The Lost Ones

by Anita Frank

  Tristan moved to intercede, but the housekeeper stopped of her own volition. The tension in her shoulders eased as she smoothed her hands down the front of her ebony skirts, her ring of keys tinkling as she did so. She wore a blank expression as she turned to face the door.

  ‘It is not about what has passed, for the past is lost,’ she said, a surprising musicality to her voice. ‘It is the future we must play for now.’

  And before any of us could decipher her unsettling pronouncement, she strode from the room.

  ‘Good God,’ Mayhew spluttered. ‘Is all that true?’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ Tristan replied.

  ‘But the woman’s quite clearly deranged.’

  ‘That’s your favourite prognosis, Doctor.’ There was acid in my observation, but I didn’t care. There had been a sizeable shift in the room, and Dr Mayhew’s pre-eminence had faded with the dying sun. ‘For once you might be right.’

  ‘Lady Brightwell, are you quite well, ma’am?’

  It was Annie who noticed her ladyship’s decline, her deathly hue, her glassy eyes, dull and sightless. She darted forward, falling to her knees to support the old woman as she slid to the floor. Lady Brightwell’s white lashes fluttered against the charcoaled skin beneath her eyes. Every crease in her face accentuated her age and her frailty, each one less flatteringly drawn than ever before. With infinite care and kindness, Annie cradled her head, her fingers fumbling to undo the tiny pearl buttons on the high neck of her blouse.

  Alarmed, Miss Scott pushed aside her own distress and moved to attend her mistress but Tristan blocked her way.

  ‘Don’t you think you’ve done enough already?’

  The companion raised herself up, defiant and determined.

  ‘I didn’t know what she’d done – not with the children, at least. I believed her when she wrote about Lady Brightwell’s baby, and I won’t lie – her suggestion that I replace the dead boy with my own son filled my soul with joy. I hope you never have to face the prospect of surrendering a child, Mr Sheers – you cannot begin to imagine the pain and the agony. So yes, when she offered me an alternative – an alternative where I might see him grow, spend time with him, love him – I seized it, and I thanked God for it. But I swear to you I didn’t know she had taken a life to make way for my boy. And I didn’t know about Lucien. I truly thought it was a tragic accident and nothing more. I had no reason to suspect otherwise.’

  ‘But Sir Arthur, you knew about that,’ I said.

  She faced me. ‘She found the letter on his desk. She came straight to me and told me I was to be dismissed. I was heartbroken, of course I was. I was to lose my job, my security, my lady …’ Her expression plummeted as she glanced down at the stupefied woman, but steeling herself, she reasserted her dignified composure, though she was unable to keep the emotion from her voice. ‘But most of all I was going to lose my son – but from the beginning I had known I was taking that risk and I had come to accept it. Constance told me she was going to kill Sir Arthur – God forgive me, I didn’t believe her, not until it was too late.’

  ‘All these years, all those lies,’ Tristan muttered.

  ‘How could I tell my lady the truth? For my part, a benefit of the deception was to save her pain. She didn’t have to be broken by the death of her child, and not just any child, the only child she would ever be able to bear. What do you think that would have done to her? So, I let her cherish my child. It was my gift to her. I have been by her side since she was seventeen years old and, other than Hector, I have loved her more than anyone else in my life.’

  And to make her point – defying us to stop her – she lowered herself to the floor and in a tender display none of us could refute, she took one of her mistress’s gnarled hands and rubbed it, as she spoke soothing words of comfort to the woman she had betrayed – and who perhaps had betrayed her.

  Lady Brightwell stirred, her lashes parting, the tears caught amongst them glinting in the waning light. She whispered Miss Scott’s name and seeing she was with her she relaxed, reassured by her companion’s consoling presence.

  Tristan and Dr Mayhew helped her onto the sofa. She lay there waxen, her breathing laboured, but she rested easier with Miss Scott nudged alongside.

  ‘What happens now?’ Tristan murmured as came to me.

  My response lodged in my throat as Mrs Henge reappeared in the doorway. She bore an eerie expression of peace, but that was not what had caught my attention. Clutched in her right hand, nestled against the black folds of her skirts, was a Webley revolver.

  ‘Dear God, what the hell do you think you’re doing with that?’ Dr Mayhew spluttered.

  In answer, she raised the gun and shot him.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Someone screamed – I realised with horror it was me. I watched in shocked disbelief as Dr Mayhew whipped backwards and toppled to the floor like a sack of spilt potatoes.

  ‘Dear God, what have you done?’ Tristan cried, as Mrs Henge lowered the pistol.

  ‘There, Miss Marcham,’ she said, ‘my gift to you for providing me with the way out of this annoying inconvenience. You’ve wanted him dead for a long time, I saw it in your eyes when you walked in and found him.’

  Annie scrabbled over to Mayhew’s prostrate body. She tugged loose the bow of her apron and lifted it clear of her head, balling it up to press against the hole in his shoulder that was belching blood. The doctor made no sound.

  It was Miss Scott who found the courage to face the housekeeper. She rose from the sofa, her knees clicking as she did so. She straightened her glasses on the bridge of her nose.

  ‘What are you doing, Constance?’

  ‘It is not too late, Ruth. I have it all worked out. Everything will be all right.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Despite her best efforts, a tell-tale tremble crept into the companion’s voice; she was no longer dealing with the sane woman she had known all these years, but the scorned shadow of that persona, a shadow that was growing darker as the evening sun dipped in the room.

  ‘Nothing needs to change,’ Miss Henge reassured her. ‘It’s all thanks to Miss Marcham. It would have been more difficult without her contribution, but with her, it’s all doable.’

  My stomach lurched. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It will be a tragic tale.’ She turned to me. ‘We none of us realised you were so unwell, so unstable – the loss of a sweetheart can do that to you.’ She said it with such sincere sorrow I realised she was speaking from her own experience. ‘When you see Dr Mayhew – come to take you away – you quite lose your reasoning. We all think you’ve gone to collect your things, but in fact you’ve sought out Sir Arthur’s pistol. Then you track down Dr Mayhew – and you shoot him.’

  ‘This is madness,’ Tristan said, walking towards her.

  ‘Dr Mayhew is only the first, Mr Sheers,’ Mrs Henge told him with that awful pragmatism that presaged disaster. She raised the gun to halt his limping advance. ‘For this to work, more deaths will be necessary. Miss Marcham, you see, is quite deranged by grief, and sadly, she turns her hatred on anyone who tries to stop her. Including you.’

  ‘And what about me then?’ I forced my bottled voice to spill from my lips. ‘If I shoot everyone in your little scenario, what happens to me?’

  ‘Why, my dear, riddled with guilt, you realise what you’ve done, and you turn the gun on yourself.’

  ‘Dear God, Constance, listen to what you’re saying,’ Miss Scott whispered. ‘Are you going to kill us all?’

  ‘I’m not going to hurt you, Ruth. All of this is for you.’ Mrs Henge looked perplexed, disappointed by Miss Scott’s lack of faith. ‘With them gone, it can just be you and me here, and Hector will return to run the family estate, and the next generation will be born. We can all be happy, together, without the past interfering, casting cloud on our joy. Wouldn’t you like that, Ruth? Wouldn’t that be the perfect ending after all that’s happened? Just as it should be. Your boy, heir to all of this
, and you, always safe, always cherished.’

  Tristan had used this distraction to make a surreptitious advance on Mrs Henge’s position. He was forced to stop as the housekeeper finished her evocation of the golden age that awaited Greyswick.

  I had to help him. Mrs Henge had lost all reason – our only way out was to force the gun from her hands.

  ‘But she’ll never be safe, will she? Not now – not from you.’

  The housekeeper whirled towards me. ‘I would never hurt Ruth! I love Ruth!’

  ‘But look at the burden you’ve made her carry. You’ve killed three …’ I glanced at Dr Mayhew’s inert body and my stomach roiled. ‘… four people for her. How is her conscience supposed to live with that? Knowing that her happiness has been bought in blood – happiness that she never anticipated and never asked for.’

  She shrugged, callous and disinterested. ‘That will all be forgotten when it is just us here, with Hector.’

  ‘You paint a rosy picture, Mrs Henge, but you have overlooked one small fact,’ I said, fanning my sole ember of bravery; as it flared alive, it felt good to be so bold. ‘You are rather taking it for granted that Miss Scott still feels the same way about you – but I am not so sure. It appears, to me at least, her unwavering affection is dedicated to another woman – the mistress she gave her son to.’

  It was immediately apparent I had put my finger upon the canker that had been growing inside Mrs Henge. She had tried to deny its existence, but there it was, and its malignancy threatened to destroy her. Seeing Tristan inch closer, I pressed my advantage.

  ‘I think when you revealed your true colours – when you killed Sir Arthur Brightwell – she realised what you were, and she found you abhorrent.’

  ‘No—’

  ‘A poor excuse for a human being – and you’ve just confirmed that now, here in this room.’

  With a look of pure loathing, she levelled the gun at me. I looked down its threatening barrel, but I was not afraid. I had nothing to live for – death had long since ceased to hold any fear for me. I realised I was afraid only for those around me.

  ‘Constance, no!’ Miss Scott cried out, and the finger that twitched against the trigger hesitated. ‘She’s right – I might have cared for you once, but no more. Your decisions, your actions, have kept me here as your prisoner. I don’t think you did it for me, Constance, I think you did it all for you.’ The charge escaped her as a broken whisper bordered with contempt. ‘You know I would have left, all those years ago. I would have put it all behind me and rebuilt my life, never forgetting my son, but accepting a life without him – perhaps I might have gone on to have a proper family with children I could raise as my own. But by keeping my son in this house, you made sure I stayed, condemning me to a bittersweet existence, able to love him yet suffering the pain of seeing him call another “mother”. Your selfish actions have denied me any chance of true happiness – and I hate you for it.’

  The loathing that spurted from the companion was lethal and effective. With an animalistic keen that was part-pain, part-fury, Mrs Henge swung away from me, the pistol barrel slicing through the air until it settled on the woman who had become her obsession. Tristan took his chance, launching himself at the housekeeper, grabbing her arm and forcing it upwards. Mrs Henge roared, clawing at his face with her free hand as he wrestled against her, trying to prise the Webley from her iron grip. Almost matching him in height, she proved difficult to overpower, but in a final ferocious tussle, he staggered back, the gun in his hand.

  ‘It’s over,’ Tristan told her.

  She glared at him, her chest heaving, incandescent. ‘I don’t believe so.’ And before any of us could react, she spun about and sprinted through the door.

  ‘We have to stop her,’ Annie said.

  The three of us dashed from the room, but Tristan, hampered by his prosthetic, soon fell behind. I hesitated, reluctant to leave him in the gloaming corridor, but he instructed us not to wait. He held out the gun to me. It was a deadly gift and one I wanted no part of. Instead I snatched up Annie’s hand. Exchanging a look of profound understanding, we ran.

  We charged into the hall and stopped, peering through shadows searching for the housekeeper. Annie’s gasp alerted me to the staircase, and I looked up just in time to see a fleeting flash of jet skirts as they disappeared onto the landing.

  We took the broad steps in heroic strides, two at a time. When we reached the top, my thighs ached and my lungs burnt, seared with effort. We paused to catch our breath, and this time, I saw her first. She stood, silhouetted against the arch window at the bottom of the nursery staircase, the cut of her old-fashioned dress forming a distinct outline against the twilight sky behind her.

  Spurred on, we broke into a run again, side by side, pounding down the carpeted corridor, our heavy treads muffled, like footfalls in snow. We got to the bottom of the staircase just as Mrs Henge reached the landing above. I called her name, but for some reason I couldn’t bring myself to pursue her, not up those glinting wooden treads. She spun round, peering down on me through the gloom, cawing when she saw my fear, ridiculing my halted progress.

  ‘Still afraid of ghosts, Miss Marcham?’ she mocked, a dry cackle scraping up her throat.

  And then I felt Annie’s cool fingers slip into mine.

  ‘Lucien.’

  His name escaped her as a euphoric breath and in an epiphany I realised: as it had all started, so it would all end.

  Alarm exploded over Mrs Henge’s mocking features. Her torso jerked forwards as her boots skittered over the polished precipice of the top step. Annie and I stumbled back as she plunged head first towards us, her black skirts buffeted by the icy breeze gusting from the nursery landing. Her shoulder hit a step with a sickening crack and her body tumbled over and over and over, until finally she came to rest in a lifeless heap just before our feet.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Dr Mayhew had not been killed, it turned out, and for that I was greatly relieved – I don’t think my conscience could have borne a different outcome. Mrs Henge’s rash aim had sent the bullet through his clavicle, neatly missing anything of great importance.

  Ever the stalwart, Lady Brightwell improved under the devoted attention of Miss Scott, and by the time Annie and I returned, having gathered up Tristan en route, she was propped upright in one of the leather chairs, overseeing Miss Scott’s care of the poor doctor. She looked up as the three of us entered. When I muttered that Mrs Henge was dead, she nodded and looked away.

  The room fell silent. The blue and gold blanketed bundle still lay on the chesterfield, though none of us allowed our eyes to stray towards it. In the end Annie gently scooped it up in her arms, cradling it against her chest, conscious, I think, that Lady Brightwell’s eyes were fixed upon her, an unimaginable strain dulling their lustre. She carried the bundle from the room when we heard the ambulance crunching over the gravel.

  ‘Where are you taking him?’ Lady Brightwell blurted out, raising her hand to touch it, but then, at the last moment, losing courage.

  ‘To the nursery. I’ll put him in the cradle for now – where he belongs.’ The girl smiled, such a sweet, kind smile that my heart burst at the sight of it. ‘You can decide on a proper resting place for him later, when all this is done.’

  Lady Brightwell nodded and watched her go.

  It was decided that Dr Mayhew’s well-being should take priority over dealing with Mrs Henge. I shuddered to think of her dead body sprawled on the landing, the sightless eyes dilated with shock, blood pooling beneath her, but the living had to take precedence over the dead.

  I was duplicitous as I hurried the orderlies to the smoking room, explaining a dreadful accident had led to a change of patient. I kept the details vague, until the evident urgency of the situation made my ramblings redundant. All the while, I could feel the bulk of Mrs Henge pressing down from the floor above.

  Once Dr Mayhew had been despatched, we remaining conspirators withdrew to the drawing room to plan
. We were most fortunate that Maisie and Cook were absent – they had gone grocery shopping not long after my return and so would know nothing of the catastrophic events that had taken place. We all agreed it would be best if Mrs Henge’s death was ascribed to a tragic accident. Tristan was eager to know what had taken place on the staircase, but Annie and I were both reluctant to explain. In the end it was Miss Scott who filled in the blanks: she leant forward and whispered a single name.

  Then the practicalities of it all had taken over, the cold necessities of death. The local funeral director was called, and it was his poor men who heaved Mrs Henge’s leaden body into a crude coffin and carried it from the house. Miss Scott joined me to see them out. As the door echoed shut she said softly, ‘Perhaps we might all find some peace now.’

  Later that night, Tristan, Annie and I gathered before the fire in my room, sipping whisky purloined from the dining room. None of us were feeling particularly effusive and we sat in silence for the most part, forever bonded by the extraordinary events we had witnessed over the last few days.

  I asked Annie whether Lucien was still with us, but she shook her head.

  ‘But you saw him on the landing?’ Tristan pressed.

  ‘Yes, he was there. It was him …’ There was no need for her to spell it out, we knew what she meant. Lucien had exacted his revenge. ‘But he’s gone now.’

  ‘Will he be back?’ I asked.

  She shook her head, her red hair glowing in the golden firelight. ‘No, miss. He got what he wanted and now he’s passed over – to a better place.’

  I stared into the flickering flames, surprised by an unexpected flare of emotion. I sipped at my whisky and frowned.

  ‘You knew all along, didn’t you, that he didn’t mean to hurt us?’ I was perhaps a little irked by her subterfuge, but any lingering ill-feeling was soon diffused by her apologetic smile.

  ‘I wasn’t sure in the beginning, but once I did know … I needed your help, miss, and I knew nothing would rally you like a threat to your sister. I knew you’d do anything for her.’ The smile dwindled on her lips. ‘But I must confess I was afraid for myself. I didn’t want to get involved – with any of it – because I knew, if I did, I’d have to reveal who I am, what I can do. I’m sorry if I misled you, miss, or caused you any grief. I must be braver and accept my ability, even if I don’t like it.’