What Beth did not know, what Flora only sensed herself, was that she was trying desperately to throw off the inertia, the almost trancelike condition into which she had sunk. She had told Father Rawley she felt some power over her, dragging her down. Now, instinctively, she thought it connected in some way with her dead brother. And, without reflection, she was struggling against it. Nothing of this, however, showed in her manner.
‘Justin will be here soon,’ she remarked and sat down carefully in a chair, putting her fan in her lap and clasping her gloved hands over it.
‘If you will not listen to me I should have thought you might have taken some notice of the opinions of your future mother-in-law.’
But she had lost the argument, and knew it. Flora said nothing. She was listening for the sound of carriage wheels: Justin’s.
Beth stood up and left the room declaring, ‘You’re impossible to talk to – I have nothing more to say to you. I shall ask your uncle to speak to you when he returns from Strand.’
‘I’ll be married in six weeks,’ Flora said, calmly and clearly, to her aunt’s departing back. As soon as Beth had gone she stood up and began to pace up and down, up and down the room. She put on her white cloak. It swung out behind her as she paced. ‘Will he not come?’ she muttered aloud. ‘Where is he?’ Then, hearing carriage wheels she exclaimed, ‘Oh!’ and swiftly sat down again.
When Justin came into the room, in his evening clothes, she stood up, gracefully.
‘My, you do look grand,’ he said as she fell into his arms. ‘Hold on, hold on,’ he said, pushing her gently away. ‘At this rate we’ll get dishevelled. Love, let’s go now.’ And he put his arm round her. They rapidly left the room, and the house.
In the carriage, which was open, they swept through London in the cool spring air, their hands clasped under the rug, their thighs pressed closely together. Flora chattered. ‘I have had stern words from my aunt this evening. Is it true your mother thinks I’m fast?’
‘Not that I know of,’ he said, a little alarmed.
‘Aunt Beth says she does.’
‘Nonsense,’ he declared. They were going up a nearly empty street, among lamps and trees.
‘Do you think I’m fast?’ she enquired.
‘Of course not. This is the twentieth century and Queen Victoria’s dead.’
Flora laughed, then shivered. He put his arm round her. ‘Here we are. It’ll be warmer inside.’
‘I don’t care,’ she said, as the carriage slowed. They kissed. ‘Not long now, darling,’ she whispered.
‘Too long for me,’ he replied. Flora laughed again.
They descended and went hand in hand up the big sweep of steps, past lamps set in narrow parapets.
‘Ho! The golden couple,’ said a fellow officer from Justin’s regiment, as the servants took their cloaks in the hall.
Flora laughed as the crowds entered the house, the music playing. ‘Dance with me now,’ she cried, seizing Justin where he stood and pulling him gently towards the ballroom.
Those watching the handsome couple waltzing said, ‘Charming, a delight to behold.’
‘My goodness,’ said one friend of Lady Kilmoyne to her husband. ‘Young Flora’s come out of her shell.’
‘Candidly, I’m not sure I didn’t prefer her when she was in it,’ he said. ‘I think she looks a little hectic.’
‘Can a girl ever please a man?’ she wondered aloud as they watched Flora swinging round the room in her red dress.
Twenty-Nine
When Henry Reeve re-entered his sitting room at Strand he found Geoffrey standing by the fireplace. He spoke with difficulty. ‘I suppose she’s gone,’ he said. ‘Elaine Selsden.’
‘Yes, she has. The moment she saw you she ceased her wild accusations, went very pale and left quickly, without a word. Geoffrey, you look horribly shaken. What’s the matter?’
Geoffrey sat down and put his head on his hands, saying, ‘My God. Oh, my God. To see her now, after so many years.’ He raised his head. He spoke flatly ‘She was such a pretty girl. So pretty. Henry, that woman was Flora and Miles’s governess at Bly, before Miles killed himself. As I told you, I was never certain how responsible she was, how much she might have prevented – at the time the thought of conducting an investigation did not occur, the shock was too great, all our thoughts were for Flora. I blamed myself. And it never crossed my mind that an innocent, well-meaning girl could have played any real part in causing Miles’s death. Her only faults could have been youth and inexperience, which made it all my responsibility again, since I was the person who appointed her. But to see her screaming and shouting on your stairs, and looking so strange – I don’t know what to think.’ He paused. ‘I thought it was over. And I fled from her like a child,’ he said in shame.
‘After what you saw you probably thought it wiser. I hope I don’t need to explain—’
‘I’m sure you have nothing to explain.’
‘Nevertheless, I must tell you she is one of the two sisters I mentioned. It is most extraordinary that she should have been your governess. The situation is that Elaine became ill. Her sister gave up her employment and brought her here to rest and recover her health. By chance they took lodgings with Mrs Constantine, my old housekeeper. We have met – what? – three times, the last occasion being today, as you know, when we went to Shipston Down. And, having come here unexpectedly, she began to allege that my behaviour had demonstrated an unadmitted passion for her. Now, she said, we must openly admit what we felt for each other. And I was forced to disabuse her. I hope you don’t think, Geoffrey, I have ever given her any encouragement.’
‘She is unbalanced,’ Geoffrey said. ‘My fear is that she always was. After I came back into this room I began to be haunted by the idea that in some way she prompted Miles’s suicide.’ There was a silence.
‘Do you wish to find out?’
‘I don’t know,’ he half groaned. ‘Dare I stir up this old tragedy, with Flora on the verge of marriage? And if there was something Elaine Selsden said, or did, alone in the depths of the country with those two children, something to terrify them, what did Flora experience that she has never spoken of? Perhaps that was what she was talking about with Jack Rawley. We stopped her from seeing him, you know.’ He broke off, closing his eyes. ‘I can’t think what to do.’
‘We both need a brandy,’ Henry said grimly. ‘Elaine Selsden has given both of us a bad evening. I wonder if her sister knows anything of this.’ He poured the brandy. ‘She’s plunged us into a nightmare.’ He gazed at the figure of Astarte he had put on his mantelpiece under a gilt mirror. ‘I wish we had never gone to the excavations,’ he muttered.
‘What can I do?’ Geoffrey said again.
Thirty
Marguerite Selsden and Mrs Constantine were sitting in the parlour in Mermaid Street, each lost in thought, each occasionally glancing at each other. The sound of heavy rain came into the room. Once a horse clopped past, taking a rider home. From time to time there would be footsteps in the street outside. When they heard sounds both women looked up, wondering if they meant Elaine’s return. They had already discussed where she might have gone when she left the house, and had come to no conclusion. They had decided that the wisest course, if she did not return by midnight, was to go out searching for her, agreeing, reluctantly that if they were to do this they must ask the police to assist them. For the time being, then, nothing more could be done.
Not long after ten o’clock came the sound of running footsteps in the street. They halted. Then a key was clumsily applied to the front door lock. Marguerite jumped up and ran to it, flinging it open. Elaine stood outside with the key in her hand, shaking and very pale.
Marguerite cried ‘Elaine!’ and seized her, drawing her into the parlour. She put her in a chair while Mrs Constantine went to the sideboard and poured a small measure of brandy from a decanter. She presented it to the shivering Elaine, who shook her head. Mrs Constantine forced the glass into her hand.
‘I went to the ramparts, the castle ramparts,’ she said, with difficulty. ‘For air. But a man came up to me—’
‘Elaine!’
‘I ran away.’
‘Oh, my goodness!’ gasped Marguerite.
‘What can have possessed you to go there at this time of night?’ exclaimed Mrs Constantine.
Elaine shook her dropped head. ‘It was foolish.’
‘Well, mercifully you’re back. No great harm done, and a lesson learned,’ she said.
‘He did not … offend you too much?’ Marguerite asked.
‘It was the shock. I was shocked,’ Elaine said. ‘Please ask me no more. I think I will go to bed now.’
‘I will come up with you,’ Marguerite offered. But Elaine said she would go alone. They heard her feet slowly ascending the stairs.
In the silent room the two women stared at each other. Marguerite exclaimed, ‘How vile! How awful! And Elaine is not well.’
‘She was foolish,’ remarked Mrs Constantine. ‘A female who wanders about unaccompanied at night is always running a risk.’
‘Yes. That’s true,’ agreed Marguerite, a little surprised by Mrs Constantine’s lack of sympathy with her sister. ‘Even so, the guilt is on the man.’
‘Perhaps,’ Mrs Constantine said. ‘Still, her action was foolish. And what is the point of all your care of her, if she throws all the benefit away so lightly? I don’t presume to tell you what you ought to do but I am older than you and I tell you, I think you should speak seriously to her.’
‘When she is rested.’
‘Soon,’ insisted Mrs Constantine.
After Marguerite had bid her goodnight and gone to bed Mrs Constantine sat on, thinking. Elaine had been gone an hour. It was not far from the house to the castle ramparts. Moreover it had been raining all that time, yet, when Elaine returned, her hair and her coat had hardly been wet. Mrs Constantine thought Elaine Selsden had not been out in the open for an entire hour. So where had she been? An idea struck Mrs Constantine, who flinched at the notion. Poor Marguerite was too green, too trusting – Elaine Selsden is a little liar, was Mrs Constantine’s concluding, unhappy, angry thought.
Being an active woman, next morning Mrs Constantine took practical steps. She was up before dawn. She drank a cup of tea while dressing in her room, and carefully observed from her bedroom window how the morning progressed at Lion House. As soon as she saw Mr Reeve’s housekeeper opening the sitting room and dining room windows, she went downstairs, picked up her stout basket from the hall cupboard and set out. Before long she was rapping at the back door at Lion House.
The housekeeper, Alice Coward, opened it. ‘Mrs Constantine,’ she said, in apparent surprise.
Mrs Constantine, noting her manner, stepped in. ‘Good morning, Alice,’ she said. ‘Don’t mind my coming to your back door. I thought it better not to disturb the house too early. I’m off to Payne’s Farm to see if he has a hare put by. I thought to myself, why make such a journey without asking you if there was anything you would like?’
Since Payne, a local farmer, was famous for producing game when he should not, during the breeding season, Alice replied promptly, ‘Very good of you, Mrs Constantine. I’ll take two young hares, if anything like that has been unlucky enough to fall dead on Payne’s farm while he was watching. Will you take a cup of tea before you set out?’
Mrs Constantine thanked her and agreed. As befitted her status, she did not condescend to sit down in the kitchen. On the other hand she had known Alice since girlhood and had herself been Mr Reeve’s housekeeper twelve years earlier. She knew that Alice understood why she had come.
Handing her the cup of tea, Alice said, comfortably, ‘Quite a surprise, we had last night. Your young lady calling round, then going upstairs with Mr Reeve, then crying out all sorts on the stairs. Mr Reeve’s visitor, Mr Bennett, was very upset.’
‘What was it about?’ asked Mrs Constantine.
‘I beg your pardon?’ said Alice to prolong the pleasure.
‘What was she crying out? What was the matter?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Alice. ‘I was in the kitchen most of the time. All I know is, after I let her in they went upstairs, the lady and Mr Reeve. Then there was some noise and then he came down. Next she was on the stairs crying out he’d betrayed her, and the like, as though he’d been making love to her.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Mrs Constantine.
‘It would be news to me,’ Alice agreed.
‘And me,’ confirmed her friend.
‘I’d rushed out to see what was afoot,’ Alice went on. ‘Then out came Mr Bennett from the small drawing room. He took one look and rushed back in a hurry banging the door. Seeing him, the young lady quietened down somehow, or so it seemed. Then left, in a hurry. After that the gentlemen sat up until all hours, as far as I can tell. What did she say when she came back to the house?’
Mrs Constantine hesitated, ‘Well, let’s say not exactly what you’ve told me. Dear oh dear, poor Mr Reeve. What a disturbance.’
‘It’s the other gentleman I was sorry for,’ Alice told her. ‘He went that white when he saw Miss Selsden. I thought he’d faint.’
‘What brought it on?’ asked Mrs Constantine.
‘Goodness knows,’ Alice said. ‘He’s never been the nervous sort, Mr Bennett.’ She paused, ‘I think they recognised each other, Mr Bennett and Miss Selsden.’
‘Well, I never!’
‘They might have known each other once,’ Alice said. There was a silence as each woman considered what the previous relationship between Geoffrey Bennett and Elaine Selsden might have been.
Finally, Mrs Constantine picked up her basket, saying briskly, ‘Funny how buried business so often surfaces, isn’t it? Well, I must love you and leave you, as the soldier said. I’ll be back with the hares in an hour or two, I daresay.’
And she set out on the two-mile walk to the farm. She might have to ask the Selsdens to leave. She could not have trouble between her tenants and Lion House. If Elaine had been a silly girl she would have to take the consequences.
‘But where did you go, Elaine?’ persisted Marguerite, over breakfast. They were sitting at a small table by the fire in Elaine’s bedroom. For economy’s sake this was now the only room in which they now had a fire during the day.
‘Round and about – I was in a daze. Marguerite, don’t badger me,’ Elaine said irritably.
‘A whole hour, though,’ Marguerite persisted. The explanation that had satisfied her the previous night, when her chief emotion had been relief at seeing Elaine back, and safe, did not make sense in the light of morning.
‘Oh very well,’ Elaine said in an annoyed tone. ‘I was at Mr Reeve’s, only I did not want Mrs Constantine to know. She always tries to come between Mr Reeve and anyone else, as if she owned him. I find it very trying.’
Marguerite was taken aback. ‘You called at Mr Reeve’s house?’
‘Well, why shouldn’t I?’
‘We don’t know him well enough to call in the evening without invitation. Isn’t that obvious to you, Elaine?’
‘It’s only because we’re single women, spinsters, that we have to abide by all these rules.’
‘You sound like a naughty child Elaine,’ Marguerite said. ‘Why did you go there? What did you have to say? I can’t understand.’
‘Can’t a person just visit another person without all this fuss?’
‘Why didn’t you say where you’d been last night?’
After a pause Elaine stood up, ‘I have said all I am going to say. I want to rest now.’
Marguerite, without another word, began to put the breakfast things on a tray, preparing to take them from Elaine’s bedroom.
‘Could you be content to leave things as they are,’ Henry asked his friend as they ate a late breakfast, ‘with the woman a stone’s throw away, with her knowing you are here?’
; ‘I don’t think I can,’ Geoffrey told him. ‘I may regret speaking to her. Then again, if I do not, I may have cause to regret that also. I think it might be better to confront her. It may be awkward for you—’
‘That can be resolved,’ Henry declared. ‘The scene she made can be explained away somehow. The lady was over-tired, upset – misunderstood what she said, or somesuch. It’s unimportant what we say – yours is the serious problem. Shall I call this morning to invite her to visit me this afternoon?’
‘Without the other Miss Selsden.’
He nodded. ‘Without the other Miss Selsden.’
Henry was unaware when he set out resolutely at eleven to walk the small street down to Mrs Constantine’s house that Mrs Constantine, back from the farm, was at that moment entering his kitchen with her basket. Alice told her, ‘Mr Reeve’s just gone off to call on you. What can that be about? He must want to see the young woman.’
‘She won’t see him,’ declared Mrs Constantine promptly.
‘Why ever not?’
‘I just know she won’t.’
At Mermaid Street Marguerite was in her sitting room, sewing. Moments earlier she had stood up to stretch her back and observed, from her window, Henry Reeve resolutely turning the corner from Lion House. She heard the front door being opened, then it closed again. Jenny came upstairs and knocked at Elaine’s bedroom door. Then she came in and said, ‘Mr Reeve would like to talk to Miss Elaine. She’s not in her bedroom. I thought she might be in here.’
Marguerite, realising Elaine must have gone out without telling her, went to her bedroom. The room was empty, the bed still unmade and the fire burned right down. She stood in the doorway, startled, then glanced at the small table near the window where Elaine’s brown handbag normally stood. It was not there.
She turned round and said to Jenny, ‘It seems Miss Elaine has gone out.’
‘I didn’t see her. I’ve been in the kitchen all morning.’
Reluctantly, Marguerite went downstairs to the hall. She looked at the peg where Elaine’s coat had hung the previous evening. Like the bag, it was gone. Marguerite stood for a moment in the hall. Elaine had told her she was going to rest. Now here was another unexplained disappearance. And Mr Reeve had come to see her, was waiting for her in the parlour.
Miles and Flora Page 12