Bitter Herbs Read online

  Suddenly she froze in horror as the front door slammed. Mr Charles was home sooner than she expected. Her mind began to race. What if he woke the old lady? Annie told herself sternly not to be so foolish. The drug was too effective for that. However what if he passed the drawing room door and came straight up to his mother’s room to bid her ‘goodnight’? Hastily she blew out her candle and moved to the door to press her ear against it. She heard a creak on the stair and her heart leapt into her mouth. While the seconds ground past like hours, she felt as though she must suffocate. Then she heard a door further down the corridor open and close, and silence fell. The blessed relief when she realised that Mr Charles had sensibly tip-toed to his own room without even seeking out his mother, having assumed that she had retired, was enormous. She listened for any other sound of movement before cautiously relighting her candle and returning to her task. She decided that the best course of action was to copy the words from the label and leave the original in place. She selected a quill from Mrs Wood’s desk and found an old laundry list in a drawer, tearing a blank piece from the bottom, before copying out the letters exactly. The name meant nothing to her and seemed to be in a foreign language. She cut off a small piece of the root and wrapped it in a rag, then left the room, having made sure to set all right, just as she had found it. She looked into the drawing room and found Mrs Wood still soundly asleep. She was able to replace the key without detection, gathered up the abandoned tea tray and retreated to the kitchen where she was chided for her tardiness at supper with the other servants. She offered to bank the fire and wash the supper dishes, saying Missus Amos had fallen asleep and she was worried about waking her, she looked so comfortable. Her offer was accepted gladly and she saw the other women go off to bed first before carefully washing the knife separately from the other cutlery, and putting it away. Feeling very sleepy herself by this time in reaction to the anxiety and excitement of her mission, she returned to the drawing room, having taken a pillow and blanket from the linen cupboard. She arranged these items to leave the old dame in reasonable comfort. Before she blew out her candle that night as the other girls snored, she looked at her hard-won scrap of paper again to reassure herself that she copied it aright and was satisfied that she had. It read ‘atropa belladonna’.

  Chapter 28

  Any qualms Annie might have felt about her adventure of the previous night were quite assuaged by Edmund’s reaction when she and Deborah reported her success to him. He was unstinting in his praise of both girls’ courage but particularly Annie’s audacity in achieving their desired goal so resolutely and swiftly. Here was some real evidence at last of poison being secretly held within the household.

  “You have played a heroine’s part, Annie, in securing this. Your mistress took no harm from the syrup?”

  “None, sir. She awoke to say she had not slept so well for many a night and made a good breakfast.”

  “Excellent. Sit down please, girls. The cat will have to leave his chair. Just tip him out. There is something I must ask you, Annie. It is a strange tale but I think you might be able to shed some light on it.”

  He recounted the curious story of Mrs Bytheway’s ‘ghost’. “Have you witnessed anything that the older Mrs Wood might have done that could account for that strange sighting? Or even the younger Mrs Wood? I remember you were grumbling about cleaning Mrs Charles’ shawl, but does Mrs Amos have a similar shawl?”

  “Yes, sir, a pale blue one. Mr Charles bought it for her at the same time as the white one for his wife. Perhaps she picked the white one up in mistake for her own. In answer to your first question though sir, well, the day before you came to see us, there was something rather strange. I was taking the tea things in, and Mrs Charles was very sleepy and Mrs Amos was looking at her so fierce. I had to whisk out of the room because I had forgotten the sugar tongs again , like I often do, and when I got back I went straight in with scarcely a tap on the door because I thought they were expecting me, and Mrs Amos was trying to get her daughter-in-law to drink something and swung around so quick when I came in, that some of it spilled on the carpet. I thought she was trying to get her to take some medicine. Oh, sir, do you think she was trying to give her summat bad? She shouted at me to get out like a madwoman.”

  “I think that your young mistress may be in great danger, Annie.” Edmund’s mind was racing. Had Mrs Amos thrown the bottle out of the window in a panic afterwards? He thought it likely. He recalled an incident that had disturbed him at the time but had faded from his memory: Mrs Charles had been troubled with a slight cough during the sermon last Sunday and from his vantage point in the pulpit he had noticed her mother-in-law glare at her with loathing. Such a look had no place in the house of God and Edmund had hesitated in consternation just for a second in his address. He rested his elbows on his desk and raised his hands to support his brow while he sunk into deep thought for a space, while the girls waited respectfully.

  The ginger kitten, now grown into a handsome and charismatic tomcat named Marmaduke, having been displaced from his chair by Annie, gave up trying to get out of the door and leaped up instead onto Edmund’s desk, stalking along with tail held high, and claimed his lap with its usual confidence of a welcome. Edmund, stirred from his reverie by the cat’s intrusion, smiled at the animal and idly began to stroke its fine fur, still thinking. He reflected on the accident that had brought the creature into his household, and as he did so, another dormant memory stirred in his actively striving brain and suddenly, a connection formed in his head. He looked down at Judy, his spaniel, who was lying stretched on the hearth rug in blissful abandon before the warmth of the fire, and he remembered the story of the harmless ratter Pincher who had been poisoned. He cupped the cat’s head in his hand and addressed it with a touch of grim wonder: “You were a victim too, were you not, Marmaduke? And your poor mother and siblings even more so. First a cat, then a dog, then a small human being, one dose at a time, getting stronger in each case, working up to the ultimate goal. A dark, hellish pattern, made by madness.” With this startling thought fresh in his mind, he stood up, to Marmaduke’s disgruntlement, and prepared to accompany Annie home.

  * * *

  Edmund’s mind was in turmoil as he escorted the maidservant to the Woods’ home. How best to act? Should he confide in Charles about his fears or should he confront the old lady directly? The more he thought over the problem, the more likely he thought it that Mrs Amos had fallen into madness. How else could she contemplate the murder of her daughter-in-law, striking first at her little maid, in an experiment, as if she too were an animal? He shuddered inwardly but squared his shoulders in readiness to fight the evil that he knew must exist within that unhappy home.

  Annie took Edmund to the kitchen door and knocked. Jessie let them in. “Jessie, my dear, where are all the members of the family at this moment?” Edmund asked her.

  “Master is out riding, sir, and the young mistress is asleep in her room. It’s one of her poorly days. I think the old missus is there too, sitting with her. She was in her own room for a while but I heard her move across just now.”

  “There is no time to be lost.” Edmund turned to Annie. “Come with me, Annie. Jessie, please send out to the stables to get them, in my name, to find your master and get him to return home as soon as possible. It is very important.”

  With Annie leading the way, Edmund went upstairs and listened outside the door of Mrs Charles’s room. Annie and he froze in horror as the heard a low, keening moan, an expression of despair which wrung the heart to feel that any other human being could be in such misery.

  “That’s the noise that Mary heard at night, sir,” Annie whispered. “She thought it might be Dilly’s ghost. It made her move her bed into our room, she was so scared by it. It’s enough to give you the shivers.”

  Putting his finger to his lips in warning, Edmund opened the door very quietly. The curtains were closed but there was only one candle alight, by the bedside. Evie lay prostrate on the bed, fully
clothed, and her mother-in-law crouched forward from her seat beside her, muttering and moaning to herself. It was she who had uttered that mournful cry.

  “A little space and all this ends,” she crooned, “away with her, away with her flaunting ways, the common little SLUT. Taking my son’s good name, MY good name, damn her. It’s not right; she must go. Ohh.” The old woman lifted her hands to either side of her head as if in pain.

  “No, no, no, let me be. Go away. I won’t kill her. I must not. Charles would be hurt. They would all say no. It would make all worse. No, no. What if they learned that I did it? What if they thought Charles did it? To rid himself of his wife who has been such an embarrassment? They might, they might. I must THINK.”

  “It will be all right,” she resumed. “Fear not. No one guessed about Dilly, no one at all. Such an easy thing to convince her that my ‘medicine’ would do her good, stop her retching her little heart up every morning. ‘Take this and all will be well, my child, I said,“ she snickered to herself, as she remembered the scene, chilling her listeners’ hearts. “Such a fuss about the baby, though, as if that by-blow mattered! But she looked so pathetic in her bed next morning, poor thing, poor thing.” She sobbed for a moment but soon hissed and spoke again.

  “Ah, but I knew then that it would work. That was the right dose. Come, come. Strike now and all is resolved. Be firm, be firm. A few drops, no pain, no blood. She will never wake and the coroner will say it was the gin. Vile girl, slut, strumpet, whore!“ With each epithet, she nearly spat, so fierce was she. Her horrified listeners saw her pick up a small bottle from the bedside table, where the carafe of gin from the parlour rested. The sparse candlelight gleamed momentarily on the fluid as she emptied it from the small container into a glass of water. She added some gin from the carafe. The old woman stirred the mixture slowly with her finger, which she wiped distractedly upon her own dress, staring meditatively into the liquid. She started to speak again but her words sank into a mumble, too low to hear. She picked up the drink and stood up, reaching across her daughter-in-law’s unconscious body to lift her head. Edmund had seen enough: before she could put the glass to the younger woman’s lips, he cried “Stop!” and moved swiftly across the room. The old woman shrieked in terror, malice aglitter in her eyes as she heard the stern voice. She dropped the glass and fell away from the bed. The shriek had awoken Evie who stirred and sat up, looking astonished and bewildered at the scene before her.

  “What…what is happening?” she said in a wondering voice.

  “Do not fear, Mrs Wood, you are safe,” Edmund started to reassure her, but even as the words left his lips, the old woman sprang forward with a cry of rage and hatred and tried to strangle the younger woman. Evie was too drowsy still and confounded to defend herself, but Edmund flung himself at the old lady, grappling her by the arms to pull her away while Annie interposed herself between her two mistresses, facing Mrs Amos and defending Evie stoutly, her arms outstretched.

  The old woman seemed to Edmund to be possessed of a demonic strength and he was obliged to use main force on her, dragging her away from her intended victim, while she uttered inarticulate cries, screeching like a Fury intent on destroying a sinner.

  Suddenly Charles appeared in the doorway, breathless and dishevelled, staring in horror at his mother, while Jessie, equally agitated, clung to the doorpost. He ran to his wife and she clung to him, murmuring his name over and over again, while Annie stood aside, now in tears. The old woman looked at her son kissing and soothing his wife tenderly. Edmund had never seen such visceral hatred on any human face, not even on that of a felon who had once sought his destruction.

  She started forward as if to strike again but Edmund kept hold of her arms and strove with her. Suddenly she stopped struggling. Edmund felt her whole body slacken and he let go of her tentatively, ready to prevent her acting violently. She turned and grasped at the lapels of his coat, blinking slowly as if to refocus, and shaking her head as if she had received a blow. She looked up into his face. “I know you. You are Reverend Bredwardine.” She spoke wonderingly. “What is happening? Am I at home? My head feels so strange.” She put a hand to her brow and the other she clasped to her mouth in anguish. She started to rock to and fro. Edmund helped her to sit down and kneeled beside her chair, grateful that the savage fit was over. “What have I been doing?” She looked about her, fearful and confused. “ Oh dear, Reverend, sometimes I feel as though I am like King Lear, you know; I am so frightened that ‘I am not in my perfect mind’.” She started to cry and despite the evil she had done, Edmund felt his own eyelids prick as he looked at her bewildered face searching his for answers that at the same time she dreaded. All the fierce energy of madness had drained out of her and she sagged in her chair. “Where is Dilly? She will look after me. She knows my ways. She will not mind my being out of temper. Dilly is never cross. Where is she? I need her. She should be with me.” Her voice started to rise querulously before sinking again into sadness. “I do not recall seeing her for such a long time now.” A fresh spasm of fear passed over her face and she stood up suddenly. “Dilly! Dilly! Where are you?” she cried, turning her head right and left in despair. Edmund’s heart lurched in pity for both maid and mistress. He took the old lady out of the room to the parlour and made her sit down again. He called to Annie to bring her mistress tea and sit with her for a spell. He assured her, seeing her hesitate, that Mrs Wood was quite calm now and that he would only step out of the room for a short space of time. He sought out Charles Wood and sent Jessie out again, still agog with horror, to fetch Mr Trent to administer sedatives to both women.

  After a sad conference about the future, they took his mother to her room and locked her in, after first removing all the bottles and herbs they could find. Charles agreed with Edmund albeit reluctantly that a private madhouse where she could be cared for was the best place for his mother now. The poor weak fellow shed many good natured tears at this but he acknowledged that there was no other remedy. Evie would never be safe in the same house and who knew what other harm his mother might do in her madness?

  Edmund was able to arrange all discreetly and soon the doctor came to take Mrs Wood to the private asylum, without being observed by the townsfolk. He and Charles could still hear her plaintively calling still for Dilly as the carriage rattled away.

  Chapter 29

  The next day, as Edmund was talking quietly to Daniel, Deborah and their aunt Emma Jones in his study about the horrible truth behind Dilly’s death, Harriet was perusing a letter from Miss Ashfield which had been delivered by hand that morning. After pacing up and down her room in some perturbation for a while, she sought out her mother in the morning room.

  “Mother, may I speak with you? I need your advice.” Her mother put down her own letters and looked at her daughter with puzzlement and concern. It was unusual to see Harriet look so agitated.

  “Why, surely you may, my dearest girl. Come and sit by me. What has happened to disturb you?”

  “I have received a letter this morning, Mama, from Miss Ashfield. It is full of kindness and consideration, as ever. She is very busy choosing papers and furnishings for her new house at Benthall and she seeks my assistance, which I should be very happy to give. However, she goes so far as to make a further proposal to me: that I should become her companion and live with her in her new home once she is settled. She has enclosed a letter to you too, to beg you to spare me to her, she says, and to explain the pecuniary arrangements she has in mind. She says also, in my letter, so delicately and with real benevolence, that she would not dream of taking me wholly from Edmund’s side in to neglect my parish duties, should I wish to retain them. She suggests instead allowing me some relief by providing (at her own expense) an assistant for me, some deserving young woman, perhaps from the poorhouse, who could be trained to undertake some of the drudgery, as she describes it.”

  “My dear!” Mrs Bredwardine’s face was all astonishment. She struggled with contending thoughts: Harriet woul
d be provided for, she was sure, most generously, but the degree of patronage and condescension, even from such a worthy woman as Miss Ashfield, was too acute for her family pride to rejoice wholly in such generosity. She understood more fully now something of the pressure both her son and daughter had felt from Miss Ashfield’s past kindnesses.