House of Bliss

by T T Thomas

  “I’ve known Sabrina longer, that’s all. I’ve seen her take on hard things and get through them with a resolve nothing can break. Even when she’s frightened, she forges ahead. She’ll find a way to survive in that pit. Remember, Lena, Sabrina didn’t know the first thing about corsetry when she began—she couldn’t be bothered to wear one. But she could draw, and—”

  “She knew women’s bodies.” Lena said.

  Jeremy stopped mid-thought. “Well, I think that part came later, too, but yes, she knew what she wanted.”

  Lena laughed lightly and stepped back but held onto his arms. “You’re right. And I love that about her. I’ll gather my wits here in a moment, and we’ll go back to work.”

  “There’s the spirit,” he said. “Dinner and intelligence sharing tomorrow, then.”

  After a couple weeks, Bel fully recovered from the worst of her injuries, but she was emotionally fragile. Upon release from hospital, Felicity brought her to Sabrina’s house and put her in a small room next to her own.

  Cath and Walters hovered, not sure what to do or think. Felicity had taken over all facets of running the household and the business in the month since Sabrina’s arrest, and no one questioned her.

  She finalized all the design and production aspects for the fall and winter line, set fittings with Sabrina’s clientele, helped nurse her sister back to health, and established a new tone for a much more structured household and business. Felicity put the baby in with Bel during the day as it seemed to comfort both mother and child alike.

  The most serious problem Bel experienced was partial memory loss. She had merely the sketchiest recollection of the invasion and attack. As she lay in her recovery bed, Sophia in a nearby crib, she tried to conjure up the events of that night.

  George had visited her for a few hours, and they enjoyed a relaxed evening; she fixed them a stew, and he seemed to find it pleasing. Afterwards, they went into her bedroom for an hour—she remembered that. And then, after a brandy, he left…before midnight.

  Had she gone to bed then? She thought so. But vague memories of the tea—the taste of it, different from her usual tea. Hadn’t she gone to the kitchen to make a chamomile tea because she wasn’t sleepy enough?

  Wasn’t that when she had sat in the kitchen booth and read for a while? Drinking her tea? She saw herself walking to her bedroom afterward. Remembered undressing. A noise. Pulling the dress over her head and stopping. To listen.

  Felicity found her still wearing the dress, so…ah, there’s the picture: She never fully removed it before someone placed a heavy shroud over her. And then the beating about the head and shoulders. The pain, the terrible twisting of her body.

  She didn’t remember if she cried out or screamed. She had no memory of passing out or falling. She recalled hearing Felicity scream upon finding her bruised and bloodied as the younger sister dropped to her knees to give comfort the next morning. And then, she descended into a coma that lasted the better part of a week. That’s all the nurses told her.

  And now, here she was, in a bedroom at Sabrina Blissdon’s house, but she hadn’t seen Sabrina. She wondered if she’d see her today. She knew she looked a fright. She dozed on and off throughout the afternoon, and when she awakened, the last of the sunlight was streaming through an opening in the curtains, and she was hungry. She sat up. Where was the baby? She had to find her baby. She tried to stand up, but fell back onto the bed. Such weakness she’d not known for a long time.

  She rose again but slower, holding onto the bedpost. She found a robe and some slippers. She used a damp washcloth on her face and struggled to brush her hair. Her arms ached. She reached the top of the stairs, took a deep breath and unable to move, she sat.

  A few minutes later, Walters passed by the bottom of the staircase. Without comment, he set his tray down, and walked up to help her. He led her to the library where Felicity was expecting her tea.

  “And look who I’ve brought to your tea time,” Walters announced.

  Felicity looked up slowly and then jumped up. “Good God! Are you all right to be up like this?”

  Walters gently placed Bel in one of the upholstered chairs and moved the ottoman closer for her feet. He draped an afghan throw over her legs. Then he served tea and left quietly.

  Bel smiled at her sister. “Thank you, darling, you saved my life.”

  Felicity shook her head at the memory. “Thank God I went over there that morning. We hadn’t mentioned that I would.”

  “I know,” Bel said. “What possessed you?”

  “I don’t know. Thought maybe we’d take a nice early walk in that little park at the end of your lane. Pick up croissants for breakfast. I worried that Mr. Markham might be there, but I thought probably not. Does he even spend the night?”

  Bel sipped her tea before answering. “No, not usually, but he had been there the evening before—we had dinner, visited.”

  “I see. What time did he leave, do you recall?”

  Bel thought about it. “I have figured out it was around midnight.” Bel blushed here but kept talking. “After he left I had a cup of tea and read a while in the kitchen. I wasn’t sleepy.”

  “What time do you guess the break-in took place?” Felicity leaned in for the answer.

  Bel winced. “I don’t rightly know. When I went into the bedroom to undress, I heard a noise. The only thing I recall is some kind of blanket or large cloth over my head and upper body. And the first of the blows.”

  “You couldn’t see at all?”

  “I don’t think so. I saw the floor and his pant leg—”

  “So, it was a man?”

  Bel looked at her sister in surprise. “Of course it was. I was knocked out fast, but I saw his trouser leg, maybe a shoe. His strength was frightening.”

  Felicity spread marmalade on a scone and handed her the plate. “Eat this, luv, you need your energy.”

  “Have they found who did this?” Bel asked, in between bites.

  “They’ve made an arrest,” Felicity said. “But I don’t know the details.”

  “I don’t think I was raped,” Bel said. “Someone clobbered me across the back of my head and shoulders. Where is Sabrina?”

  Felicity stood up, picked up her cup of tea and walked around the ottoman to sit beside Bel in the other chair. “That’s just it—they’ve arrested her for the assault on you.”

  Bel looked at her sister, the shock turning to a brittle laughter. “Never in a million years!” she cried. “Preposterous.”

  “Darling, you said yourself you didn’t see the person. And I believe it a fairly well-known fact that Miss Blissdon wears men’s trousers. And you haven’t really seen her in so long…have you?”

  Bel set her cup and saucer down. She closed her eyes and frowned. When she opened them, they flashed with anger.

  “I don’t know what this is all about, Felicity, or who thinks Sabrina had anything to do with my assault, but I hope you don’t.”

  Felicity shrugged. “It’s all so troubling. We’re trying to go about our business until we find out more.”

  “And who is running her business? You?” Bel’s tone of voice demanded a response.

  “Who else? I’ve worked here long enough to know how it runs.”

  “Where is my child?” Bel asked. She tried to stand up.

  “She’s out in the park across the way with Cath. Not to worry. Everyone adores her.”

  “Can you help me back to my room, Fels? I’m feeling awfully peaked now I’ve been up a while.” She couldn’t look her sister in the eye but accepted her arm as they walked out of the library and up the stairs to Bel’s room.

  “You keep resting and recovering,” Felicity said. “I’ll have Cath bring you some soup later. It’s all too much strain.”

  “George will wonder what happened to me,” Bel said, her movements sluggish as she crawled into bed, her voice weak, barely above a whisper.

  “Later, darling, we’ll sort everything out in due time.” She c
overed her sister with a lightweight quilt, turned down the light and left the room.

  After she closed the door, Bel waited, then struggled to sit up. She had to think. She had to figure out what was going on because something was wrong in this household.

  Chapter 37

  Lena could hear Jeremy bounding up the stairs of the porch. She opened the door for him and found him flushed and disheveled.

  “What on earth?” Her voice was full of mirth despite the subject at hand.

  “I found it. I found the club Markham belongs to—it’s the Garrick.”

  “Why is that surprising?”

  “Surprising how easy it was once I inquired about former Bullingdon men who are members. They wouldn’t give me a list, but I know the Manager, and he said give him a name, and he’d confirm or not.”

  “And?” Lena was pouring them a whiskey, which Jeremy downed quickly and held out his tumbler for a refill. “Dear me. It’s been quite an afternoon for you, apparently.” She refilled his glass.

  “So I gave him Markham’s name, and he was immediately forthcoming. Told me that Markham was a member, at least as long as he paid up his lapsed membership fee.”

  “So the Baron is quite broke, I gather.”

  “Indeed, but here’s a twist. He told me that Markham and Glyver were frequent dinner partners and social friends.”

  “Frequent? Hugh Glyver and George Markham? Well, of course we know they went to school together and Glyver listed Markham as a reference in his divorce…but social friends?”

  “The very same,” Jeremy confirmed. “And something else. When Bel was found, she was still wearing her corset. It was among the evidence items Mendicott collected from the hospital.”

  Lena gave him a blank look. “And?”

  Jeremy got up and walked around the room. “Well, since she wasn’t stabbed, and the corset wasn’t bloody, I think Mendicott forgot to check something.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a calling card. “I found it in the secret pocket of Bel’s corset as I went over the evidence, which was basically her clothing.” He handed it to her.

  Lena stared at it. “St. Paul’s Rectory, Penzance. Have you asked Bel what it means?”

  “No, she was in no condition at the time, and I’m reluctant to ask her now. I think she’s safe with Felicity at Sabrina’s house…but from what I hear, she’s having a slow convalescence. I don’t even know what possessed me to ask for the evidence file. It’s rarely brought to me unless there’s a body with it.”

  “Hmm. I can’t even begin to imagine what this could mean. Could one of Bel’s clients be a clergyman? That would be unusual—but certainly not unheard of. Smart of you to check the secret pocket.”

  Jeremy stopped pacing. “Sabrina told me about it. And later mentioned it to Mendicott. The card could mean anything, and it could be something entirely unrelated to Bel’s profession.”

  “I may have to take a little trip up north,” she said. “Want to join?”

  “Love to,” Jeremy said, “but I better stay here and try to get access to Sabrina. I have two of the best solicitors working on it. Should know something in a day or two.”

  Lena looked pale. “All right, I’ll leave in the morning for Penzance. With luck, I’ll be back late tomorrow or the following day. I’ll call you when I’m back, and we can arrange another meeting.”

  Jeremy finished his drink, and bent to give Lena a tight hug. “Don’t worry,” he said, “we’ve made progress, and we’ll get her out.”

  They allowed her to write one letter a month and to receive one. She received a single letter in five weeks and sent one. She was beyond the period of disbelief where one cannot imagine that something has happened. The manual labor alone would have disabused her of any doubts about her perdition.

  She filled the metal buckets with rocks, the sweat oozing from her scalp, dripping from her forehead to her eyes and running in rivulets to her chin. With each heft of the small boulders, she knew what had happened. It had taken her all these weeks of thinking to figure it out, and now that she had, she needed to see Jeremy.

  She had not received a single visitor. Jeremy must be working on something. He probably did not want to appear overly close to her lest suspicions fall on him, too. But she knew he couldn’t know what she knew. He doesn’t even know what he doesn’t know. Once she told him, it would all make sense. It could lead to freedom.

  A searing pain whipped across her back. “Speed it up there,” the matron said as she smacked her whip across thinly covered skin. She knew the back of her shirt turned red with one thin line of blood. Both her shirts had the same telltale line. She moved faster. No thinking. She would think tonight in her bed.

  Later…hunched over her metal bowl of gruel, hungry for the revolting mixture. A hardened hunk of bread in her left hand, her bent and scarred spoon in the other. Her eyes cast down, her movements slight, intended to cause no notice, evoke no interaction.

  She had heard that if she could eat the foul-tasting porridge, she would survive. Each inmate received one toothbrush, two blankets, a set of six cloths for their monthly time, a tin of baking soda to brush their teeth and a small Bible. Most of them used the pages to roll the loose tobacco they received as few visitors could afford to bring fully made cigarettes. She could trade Bible pages for blank writing paper. Deuteronomy, finished. The Song of Solomon, all used up. And Lamentations was half torn out.

  Seven weeks.

  Her only letter had gone to Felicity, but she knew Felicity had virtually no means, connections or wherewithal to secure Sabrina’s release. She had assumed Felicity would show the letters to Jeremy, but she began to wonder. As the days went on without response from anyone, she questioned Felicity’s loyalty. The single letter she had received was from Lena. It was short. Written two days after her arrest but not delivered to Sabrina for nearly two weeks. Lena wrote, ‘ways will be found’ to secure her freedom.

  Finally, with so much time to think, Sabrina came to the reluctant conclusion that the known facts pointed to Felicity as the source of her problems.

  As hard as it was to accuse one with whom she had been intimate, to accuse someone of causing pain and destruction to her sister, Sabrina had to face the possibility that her own weaknesses of the flesh had inflamed Felicity to the irrational point of revenge.

  Now she needed to write to Lena. She was allowed another letter, which would be sent the following week, and she must compose it in such a way that Lena would show it to Jeremy. When he read it, he would know what to do and how to do it.

  Then, maybe, Sabrina might have a chance at redemption. Her business would be gone, of course, and her reputation. But redemption would assuage the memory of the aural assaults in this pit of a prison. Redemption from the harrowing screams of sheer madness, pure pain and fathomless worry all around her. She tried to protect her mind from the sorrowful empathy that bled her eyes dry. She tried to resist the inner urgings to help these women. She tried to remember: She was one of them. She began to formulate her thoughts to send to Lena.

  Bel ambled around the large library in her daily attempt to regain her strength. Felicity had been doing fittings in the studio all day, Walters and Cath were at the food markets and Sophia was playing contentedly in the crib Walters had fashioned for her. She was growing and glowing, a healthy baby with a pretty smile.

  Bel heard the letter slot open and extended her exercise to the front door. There were only two envelopes on the floor, and as she stooped to pick them up and put them on the mail table, she gasped. One letter was from Blissdon/Holloway Prison and addressed to Felicity. Bel quickly hid the letter in the pocket of her robe and placed the other one on the table.

  She wouldn’t be able to read it until that evening after everyone retired, but she hobbled up the stairs to hide it in her Bible. She trembled as she saw the Blissdon name printed above the prison name on the envelope. She had to do this; she had to know what Sabrina knew. Felicity was keeping something from Bel, and
she aimed to find out what it was.

  Once the dinner hour was over and everyone settled in for the evening, Bel pled exhaustion. Felicity helped her take the baby upstairs and said goodnight to them both. She seemed preoccupied.

  “Everything going well with the fittings?” Bel asked.

  Felicity didn’t answer right away and pretended to be arranging the blankets on Bel’s bed. Finally, she spoke.

  “The customers are used to Sabrina,” she began, “and a few of them have been downright rude. But we’re halfway through all the fittings, so I think we’ll be fine.”

  “I’m sorry to hear they’ve been rude to you, darling,” Bel said. “Society women can be, but really they merely want to look fabulous.”

  “They’re all fat,” Felicity complained. “Or too self-important to give one the time of day.”

  Bel nodded. “Make them feel thin,” Bel said. “That’s what Sabrina used to tell me she did.”

  Felicity shrugged. “Maybe I should wear trousers like her, too.”

  Bel frowned. “Oh, I don’t think so. Sabrina has a way with women.”

  “Apparently so,” Felicity muttered under her breath. “Well, goodnight, sister. Sleep well. I’m exhausted, too, and going right to bed myself.”

  Bel waited nearly an hour before she slipped out of bed, sat on the window ledge and read the Sabrina’s letter by moonlight. She had to stop several times to dry her eyes, gather her courage and keep reading. Sabrina had written the letter four weeks earlier.

  Dear Felicity,

  Much of what I must say in this letter I should have said in person. I beseech you to read this and see if you can find your way to forgive me.

  It is true as you so unfortunately realized recently that I was a patron of Bel’s, many years ago. When I subsequently found myself in a somewhat comparable situation with you, I did not realize the family connection between the two of you. Or any connection.

  Had I known, I surely would not have crossed that boundary. I hope you—I would hope both of you—believe that. Now, I have no idea if Bel is alive…or not. I pray with all my heart she is alive and recovering.