Voices in a Haunted Room

Dolly was standing beside me.

Hope had come to me. He was not dead. He might yet be saved.

“Dolly,” I said. “Ride back to Eversleigh. Get help. Tell them there’s been an accident.

Tell them that Mr. Jonathan is very seriously hurt. Promise me you will do this.

I will stay here with him.”

She said: “I can’t. What will they say?”

I took her arm. I wondered whether I should go. But I did not want to leave her here with him. I was still unsure of her. I kept telling myself that there was hope and I was desperately afraid to leave him.

I said very seriously: “This is a terrible thing, Dolly. We’ve got to save them if possible ... him and Billy. You have played a part in this, but you are no murderess.

If we can save their lives you’ll feel so much better. You’ll forget that you lured him here. Tell them quickly and get a doctor and a stretcher and bring them here quickly ... Please, Dolly.”

‘Til go,” she said. ‘Til go.”

And I believed her.

I knelt beside him. “Jonathan,” I said. “Oh ... Jonathan. Please don’t die. You mustn’t leave me, you mustn’t ...”

His eyes flickered for a moment and his lips moved. I bent low to hear what he said.

It was: “Claudine.”

“Yes, Jonathan, my dearest. I am here with you. I am hoping to take you back to Eversleigh.

You’re going to recover. Yes, you are. I promise you.”

“Finished,” he whispered.

“No ... no. You’re too young. Nobody could do this to you. Not to you ... Jonathan Frenshaw. You’ve always been the one who succeeded. You’re not finished. Your whole life is before you.”

His lips formed my name again.

“Remember ...” he murmured. “Live ... happily, Claudine. Don’t look back. Secrets ... best kept. Remember. For Amaryllis ... remember. Ours ...”

I kissed his forehead. He seemed to be aware of me, for something like a smile touched his lips.

He was still trying to say something. “Be happy ...”I think it was, and I knew he was reminding me of his philosophy. I was to be happy, to make David happy. I was to keep our secret. Dolly shared it, but I had a feeling that she would never betray it. There were many things which she would want to forget.

“Don’t go, Jonathan,” I said.

“Do you love me?”

“I do ... with all my heart.”

His eyes flickered and there was that smile again.

“Jonathan,” I pleaded. “Jonathan ...”

But he was unaware and he spoke no more.

When they arrived he was dead.

It was a long time since those agonizing moments on the beach when I had watched Jonathan die. Amaryllis and Jessica were now eleven years old. We had celebrated their birthdays this year-as we always did simultaneously. They were growing up together, close-perhaps closer than sisters would have done. They were so different-Jessica a dark flamboyant beauty with a temper to match her looks; Amaryllis, fair as an angel with the sweetest of natures. They were the darlings of our household.

I had enjoyed a happiness with David such as I had not believed possible. It was not complete happiness, of course. How could it be? There were dreams when I thought I was in that room and I heard voices telling me that I had sinned-sinned against the one who had loved me so dearly, so tenderly. Sometimes during the day when I was laughing and so intensely happy, the voices would intrude, shattering my pleasure and my peace of mind. Then I thought of Jonathan and found a certain comfort in remembering his words. I must never make David unhappy by letting him guess that ours had ever been anything but the perfect marriage. My punishment was to live with my secret, and I would never be completely rid of my guilt. Always there would be the reminder like voices in a haunted room.

Life at Eversleigh goes on much the same as it ever did.

It could no longer be kept secret that Billy Grafter had been a spy for the French and that Alberic had worked with him; and this was why they had met their deaths. Jonathan was the hero who had brought them to justice-and lost his life in doing so.

I often wondered about Dolly. I saw her frequently and she seemed to have become quite fond of me. She was happier than she had been for a long time, and I think it was due to her grandmother. Evalina Trent had changed. I never knew how much she had been aware of, but she ceased to mourn so desperately for Evie and gave herself up to the care of Dolly.

I think in a way she saw that her ambitions for Evie had been one of the main causes which had led Evie to take such drastic action. It must have been a sobering thought that she preferred a watery grave to her grandmother’s wrath.

Neither Dolly nor I would ever forget that dramatic event in which we had taken part. Once I talked to her of Jonathan and told her how he believed that it was better to keep secrets rather than make confessions which were going to hurt people.

“I don’t know whether he was right or not,” I said. “Perhaps before I die I shall find out.”

Millicent had been stunned by Jonathan’s death. She had truly loved him.

She talked to me of him.

“I once thought there was something between you and him,” she said.