“Yes. That was proved at the inquest,” I said quickly and I discovered that when I had mentioned the matter in the past I had spoken as though I defied anyone to deny it. That was what I did now.

“And Miss Brett is still at the Queen’s House?”

I said: “Yes, she is.”

He stared beyond me; and I wondered whether he was thinking of calling on Anna. Surely not. That would cause quite a scandal now that he had his wife actually living at the Castle. But one thing I did know; he was not indifferent to her.

Young Edward came in, looking for his father, I believed. He had little time for me now; there was no one for him but his father. His eyes were round with adoration. He had shown me the model of a ship his father had brought him. He took it to bed with him and clutched it all night, Miss Beddoes said; moreover he had nearly driven her frantic by sailing it in the pond, and had all but drowned himself; she had caught cold getting him out. He carried the boat under his arm now, and saluted the Captain.

“All present and correct?” asked the Captain.

“Aye aye, sir. Gale blowing up, sir.”

“Batten down the hatches,” said the Captain with a serious face.

“Aye aye, sir.”

I watched them. The Captain could charm a child as easily as he could women. He was that sort of a man.


June 21st. Monique spat blood this morning and the sight of it so frightened her that she had one of the worst asthmatical attacks as yet. I believe there had been a scene between her and the Captain on the previous night. He occupied a room close to hers in the turret — and because I was not far off and Monique never controlled her voice, I often heard it raised in anger or protest. When Dr. Elgin came he was very grave. He said he thought her condition would worsen with winter. The English winter climate would be no use to her. He really thought she should get out before the autumn was over. After he had seen both of the patients he had a long session with Lady Crediton.


June 25th. We have had a death in the house. Jane Goodwin awakened me at four o’clock this morning and begged me to go to her mistress; I scrambled into my slippers and dressing gown but by the time I reached Valerie Stretton she was dead. I was horrified. I had known of course of her precarious condition but when one comes face to face with death and realizes that one will never see the person again, one feels shaken. I know I should be used to this by now — and I am to some extent. But I have never been so shocked by a patient’s death before. I had become so interested in this woman’s story and I was getting to know her. I believed that she had something on her mind and I wanted to discover what, that I might understand her case. There was that occasion when she had had her first attack and I knew she had been out because of the mud on her boots. I felt there was some drama in her life which was still going on, and I had wanted to understand it. And now she was dead.


June 27th. A house of mourning is a sad place. Lady Crediton finds it most inconvenient, Edith tells me. After all these years her rival is dead. I wonder what she really feels. What passionate emotions erupt within these walls. The Captain is grieved. She was after all his mother. Monique is alarmed. She is afraid of her own death. Edward is bewildered. “Where is my grandmamma?” he asked me. “Where has she gone?” I tell him she has gone to heaven. “In a big ship?” he asked. I said he should ask his Papa, and he nodded as much as to say Papa would surely know. I wonder what the Captain told him. He had a way with children … children and women.

The west turret is the turret of death. Lady Crediton does not wish the funeral gloom to penetrate to the rest of the Castle. In Valerie’s old room the blinds are drawn; the coffin stands on its trestles. I went in to see her for the last time; she lies there with a white frilled cap hiding her hair and her face looks so young that it seems one of Death’s rôles is that of a laundress to iron the lines out. I can’t help thinking of her coming to the Castle all those years ago, and of her love for Sir Edward and his for her. All that violent passion and now he is dead and she is dead. But their passion lives on for there is the Captain, virile, so vital, so alive to give proof to it. And there is young Edward too, and the children he will have, and their children, and on forever, so that that love affair will have left its mark for generations to come. I feel frustrated that I had not been able to discover what had frightened this poor woman and what may well have hastened her death. I went back and back again to that darkened room to take a look at her. Poor Valerie, what was her secret, whom did she go to meet? That was the question. That person whom she had gone to meet, the person who had written the letter to her. That was the one I should like to discover. I should like to say: “You hastened her to her death.”


June 28th. Last evening at dusk, I went along to that chamber of death and as I put my hand on the door handle I heard a sound from within. I felt a strange sensation in my spine. I am not superstitious and my profession has made me familiar with death. I have laid out people for their burials; I have seen them die. But as I stood outside that door I did feel this strange sensation, and I was afraid to go into that room. Lots of foolish images flashed into my mind. I imagined she would open her eyes and look at me and say: “Leave me and my secrets alone. Who are you to pry?” And I was shivering. But this foolishness passed and I heard that sound again. It was a stifled sob from a living throat. I opened the door and I looked in. The coffin loomed up in the gloom and there was a shape … beside it. For a moment I thought that Valerie had left her coffin. But only for a moment. Commonsense returned, and as soon as it did I saw that it was Monique standing there. She was crying quietly.

I said sharply: “Mrs. Stretton, what are you doing here?”

“I came to say goodbye to her before …”

“It’s no place for you.” I was brisk, efficient, as much for my own benefit as for hers. I could not imagine how I could have been so foolish. I had almost had an attack of the vapors.

“Oh, it is terrible … terrible …” she sobbed.

I went to her and shook her firmly by the wrist. “Come back to your room. What possessed you to come here! You will be ill if you act so foolishly.”

“My turn next,” she said in a whisper.

“What nonsense!”

“Is it nonsense, Nurse? You know how ill I am.”

“You can be cured.”

“Can I, Nurse? Do you really believe that?”

“With the right treatment, yes.”

“Oh, Nurse … Nurse … you always make me laugh.”

“Don’t laugh now. You come back to your room with me. I’ll give you some warm milk and a little cognac, eh? That will make you feel well.”

She allowed me to lead her from that room and I have to admit that I was glad to get outside. For some odd reason I couldn’t get out of my mind that something in that room was watching us … that it was probing into our innermost thoughts.

She felt it too for she said as the door closed behind us: “I was frightened in there … yet I had to go.”

“I know,” I soothed. “Come along now.”

I got her to her room where she began to cough a little. Oh dear! That fatal telltale stain! I would have to report it to Dr. Elgin.

I said nothing of it to her.

I tut-tutted as I got her into bed. “Your feet are like slabs of ice. I’m going to get you a hot-water bottle. But first the hot milk and the cognac. You should not have gone there, you know.”

She was crying quietly now, and the quietness was more alarming than her noisy outbursts.

“It would be better if I were the one lying in that coffin.”

“You’ll have a coffin when the time comes like the rest of us.”

She smiled through her grief. “Oh, Nurse, you do me good.”

“The cognac will do you even more good, you see.”

“At times you’re the stern nurse and at others … at others you’re quite something else.”

“We all have two sides to our natures, they say. Now let’s see the sensible one of yours.”

This made her laugh again, but she was soon in tears.

“Nobody wants me, Nurse. They’d be glad … all of them.”

“I won’t listen to such nonsense.”

“It’s not nonsense. They’d be glad, I tell you, if I was the one in that coffin. He’d be glad.”

“Drink up this nice milk,” I said. “The bottle will be ready in a little while. And let’s think about this nice feather bed. It’s more comfortable than a coffin, I do assure you.”

And she was smiling at me through her tears.


June 30th. The day of the funeral. Gloom in the house. In the servants’ hall they will be talking of the love affair between the dead woman and that legend which is Sir Edward. There may be some of the older servants who will remember. I wonder if there are. I would like to talk to them about her. Jane Goodwin is heartbroken. I wonder what she will do now? I expect she will stay on at the Castle. Baines will be asked to find some job for her. Poor Jane, she was closely associated with Valerie Stretton for years. Valerie must have confided in her. She must know something. The Captain is the chief mourner. Monique was too ill to go; and little Edward did not either.

Rex went. He is very fond of the Captain and the Captain of Rex. The tolling bells are very depressing. Jane lies in her room engulfed in desolation; Monique cries that it should have been her because that is what some people want. And I went down to draw the blinds in the death chamber and while I was there who should come down but Miss Beddoes. For some reason she dislikes me. It is mutual. She looked a little disappointed when she saw that I was merely pulling up the blinds. I wondered what she expected. In my room in the turret I can hear the bells of the nearby church tolling, telling the world that Valerie Stretton has passed away.