“This is nonsense, Mistress Pilkington.”
She shook her head. “Beau died because of you. But for you he would not have gone down to Eversleigh. He would not have found that woman he was blackmailing. He would have been alive today. I might have been married to him. Matt would be here. But you came with your strange wild beauty. It was more than your fortune he wanted. So he pursued you and found not a beautiful bride and a fortune, but death. Then Matt, he heard your song too. He was lured into the rocks of destiny. And where did it lead? To death in the Seine. My son … my darling son … And your husband—what unhappiness have you brought to him? Even your present lover, Hessenfield, has not escaped. He thought he was clever. He thought he was in command … but Death is waiting for him now …”
“I must ask you to go,” I said. “I have much to do.”
“Yes, make a shroud for your lover. Make one for yourself … and for me …”
I felt sick with horror, for I knew that she was telling the truth.
She went on: “I planned to destroy you. It is better that no others should suffer through you. Three men all dead … and all because of you—although I do not blame you for Beau. You see, you are disaster. You are the siren. Even involuntarily you deal death. You have to go. There is no way for it. I contrived the meeting. I disguised myself for fear you should remember me. But we met only once and I was one of the best actresses on the London stage. I listened to all I could of those long ago poison trials. I talked to people who remembered … and I decided what I should do. I did not believe that there could be poisons which could be transmitted through the skin. But there are … there are … And if you know where to go for them and if you are prepared to pay … So I went and I paid and I had the gloves made. Lord Hessenfield has been more virulently attacked. He must have worn the gloves I sent him for a long time. You are less so. And I even less. But we are all doomed. I no less than you, although mine will be a more lingering death. I have the poison in my blood just as you have…. You see, I have destroyed the siren and my son’s murderers, but in doing so I have destroyed myself.”
I stood up uncertainly. These were the ravings of a mad woman.
I must get rid of her. I must get back to Hessenfield. I must call the doctors and tell them what this woman had told me.
I left her. I heard her walk out unsteadily behind me.
I went up to the bedroom
Hessenfield was lying white and still on his bed … unnaturally still.
I knew that he was dead.
Till then I had not believed her. I had told myself that she was lying about the poison. Such things might have happened thirty years ago but they could not happen now. But I had heard such strange stories of those long ago poisonings and the subtleties of the Italian art of producing deadly substances which could attack in many different ways. There were still Italian poisoners in Paris, still men who worked out their secrets in dark places and grew rich on them.
I was bewildered. It was too much to grasp. All that time Beau had been lying under the soil near Enderby. And Leigh, whom I had looked on as my father, had buried him; my mother was involved too, and Matt was Beau’s son.
I could not believe it. And yet everything that had happened clothed it with reasonable truth.
Beau … dead all those years. Matt and I together. No wonder I was drawn to him. There was a grain of comfort in that. It had not been such a wild whim.
But there was one terrible fact which threw a dark pall over everything, and I was thinking of the past now so that I might not look to the present.
Hessenfield dead. I would not accept it. He who had been so full of life … dead … and all because of a pair of gloves. He would get up from the bed soon. He would laugh at me.
It was a trick. It was a joke … to prove to me through my desolation how much he loved me.
How much I loved him! “Oh, Hessenfield,” I murmured, “infinitely!”
I covered my face with my hands. How clammy they were … My face was burning and yet I was shivering.
Then a sudden wild joy possessed me. “I am coming to you, Hessenfield. We always said only death could part us … but even death can’t do that.”
I sat there by his bed watching him and an exultation came over me.
“I am coming with you, Hessenfield. I shall not be long.”
Death! It was very close. I could almost hear the flap of his wings as he hovered over me. Odd to think of death with wings.
An old illusion, I thought. Why … Why?
I stopped. I stared before me. I had been rejoicing that Hessenfield and I would not be parted. And now the thought had come to me: Clarissa. My daughter … our daughter … when we were both dead what would become of her?
I clasped my hands together to stop their shaking.
“My child … my little girl. What will become of you? You will be left alone here and who will care for you?”
I must do something. I must act quickly.
I stood up. The room was swaying round me. “Hurry,” I said aloud. “Who knows how much time there is left to you.”
I prayed then. I could not remember praying before. I supposed people such as I only prayed when they wanted something; and I had had so much.
It was only when things were denied me that I thought of prayer.
Then suddenly, as though there was an answer to my earnest supplication, I saw what I must do.
I went to my bureau and took out paper. In this terrible hour of bewilderment, anxiety and tragedy I thought of my sister.
I remembered how she and Clarissa had been together during that time when I had gone with her to Eversleigh. Clarissa and Damaris had loved each other then. There had been some special relationship between them.
Damaris, I said to myself. It must be Damaris.
Dear Damaris [I wrote hurriedly]
I am dying. By the time you receive this I will be dead. Lord Hessenfield, who is Clarissa’s father, is also dead. I am desperately anxious about my Clarissa. She is here in a strange country and I do not know who will care for her when I am no longer here.
I have been wicked but that is no fault of my daughter’s. Damaris, I want you to take her. You must send over here at once. You must take her and bring her up as your daughter. There is no one I should rather see her with than you. I am known over here as Lady Hessenfield and Clarissa is acknowledged as our daughter, which she is. I cannot tell you now how all this came about. It is of no importance. All that matters is Clarissa.
There is a good woman here, named Jeanne. I shall leave her in this woman’s care until you come. She is a good woman who has been looking after Clarissa and is fond of her. She was once a flower seller and lived in great poverty, but I trust her more than anyone else.
Damaris, I have been wicked. I have brought trouble and disaster wherever I have been. I ruined your life, but Matt was not really good enough for you otherwise he would not have behaved as he did. You need someone specially good.
Do this for me, please … No. For Clarissa’s sake. Send for her as soon as you receive this.
Your sister Carlotta.
I sealed the letter. I sent for the courier who had taken Hessenfield’s urgent messages back and forth from England.
“Take this,” I said, “with all speed.”
Then I prayed that he would reach Damaris, for naturally traffic between the two countries was difficult and such missions had to be taken with the utmost care. Often couriers did not reach their destination; and I suppose that after that disastrous mission which had cost Matt his life there would be more checks than ever on people coming into the country.