02 - Flight of Fancy (17 page)

A week went by. It was quiet.
Clara went to her office but there were no clients waiting for her. Instead she
found on her desk an envelope addressed to her in a hand she faintly
recognised. She opened it and a cheque fell out. She looked at the amount and
shook her head in alarm.

“Far too much you silly man.”
She now recognised the hand as that of O’Harris.

There was a letter accompanying
the cheque. She unfolded it.

Dearest Clara,

You will swear when you see
the cheque, yes I know you shall, but it is all yours for a job well done, even
if the answers stung a little. I can never express my gratitude for solving
this mystery, you may not believe that but I mean it. The truth, though horrid
at first, is better than lie after lie. I am sorry for what my father did, I
will never understand how he could arrange such an evil thing. All I can say is
they were not the actions of the man I remember. Maybe you were right, maybe it
was the cancer.

I take flight once again
tomorrow. By now you are sure to know Tommy has not come with me, please
forgive me for lying to you, I did not do it out of wickedness, but to be loyal
to a friend. Yes, I consider Tommy a friend and you too Clara. I am
extraordinarily pleased I met you two. Tommy has made me laugh and smile and
reminded what it is to be alive in the world again and you Clara, you have
given me something to be alive for. A ray of hope, call it, if you will. When I
soar in Buzzard tomorrow I expect to see you waving and I shall think of you
throughout my flight. When I land I shall declare I did this challenge because
of the wonderful woman called Clara Fitzgerald and you will be furious to have
your name brandished in the New York Times, I am sure!

Please forgive me for that
too!

One last thing before I
leave off and try to gain a few hours sleep. All this talk of Florence over the
last few weeks made me think and I searched this house from top to bottom to
find anything I might have missed. I thought it might help you. Well I found
this letter, it had slipped down the back of Florence’s bedside table. I’m
afraid I was cowardly Clara and could not give it to you at first, but I
somehow doubt the information has passed you by. I enclose the letter with this
one, for you to read at your leisure. When I return, please say no more about
it. Some things are best left unspoken.

Take care Clara, I’ll see
you in week or two

Fond Regards

Captain John O’Harris

Clara found the letter
unsettling. She couldn’t explain why. It spoke so cheerfully and happily,
almost a promise to return, yet that dread had engulfed her again. She put it
to one side and shook off the thoughts.

Her attention fell on the
second letter that had accompanied O’Harris’. The envelope was addressed to
Florence and before she read the contents she quickly looked for the author.
Oscar O’Harris’ signature, painfully drawn by a hand trembling from the disease
about to snatch him away, appeared at the bottom. Clara’s mouth went dry as she
began to read.

Dear Florence,

This is a bitter-sweet
missive. You have no time for me, of that I am acutely aware and I assure you,
dear lady, I feel a similar regard for you. So it pains me little to write what
I must and inform you of your husband’s actions.

I have instructed my
solicitor to give you this upon my death. Consider it a parting gift. For
appearances’ sake I have also left you a little something, we must not have the
family’s reputation tainted, after all. I wonder if you will stand at my
funeral Florence? No doubt you shall, for to do otherwise would be to cast
shame on the O’Harris name.

Not that my beloved brother
Goddard has not already done that. I hope you show him this and I hope he has
the gall to deny my words, no matter if he does, the truth is plain enough. I
have been a fool, a stupid cuckold.

My only son and heir, a boy
I have deeply loved and adored as a gift from God, is a contemptible joke. That
I believed, (yes believed!) that I might actually have sired an heir despite
what the doctors had told me sickens me, but not as much as it shall sicken
you. I want you to join me in my suffering Florence, I want you to know my
spite as I have known yours – the silences, the unspoken comments, the looks! I
have seen them, you cannot deny them!

So now it is my turn. Upon
her deathbed, my darling and beloved wife, who I cherished beyond anything,
perhaps beyond what I should have, confessed to me the most awful of sins. Our
son, who I praised each day as a miracle, was never our son. He was the son of
Susan O’Harris and Goddard O’Harris.

Does that news make your
stomach turn as it did mine? Does it make you stop and think about the ‘doting
uncle’ act he played all those years? He knew, of course, he knew! He treated
John just like a son because he was his son!

So here is my revenge. I
only hope there is an afterlife so I might watch you read this. I shall take
little pleasure, however, for I have been as big a fool as you. We are even now,
Florence, and I am weary of the battle that rages within me.

Don’t blame John, that is
all I beg of you. He has nothing after I am gone and I rely on you and Goddard
to watch over him. How ironic I insult you and then ask for help? But it is not
for me, it is for Goddard’s son.

Farewell dear sister-in-law.
I have no more words for you.

             Oscar O’Harris.

Clara’s heart was thudding in
her chest as she sat down, the letter drifting from her fingers.

“He knows.” And what a way he
had learned the news; in a spiteful and cruel letter written by the man he had
called father all his life.

Poor O’Harris. She shut her
eyes, trying the impossible, to imagine what it must feel like to discover your
father is not the man you had thought he was all these years.

Silently she stood, retrieved
her belongings and headed for home. She couldn’t let this strange mixture of
misery and shock simmer inside while she was trapped at her office. She would
head home and show the letter to Tommy, and ask him if he had had any indication
that O’Harris knew. She tried to ignore the uneasy feeling in her stomach as
she hurried home.

“Tommy?” She went into the
drawing room, then the front parlour, “Tommy?”

“Kitchen, Clara!”

She followed his voice.

“I found a letter on my desk
from O’Harris, Tommy it is awful but he knows…” She paused just inside the
kitchen.

Tommy was at the table and
Colonel Brandt was with them. Annie was making strong tea and gave Clara a
fraught look as she entered. There was a newspaper on the table.

“First news from America.”
Tommy said, “About O’Harris.”

Clara thought he looked
disappointed.

“He didn’t break the record.”

“No Miss Fitzgerald, no he
didn’t.” Brandt shook his head sadly.

There was a long pause.

“Clara, the White Buzzard took
a dive into the Atlantic.” Tommy explained gently, “When it didn’t arrive in
America as expected the coastal authorities sent out a search party. They found
Vauxhall Digby, the co-pilot, half-drowned but alive floating in his life
jacket.”

“But O’Harris…” Clara didn’t
need the answer, she had known it would be like this all along.

“They haven’t found him. They
presume him drowned.” Tommy unfolded the paper carefully, “Digby says they hit
an unexpected patch of bad weather which blew them off course and then the
engine started to smoke. O’Harris tried all he could but something had choked
the engine and the Buzzard just dropped like a stone.”

“Those are the hazards of
flying.” Clara took a seat stiffly, she felt too calm at the news, too
resigned. It scared her.

“Clara, I’m so glad you
persuaded me not to go.” Tommy was chewing on his lip anxiously, “If I had been
in that plane, I… I would have drowned. With my bad legs and all.”

“You weren’t on the plane.”
Annie appeared and comforted him stoically, “You weren’t meant to be on it.”

“Digby will be all right?”
Clara felt like someone else was talking in her voice, she felt distant and
hollow.

“He will be fine, doctors say
he has a slight case of exposure from being out in the sea, but nothing that
won’t improve with rest.”

“This is a very sad day.”
Brandt said to no one in particular.

“Digby had a wife and kids, so
at least he made it.” Tommy said, “Clara, I’m…”

“Don’t say anything, please.”
Clara stood and left the room. She went to her bedroom and lay on the bed
staring at the ceiling.

“I wasn’t in love with him.”
She told the air in the room, “Not like that. But I liked his friendship.”

She rolled over and peered at
the picture frames on her bedside cabinet. Her mother and father on their
wedding day looked at her smiling and Tommy in his army uniform. Why did this
hurt so much? He was no more than an acquaintance, that was all.

For a long time she felt numb
and unsure of herself. Then a strange coil of anxiety tweaked at her
conscience. She had known, hadn’t she? She had felt this fate coming, felt the
dread twisting her nerves and telling her it was all wrong. It was nonsense, of
course, just the natural fears of the unknown, but what if… What if she could
have saved him?

She shut her eyes and tried to
escape into darkness, but there O’Harris seemed stronger than ever, his voice
ringing out loudly,
well detective, you didn’t do a good job of deciphering
this, huh?

“Go away.” She hissed to
herself, but the ghost of O’Harris loitered glaring at her until she opened her
eyes and realised she had been lying there so long the afternoon was turning to
evening.

Clara forced herself to get up.
She would not be crippled by guilt over O’Harris, not when it was his own
foolish decision to get in a plane and fly. She could not have convinced him to
cancel the flight anyway, she had no power over him.

Clara made her way downstairs
and into the dining room where there was a faint aroma of roast beef. Annie was
just arranging the food on the table before she called everyone. She glanced up
at Clara.

“I thought I might have to
fetch you. Feel better?”

“I don’t know.” Clara took her
usual place at the table and noticed there was an extra setting.

“I asked Colonel Brandt to stay
for dinner.” Annie told her, “The poor man doesn’t have a soul at home except a
housekeeper and that club is no place when you are feeling sorry for yourself.”

Annie gave a look as if a club
was a filthy place that she would never deem to enter even if she was allowed.

“I have no objections.” Clara
assured her.

“Good, because I thought you
would do the same had you been here.” Annie finished with setting out the food
as she liked and then fussed with the tablecloth awkwardly, “Did you care for
him?”

Clara raised and lowered her
shoulders, but it was not exactly a shrug.

“That Oliver Bankes is a nice
fellow.” Annie continued.

It actually brought a
half-smile to Clara’s face.

“I know Annie.”

“I can’t say as O’Harris
weren’t a nice fellow as well.” Annie added magnanimously, “But I shall never
forgive him for asking my Tommy to go in that plane.”

My
Tommy, Clara noted.

“He was merely a friend.” Clara
said calmly, “It’s just, somehow I feel I could have saved him.”

“And you come by that nonsense
how?” Annie said almost sternly.

“I had these feelings of dread
about the flight.”

“So did I, but I ain’t saying
I’m clairvoyant. Besides, I had the same feelings when my mum when into hospital
with pneumonia. I quite convinced myself she weren’t coming back, yet she did.
And I didn’t feel a thing before that bomb crashed down on our house, I could
have used a feeling of dread then. Haven’t you ever had experiences like that?”

Clara had.

“Now you mention it, I felt the
same way when Tommy went on a boating holiday with his friends down the Norfolk
broads. He was only sixteen or seventeen, I suppose. Some of the other lads
were older. I was certain there would be an accident, but he came home all
right.”

“There you are. Don’t go mixing
normal feelings with anything superstitious. You could have done nothing about
it. The captain was going to fly whether you agreed with it or not and to say
anything else is to drive yourself insane.”

“You have a wise head on you,
Annie.”

Annie snorted.

“It’s because I have to put up
with you two all day. Someone has to be rational in this house.”

“Do I hear my name being
scorned in vain?” Tommy wheeled himself into the room.

“I only tell it as it is.”
Annie said staunchly, “Now get yourselves seated and I’ll serve up. Colonel
Brandt do sit here, else you’ll be in the draught from the door when I go in
and out.”

The colonel looked particularly
glum as he entered the room, but brightened slightly as Annie fussed about him.

“I’ve made a lovely thick
gravy.” Annie told him, “And there are Yorkshire puds and dumplings.”

“You are a little marvel.” The
colonel managed a smile, “I’m glad to see you up again Clara.”

“I felt a touch unwell.”

“I understand.”

Clara felt the colonel was
trying to understand too much, he gave her a knowing smile and she felt
uncomfortable.

“Clara, I was telling the
colonel about those notes of yours.” Tommy interrupted as Annie served everyone
with beef and potatoes, “We’ve been thinking about them.”