Виктория Холт - The Silk Vendetta

It took me a few seconds to realize I had had a nightmare. It had all seemed so real.

I lay there for some time. Then I put on my dressing gown and slippers and went into Grand’mere’s room.

She started up in bed. “Lenore, what is it?”

“I’ve had a dream,” I said.

She leaped out of bed and took my hands. “You are shivering,” she said.

“I shouldn’t have disturbed you, but I had to talk. I had to tell you about it.”

“Of course you did. Here. Get into bed.”

I did so and she lay beside me holding me close.

”I told you about the man in Italy … Lorenzo who was wearing Philip’s cloak and hat when he was killed. It … it seems clear to me suddenly. He was about the same height as Philip … from behind he would look exactly like Philip. It was not robbery … because nothing was taken. Someone must have come behind and stabbed him in the back … perhaps without realizing until later that they had killed the wrong man… .”

“The wrong man. What do you mean?”

“Philip would never kill himself. I am sure that someone killed him.”

“But the gun …”

“Would it be so difficult to stage a suicide … I believe now that Lorenzo was killed in mistake for Philip. I know he was murdered. I am sure of it now. I knew him so well.”

“None of us know the secret places of other people’s minds.”

“You still believe that there was something about Philip which I did not know.”

“Perhaps. But it is over. No good can come of going over all this. You should be getting your sleep.”

“This dream … this nightmare … Grand’mere, it was a revelation. I am sure of it. Someone meant to kill Philip in Florence. They killed Lorenzo instead. And now … they have succeeded in killing him in the forest.”

“Who would want to kill such a man?”

“I don’t know. But someone did.”

She stroked my hair. “I am going to make you a herb drink. It will soothe you. You need sleep.”

I did not answer. It was impossible to convince me of something of which I was now so sure.

Obediently I drank from the cup she gave me.

“Now I am going to take you back to your own room. You will rest more comfortably there. And don’t get up in the morning until I call you.”

I went back to my bed.

The draught was effective and I soon slept, but when I awoke in the morning, it was still with the conviction that Lorenzo’s death was in some mysterious way linked with that of Philip.

Oddly enough the thought helped me.

I no longer believed that Philip had killed himself because he found life with me intolerable.

Desperately I wanted to find out. How? I went over everything in my mind. That night in Florence. How we had stayed in. It was heartbreaking to recall how happy we had been. Lorenzo had taken advantage of the situation and slipped out in Philip’s cloak and hat. Someone was lurking near the hotel waiting … following him through the streets and then … pouncing with the knife. He must have realized too late that he had the wrong victim. Was that why he had pursued the man he wanted? Was that why Philip had died in the woods … and by his own gun? How could that have been?

It was a theory which appeared to have few roots in reason. Whichever way I turned I was baulked. There was no one with whom I could discuss my suspicions. Grand’mere? Cassie? It all turned to the same thing. Philip had taken one of the guns from The Silk House gunroom and how could an unknown assassin do that? He had deliberately walked into the forest and shot himself.

There was only one explanation, but I stubbornly refused to accept it.

I brooded on it. I would wake in the night thinking I had the solution; then by the light of day it proved to be just nonsense.

I felt I was drifting. I could not go on like this. Grand’mere was very anxious about me.

“There has to be a change,” she said.

And there was.

A suspicion had come into my mind. I hardly dared believe it. Then later it became a certainty.

I was going to have a child.

At first it was like a glimmer of light in my dark world. It seemed that I might not have lost Philip entirely. He might live on in our child.

When I told Grand’mere she was overwhelmed first with joy, then with anxiety.

“We shall have to take special care of you,” she said.

Cassie was delighted. “A baby,” she cried. “A dear little baby. Oh, isn’t that the most wonderful thing?”

And it was. It changed me. It helped me to forget. Long periods of the day were spent in planning for the baby, talking of babies. Grand’mere remembered the birth of my mother. The servants’ attitude changed. They looked forward to having a little baby in the house.

The serenity of pregnancy settled on me. My mind was now given over to such matters as layettes and the kind of cradle I should need. I was absorbed by it all. I was now to be a mother.

Lady Sallonger was a little peevish. She did not like the disruption of the household but it did give her an opportunity of recalling the terrible time she had had at Cassie’s birth, which was perhaps not the most tactful conversation to indulge in with an expectant mother present.

The summer slipped away and autumn was with us.

Julia had found a husband. He was thirty years older than she was and he drank heavily; but he had one redeeming feature: he was rich. The Countess was overjoyed. At last her task was completed; and she passed on to her next client.

I was now finding exercise difficult. I used to sit in the garden when the weather permitted either with Grand’mere or Cassie, and our talk would be all of the baby.

I was in good health, the doctor said; and I was strong. All would be well.

A midwife was engaged; she would stay at the house until the appointed time. I was counting the days now. I felt everything would be different when my baby was born.

It was on a bleak February day when Katharine appeared. She was scarcely a beauty; she had a wrinkled cross-looking face, some spiky fair hair and a snub nose; but I thought her perfect; and each day she changed until in a week she was beautiful.

I had rarely seen Grand’mere so happy. Cassie thought it a great honour to be allowed to hold her. Lady Sallonger said I must have a nanny to give me more time to myself—which meant for her, of course; but I wanted to look after my baby myself.

“Nonsense,” said Lady Sallonger, “only servants and those sort of people do that.”

But I was adamant. This was my child. My consolation and entirely mine.

There was so much to learn that my time was fully occupied. I was glad that this was so. We called her Katie—Katharine being too dignified for such a tiny creature. And when I held Katie in my arms and watched her change every day, saw her first smile and that recognition which told me that she knew who I was and that she felt safe and happy when I was close … they were my compensation.

With Katie I could grow away from my grief. She was more than my beloved child; she was my reason for living.

Katie was a year old when I decided I could no longer go on living at The Silk House. I had always felt that I was there on sufferance. Lady Sallonger could not forget that I was the granddaughter of a woman who worked for the family—as Grand’mere still did. Her machine worked doubly as hard now for she was constantly making little garments for Katie. I was expected to perform certain duties for her ladyship. I was still reading to her, fetching and carrying and making sure that she had her comforts. It was true Cassie was treated in the same manner, but although I was now her daughter-in-law, I was still made to feel like the poor relation.

She resented the time I spent with my daughter. If Katie needed me during one of the reading sessions, Cassie would come and take over from me—which did not please Lady Sal-longer at all. I was really feeling very restive even before the fracas with Charles.

I had always known that he had some special feeling for me. There had been that occasion long ago when he had tried to make love to me and, of course, the affair of the mausoleum which had ended in his humiliation. I had an idea that Charles was the type of man who bore grudges. In which case he would remember the immersion into the lake and blame me for it. I had often found him watching me and that made me very uneasy.

In spite of being preoccupied with Katie’s needs, I still thought a great deal about Philip’s death, and the more I thought of it the more I remembered of Lorenzo; and I was becoming absolutely convinced that the assassin’s knife had been meant for Philip.

I had made a habit of walking in the forest to that spot where his body had been found. The trees grew thickly there. I wondered whether that was the actual spot where he had died or whether his assailant had dragged his body there.

Everything had pointed to suicide. The position of the gun … the fact that it was one of the guns from the house … But even in the face of all that evidence, I still refused to believe that he had killed himself.

I knew that my theories would not stand up to the light of reason. Even Grand’mere believed there had been some dark secret in his life which he could not bear to have exposed; and she dismissed the death of Lorenzo as coincidental.

“You have to look straight at life,” she said, “to see it as it is, not as you would have it. That is the only way to pick oneself up and go on.”

So I kept my thoughts to myself. One day I would find some means of discovering. How? When? asked my common sense. But I refused to listen to reason. One day I would know the answer.

I did not know why I thought I might find it in that spot where his body had been discovered. He was now lying in the mausoleum with his ancestors. If he could come back and tell me, it would be more likely that I could get into communication with him in this spot.

It was like visiting a grave. I thought: If these trees could speak they could tell me the truth. I used to look up into their leafy heights. “How did it happen?” I whispered. “You must have seen.”

It was there that Charles came upon me.

“Hello, Lenore,” he said. “You come here often, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“Why? Is it a sort of pilgrimage?”

I shook my head and turned away, uneasy as I always was in his presence.

He caught my arm. “Don’t go,” he said. “I want to talk to you.”

“Yes?”

“You must be feeling very lonely.”

“I have my daughter … my grandmother.”

“But missing Philip?”

“Of course.”

“I always envied him.”

“Envied him? Why?”

“I envied him you.”

”I think I should go in.”

“Not yet. Lenore, why are you so stubborn?” He pulled me towards him and held me firmly.

“I want to go back to the house,” I said.

“Not yet.” He smiled and kissed me. “Still a bit of a spitfire, eh?”

I struggled free. “Charles, I will not tolerate …”

“You must be lonely. I could change that.”

“I told you long ago. You know what happened then.”

His brow darkened. He was remembering Drake Aldringham, the magnificent friend whom he had been so proud to bring home and the manner in which Drake had left the house.

“You give yourself airs,” he said. “Who are you, anyway?”

“I am Lenore Sallonger, your brother’s widow.”

“You managed to catch him. He was easy prey, wasn’t he?”

“How dare you say such things!”

“Oh?” he said looking about him. “Do you think I’m afraid of ghosts? This is where they found him. Why did he do it, Lenore? What did he find out about you? Why? You must know if anyone does.”

I turned to go but he caught me again. “I have always had a fancy for you,” he said. “There’s something deep in you. I want to find it. I want to know what caught Philip and what made him take his life. I know it was because of you,”

“It was not. It was not,” I cried.

There was a struggle. He was pulling at my blouse. Suddenly my rage gave way to terror. He had a distorted mind. I knew what was in it. He wanted to make love to me here … where Philip’s body had been found. There was something macabre about it; something which appealed to his warped notions. I fought wildly. He was stronger than I. I prayed to myself: Oh God, save me. Help me escape from this evil man.

“You’re not getting away now,” he said. “Why should you? You come to our house … you live in luxury… . You have to earn it, Madam Lenore. Don’t be a little fool. You and I were made for each other. We are two of a kind.”