some time; that they had tried to help and protect him, but that it had proved an impossible task.
‘Really, Ellie, I am surprised you felt able to leave poor Henry on his own so much when you must have known how delicate his state of health was,’ Elizabeth had chided her loftily. ‘Dearest Uncle Charnock had already told me how concerned he was about the amount of time you spent away from the house with your friends, and how worried he was about the effect it was having on Henry. But then you have always been such a very social creature, haven’t you? I, on the other hand, have always been content to be at home with my family.’
Her smugness had jarred on Ellie’s shredded sensibilities. Useless to try to defend herself by pointing out that her ‘socialising with her friends’ had, in fact, been her visits to her clients, and that she had been obliged to make such visits in order to provide herself and Henry with an income.
But she had not been working on the day that Henry had taken his own life, had she? She had been in Preston.
She had gone to see Connie, she reminded herself fiercely. But there was no escape from her guilt, no appeasement.
There had been no formal funeral, of course. Instead, Henry had had to be buried in unhallowed ground, his burial attended by the merest handful of mourners: herself, Cecily, Paul and Iris, along with one or two others.
Acquaintances now ignored her in the street, crossing over to the other side of the road in order to avoid her, as though somehow Henry’s suicide had tainted her, and even though they were now well into the autumn, she had had hardly any orders from the ladies who, only months earlier, had enthused about her work and insisted that they wanted her to make their winter wardrobes for them.
She was a social pariah. Her Aunt Parkes had telephoned her and begged her in a flustered voice not to telephone her or call on her, since she had been forbidden to have anything to do with her by her husband.
‘Oh, Ellie, how could you let poor Henry do such a thing?’ she had wailed. ‘You cannot know how ashamed I feel. Everyone is asking me why you were not more vigilant, especially when Mr Jarvis Charnock has made it plain that he holds you responsible and that he had actually warned you about Henry’s weakness and asked you to take special care not to do or say anything that might provoke it.’
‘Ellie, you cannot say that,’ Iris had told her firmly when, in a low moment, Ellie had admitted to her friend that she felt she had failed Henry by being in Preston at the time of his death. ‘You had no option but to go and see Connie, and once you were there, you could not return whilst the disorder and looting were at their height. And besides, why should you consider yourself to be Henry’s guardian?’
Even now, Ellie could not think about that time with Gideon without mentally whipping herself for her behaviour. How foolish she had been to think, to believe…All Gideon had wanted was to have his revenge on her, to humiliate and scorn her. Well, he had certainly done so!
She looked at the now cold toast. She knew she should eat something, but she felt so constantly nauseous.
Cecily had promised to call round and see her this morning. Iris had telephoned to say she would not be able to come with her. Ellie knew how busy Iris was, as she was on the point of leaving the country for an extended visit to Switzerland with a group of friends and colleagues. Another member of the party was to be Ewan Cameron, and Paul had already teased his sister that Ewan was secretly the reason she was going, rather than any fabled views of the Swiss Alps and lakes.
Iris had, of course, determinedly denied any such partiality.
‘I wish that Iris would marry Ewan,’ Cecily had told Ellie. ‘They are so well suited for one another, and although Iris states that she is perfectly happy as she is, I cannot see how any woman can be happy when she is not married.’
And Ellie had other problems to contend with in addition to those surrounding Henry’s suicide.
Connie and her young man had disappeared, much to the furious outrage of both families, and because she had appeared to have been the last person to see Connie, the blame for this had been laid at Ellie’s door. She had tried to protest that she knew nothing about the whereabouts of the miscreants. It seemed now that in the eyes of her mother’s sisters, she and Connie were outcasts to the family.
Ellie stood up. There were things she had to do and one of them was to explain to Iris that she could not allow her to supply her with a servant for any longer, and she certainly could not afford to pay Wilson’s wages herself.
Predictably, Henry had not made a will, and even if he had done so, he had had nothing to leave. The sum total of his personal possessions had been the contents of the old leather trunk he had kept in his room, and
which Ellie had only managed to force herself to go through three days ago. In it she had found a few cherished memories of Henry’s mother, a young boy’s treasures, which had torn at her heart, and some photographs he had obviously taken whilst he had been in Japan. She had studied these slowly, trying to see the scenes depicted in them through Henry’s eyes. One of them had been of a delicately beautiful Japanese girl who had looked out of the photograph with shy, almond-shaped eyes. Ellie had carefully replaced everything in the trunk and locked it. Everything – including the small hoard of just over one hundred guineas that she had found inside it.
Cecily arrived shortly after lunch – a lunch that Ellie had felt too nauseous to eat.
After they had embraced, Cecily told her that she could not stay for very long.
‘Mama has telephoned to say that she wants me to have my sister, Kitty, to stay with me, Ellie.’ Flushing a little, she explained, ‘She is concerned that her connection with Constance will reflect badly on her at home, and now that she is sixteen, Mama has said that Kitty must come to me, just for a few months. Apparently, Mr Connolly has put it all around Preston that Connie is the one to blame for what has happened and Mama says her reputation is totally ruined. She has said too that I am not to bring Kitty to visit you, Ellie, and that, as well, I am to ask you not to visit me whilst she is here.’
Biting her lip, Cecily continued, ‘I have told her that it is very unfair of her and the others to blame you for what Constance has done, but I am afraid…’
Cecily looked so unhappy that Ellie didn’t have the heart to protest or defend herself.
‘I am almost certain that I am to have another child, Ellie,’ Cecily continued. ‘I have done nothing but be sick for the past week. Which is exactly the way I was with baby. Paul is a little shocked, since we had not planned…’ She broke off, looking flustered. ‘I must say I do not know how I am to entertain Kitty whilst I am feeling so out of sorts.’
A fierce shock of terror surged through Ellie’s body, followed by an ice-cold wash of certainty, as she heard Cecily innocently describe the early symptoms of her pregnancy…the very same symptoms that Ellie herself was experiencing.
But she could not be having a child – she must not! She half stood, her forehead beaded with sweat, her stomach churning, and then had to grip the back of her chair to control her own betraying weakness. Immediately she looked anxiously at her cousin, but, fortunately, Cecily was too busy gathering her belongings about her and preparing for her departure to notice anything amiss. As soon as Cecily had gone, Ellie went upstairs. In her bedroom she leaned against the door, her head pounding.
The unpalatable, irrefutable truth had to be faced. If she was pregnant it was impossible for the child to be Henry’s.
But she could not have Gideon Walker’s child. She did not want to have a child at all. Childbirth had always terrified her, but oddly, right now it was not the fear of giving birth that was twisting her stomach with dread, but her fear of how on earth she could possibly endure to give birth to a child given to her as an act of vengeance.
Frantically, she wondered how she could bring up such a child when she was penniless and dependent on her father-in-law for a roof over her head and her own skills as a needlewoman in order to make a living!
Dizzily, Ellie tried to think. Only recently Iris had been talking about the various advertisements appearing in women’s periodicals, advertising certain medicines to help restore women to ‘full health’.
‘They are nothing more than aids which purport to bring unwanted pregnancies to an end,’ she had continued, disapprovingly.
Aids to bring unwanted pregnancies to an end! Feverishly Ellie started to make plans.
‘Ah, Ellie. Good…I have come to see you at the express wish of dearest Mr Charnock. He feels it is best if I relay his plans to you woman to woman, so to speak! Goodness, I must say I think it very wasteful of you to be sitting here in this huge room, Ellie, using up coals on just one person, and reading magazines. I should have thought your household duties and your moral duty to Mr Charnock would have ensured that you had plenty to keep you busy!’
Elizabeth, who had arrived unannounced, and whose presence was the last thing Ellie wanted, pursed her lips disapprovingly.
‘I am afraid that once my dearest husband and myself move in here, there will have to be a great many changes made.’
As the content of her little speech sank in, Ellie stared at her, a huge sense of foreboding clamping hold of her.
‘I’m sorry, Elizabeth,’ she stopped her. ‘I don’t think I understand. What do you mean, when you and George move in here?’
‘That is what I am come to tell you, Ellie. Mr Charnock has decided that since George is now his official heir and partner in the business, it would be far better if we were to move in here and live with him. And I must say, I do feel that he is right. Which reminds me, whilst I am here I had best look around the bedrooms. George and I shall probably be best occupying the suite of rooms that was yours and Henry’s. After all, they will be far too large for just you, and I know that you would feel uncomfortable occupying them now anyway. I was saying to George that I am sure you would be much more comfortable in one of the smaller rooms on the attic floor.
‘Naturally that dreadful want-wit you have working here will have to go. I couldn’t possibly have her answering the door to my callers, nor going anywhere near my precious boys! Fortunately, Mr Charnock has been generous enough to say that he is going to increase George’s salary, in view of the extra costs our position will entail. He has promised, too, to pay for the boys’ education at Hutton and to make available a housekeeping allowance.’
Like tiny drops of poison polluting clear water, the words fell devastatingly from Elizabeth’s thin lips – on and on, remorselessly, spreading and choking the life out of Ellie’s own future.
‘This could be a lovely home, Ellie. I have never understood why you have not made it so, but then I suppose you are just not a natural homemaker. As I said to Mr Charnock myself, it is all very well for a woman to waste time wandering around her garden and visiting her friends when she has her house in order, but when she has not…! I must say, Ellie, I was a little bit surprised that you chose to stay here anyway. I should have thought in your circumstances you would have felt much happier returning to your own family, your Aunt and Uncle Parkes, perhaps, or maybe even your father in Preston. Mr Charnock has confided to me how relieved he is that your marriage to Henry was without issue, and, of course, you must be too. To bear a child who might inherit Henry’s mental weaknesses…’ she gave a shudder, ‘I could never endure that!’
‘Henry was not mentally weak,’ Ellie protested immediately, ‘he was simply bullied and…and made to feel so unhappy by his father that –’
Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed. ‘I shall be magnanimous and pretend that I have not heard you speak so disrespectfully of dear Mr Charnock, Ellie. In your shoes I would have thought you would have had more care. After all, you are totally dependent on Mr Charnock’s goodwill, aren’t you? With Henry dead, he has no legal reason to continue to support you. Indeed, I confess that I am a little surprised that Mr Parkes has not offered to have you back, especially in view of the fragile health of his own wife. I believe she lives very quietly these days.’
If Elizabeth was hoping to trick her into an indiscreet outburst regarding Mr Parkes’ relationship with his mistress then she was going to be disappointed, Ellie decided grimly.
‘I must say, though, Ellie that I am a little surprised myself. I own that in your shoes I doubt that I would feel I could continue to stay here, especially in view of the embarrassment any connection to you must cause us now, having regard to the behaviour of a certain member of your family – I shall not sully my lips with her name!
‘However, Mr Charnock is the most generous of men and none of us has any wish that you should feel that you are being pushed out of what has been your home, Ellie. Of course, you will be welcome to stay, i
f you wish, and I have suggested to Mr Charnock that if you do you would probably welcome the chance to repay his kindness to you by taking on the role of housekeeper. With all this talk of war and the increase in the line’s business, it is more than likely that I shall have to do a great deal more entertaining here than you have been used to doing. Of course, I have the experience for that sort of thing, which I know that you do not. When Mr Charnock complained to me that you were not running the house as he wished, I did tell him that it was perhaps because you simply did not know how to do so. You will feel much more comfortable working under my direction, Ellie. Oh, and my dear mother-in-law is likely to be moving in with us as well. She is not in the best of health, I am afraid…’
Numbly, Ellie listened to her. She had known that her father-in-law intended to appoint his nephew as his heir, but it had never occurred to her that he would invite George and Elizabeth to move into the house, nor that he would give Elizabeth the authority to tell her that she intended to move her into the attic…like a servant. A pregnant servant – and everyone knew what happened to them! They were dismissed without references or character and forced to go into the workhouse.
The shop, which she had chosen because it was on the other side of the city, was tucked away down a narrow maze of streets. Ellie had taken Maisie with her for moral support, but she left the tweeny outside whilst she went into the chemist’s trying to hold her head up high as she showed him the advertisement she had cut from the magazine.
She could feel her face burning as the shopkeeper looked at her, whilst she stammeringly told him that she had come in search of the potion on behalf of a friend.
Without a word he disappeared into the back of the shop, returning within minutes with a small dark-coloured bottle.
Ellie’s hand was shaking as she handed over the money and took the bottle from him.
