Page 56 of A Curious Ending

‘She did not see him for a week or so, during which time I understand he became increasingly frantic. He had huge debts and his creditors were starting to hound him. When she did see him she broke off their “understanding”. I believe there was an engagement of sorts but she had kept it secret from her family, knowing they would not approve. I even think there had been talk of an elopement. In the course of their meeting, my name was mentioned. On returning home, Charles discovered the loss of his letters to me.’

‘What did he do?’ Lara was afraid she already knew the answer.

‘We were in the country at the time, but Charles drove down to Cambridgeshire. I will never know what was said, or exactly what happened, but when I returned home from visiting friends, I found Miles collapsed near the stables. Charles must have tracked him down there. He had stabbed him. Miles was weak with loss of blood and had been trying to get to the house. I could not comprehend what had happened. There was so much blood, Lara.’ Abby’s hands were shaking as she spoke, ‘I cradled him in my lap and tried to staunch the bleeding but he was frantic and it seemed he wanted to communicate something to me. Much of what he tried to say to me I could not hear. As I was talking to him, I was also crying out for help, but what I suddenly realised was he was gasping the name “Charles” and was desperately trying to tell me that someone must warn Henry.’

Abigail stopped talking and leant forward placing her palms flat on the stone floor of the flower shop as if in some way this action might ground her or stop her falling further into despair. She was half kneeling, half crouching and she was openly weeping. In one swift movement Abby stood up and started pacing as if the methodical movement would soothe her. ‘I have never been so frightened. I now knew what Charles had done and that he was now going to find Uncle Henry. That dear, sweet man. I shouted and shouted for Miles’s groom and after what seemed like hours he came running from his room above the stable. I told him to stay with Miles and to call for someone to fetch the doctor.’

Abby stopped pacing and looked at Lara in despair. ‘I think I knew it was too late for Miles, I think I knew he was already dead.’ She resumed her pacing, ‘I saddled Balthazar. I did not dare trust anyone else with the message. I could not put them in danger.’ Abby ran a hand over her eyes. ‘Before I got beyond the park, I was brought down by a wire that had been strung up across the gates. Charles knew that if Miles had the chance to tell me about his threat to Henry that I would go to him.’

As an aside Abby observed, in something approaching her normal tone, ‘I do so hate to be predictable.’

Abby went on, ‘I do not think Henry was ever really Charles’s intended victim. He wanted to take his revenge on myself and Miles. I was throttled as I hit the wire. I do believe Balthazar tried to save me, but in the crashing fall that followed his whole weight landed on me. At the same time he broke his leg. I did not know up until that point that a horse could scream. Thankfully, I cannot recall any more.’

Abby stopped pacing and appeared to regain some of her usual poise. She sat on the stool by the workbench. Her hand was only trembling slightly as she smoothed her hair.

Lara rose from her cross-legged position on the floor to sit beside her. She felt the need to be physically close to her Kindred Spirit. ‘How do you know what happened next?’ she asked.

‘I have pieced that together over the passing years. A bit of information here, a reported conversation there,’ Abby explained.

‘So what happened?’ Lara needed to know the end of her story.

‘Charles removed the tripwire and he placed the knife that he had used to kill Miles beside me. I was of course covered in Miles’s blood. He also put one of my foolish and fanciful letters to him in the pocket of my gown.’

‘So did people really believe you had killed Miles?’ Lara was horrified.

‘I think they thought the evidence was overwhelming, especially when the servants confirmed that they had heard Miles and I arguing. I presume people believed we were fighting over Charles as no one else knew about my urgent desire to help Emma. Also I had made every effort to be seen as independent and headstrong as possible, so it was perhaps understandable.’ Abby, after 192 years, seemed resigned to people jumping to the wrong conclusion. She added thoughtfully, ‘I do sometimes wonder if it was the combination of two murders that went unavenged, Miles and mine, that was so powerful as to bring me back as a Kindred Spirit.’

‘But surely people who knew you must have known it wasn’t true,’ Lara exclaimed.

‘Not many people did know. The deaths were hushed up as accidents. There was no proof to contradict what looked like a crime of passion. Charles had gone to great efforts not to be recognised when he rode down and his mistress in London said he had been with her all evening. I suspect some felt that my accident was a better outcome than my hanging,’ Abby said sadly, thinking of Thomas.

‘Oh, Abby,’ was all Lara could say.

‘I feel sure that Uncle Henry would never have believed it of me,’ Abby reflected. ‘I think Emma believed it to be an accident. She never had to know the truth. Which is a blessing.’

‘But your mother would not have believed it, surely! You know how upset she was, you told me she tore down her glass houses,’ Lara recalled.

‘Yes, I expect you are right,’ Abby said. ‘I hope you are right. It is just sometimes I wonder if she destroyed them because she was so angry at what she believed I had done.’

Lara did her best to reassure Abby. But after a while she realised that if Abby had not resolved this in her own mind after 192 years there was little she could add to convince her now.

Chapter 28

‘Let’s get out of here,’ Lara said, turning off the radio and reaching for the lamp switches. ‘I’ll light us a fire and I need coffee and a bacon sandwich. Then maybe we could watch a movie.’ She remembered Abby’s previous enthusiasm for films and she wanted to do something that would comfort her.

As they walked across the forlorn, wintry garden to the cottage, they did not talk about Abby’s tale. Lara sensed that Abby did not want to dwell on her tragedy. Instead, Lara told Abby about her visit to Dr Patil and all that she had learnt there: his reaction to Lady Porter’s drinking and hints about an illness (that he then contradicted); his laughter at the thought of his friend being blackmailed; and finally about the discovery that he had indeed left a message on her grave, saying ‘Forgive Me’. In the course of this she described the paintings she had seen and explained that she would show Abby the photograph she had taken later.

When they were settled in what was becoming their usual places by the wood burner, Abby turned to Lara. ‘I know you feel that I let you down in the theatre, Lara. But there really is no one that can save you from Julian but yourself. You do realise that? It is like being addicted to a poison. People may tell you it is bad for you, but it is only once you realise the thing you are craving is disgusting, vile and repulsive…’ Abby accentuated each word with feeling, ‘…that you will no longer want it. If I told you to drink a glass of stagnant pond water you would not do so. And it is the same with Julian, once you can see just what a thoroughly unsatisfactory person he is, he will be no more appealing to you than that glass of pond water.’

‘Oh, I’m over Julian Armstrong,’ Lara assured her. ‘I’m ashamed and humiliated. But I’m certainly cured,’ she said grimly.

‘You once said you found it hard to get angry with Julian. Is that still the case?’ Abby was curious.

Lara simply laughed. Had Julian heard that laugh he might not have felt so relaxed as he headed off from a stolen half-hour with Pinky to meet Sebastian and Jessica for Sunday lunch.

‘I feel sure you will put Julian behind you and will fall in love with a much better man.’ Abby’s eyes rested speculatively on a stepladder that was propped at the end of the room among the urns and an old wheelbarrow. Abby went on, ‘You are already on the way to a much better understanding with Becky,’ Abby paused, thinking that the same could be said of Sarah and Kate. She did not articulate this, feeling that Lara might consider her too ‘managing’, a thoroughly unfair accusation that had been levelled at her in the past. She continued, her tone more subdued and serious, ‘However, there is one person above all who I would urge you to consider. I would gladly sacrifice everything I have ever owned or experienced for one last conversation with my mother.’

Lara felt a pang of guilt for the times she had put off calling her mum or cut their calls short. However much she loved her mum she couldn’t help feeling she had let her down somehow, and that her parents disapproved of her choices. Though thinking it through now, she wondered how much of that was going on in her head and not her mum’s. She would make a point of contacting her later and follow up on her mum’s suggestion that she should come over.