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Berniece Mayhew was at Hope’s End that night.
Not just before and after the murders, but during them.
By the start of October, I had reached the point where I could no longer hide my condition, even with the help of Archie and Miss Baker. My body had changed too much to merely blame on weight gain. Soon anyone who looked at me would know I was pregnant.
Without another way to keep it a secret, Miss Baker suggested I take a cue from my mother and stay in bed. Reluctantly, that’s what I did. Anyone who came into my room and saw me propped up on pillows and covered by ample blankets wouldn’t know I was pregnant.
My excuse for taking to my bed--exhaustion brought about by extreme nervousness--was also inspired by my mother. Everyone believed it. Like mother, like daughter. Even clueless Dr. Walden had no trouble thinking it was the truth. Rather than examine me, he simply provided a bottle of laudanum and told me to sip it regularly to ease my delicate condition. I poured the foul liquid down the sink as soon as I was alone. I might have been acting like my mother, but I certainly had no plan to become her.
For a restless girl like me who lost every time my father forced us to play the game in which he locked us in our rooms, I shockingly had no trouble spending most of my time in bed. Very quickly, I learned how to lay very still, sometimes for hours, whilemy mind roamed the world, going wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted.
Often, I’d put my hands on my stomach and whisper to the child growing inside it about all the things I had planned for us and all the places we would go. Paris, of course, but other, more adventurous locales. Jungles and mountains and tropical islands with water that shimmered like sapphires.
I thought of it as nothing more than daydreaming, but Archie, whose curious nature compelled him to read about such things, said I was practicing meditation.
“What’s that?” I asked him on one of the rare times he could sneak into my room.
“Disassociating the mind from the body,” he replied, which didn’t clear up much.
Still, I had ample time to let my mind wander. Few people came to see me. My mother was bedridden herself, and my father, overwhelmed by business woes I knew very little about, had taken to spending more time in Boston. Even Archie’s visits grew scarce as the weeks passed.
The only two people I saw on a regular basis were Miss Baker, who brought me meals and made sure I ate every bite, and my sister, who seemed to revel in discussing her social life, including all the things she was doing, people she was seeing, and places she was going.
“Peter and I are going on a picnic,” she said the day before everything changed, even though none of us knew it yet. “I do wish you could join us.”
She didn’t mean it, of course. It was simply her way of making sure I knew she had the carefree existence I could only long for. Little did she know that I was doing fine. I had someone who loved me, his child growing inside me, and a happy family in my future.
Or so I told myself.
But doubt had crept in, and no amount of daydreaming--or meditation--could keep it at bay.
The truth was that Ricky hadn’t once checked in on me in the three weeks since I had been forced to fake being an invalid. He knew it was a ruse to hide the pregnancy, for I made sure to tell him.
Day after day, week after week, I asked Miss Baker, who by then knew Ricky’s identity, if he had come around trying to see me. And day after day, week after week, I was told no.
“I’m sure it’s very difficult for him to sneak away,” Miss Baker said each time I asked.
Of that, I had no doubt. What bothered me was that he didn’t even seem to be attempting to check on me. My patience eventually wore thin, as did my certainty that Ricky truly loved me and wanted this child as much as I did.
Fueled in part by my sister’s flaunting of her robust social life, I chose that night to sneak out and see him. The doubt had become too much to bear.
When Miss Baker arrived with dinner that evening, I pleaded with her to locate Ricky and tell him I would meet him on the terrace at midnight. It was the only time I could leave my room without being seen. Reluctantly, she agreed.
At the stroke of midnight, after I was certain everyone else had gone to bed, I crept downstairs into the kitchen, on my way to the terrace. I was halfway across the kitchen when I realized I wasn’t alone.
Berniece was also there. Although she pretended to busy herself with late-night work, it was clear she had been waiting for me.
“I knew it,” she said when she saw my rounded stomach. “Well, you’re one apple that didn’t fall far from the tree.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I replied, trying to muster anger when all I felt was pure fear.
Berniece sneered. “That you’re a whore. Just like every other member of your family.”
I was so stunned I couldn’t speak. I knew what the servants said about us behind our backs, of course. I just thought they valued their jobs too much to say it to my face. Not Berniece, apparently.
“You honestly think I don’t know what’s going on?” she said. “My husband sneaking out at odd hours, hardly paying any attention to me, looking like he’d rather die than touch me. I’ve known for months. It’s not the first time it’s happened.”
She glared at me, as if everything about me repulsed her.