by Anita Frank
‘You are remarkable, Annie,’ Tristan informed her, his voice gentle, as he studied the amber liquid in his glass. He met her shy gaze. ‘You shouldn’t be afraid – you have a gift. Don’t squander it.’
She flushed with embarrassment, but I could see her pride.
Glancing at the clock, Tristan tossed back the dregs of his whisky. Setting his glass down on the grate, he pushed himself up, explaining he had an early train to catch in the morning.
‘It has been an eye-opening pleasure, Annie Burrows,’ he said, smiling as he shook her hand. ‘I feel I must apologise for my rather appalling behaviour when we first met, and for ever having doubted your talents. You are a very special individual, don’t forget that. Perhaps I might call upon your services again in the future, if I have need?’
‘I would like that, Mr Sheers,’ she said.
I escorted him to the door, holding out my hand as he opened it.
‘If you’re leaving early in the morning, Mr Sheers,’ I said, teasing him with formality, ‘I might not see you, so I’ll proffer my goodbyes now.’ His hand dwarfed mine in its warm grasp. ‘I hope you’ve found some resolution and maybe something to draw a little comfort from.’
A sad smile lifted his lips. ‘And I hope you might find some peace, too, Miss Marcham.’
I closed the door behind him feeling oddly bereft, but I shrugged off the unsettling feeling, putting it down to the maudlin whisky, and padded back to my seat beside the fire and Annie Burrows. The silence between us grew awkward and I knew it was of my doing, because I hadn’t found peace and I wouldn’t – couldn’t – until I had voiced the question I longed to ask. I took a fortifying swig of spirits.
‘Annie, that day you fished me out of the lake, you said something to me, just before they took us inside. You said that it “wasn’t my time”, that “he” wanted me to know that.’ I tried to calm my pounding heart. ‘Who, Annie?’ I couldn’t manage more than a whisper. ‘Who wanted you tell me that? Was it Gerald?’
My heart sank as soon as I saw the compassion in those odd eyes.
‘No, miss. I’m so sorry – it wasn’t him.’
The lump in my throat stoppered the moan that bubbled up within me. I bit my lips, willing myself to some sort of composure.
‘Then who?’
Her lashes rested against her cheek for a moment, and she let out a deep, resigned sigh, before they fluttered open again.
‘Your grandfather, miss. It was your grandfather that came to me that day. That’s how I knew where you were and what you’d done. He wanted me to save you.’ She hesitated. ‘He had failed to save your grandmother and your sister – he didn’t want to fail again. You see, it was him who came for my father the night of the fire. He guided him through the flames to Miss Lydia – they were just too late.’
The fire crackled between us. Annie placed her untouched glass next to Tristan’s.
‘I know you loved Master Gerald, but he’s gone.’
‘You’ve never …’ But my words died on my lips. She shook her head in quiet understanding.
‘He’s never been back, miss, and that’s a good thing – it means he’s at peace. Your grandfather knew it wasn’t your time, he knew you had more life to live yet. You will discover peace in this world, miss, before you find it in the next.’
Tears streamed down my cheeks as the young girl, blessed with such profound understanding, rose from her chair. Smoothing her pinafore, she dipped a curtsy and wished me goodnight, before closing the door behind her.
I watched Tristan leave the next morning. It was early, but I was already up and dressed, having suffered a broken night, one plagued by too many thoughts. I cracked the curtain and peered out through the grey light of the early morn, watching as he slid inside the waiting cab. He hesitated, glancing up at Greyswick for a final time. Then the door slammed, and he was gone.
I had already decided that I would leave as soon as possible. My work was done and I was certain Lady Brightwell would not want me to loiter, an unpleasant reminder of things best forgotten. The house was silent as I descended to the hall, but somehow less daunting, and after a moment’s deliberation, I plunged through the green baize door to find Annie.
My shoes clipped against the stone steps. I didn’t allow myself to dwell on Mrs Henge’s empty room waiting down the corridor, but instead went directly to the kitchen.
‘Miss Marcham! I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting anyone.’
Cook stood up from the table, her chair legs screeching against the flags. She brushed at her cheeks and cleared her throat. I saw she was wearing a black dress under her apron. Annie, she informed me, was attending to Lady Brightwell and Miss Scott in the dining room.
‘Seems everyone’s up early this morning,’ she said, her voice low, turning her attention to the tray of rolls on the table, glazing them with beaten egg. ‘Mind you, I’m not surprised, after the shock of yesterday and poor Mrs Henge, God rest her soul. I doubt any of us slept a wink last night.’
Part of me longed to disillusion her about the housekeeper, but what would be the purpose? It would be vindictive on my part – and I was done with recriminations. I had turned to leave, when a thought crossed my mind – there was one person who deserved my thanks.
‘Cook, might you be able to tell me where I could find Billy?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘He’s proven most helpful over the last few days and I owe him quite a debt of gratitude. I would so like to speak to him before I go.’
She lifted the tray of rolls from the table and gave me a hard look before turning away to carry them to the range. She slid the tray into the oven and clanked the door shut.
‘When your girl told me what he’d said about my apple pie’ – her voice was hushed, her back still to me – ‘it was like he was right here in this kitchen with me, and I thought to myself, I hope he appreciates my flowers each week. And I thought too about all the things I never told him, the love I felt for him, and how I wished I’d had the courage to speak out before he left to fight the Boer.’
She turned and held my gaze. ‘I don’t know who’s been helping you, miss, but it can’t have been Billy. My Billy died in Natal, defending Ladysmith, seventeen years ago.’
Chapter Fifty-Five
I was still shaking as I opened the dining-room door. The smell of kippers flipped my stomach and I went straight to the tea urn, the cup and saucer dancing in my unsteady hand as I pulled down the handle.
‘Good morning, Miss Marcham.’
I jumped with surprise. Lady Brightwell sat alone at the end of the table.
‘Lady Brightwell. Good morning.’
‘I hope you’re not thinking of dashing off. I’ve been waiting for you.’ She gestured for me to take a seat. ‘Well, we’ve had quite a time of it, haven’t we?’
I offered her a strained smile. ‘We certainly have.’
She turned her face to the window. She looked ill and I wondered how much sleep – if any – she’d managed, and what state her heart must be in this morning. As if she sensed my musings she spoke, her tone wistful.
‘I always thought Hector was too good to be mine. He is so sweet, so generous, so even-tempered. I liked to think he was my greatest achievement. As it is, he wasn’t my achievement at all.’
My fingertips rested on the rim of the saucer. ‘He might not be yours by birth, Lady Brightwell, but you helped form Hector – you shouldn’t underestimate the impact you have had upon him. He is the man he is because of you, as much as anyone else.’
‘That’s very kind of you, Miss Marcham, but I don’t deserve your kindness.’ She looked at me. ‘I don’t deserve anyone’s kindness.’
With great effort she stood up from the table, taking up her walking stick. She relied on it heavily as she crossed to the window.
‘I love this time of year – when the rhododendrons are out, and the trees are in blossom. You must come back in the summer, Miss Marcham, the gardens really come into their ow
n, even without an army of gardeners. Nature will have its way and still put on a display we don’t deserve. It is one of the things I have missed the most, since …’ She held up her cane. ‘I used to be able to walk for miles in the estate. I’m rather restricted to the formal gardens now. It’s a shame.’
She observed, more to herself than to me, the shoots of this, and the appearance of that, and how the roses should have been pruned. I began to wonder whether I should discreetly withdraw.
‘Everything she said was right, you know. I was a despicable coward that night.’
She continued to study the world beyond the glass, yearning to be out there rather than trapped inside. Perhaps once she had been a wild rose, but now she was reduced to a hothouse flower, smothered by her forced environment.
‘He was not a nice man, my husband. I hadn’t realised that, of course, until it was too late, although it wouldn’t have mattered either way – my parents were set on the match. So beneficial for all concerned.’ She tapped the silver head of the cane against the glass. ‘I managed to fend him off that night, citing the baby. He was not best pleased. I saw the look in his eye when he heard Scottie in the dressing room. I knew then what he would do, and when he closed the door behind him …’ She lost the courage to carry on with her confession, a confession I found unpalatable.
She forced herself to face me. ‘Mrs Henge was right – I did nothing to stop it, to my eternal shame. I must for ever bear the cross of my cowardice. I think Miss Scott believed she had spared me some indignity that night – just as nine months later she believed she was sparing me the grief of losing the only child I would ever be able to carry. I don’t think I deserved another, after what I’d done – I certainly don’t deserve her loyalty or her friendship.’ Abashed, she glanced away. ‘I must admit, I always found Miss Scott to be rather ambiguous – about feelings.’ She gave me a pointed look. ‘I was, however, very aware of Mrs Henge’s predilections, and that Miss Scott was the unwavering focus of her affections – which leads me to my next confession.’
Lady Brightwell was either unaware or uncaring of my discomfort. She moved away from the window and lowered herself back down upon her chair. She rested her cane against the edge of the table.
‘I was quite taken aback yesterday, my dear, by your unerring accuracy. You have clearly been busy rifling through our dirty laundry, and the discovery in the smoking room … well, I’m sorry now that I wasn’t more credulous in the beginning, but it all seemed so fanciful to me. Poor Lucien. I hope he can be at rest now.’
‘Annie believes he has gone.’
‘Good. Good. Poor little fellow. I can’t profess that the role of stepmother came naturally to me. I was young and foolish and self-obsessed. I would have been better, given time.’
Silence stretched between us, while a ticking clock and birdsong played in the background. I waited. She had taken on a faraway look, her mind in some other place, or at least some other time. Gradually, she came back, little by little, until at last she fixed me with a cool stare.
‘You aimed well when you accused Mrs Henge of killing my baby, Miss Marcham, and of killing Lucien, but I’m afraid one of your arrows missed its mark.’
My heart skipped a beat. There was only one arrow left, and I was pretty sure Mrs Henge had declared it a bull’s eye. Lady Brightwell saw my confusion and she smiled, a glint in her eye.
‘Mrs Henge did not kill my husband, Miss Marcham, though not for the want of trying. That dubious honour is mine, and mine alone.’
Her admission crackled through the air between us, its static electricity lifting the roots of my hair and tingling the skin along my arms. My astonishment appeared to amuse her in some macabre way – perhaps there was a perverse pleasure to be gained when one reached her age at being able to shock the young.
‘But Mrs Henge—’
‘Was my patsy. Well – perhaps that’s not quite right. I suppose in the end, I just finished what she had started.’ She tilted her teacup and pulled a face, pushing it across the table towards me. ‘Would you mind? All this confessing is dry work.’
The tea was stewed now and only lukewarm, but she didn’t complain. She added a dash of milk and a cube of sugar and stirred well. I was quite hypnotised by the circular motion of the silver teaspoon as it swirled round and round. Once satisfied, she set it upon the saucer.
‘He summoned me to his study, quite out of the blue, and told me that he intended to dismiss Miss Scott – the letter was already written, lying on the desktop.’ She levelled her gaze upon me. ‘Economising he put it down to – ridiculous, of course.’ Her upper lip curled in contempt. ‘It was nothing to do with economy – he did it to punish me. I had made a sly comment at a dinner party the night before about his ridiculous new fancy – some fat opera singer I wasn’t supposed to know about – and he’d felt humiliated. So, to punish me he intended to take away the one friend I had. It was an act of spite. I wasn’t going to let him get away with it.’
Even after all these years, her resentment was so pronounced it was not difficult to imagine the unpleasant encounter. I wondered whether Sir Arthur had ever considered his vindictive act might lead to an untimely death.
‘He practically pushed me from the room and took off for his daily drive in that ridiculous car he bought when he became too corpulent for a horse. I didn’t know what to do, how to stop him – and then I saw Mrs Henge crossing the hall, and it dawned on me that maybe I didn’t have to do anything after all.’
She stopped to sip her tea, her grimace confirming it was too cold to be pleasant, but it would wet her whistle and that was all she wanted. She stared at the patch of wall between the windows as if visualising the unfolding events of that fateful day.
‘I called Mrs Henge over and explained I had left my spectacles in the study and asked her to be so kind as to bring them to me in the morning room. I had done no such thing, of course, but that was beside the point. She would see the letter. That was all I wanted.’
She drew herself up in her chair, shuffling her weight, her ancient joints stiff and protesting.
‘I wasn’t sure what she’d do, or how long I’d have to wait, but when Sir Arthur left with his driving goggles the next day, I saw her disappear down the end of the garden at quite a pace. I knew then the time had come.’
She pitched forward, her eyes glowing with excitement, revelling in the drama she was free to reveal at last. I should have been repulsed by her eagerness, and yet I felt as enthused as she was, hanging on her every word, impatient to reach the denouement.
‘I followed her. I had to admire her bravery – it was a foolhardy thing to do, but still, she did it. She ran off afterwards, satisfied her work was done. I wasn’t so careless.’
Lost in thought, she stared at the table before her, her hand banging a steady rhythm on the rosewood, reminding me of a drummer beating time before the condemned man snaps against the noose. Her hand stilled.
‘He had been knocked unconscious. By the time I got to the wreckage he was coming to. Dazed initially – and then furious and derogatory and pompous as ever. He tried to get out, but he couldn’t, the metal had twisted and crumpled – he was quite trapped. He called me gormless and shouted at me for just standing there, then he ordered me to fetch the tyre iron from the back so I could try and prise the door open. I still remember the weight of it in my hand. He couldn’t believe his eyes when I raised it above my head. I smashed his skull clean open.
‘I felt …’ she frowned as she searched for the right word, ‘thrilled,’ she said at last, her voice light, ‘liberated, and when it became apparent I was going to get away with it – very smug indeed.’
‘And all these years,’ I said, when I found my voice, ‘you’ve never let on? Not even to Miss Scott?’
‘My dear, when one becomes loose-lipped about things like that, one invites disaster. No, no, I didn’t tell a soul.’ She pushed her cup and saucer away and paused to collate her thoughts. ‘It would seem we
are in the business of truth, Miss Marcham. It is too late to perpetuate lies, it seems there is nothing to be gained from them any more.’
Her features morphed into a startling image of vulnerability. ‘But there is much to be lost, by revealing the truth to everyone. Miss Scott and I, we have made our peace with each other – we both needed forgiveness, I think we both deserved it. She is my oldest friend, and certainly my dearest companion. I don’t hold her accountable for any of this. She has given me the greatest of gifts, one I truly didn’t deserve. You have in your hands the power to take that away from me. I hope you can understand what drove me to act as I did, and I hope that empathy might spare me the punishment of revealing my secrets to my son – to Hector.’
The blood coursing through my veins chilled, cooling my skin, the fine hairs on my arms rising as they attempted to catch my escaping heat. I thought of Hector, heavy-handed at times, but I knew his heart was in the right place. And I thought of Madeleine, darling Madeleine, so kind and sweet and blissfully happy with that precious life growing within her. And then I thought of Greyswick, and the home it might become – now the secrets and lies had been purged, with Lucien avenged and justice done, and Lady Brightwell and Miss Scott clinging to enduring friendship above all else.
I pushed back my chair and stood, smoothing my skirt. I looked at the woman watching me with stark desperation.
‘I see no benefit in telling anyone the truth of what happened here. Mrs Henge was right about one thing – the past is lost, but the future is still to play for.’
Her eyelids lowered in relief, and when she raised them tears clung to her lashes. She got to her feet. Picking up her cane, she began to move round the table.