Ghosts of Mayfield Court (19 page)

I dreamed that Lady Carteret and Michael came into the room, and stood by the bed. My eyes were closed, and I was still in a kind of lethargic trance, but I imagined that it was they. ‘Tonight should see the end of it,' said a voice, and another voice answered, ‘Yes. You were right. It will have to be tonight.'

When I awoke, I found it was nearly time for dinner, and the sky was beginning to darken. It had been just on two o'clock when we returned from the picnic; a glance at my watch showed me that if was now nearly six.

The heavy, trance-like state had not left me, and I stumbled about as best I could, changing from day clothes into my evening gown. When the gong sounded, I went down to dinner, clutching the banister to make sure that I did not fall.

The dining room was cheerfully lit, but the candelabra on the table – two great, silver-gilt affairs – seemed to be aslant, and the light they shed was fractured into the many colours of the
spectrum
. Lady Carteret and Michael seemed not to notice my peculiar state, but a kind of silly, youthful pride prevented my telling them how strange I felt.

I cannot now remember what I ate or drank at that meal, but I was glad when we all rose and retired, not to the drawing room, but to the great, dim library, with its forbidding shelves of
calf-bound
books and old periodicals. I saw that coffee had already been brought in. I sank gratefully into a leather armchair, and Michael brought me a cup of steaming coffee.

I drank it gratefully, and looked at my hostess and my fiancé. They sat facing me, but neither seemed to look at me, or, indeed, at each other. I realized that they were waiting for something to happen. Why did they shimmer, and why were they encircled by iridescent haloes? Michael seemed frozen where he sat. Lady Carteret looked affronted by something that I could not fathom.

‘I hate this hellish room,' said Lady Carteret to Michael. ‘I've had some frightful nightmares connected with it.'

I tried to reach out to place my empty coffee cup on a small table standing beside my chair, but found that I could not move a muscle. Alarmed, I tried to cry out, but realized with horror that I could not move my lips. I was, to all intents and purposes, paralysed.

A door in the panelling opened, and Marguerite, my friend and Michael's sister, came into the room. She merely glanced at me, and then sat down beside Lady Carteret, who gave her a
perfunctory
kiss on the cheek.

‘Mama,' said Marguerite, ‘is tonight really going to see the end of it? And after that, can Michael and I start to live ordinary lives?'

‘I'd prefer you to live extraordinary lives, if that's possible,' said Lady Carteret. ‘But that must be your choice. And yes, this night will see the end of it. Miss Paget is the last of the Paget clan, and while she's alive, that cursed open clause of the Deed of Release still applies. Her uncle was content to relinquish all interest in the matter—'

‘But that didn't prevent you from poisoning him, Mother,' said Michael, ‘leaving me to continue dancing attendance on that dreary girl, there.'

‘Better safe than sorry,' Michael's mother replied. Marguerite laughed.

I was, of course, drugged almost to the point of death, and one appalling symptom of that particular narcotic, which must have been administered to me in the coffee, was that I accepted all that was happening as though it were normal. I felt some fear, but no indignation, even though that part of my brain that governed understanding still made me aware that it was Michael Danvers – what was his real surname? – who had handed me the poisoned coffee, and described me as a dreary girl.

I accepted, almost without demur, that I had from the very
outset been the victim of a coldly planned conspiracy. Michael and Marguerite were the children of the woman now known as Lady Carteret, so that my first meeting with Michael must have been carefully contrived. I recalled that meeting, in the Army and Navy Stores, when Michael had tripped and fallen against me, sending my collection of small parcels to the floor. It had been so easy for him and his sister to lure me into their company. What a little fool I had been!

I made an effort to rise from my chair, but was quite unable to move.

Lady Carteret stood up.

‘Well, let's get it over with. I brought her here because we can carry her up to her room from this part of the house without the servants seeing us. My late second husband, Hector – not your dear father – preferred to hire professional assailants to get rid of unwanted people, which is what he did in the matter of Gabriel Forshaw. I prefer poison, followed by suffocation. That's what I did with little Helen. Hector was far too squeamish to murder a child.'

Marguerite tittered. I had sometimes wondered whether she was weak-minded, which would account for her girlishness, which sat ill on a woman in her thirties. Now I knew that I had been right.

‘Control yourself, Marguerite,' said her mother, giving her a glance of distaste. ‘Come, now, Michael, pick her up, and follow us up to her room. Why are you hesitating? Have you really fallen for her youthful charms? Be careful where you place your feet: these back stairs behind the panelling are very narrow. We can't afford to drop her. Bruising would look suspicious when she's found dead in bed, tomorrow morning. I'll get Susan to take her hot water up tomorrow. She's not a screamer, so there'll be no fuss.'

Lady Carteret suddenly walked over to me where I sat,
paralysed
, in my chair. She bent low to look at me, putting her hands on her knees.

‘What a silly girl you were, to walk right into my trap! Yes, I killed your uncle, but I would have been content for Michael to marry you if that Deed of Release had not opened the way for you to contest the Forshaw fortune had you suddenly decided to do so. But that would have been the end of my son and me. So, my dear, you must go along that path that little Helen trod, thirty years ago.'

Michael, who was a strong young man, picked me up, though my body was so numb that I could not feel his hands supporting me.

Lady Carteret opened the door in the panelling – and Sergeant Bottomley burst into the room.

‘We have heard all,' he said in a low voice, ‘and you are condemned out of your own mouth.'

She screamed – an appalling, animal sound – and ran frantically the length of the library, seeking escape. But when she reached the door that led into the conservatory, her way was blocked by the stolid figure of Inspector Jackson, who was flanked by two uniformed constables. Like me, Lady Carteret had walked into a trap, but it was one from which she would never escape.

She knew, then, that she had failed. I could hear Mr Jackson speaking, and assumed that he was making his formal arrest. Lady Carteret had fallen quiet, and allowed herself to be
manacled
without making an undignified fuss. Inspector Jackson and the two constables led her away.

The house was stirring, and a few weeping servants had made their appearance in the library, wondering what had happened to disturb the aristocratic tranquillity of Providence Hall.

I watched all this, paralysed and immobile, from the floor, where Michael had unceremoniously dropped me when Mr Bottomley had suddenly appeared. I wondered what Michael would do. He looked down at me, his face as white as parchment.

‘I'm sorry, Cath,' he whispered, ‘but you must see that I had no choice. Mother was so strong—'

He was given no chance to say more, for Sergeant Bottomley, his face convulsed with rage, felled him with one blow of his large fist. He roughly turned my unconscious fiancé over, pulled his arms behind him, and secured him with handcuffs. Then he picked me up effortlessly from the floor, and I saw the look of tender concern that dissipated the anger which he had saved up for Michael.

‘All will be well, my dear,' said Mr Bottomley, ‘asking pardon for being so familiar. They drugged you in that coffee, but the effects will wear off very soon. I'm going to take you right away from here to a place of safety nearby, and you can stay there until you're better.'

I could already feel some sensation returning to my limbs. My rescuer sensed this, and laid me down gently on a
chaise-longue
which stood against one of the walls. He rubbed the sleeve of his coat roughly across his eyes, and said, ‘I blame myself for this. I advised you to confide in that villain – that apology for a man – when I met you at Mayfield Court. “Tell your Michael all about it”, I said. And in saying that, I delivered you into the hands of your enemies.'

It was, I think, the tears that sprang to the sergeant's eyes that unloosed my tongue. I managed to whisper, ‘It was not your fault, dear Mr Bottomley. You have been my guardian all this time, and now, today, you have delivered me from the jaws of death!'

I can still recall with pleasure the feeling of relief when Sergeant Bottomley, accompanied by one of the two constables, conveyed me away from Providence Hall. They had summoned the little maid who had served us tea, and she had packed my things – I was still too weak to do this myself. Then they took me down to the forecourt, where a closed carriage was waiting, its lamps gleaming in the dark. I learned later that it belonged to Mr Bold, the rector of the parish, whom I had met at dinner: Inspector
Jackson knew him, and had prevailed upon him to lend his carriage for the occasion.

‘Were you in the house all along?' I asked.

‘I came into the house this afternoon,' said Mr Bottomley. ‘No one saw me, of course, because it's part of my work to get into places unseen. I located the bedroom where you were lying down, and when that precious mother and son came in to look at you, and gloat over what they were going to do, I hid at the side of the wardrobe until they'd gone out again—'

‘So it wasn't a dream! I heard you cross the room, and then thought I'd dreamed of those two talking about me as they leaned over the bed. What did you do then?'

‘When they left your room, I followed them without being seen, and heard them plan to take you into the library after dinner, and spirit you away through a staircase behind the panelling. I left them then, searched out that hidden staircase, and took up my position behind the door in the panelling. I heard every word that they spoke.'

‘And Inspector Jackson? Was he hiding in the house?'

‘Mr Jackson came to the front door, armed with warrants, and demanded entry. And that was the end of thirty years' planning, and plotting, and murder.'

We were driven no more than a quarter of a mile out of the village, along the darkened main road, when we turned left into a carriage drive. I looked out of the window and saw an array of lighted windows defining the front of a modern mock-Tudor house. Two gas globes glowed on either side of the front door.

‘Miss Paget,' said Sergeant Bottomley, who was sitting beside me, ‘this is Meadowfield School, a very high-class place where people of quality send their daughters to be educated. It was the school to which the child who passed herself off as Helen Paget, your little ghost, was sent.'

‘What happened to her?' I asked.

‘Well, she proved to be a first-rate pupil, and did very well. In
the end, she married a prosperous gentleman who lives in Birmingham, and she has two children of her own, who both go to schools like this.'

He was silent for a moment, and then added, ‘She came from the poorest of the poor, Miss Paget, and made a great success of her life. She was only eleven years old, too, when her adventure began, and I'm hoping to keep all mention of her out of the trial, when it takes place.'

I don't know why it was that I suddenly burst into
uncontrollable
tears at this point. Maybe it was all the talk of marriage and children, and lives fulfilled, and the sad knowledge that poor little Helen had never been given the chance to know these things herself.

Or maybe it was because I knew now how very much alone I was in the world. Not many girls had been engaged to a man who had all along accepted the possibility of her being murdered by his own mother, with his connivance. It was vile. I would never contemplate marriage again. I would live comfortably in my London house, with my housekeeper and servants, until one day I would be known as ‘the old maiden lady who lives in Saxony Square'.

The thought brought me little comfort, and I began a fresh bout of despairing tears. Mr Bottomley, throwing etiquette to the winds, put a brawny arm around my shoulders and patted me as though I were a baby. Which in some ways, of course, I was.

The carriage stopped, and I was helped down by the police constable who had driven us from Providence Hall. A pleasant, grey-haired lady stepped forward from the porch to receive me. She was wearing a black evening dress, with a fine cashmere shawl draped over her shoulders.

‘Miss Paget?' she asked. ‘I am Miss Jellicoe, Principal of Meadowfield School. My friend Mr Bottomley there wants you to stay with me until such time as you feel strong enough to return to London. Come inside out of the night air.'

I stayed in Miss Jellicoe's private quarters in the school for a week, after which time I felt able to return to London. I had very quickly determined not to make enquiry about this wretched Forshaw money that had led to so many deaths. I wanted none of it. My uncle's legacy was sufficient.

During my stay at the school, Mr Bottomley came and sat with me every day, and answered whatever questions came into my mind. He was a very kind, avuncular man – no, not avuncular: he was a fatherly man, with daughters of his own, who knew what a young woman would want to know. I asked him what would become of Lady Carteret.

‘Lady Carteret – she had so many names, miss,' Mr Bottomley replied. ‘Arabella Bancroft, then Mrs Temperley…. We found out that she was married first to a decent farmer called Colin Temperley. She had two children by him, Michael, your fiancé, and his sister, Marguerite. Colin was a good man, but his children inherited their mother's bad blood.