TALES FROM MORTIFER HOUSE - Part Eleven - Murder at Mortifer

 

 De coding the journal had fast become an obsession for Eleanor. She barely slept or ate. Grace knew to keep quiet and amuse Alice although she was deeply concerned about her mothers behaviour and puzzled also.  She knew better than to question her or mention it to her father though, she was sure it had something to do with her mothers desire to end the bizarre events within the house. 

One evening when the house was quiet Eleanor once again sat and delved into the pages of the journal. 

She noticed that the next entry was not until December 12th. 

December 12th.  

My dear wife Emma is home. We are preparing for Christmas, albeit an unusual one. There is still much sadness and mourning for the twins of course. We are still in mourning clothes, I feel Elizabeth will never recover from losing the twins but she and Emma seem close and gather comfort from each other.  For this I am truly grateful and relieved. Elizabeth appears to have dropped all threats to me since the death of the twins, although sometimes she has a closed and angry look that I cant quite fathom. She has settled very well into the role of housekeeper and is an absolute Godsend looking after Emma and Angus and Jane, especially when I am away on business. 

December 31st.

I sit here, once again spared by God for yet another year.  Christmas was sad and quiet, but we are by Gods good grace all in fine health. As this year draws to a close, I cannot help but wonder what this next year will hold. We can but put ourselves in His hands and be guided to live peacefully and honourably. Hopefully without confrontation.

February 9th.

It has been one of the harshest winters I can ever recall. The children have enjoyed the deep snows but we have been unable to get many supplies to the house as it is impossible to get carriage and horses out to us without getting overturned on the frozen ground and snow drifts. Thank heavens for a fully stocked larder and Elizabeth's skilled cooking despite frugal supplies.  We have mostly heated just the drawing room and spent many hours in there amusing the children with tall tales and play acting, whilst Emma and Elizabeth sew, embroider and darn. 

It has felt quite pleasant but I am suffering a little from cabin fever and shall be glad when the spring appears at last. 

April 22nd.

I cannot quite believe that the snow still clings to the shadowy hollows where the spring sunshine does not reach, it has been the most extraordinary winter. 

Our thoughts now are turning to the summer and the feeling that we must once again open our doors to our friends and neighbours and throw one of our parties. 

I shall write to Stitchy and see if he can visit and entertain our guests this summer. Perhaps we can return to some sort of normality as the year wears on. 

Elizabeth is quiet and clearly takes comfort in her friendship with Emma and the joy of the children. I pray that this is a good sign and that she will no longer wish to cause trouble for my wife. I can never quite rest easy for fear she is plotting something. 

April 25th.

We received a welcome visitor today in the form of Stitchy! It seems my letter had not yet reached him but he had been travelling and decided to pay us a visit. 

It is still very cold and he was most grateful for a warm by our fire,a cup of tea and one of Elizabeth's delicious cakes that she whipped up the instant she saw him arrive. 

It was with joy that the children clung to Stitchy begging him to play hide and seek, which he did willingly. When they had finally settled and Emma had shooed them to bed he sat with me in my study. He really is my greatest friend and ally, but so painfully shy. He only becomes his true self when we are alone and it took him months to actually even reveal his face without the costume. Yet I would trust him with my life should it come to that. 

Thankfully he has agreed to come and be the star attraction at our early summer party, the children will be as thrilled as I myself, am. 

June 22nd.

I have not had cause to write much these last few months. Things have been very quiet at Mortifer, Elizabeth has been especially quiet. My guard has been lowered as she and Emma have quite the friendship these days and she hasn't once threatened to reveal my lies and infidelity.

One of the coldest winters, which I may add, lasted well into normal springtime, gave way to a very warm May and early June. And dry!! We have hardly had a drop of rain.

The summer party is tomorrow, the children are beyond excited and the guests are already travelling to be with us. The weather is set fair and you can smell the exquisite scent of the early roses on the breeze. 

Elizabeth and Emma have been baking and preparing food for the guests all week

and they have had to chase Angus out of the kitchen several times as he keeps eating their hard work! 

It will be so good to catch up with old friends and new, and indeed family we see so rarely. Dear Florence is coming and so is Lillium. They make any party worth going to as they are thoroughly delightful and so much fun.

Lilliam has been wearing a plague mask for years, she refuses to take it off. She is so scared she will catch some deadly disease. The children love her though. Maybe their acceptance of Lillium in the mask is some way to understanding how they accept Stitchy in his mask without question. 

It is late but I can still hear movement in the kitchen. Pots and pans rattling, surely, most of the preparation is done by now. I think  I will go and get some rest, there is much to do in the morning.

June 23rd.

The day and night proved to be a resounding success, the children were exemplary in their behaviour delighting all our guests. Stitchy entertained until he was exhausted.  Food and drink was consumed and dancing was done.

Although it was gone midnight when we finally closed the front door after waving the last people away into the night Stitchy and I retired to the study for one final nightcap.  

Tucked away there we could hear Emma happily chatting to Florence, Lillium and Elizabeth in the kitchen below. She was excited because tomorrow she is travelling to Bath with Lillium in search of a new hat and tonight she has all of her close friends under one roof. 

Life is good and easy and I count every blessing. 

June 24th.

How quickly life can take a turn and misfortune and evil can strike! I am shaking as I write down the events that have taken a bitter twist. 

Thank heavens I know this code and can speak of this freely because otherwise I fear I would go insane with no one to confide in. 

Emma, as I had already divulged, has gone to Bath with Lillium and I am not, so very fortunately in this instant, expecting her back until very late tonight. In fact there was a small doubt that she would return tonight and perhaps would take lodgings with Lillium at a good friend of the family who live on the outskirts of the city. 

I cannot believe I am writing this. Elizabeth came to my study this afternoon and attempted, unsuccessfully!, to seduce me. She did not take my rebuff kindly. 

She left the room in such a temper that I followed her to try to calm her.  Angus and Jane were in the nursery and both Stitchy and Florence were in the gardens talking, I could not risk anyone finding out any of my carefully hidden secrets!

When I came down the stairs she was calmly making hot milk for the children, she didn't see me as I entered the kitchen, but I saw her. 

I saw her stir something into both milks... I shot across the room and grabbed her wrist until her hand went white. A small envelope of powder fell from her grasp. 

Without hesitation, despite the fact I was shaking with rage, I pinned her by her throat against the kitchen wall and placed my head directly in her face so she could see my anger and vitriol. 

She confessed it was poison and yes, in a fit of rage she had planned to kill both my children - just as she had killed ours!

I could have ended her life there and then, squeezed her throat until she turned purple, but my knees buckled with the enormity of her confession and my grip failed. 

Gasping she ran from the kitchen but not before she had smiled at me in pure evil. I would forever have to be on my guard she warned breathily, I would never know what she would be capable of next. 

Feeling as though my legs would not carry me I immediately poured the milk into the drain and then hid the remaining poison in its inconspicuous envelope. 

I bounded up the stairs to check the children they were both fast asleep and breathing normally I shut and locked the door. Elizabeth was not going to get away with murder tonight! 

The house was silent save for a slight floorboard squeak in the bathroom.  I glanced out of the landing window Stitchy and Florence were long gone and I was alone in the house with a madwoman. 

As quietly as I could I inched along the corridor to the bathroom, the door was slightly ajar. 

Elizabeth was humming a tune I could not quite make out and was drawing a bath. 

I watched, almost mesmerised as she unpinned her hair and slipped out of her clothes. 

As she sank into the water she turned and looked over her shoulder at me. It was a sultry look from beneath her lashes and she giggled slightly.  My mouth I must confess was dry, she was stunning, but then I came to my senses. She was after all, a twisted evil woman. 

Even now, as I sit writing this, I cannot recall what happened in full. 

All I know is that Elizabeth is quite dead and I drowned her … it was easy and she never even screamed and there was the tiniest bit of blood from our struggle.

Eleanor's hand flew to her mouth to suppress her absolute shock and she stared blankly at the journal barely able to focus. Angus's father, her father in law, who admittedly she had never known, had murdered someone in cold blood in these very four walls. 

Her mind was all over the place and then she remembered the day she had returned from the asylum. Rebbeca and the girls in tears, the story of the skeletal hand in the bath water. Eleanor suddenly felt very cold it must be Elizabeth causing the disturbance and unrest in the house! A sudden breeze in the room, just from an open window, seemed to almost acknowledge that thought. 

Her shoulders ached but she could see there was one more entry on the page. She HAD to de code that too! 

It turned out it wasn't a separate entry, merely a continuation of that awful June day which had sealed the fate of a bitter hate filled woman. 

Charles continued:

Blind panic consumed me and I dragged her from the bath and wrapped her in a sheet from the linen closet. At least there was no blood spilt outside the bath that I had to clean, the small trace in the water drained away without any residue.. She was mercifully small and light in frame and I was able to carry her down the stairs and out of the door into the grounds. At first I thought I might be able to conceal her in the Mortifer tomb along with the twins but soon realised that a body without a coffin would raise many questions next time someone was taken there. 

I then decided to bury her in the woods on the very edge of the grounds, where hopefully no one would discover her. 

It was then that things took an even worse turn, as if they were not absolutely dire already. 

I rounded the corner of the house, I had been trying to stay as close to the shadows as possible in order not to be seen. The light was fading but the sun had not gone down completely. There, hard against the house, almost hidden in the shadows were Stitchy and Florence in a passionate embrace.  I saw them in the exact same moment they saw me. 

Not a word was exchanged, but the look of sheer horror in Florence's eyes was enough to send terror through my heart. 

Florence and Stitchy parted and melted away into the dark recess of the building. There was not a thing I could do but take a spade from the outhouse and continue my journey to the edge of the woodland. 

When the deed was done, I returned to the house to be confronted by Stitchy in my study. The look of disappointment in his eyes made me want to weep. I sat down and I told him everything, every last damned detail. Stitchy was a man of few words, whatever he said in those hours we sat and talked elude me now. 

After he had gone I sat and thought all night. Emma had not returned fortunately so after unlocking the children's door, now I knew they were safe, I drank a whole bottle of claret but somehow I was completely sober and clear headed.

Having dealt with one problem, I now had two whole new ones. What to do about Florence and Stitchy. I had already formed a plan to silence Florence but Stitchy was a whole other matter. 

Eleanor closed the journal. There were still entries to be looked at but she felt now that she was getting towards the end of Charles's story. 

Poor Florence had clearly paid the price for his wrong doing through no fault of her own but how had Charles sealed her fate? What also happened to Stitchy... ? Something did not tie up as the posters she had found had him missing from a much earlier time then when Charles had finished talking to him.

The moon had risen outside bathing the room in its silvery light. Eleanor stood to close the drapes and as she did so she thought she saw a shadowy figure on the lawn. Nothing surprised or shocked her much these days. She looked again but the figure was gone, she really hoped that Elizabeth's evil could not harm her family from beyond the grave. 

Increasingly Eleanor was doubting that hope ….

Sarah Russell 2023