Lord of the Far Island (12 page)

In the afternoon Philip and I walked through the Park to Kensington Gardens. We skirted the Palace and watched the ducks on the Round Pond; then we walked back across the grass and sat by the Serpentine and talked. Philip was gay. At least he had no doubts, capable as he was of complete absorption in the moment. I remembered that even as children when we would be doing something which would assuredly bring us some punishment, he had never thought ahead. I have never known anyone who had such a capacity for living in and enjoying the moment. It is a great gift. Darling Philip, I was to be grateful later that he possessed it.

ix whole days,he was saying. t seems a lifetime. Il be glad when all the fuss is over. It won be long, Ellen, before wee sailing down the Grand Canal with our gondolier soothing us with his beautiful song. Aren you pleased?

f course. Itl be wonderful.

t was always us, wasn it? As soon as I came home from school I ask if you were there. Of course we always had to have Esmeralda trailing on, but I wanted to be with you in spite of that.

oue cruel to Esmeralda. In the first place you should have been kinder to her in your youth and in the second place you should have married her.

s wee not allowed two wives in this country and I already decided on you, how could I?

ou were always obstinate.

nd what of you? Ours will be a nice explosive union, Ellen. We shall argue and fight and make it up and love each other until the end of our days.

et try to do that, Philip,I said.

He took my hand and held it firmly.

e no qualms,he told me seriously.

t not too late to get out of it even now. If you like more time

ore time! I want less time. A week a hell of a long way off.

And so we chatted on that seat in the Park and afterwards I tried to remember every word that was said in case in that conversation there might have been some clue to what followed. Try as I might, I could remember nothing. It seemed to be the sort of conversation Philip and I had had a thousand times.

In the evening we went to church and afterwards I walked home with Cousin Agatha, Cousin William and Esmeralda. We retired early, for there was never entertaining on Sundays, and I sat by my window for some time looking out on the gardens and thinking that this time next week I should be married. Philip and I would be on our way to Venice.

I rose as usual without an inkling of what might have happened. Then Rollo rode over in the midmorning.

Rose, her face the color of chalk, came into my bedroom, where I was sorting out my clothes. Bessie was with her, peering from behind her back.

hat wrong?I said.

here been some accident. I don know rightly what, but Mr. Rollo Carrington here and he asking to see you.

I went down to the drawing room. Rollo was standing by the fireplace.

s anything wrong?I cried.

I saw his face thenale, drawn and anxious. He didn look like the Rollo I had known.

omething terrible has happened,he said. ou must try to be calm.

t Philip,I said.

es,he nodded. hilip.

e ill.

e dead.

hilipead! Oh no, that can be. How could it?

hilip was found dead this morning.

ut he wasn ill.

e was found shot.

hot! But who ?

Rollo shook his head slowly and sadly.

t appears the wound was self-inflicted,said Rollo.

I felt myself growing dizzy. Rollo caught me and held me for some moments until I regained my strength.

here a mistake,I said shrilly. don believe it.

o, alas. There is no mistake.

Everything was collapsing about me. It was like a bad dream. I wake up. I must. The world had become a strange place full of distorted nightmares. And the greatest of these was that with Rollo standing before me saying in a low tragic voice: hilip is dead. He took his own life.

What did it mean?

Dead Man Leap

I lay on my bed. I did not want to move. I couldn believe it. Philip dead! Philip who had been so full of life! It was impossible. And to take his own life. He, who had been so happy! Only the day before he had talked exuberantly of our future. What could have happened so suddenly to make him do such a thing?

Esmeralda came and sat by my bed. I wanted no one but I could just bear her. She was so quiet. She took a handkerchief soaked with eau de cologne and laid it on my forehead. I knew I should never smell that scent again without remembering this day.

I kept seeing Philip in scenes from the past. The day we set the fields on firehat mischief in his eyes! He had wanted to let it blaze for a while before we gave the alarm. How his eyes had shone! How they had danced! We be punished for this but let us enjoy it while it lasted. Philip at the dance, proposing to me, serious suddenly, assuring me that he would always look after me.

And now he had done this.

don believe it,I said. t not true. It can be.

Esmeralda said nothing. What was there to say?

A great deal would be said of course and they would soon start saying it.

That very day it was there in the newspaper, the great headlines: uicide of Bridegroom-to-Be. Six days before he was to have married Miss Ellen Kellaway, Philip, son of Josiah Carrington, took his own life. What is the story behind the tragedy?

Everyone believed that there was a story and that I was the one who held the vital clue.

Why should a young man who had every blessing shoot himself a few days before his wedding? It could only be that life had become too much for him to endure, so he had taken this way out. That he was to have been married in six daystime was the theme of the story.

I lay in my room, the Venetian blinds drawn to keep out the sun. The sun that could not warm the coldness that invaded me. I could not eat; I could not sleep. I could only lie on my bed in shocked stillness and ask myself: Why? Why?

Esmeralda told me what had happened. I commanded her to and in the same way that she had obeyed my orders when she was young she did now: e was shot with one of the guns from Trentham Towers. He must have brought it from there.

t not possible. That would mean that he had planned it.

She was silent and my mind went back to that occasion when I had been with him in the gun room at Trentham Towers. I remembered the satin-lined case and the silver-gray pistol which he had taken out and touched so lovingly. There had been an empty compartment in the case and he had talked, jokingly I had thought, about keeping a pistol under his pillow. What could he have meant? Was it really true that he had done this? Had he then been serious when he had talked of burglars? Even so, what could have possessed him to turn the pistol on himself? Was it possible that I, who had thought I knew him so well, had been mistaken? Was there a darker side to his nature which he had never allowed me to see? I could not believe it.

e couldn have killed himself!I cried out. e was talking to me only the day before. Imagine, Esmeralda, the despair a man must be in to take his own life! Can you imagine Philip ever in despair? I never saw him so. Did you? He wasn the sort of man who could hide his feelings. He never attempted to. I knew Philip. Nobody knew him better, and I say it impossible. I shall never believe it.

But it had happened.

Esmeralda said: he newspaper people have been here. They want to see you. Therel be an inquest. Youl have to go.

I roused myself. want to go,I said. want to discover the reason for this.

It was like a dream. I saw their faces Mr. Josiah Carrington looking unlike himself; his face pale and distorted with grief, Lady Emily more bewildered than ever with a tragic look in her eyes. And Rollo grown cold and stern; his eyes like ice; they looked searchingly at me, making me shiver.

There could only be one verdict. Suicide. I wanted to cry out my protest.

Not Philip! He never could. Anyone who knew him must be aware of that. But that was the court verdict.

There followed the funeral. I begged not to go. I just lay on my bed, weak from my emotions, lack of food and sleep.

other thinks you should go to the country,Esmeralda said. to go with you. The press keep calling. She says it better to go away for a while.

So we went and what a comfort Esmeralda was! I think in her mind was the belief that I had saved her from this ordeal and that she might so easily have been in my position if Philip had asked her to marry him as everyone had expected him to.

I felt a little better in the country, but I still could not sleep well. When I dozed I dreamed of Philip, the pistol in his hand and the blood on his bed. I dreamed too that other dream. I was in the room with the red carpet and the painting and Philip was with me.

He said to me: ou always felt the doom, didn you, Ellen? Well, now here it is. I deadI killed myself. I had to because I could not marry you.

I woke up calling out to him.

They were nightmare days.

I was in the country for two weeks and then Rollo came to Trentham Towers.

He walked over to see me. Esmeralda came to tell me he was there, and I went down into the small sitting room, and as he stood before me and bowed stiffly I thought how he had changed, as I must have done.

He insisted that we be alone that we might talk. He came straight to the point: want you to tell me why Philip killed himself,he said.

f only I knew.

on you know?he asked harshly.

ow could I? If I had known what he was going to do I would have found some way of stopping him.

here must have been something.

knew of nothing.

ho else would?

t must have been something he kept to himself.

e was not that sort of person.Rollo kept his eyes on me. here was simply no obvious reason. He had no anxieties. It must have been something in his private life, for he was never deeply involved in our business affairs. Are you absolutely sure that there were no differences between you? Because there appears to be no other reason why he could have taken his life.

His eyes were cold and I believed he hated me because he actually suspected that I was somehow involved in Philip death. It was more than I could bear.

I cried out: t was a greater shock to me than to you. I was to be his wife.

He came close to me, his lips tight, and I noticed that he clenched his hands tightly together as though he were suppressing an impulse to do me an injury, so much did he blame me for his brother death.

think you know something,he said.

have told you I have no idea how he could possibly have done such a thing.

t must have been something to do with you. Perhaps you had deceived him and he had discovered this. You betrayed him and this shattered him. He was very inexperienced of the world and he killed himself rather than face the consequences of what you had done.

ou can believe such nonsense. It lieswicked cruel lies.

ho was the man I found with you in the house in Finlay Square?

ow should I know who he is? He said he was a connection of yours.

ou know that untrue.

hen who was he?

e was a friend of yours presumably.

tell you, I don know who he is. He was at the recital at your home and then he came to the house to look at it. That all I know of him.

Rollo looked skeptical. ow did he get into the house?

e told you. He got the key from the house agent.

know too much, Ellen. I have made it my business to find out. He met you there by appointment and I came in and surprised you.

hat monstrous.

can only draw the obvious conclusions. You had one key, Philip had the other, which I used. There was no third key. I spoke to the agent and asked him why he had given that man a key and he said he had given a key to no one but ourselves. There was only one way that man could have got into the house. You let him in. Don lie to me any more, but don be surprised if when you refuse to tell me the truth I draw my own conclusions.

his is nonsense,I cried. did not let him into the house. I was as surprised to see him as you were. He did have a key and the agent is lying.

Rollo rose. would have respected you more had you confessed the truth. You were obviously very friendly with this man. I believe that this is at the root of the mystery and you know the answer. Philip died because of something you had done to him and you are responsible for his death.

ow can you! How dare you! It such lies.

o many lies have been told, I can see. But Philip is dead now. I wish to God he had never seen you.

Then he went and I think that was the most unhappy time I had ever lived through.

I was desolate. I had lost Philip and with him everything. I could have borne this better if it were not for the fact that Rollo despised me and suspected me so cruelly and unfairly of knowing something, of doing something, of being something I was not. He would not believe that Philip death was as much a mystery to me as it was to him.

I went for long walks but there was no comfort. There I had been with Philip. There was hardly any spot in the neighborhood which had not been one of our haunts. I rode out alone although Esmeralda always tried to accompany me, but then I would come to the inn where Philip and Ir perhaps the three of us but I suppose neither of us gave much thought to Esmeraldaad stopped for cider and a sandwich. There was the old smithy who had shoed our horses. He called a greeting to me as I passed, but his eyes were downcast and he did not know what to say. It was the same in the village where they had known us as children. They looked at me covertly and I knew the question which was in all their minds: Why had Philip killed himself? It was something to do with me. He would rather die than marry me. That was the inference everyone was putting on it.

I couldn resist going to Dead Man Leap. There I would sit on the old wooden seat and brood over the many times when Philip and I had played in the woods from which we had emerged with a reluctant Esmeralda and forced her to witness our bravery in standing on the edge.

. Dead Man Leap! I thought a great deal about people who had found life so intolerable that they wanted to end it and I wondered what their tragedies had been to bring them to such a pass. One thing I was certain of. Philip had never been in that state. He could not have killed himself. But that had been the verdict. Why? Had I really known that boy with whom I had shared my childhood? Does one person ever really know another. I had always thought Philip was easy to understand. He said what was in his mind and rarely paused to think what effect his words might have. He was easygoing, good-tempered, a little lazy perhaps, eager for the good things of life but not liable to make any effort to get them, the son of a rich family who had never really lacked anything he wanted. That was how I had thought of Philip, but how much had I known of what lurked in the dark recesses of his mind?