Menfreya in the Morning (20 page)

Listening to Aunt Clarissa, I felt the hysteria rising in me. I said: “Are you turning me out then, Aunt?”

She did not answer so I went on: “111 leave the first thing in the morning.”

I was exhausted that night, but I scarcely slept and when I did I kept starting up in horror. Nightmares tormented me, and I was glad to see the dawn.

The maid who brought in my hot water looked at me curiously. I was connected with a tragedy—sudden death, suicide… or murder.

I bathed and dressed very slowly, delaying the time when I must leave. How strange that I should want to linger in my aunt’s house! I had always thought that I should have longed to leave it, and that this should be so, filled me with an even greater desolation. Never in my life had I felt so lonely, so insecure, so uncertain of the future.

There was a knock on my door, and one of the maids mtered.

“You’re wanted, Miss. In the library.” I nodded and pretended to look at my reflection in the mirror and to pat my hair, lest she should see the misery on my face.

I could no longer delay, I had packed my bag. I was ready to leave. I expected to find Aunt Clarissa in the library, where she would tell me that in all our interests it was best for me to go and that she had ordered the carriage to come in ten minutes’ time.

Slowly I went down to the library. Aunt Clarissa was there, but she was not alone.

Lady Menfrey came forward and took my hands in hers. She kissed me.

“My dear Harriet,” she murmured. “My poor, dear Harriet”

And then I saw Bevil rising from the armchair. He took me hi his arms and held me against him. I felt weak. The transition was too sudden. From despair, from the sorrow of aloneness to the comfort of the one person in the world with

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whom I wanted to be more than any other. I could not speak; I was afraid that if I attempted to I should burst into tears.

“My dearest Harriet,” he said in a voice so wonderfully tender that it made me want to weep, “this has been quite terrible for you. You mustn’t worry anymore. We’re here … we’re here to look after you.”

Still I could not speak.

“Harriet!” It was Aunt Clarissa. “Mr. Menfrey and his mother have traveled up from Cornwall for the purpose of looking after you until this wretched affair is over. Lady Menfrey has suggested to me that we take you to Mr. Men-frey’s house, where you should remain with her until some plans can be made. I think it is an excellent idea.**

I felt the relief breaking over my face.

I heard myself cry, “Oh yes, oh yes … please”

I was driven to Bevil’s small town house in a quiet little cul-de-sac on the north side of the park. Here Lady Menfrey remained with me. There were only two servants—a maid and a housekeeper who cooked the little which Bevil had needed in the past The place was merely the pied PS terre he had acquired since he became a Member of Parliament,

Lady Menfrey insisted on my going straight to bed, for she declared I was exhausted, even if I didn’t realize it. I was submissive; I found it the utmost luxury to put myself into the hands of this kind and gentle woman, particularly as Bevil was making every effort to show me how anxious he was on my behalf.

We talked little of the tragedy, but of Menfreya; and Lady Menfrey said that it was Bevil’s wish—and hers—that as soon as the inquest was over I should return with them to Menfreya to recover from this terrible shock.

Fervently I told them that there was nothing I should like better, nothing I needed more. So it was arranged.

Thus I lived through those days that followed the tragedy; they were long, dreamlike days, but because I saw Bevil frequently and was constantly in the company of Lady Menfrey, whose main idea seemed to make me feel as though she was as concerned for me as she would have been for a daughter, 1 felt I had something to cling to, and she was the best companion I could have had. She was still serene, she, the heiress who had been kidnaped by Endelion and who had fallen in love so romantically and then been forced to adjust her

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romantic ideas and learn to live with a man who could never be faithful and whose irresistible passion had been not for her but for her fortune! But here she was, beautiful still, with a different beauty from that of the Menfreys—calm, classical features, gentle, kindly and, could I say, resigned. The result, doubtless, of a life of compromise and adjustment to the wild ways of the Menfreys, who although they were worldly and perhaps selfish and mercenary—for Menfreya—were the most charming people in the world.

And there was Bevil, so anxious for me, so eager that everything should be done for my comfort, tender, in a manner which conveyed to me a suppressed passion. His hands lingered on my arm, his eyes were caressing, and about him there was an ah* of waiting which seemed to me significant. It was as though I were already engaged to marry him. I was certain that I should soon be. Lady Menfrey conveyed it in her manner, and when she spoke of Menfreya she spoke of it as my home.

That was how I lived through those days of tension when the Menfreys sought to impose on an image of tragedy one of living happily ever after.

They succeeded, and I loved them for it—Lady Menfrey as the mother I bad never had, and Bevil more than I had ever believed it was possible to love anyone.

There was no need, Bevil said, for me to go to the inquest. It might be unpleasant, and I had not been in the house when the tragedy had occurred.

I was anxious that he should make any arrangements he considered suitable.

“And as soon as it is over,” he said, “you should go to Menfreya. You can travel with Mother, and I’ll join you in a few days* time.”

I replied that I did not know how to thank them, and that I could not imagine how I could have gone back to that house … and lived there through these days.

Bevil took my hand and pressed it reassuringly.

“Well, you know now that you can safely put yourself in the hands of the Menfreys,” he said. I thought he was about to make some declaration of his feelings for me, but he didn’t—not in words, although his looks were full of tenderness and, I believed, a desire to protect me forever.

On the day of the inquest even Bevil and Lady Menfrey

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were apprehensive, although they tried to hide this from me.

Lady Menfrey was in her room most of the morning, preparing to leave for Cornwall, she said, which she thought we might do the next day.

“I shall need some of my things,” I said. “I shall have to go…”

She shook her head. “There’s no need. Write from Cornwall and send for that maid of yours. She will bring what you need.”

“I’ll do that,” I said. “But the house … What of it now? I feel that I never want to go into it again. I should never be able to forget…”

“There’s no need to concern yourself with that as yet Leave it as it is. There will be the servants to consider. You need help in these matters. My husband and Bevil will give you that help. Let everything stay as it is at the moment. The thing for you to do is to get away … as soon as this unfortunate business is over.”

“Sometimes I think it will never be over.”

“My dear child, what do you mean?”

“I suppose that I shall never forget… that it will always be in my mind …”

“Oh, but tragedies seem so when they are immediately beside us.”

“I find it a great relief to let you make my decisions.”

“I hope you will always agree to let us help you in this way.** I was certain then that soon I should be Bevil’s wife.

It was the day of the inquest, which Bevil had attended. I was in the small guest room overlooking the tiny walled garden when he came in. Lady Menfrey was in the drawing room and I did not go down, because I felt the need to calm myself.

I had felt restless all that day. I had pictured the courtroom so vividly that I felt I was there. So much depended on the coroner’s verdict.

Eventually Lady Menfrey came up to my room and told me that Bevil was back; he wanted to see me. The verdict was death by misadventure.

“But how?” I breathed.

“Come and see BevO. He’ll talk to you. Then we’re going to get right away tomorrow.”

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As I entered the drawing room Bevil came to me and took me into his arms.

“It’s over,” he said. “God, was I relieved! I don’t know what I expected. This is the end of it Come and sit down.”

We sat on the sofa and he kissed me.

“But, Bevil,” I said, “what happened? How could it be?”

“It came out that she had been taking arsenic … for her complexion. Apparently it’s not unusual. Women take it to make themselves beautiful, and unfortunately the stuff does have that effect … for a time anyway.”

“Arsenic!” I cried. “For her complexion! Of course, there was something about her complexion! It was quite lovely but…”

“Evidently the effects of the drug. The coroner went on about it. Some people use it in a lotion, but others are foolhardy enough to take it internally. Where she got it, they couldn’t find out Naturally her supplier would lie low. One of her theatrical friends, I suspect But your Fanny had seen her taking it in beverages … lemonade and such things.”

“But the idea of taking arsenic! How dreadful!”

**Apparently it’s used a great deal by doctors in making up medicines, but they, of course, know what they’re doing. The coroner referred to the Maybrick case. There was quite a stir about this practice years ago during the Maybrick trial. The husband died of arsenical poisoning, and the wife was accused of murdering him. She was condemned to death but reprieved at the last moment—I think because there was a doubt, and he could have taken the stuff much the same as Jenny did. You see, it’s not really so unusual, but highly dangerous, as in the case of James Maybrick and your stepmother. They found a quantity of it in her room. The coroner delivered a sermon on the folly of ignorant people using drugs the power of which they don’t understand— and then the verdict of death by misadventure was brought in.”

I couldn’t shut out the vision of bright, pretty little Jenny … dead. Bevil knew this and tried to comfort me.

“It’s over now,” he said. “Tomorrow you’ll be leaving with my mother. I shall be with you in a few days. Will you begin making arrangements at once, because we don’t want any delay.”

“Arrangements … 7”

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He laughed. How confident he was—rightly so, for I could never have resisted him even if I had tried.

“For the wedding, of course. It’ll be rather unconventional, but then we are. Married from the bridegroom’s house. That will cause a flutter.”

“There is the house on the island,” I suggested.

“Picture it,” he said. “The bride stepping into the boat in her wedding finery. The southwest wind—if in evidence, and you could be almost certain that it would be—carrying off the veil and orange blossom …”

“And the boat overturning and the bride being washed ashore by the gigantic waves, late for her wedding …**

“I’ve just remembered,” said Bevil. “You haven’t said you will yet.”

“Will… what?”

He looked at me disbelievingly; he went down on to his knees and taking my hand said: “Madam, if you’ll marry me I will give you the keys of heaven .,.”

“The keys of Menfreya will do for a start,” I answered solemnly.

He was beside me, laughing, embracing me. “Harriet, do you know why I love you? You amuse me. That’s why. And I love to be amused more—or almost more—than anything else. I want you to say now that you love me, that you adore me in fact, and that you want to be my wife as much —or almost, for I don’t think anyone else could feel quite so madly eager as I do—as I want to be your husband.”

“You make a wonderful proposal, Bevil,” I said, “although a slightly flippant one.”

“My darling, it is because my emotions are so deeply touched that I am flippant I really should be on my knees telling you how much I want this … how I always have … and there has never been anyone else I could love as I love you. Dearest Harriet, you belong to us … to Menfreya. It was always meant that we should be together there. You do agree, don’t you?”

“I love you, Bevil. I couldnt deny that if I wanted to, because I’ve made it plain in the past and I’ve made it plain now. But you…”

“Yes, what of me? Aren’t I making it plain now?” “You are telling me you love me, but you didn’t always, of course. How could you love a plain child with a limp and a rather brusque and generally unfortunate manner?’*

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He put his lips on mine. He had all the most charming and irresistible gestures that a girl deeply in love looks for and who refuses to tell herself that they may have been acquired through long practice.

“An interesting child, an amusing child, who had some crazy notion that she wasn’t as pretty as some children merely because she didn’t have the look of a brainless doll. I don’t like dolls, Harriet, but I adore one living, vital young woman whom I am going to marry whether she accepts me or not.”

“You mean you would kidnap me?”

“Certainly. It’s a tradition in the family.”

“And therefore a good foundation on which to build a marriage.”

“You have an example before you.”

Had I? Lady Menfrey was serenely happy, yes. But how had she lived through the years of humiliation when Sir Endelion’s affairs with other women had been the talk of the neighborhood? Was that Bevil’s idea of a good marriage? An unfaithful husband was perhaps one order of life; wifely complacence another.

No, I thought, it should not be so with me. I was not another Lady Menfrey. But I was too content with the immediate prospect to concern myself with the future.

“The kidnaping will not be necessary,” I said. “So you need not go ahead with your plans for that. Instead tell me more reasons why you want to many me.”

He put his head on one side and regarded me with mock seriousness. I thought: We shall always be able to laugh together. That had been the essence of my relationship with Gwennan—our minds were hi tune. Fleetingly I thought of Gwennan, who had run away on the eve of her marriage. I heard Fanny’s voice of grim prophecy: “You can’t trust those Menfreys.”