‘I never kiss and tell,’ said Jenna primly. ‘And in that case I didn’t kiss either. Let’s just say it’s a very famous, iconic British recording artiste, known for his chameleonic changes of style and his arachnids from another planet in the solar system. And he’s just as gorgeous in real life.’ She sighed.
‘You’ve lost me,’ said Jason. ‘Tone down the long words, yeah?’
But she knew he knew who she meant, and they shared a complicit smile.
‘So, come on, turn the page.’
She turned it, as lightly as she could to avoid getting fingermarks on the dry paper.
March 3rd
Such a terrible turn of events, I hardly know how to describe it.
David went up to town three days ago, to buy things for the wedding next week. I so wanted to accompany him but he insisted I stay here with the girls – he thought our close confinement together without him might encourage them to place some trust in me, even perhaps some confidence.
But it has not, far from it.
They have disobeyed my every instruction and, for the most part, hidden around the house and garden so that I scarcely know where they are or even that they are not lost or hurt. I am sure the servants assist them in this, for I saw the slyest look on Eliza’s face when I asked her if she had seen the young Misses.
But ‘Oh no, ma’am, not I’ is all I can obtain from their false lips.
Yesterday I became so perplexed with it all that I chased them about the house, determined that they should come and spend the afternoon with me in the sitting room and that we should finally make a peace treaty, but the impudent pair ran into my own bedroom! The very idea of it!
I will own that I was very angry by the time I joined them in there, and I had a number of cross words for them. When I found them hiding in my wardrobe, I was furious and I made to haul them out of it, but in a trice the pair of them had me in there. They shut the door and, before I could rush out and apprehend them, they had locked me in my room.
I heard the key turning and their laughter, and I could do nothing but throw myself on to the bed and cry. I did not even bang on the door or call a servant to let me out. My sense of failure was too acute, too painful to admit any witness.
What is to be done? How can I continue in this house, when I am hated by its daughters and held in contempt by its servants? David is not enough, even if he does love me. I want to beg him to send them away, to give the staff notice, and to begin our married life as a fresh start, with all of these people gone from it.
‘Well,’ said Jenna, drawing breath. ‘Those girls are certainly very naughty, but to want to cut them out of their father’s life . . .?’
‘She’s upset. So would I be. Why didn’t he take her with him?’ Jason said, shaking his head. ‘He might have known leaving them all together was asking for trouble.’
‘Perhaps he hasn’t gone to arrange wedding things,’ hazarded Jenna. ‘Perhaps he has a mistress and he’s visiting her. Or he’s addicted to the gaming tables. Or – could be all sorts of things.’
‘The Harvilles like their secrets,’ Jason agreed. ‘Skeletons in the closet – literally.’ He shuddered.
‘Do you think it’s Frances? The body you found? God, what a thought. Poor woman.’
‘She should have run from Harville Hall as soon as she got out of that room. If she did get out of it. Read on, then. I want to know if she does.’
I will insist that the girls are sent to school the moment he returns from London. That will give them something to think about.
Yesterday I was shut in here, and here I remain. I have waited in vain for some servant to come up with supper and release me, but nobody has been. I heard the usual evening sounds of the house – the dinner gong, the girls running up and down the stairs, some distant clattering from the kitchen. But nobody came to release me.
Once darkness had fallen, I knocked on the door, called for help, tried to open the window but the drop is too much and I would break a bone.
Eventually it became clear that I must resign myself to spending the night in captivity. At least I had the means to wash and change my clothes, even though I was faint with hunger. I lay on the bed and must have drifted off to sleep some time before midnight.
When I awoke, in the light of dawn, suffering much from hunger, I noticed that there was a dark patch on the wallpaper. Drawing closer, I perceived that somebody had written upon it in a dark charcoal. ‘Help me,’ it said.
One of those infernal girls must have come in and done it while I was asleep. I know that this is the most likely explanation, yet it chilled me to the bone and I confess that I am now so miserable and distressed that I want nothing more than to leave this place and go back to Mama and Papa and our genteel poverty.
If I am ever released from here before I fall prey to the inevitable consequences of privation, that is. I know David will be back tomorrow, but I do not know how long a body can survive without water. I will try to call to the servants again. I can do no more.
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‘Deario, poor Frances,’ said Jenna. ‘She must have been very afraid.’