I was anxious that he should make any arrangements he considered suitable.
“And as soon as it is over,” he said, “you should go to Menfreya. You can travel with Mother, and I’ll join you in a few days' time.”
I replied that I did not know how to thank them, and that I could not imagine how I could have gone back to that house … and lived there through these days.
Bevil took my hand and pressed it reassuringly.
“Well, you know now that you can safely put yourself in the hands of the Menfreys,” he said. I thought he was about to make some declaration of his feelings for me, but he didn’t—not in words, although his looks were full of tenderness and, I believed, a desire to protect me forever.
On the day of the inquest even Bevil and Lady Menfrey were apprehensive, although they tried to hide this from me.
Lady Menfrey was in her room most of the morning, preparing to leave for Cornwall, she said, which she thought we might do the next day.
“I shall need some of my things,” I said. “I shall have to go…”
She shook her head. “There’s no need. Write from Cornwall and send for that maid of yours. She will bring what you need.”
“I’ll do that,” I said. “But the house … What of it now? I feel that I never want to go into it again. I should never be able to forget…”
“There’s no need to concern yourself with that as yet Leave it as it is. There will be the servants to consider. You need help in these matters. My husband and Bevil will give you that help. Let everything stay as it is at the moment. The thing for you to do is to get away … as soon as this unfortunate business is over.”
“Sometimes I think it will never be over.”
“My dear child, what do you mean?”
“I suppose that I shall never forget… that it will always be in my mind …”
“Oh, but tragedies seem so when they are immediately beside us.”
“I find it a great relief to let you make my decisions.”
“I hope you will always agree to let us help you in this way.” I was certain then that soon I should be Bevil’s wife.
It was the day of the inquest, which Bevil had attended. I was in the small guest room overlooking the tiny walled garden when he came in. Lady Menfrey was in the drawing room and I did not go down, because I felt the need to calm myself.
I had felt restless all that day. I had pictured the courtroom so vividly that I felt I was there. So much depended on the coroner’s verdict.
Eventually Lady Menfrey came up to my room and told me that Bevil was back; he wanted to see me. The verdict was death by misadventure.
“But how?” I breathed.
“Come and see Bev. He’ll talk to you. Then we’re going to get right away tomorrow.”
As I entered the drawing room Bevil came to me and took me into his arms.
“It’s over,” he said. “God, was I relieved! I don’t know what I expected. This is the end of it Come and sit down.”
We sat on the sofa and he kissed me.
“But, Bevil,” I said, “what happened? How could it be?”
“It came out that she had been taking arsenic … for her complexion. Apparently it’s not unusual. Women take it to make themselves beautiful, and unfortunately the stuff does have that effect … for a time anyway.”
“Arsenic!” I cried. “For her complexion! Of course, there was something about her complexion! It was quite lovely but…”
“Evidently the effects of the drug. The coroner went on about it. Some people use it in a lotion, but others are foolhardy enough to take it internally. Where she got it, they couldn’t find out Naturally her supplier would lie low. One of her theatrical friends, I suspect But your Fanny had seen her taking it in beverages … lemonade and such things.”
“But the idea of taking arsenic! How dreadful!”
“Apparently it’s used a great deal by doctors in making up medicines, but they, of course, know what they’re doing. The coroner referred to the Maybrick case. There was quite a stir about this practice years ago during the Maybrick trial. The husband died of arsenical poisoning, and the wife was accused of murdering him. She was condemned to death but reprieved at the last moment—I think because there was a doubt, and he could have taken the stuff much the same as Jenny did. You see, it’s not really so unusual, but highly dangerous, as in the case of James Maybrick and your stepmother. They found a quantity of it in her room. The coroner delivered a sermon on the folly of ignorant people using drugs the power of which they don’t understand— and then the verdict of death by misadventure was brought in.”
I couldn’t shut out the vision of bright, pretty little Jenny … dead. Bevil knew this and tried to comfort me.
“It’s over now,” he said. “Tomorrow you’ll be leaving with my mother. I shall be with you in a few days. Will you begin making arrangements at once, because we don’t want any delay.”
“Arrangements … ?”
He laughed. How confident he was—rightly so, for I could never have resisted him even if I had tried.
“For the wedding, of course. It’ll be rather unconventional, but then we are. Married from the bridegroom’s house. That will cause a flutter.”
“There is the house on the island,” I suggested.
“Picture it,” he said. “The bride stepping into the boat in her wedding finery. The southwest wind—if in evidence, and you could be almost certain that it would be—carrying off the veil and orange blossom …”
“And the boat overturning and the bride being washed ashore by the gigantic waves, late for her wedding …”
“I’ve just remembered,” said Bevil. “You haven’t said you will yet.”
“Will… what?”
He looked at me disbelievingly; he went down on to his knees and taking my hand said: “Madam, if you’ll marry me I will give you the keys of heaven .,.”
“The keys of Menfreya will do for a start,” I answered solemnly.
He was beside me, laughing, embracing me. “Harriet, do you know why I love you? You amuse me. That’s why. And I love to be amused more—or almost more—than anything else. I want you to say now that you love me, that you adore me in fact, and that you want to be my wife as much —or almost, for I don’t think anyone else could feel quite so madly eager as I do—as I want to be your husband.”
“You make a wonderful proposal, Bevil,” I said, “although a slightly flippant one.”
“My darling, it is because my emotions are so deeply touched that I am flippant I really should be on my knees telling you how much I want this … how I always have … and there has never been anyone else I could love as I love you. Dearest Harriet, you belong to us … to Menfreya. It was always meant that we should be together there. You do agree, don’t you?”
“I love you, Bevil. I couldn't deny that if I wanted to, because I’ve made it plain in the past and I’ve made it plain now. But you…”
“Yes, what of me? Aren’t I making it plain now?”
“You are telling me you love me, but you didn’t always, of course. How could you love a plain child with a limp and a rather brusque and generally unfortunate manner?”
He put his lips on mine. He had all the most charming and irresistible gestures that a girl deeply in love looks for and who refuses to tell herself that they may have been acquired through long practice.
“An interesting child, an amusing child, who had some crazy notion that she wasn’t as pretty as some children merely because she didn’t have the look of a brainless doll. I don’t like dolls, Harriet, but I adore one living, vital young woman whom I am going to marry whether she accepts me or not.”
“You mean you would kidnap me?”