Authors: Alison Stuart
Tony indicated for the waitress to take their order and as they waited for the tea and cakes, he said. “I wanted to hear it from you, Helen.”
“I’m not a coward, Tony. I would have told you properly, if there is such a thing as ‘properly’.”
Tony’s mouth tightened but he said nothing as the waitress set down the tea and plates on the table. Helen poured the tea, conscious of her shaking hands.
“Have you told your mother?”
“Not yet. Helen, I know Mother hasn’t been easy...”
“It’s not just your mother, Tony. She was right. I don’t belong in your world. I’d have made a terrible Viscountess.” She looked straight at him, forcing him to look into her eyes as she said, “It was a dream, a lovely dream.” The hurt in his face, made her falter. “Tony, you knew when you asked me that I didn’t love you. That’s not quite right. I do love you but not in the way I should–as a wife should. It would have been wrong for us to marry. Now I just want to go home.”
“I had hoped...”
“I know. I did too, but there’s something between Paul and me that I can’t explain in words.”
“When do you leave?” His voice was choked with emotion.
“There’s a P&O ship leaving from Southampton the day after tomorrow. “I’m just hoping I make it home in time to see Dad.”
“And Paul?”
She set down her cup. “I’m marrying Paul, tomorrow morning if he can get the license.”
Tony gave a snort of derisive laughter. “The old cats are going to have fun with us, aren’t they?”
“I know. I’m truly sorry.”
He looked across at her. “I’m sorry too. I do love you, Helen.”
She stood up, pulling her gloves on to avoid looking into his eyes. “You’ll see I’ve done the right thing, Tony.”
He rose to his feet. “I suppose this is goodbye then?”
She nodded and held out her hand. He took a step toward her and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “Despite everything, Helen, I wish you and the sprite well. I’ll send over the rest of your things when I get home.”
“You’re a good man, Tony Scarvell.”
“Too good,” he said with a rueful smile. “Now I’ve got to go and talk to Mother. She knows the engagement is broken but I won’t have you vilified by her and her friends.”
“Oh, they’ll do it anyway as soon as they hear that I married Paul Morrow within days of breaking my engagement with you. Tell her the truth, Tony.”
As he held the door open for her, he gave a crooked smile. “I hope Morrow has a good bruise?”
Helen smiled. “He does.”
* * * *
Helen took a taxi to the hospital where she had agreed to meet Paul. He waited on the front steps, coming down to open the door for her.
“How did it go?” he asked after he had kissed her.
“As well as can be expected. Did you get the license?”
He nodded and she squeezed his hand as they walked into the hospital and up the stairs.
Their footsteps slowed at the sound of woman’s voice raised in anger.
“That’s Lady Hartfield,” Helen glanced up at Paul.
“Trouble,” Paul said under his breath and quickened his pace.
Lady Hartfield stood outside the door to Evelyn’s private room remonstrating with two doctors and a nurse.
“I tell you the police should be called. That’s him,” she shrieked as she saw Paul. “He should be arrested.”
The whole party turned to look at Paul.
“What is it I should be arrested for, Lady Hartfield?” Paul asked removing his hat.
“Attempted murder,” she declared.
“And who have I tried to murder?” He enquired in a low, even tone.
“Poor Evelyn.” Lady Hartfield’s chest puffed up like a pigeon in indignation. “I was just visiting her and she opened her eyes and said to me as clearly as anything. ‘I was pushed. Tell Paul I know I was pushed.’ Before I could ask her any more she was off again. I want the police called.” She reiterated her demand of the medical staff.
“I hardly think we need to bother the constabulary,” Paul said. “Shall we ask my aunt what she meant?”
“She’s unconscious,” said Lady Hartfield.
“Then we’ll wait till she’s awake.”
The older of the two doctors shook his head. “She’s heavily sedated. I suggest you all go home and hopefully in the morning she will be in a better state to explain.”
“If you won’t do anything then I’m going to the police,” Lady Hartfield cast Helen a malicious glance.
Paul took Helen’s arm and drew her in toward him. “Lady Hartfield, you may do as you wish. I can’t stop you and I have nothing to hide.”
He turned, bringing Helen with him.
“You’ll regret crossing me, Paul Morrow. You and that hussy,” Lady Hartfield said to their backs as they walked back down the corridor.
Helen felt her heart sink. “This isn’t about Evelyn, Paul. She’s punishing both of us for jilting Tony.”
“I know,” Paul said. “But we’ve nothing to be afraid of. Let’s forget her and go home and tell Alice our plans and enjoy the special dinner Sarah has spent all day cooking.”
* * * *
Alice sat on one of Paul’s armchairs, glancing from her mother to Paul and back again as they broke the news to her.
“Does this mean I don’t have to live at Wellmore?” she asked.
“Yes, of course it does,” Helen said.
A broad smile had crossed Alice’s face. “I’m glad. I hated it there and I’m glad you’re marrying Mummy, Uncle Paul.” She frowned. “What do I call you? Lady Hartfield said I should call Uncle Tony ‘Papa’ but that didn’t seem quite right.”
“Uncle Paul will do just fine.”
“Will we live here?” Alice looked around the Paul’s sitting room.
“No,” Helen said. “You and I are going back to Melbourne tomorrow after the wedding, Alice, and Paul will join us in a few months.”
“You mean we’re really going home?” Alice beamed. “And you will come, Uncle Paul? I know you’ll like Terrala and Uncle Henry and...all the uncles. Oh, Mummy, I’m so happy.” She jumped off the chair and threw her arms firstly around Helen’s neck and then Paul’s.
He gathered the little girl into his arms and Helen felt that sense of rightness she had experienced when Paul carried the child back to the house after the incident in the tunnel. They were a family. They belonged together.
Helen started as she heard car doors slam and a knock on the main door. Paul disengaged Alice, rose to his feet and crossed to the window.
“I don’t believe it. The old harridan kept her word. It’s the police,” he said.
“Oh, Paul.”
“I’ll see to it.”
Alice, sensing the sudden tension, crossed to her mother. “Why are the police here?” she asked in a tremulous voice.
“They just have some silly questions to ask us,” Helen said. “You go and help Sarah in the kitchen.”
Alice obeyed and Helen looked up at Paul as they heard Sarah’s footsteps on the stairs.
“Police want to talk to you,” she said. “What’s it about, sir?”
“Evelyn’s fall,” Paul replied. “You go back to the kitchen, Sarah, and keep an eye on Alice.”
“I’ve put ‘em in the parlor. Dinner’s just about ready.”
“It may have to wait. Helen?”
She took his arm and they descended the stairs to face the police together.
A uniformed sergeant and a man in plain clothes who gave his rank as Inspector stood in the middle of the parlour waiting for them.
After they had introduced themselves, Paul gestured at the chair. He took one of the armchairs while the Inspector remained standing.
“It is my guess that Lady Hartfield has come to you with some story about my aunt,” Paul said.
“Not me personally, sir. She went straight to the Chief Constable,” the Inspector looked apologetic.
“Of course she did. So this is about my aunt’s accident?”
The Inspector opened his notebook.
“As I understand it your aunt has been hospital for the last five days after she fell down some stairs.
“Lady Hartfield says that while she was sitting with Lady Morrow, said lady woke briefly from her coma. When asked by Lady Hartfield what had happened, Lady Morrow said and these are, according to Lady Hartfield, her exact words ‘I was pushed. Tell Paul I know I was pushed.’ The lady then relapsed into an unconscious state. Lady Hartfield alleges that yourself and Lady Morrow had recently been involved in an argument over the selling of this property?”
“That’s no secret,” Paul said. “I wouldn’t call it an argument. My aunt believed it should not be sold, whereas the reality of our situation is that it must. Lately, I believe, she had come to accept that. Let’s not waste any more time, if I understand you, Inspector, the allegation is that it was I who pushed my aunt down the stairs?”
The policeman nodded. “The accident occurred sometime during the night. Did you hear your aunt cry out?”
“No. My rooms are at the opposite end of the house to hers. I didn’t hear anything. It was our housekeeper, Sarah Pollard who discovered her in the morning.”
“I would like to speak to her.”
Paul looked at Helen, “Do you mind fetching her, Helen?”
The inspector looked at Helen as if seeing her for the first time. “Mrs. Morrow?”
“Yes.”
“Are you the same Mrs. Morrow, lately engaged to Lady Hartfield’s son?”
Helen straightened her shoulders. “Yes.”
“Where were you on the night of Lady Morrow’s accident?”
“With Lady Hartfield at Wellmore as she can testify,” Helen replied brusquely, seeing all too clearly the direction of the interrogation. Between them, she and Paul probably appeared to have not only motivation, but opportunity for dealing with the inconvenient and disapproving Lady Morrow.
“And how would you describe your relationship with Lady Morrow?”
“She is my mother-in-law. We enjoy a cordial relationship,” Helen said.
“Does she know you now plan to marry Sir Paul Morrow?”
“Not yet but as soon as she recovers consciousness we will tell her,” Paul answered.
Helen took the opportunity afforded by the Inspector making notes in his book, to beat a retreat and fetch the Pollards.
Sarah’s brow furrowed when Helen told her the reason for the police visit. “That Lady Hartfield,” she said. “I knew she’d try and cause trouble for you.”
“There was only one person in the house when Lady Morrow fell and that was Paul. I hardly think any court of law is going to believe it was a ghost that pushed her.”
Sarah glanced at Sam. “We could say as how he’d had one of his turns. When he gets those migraines he can’t even see straight, let alone get out of bed.”
“Don’t lie,” Helen said. “It won’t do any good in the end.”
Sarah could only tell the police that she had taken Lady Morrow up a cup of cocoa at ten o’clock. At that time, Lady Morrow had been sitting at her dressing table brushing her hair.
“One hundred strokes every night,” Sarah confirmed. “I said good night to her and went to the flat. Next morning I took her up her morning cup of tea at eight o’clock and her bed hadn’t been slept in. It was only pure chance I looked down the library stairs and saw her feet. Poor lady had been there all night.”
“Where was Sir Paul?”
“He’d got up early and gone for a ride. I found him in the stables and he rang for the doctor.”
“It seems to me,” Paul said, “that the one person you need to talk to is my aunt. Lady Hartfield’s statement means nothing. If she’s to be believed, my aunt didn’t say ‘Paul pushed me down the stairs,’ she said ‘Tell Paul, I was pushed.’ That means something completely different.”
“We’ll do just that. Tomorrow morning, then,” the inspector said. “I’ll meet you at the hospital at nine o’clock.”
“I’ll be there. I hope it won’t take long. I have a wedding at eleven.”
After the men had gone, Paul sank back into the chair and ran a hand through his hair.
Helen perched on the arm of the chair
“Penny for your thoughts?” Helen said.
“I don’t think they’re worth that,” he said.
“I should be thinking about our wedding. But all I can think of is Evelyn. What if she says it was you who pushed her, Paul?”
He smiled ruefully. “Then I am in very deep trouble, Helen, and I better be able to find a damn good lawyer.” He held out his hand. “Come here! Let’s forget about our problems for a few hours. We don’t have much time left.”
He pulled her down on to his lap and kissed her.
Chapter 31
They sat in silence on the drive to the hospital the next morning, their fingers interlocked on the hard leather seat. In the front of the monstrous old car, Alice sat sandwiched between Sarah and Pollard, chattering about going home to Terrala and all the things she would tell her uncles.
Paul’s fingers tightened on Helen’s gloved hand, enclosing it in his own. She wore a simple grey, woolen suit with a black velvet collar and a matching black velvet hat trimmed with a long grey feather that draped over her shoulder. She looked wonderful, Paul thought, but not as wonderful as she had looked naked in his bed as they lay together in the small hours of the morning.