Obsession (15 page)

Harriet smiled as she pulled the bell rope to summon Albert. There were few women who would mention the words ‘water closet’ in their hostesses’ drawing room!

Felicity Goodall was not smiling as she made her way upstairs. She had arranged on her arrival that Harriet’s maid, Ellen, would wait for her in Harriet’s dressing room where she could speak with her privately. Ellen was now standing with her back to the large wardrobe containing her mistress’ gowns. She dropped a quick curtsy as Felicity hastily closed the door behind her. From the pocket in her dove-grey foulard skirt, Felicity drew out a half crown and placed it in the maid’s open hand, saying sharply, ‘You have a fortnight’s report to make to me. What have you to tell me?’

Pausing a minute before replying, Ellen’s thoughts winged back – as they often did – to the day she had been selected by Mrs Felicity Goodall as the most promising candidate for the position of the lady’s maid to her friend, Mrs Edgerton. There were several other candidates – some with far more promising backgrounds and experience than herself, yet she had been the only one to be interviewed by Mrs Goodall.

She had not realized until later why she had been chosen. It was for no other reason than that she had admitted her financial circumstances, and her determination to improve her sister’s life. She had declared that she did not mind how many hours she would be required to work, or what tasks she might be asked to do, provided she was suitably rewarded.

It was at that juncture Mrs Goodall had fed her a fictitious story about the need to keep a close eye on her friend, Mrs Brook Edgerton: how she had once tried to kill herself following a series of miscarriages. It was imperative, she told Ellen, to ensure at all times that the young mother remained on loving terms with her husband. She, Ellen, must keep secret watch upon the couple, and report the facts personally to her. She would be rewarded for the additional time this might incur.

It had been less than six months before she, Ellen, had realized the real reason why the woman who was secretly doubling her pay wanted such information: she had fallen passionately in love with the husband and was waiting only for some discord or other in order to be able to step into the wife’s shoes.

Ellen herself did not dislike Harriet, and the husband, Mr Brook Edgerton, was always polite and pleasant on the few times she saw him, so she was quite pleased to see that they remained devoted to one another. On the other hand, she realized that she could extort a great deal more money from Mrs Goodall if things started to go wrong between them, and she needed more. Her sister had been unwell and required a doctor’s attention on several occasions, which had made inroads into Ellen’s precious savings.

‘I am awaiting your answer, Ellen!’ Felicity was saying sharply, hoping that for once the woman had something to tell her. But Ellen’s face remained impassive.

‘I’m afraid I have little to tell you, madam,’ she said in level tones, wondering at the same time why she had not long since given up hope of her, Ellen, discovering any discord between husband and wife. No couple could be more devoted, and both were totally besotted with their little boy.

Ellen herself
was not fond of children, and had never wished to marry and have a family. All she had ever wanted since the day her younger sister had been run over by a carriage and so badly injured that she had been physically handicapped was to make Susan’s life as bearable as possible. Nearly all of the money Ellen earned went to pay the rent for the two cold, damp basement rooms in London where her sister lived out her purposeless life. One day, Ellen had vowed, she would have saved enough money to buy a little bungalow by the seaside, where they both could live; take in a lodger, perhaps, to help make ends meet.

‘The master is still sharing madam’s bed each night,’ she reported. ‘As you asked me to do, I always take note of the bed after I have dressed madam and she has gone downstairs and it is always in its usual state of disarray. Jenny tells me that when she comes up in the morning with madam’s hot chocolate she quite often finds them with their arms about one another if they haven’t heard her knock on the door.’

Felicity frowned. ‘So there is still no marital discord!’ she muttered. ‘As you know, Ellen, I expect you to tell me immediately if they disagree with one another or quarrel in your hearing. Are you taking note of any gossip in the kitchen about them?’

Ellen’s face remained expressionless as she replied in level tone, ‘Yes, madam! I am obeying your instructions precisely.’ She paused, looking down at her hands before adding in a quiet tone. ‘It is not my place to comment, madam, but I think I should say that it seems to me as if they are still very much in love.’

It was a moment or two before Felicity, her forehead creased in a frown, said sharply, ‘Perhaps you are not present when they have disagreements, Ellen. You should keep better watch upon them. I will pay extra if this requires more of your time.’

Ellen’s face remained impassive. ‘Do you wish me to enquire if any of the staff have seen …’

‘Certainly not!’ Felicity interrupted sharply. ‘I do not wish anyone but you to know I am concerned. Your position here is important to me for reasons I have no intention of explaining to you. All I require of you is that you will continue to do your best to observe any discord between the couple, and report it to me. Now give me my cloak and hurry yourself. I have been here quite long enough.’

Without bothering to say goodbye, she opened the door and made her way back downstairs. She did not, therefore, see the look of scorn on the Ellen’s face as she muttered to herself, ‘She wants him, wants the master, and the only way she can hope to get him is if he turns against the mistress – but why should he? She dotes on him every bit as much as he dotes on her. Not that I care if Her Ladyship chooses to waste her money in the hope they will start quarrelling or lose their interest in their marital pleasures. So long as she continues to pay me, I’ll do what she asks and keep my mouth shut.’

She would, she told herself, do anything within reason to be able to move her crippled sister to the seaside. Ellen went down the backstairs to the kitchen in the hope that the delicious-smelling game pie Cook had baked for luncheon had not all been eaten, and that Mr Fletcher would permit her to sit down belatedly at the servants table and eat what remained. Mr Fletcher was the undisputed head of the Edgerton household staff and a man not to be argued with. His rule over all the servants prevailed; he was only unable to control Ellen’s movements when her mistress required her services.

One thought always uppermost in Ellen’s mind was that she would do anything required of her that would not put her job in jeopardy – anything that the lovesick Mrs Felicity Goodall required in return for the much-needed addition to her present pay.

Returning downstairs to the drawing room, Felicity put her arms round Harriet’s shoulders and, thanking her for an enjoyable afternoon, kissed her warmly goodbye. She would have liked to have kissed Brook, too, but knew she could not do this casually as if she were no more than a close friend. For the time being, no one in the world, last of all Harriet, must know that she had fallen hopelessly in love. It was the first time in her life that Felicity had ever been in love. Despite being the daughter of one of the richest men in the country, the fortune her father had left her and Paul could not buy Brook for her. As she rode home with her groom, Felicity contemplated the fact that it had almost ceased to be a pleasurable excitement standing close to Brook, feeling his lips on her hand when he greeted her, being in his arms for the duration of an old-fashioned waltz on one memorable evening at a New Year’s Eve ball. Her marriage had been virtually barren. Her late husband, a heavy drinker, was almost incapable of enjoying a normal husband’s pleasure in his wife’s body. When he had done so, there had been no enjoyment in it for her, nor any desire for it, but even standing close to Brook Edgerton was enough to set her heart racing and her knees to tremble. It was only with enormous self-control that she had been able to appear no more than a good-natured, amusing friend and neighbour.

There had been moments, Felicity thought as Melton Court came into sight, when she’d felt a sudden frisson of fear that Harriet might see or sense the effect Brook had upon her: but she circumvented any such suspicion by flirting very obviously not only with him, but with any other man in her vicinity. She played the part of a merry widow, as her brother called her, and was unfailingly welcomed as a friend, not least by Brook. It was, however, never less than painfully obvious to her that, even at the end of a happy afternoon riding side by side, he was always in a hurry to get back to his wife.

P
aul Denning was a cheerful, likeable fellow and Brook, who was much the same age, enjoyed his company. From time to time when Brook was in London on business, he would dine with Paul at his London house in Cadogan Square. He was, too, impressed by the way Denning had made himself responsible in many ways for his widowed sister.

On the last occasion, after Brook had left the house to return to his club for the night, Paul found himself harping back over the past. He poured himself another glass of port and carried it slowly up to his bedroom. He had, with some difficulty, refrained from confiding in Brook the reason for his exceptional mindfulness of his sister.

In the days of their childhood they had lived with their parents in Stockton, a seaport over two hundred miles from London. Their father, Matthew Denning, had started work as a boy in the ship-building industry and became more and more interested in the development of the Stockton-and-Darlington Railway where they had produced the first train to carry passengers as well as goods to the capital.

With single-minded purpose, Matthew Denning had over the years worked himself up to a senior position. Convinced that it would be only a matter of time before railways were constructed all over the country, he saved as much money as he could and invested it in rail transport shares. By the time he was fifty, he was a very wealthy man.

It was then that Matthew Denning had married a woman twenty years younger than himself, and a year later, fathered Paul. The following year his wife died following the birth of a baby girl.

From stories Paul’s father had told him, Paul knew how perilous the life of his little sister, Felicity, had been. Only the constant care of an experienced wet nurse had saved the baby’s life although, at first, they feared she would be mentally handicapped. Two more years passed before she suddenly started speaking and taking note of what went on around her. By the time she was five years old, she was not unlike other children of her age, although considerably more active than they were. ‘Hyperactive’ was the phrase their doctor had used to describe her behaviour.

Matthew Denning was by then rich enough to move himself and his family south, where he bought the imposing Melton Court, a large, red-brick mansion set in established grounds, sent Paul to one of the best public schools and hired a governess – an impoverished gentleman’s widow – to tutor his daughter and teach her the manners pertaining to the class of society which he intended to infiltrate.

Away as often as not at school, Paul only learned much later of some of his young sister’s transgressions. Hopelessly spoilt by her indulgent father, she expected all her likes and dislikes to be met without delay. At the age of twelve she was so resentful of her governess’s discipline that she began putting tiny amounts of juice, from the poisonous berries she had squeezed from deadly nightshade berries she had found in the hedgerows, into the unfortunate woman’s food. It was her unlucky victim who had warned her about the dangerous effects they produced. Felicity had made no excuse when confronted with the failed attempt to kill her governess. As she was still quite young, their father had shrugged off the matter, saying Felicity would have had no idea that her childish ‘prank’, as he called it, could have such very serious consequences – might even have killed her. The governess was dismissed with a handsome remuneration for the shock she had received, and Felicity was cautioned never again to ignore grown-ups’ warnings about dangerous substances.

With Felicity being so young, it was not long before the whole episode was forgotten. Seeing no further need for his pretty daughter to have an extensive education, Matthew Denning did not replace the governess but arranged for her to be tutored three hours a day by the local curate – he was unaware that Felicity ran rings around the young fellow and seldom completed the homework he set for her. When she reached the age of fifteen he finally sent her to a select finishing school.

Other incidents of a less serious nature than that of the governess had followed when Felicity reached her teens. She was a highly strung, vivacious, energetic girl, always laughing and singing if she were not having one of her tantrums, which occurred when she could not get her own way. She was popular with the various girls of her own age at the finishing school and had many friends. Paul, by then up at Oxford, was proud of the compliments his university friends paid his sister, and their father boasted his daughter would have no problem finding a husband when she came of age.

Only Paul, when home for the holidays, was aware of Felicity’s dark moods: days when for some reason or other she could not achieve what she happened to want, and would fly into an ungovernable temper. On one occasion she had even threatened to kill him because he would not agree to include her when he went with a group of friends to ski in the French Alps. At the time he was hard put to shrug off the episode, having been quite frightened by the look on his sister’s face as she threatened him, brandishing one of their father’s ornamental swords as she did so.

On another occasion, Felicity had run over one of the dogs in the governess cart to whom she had taken a dislike. She claimed it was an accident, but having seen the incident from a window, Paul knew it had been quite deliberate. Deeply concerned about these incidents, he had consulted with his father as to whether the unfortunate start to his sister’s life could have affected her brain in some way. Matthew Denning, now a very sick man on the verge of death, refused even to consider such a thing, telling Paul that females were known to have what he called ‘funny turns’ at certain times of the month, as Paul would discover for himself when eventually he was married, and he should be more tolerant.