Loretta Proctor

by The Crimson Bed

  ‘Ellie, I will not be here much longer, can you not forgive me? Can you not love me as a daughter at long last?’ he asked pleadingly.

  ‘You have a daughter,’ she replied coldly, rising to her feet, ‘and she, poor child, has never received your love. You gave it all to me. I see that now, and I am as guilty of having taken it from her in my vanity at your preference for me. Fred was right to suspect you. Something always told him you were false and he was so right though he misunderstood the reason for it. You are not my father. You can never be my father.’

  She ran from the room and fled from the house. Her mind was in turmoil and she had no idea she was going. She just ran blindly down into the gardens and along the paths towards the fields and woods and the river.

  She had disappeared from view and from earshot of the house when a shot rang out in Lord Dillinger’s study.

  Chapter 36

  When Fred arrived home at noon, he discovered to his dismay that Ellie and the children had fled the nest. Mrs Thompson had no idea that her mistress had even left the house, busy as she always was in the kitchen. The maid had been sent forth on some errand at the time the carriage arrived so was also ignorant of the fact that Ellie was no longer there.

  As it happened the person who had seen her set off with Mulhall and the children was the gardener who had been busy pruning some bushes at the front of the house.

  ‘Big carriage came for ‘em, sir,’ he said in answer to Fred’s urgent enquiry. ‘Came about nine o’clock this mornin’ to take ‘em away. They took a big trunk so I reckoned they was going away for a goodish bit.’

  Fred tried hard not to make a fuss. He had no desire for gossip to spread.

  ‘How foolish of me,’ he said. ‘I forgot they were to set off a little earlier. Thank you, Sims.’

  He went back into the house and looked in Ellie’s room for a note or some other missive but there was nothing to tell him where she had gone. However, it took very little conjecture. She had run away from him to Dillinger. That was obvious. All his worst suspicions were now confirmed. They were indeed lovers and she had left him and taken his children with her.

  By God, she would not have his children as well! Nor would Dillinger have her. He would kill him first.

  He debated how quickly he might set off and confront them at Oreton Hall assuming that’s where they were. For all he knew they were on their way to Paris this very minute.

  He sent the maid out to fetch him a cab and hired the man to take him over to Oreton Hall in Hertfordshire.

  ‘As quickly as you can make it,’ he said, ‘you’ll be well paid. Just get going.’

  The man grumbled over the distance and said, ‘I can drop you at the station, mister, you can get a train from there.’

  ‘I haven’t time to hang about waiting for trains,’ shouted Fred, ‘if you won’t take me, I’ll get another man who will.’

  The cabbie was not that foolish and soon they were galloping down the country lanes and roads at a fair speed. Not fast enough for Fred to whom each minute seemed forever and whose anger grew ever hotter and malevolent.

  At last they arrived at the tall iron gates of Oreton Hall. Fred paid the man and told him to leave him at the end of the driveway and go. He had no idea what he meant to do or what might happen. All he knew was he meant to confront the guilty lovers and drag Ellie away. He had brought his pistol with him and in his present state of mind felt he might well use it.

  However, as he turned the bend in the drive, he saw that there were several vehicles and horses already there and several people milling about before the house. He paused in amazement and then walked along more slowly, wondering what on earth was going on.

  As he came up to the house, a policeman stopped him and asked him his business.

  ‘I wish to see Lord Dillinger.’

  ‘Might I ask why, sir?’

  ‘No, it’s a private matter,’ snapped Fred. ‘What’s going on here?’

  ‘Lord Dillinger’s just gone and shot himself in his study,’ said the policeman, ‘that’s what.’

  Fred stopped in his tracks.

  ‘Was anyone else with him?’

  ‘Not that I know of, sir. Footman heard the shot, went straight

  in, and found his lordship with his brains blown out. Nothing they could do. He was dead as mutton.’

  ‘Good God!’

  ‘You may well say so. Nasty, very nasty. I suggest you leave, sir, as you can’t exactly conduct your business with him now.’

  ‘I’m sorry but I have to go on to the house. My wife and children are guests here. I have to find them and be sure they are all safe.’

  ‘In that case, go ahead then, sir. I expect the Inspector will want to speak to you though.’

  ‘I don’t give a hang about the Inspector.’ Fred ran on towards the house. Servants crowded into the hallway looking shocked and concerned. He looked up and saw Mulhall with Charlie and Mary standing on the upper landing, looking down on the scene with wonder and apprehension.

  Swiftly, he ran up the stairs and Charlie called out to him.

  ‘Oh, Papa, you’ve come. We’re so glad. Mulhall was all worried.’

  Fred gathered his son into his arms with a little sob of relief and then took Mary from Mulhall and kissed her and held her tightly against him.

  Setting her down, he said, ‘What the hell has happened here, Mulhall?’

  She told the children to go and wait for her in the schoolroom. They set off obediently and then Mulhall turned to Fred, her face quite ashen and aged. She was very shaken and frightened by the events.

  ‘I’ve no idea, sir,’ she said, ‘I brought the children up here about an hour ago as the mistress wanted to have a private talk with his Lordship, she said. As far as I know, they went into his study and then a short while after she was seen running out and across the lawn as if she’d gone mad or something. Next thing, we heard a shot and they say Lord Dillinger had killed himself. They sent for the doctor and the police at once. It seems there was no hope for him. He was dead all right.’

  ‘Where is Mrs Thorpe, though? My God, Mulhall, where has she gone to?’

  He ran back downstairs again.

  ‘Has anyone seen Mrs Thorpe?’ he shouted.

  ‘We’re going to go and search for her now,’ said one of the police officers.

  Fred was not going to wait for them slowly to comb the area. He knew full well the direction that Ellie always took whenever she came to Oreton Hall. Down the slope, past the lake, into the fields and woods and down to the river. He ran as fast as he could, calling her name, tears streaming down his face, sobbing in anguish and desperation. He didn’t care what had happened. Had Ellie shot Dillinger or had he killed himself? Whatever had happened, he, Fred, had driven her to it and if anything was to befall her he would have himself to blame for it.

  He didn’t care what had happened, all he wanted was to find Ellie and tell her he loved her more than anything else in the world.

  Ellie came to the woods. She took the little path that led her into the green gloom of the trees. It had been dry of late and brown leaves crackled beneath her feet. Above her, the branches swayed a little in the breeze and sighed sadly. She almost stumbled over a dead branch and pushing it to one side, carried on at this hasty pace until she reached the little clearing where she and Alfie once met as children then as lovers.

  She sat down upon the dried bracken and stared about her. So much love and happiness had been theirs for that brief while and she knew she would never again experience that first love, that first joy they had shared. Now she understood the tremendous bond between them. They were of the same father, the same seed. Their blood flowed through those parental veins. The crimson blood. She understood too why Dillie had always had such a strange fascination for her and she for him and how this had held her bound to him all these years.

  If only she had listened to Fred! But it would have been impossible to break that hidden, secret bond that had kep
t her enchained in some subtle manner. How to escape it all? How to escape? Ghosts seemed to swirl about her. She felt Alfie so close now, saw his smile, his mischievous eyes, felt his strong young arms bearing her down into the bracken. At first, she had been so shy and afraid, but later, eager and longing.

  Oh God, what had they done! Would she ever be forgiven for her sin?

  She arose, her heart pounding, a sweat breaking out upon her face. Her whole body trembled as if with an ague. She walked down towards the river and going close to the edge, gazed over the thick reeds and rushes into the grey-green, swirling waters below. In her mind’s eye, she saw poor, mad, forsaken Ophelia just as John Everett Millais had painted her. The gentle young girl floating down the stream, wild flowers and herbs gathered on her breast, dress billowing in the water, her mouth slightly open as she sang her swansong of farewell.

  How good it would be to end all her troubles like this. Dear Tippy Winstone had loved life and had so much to live for and yet in the end she too had been so weary and tired of the struggle and slipped away into a better world without pain and trouble…

  But as Ellie stared into the water and gathered herself for the plunge into Lethe, she seemed to see Tippy’s wraith wavering before her, silvery-grey, insubstantial, her robe flowing as if in a soft breeze, her gentle eyes looking at her sadly and saying, No, no, Ellie, don’t come and join me here where the shades live. Stay in the bright and lovely world with your dear children and your husband. Fred loves you, Ellie. Turn back.

  ‘Ellie, Ellie, turn back! Oh, Ellie – wait for me!’

  To her bemused senses, the call sounded real and came from behind her. She turned around quickly and saw Fred hastening towards her across the meadow, stumbling in the long grass, frantic with urgency.

  A strange sense of relief flooded over her. He had come for her after all.

  Turning, she ran towards him and they embraced, clinging to one another as if they would never let go.

  ‘Ellie, you frightened me so much. I couldn’t let you go like this. For God’s sake, Ellie! I don’t care what happened with you and Dillinger, all I know is I want you and the children back home with me. I love you, I love you and want you with me. It’s all over now. Come with me!’

  ‘I’m coming home with you, Fred,’ she said. ‘It is all over now. The ghosts are laid for me. I don’t want to see Lord Dillinger ever again.’

  ‘You won’t,’ said Fred grimly. ‘He shot himself after you left him.’

  Ellie stopped and stared at him in horror. She began to weep violently, ‘Oh God! I drove him to it, Fred. I know I did. He asked for my love – not as you think. He told me he had loved my mother and that he was my father and I told him that he could never be that to me. Joshua Farnham was my father. Joshua, not him. I told him I hated him. I was so unforgiving! Poor Dillie – that was cruel of me. He was ill and would have died soon anyway. Now I shall always reproach myself for that. But – I was so horrified by what he said.’

  Fred digested this information in silence. Nothing surprised him any longer.

  ‘So he was your natural father,’ he said, ‘no wonder he loved you so much. Of course, I thought… oh, I was a fool, who cares what I thought! I didn’t think sensibly at all. I too have much to regret and to reproach myself with. But Ellie, no more sadness. Better perhaps that Dillinger went quickly by his own hand than a long, drawn-out, painful illness. Who knows.’

  ‘Who knows,’ she repeated sadly. Who knew where people went? She thought of Tippy and wondered if her grave was ever to be a quiet one and if she was truly at rest now.

  ‘Come, dearest. The police will want to speak to you. They are searching for you now.’

  ‘The children… .’

  ‘They are perfectly well and Mulhall is taking care of them. Let’s get it all over and then go home.’

  ‘Home. Oh, indeed, Fred, let us go home. I shall never, ever return here nor think of it any more. It’s all finished, all dead and gone. Memories, everything is memories. The past has to be put behind one some day and forgotten.’

  Fred thought briefly of Bessie and his dead daughter, of Sue and Jessaline.

  ‘You are right, Ellie, the past has to be forgotten,’ he said.

  And forgiven, he added to himself.

  Chapter 37

  Charlotte and George, now the new Lord Dillinger, arrived at Oreton Hall the next day. Benjamin, who was staying with friends in Scotland, said he would come as soon as he could arrange transport. The police were still there to conduct their enquiries and Ellie and Fred perforce remained to greet them. Mulhall had been sent back to London with the children.

  Charlotte and Ellie hugged one another for a long time.

  ‘Oh, Ellie, this is the most terrible thing! How has it all come about? What could ever induce Papa to take his own life? He just wasn’t that sort of person!’

  Lord Dillinger’s body was now washed and prepared by the undertakers and lay in state in the withdrawing room. Charlotte went up to it and looked on his cold, pale face, stern and sad even in death. She drew back a little, shook her head, and began to sob. Ellie put a comforting arm around her and stifled the terrible feeling of pain that was gathering up in her own stomach like a huge dark ball of lead. She too gazed down at him and thought this man is my father! It was still impossible to believe.

  She had loved him so much but as a godfather, not a father. No one could be the father to her that Joshua had been. Now she had to bear the fact that Joshua Farnham was not her father after all. It was more than a blow – it was a deep, piercing wounding. Thank God, he had died without ever knowing the shocking truth of how his beloved wife and his best friend had cheated him and fooled him all these years. Thank God for that reprieve at least! However, she bent down and kissed the dead white cheek gently. In the end, Dillie and Maria had perhaps suffered the most of all, knowing what they knew, feeling such love for one another, bearing this terrible secret. Poor Dillie!

  ‘Goodbye. I forgive you, Dillie,’ she whispered, ‘please forgive me too.’

  Charlotte looked at her in wonder at these words.

  ‘I don’t understand it at all. What happened, Ellie? What happened?’

  ‘Come into Dillinger’s study,’ said Ellie, ‘and I will tell you and George what happened.’

  Then Ellie showed them Lord Dillinger’s will and told them what had led to his taking his own life.

  They sat and stared her in disbelief. Ellie, sitting before them looking grave and beautiful with a slight air of defiance about her, made the three onlookers feel a certain sense of awe. Fred remained silent, seated next to Ellie to give her some moral support. She was grateful for this, as she had no idea how the Dillingers were going to take the news. Particularly the news that she was their halfsister.

  ‘Did you not know he was ill, George?’ she said gently.

  George, a stolid and sensible young man of twenty-five, continued to look at Ellie with his wooden, expressionless manner.

  ‘Father never spoke of such things to us; you were always the privileged one and now I understand why,’

  There was resentment in his voice and Ellie shrank a little. His rancour was likely to be because his father had left so much money to her own children, she knew that well enough. He couldn’t care less about how many sisters his father might have engendered. There was no love lost between Lord Dillinger and his children though Charlotte sobbed copiously.

  Dillie had been so right, no one had cared for him but herself and even she had turned against him. It was so dreadful; she felt she would never forgive herself. Oh, to have those moments back – how differently she would have spoken to him. He was sick, dying; she could at least have been there to comfort him in those last days of his life. She might have found out more about her mother and himself, understood them better as individuals, not as parents. Now she felt the regret of unanswered questions that would remain floating forever in her heart.

  ‘It is hardly my fault, George,’ she s
aid with spirit. ‘How do you imagine I feel knowing that the father I adored is not my real father at all? How do you think that revelation must feel?’

  ‘Oh, my poor, darling Ellie… it has been so terrible for you. I am glad of one thing only from this tragedy… that you are truly our sister. George, think of it, .Ellie is our sister and we must make her welcome amongst us. How can you be so surly?’

  George repented a little and said, ‘It’s the shock… I apologise, Eleanor. You have always felt like a sister, that’s the thing. It’s almost no surprise… especially you and Alfie… brother and sister, everyone could feel that if they considered the matter. You even looked alike come to think of it. What worries me is the scandal of it all and how are we to hush it all up? I suppose the servants will know everything by now, somehow they always do. We must try to keep it quiet and not allow the papers to blow it out of all proportion. Do you want to make your relationship with Father public?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ said Ellie. ‘As far as I am concerned I am the daughter of Joshua Farnham and always will be. I loved Dillie dearly and he loved me but he was not the dear man who brought me up. I won’t have Joshua made a fool of, even though he is dead and past caring, by making this public knowledge. It is between us here and no one else need know. I would be happy to forgo the share that his lordship leaves my children if it will make you happier.’

  George looked suitably abashed. ‘Ellie, I didn’t mean to imply any dissatisfaction over the will. If it was my father’s dying wish, then it must be honoured. However, I am grateful that you will keep his love affair with your mother a secret. What is the point now of stirring up such old and forgotten things?’

  ‘I agree.’

  ‘You will be my sister now, Ellie, and I shall know that and be happy for it,’ said Charlotte eagerly and Ellie smiled a little and took the young girl’s hand.