House of Bliss

by T T Thomas

  “Quick, hide in here,” Sabrina hissed, pointing to a door at end of the room. Both women slipped into the closet and Sabrina locked the door behind them. They sat on the floor in perfect darkness and total silence, each shaking. Voices were coming from somewhere. Lena held onto Sabrina as they huddled against the back wall. They were afraid to even whisper. Sabrina tightened her arm around Lena and they leaned their heads into one another.

  When they heard the unmistakable sound of Bel’s single, long scream, they froze. Everything went silent again, followed soon thereafter by the worst keening, sobbing and weeping they had ever heard from a human being.

  Chapter 49

  Same evening

  Felicity limped toward the iron gate on Phantom Way.

  She had overdone the walking business. Hadn’t meant to return after dark. Hadn’t meant to miss dinner, again.

  As she reached into her pocket for the gate key, she heard the mirthless laughter of a man. Looking up, she spotted the shadow near the border hedges in the dim glow of lights from the house. She silently backed away and peeked through the iron bars. She froze in place when she saw it was Glyver. She could see Lena and Sabrina in the library through an opening in the drapes. She couldn’t tell if anyone else was in the room with them.

  Glyver sneaked around to the back of the house, and Felicity moved instantly. She climbed over the stone fence and dropped silently to the ground below. She followed in Glyver’s path. At the back of the house, she saw him fiddling with the lock on the rear kitchen door. She tiptoed to within five feet of him before speaking in a commanding but low voice.

  “Get away from that door, Mr. Glyver!”

  He turned toward her, slowly, a lack of surprise on his face, an absence of concern in the bearing of his body. “Or what?” he said.

  The light in the kitchen glanced off his face, giving her a good look at his eyes. They were hard, cold, dead. He twisted his mouth into a sneer. In one hand he held a knife, the tool with which he was trying to break the lock.

  The loose end that had been hovering outside her consciousness came into full view. “You knew about the attack on Bel, Mr. Glyver. So you knew she had survived it.”

  Glyver gave her a sickly smile. “Of course. My wife knew about Bel’s survival from a friend of hers whose husband owns a newspaper.”

  “Who tried to kill Bel? Was it you?”

  “All of us,” he said with a mocking grin. “My idea, but Markham took up the baton as I knew he would and called Mendicott—yes, he worked for Markham, but I paid more, so I was the final say in things.”

  Felicity repeated his words. “The final say. The attacker was wearing a school club tie. Bel told Lena she saw it.”

  Glyver gave a sick giggle. “Brilliant, no? It was Markham’s tie. My little insurance policy in case Bel saw her attacker or his tie. That would link either of them to the attack, but since Mendicott botched the assault, didn’t kill Bel, I had to take over the operation. Idiots. They had to be eliminated.”

  “And the ladies? Did you kill all of them, too?”

  Glyver sneered. “Ladies you call them.”

  “Did you kill them?”

  He shrugged. “I never killed anyone named Daisy,” he said. “You ought to ask George Markham about that one, but I think the would-be Baron is quite dead. For that matter, so is Mendicott.”

  “You killed them both?”

  He laughed again, his bloodshot eyes catching a sliver of light from the kitchen. “But what are you going to do about any of it anyway, Felicity North?”

  Felicity stood there, alert, her umbrella held at an angle to her body. She saw his right hand slip into his coat pocket and made her move. She was one second away from her greatest act of love and her destiny, and she knew it. With a smile, she lunged.

  The police arrived within ten minutes after Walters’ phone call. The ambulance showed up shortly thereafter. It was sent away, however, when the coroner’s van replaced it.

  Jeremy came running down the stairs and approached the library shouting Sabrina’s name but found the room empty. The crackling of the wood in the fireplace was a stark counterpoint of warmth to the cold air in the house. He shut the front door as he headed toward the noise coming from somewhere near the kitchen.

  There he found a sobering scene. Sabrina was holding Bel, Lena was holding Sabrina, and Cath and Walters were trying to hold all of them. He looked past the whimpering group and saw policemen out the back. He walked out, but stopped in his tracks.

  Glyver was on the ground. He appeared to be held there, dead, by an umbrella piercing his chest. Next to him, Felicity North lay dead from a single, ultimately fatal gunshot wound. Her coat was open, and a large, dark patch of blood pooled in a widening circle on her chest.

  But she hadn’t died first or immediately. She managed to tell Walters what had happened. And who killed the prostitutes.

  Apparently, Felicity had returned after dark and found Glyver stalking the house. She confronted him, and before he pulled the trigger on the revolver in his pocket, she thrust the umbrella with the razor-sharp point into his chest. She lived long enough for Walters to assure her she had stopped him.

  Jeremy looked back into the house. He could see that Lena and Sabrina were leading Bel out of the kitchen, probably putting her to bed. Jeremy knew Sabrina would stay with her until she fell asleep. He stood there with Walters, both of them in a state of near shock.

  “Did she say anything else?”

  Walters looked at him, surprised. “She…she did. She gave me a message for Bel.”

  “Have you given it to Bel yet?”

  “Not yet. I—” Walters paused, overcome with emotion. “I wondered if our mistress might give her the message instead.”

  Jeremy nodded. “Tell me, and I’ll deliver it to…tell me.”

  Walters let out a big sigh of relief making it clear he did not relish being the one to relay the message to Sabrina.

  Chapter 50

  Late evening

  After the coroner’s rig took the bodies away, Jeremy wandered back into the house. Cath was fixing a pot of tea. He motioned for her to bring it into the den.

  As he entered, he stopped. Lena was sitting on a chair, her face in her hands. He could tell she was crying. He walked over to her, knelt down beside her and took her into his arms.

  “I’m not sure either of them will recover from this, Jeremy.”

  He bowed his head in thought. He knew his words would be important to her, and he knew that sympathetic platitudes would not calm her fears. He let her talk.

  “You know,” she said, “it’s a great deal of loss, for both of them. Bel has lost her sister and her husband. And Sabrina…Sabrina, must feel poignantly the older loss of Bel and the newer loss of Felicity.”

  “We should remember who Markham really was,” Jeremy said.

  “Of course, and we will, but no matter what, he was Sophia’s father and on some level Bel thought of him as her protector when the whole world had turned away from her. If she finds out now…if she has any inkling that Markham was out to cause her severe harm or even death—”

  Jeremy interrupted her. “Only you and I know that. Bel doesn’t know the whole story, and neither does Sabrina. And why must they?”

  Cath walked in and silently placed the tea service on the small table between two chairs. She kept her head down and left the room as quietly as she entered it.

  “It’s too much, too much for everyone,” Lena said, looking after Cath. She poured them both tea. “And if it comes out in the newspapers?” Lena said.

  “It won’t,” Jeremy answered, his face taut with resolve. “I will see to that.”

  Lena looked thoughtfully at the embers in the fireplace. “Yes. Yes, you’re right. But even so, I do worry that Bel and Sabrina will have a hard time recovering from what they do know. Do you think he ever loved Bel?”

  “Who?”

  “Markham.” The wariness on her face revealed the answer s
he expected.

  “I don’t think Markham or Glyver really loved her, but I’m sure they each thought they did, in some way, at one time. Until they didn’t. Glyver was too insecure and full of revenge, and Markham was a selfish man who cared only about his own hide and his legacy. The legacy was Sophia. So, no, that’s not love.”

  “Well, I didn’t think Glyver loved her—after all, he killed those other women.”

  “The police are certain he killed two of them, possibly a couple others earlier on,” Jeremy said. “But as she lay dying, Felicity told Walters Glyver did not kill Daisy—she kept saying, ‘Markham, Mendicott…Markham, Mendicott.’”

  Lena gasped then sank into her chair, speechless.

  ”They were all three cut from the same cloth at base. Users, abusers and killers.”

  “Did…Felicity say anything else?” Lena asked the question but kept her eyes on the floor.

  Jeremy glanced at her but pretended the question has not registered. He continued his analysis.

  “Lena, we can only understand Glyver as an entity of passions distorted and a self-loathing that became his motivation for everything. His was a moral depravity beyond reckoning. He’d become a psychopath, I believe. That’s Glyver.”

  Jeremy walked over to the fireplace to warm his hands. He turned and continued. “But Markham? This may sound strange, but I loathe him even more. He could have made a difference in her life. He could have protected her from Glyver. But he saw a chance to trade her for money. To save a house of ruin that was never rightfully his. He was morally bankrupt and by his own hand. Yes, Lena, I feel I hate him more.”

  She was weeping, silently, her bosom heaving with the effort to cry quietly. “I think I do, too.” He walked over to her and knelt before her again.

  “I understand,” he said. “I truly do. It’s well above a good person’s capacity to comprehend. If it weren’t for my line of work, I wouldn’t know what to make of it. And even so, it all stuns me. We’ll probably never fully know what each man thought of the other, or the rest of humankind, but we know that they killed women, they tried to kill Bel, they tried to ruin Sabrina, and they were apparently a grave threat to one another because of what each knew of the other.”

  Lena reached out and held his hand. “You had to see those murdered women,” she said. “And not only them but every one who comes through that hospital. You’ve kept so much inside to keep from worrying everyone…”

  He lowered his head and nodded. He gave himself a moment, then stood up and walked back to the mantle, as if movement was erasure of pain. At first, he stared silently into the hot coals. Finally, turning to Lena he spoke, his voice gathering strength as the words flowed like a smooth stream.

  “The only thing that gives me hope, if hope is the right word in this darkest of hours, is that you’ve all suffered great loss, including of one another, and each of you has survived it. We know what Bel has lost even if Bel is unaware of the details. The one detail she does know, Felicity’s death, is more than enough to handle. And then, as you know, for Sabrina to lose Bel—it was a loss beyond understanding for Sabrina. That’s taken a goodly amount of time for her to… get over. And you…you’ve had to go through some trying times with Sabrina. I’m aware of it. But you’re good for her, Lena. And what pulled all of you through, I believe, was having known kindness from one another and others. It’s about the kindness now, Lena, and maybe always was.”

  “I know, Jeremy. It’s only that I worry being ‘good for her’ is not enough for her. Or me, for that matter.”

  Jeremy smiled sadly. “It would be enough, more than enough, if everyone kept perspective,” he said. She looked at him, a slight head tilt revealing her uncertainty. Jeremy continued. “We’re all of us one heartbeat away from being someone’s memory, Lena. That’s perspective.”

  At first, they said nothing to one another. The sighs, the strangled sobs, the head upon the shoulder—it was enough. They were in Sabrina’s bedroom. A fire had been lit over an hour earlier, and they sat on cushions in front of it. After a quarter hour, Bel spoke first.

  “She only wanted to help me. She came here to be with her big sister. I saddled her with my poverty, my paucity of principles and my real live baby girl. Then, I sent her to you, for safekeeping and—”

  “We were both adults. I’m not going to let you shoulder that burden alone, Bel. I was complicit.” She looked at Bel and gave an embarrassed half shrug to which Bel responded with an indulgent half smile.

  “Well, I didn’t mean anything was your fault—you didn’t know who she was. I apologize for the deception, Sabrina. You were the only person on earth I knew might take her and the baby in.”

  “No, no, I understand. I figured that part out…but I wish I had known who she was. She was, she was vey brave.”

  Annabel drew her robe tighter across her chest and held her arms in front of her. “I believe I overwhelmed her with challenges and choices for which she had no frame of reference.”

  “Desperation does that,” Sabrina reminded her. “But look what she did. She saved our lives.”

  “I know,” Bel whispered, tears streaming down her face anew. “It’s that…she was so innocent in so many ways. She was more zealous than enlightened. That’s all.”

  Sabrina pulled her closer.

  She knew that Felicity was not entirely the innocent babe her grieving sister made her out to be, but she wasn’t about to disabuse Bel of her perspective because grief has no perspective. It’s all and everything, and nothing else exists in its presence. Its duration has no restrictions, its haunting images do not blur with time. The impact of the pain may lessen, the pain itself never does. But the human will to survive is stronger than the heart that threatens to succumb.

  “And now we know she left us knowing she saved lives. That meant a great deal to her.”

  Bel nodded. “It would, yes.”

  They talked for another hour, and Bel told Sabrina the entire story of what happened with Glyver, with Felicity, with Markham. She saw Sabrina’s eyes close in response to the horror of it all. Although Sabrina was reduced to silence, she pulled Annabel closer, held her tighter, until their breathing slowed again.

  After a while, she walked Bel to her own room. “Would you rather not be alone?” Sabrina offered.

  Turning to her, Bel’s eyes smiled through wet eyelashes. “You are so kind to me, darling. No, I’m going to be fine. Go to Lena. I have Sophia here with me tonight.” She turned her head slightly to hide the tears and pretended to rearrange the pillows on her bed.

  Then together, they bent over the child’s crib and watched, mesmerized as the tiny human’s even breathing signaled life, new life, pure life.

  “Do you think she resembles me?” Bel asked.

  Sabrina looked back and forth between the baby and Bel. “Well, don’t be offended, but I think she looks like Felicity—see that little nose?”

  Bel leaned in close to her child and stared at her, then straightened her body. “You know, I believe you’re onto something. And I fancy that a great deal. Yes. Yes, she does.”

  She helped Bel into bed and pulled up the covers. As Bel’s eyes closed, she leaned in to give her a kiss on the cheek. She sustained the contact, warm lips on damp skin. She closed her own eyes for a second but dared not remain overlong.

  Once she was sure Bel had drifted off, she tiptoed out of the bedroom and saw Lena standing near her bedroom door.

  They started toward one another, each pulling the other into her arms. It was gratitude, relief, sadness and hope in one mutually shared embrace.

  “Don’t go home,” Sabrina said, the plea in her voice breaking Lena’s heart.

  Lena pulled back, looked at Sabrina and placed her hands on Sabrina’s damp cheeks.

  “I am home, darling,” Lena said. “We both are.”

  Sabrina sighed and melted into Lena’s arms again. “What else were you going to tell me about my father?” she whispered.

  “Oh, a lit
tle thing but sweet. Apparently, he told Walters that you wore his suits with far more panache than he did.”

  “Oh, Lord. I have no secrets in this household. And I have some news,” Sabrina said. “I can be a Baroness, if I wish. But I’m inclined to want to give it to Bel so she can pass it onto Sophia. Imagine, Bel the Baroness of Porthleven, after all, with a title she can pass onto her daughter. Wouldn’t that be ironic.”

  Lena stopped on the threshold of the doorway. “You a Baroness? Oh, dear, don’t we have enough pressure? Yes, let’s give it to Bel.”

  “I could request you receive the title, Lena.”

  Lena’s mouth opened, then shut. Finally, “No, Sabrina. I appreciate the offer, but I really couldn’t abide the gossip or the protocol, nor could you.”

  They laughed as the bedroom door closed behind them, and Walters, who had been standing near the bottom of the stairs signaled to Cath.

  “Mrs. Walters, let me damp the fire in the library, and you shut down your kitchen.”

  Cath looked at him, her face a blank. “Why? Are we going somewhere, Mr. Walters?”

  He stopped and pivoted to face her. “The House of Bliss is closed for the evening, Mrs. Walters. The lady and her guests are going to bed. And so are we. That is, I’d like to have a nice little talk with you.”

  A big smile spread slowly across Cath’s face. She reached up and touched her hair as if doing so would fix the errant curls that twisted into little silver cylinders of no cohesive fashion style. She turned and went back into the kitchen to wipe down the counters and turn off lights.

  It had been a while since they had one of their nice little talks. Odd, given the events of the evening. On the other hand…well, life is precious. And love keeps precious cargo safe. Hadn’t been safe around here for months, now. Would be lovely to feel safe again. Oh yes, it surely would.