Blossom of Hope

“Here you are, Miss Edwardson,” Mr. Chester’s solicitor declares as he drops the keys of Chester Manor into my outstretched hand.

I breathe a sigh of relief. Chester Manor is mine. After spending my whole life hoping for this moment, I cannot help but take a moment to feel the cool metal of the ornamental key with my fingertips. I have a home.

“Thank you, sir. I greatly appreciate your services and kindness over the past week.”

“Pleased to be of service, miss.” He tips his hat, then turns to walk out the large front door.

I dip a curtsey, then motion to the maid who has been standing off in a corner – probably listening to my conversation – asking her to shut the door. Then I turn and begin climbing the sweeping, red-carpeted stairs to my bedroom.

The bedroom of the mistress of the house. My house.

A jolt of excitement and happiness courses through me when I enter, but then dims when I remember why I am here. I shake off the excruciating memories.

As I sink into a comfortable easy chair, I realize just how tired I am. The stress of the last few months has been unbearable. Too many near misses, I suppose. And all the research on drugs. It has had a draining effect on me.

I glance into the mirror and wince. No woman of five and twenty has a right to looks as worn-down as I do. I would hazard a guess that Queen Victoria, herself at forty, is less haggard than I am. I surmise she is also much happier than I, even with her excess of children and massive responsibilities.

It is unfair. I should be the happiest woman in the British Empire. I am as rich as sin. And yet, I cannot stand to be in my own skin.

A knock brings me back to reality and I jerk my head up from its resting position on the chair back. “Come in.”

Yet another maid – there are so many – ducks into the room and bobs a curtsey. She is petite and very pretty, much how I wish I looked. “Mistress, I’ve got a letter for you. The solicitor said he forgot to give it to you just a minute ago so he had to run back to the house to give it to me to give to you.”

Her convoluted sentence is rather hard to understand between the thick cockney accent and the poor grammar, but I think I glean most of the important meaning.

“Thank you,” I say, taking the letter from the tray she shoves under my nose.

As soon as she leaves the room, I eagerly rip open the sealing wax, curious as to what it contains. I suppose I am also looking for an escape. The letter appears to be from the late Mr. Chester, and is dated about three months ago, back in December.

‘My dearest Olivia,’ it begins. My eye twitches. That is a very familiar greeting for one’s nurse. It seems quite out of character for Mr. Chester with his always-correct manners.

‘If you are reading this, it means I have succumbed to my weak heart. I wish I had longer to enjoy your company. The five months you have tended to me have been the most wonderful of my life.’

At those words, I cannot help but set the letter down on the table next to me. I cannot read the old man’s sentimental thanks to me; I am lacking my usual emotional stamina. Or perhaps it is the fact that I am terrified I will have to remember the past eight months if I do read it.

I stand, brush my black dress off, cross over to the bed, and lay down. If I can just shut my eyes for ten minutes, I will have the fortification I need for dinner in a half an hour.

Darkness circles in…

~~~~~~~~~~

I grew up in London in a school for foundling girls where I was given a basic education. When, at sixteen and the top of my class, I had learned all they could teach me, I took up the study of nursing and earned my certification.

I have always hated the city – the air is constantly too thick to breath, and the street crowded to the point of giving me claustrophobic attacks – so I immediately began seeking employment in the country, hoping for a post with a rich family. I have always been fascinated by the upper class. Their habits, their personalities, their lives. I have always wanted to be part of their gaiety.

I thoroughly believed that if I could just get my hands on some money, I would be every bit as happy as those families, though in hindsight, I think deep down I simply longed for the deeper connection and sense of belonging that my orphaned upbringing had denied me.

When Mr. Chester of Chester Manor hired me to attend to him in the last months of his life, I was awed by the spectacle of the white marble halls and mahogany furniture. Perhaps even a little too overawed, but I pushed my avarice away for a time and tried to relish my newfound luxurious existence, for even as a nurse, I benefited from the proximity to riches.

But then, one day about three months ago, Mr. Chester beckoned me toward him as he sat at his desk in his study and asked, “Olivia, how would you like to come into this?” He motioned around him with a sweeping gesture.

At first, I thought he was jesting. “What are you saying, sir? You mean your book collection?”

“No, no. I mean everything. It is all yours, child. I signed the papers this morning.”

I refused to believe him until he showed me a copy of his will. There it was, my name, Olivia Edwardson, on that slip of paper.

“I want you to have it all. You have become like a daughter to me,” he insisted, and I thought I saw bit of moisture in his eyes. “When I die, you will become the mistress of this place.”

I was shellshocked. I was a hired nurse, nothing more, I swear. However, being so intimately acquainted with Mr. Chester’s health, it had not escaped my notice that he was growing forgetful, and I realized that at any moment he might disinherit me.

It was then that the desire to be rich, powerful, important, came back, and I realized I needed to act quickly. Forgetful old men are often prone to change their mind, and I could not risk Mr. Chester doing just that when all I thought I had ever wanted was finally sitting within my reach.

At first, I tried rejuvenating my faith after years of lukewarmness and prayed every night that Mr. Chester would pass peacefully in his sleep. I told God in no uncertain terms that if He would just grant me this one favor, I would never ask for anything ever again.

But as the days turned into weeks, I realized that either God was being very stubborn, or He did not exist. And so, I took matters into my own hands.

I knew from nursing school that a certain medication Mr. Chester was taking for his heart, Digoxin, would also cause it to fail if overdosed. It could sometimes also be fatal from cumulative effect.

The first night I only increased Mr. Chester’s dose by one milligram.

I continued for a few days, but then I began to grow impatient, ratcheting up his dose by two milligrams, then three. To my extreme vexation, Mr. Chester refused to die. I told myself that if he did die from an overdose of a few milligrams, it would just be his natural death hurried on a bit. Besides, I told myself, it was the humane thing to do for a man who was in pain at every moment. Better to let him die quickly and end his suffering.

Deep down, I knew I was doing wrong. The interesting thing about doing something you know is criminal is that the longer you do it, the more frazzled your nerves become. Eventually, I was such a wreck that Mr. Chester began to notice my hands quivering as I ministered to him.

“Miss Edwardson,” he said to me one day, concerned. “Would you like to take a vacation? I think I have become rather a drag on your nerves. Perhaps a trip to the seaside would do you some good.”

On the surface, I pretended to be very pleased, but deep down, I knew that my ticking clock would soon run out of time.

So, I did what any sane person would have done in my circumstances: I made a desperate final play.

It worked.

~~~~~~~~~~

I start awake, haunted by vivid dreams of the past few months. I will soon go insane if I am forced to relieve the past every time I try to shut my eyes. Usually, I can keep from remembering when I am awake: I proceed through my normal routine and pretend nothing untoward ever happened. It has been easy because everyone else is just as oblivious to my sin as I pretend to be.

I roll off the bed, cold and clammy all over. It appears that I have overslept, and someone brought a tray of dinner in while I was still sleeping. I reach a tentative hand out and touch the side of the bowl of soup. Cold.

I shiver in disgust. I suppose I will just have to wait to eat until I go down for tea. I sigh, my eyes drawn irresistibly to the open letter sitting by my easy chair.

I have always been a very observant person, seeing things most other people don’t even dream of comprehending. Hyper-observency always springs from a deep curiosity – a desire to know the world around one better. And it’s an escape route. A way to forget yourself, or in my case, what I have done.

And so, I sit down in the chair, sinking into its plush softness, and pick up the letter to examine it. I am determined to put off the inevitable for as long as possible.

It is addressed in Mr. Chester’s spidery script, ‘Miss O. Edwardson.’ Simple enough. Turning it over, the red wax seal bears the imprint of Mr. Chester’s signet ring with the ‘C’ surrounded by a combination of flowers and thorns, flanked by two swords. It is a beautiful family seal. Not many others in Britain are so delicate.

I have resisted now as long as I can. Almost of their own accord, and in spite of my very real sense of dread, my curious fingers draw open the thick cream paper of the letter once again and unfold the flaps that conceal the writing within.

‘My dearest Olivia,

If you are reading this, it means I have succumbed to my weak heart. I wish I had longer to enjoy your company. The five months you’ve tended to me have been the most wonderful of my life.

I always hoped I would be able to find a way to bring you back to me, and now, even though I am gone, I hope that I can repay you for twenty-five years of misery by ensuring you will always be well-cared-for and respected, as the daughter of a private gentleman should be.’

My heart skips a beat. Did Mr. Chester know something of my parentage? But how could he? I was a foundling, dropped off on the steps of an orphanage when I was but only a few days old. In those circumstances, finding my parents was as likely as finding a needle in a haystack.

Hungrily, my eyes tear down the second half of the page:

‘In leaving you my fortune, I hope that I can, in some small way, show you how much I have always loved you. Since the day you were born, I have never ceased thinking of you for a single moment, and though I did not even know your name, not a day has gone by where I did not regret – nay, hate myself – for letting your mother leave me while she was still carrying you.

I hope you will not despise me, dearest Olivia. In explanation I can only say that having a child outside of marriage would have been the ruin of me, and, though I let you slip out of my grasp, I always hoped that I would be able to bring you back and provide for you some day. Please forgive me.

Your loving Papa,

Edward Chester’

I cannot breathe. The weight of what I have done sits on my chest like an elephant, suffocating me. My throat tightens and stings as I attempt to stifle the sobs rising in my throat.

I sit looking down at the letter with trembling hands.

I have murdered my own father; The one person who could have quenched my heart’s longing for love. My desire to matter.

The understanding that has been dawning on me ever since the night I killed him eight days ago comes to the forefront of my mind. This money will never make me happy. It will drag me down to hell.

I am no better that a common, homicidal maniac. Actually, I am worse. I have killed the man who helped give life to me in cold blood.

And now there is no escape or chance to make things right. I will live with the consequences of my choices forever.

A single sob works its way up from my deepest fibers and I cover my mouth with the back of my hand. Several tears trickle down my nose and onto the letter. I brush them away.

What would Mr. Chester – Papa – think of me if he could see me now, I wonder? Would he be disgusted, resentful that he ever tracked me down and brought me here? Surely, he would be horrified at who his daughter had become.

Or, perhaps…just maybe, he would want me to be happy. To mend my broken soul. To love others as he loved me.

I set the letter from my father atop the key to Chester Manor, rising from my chair to cross to the large bay window. I crack it open. Although it is only February, a hint of warmth on the breeze carries the scent of spring. In a few short weeks, the apple trees in the orchard below me will begin to bloom.

I wonder if I will even be here when the trees being to flower. I may run away, or be arrested, or kill myself. I do not know yet.

“If I can just be brave until the apple trees blossom,” I whisper to myself, “I think there will be hope for me.” As I begin to close the window, I catch a glimpse of the most extraordinary thing.

A single apple bud, swollen and ready to burst into bloom.