“It’s one of the maids from Westminster square, madam. She’s asking for Miss Harriet.”
I ran out of the room, down the hall where Fanny was waiting. I knew at once that something was wrong … terribly wrong. For a few seconds she looked as though she were vainly searching for the right words to convey the enormity of this calamity.
“Miss Harriet … it’s your stepmother.”
“She’s ill?”
Fanny shook her head.
“She’s dead,” she said.
6
The days had become unreal. I could not believe this was actually happening. Scenes kept coming into my mind like hideous pictures painted by a madman. I saw the faces of Polden, Mrs. Trant and the servants—scared yet excited, horrified yet delighted. This was a tragedy such as they read of, and they at the center of it!
They were saying that my stepmother had been poisoned. There was going to be an inquest, and then they would know for sure and they would find out why she had died, who had been responsible for her death.
Aunt Clarissa summoned me to the library. She looked five years older than she had that morning when she had been discussing the gold-embroidered satin.
“Harriet, this is shocking!”
“Yes, Aunt.”
“Some overdose of drug, they’re saying. It’s terrible, there’ll be a scandal. And in the middle of the season. This could be disastrous . .. quite disastrous.”
“Oh!” I said, and I heard my voice breaking into a laugh, which alarmed me. “The season?”
“It’s no laughing matter, I can tell you.” Poor Aunt Clarissa, she had no sensitivity of her own and failed to recognize it in others. “Who do you think would want to link themselves with a family in which such scandals occur? This will be fatal to all our hopes. It couldn’t have happened at a worse time.”
“It couldn’t have been worse whenever it happened,” I said. “Aunt Clarissa, she’s dead … dead!”
“Don’t shriek. The servants will hear. They’re no doubt discussing this now. I really think, Harriet, that you shouldn’t stay here. After all, if you aren't here, it won’t be so blatantly connected with us, will it? Of course, it will come out that she was Edward’s wife. Oh how could he have been so blind? He was always so wise … except in this one thing. Infatuated by this dreadful woman … and although she is dead I still say it … infatuated by a woman who as soon as he is dead kills herself … or worse still allows someone to kill her.”
Listening to Aunt Clarissa, I felt the hysteria rising in me. I said: “Are you turning me out then, Aunt?”
She did not answer so I went on: “I'll leave the first thing in the morning.”
I was exhausted that night, but I scarcely slept and when I did I kept starting up in horror. Nightmares tormented me, and I was glad to see the dawn.
The maid who brought in my hot water looked at me curiously. I was connected with a tragedy—sudden death, suicide… or murder.
I bathed and dressed very slowly, delaying the time when I must leave. How strange that I should want to linger in my aunt’s house! I had always thought that I should have longed to leave it, and that this should be so, filled me with an even greater desolation. Never in my life had I felt so lonely, so insecure, so uncertain of the future.
There was a knock on my door, and one of the maids entered.
“You’re wanted, Miss. In the library.” I nodded and pretended to look at my reflection in the mirror and to pat my hair, lest she should see the misery on my face.
I could no longer delay, I had packed my bag. I was ready to leave. I expected to find Aunt Clarissa in the library, where she would tell me that in all our interests it was best for me to go and that she had ordered the carriage to come in ten minutes’ time.
Slowly I went down to the library. Aunt Clarissa was there, but she was not alone.
Lady Menfrey came forward and took my hands in hers. She kissed me.
“My dear Harriet,” she murmured. “My poor, dear Harriet”
And then I saw Bevil rising from the armchair. He took me hi his arms and held me against him. I felt weak. The transition was too sudden. From despair, from the sorrow of aloneness to the comfort of the one person in the world with whom I wanted to be more than any other. I could not speak; I was afraid that if I attempted to I should burst into tears.
“My dearest Harriet,” he said in a voice so wonderfully tender that it made me want to weep, “this has been quite terrible for you. You mustn’t worry anymore. We’re here … we’re here to look after you.”
Still I could not speak.
“Harriet!” It was Aunt Clarissa. “Mr. Menfrey and his mother have traveled up from Cornwall for the purpose of looking after you until this wretched affair is over. Lady Menfrey has suggested to me that we take you to Mr. Menfrey’s house, where you should remain with her until some plans can be made. I think it is an excellent idea.”
I felt the relief breaking over my face.
I heard myself cry, “Oh yes, oh yes … please”
I was driven to Bevil’s small town house in a quiet little cul-de-sac on the north side of the park. Here Lady Menfrey remained with me. There were only two servants—a maid and a housekeeper who cooked the little which Bevil had needed in the past. The place was merely the pied PS terre he had acquired since he became a Member of Parliament.
Lady Menfrey insisted on my going straight to bed, for she declared I was exhausted, even if I didn’t realize it. I was submissive; I found it the utmost luxury to put myself into the hands of this kind and gentle woman, particularly as Bevil was making every effort to show me how anxious he was on my behalf.
We talked little of the tragedy, but of Menfreya; and Lady Menfrey said that it was Bevil’s wish—and hers—that as soon as the inquest was over I should return with them to Menfreya to recover from this terrible shock.
Fervently I told them that there was nothing I should like better, nothing I needed more. So it was arranged.
Thus I lived through those days that followed the tragedy; they were long, dreamlike days, but because I saw Bevil frequently and was constantly in the company of Lady Menfrey, whose main idea seemed to make me feel as though she was as concerned for me as she would have been for a daughter, I felt I had something to cling to, and she was the best companion I could have had. She was still serene, she, the heiress who had been kidnaped by Endelion and who had fallen in love so romantically and then been forced to adjust her romantic ideas and learn to live with a man who could never be faithful and whose irresistible passion had been not for her but for her fortune! But here she was, beautiful still, with a different beauty from that of the Menfreys—calm, classical features, gentle, kindly and, could I say, resigned. The result, doubtless, of a life of compromise and adjustment to the wild ways of the Menfreys, who although they were worldly and perhaps selfish and mercenary—for Menfreya—were the most charming people in the world.
And there was Bevil, so anxious for me, so eager that everything should be done for my comfort, tender, in a manner which conveyed to me a suppressed passion. His hands lingered on my arm, his eyes were caressing, and about him there was an air of waiting which seemed to me significant. It was as though I were already engaged to marry him. I was certain that I should soon be. Lady Menfrey conveyed it in her manner, and when she spoke of Menfreya she spoke of it as my home.
That was how I lived through those days of tension when the Menfreys sought to impose on an image of tragedy one of living happily ever after.
They succeeded, and I loved them for it—Lady Menfrey as the mother I bad never had, and Bevil more than I had ever believed it was possible to love anyone.
There was no need, Bevil said, for me to go to the inquest. It might be unpleasant, and I had not been in the house when the tragedy had occurred.