Painting The Darkness (13 page)

‘Bad luck!’ said Cleveland.

Sir Hugo straightened up and looked towards him, imagining how easy his friend would find it to accept Norton as a Davenall and wondering if he could adjust as readily to the idea that Sir Hugo might not be one himself after all. ‘It was bound to catch up with me,’ he said musingly.

‘What’s that, old man?’

‘My luck, Freddy. I’m surprised it’s held this long.’

III

Some time after the train left Reading and began to track across the Vale of the White Horse towards Swindon, rain ceased to fling itself against the window of Arthur Baverstock’s compartment and the provincial lawyer felt his resentment of London practices in general and Richard Davenall’s in particular fall away, little by little, as the landscape grew more homely and his memory of the day’s discomforts less acute. It had been agreed that he should return at once to Bath with a view to asking Lady Davenall what might have happened at Cleave Court in September 1846, and he was glad of the excuse to leave the other Davenalls to their own devices. Indeed, he would have been happy to dissociate himself from the whole affair but, just as Lady Davenall would answer questions or not (and probably not) as she pleased, so her wish to be separately represented was something Baverstock knew better than to challenge.

It was strange, he reflected, as he gazed from the window at the flooded fields flanking the line, that he probably already knew more about the significance of the date Norton had quoted than he was ever likely to glean from Lady Davenall. He was surprised, and
secretly
pleased, that Richard Davenall seemed to know nothing of it; but, then, he had been denied, if denial it was, Baverstock’s advantage of lengthy conversation with Esme Pursglove, who had seen more and forgotten less in sixty-five years at Cleave Court than anybody else alive or dead. On more occasions in recent times than he cared to remember, he had been a captive guest for tea at Miss Pursglove’s cottage, listening with half an ear to her interminable reminiscences of a lifetime in service to the Davenalls. If only he had been more attentive, it now transpired, he might hold something more coherent in his mind than a jumble of stray remarks scattered, months apart, across random tea-time monologues. But that, he did not doubt, could soon be set to rights. Meanwhile, he could not do better than recollect what had first prompted Miss Pursglove to call the event to mind. It was the maze, of course, the confounded maze in which he took so little interest. That is what had done it.

‘Mr Crowcroft came to see me yesterday. First Quinn, now Crowcroft. Where will it end, eh? He was so dreadfully upset about the maze. Not allowed to maintain it any more. That’s what he said …
Not allowed
. No wonder the poor man’s going …

‘Of course, there are some who say the maze is haunted by old Sir Harley, but that’s plain nonsense. It’s just an excuse: they’re afraid of not being able to find the way out. As for Lady Davenall, I suppose it’s that serious mind of hers. I’ve never known her go there, so she must think it’s a waste keeping it up. I can’t believe she’s afraid of being lost in it. She’s too sensible for that …

‘Now I come to think back, she
did
use to go there, but that was a long, long time ago. I can see her now, twirling her parasol and asking Sir Gervase to show her the secret route. It must have been before they were married, when she was just a slip of a thing, no more than seventeen, because they were always accompanied by her governess, as was only proper …

‘Miss Strang. That was her name. Lady Davenall was plain Miss Webster then, though not so plain in looks. But she was put in the shade by Miss Strang and no mistake. I only met her a couple of times. A close, grave Scottish piece, but she had the heather and the moors in her looks. There were those who said it was Miss Strang as Sir Gervase was really courting all along. It wouldn’t surprise me. He was always one to want what he couldn’t have. Perhaps Colonel Webster was put wise. At all events, she was suddenly gone. Dismissed, we heard.

‘When would it have been, now? Sir Gervase and Lady Davenall were married in the spring of 1847, so it must have—’

Ticket, please, sir.’

Baverstock pulled his mind back to the present and fumbled in his pocket. Not that the interruption troubled him unduly. He was sure of it now. By the time he had found the ticket and the inspector had left him alone again, he was certain in his own mind that that was what she had said.

‘… it must have been the previous September. September 1846.’

IV

In the event, I told Constance nothing. I clung to the convenient fiction that, if Norton’s story were true, it was too appalling to be told and, if it were not, it was not worth telling. So the grudging silence which had prevailed between us since our return from Somerset held to the end of an agonized evening. We both sat reading whilst time ticked slowly away, our thoughts filled in neither case with what was before us on the page
.

At length, though still self-consciously early, Constance rose and said that she would retire for the night. Only then, when she had gone as far as the door and paused on the threshold, did she refer to what we both knew the day had held
.

‘
You have said nothing about your visit to Mr Norton’s solicitor, William
.’

I closed my book and looked up at her. I might have responded by confessing then all the unworthy fears and dreadful notions which had driven me into this futile attempt to muzzle her hope along with my suspicion. Instead, I only fuelled its futility. ‘We agreed not to speak of it again.’ Even to myself, my words sounded harsh and foolish
.

‘
We have spoken of nothing else
.’

‘
That is your choice
.’

‘
No, William. I would happily share all my thoughts with you. You must see—
’

‘
I only see that Norton is an impostor. There is no need for you—
’

‘
If you had proved that today, you would have said so
.’

‘
Nothing was altered by today’s exchanges
.’

‘
And I see nothing will be altered now. Very well. Good night, William.’ She turned and left the room
.

I filled my pipe, then discarded it unlit. I drank some whisky and found I had no taste for it. There seemed, in fact, nothing to do but pace the floor and wrestle in my mind, as I had done countless times already, with the intimidating certainty of James Norton, the repellent truth that I feared him much more than I doubted him. It was not to be wondered at, for I had good reason to fear him and none at all, so far, to doubt him
.

I found myself standing by the bureau which Constance used in her management of the household expenses. She kept her few personal papers there, as I kept mine in the study, in neither case under lock and key, for we had never felt the need of secrecy – until now. I tried the lid, which was, sure enough, unsecured, and lowered it slowly, taking care that it should not creak. There was a row of three small drawers within which represented the only places where anything of real value might be concealed. I tried the knob of each in turn and found the last to be locked. This was innocuous enough in itself, for the key to the drawers was kept in one of the pigeon-holes above. I sifted through their contents carefully in search of it. Then I did so again. It was not there. I tried the locked drawer again: it would
not
give. Silently, I cursed my own folly for making the attempt. It had only confirmed what I already knew: that I was driving Constance away from me. For the first time, there were secrets between us
.

When I went upstairs, Constance was sitting by the dressing-table in her nightgown, brushing her hair – her long, lustrous chestnut hair. I watched its strands catch the light as they fell free of the brush, imagined myself walking across, as I might have done on any other occasion, taking the brush from her hand and running it through her hair, then stooping to kiss her neck above the lace collar of her gown. I paused behind her as the thought invaded my self-pity and, at that moment, her eyes met mine in the mirror. Perhaps she yearned for me to touch her, to stop the slide before it carried us both over the brink. But all she could have seen was the stern line of my mouth, the unyielding remoteness of my expression. I had remembered the locked drawer and the missing key and now walked quickly away to the bathroom
.

V

Richard Davenall had inherited his tall, dark, oversized home in North Road, Highgate, from his father, Wolseley Davenall, whose austere unbending soul it so exactly suited. It lacked almost everything Richard required in terms of comfort and convenience, but he had lived alone there for more than twenty years now and he did not suppose he was about to leave it. He sat in the study that evening, listening to the wind howling in the chimney, watching the flame of the oil-lamp before him on the desk flutter periodically in North Road’s perpetual draughts, and recalled standing once just beyond the same faltering circle of lamplight whilst his father sat where he sat now, on the evening of his abrupt return from Cleave Court in the summer of 1855.

He remembered shifting his weight awkwardly from one foot to another, remembered trying to look anywhere
but
into his father’s grey-green flinty eyes and remembered, too, with a sudden flush of shame, the guilt that all his evasions must so amply have proclaimed. There had been no hint of remission in his father’s gaze, no trace of gentleness in his voice, nor was there any now, as he recalled them.

‘Your uncle’ – by which he meant his brother, Sir Lemuel – ‘has spoken to me. It was not an agreeable discussion.’

‘I am sorry for that, sir.’ Richard’s voice cracked as he spoke.

His father nodded his lean grave head, and Richard reflected, for a crazy moment, how like a tortoise he looked with his thin wrinkled neck emerging from a stiff oversized collar. ‘So you should be – and so you will be. Into the’ – he curled his upper lip – ‘particulars, I will not enquire. Suffice to say that I did not send you to Cleave Court to cause me this … vexation.’ Vexation, in Wolseley Davenall’s vocabulary, implied the wrath of his extreme displeasure.

‘There is nothing I can say, sir.’

‘From what I gather, you have already said – and done – too much. It is to your advantage, though not on your account, that I have persuaded your uncle to ensure that his son knows nothing – absolutely nothing – of what has occurred.’ So Wolseley had done no pleading on his son’s behalf.

‘May I ask—?’

‘You may ask nothing!’ Wolseley’s eyes widened for a moment, sufficient to reveal the anger lurking behind his ingrained reserve. Was it only anger? Richard sometimes believed his father might harbour even less paternal sentiments towards him. An elderly bridegroom who had become a middle-aged widower, Wolseley Davenall had built a life – if you could call it that – on implied resentments and inferred regrets. For such a father, a son could only be a sounding-board for his misanthropy. At last, Richard understood. His father took pleasure in his
disgrace
: it was all he could have hoped for. ‘I have decided to place you under Mr Chubb’s supervision until your conduct suggests greater application and less – I should say
no
– self-indulgence.’

Richard closed his eyes. Gregory Chubb had never hidden his hatred of the senior partner’s son. Now he would have dominion over him. It was a heavy price to pay for one young man’s helpless lapse, a price he was to pay, as events fell out, for six long years.

‘Perhaps not so heavy after all.’

He had addressed the remark to himself, had heard it fall amongst the inanimate stirrings of the room, had watched his twenty-seven-years-younger self turn from the lamplight and fuse with the crouched and threatening shadows of his father’s house. For it was true. It had not been so bad, not nearly so bad, as for another – if Norton was that other and he did not lie.

From amongst the papers on his desk, Richard lifted one sheet and leaned forward in his chair to read it, not for the first time that night. It fitted, he could not deny, Norton’s claims better than any of the elaborate constructions he and others had placed upon it, then and since. And rereading seemed only to make denial more precarious still.

17th June 1871

Dear Mother and Father,

This is the last you will ever hear from me. I am determined to end my life this day. I have no wish to ease your pain, for you will know how well-deserved it is. It is for Constance’s sake that I must do this. God forgive me – and you. I leave you with love but no respect.

James

Found by Sir Gervase in his dressing-room early that evening, its bitter poignant farewell never, till this day,
explained
, it was a suicide note that had seemed also to murder a family. The Davenalls now lived in an armed camp of their own hostility, leading separate loveless lives. Only James’s parents and Richard, their solicitor, had seen the note, but its message clung to the family still, dogged them across the distances they placed between themselves, defied them, now more than ever, to say it could be forgotten.

The note dropped from Richard’s fingers. He sat still for some moments, staring ahead as if the mystery of James’s disappearance were imprinted on the darkness, then moved his hand to another, flimsier sheet of paper and held it up to read.

In Confidence

Report to R. Davenall

Subject: James Norton

I have exhaustively monitored the movements of the above for one week. They have given me no clue as to his origins, means and associates, beyond what you already know, with the sole exception of the address of his banker, Hazlitt’s in the Strand. He has left London on one occasion: Saturday, 7th October. He proceeded by train to Bathampton in Somerset, from where he walked south along the towpath of the Kennet & Avon Canal to a point where he met Mrs Trenchard. Their interview was of brief duration and appeared to conclude abruptly, consequent upon Mr Trenchard’s arrival on the scene. The subject then returned to Bathampton on foot and by train to London.