Obsession (30 page)

Paul might have succeeded in putting all such fears to the back of his mind had not Edgerton, when the couple finally joined him for tea, talked of the illness that had been affecting Harriet and three of their servants. The doctor, Brook told him, had suggested that an animal might have fallen into the well and contaminated their water supply, but he himself had not been infected.

‘At one point,’ Brook elaborated, ‘one of the young maids nearly died.’

Paul was gripped once more with frightening doubts. There could be no reason for Felicity to harm a servant, he told himself, but had she been trying to divert any suspicion that Harriet was her target? Again he fought against his irrational fear for his sister’s sanity – something which he knew had once been questioned all those years ago. He tried to argue against such thoughts, telling himself that if Edgerton wished to be free to marry Felicity, then he had only to divorce his wife. As for his ongoing relationship with Felicity, he had only ever shown a friendly affection for her.

Quite suddenly Paul was stuck by a frightening thought.
Was this where the trouble lay?
Felicity had always craved those few things in life denied to her. If her desires were not fulfilled, she had flown into ungovernable rages. As a child when he had refused to give her one of his possessions she had flown at him, swearing, hitting him, even biting him in the hope of making him hand over what she wanted. Such tantrums had continued until their doting father promised to buy her whatever she wanted which, as often as not, she ceased to want once it belonged to her. Could Edgerton’s unavailability have aroused that dangerous, obsessive determination to fulfil her desires?

Paul’s uneasy speculations continued into the night, preventing sleep. Something, he knew, needed to be done before anything dreadful could happen: but what? Would he be able to entice her to go abroad with him? Could he take her on a prolonged holiday during which there would be time for her passions to cool? Fortuitously, his fiancée was about to return to France to see her parents after their engagement was made official, partly to visit her many relatives but also, he suspected, to give her time to ascertain that she had made the right choice of husband.

The following morning he put the idea of a holiday to Felicity. ‘You never did take that steamship passage to America you promised yourself,’ he said, ‘and I have been thinking that once my dearest Denise and I are married next year, I will not be available as I am now to escort you. Or, if you preferred, we could do a tour of Europe or, perhaps more exciting, travel to Egypt and see the pyramids.’

Felicity shook her head. ‘I don’t have the slightest wish to go anywhere, Paul,’ she told him, ‘though I thank you for the offer. I have a number of plans for the next few months which will occupy me here.’ And she changed the subject.

Paul stayed on a further two weeks longer than he had planned in order to visit the Edgertons with Felicity, in the hope of reassuring himself that his suspicions were totally unfounded. Although he thought that Harriet seemed quiet and rather pale, Brook seemed reasonably attentive to her, much as any normal husband might be, and there was no indication of any serious discord between them, although there had been a certain coolness, nonetheless. He was further reassured when a servant arrived at Melton Court with a letter from Brook saying he would not be able to meet up with Paul for some time as he had just learned he must sail at once to Jamaica where there had been another serious outbreak of trouble at their plantation.

If, Paul had told himself, Felicity had been planning in some way or another to tempt Edgerton into an affair, she would have no opportunity for some time to come. As for any intention to harm Harriet, he had convinced himself that he’d been out of his mind even to have entertained such an idea. Furthermore, he’d spoken to Simkins about the arsenic, and the butler had suggested that one of the maids cleaning the room before it had been closed up might have found it and locked it safely away.

It was, therefore, in a far calmer frame of mind that Paul returned to London.

If Felicity was devastated by the news of Brook’s sudden departure, Harriet was even more so. She was now reasonably certain that the cause of her sickness was that yet again she was pregnant. She knew exactly when she must have conceived – the night Brook had come to her bed and wordlessly, without love, forced himself upon her.

She had been waiting for the right moment to tell him of her condition, hoping desperately that the news might heal the dreadful rift between them. On the contrary, when Brook told her his father expected him to take responsibility once again for their plantations, he had said in a cold, hard voice,

‘I trust when I return home this time, Harriet, that you will not have another unacceptable and unwelcome shock for me.’ Without looking at her, he’d added, ‘I shall be taking Hastings with me, of course, and I have informed Fletcher not to expect me back for at least two, if not three, months.’

Two days after his departure, when Felicity came to see her, Harriet gave way freely to the tears she had been too proud to shed in Brook’s presence.

‘I have made up my mind,’ she told the woman she considered to be her best friend and confidante, ‘to go away myself. I cannot stay here in this house watching the days pass slowly by waiting for Brook’s return. I am leaving next week with Bessie and Charlie to stay with my sister in Ireland. It will make up a little for the disappointment we both felt when I was unable to receive her at Easter.’

Felicity regarded her in dismay. ‘You cannot go away …’ she began and added quickly, ‘that is to say, you have not been well and …’

She broke off as Harriet interrupted with a wan smile. ‘Dearest Felicity, I have not had an illness,’ she said. ‘I am certain that I am pregnant. I only realized it when I missed the second time.’

Mistaking the look of disbelief followed quickly by anger on Felicity’s face for one of concern, she added: ‘I know I lost my last baby on that fateful journey to Ireland, but I shall not go unprotected this time. I shall take one of the footmen with me, armed if he thinks fit. Believe me, I shall be quite safe as it is another six or seven months at least before I have this baby …’

She broke off to take hold of Felicity’s hands. ‘I now have hope, dearest! Don’t you see, I can hope that the arrival of his child will soften Brook’s heart. His absence may also do so, and we shall be reconciled. I shall get well in Ireland with my sister, regain my looks, I trust, and when I return, I shall hope you will see me looking my old self again.’

It was only with huge self-control that Felicity managed to conceal her desperate dismay. She declined to stay for luncheon, summoned her groom and as soon as she could decently do so, she rode home. Once there, she gave way to her fury, shouting at her staff, trashing the drawing room and turning the meal her cook had prepared for her upside down on the table. It was not the behaviour of a gentlewoman, but Felicity did not care. Only later, as she grew calmer, did she decide that whilst both Brook and Harriet were away she might as well accept her brother’s invitation to take her travelling. His fiancée was conveniently away visiting relatives in France, and after the engagement party Paul would not be seeing her at least until Christmas.

Harriet, she told herself, should make the most of these extra weeks of life whilst she was travelling with Paul. It was only the time of her death which had had to be postponed.

F
elicity’s enjoyment of her European tour in Paul’s company had been tempered by thoughts and dreams of Brook. Wherever they visited, there was always something which reminded her of him – a man’s tall figure crossing St Mark’s Square in Venice; the sound of a similar voice to his in a restaurant in Paris; a stallion in Vienna identical to Brook’s favourite mount.

She was tormented, too, by her failure to succeed in poisoning Harriet, although not altogether surprised. She had read in her father’s medical directory that arsenic was sometimes administered medicinally, but in the book the amount to be used was obscure. She did learn that if a person had been given a regular amount and it was suddenly ceased, it could be very dangerous, but because she had not been able to visit Harriet on a regular basis, she’d had no chance of administering it daily. Moreover, before leaving England, she had been forced to face the fact that she could not use poison again when she returned home. Paul had told her he’d found the bottle of arsenic and disposed of it. He had not overtly accused her of secreting it in the desk, but she’d had the impression he believed it to be so. She wondered uneasily if he suspected her of using it, although it had occurred to her that this was the reason he had persuaded her to accompany him on the lengthy holiday abroad. Newly engaged as he was, with an engagement party in a few months’ time, it had struck her as strange.

Sometimes, on a wakeful night, she would question whether Harriet had ever suspected that the fruit and sweetmeats she had given her were contaminated. Why else would the other members of the Edgerton staff have fallen ill unless Harriet had sent some of them untouched down to the kitchen? On those sleepless nights, Felicity also had doubts about Ellen – whether she’d guessed that she, Felicity, was responsible for Harriet’s occasional bouts of sickness.

During the daytime, it had been possible with so many new sights, new people and new countries to occupy her mind – for her to forget the precarious position she would be in if Ellen were to betray her; but in the early hours, unable to sleep, she realized that she had laid herself open to blackmail. When she had first decided to use Ellen to spy on Harriet and Brook, she’d banked on the maid’s obsessive wish to improve her sister’s situation. However unnerving though this thought was, Felicity’s longing to see Brook again invariably pushed such anxiety to the back of her mind.

As the weeks of the holiday passed, Felicity’s unease grew in proportion to her compelling desire to go home. Moving from place to place as she and Paul were doing, they’d had no contact with home other than when Paul telegraphed his office in order to update himself as to the firm’s current affairs. As far as Felicity knew, Harriet was still in Ireland, but surely, she thought, both Harriet and Brook must return home soon, if they had not already done so.

In the meantime, Paul had not only grown tired of his sister’s company despite their interesting surroundings and changes of venues, but he was anxious to return to his fiancée in London. He knew Denise would have finished visiting her family and be wondering where he was. Although he had sent her postcards from every place he and Felicity had visited, he wanted his pretty French fiancée back in his arms. He made no objection, therefore, when Felicity expressed her desire to go home.

Felicity would have been even more desirous of returning to England had she known that Brook, too, was on his way home from Jamaica. He had sent a telegram to Fletcher advising him of his imminent arrival so that the staff had the house in readiness. He was unaware of whether Harriet was still in Ireland with her sister, but his pride forbade him telling Fletcher to alert Harriet of his homecoming.

Fletcher assumed his mistress would likewise have received a similar telegram from the master, but having had no instructions from her he thought he should enquire if there were any particular preparations she might wish him to make. A telegram in reply to his arrived by return from Harriet saying she was about to leave Ireland and wished him to instruct Jenkins to have the carriage waiting at Clarence Dock to meet the ferry from Dublin in three days’ time.

Thus it was that three days later, with Bessie and Charlie beside her, Harriet’s coach approached Hunters Hall. The cold winter months had given way to spring, and as Jenkins turned the horses’ heads into the driveway, she could see the delicate green of the beech trees in the surrounding woods of the Edgerton estate, and a few minutes later the lovely red bricks of the house, glowing in the sunshine, came into view.

Her heart filled with a mixture of excitement and fear. Was Brook already home? Would he be pleased to see her? Or would he still be as unforgiving as when he had departed to Jamaica? Despite the heart-warming company of Una and her family, he had been constantly in her mind. As if mirroring her thoughts, beside her Charlie was now demanding excitedly, ‘Is Papa home? Shall we see Papa? Can I show him my new clockwork monkey? Will he see how I am growed?’

Bessie removed his hat from his brown curls and smiled at Harriet. ‘I’m sure I don’t know where he gets his energy from!’ she remarked, smiling. ‘You’d think as how he’d be tired after all that long journey!’

Harriet returned Bessie’s smile and replied to her son, ‘If Papa is not out riding, or visiting Grandfather, I expect we shall see him.’ Her heart was beating furiously in anticipation as the coach pulled up outside the front door and Fletcher came out to greet them.

Harriet lifted the little boy down into Fletcher’s waiting arms.

‘We are expecting the master back this afternoon, madam,’ Fletcher told her as he followed her into the house. ‘We had a telegram from him saying their ship had arrived on time; that Hastings was hiring a coach and they hoped to be home before dark.’

Following Fletcher into the house, Harriet reflected happily that she would have time now to change from her travelling clothes into something pretty. Una’s dressmaker had made her a lovely sky-blue Princess gown, and Ellen would have plenty of time to iron out any creases.

An hour later, feeling entirely refreshed after her holiday in Ireland, despite the long journey, Harriet went down to the drawing room to have tea and await Brook’s return. She had finished her tea by the time she heard the sound of horses’ hooves, and she hurried to the window. The carriage drew to a halt by the front steps, and with Hastings following him, she saw Brook spring down from the coach, cross the terrace and disappear through the front door.

Suddenly shy, a confusion of pleasure and fear engulfing her, she remained at the drawing-room window, not going into the hall as she would have liked to do. She longed to be able to throw herself into his arms but knew she must not. It was now eight long weeks since she had set eyes on him, yet it seemed a lifetime. Although she had been happy at Una’s house, which in many ways had become almost a second home, she was always haunted by the look on Brook’s face when he had accused her of lying to him, and cheating him; she knew that he would never trust her again, perhaps never learn to love Charlie again.