The Midnight Rose (56 page)

“Yes.” She followed me along the hall and into the sitting room. “Won’t you sit down? May I get you some tea?” I asked her as she stood uncomfortably in the center of the room.

“No, thank you, this isn’t a social call, as you might well imagine.”

“No,” I agreed with a sad sigh. “How can I help you?”

“I’ve come to ask you not to attend Lady Violet’s funeral next week. Under the circumstances, I feel it would be entirely inappropriate if you did so.”

“I see.”

“Surely you must too?”

“If you’re referring to my relationship with your son, then yes, I can see it would be wrong for me to attend his wife’s funeral. However, with regards to Lady Violet herself, she was my friend and I did all I could to help her the night she died,” I answered as calmly as I could.

“
Help
her? Is that what you call it?”

“Yes, Lady Violet was suffering from a life-threatening condition called eclampsia. Even if she’d been taken to hospital, it’s doubtful she could have been saved. In my opinion, at least.”

“I hardly think that your limited medical experience and the subsequent death of one of your so-called patients gives you the right to have one,” Maud sniffed. “Be that as it may, Miss Chavan, it’s not my task to judge you. I leave that to others. What are you going to do now?” she asked me bluntly.

“I haven’t given it a moment’s thought,” I lied. “I’m still grieving for Lady Violet. May I ask what will become of the baby now her mother is no longer on the earth?”

“I will, of course, move back into the hall and help Donald to oversee her upbringing. It is nothing more than my duty. Donald has insisted the child be named Daisy, which was apparently Violet’s choice.”

I could tell from Maud’s expression that she didn’t approve. I also knew she wasn’t here to pass on mere detail or pleasantries.

“Your ladyship, may I ask the real reason that you’re here?”

“You may. I wish you to leave Astbury immediately. You’ve done enough damage already, and for the sake of my son and his newborn child, you must see you have no alternative.”

“As you had none when you intercepted my letters to Donald?” I retorted.

“I was doing what was necessary to protect my family. Others may be taken in by your sweet and caring countenance, but, Miss Chavan, when I first met you, I saw you immediately for what you are.”

“And what am I?” I whispered, feeling my whole body beginning to shake with anger and tension.

“Nothing more than a common Indian slut. Don’t think I haven’t seen your sort before, because I have, oh yes.” Maud wagged her finger aggressively at me. “When I was living in India, I saw the devil inside that woman my husband kept hidden from me. He’d sneak off for his sordid little trysts to the hovel she lived in when she left our employ as a maid. And he thought I didn’t know! I saw the tears in his eyes when we left India. They were all for her.”

I saw the disgust and fury burning in her eyes. And I began to understand her hatred of me.

“Like father, like son, eh?” Maud gave a mirthless chuckle. “You even look a little like her. I thought it on that first day you arrived here all those years ago. But then, all Indian peasants look the same, don’t they? And obviously, your type holds an unfathomable allure for the Astbury men. Miss Chavan, you and I are both women, and we understand how susceptible men are to the sins of the flesh. It is we who must make their decisions for them. Surely, if you love Donald as you profess to, you will see your involvement in Lady Violet’s death makes your further presence at Astbury untenable for him?”

“Your ladyship, I was not responsible for Lady Violet’s sad passing. I did everything I possibly could to help save her.”

“You may think that, my dear, but it’s common knowledge you were with her at the time. Tongues will wag. Do you really think there can now be any future for you and Donald after what’s happened? You must see that any continuing liaison with him is not only fruitless, but it would also destroy his reputation in society?”

“I shall have to ask Donald what he thinks. There hasn’t been an appropriate moment to discuss the future.”

“That is because there is no future.”

Finally, I was forced to play my trump card. “And what about our son, Moh? Does he not exist either? Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I could make him heir to the Astbury estate.”

At this, Maud threw back her head and laughed. “Miss Chavan, do you know how many illegitimate children have been fathered out of wedlock by men in a similar position to Donald? My dear, your son was born on the wrong side of the blanket and will never inherit Astbury.”

I looked at her, and suddenly realized exactly what it was she was so frightened of.

“You’re right, of course. Unless we marry in the future, as we’d originally planned to do three years ago.”

I stood there watching her horrified expression and knew my instinct had been right.

“My son would never marry you,” she said, not looking at me.

“Well, Donald’s certainly asked me once before. So perhaps he will again,” I added, and saw her cringe. I was the cruel one now, but I’d suffered so much at this woman’s hands for nothing more than being, in her eyes, the wrong color and nationality. “I’ll certainly let you know once we’ve discussed our future plans, your ladyship. Now, I can hear my son crying upstairs and I wish to go to him. Will that be all?”

“Is it money you want? I’m sure I can make some available to you if you’ll leave immediately.”

“Donald has always looked after me very well, and I’m sure he’ll continue to do so, Lady Astbury. I must ask you to leave.”

I walked behind her to the door and opened it for her when we reached it.

“Then what is it you want?” She stared at me intently.

“Nothing, except for your son to be happy,” I answered.

She misinterpreted my meaning, and I saw the desperation in her eyes. “You will destroy him if you stay; you know that, don’t you?”

I didn’t reply as she left my cottage and walked back to her car and waiting chauffeur. Closing the door and feeling suddenly breathless, I ran upstairs to take you from your cot and hold you close. I knew that what Maud had said was right, but I was not going to give her the pleasure of letting her into my future plans.

I’d already decided in the long, lonely hours since Violet’s death that there was no hope left for Donald and me. When Violet drew her last breath, she’d also signaled the end of the two of us. However
strong our love was, and from whichever angle I looked at it, nothing could surmount the guilt we would both feel for the rest of our lives.

Maud was right about the dreadful inferences that could and would be drawn from my involvement in Violet’s last hours. Even my friends who knew and loved me at Astbury would not be able to condone any relationship I had with Donald in the future. Some might even believe that I’d cooked up some Machiavellian scheme.

“Moh,” I said, sighing into your hair that dreadful afternoon, “I really believe there is no hope.”

Over the next few days, I began to make plans. I had some money saved from the housekeeping allowance Donald had given me over the past year. If I sold the pearls he’d given me for Christmas, I reckoned the amount I would receive might buy us a third-class passage to India. I still had my one large ruby buried under the pavilion at the palace in Cooch Behar. If the two of us could reach it, then it would provide enough money to put a roof over our heads until I’d worked out how I could earn a living.

During those long, silent nights, I wrote to Donald time and again, trying to explain why we were leaving. I tore up each attempt because they seemed so imperfect. And perhaps, I thought to myself, it was best to say nothing at all. If he loved me and knew me as I believed he did, he would understand everything.

Violet’s funeral was held three interminable weeks after her death to allow her parents to arrive and for them to make the appropriate arrangements. My heart went out to them—they’d already set sail from New York to be there just after the birth of their grandchild, only to be told halfway across the Atlantic that their beautiful daughter was already dead. It was Tilly who told me when I met her in the village shop the day after the funeral. She invited us both back to her cottage for a cup of tea.

“Oh, Miss Anni,” she said as I broke down in front of her, the solitude of time alone with my thoughts proving too much, “please don’t cry. I know you did your best.”

“I know you do, and I thank you for it. But the villagers and servants blame me.”

“Oh, you mustn’t take any notice of them. Nothing sets them alight more than gossip. It’ll all die down and they’ll be back to you when their small one has a cold or a cough and they need you, don’t you worry.”

“But there has been gossip about me?”

“Well, everyone knows you were there and of course, the doctor’s got to blame someone, hasn’t he?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, those who watched you care for her ladyship that night knew how you helped her. But the doctor wouldn’t like to admit it was him who was to blame for not seeing earlier that her ladyship was in trouble.”

I could feel my heart turning to lead as she spoke the words. Was I to be the doctor’s scapegoat?

“Anyway, it’ll all die down now she’s been laid to rest. The world moves on and there’ll be other things to gossip about.” Tilly patted my hand comfortingly. “Don’t you worry about it, Miss Anni. We who know you realize there was nothing more you could have done to save her.”

I looked up at her, honesty blazing from my eyes. “No, there really wasn’t.”

•  •  •

My dear child, I’m about to relate to you the last time I saw Donald, your father, and what happened to me after that. I will do my best to give you the bare facts of what transgressed, but forgive me if my retelling of this terrible time distresses you.

A week after Violet’s funeral had taken place, Donald appeared on my doorstep. He looked dreadful. Neither of us knew what to say, but you, Moh, not knowing anything of what had happened, asked for your usual cuddle and climbed up on his knee. I made him tea and we sat together silently in the kitchen.

“Do you blame me?” I remember asking.

“You said she would be all right, that day . . .”

“I said that if her headache didn’t improve, we should call the doctor. And it seemed to, for a while at least. Please remember, Donald, you came in to see us and she was sleeping?” I entreated him.

“Yes, yes,” he replied, but I could tell he was lost in grief—or guilt; I wasn’t sure which. “I’m sorry I haven’t been to see you.”

“I understand.”

“Oh, Anni, what have we done? I . . .”

I took him into my arms, and he cried like a baby. I understood every nuance of what he was feeling, because I was feeling it too. Even
if we were both innocent of blame in Violet’s death, actual fact was immaterial. We both
felt
culpable and that was all that mattered.

I put you to bed soon after, not wishing you to see your beloved Mr. Don so distressed. Then I went downstairs and suggested he eat the soup I’d prepared earlier.

“You look as though you’ve had nothing in you for weeks,” I said as I stirred it.

“Probably not.” Then he paused with the spoon halfway to his mouth. “It doesn’t have any strange herbs in it, does it?”

“Donald, please believe me, everything I gave Violet was innocuous, nothing I wouldn’t give to my own son, or you  . . .” my voice trailed off.

“No, sorry, that was a rotten joke,” he agreed. “Forgive me.”

When he had finished the soup, he seemed somewhat revived.

“Do you have any brandy?”

“I believe I do.” He followed me into the sitting room and I went to the cupboard and pulled out the bottle he’d left in one of my Christmas hampers. I uncorked it and poured a measure into a glass. I watched him take a large gulp and then another, until the glass was drained.

“I feel better now.” He looked at me properly for the first time and reached out his hands toward me. “Forgive me, Anni. You don’t deserve this from me, and I feel like a wretch for my behavior. The gossip, you know. I admit it’s got to me.”

“Yes, I can see,” I answered sadly.

“Of course you did everything you could to help her, I saw you. Come here.” He opened his arms to me and I went into them, needing so terribly to feel his touch and warmth and belief. “Forgive me,” he said again as he began to kiss me. “I love you, and my guilt for loving you”—his hands were all over me—“has eaten into my rational mind. I love you, Anni, I love you, I love you . . .”

Before that night, I had only known Donald as a gentle and tender lover. But that evening, he took me there on the floor of the sitting room, and as he shouted my name, I could feel his frustration, guilt and anguish pouring into me.

Afterward, we lay together on the floor.

“So, sorry,” he whispered, “I’m not quite myself.”

“None of us are,” I comforted him.

“Can I stay here tonight, Anni?”

“Of course you can,” I said gently.

•  •  •

I lay in his arms that night, wanting to tell him that you and I would be leaving Astbury in the next few days. But I knew that if I did, he would try to stop me and my resolve would not be strong enough to resist the force of my love for him. I watched him sleep, and as I did so, I heard the singing again, warning me of death. It was loud, which meant it was very close. Confused, I convinced myself that it was due to the fact that in the next few days, Donald would be far away from me, lost to me forever. Our love must be at an end.

At dawn, he rose, dressed and said he needed to get back before the servants noticed his absence. I followed him downstairs to see him out. He held me with such tenderness then, against his chest, and I felt his heart beating against mine for the last time.

“Good-bye, Donald,” I said, tracing his beloved face with my fingertips, determined to imprint every detail of it onto my memory.

“I love you, Anni, please always remember that.” He tipped my face up to his. “Always remember that.”

I watched him leave, stemming my urge to run after him. My heart broke as he rode away across the moors, but I had to find the strength to love him enough to let him go.