Ursula's Secret

by Mairi Wilson

  “Well of course it has, my darling. Dear Gregory. You two were so close and it was all so very unexpected and … and it has only been a few weeks, so no wonder you’re not quite … yourself. But don’t you see? That’s why I don’t understand, why I’m …”

  “Disappointed.”

  “Surprised, let’s say, that you and Cameron have … If nothing else, it’s sudden to say the least. And to have already announced your engagement.”

  Evie was feeling her way here. She didn’t want Helen to know how hurt she’d been when she’d read the announcement in The Times that morning. She’d had no inkling of it and she was sad that Helen hadn’t said anything to her. Evie had been with her every day since Gregory’s death. There’d been ample opportunity.

  Helen wouldn’t meet her eyes, but Evie heard her sigh. Helen would know she’d hurt her. She must have had good reason, although it was hard to imagine what that might be.

  “You’ve never even liked the man, Helen, and he’s done nothing at all for the business. You and Gregory spent your time putting right his mistakes, mopping up his scandals, his errors of judgement, call them what you will. In fact, you actively dislike him.”

  “Dislike? Far too mild. I hate him.” Helen folded her arms across her chest and tilted her chin as she turned her head to stare out of the window behind her.

  “Then why? I just don’t—”

  “Because he knows, Evie. He knows.”

  “He knows … what exactly … ?”

  Helen turned back to look at Evie, head tipped to one side and an insincere smile on her face.

  “No! Surely not. How could he? No one knows except us and—”

  “Ursula. Yes.”

  “But you don’t think she … Why would she?”

  “I don’t know. But she must have done. How else?” Helen was pacing now, heels clicking smartly on the teak floor. “It hardly matters. If I don’t marry him, and agree to his ‘terms’, as he calls them, then he’ll tell the world that David isn’t mine. Isn’t Gregory’s. It will ruin Ursula, even now, even with her on the other side of the world, although frankly at the moment I’m so angry with her I really don’t care if she’s disgraced or not—”

  “Don’t say that, you know she—”

  “I don’t care! No. I’m not doing this for Ursula. I’m doing it for David. My David, Gregory’s son. He’s the innocent in all of this and I will do whatever is necessary to to protect him and his good name. My Ross too, and Izzie. I don’t want any of them dragged down, ruined by the scandal, scandal that could rock Buchanan’s and maybe even bring it down. And let’s not forget,” she said, bitterness sharpening her voice, “I did deceive my husband. For years. What kind of woman does that make me? Hardly a trustworthy one. No. It can’t come out now. Ever. It would make Gregory look a fool. I won’t have that.”

  “But isn’t there another way? Marrying a man you despise is a little extreme, don’t you think? I can’t believe Cameron really wants to marry someone who hates him.” Evie stood and walked over to Helen, led her back to the settee and pulled her down to sit next to her. “He’s taunting you. Playing one of his cruel games. He won’t go through with it. It would hardly be a pleasant life for him either. He’s disreputable, self-indulgent, pampered and heaven only knows what, so he’s not going to deliberately make life difficult for himself, is he? Why would he?”

  Helen shrugged thin shoulders, rested her head against the cushions. “Money. And jealousy.” She sounded so weary. “Anything Gregory had, Cameron wanted, or wanted something better. Believe me if there was another way I’d grab it with both hands and run a million miles from that … that …”

  “You can’t do this. There has to be another way. We can find it togeth—”

  “For God’s sake, Evie!” Helen’s head whipped round and Evie could see the anger on her face, her pale cheeks suddenly flushed scarlet with the heat of it. “There isn’t. Think about it. It isn’t just about good name and reputation. We have Buchanan’s to consider. Things are shaky enough as it is with Gregory’s death. I’m having to work hard to persuade our customers that I can continue to run the business without him – and to be honest even I’m not completely sure that I can. A scandal like this could bring the whole thing down about our ears. Look at who our customers are. Our whole business has been based on our work with the Missions. If we lose them, we lose everything. Simple as that. You may be a forgiving woman, Evie, but can you put your hand on your heart and tell me the Church, the Edinburgh Elders who hold the purse strings, share your compassion?”

  Evie looked down at her hands clasped in her lap, tried to believe that they would, but Helen was right. Of course she was. She knew her business and her customers so well.

  “No, I can’t.”

  “So what else can I do? Without the Mission business, Buchanan’s will crumble. I’ve tried offering him money, but that’s not enough. He wants everything Gregory had. He wants me.” Helen stood again, crossed the room quickly and stepped out into the night. But not before Evie had seen her tears.

  After a moment Evie followed her and the two friends leant side by side, resting their arms on the verandah railing and breathing in the fragrance of the blossoms around them, listening to the scratching of insects and the distant sound of the servants’ voices from their quarters.

  “He laughed when I asked, begged, him to wait. To let at least a year elapse before we announced our engagement, but the thought of the scandal appeals to him, despite the risk that too poses to our business position. Just another way of dragging me down. He says I broke his heart. That I’m the only woman he could really have loved. That if I hadn’t rejected him, if I’d married him then, he’d have been a better man. Everything he is, everything he’s done, he says, is down to me. My fault.”

  “But that’s just nonsense. It’s not rational … It’s … insane.”

  “Yes.” Helen’s voice fell to a whisper. “And that worries me more than I can say.”

  “I can’t let you do this.”

  “I have to. And I will. But don’t think Cameron will have it all his own way. He will have more of a battle on his hands than he can imagine. There are things he doesn’t know. Things I can do to protect my children, myself.”

  Evie shook her head, desperately trying to think of a way out for her friend, of a way of stopping this farce. But she couldn’t. All she could do was watch over her.

  “Can I help? I’ll do whatever I can, whatever it takes to keep you safe.”

  “You may have to, one of these days. But for now, just be what you always have been. My dearest, most trusted friend. And not a word of this to Ursula. Promise me.”

  Evie’s heart was heavy as she nodded her agreement, knowing now she would be forever caught between the interests of her two closest friends, the rift between them that David’s birth had mended now widened beyond repair. And she’d been the one who’d suggested it all those years ago. How different things could have been if she hadn’t interfered …

  *

  “You need to leave now, Miss Shaw.”

  The nurse spoke softly, stepped silently across the room to check Evie’s pulse. Evie hardly stirred. “All this talking is exhausting her, and we need her strong for her operation.”

  21

  The Schoolroom, Blantyre Hospital Grounds, June 15th

  It was already dark when Lexy left Evie’s room, and there was no point returning to the hotel just to turn around and come back again. She would be early for her meeting with Robert, but it was a gorgeous, balmy evening so it would be no hardship to sit on the schoolroom porch and wait for him. She followed the footpath round to the right and through the gate Robert had shown her when he’d taken her to see the bungalows just a couple of days before. When she’d made such a fool of herself inviting him to dinner, and then been so surprised that he and Audrey were together. She was glad they both seemed to have put it behind them. His note had been surprising, but then perhaps she’d misjudged hi
m yet again and he really did want to help her. Had he found out which bungalow had been her parents’?

  Lexy was tired and walked slowly. Could she really face Robert without squirming with embarrassment? She should apologise. She’d been an idiot, behaved badly. But then that seemed to be in keeping with this strange family she was now a part of, whether she liked it or not. And for all she was already shocked at what she’d learned of them so far, and had a strong feeling there was worse to come, she had to know. Be careful what you wish for, her mother would have said. Well, she’d wished, and here she was.

  The schoolroom bungalow was in darkness, so she sat down on the step, leant her head back against the verandah post. She stretched her arms up above her and clasped the post behind, hearing her shoulders creak and crack as the tension was released. Dropping her hands back into her lap, she raised her eyes up to the clear sky, stars already bright, twinkling like sequins on a deep-blue velvet cape. A brilliant moon hung low in the sky, its shimmering light casting flickering shadows around her, as leaves swayed in the gentlest of evening breezes. Everything was serene, calm, quiet. The night was hers. She relished being alone in it.

  Click.

  Lexy spun round towards the door, expectantly.

  “Robert?”

  Had he been sitting in the dark? The door was slightly ajar now, a key in the lock spotlit by moonlight. She hadn’t checked, had assumed it would still be locked. The old boards of the verandah creaked as she stepped up to the door, pushed it open.

  “Robert, are you there?”

  Silence. Darkness, but as her eyes adjusted she could begin to pick out shapes from the moonlight filtering through the high windows running the length of the two long walls of the single-room structure. Neat rows of desks were divided into two blocks by a central aisle, with a larger desk sitting at the head of them like a general at the head of his army. She smiled. Old-fashioned these days. What would it have been like to teach in a school like this? She could see the blackboard, a shaft of moonlight picking out a dusty stripe across its surface, the faint shapes of letters long-erased just visible, ghosts of their former selves. There were posters on the walls, but it was too dark to make them out clearly, and a row of bookcases and cupboards lining the wall at the back of the room, again too dark for her to see their contents clearly. She pushed open the door with her left hand, searched the wall to her right for a light switch. Two switches. She clicked one. Nothing. She clicked the other and felt air start to move, the soft whirr of a ceiling fan stirring into life. It was cool in here, but she left it anyway, soothed by its quiet hum.

  She stepped forward, slowly, feeling her way, trailing her fingers along the desks as she made her way to the top of the central aisle, perched on the edge of the teacher’s desk and looked out over the banks of empty spaces, filling them in her mind’s eye with pupils from the class she’d deserted so near to the end of term. Did they miss her? Did she miss them? Perhaps. A little. The children were never the problem. It was the system, the class sizes, the lack of support, of discipline. The parents. She sighed. She didn’t want to go back. David’s offer would mean she didn’t have to—

  Click.

  Pushing herself up from the desk, she spun round to the noise.

  “Robert?” But there was no one, and the door was closed again now. Must have been the air from the fan, or the night breeze. The old boards outside creaked. She felt a flicker of fear, before she caught herself. She was getting jumpy, but it would just be a mouse, or a cat, perhaps. Or just the cooling wood giving up the last of the sun’s heat.

  Her eyes had grown used to the gloom and she could now make out the posters on the walls, even carved initials on desktops. She walked down the aisle, giving her class instructions in her head.

  Books out, children. There’d be a clatter of desk lids and a burst of chatter as they hid behind them, using them as shields against the teacher.

  Quiet now, please. Settle down. And miracle of miracles, they would.

  If only.

  She crouched down to look at the books that had been left forgotten on the shelves at the back of the room, picked one out and sat cross-legged on the floor as she turned the pages, trying to make out the words, the images, in the half-light.

  Click.

  She snapped the book shut and turned her head, her view obscured by the desks.

  Click.

  She pushed herself inelegantly to her feet. The door was still shut. Had she imagined it? Probably just the branch of a tree creaking in the night breeze or more creaking from the floorboards. Even so. She’d wait outside.

  She replaced the book on the shelf, yawned and rolled her shoulders, then walked slowly back through the ghostly class towards the door, saw a flicker of movement under the teacher’s desk in front of her. She stooped, peered into the darkness. A mouse? Or a rat? Nothing, except—

  Lexy gasped, jumped back at movement in the shadows beneath the desk. She bent down but could see nothing. Imagination? She was tired. Over-tired.

  The leg of the desk was moving, spreading over the floor, and a dark shadow was seeping towards her. Like a snake.

  “Uh!” She breathed in sharply, stumbled back against a desk as the slim, sinuous body curved and slithered its way around the legs of the teacher’s chair. She froze. She knew very little about snakes, but enough to realise that being alone with one in a confined space probably wasn’t a good thing.

  Get out. Now. She started slowly forward, pressing herself against the pupils’ desks, not wanting to take her eyes off the creature, frightened of losing sight of it in the dark. If she could just get to the door then she could get out, get help, get someone to deal with it or at least shut it into the schoolroom. But it was moving out from under the desk now, slinking nearer the end of the aisle between the desks, occupying the space between Lexy and the door.

  Windows. Could she get out a window? She looked up at the narrow panes running the length of one wall. Thin, and high. Very high. There’d be quite a drop on the other side even if she could manage to climb—

  She jerked her gaze back to the floor as she heard a soft puhushhh sound and saw the reptile sweeping its way slowly, hypnotically under a desk just two rows ahead of where she stood. Then its head reappeared and it was flowing down the aisle. Towards her.

  “No. Oh, God.” She pulled herself up onto the nearest desk, folded her knees into her chest, marooned herself like a castaway on a very small island, realising too late that she could no longer see the snake, had no way of knowing if it was still between her and the door. Where was Robert? Why wasn’t he here yet?

  “No! Oh please no …” The snake had reappeared, reached her desk, was gliding beneath it, winding itself around the legs. What was it? A boomslang, puff adder? Did it even matter? She was breathing in short, sharp gasps, blood thundering in her ears as she pulled her legs in tighter, made herself as small as she could, saw the swaying tail disappear beneath her. She craned her neck to look behind her, to see if it emerged, but she was too scared to move in case she overbalanced, tipped the desk, ended up on the floor with the—

  A broom. Just behind her. Leaning against the wall between the rows of desks. A weapon.

  Goosebumps erupted along her arm as she reached out slowly, carefully, fingers trembling as they touched wood. She scrabbled for purchase and felt the handle move, slip towards her and—

  It clattered away from her, hit the desk behind and was sliding out of her reach. Then it stopped, its head caught against one of the desk legs. She exhaled. At least it hadn’t slipped to the floor. She still had a chance. She reached again, further this time, felt the desk tilt beneath her but snatched the broom handle and pulled back before her weight tipped the desk over. She held the broom tightly to her, trying to slow her breathing, silence the roaring in her head, listen for the soft swish of the serpent’s tail. Where was it?

  There. It slithered away towards the back of the room. This was her chance. Dropping down softly from the d
esk, she backed towards the door, eyes locked on the reptile, tears blurring her vision. She held the broom out in front of her with rigid arms ready to strike if the snake started towards her. How did snakes attack? Would it attack? She had absolutely no idea. She had to get the door open.

  The snake disappeared into the shadows at the far end of the room, but she was at the door now. Still staring at the spot where she’d last seen the snake, she stretched out a hand behind her, feeling blindly for the handle, finally grasped the cool metal. She pushed it down, the squeak of the mechanism piercing against the soft hum of the ceiling fan. She pulled. Nothing. The handle didn’t move. She rattled the handle again, tugged it again. And again, and again.

  “No, NO!” She was repeating under her breath as she dropped the broom and turned to the door, wrestling with the handle, grasping it with both hands as she pushed and pulled. But the door stayed fast.

  “Help! Help me!”

  She knew there was no one to hear her. The surrounding bungalows were either empty or used as storerooms – either way, there’d be no one. Unless Robert? Why wasn’t he here? He should be, he—

  The snake – where was it?

  She whirled round just in time to catch its tail disappearing under a desk in the block furthest from the door. Nearer, though. It was coming nearer. She had to stay calm. She slowed her breathing then crouched, eyes firmly fixed on the shadows beneath the desks as she reached out for the broom handle again. Her fingers grasped the worn wood and slowly, slowly she pulled it towards her as the pointed reptilian head appeared from under the teacher’s chair and leisurely swerved to the left and the right, each movement bringing it closer to her.

  She was sobbing now. If it struck her, how long would she have before the venom entered her system? Long enough to make a run for it? To get to the hospital and get help? Idiot. What did that matter? She couldn’t get out of the room. She was trap—

  The snake flicked out from the shadows, moving faster now, coming for her. Screeching like a banshee, she raised the broom high and crashed it down onto the shimmering head. It hissed and its tongue flicked out, narrowly missing Lexy’s ankle. She darted back and brought the broom down again as the creature slithered round to follow her.