Painting The Darkness (33 page)

‘Your nerve failed you?’ said Russell.

‘Yes.’ At a distance of eleven years, some shame still attached itself to his voice. ‘Only the coping-stone went into the river. I walked back up the stairs and crept silently away.’

‘Where did you go?’

‘I walked the streets all night. I hardly knew where I went. By morning, I knew I could not do what I had set out to do. But nor could I return to those who would think
me
dead and tell them what was even worse than that I had taken my own life. Accordingly, I took a berth in a steamer sailing for Canada. I had hopes of summoning the willpower to jump overboard in mid-ocean. I failed. When the ship reached Halifax, Nova Scotia, I was still aboard.’

‘What did you do there?’

‘I was aimless, ill and without purpose. I travelled to the United States and took cheap lodgings in New York. Largely in order to buy the alcohol and quinine which gave me some relief from my condition, I found employment as a cab-driver. Several months passed. Then a strange thing happened.’

‘What was that?’

‘I began to feel better. At first, I assumed it was one of the remissions Dr Fiveash had warned me against. But it wasn’t. Time was to show that I did not have syphilis after all. Earlier this year, I obtained a conclusive verdict to that effect from the most eminent of specialists. My exile, you see, had been pointless. I had wasted eleven years of my life in fleeing from the consequences of a disease which I did not have. I had forgone my birthright … for no reason at all.’

‘And now you wish to reclaim it?’

Norton hung his head. ‘In so far as I am worthy of it, yes, I do.’

A silence fell, a silence in which all who had heard his statement, his confessions of failure as well as his claims of title, contemplated the emotional meaning of what he had said. Norton looked solemnly down at the floor, his nobility and his weakness urging his audience to believe him.

‘It’s a lie. It’s all a damned bloody lie!’ A dishevelled swaying figure was on his feet in the gallery, bellowing down into the well of the court. He was waving his arms angrily at Norton, as if ordering him to leave. ‘Don’t believe a word he says! Can’t you see?’ His voice grew hoarse. He turned towards the gangway, apparently set on
descending
from his place. He had to pass the latecomer with the embroidered handkerchief as he went, but he succeeded only in cannoning into her. She looked up into his drunken confused face with an unexpected softness of expression.

‘William!’ she said, with a gasp of astonishment.

II

The usher told me I was lucky to escape being detained overnight for contempt of court. He had hold of my collar at the time and was bundling me out past the gatehouse into Chancery Lane. Fortunately, he took me for a harmless drunk. Had he known the depth of the anger which had seethed within me during Norton’s parade of lies, he might have been more inclined to hand me over to the police
.

I leaned against some railings a little way up the street, recovering my breath and struggling to rid myself of the dreadful anxiety imposed by what Norton had said. He had changed his story – and I could guess why. The Davenalls would not want him to revert to his original claim to have inherited syphilis from his father, but it was not to oblige them that he had shouldered the blame. When I saw Emily weeping, I realized the depth of his cunning. She was his messenger to Constance. She would persuade her that he was sacrificing his good name to protect those dear to him. And she would urge her to stand by him. His address had not been directed to the court, but to Constance, whose active support, if he could win it, would carry all before it
.

A man leaned out beneath the gatehouse arch and stared towards me. Taking his peaked cap for that of a porter who thought I had not moved off smartly enough, I turned and walked away up the street. Strangely enough, though, I could hear footsteps behind me as I went, as if he were following me. At the end of the street, I swung round and there he was, no more than ten yards away
.

He was no porter. The cap was grubby and old, the rest of his
clothes
patched and threadbare. But he was no tramp, either. His handlebar moustache was waxed, and in his left hand he held a smoking cigar. His right hand held nothing, because it was not there. The arm was a mere stump, its sleeve tied beneath it in a flamboyant knot
.

‘
Do I know you?’ I said
.

‘
I should say not,’ he replied. As he drew closer, I saw that he was a positive rag-bag of contradictions, his smile disclosing a row of rotten teeth for all the affected clip of his voice, his sparse grey hair and pockmarked skin suggesting somebody quite other than the jaunty cigar-smoker with the scarlet cravat who swaggered towards me. ‘Saw your … display … in there,’ he said, glancing back towards Lincoln’s Inn
.

‘
What of it?
’

‘
Thought I’d congratulate you …
’

‘
There’s really no—
’

‘
On one of the most damnable shows of impetuosity it’s ever been me misfortune to witness.’ He thrust his cigar into his mouth and grinned crookedly
.

Norton had drawn all my anger: there seemed none left for anyone else. ‘Is that all you have to say?
’

‘
Matter of fact, no. Fancy we might have somethin’ in common
.’

‘
I don’t think so.’ I hailed a passing cab, gave it directions to St John’s Wood and climbed in
.

‘
You think wrong, old man.’ I looked back at him. ‘What we have in common is a grudge against the Davenalls.’ He winked and twitched the stump of his right arm. The gesture and his hint of complicity were repulsive but irresistible. I held the door of the cab open and helped him aboard. We set off together
.

I had expected him to introduce himself, but instead he said: ‘What’s your part in this?
’

‘
If you must know, the fiancée he talked about is my wife
.’

‘
Aha, an affair of the heart. Might’ve known
.’

‘
Might you?
’

‘
In my day, we knew how to decide this kind of thing
.’

‘
How would that have been?
’

‘
One of us would’ve called the other out
.’

When I looked at him, I saw that he was smiling. My words began to catch up with my suspicions. ‘Who
are
you?
’

‘
The name’s Thompson
.’

‘
How did you lose your arm?
’

‘
Gervase Davenall shot it off in a duel, more than forty years ago
.’

‘
You were Lieutenant Thompson, of the Twenty-Seventh Hussars. You fought a duel with Gervase Davenall in May 1841
.’

He frowned. ‘You’re well informed. Yes, that was me. Broke a couple of teeth chewin’ a swagger-stick while they sawed this off for me pains.’ He glanced down at his stump. ‘Had to leave the Army thanks to Gerry Davenall. Now this and the braid on me cap’s all I have to show for servin’ Queen and country
.’

‘
You must have known the risks you were running
.’

‘
Risks be damned! I don’t regret it. It was a fair fight
.’

‘
Then, why did you say you bore a grudge?
’

‘
Because maimin’ me was worse than not killin’ a horse with a broken leg. The Army was all I knew, dammit. And he was me friend once. He might at least have made a clean job of it
.’

‘
You were friends?
’

He smiled at the recollection and pitched his cigar butt out through the cab window, ‘Oh, yes. We were like that.’ He crossed the first two fingers of his left hand in a symbol of comradeship. ‘Once.’ Then he snapped them apart. ‘We were chums at Eton. That’s why we joined the same regiment
.’

‘
You were at Eton together?
’

‘
Don’t look so surprised. I wasn’t always a one-armed old beggar. Time was when I was a handsome young rip, with the pick of all the ladies. Just like Gerry
.’

‘
Is that what you fought about – a lady?
’

He sniggered. ‘Could say, old man. Could say a lady
.’

‘
I’ve no time for guessing games. Tell me or not, as you please
.’

‘
Don’t cut up so rough! I thought you’d be curious
.’

‘
I am. But I’m also impatient
.’

‘
Cards on the table? I need money. You can see that for
yourself
. It’s no fun when your boots let the rain in, nor when your chums won’t take your IOUs any more
.’

‘
That’s
your
problem. Why should I pay you to tell me what you quarrelled about with Gervase Davenall all those years ago?
’

‘
Because you want to know who James Norton really is. Don’t you?
’

The cab swayed violently as it turned into Tottenham Court Road. I lurched across the seat, collided with Thompson and found my hand resting on the stump of his right arm. He chuckled at the speed with which I recoiled
.

‘
Saw through him this morning, you see. He did well, but not well enough. He’s not James Davenall
.’

‘
I know that
.’

‘
You
hope
that, you mean. The difference between us is that I don’t give a damn, but I know who he is
.’

Could it be true? Did he really know? I looked into his lined and ravaged face, the eyes glinting with desperation for all the mocking humour of his smile, and found no answer save my need to believe him. ‘How much do you want?
’

His smile broadened across the brown and jagged teeth. ‘Twenty pounds would get me out of a hole. Shall we say guineas, since we’re both gentlemen?
’

‘
I don’t have that much on me
.’

‘
Then, give me something … on account
.’

I drew a five-pound note from my wallet. ‘What will you give me … on account?
’

He grasped the note between his thumb and forefinger, but I did not release it. Then he made a reproachful face. ‘That’s hard, old man. Damned hard
.’

‘
Earning money this way’s bound to be
.’

He drew his hand away and slumped back in the cab. ‘Fair enough. I’ll tell you some of it. He challenged me because I wouldn’t take somethin’ back. Somethin’ I said in the heat of a damn fool argument. I reminded him that I’d caught him out, three years before, at a ball we’d both attended in Norfolk. Country residence of a fellow-officer. It don’t matter who. Fancy-dress event, to celebrate the coronation. God, it was a long time
ago
. Summer of thirty-eight. I was so young then I’m not even sure I was the same person
.’

‘
Come to the point
.’

He grimaced. ‘Bear with me, old man. We’re comin’ to it. Champagne, fine cigars, the ladies waltzin’ in their provokin’ disguises. I don’t mind tellin’ you … Well, point is this. I had me eye on one fetchin’ creature who seemed to want more than just a waltz. She told me which room she was sleepin’ in, but sleepin’ weren’t exactly her intention. When I cut along there, in the small hours, I found I’d been … forestalled. Gerry had got there before me. There they were
, in flagrante delicto.
So preoccupied, they didn’t even know I was there. Gerry didn’t realize, until I told him, three years later. That’s why he fought me. That’s why he set out to kill me – and damn near did
.’

‘
I don’t understand. The way you talk, such
liaisons
were commonplace
.’

He smiled at an agreeable memory. ‘Matter of fact they were, old man. We weren’t so po-faced in my day
.’

‘
Then, why fight a duel about it?
’

He leaned forward and plucked the five-pound note from my hand. ‘You hear the rest when you pay the balance
.’

He must have been able to detect the straining eagerness in my voice. ‘Where and when?
’

‘
The Lamb and Flag, Rose Street, nine o’clock tonight.’ He leaned out of the cab and ordered the driver to stop. We were halfway up Albany Street. ‘Don’t be late,’ he concluded, winking. Then he hopped out and crossed the road before I could say another word
.

I was still debating whether he was merely leading me by the nose, to pay off some bad debts, when the cab dropped me outside The Limes and I made my way up the drive. Suddenly, without Thompson to distract me, I began to regret my outburst in the court. What, after all, had it gained me but a brief venting of my anger?

Then I pulled up sharply. There was a woman standing by the front door of the house. She turned to look at me as I
approached
, and I recognized her at once. Her hair was drawn up beneath a narrow-brimmed hat, her dress partially concealed by a short coat, but there was no mistaking the regal tilt of her jaw. Nor the calm dark-eyed severity with which she greeted me. This time, there was no fog to pluck her away. This time, she spoke
.

‘
Good afternoon, Mr Trenchard. I’ve been waiting for you for a long time
.’

III

The luncheon adjournment in the
Norton versus Davenall
hearing found Sir Hugo Davenall, his cousin Richard and Sir Hardinge Giffard patrolling Lincoln’s Inn Fields in search of fresh air and inspiration. Neither commodity was, however, in abundant supply.

‘He’s taken an enormous risk,’ Sir Hardinge was saying, ‘by changing his story at this stage.’

‘Perhaps we should be grateful,’ said Richard uncertainly. ‘At least your father’s name hasn’t been dragged into it, Hugo.’

But Hugo looked far from grateful. ‘Why’s he done it?’ he said, drawing heavily on a cigarette. ‘What’s the bloody man up to?’

‘Had you considered,’ said Sir Hardinge, ‘that he might wish to spare your family’s feelings?’

‘What the devil do you mean by that?’