Secret for a Nightingale (20 page)

The thought of revenge was, in an odd way, soothing. It took my mind away from that pale quiet face in the coffin, from the memory of my merry little boy, from the tolling bell:

and there seemed to be a purpose in living.

What if I confronted the wicked doctor? What if I told him what I thought of him, what if I accused him of murdering my baby with his poisonous drugs . and of ruining my husband?

I do not think I had very much feeling for Aubrey now, except revulsion; but in a strange way I was sorry for him. There were occasions when he seemed to look out from his sophisticated exterior and ask for help. It was perhaps just a fancy. He had gone too far along the road to destruction to turn back. But he did know it and there might have been occasions when he looked back to what he might have been.

The doctor who had killed my child had made Aubrey what he was.

Why was it that he appeared at times of disaster? He was an omen of evil. He had been there in Venice. He had been at the Minster when Julian died.

He was like an evil spirit. I saw him with horns and cloven feet like the image in that sinister cave. He was a mysterious figure, a figure of ill omen.

There was born in me then an urgent desire to see this man. I think I was trying to assuage my misery and to brood on something other than my heartrending loss.

I would seek him out. I would confront him with what he

had done. I might be able to prevent his ruining other lives as he had Aubrey’s . and mine. I was being melodramatic and absurd perhaps, but I had to have something to give me an interest in living; and the thought of revenge did that. It was all that assuaged my utter despair. It seemed that I had something to live for now: my quest for the Demon Doctor . the man who, I insisted, had killed my child.

I could speak to no one of this. It should be my secret. People would think I was crazy to suggest that the doctor had killed my child.

Julian had been seriously ill when this doctor had seen him. That was true. But then I believed he had experimented on him with his dangerous drugs.

My fury against him was intense. I pictured myself coming face to face with him. I would tell him that I read between the lines in his books those adventures in far places . India, Arabia. I would say:

“You indulged in native customs. You became a native. You spoke Urdu and Hindi and Arabic … like a native, you tell us. You are dark.”

I pictured his flashing eyes deepset and mysterious in a dark-skinned face.

“It was easy for you to disguise yourself.” I could imagine his following their customs, behaving as one of them, keeping a harem possibly. That would be much to his taste all in the name of scientific research, of course.

And all this he did as the great doctor. He had made discoveries which no one else had; he had added to his knowledge of medicine. So much so that he had ruined my husband and murdered my son with his horrible drugs.

Hating had become part of my day. I re-read his books and saw more in them than I had before. I pictured his dark, satanic face, for although I had never seen it, it was vivid in my imagination. I brooded on him, nursing my fury, clinging to it as one drowning would cling to a raft, for I discovered that when I thought of this man I no longer wanted to die. I wanted to live and take my revenge on him.

Some weeks passed. I had become thin and my height made me look gaunt;

my cheekbones, always inclined to be prominent, were now more so; my eyes looked large and mournful, and my lips as though they had forgotten how to smile.

Aubrey had given up trying to remonstrate with me. He shrugged his shoulders as though washing his hands of me. People began to come for weekends. I guessed what happened and I did not care.

There came a time when I awoke in the middle of the night. I sat up in bed and said to myself: You have to do something.

And suddenly in a flash of inspiration I knew what.

I was going to leave the Minster not just for a visit to Amelia which she had suggested; not to Uncle James and Aunt Grace; but I was going away, never to come back.

I should not move away from my grief while I was here. There was too much to remind me. The Minster was, to me, a place of horror. I was haunted by memories of what I had seen in the cave; and I knew that Aubrey would grow worse, never better. Everywhere I went there were memories of Julian. They would come upon me suddenly. I had to go on living if I was to avenge his death, and I could not do so while I was here.

Moreover, I did not want to see Aubrey again. Every time I did my anger rose and threatened to choke me. I blamed him, for I believed his carelessness had caused Julian’s death. I could not forgive him for that. And I must get away.

Then in the middle of the night, it seemed simple. I had the house in London. I had Polly and Jane and Joe to look after me.

I was not sure what I should do but I would do something. I would make a clean break. I would take nothing with me. I would call myself Miss Pleydell just as I had been before I married Aubrey.

When I arose next morning I was surprised that the plan was not merely a fantasy of the night. It was plausible. Moreover, I felt so much better.

I would pack my things and arrange to have them sent to London. And I myself would go at the earliest possible moment.

I told Aubrey what I intended to do.

“You mean you are leaving me?”

“I do.”

“Is that wise?”

“I think it will be one of the wisest things I ever did.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“I am more sure than I have ever been of anything.”

“Then it is no use my trying to persuade you. I must tell you, though, that you place yourself in a very difficult position. A woman who has left her husband …”

“I know women are not supposed to leave husbands. Hus bands may behave as they will. They can have a hundred mistresses and that is acceptable … because they are men.”

“There is one condition,” he said.

“They must not be found out. So it is not so easy … even for them. But you have made up your mind and I know you are a very determined woman.”

“I have not been determined enough in the past.”

“And now you will make up for that.”

“I shall be better on my own. Nothing could be worse for me than staying here. There is nothing to hold me here now. You cannot blackmail me into staying as you could when Julian was alive.”

“You have taken all this too hardly,” he said.

“Goodbye, Aubrey.”

“I will say au revoir.”

“Whatever you say will make no difference.”

Determinedly I left him. I finished packing my last case. I slipped in the books Stephen had given me to read.

And then I returned to London.

My decision had been so sudden that I had not had time to warn them of my coming. I thought, with a sudden glow of comfort, that in future I should have Joe to meet me and to take me in my own carriage wherever I wanted to go. I felt a sense of freedom which I had never known before and which could not be anything else but agreeable.

I left the luggage at the station to be called for and took a jar vie to the house.

The door was opened by Polly who stared at me in wonderment. The smile of pleasure on her face warmed my heart.

“Well, if it ain’t the mistress,” she cried.

“Jane … come here quick. The mistress has come.”

I found myself hugging them both and was faintly amused thinking what Aunt Grace would have said to see me behaving in such an unrestrained way with my servants. It was clear that mine was going to be a very unconventional household.

“I’ve come home to stay,” I said.

“I have left the Minster … forever.”

There was a stunned silence. Then Polly said: “I know what you want and that’s a nice cup of tea.”

I did not believe I wanted anything, but when the tea came I made them bring two more cups and sit with me and it was amazing what comfort they brought me.

I found myself telling them what had happened, of Julian’s death and my decision to leave my husband. They listened in awed silence but their sympathy was great. I did not, of course, tell them of the temple.

“Jane, Polly,” I said.

“I shall have to make a new life. You will have to help me.”

“There ain’t nothing we wouldn’t do ain’t that right. Poll?”

Polly said emphatically that it was.

“I want a complete break with the old life. I want to try to forget. I shall never forget my boy … but there are other things.”

I was amazed at their tact. They did not ask questions but waited for me to speak.

“I want to be an entirely different person. I am not Mrs. St. Clare any more. I want to forget I ever was.”

They nodded. I had made it clear to them in that brief statement that my marriage was no longer tolerable to me.

“I am going back to the name I had before I was married. I shall be known as Miss Pleydell.”

There were more nods.

“I am not even calling myself Susanna. I shall be Anna.”

That had occurred to me on the train. My ayah’s voice had come back to me over the years. Once she had said: “There are two of you; Susan and Anna. Susan … she is the gentle one who wants to live at peace, who will accept what is. But there is Anna. She will be the strong one. She will go and get what she wants and take nothing less.”

She was right. I had a dual personality; and now I needed all my strength, all my resilience, all the resolution which was in the stronger side of my nature.

Already Anna Pleydell seemed a different person from Susanna St. Clare.

“So you will call me Miss Pleydell. You can do that easily.”

“Well, we looked after Colonel Pleydell so now it will be natural to look after his daughter. Miss Pleydell,” commented Jane.

“You two know how I loved my father … and my son.”

Jane bit her lip and Polly turned her head away to hide the tears in her eyes.

“I shall never forget them …” My voice faltered and suddenly the tears started to flow. It was the first time I had wept since the beginning of my sorrow. And then I was sobbing broken-heartedly and Jane and Polly with me.

Jane was the first to recover. She poured out a cup of tea and brought it to me.

“There,” she said.

“This won’t drive the pigs to market, will it, as the farmer said when the wheel came off his cart and the horses run away.”

Polly looked at me and smiled through her tears.

“No,” I said, ‘it won’t. We’ve got to be practical. I have to work out what I am going to do. I don’t know yet. Plans won’t come. I just know that I’ll be better here than anywhere else even though there is so much to remind me of my father. “

“He was a dear good man and so kind to us,” said Jane.

“He was one in a million,” added Polly.

“We’ll look after you, Mrs. I mean Miss Pleydell. It takes a bit of getting used to, calling you that, but we’ll manage it.”

“I’ll put the warming pan in your bed. Miss Pleydell,” said Polly.

“You’d better,” added Jane.

“We’ve had some nasty damp days lately.

Damp gets in everywhere. “

I felt I was right to come.

Later I went out to the stables and saw Joe. He had already heard the news.

“It’s good to see you back. Miss Pleydell,” he said, with a wink to remind me that he had remembered the instructions which had already been passed on by Jane and Polly.

“Carriages is meant to be driven not left standing. They don’t like it. They’ve got wills of their own, carriages have. Don’t I know it doing the London to Bath run all them years.”

I could see the sympathy in his eyes; Jane and Polly would have told him all I had told them; they had all loved my father and Julian. They shared my grief as I felt no one at the Minster had.

Yes, I thought, I believe I can make a fresh start.

It wasn’t easy. When I awoke in the morning the depression descended upon me. I had had vague dreams of Julian. I thought: What am I doing here? What hope is there of starting

a new life? What does it matter where I live? Whether I am here or at the Minster, the loss is the same.

Jane came in with a cup of hot chocolate. And what would I like for breakfast? she asked.

“Nothing, thank you, Jane.”

She shook her head at me.

“Was the bed comfortable? Did you have a good night?”

“The bed was comfortable. When I sleep, I dream.”

“Well, drink up that chocolate. It’s nourishing.”

She stood there, implying that she would not move until I had drunk it. She reminded me of my ayah in a way. I was thinking a good deal about her lately. She had known something about that Devil Doctor. I wished she had told me.

I drank the chocolate to please Jane, and then lay there asking myself what I should do when I got up. I should have to take a ride to please Joe.

“Carriages are not meant to stand idle.”

He could go and collect my luggage from the station and I should then unpack. The day would pass somehow. Why had I thought it would all be so different in London?

Slowly the days passed. I took a ride now and then through the streets of London to please Joe. I did a little desultory shopping. Jane and Polly devised meals for me at which I pecked like a bird, said Jane disgustedly.

“You’re getting like a skelington,” Joe told me.

“I reckon you want to put on a bit of flesh. Miss Pleydell. Bones ain’t much good without it.”

“I’m all right, Joe,” I said.

“Begging your pardon, Miss Pleydell, you ain’t,” he retorted sharply.

I guessed he discussed me with Polly and Jane. They were really getting quite anxious about me.

I don’t know how long I should have gone on in that state of lethargy but for the accident in Oxford Street which brought Lily Craddock into my life.

Now and then I went out shopping. I would buy little things for the house, and I liked to find small presents for Jane and Polly to whom I was very grateful. Our relationship was not that of mistress and maids. There was a feeling of belonging to a family in that house.