The successful birth of a son and heir united us briefly. Bentley’s miraculous return to forgotten geniality almost persuaded me that all was not lost and that he might yet become a gentle loving husband and I a devoted wife.
Dear God, how I needed such consolation. And so much more. Clasping my son to my breast, the bruising marks of birth still upon him, again and again as I kissed his tiny face, it began to undergo a rapid change, a strange bluish colour.
Suddenly I screamed, shook the tiny body as one might a watch that had stopped ticking. And even as my wails of terror echoed through the house, the tiny heart beat no more and his head lolled, eyes still open, but oh so still, against my arm.
Any words to describe that bitter grief would be inadequate. Bentley locked himself in the library, drowning his sorrows in a doleful procession of wines carried up from the cellars by the servants. I pleaded with him but he pushed me savagely aside, and as I fell to the floor and lay there, I knew there no longer existed any hope for our marriage.
One day Dr Bidwell called. The library door flew open and Bentley who had been shaken into sobriety had seized this unique opportunity to shake the poor doctor.
“What is it you are saying, man? Unlikely – unlikely that Lady Drummle will ever produce a living healthy child.” He turned to me a scowling mask of fury and hate.
The doctor explained that some malformation in the infant’s blood circulation was at fault. “In many cases, the first child survives but subsequent ones die at birth, or soon afterwards.”
His anxious glance took in Bentley’s mother and Ruth. “You must take good care of yourself – exceedingly good care, Lady Drummle.” And I heard the warning in his voice.
There had been cholera that long hot summer and my sickness was presumed to be the last dregs as other members of the household were unaffected. My inability to retain what little food I ate was aggravated, alas, by fear and destruction of the spirit.
Bentley had removed himself to another bedroom at the outset of my illness and for this small mercy I was grateful. Soon I would be thirty, middle-aged, my life half over, a prisoner in Drummle Towers. As the instrument of Miss Havisham’s vengeance, I had failed in that too. The breaker of hearts had been broken indeed.
Then something happened to change my mind regarding the true nature of my illness. Dr Bidwell, who had faithfully served three generations of Drummles, had been replaced by Dr Fraser, new to the area. Called in to attend Ruth’s sore throat, to this day I can still see the two men in earnest conversation and hear Bentley’s voice, which he had never learned to lower, echoing up the staircase.
“Regarding my wife, doctor. She talks constantly of doing away with herself, putting an end to her life. We are all greatly distressed and keep a careful watch.”
The doctor laid a hand on his arm. “Perhaps it will pass, sir. Otherwise we can have her committed – there are asylums for such conditions.”
“She talks of putting an end to her life.” I had never said such words. “Asylums for such conditions.” Over and over, the words echoed as I clutched the banister and watched Bentley. It was as if I could see clearly into his mind as I relived the monstrous chronicle of his small cruelties throughout our marriage and perceived that my inability to produce an heir for Drummle Towers had driven him to the threshold of murder. Or worse than my death, the living death of an asylum for the insane.
The drawing room door opened and his mother beckoned him, her gesture furtive and significant. That night, unable to sleep, I heard a sound in the corridor. Opening the door, from Bentley’s room, a figure emerged. It was Ruth and there was one obvious conclusion. Although I had long suspected he had a mistress among the ranks of our hard-living neighbours, it had never occurred to me that he would consider his cousin in that role. My observations were rewarded by the interception of many fond glances and lingering touches between Bentley and Ruth. On his mother’s face I saw a flicker of triumph and gratification.
I could not pretend feelings of outrage. If Bentley found comfort in his cousin then I had least cause to object, since I no longer fulfilled, or wished to fulfil, my role as his wife. Indeed I soon discovered that I was a beneficiary under this new tide of guilty love. Gone were the indifferent servants; my mother-in-law and Ruth were suddenly solicitous for my well being, tucking rugs about me, bringing cups of herb tea, vile-tasting but with assurances of health-bringing strength.
Bentley’s guilt extended to a birthday present, an occasion which he had ignored throughout the years of our marriage.
Kissing my forehead, he said: “Come, I have something to show you.” And he led me into the garden where the stable boy held the rein of a fine chestnut mare.
“Her name is Star – and she is yours.”
“Mine?” I cried in delight
“Of course. That is why I named her Star – for Estella.”
“Oh, Bentley, this is so kind. But – but—” The mare looked valuable but I could hardly reproach him for such extravagance, remembering that he was perhaps also mindful of my dowry squandered at the gaming tables.
“Nothing is too good for my wife. I thought we might resume our old habit of an early morning ride before breakfast.” With a deep sigh: “Now that we must reconcile ourselves to being childless—” And, cutting short my apologies, he said: “You have done your best, you have suffered greatly both in mind and body, but that is all over. Now we must grow old together as good companions. Would that not please you, Estella?”
“I would like that.”
“I thought you would. Fresh air and exercise will soon bring the roses back to your cheeks. You must get strong again soon, my dear, to please your old husband.”
This new smiling Bentley was irresistible. Could hallucinations wrought by melancholy illness have convinced me of a conspiracy in the household to do me harm? Now grasping at straws, I was ready to make excuses for everybody, eager to make a fresh start, to live again.
When Star threw me on that first ride, although I was unhurt, my confidence was shaken. She had an uncertain temper and was much harder to handle than the gentle old mare sold during my sad childbearing days. Now Bentley assured me that Star was a little spirited but I must prove myself her mistress. “She will soon obey you. Come, we will race to the parkland boundary and back.”
The autumn morning was dour, the park shrouded in mist which would turn to rain before midday. I regarded the big mare with trepidation as she loomed above me. Far from happy about racing her, I allowed Bentley to assist me into the saddle, less alarmed at being thrown, as an experienced horsewoman, than of throwing him into one of his sullen rages and tantrums that might last for days and thereby lose the little headway we had made.
“Off you go.” He slapped Star’s rump with his riding crop and as we galloped into the parkland, I saw that I was well in the lead. Was he letting me win, humouring me by holding back his own mount? The movement of glancing over my shoulder made the saddle slide dangerously. The next moment I was sliding—
Falling . . . out of control.
The ground came violently up to meet me and, screaming, I was dragged along by the still-galloping Star. By a tremendous effort I managed to free my foot from the stirrup. I lay where I had fallen, bruised and shaken, grateful for the sound of Bentley’s horse approaching.
I sat up, calling to him. I expected concern, not that ferocious expression of anger. In that one sickening moment, I saw that he had no intention of reining in to rescue me. Striking his horse savagely, he was riding me down.
With a scream of terror, in that last instant as the horse towered over me, I rolled aside and instinctively raised the riding crop I still clutched. I struck the stallion in a sensitive area and, with a shrill whinny of pain, the beast kicked up his heels and Bentley shot over his head. He lay still.
For a long time I dared not move, terrified to investigate in case he was merely stunned and we were alone with no living soul in sight, no habitation. If that were the cas
e, I had little doubt that Bentley would finish me off and return to Drummle alone.
I was so cold and he so unmoving, as through my sickened mind raced a procession of his kindnesses lately shown and the true nature for my mysterious sickness. Bentley desperate for an heir, intended to be rid of me, to marry his cousin.
Dear God, that I could have been so simple. And now he lay dead twenty feet away from me. Dead with all my own hopes and dreams. The rain had begun, heavy, drenching. I was chilled to the bone and rose painfully to my feet. With one hesitant look at that still white face, I limped back through the parkland. At the stables both horses had returned riderless and Jim, the stable boy was examining Star’s saddle. White-faced, shocked, he said: “Thank God you’re all right, my lady. This should never have happened. I’m very particular and fixed your saddle myself. Ask his lordship, he watched me do it.”
I told him where Bentley lay and to fetch a doctor and then I staggered across to the house. I hardly heard his mother’s screams or saw Ruth slip to the floor in a dead faint.
I sat at the foot of the stairs and waited until they carried Bentley home and laid him on the sofa in his study. No one came near me. I might have disturbed a gallery of marble statues. It was not merely that I presented the picture of a drowned rat stumbling torn and dishevelled into the hall but that I was not the one they expected to return alone from that ride. And a part of my mind still alert, considered their guilty faces. They told me all I wanted to know. That they also were in the plot for my death.
Doctor Fraser arrived. Bentley still lived. “Alive, but I fear the injuries to his spine are grave.” He turned to me. As I assured him that I was unhurt, his mother shrieked:
“If my son dies, mark my words, doctor, that woman is his murderess. She wishes to destroy him and leave me, his mother, and his poor orphaned cousin without a roof over our heads.”
The doctor spoke soothingly to her; his embarrassed nods and anxious glances in my direction said that I was not to take such hysteria seriously. As for the orphaned cousin, her screams that night alerted the whole house as she miscarried of a male child: Bentley’s son.
As for myself, chilled to the bone, I thought I would never be warm again.
From the maids’ whispers, attending sluggishly to my needs as I weakly summoned them with the bell-pull, I learned that Bentley was paralysed and speechless. The master would never walk again.
Each day I grew weaker and no doctor came, but as the fever took me, I ran down a long tunnel and Pip was waiting for me in the light. We were in Satis House but I tormented and tortured him no longer, for I loved him and was his.
“They are going to let you die.” The words were spoken clearly in my ear, unmistakably Miss Havisham. “Don’t let them, Estella. I didn’t rear you for them to destroy. Fight them! You can win, dearest child.”
I opened my eyes. I had been dreaming. I was alone and the fire long turned to ashes, had not been relit. But the billowing curtains suggested that someone, tiptoeing in after dark, had thrown open the windows, allowing the cold damp air to add to the icy atmosphere.
“She talks of putting an end to her life. Asylum for the insane.”
All seemed lost. A prisoner, my only hope lay with Mr Jaggers, but how was I to reach him? I prayed for strength. and my prayer was heard. Strength came from a most unlikely quarter as one afternoon I opened my eyes to behold a smiling angel at my bedside. A guardian angel in the unlikely form of Jolly, my once ill-used maid
“Drink this, Miss Estella.”
No one had addressed me as Miss Estella in years. I was dead and in Paradise, along with those who had loved me long ago. As for Jolly, she was almost as insubstantial as the wraith of Miss Havisham who had summoned my feeble being back to life.
My shoulder was seized none too gently. “Wake up, Miss Estella, dear. You must take this, just a spoonful. It will make you feel ever so much better.” A strong hand behind my head, warm liquid in my mouth. “Another sip, there’s my good lady. And another. You’re fair starved, thin as a winter rabbit.”
I no longer needed urging. “So good, Jolly, so good.” I was tired, tired yet content. Safe. I had been sent a friend.
“Don’t go to sleep yet, Miss Estella. The housekeeper has come back. She’s here and she going to throw me out if you don’t speak up for me.”
“Jolly is to remain, my personal maid. Let me remind you that I am mistress here and could send you packing this instant.” At the force of my words, the housekeeper stepped back. Her guilty looks said she was also in the plot and had received instructions to find me dead when she returned.
The sustained effort had taken all my strength. Clutching Jolly’s hand, I whispered, “Please stay with me.”
As Jolly again flourished the soup spoon I learned that she had left Mrs Brandley soon after my marriage to take care of the great-aunt of her young man, whom she had met at Richmond Fair.
His name was Jim, stable boy at Drummle Towers.
“Wardham is only two miles from here and when my kind lady died her house went to a cousin. They didn’t need me so Jim says why not try Lady Drummle? He loves the story of Miss Havisham’s strange goings-on but I said you wouldn’t need me, you’d have a French maid now. But Jim insisted.” She shook her head. “I still don’t know where I found the courage to come – Sounds daft, I know, but I felt as if – as if Miss Havisham was whispering in my ear—”
I gave her a startled look. Perhaps Miss Havisham was in charge of my guardian angel and, if I were to believe the experiences of Jolly and myself, she who had willed me to live would have found it an easy matter to propel Jolly down the drive to Drummle Towers.
“They were starving you to death, maybe even poisoning you. When I saw you lying in a freezing room, I was never in any doubt about that.” Then in a frightened voice she whispered: “The maids are saying that if his lordship dies then his mother means to have you taken for his murder.”
Those words chilled me to the bone and I sobbed. “You saved my life, Jolly, but for how long, just to be hung on the gallows?”
“Never, Miss Estella. But we have to get you away from here. My Jim’s clever, he’ll find a way.”
I had to believe her; she was my only hope. And what she lacked in stature, she made up for in strength and determination, I soon discovered, when later that day with an air of triumph she ushered in Dr Fraser.
To my murmured, “At last!”, he replied: “Not from lack of trying, my lady. On daily visits to Sir Bentley, I am told you are not at home. This seems mighty odd considering his lordship’s concern over your mental state. Before the accident he considered having you committed.”
He cut short my cry of protest. “Today Miss Jolly was lying in wait as I took my departure. She has told me enough to make me realize that you are in mortal danger and you must leave this house immediately. Make no delay. My advice is that you deliver yourself into the hands of a Mr Jaggers, an excellent lawyer who is known to me.”
He smiled when I told him of my connection with that gentleman and, assuring him I felt perfectly fit to travel with Jolly, arrangements were swiftly made for us to board the stagecoach which stopped on the London road at midnight. Dr Fraser’s last word was a warning to take only a small valise containing essentials.
“Remember by the laws of property relating to married women, everything you own from Miss Havisham’s jewellery to the clothes on your back belong to your husband and you could be charged for theft.”
Never have hours passed so slowly but at last darkness fell and we crept down the drive out to join Dr Fraser’s carriage driven by Jim. While we awaited the stagecoach, I was profuse in my thanks to this trio, for to them I owed my life.
Dr Fraser looked pleased. “In our profession we are used to investigating cause and effect and it is in my nature, I must confess, to relentlessly pursue truth. That being so, the two riding accidents, linked with Miss Jolly’s suspicions suggested that some person or persons had your death in min
d. The two ladies were in London to visit their dressmaker, his lordship here with his two nurses and you, so ill, in the care of the housekeeper, who seized the opportunity to visit relatives in Wardham.”
He shook his head. “It took only a moment’s speculation to realize that they hoped on their return to find that you had passed away and, of course, as they were not on the premises no suspicions could be attached to them. Jim’s dismissal also took on a different meaning when he told me that he had observed Sir Bentley fiddling with your horse’s saddle. Otherwise why should his lordship, never known to be generous, thrust a sovereign into his hand ‘for minding his own business’? Jim suspected that he was being bribed for something, but it was not until your horse came in riderless that he guessed the reason why.”
Pausing he smiled ruefully. “All this is evidence, a police matter, but if we attempted to bring it to court, Sir Bentley has friends in high places, and who would take the word of the local doctor and a dismissed stable boy? Let us keep it between us for now.”
The stagecoach lumbered up the hill and while Jim and Jolly exchanged farewells, briefly for they would soon be reunited, the doctor handed me aboard and brushing aside my thanks, he smiled and said: “Take your life back, my lady, and live it well.”
Safe thus far, travelling swiftly into an uncertain future, I saw so clearly the bitter irony of Miss Havisham’s revenge. For it was I who she loved and not Pip, fated to be her hapless victim while Bentley, my murderous husband, became his own executioner.
The Prints of the Beast
Michael Pearce
Our second story follows the exploits of Pip and Herbert Pocket as, towards the end of Great Expectations, they travel and set up business in Egypt. Michael Pearce is best known for his stories about the Mamur Zapt, or head of the secret police in Egypt at the start of the 20th century. The series began with The Mamur Zapt and the Return of the Carpet (1988). More recently, with A Dead Man in Trieste (2004), set in 1910, Pearce has begun a new series featuring the exploits of Sandor Seymour, a British Special Branch officer whose expertise takes him to various European embassies and consulates, describing a world inexorably spiralling towards war. All of Pearce’s books are written with a dry humour and a keen understanding of the ironies of life.
The Mammoth Book of Dickensian Whodunnits Page 41