Painting The Darkness (46 page)

But Richard could not rely upon it. Bucknill’s diagnosis would have swayed him utterly – had it not been for one stubborn memory. He could not intervene between Trenchard and his fate; indeed, he could only watch helplessly when, half an hour later, the train drew out of Charing Cross and bore Trenchard away into obscure confinement. But he could impose his own test of reality
on
the memories Bucknill had called delusions. He could impose it – and await the result.

VI

Pale December sunlight, warming the conservatory glass, had lulled Canon Sumner asleep. He sat now, cushioned and cake-crumbed in his wicker chair, dozing gently, whilst on the opposite side of the low table, James and Constance set down their tea-cups in careful silence and exchanged a smile which spoke of the pleasure they took from the old man’s drowsy benevolence.

‘He is quite reconciled, you know,’ Constance murmured.

‘
You
could reconcile him to anything.’ It was true. Canon Sumner had arrived in Highgate torn between horror at Trenchard’s conduct and suspicion of James’s motives, but all his scruples had melted away when confronted by his daughter’s evident happiness. Faced with that irresistible commodity, he had conferred upon her his old, weak, indulgent blessing.

‘Recently,’ Constance continued, ‘nursing you back to health with my family about us, I’ve been happier than I’ve dared to admit.’

‘You’ve made me happy, too,’ said James, squeezing her hand.

‘I feared Patience might not like you, but it seems I needn’t have worried. You’ve quite won her over.’ Patience, whom Emily had taken for a walk into Highgate Village that afternoon, was young enough to have accepted that her father had simply ‘gone away’ and to have warmed instantly to her ‘Uncle’ James.

‘That’s because she takes after you.’

‘Perhaps.’ Constance looked down. ‘But how long can it go on, James – this taste of what we might have enjoyed together all these years?’

‘Must it end?’

‘Once your recovery is complete, I shall have no excuse to remain here.’

‘Nor shall I, but Richard insists he wishes neither of us to leave.’

‘Nevertheless—’

‘Why not stay? It need only be for as long as this wretched case lasts.’

‘But how long will that be?’

‘Six months, perhaps. It isn’t so very long, compared with eleven years.’

‘And then? What when it does end, James?’

Their eyes met. ‘When the case is finished,’ he said slowly, ‘when the law acknowledges me for who I am, then I will feel entitled to come to you and ask—’

‘What? What’s that you say?’ Canon Sumner was awake, blinking and gravel-voiced, struggling to persuade himself that he had never been asleep.

‘Nothing, Father,’ said Constance. ‘Nothing at all.’

‘I’ve been thinking,’ the old man continued, pulling himself upright in his chair. ‘About that poor soul you said Lady Davenall is evicting.’

‘Nanny Pursglove?’

‘Yes. It sounds like a deserving case to me. After all, she is a resident of the diocese.’

‘What do you have in mind?’

‘There are vacancies at the Wilton almshouses. The Archdeacon told me so. Miss Pursglove could live there. Very comfortable, I gather. Would you like me to mention it?’

‘Oh, do, Father,’ said Constance, smiling. ‘I think that is an excellent idea. Don’t you agree, James?’

‘Yes,’ said James. ‘I do indeed.’ He, too, smiled, reflecting as he did so that perhaps Canon Sumner’s interruption had been a blessing in disguise. There was, after all, no need of haste. Indeed, if Constance was to be persuaded to see the future as he did, there was every argument for caution. All, he now felt certain, could be his so long as he continued to tread carefully. All – including Constance – in good time.

VII

Richard Davenall could tell by the apologetic slant to Roffey’s expression that he had no progress to report.

‘Not a chink of light anywhere, sir. If the woman exists, she’s covered her tracks well.’

‘Nothing at all?’

‘Looking for one prostitute in London is like looking for one stalk in a haystack, if you’ll pardon the expression. I’ve been put the way of several called Melanie, but none of them even remotely fits the bill.’

‘What about the Bristol end?’

‘I’ve spoken to the butler of every wine merchant in the city. None of the families boasts a son engaged to a former housemaid. None of them has ever employed Quinn as a footman.’

‘And in Bath?’

‘Miss Whitaker lodged in Norfolk Buildings, right enough, and Quinn
was
acquainted with her landlady’s husband, but that’s as far as it goes. I couldn’t persuade the landlord of the Red Lion to repeat the story he supposedly told Trenchard; he flatly denied having seen the two together.’

‘Do you think he’s telling the truth?’

‘It’s hard to say. Either that or he’d been warned off. He was very tight-lipped.’

‘Any other news of Quinn?’

‘None at all.’

‘What about Harvey Thompson?’

‘The police think he was murdered by one of the many people he apparently owed money. They seem happy to leave it at that.’

A silence fell, during which Richard stroked his beard and contemplated the barrenness of Roffey’s enquiries. Then he said: ‘You don’t think Miss Whitaker and Melanie Rossiter are one and the same, do you?’

‘No, sir. I can’t say I do.’

Richard rose and moved to the window. His back was
turned
to the other man when he said: ‘Very well, Roffey. Thank you for your efforts. I rather think we’d better leave it there.’

‘As you wish, sir.’

‘There’s no need to submit a written report. I’d rather there was no record of this.’

Roffey cleared his throat. ‘What about Quinn?’

‘You’d better drop that as well. Strictly speaking, I no longer have a client on whose behalf to engage you. See Benson with your account. Usual terms.’

‘Very good, sir. I’ll bid you good day, then.’

‘Good day to you, Roffey.’

As soon as the door had closed behind his visitor, Richard returned to his desk and slumped down wearily in his chair. He had as good as known that Roffey would find nothing, but still he had had to put it to the test. Now he had done all he could reasonably be expected to do. Now he had established, seemingly beyond doubt, that there had been no conspiracy against Trenchard. If only he could believe his own conclusion, he might put his mind at rest. But that he could not do. For, unlike Roffey, Richard Davenall had the evidence of his own eyes to tell him that all was not what it seemed.

It was the afternoon of the day following the shooting at Lincoln’s Inn: Wednesday, 8th November 1882. The operation to remove the bullet from James’s right side had been pronounced a success, and all fears for the state of his lung, close to which the bullet had passed, had been calmed. Richard therefore made his way up the stairs of St Bartholomew’s Hospital in better spirits than he had known for some time: he was looking forward to congratulating his cousin on a lucky escape.

It was with some uncertainty that he traced the route Emily had described to James’s ward. Indeed, after several wrong turnings, he was obliged to seek directions. These took him, at length, to the correct landing and a lofty anteroom to the ward itself.

At the far end, a nursing sister was in conversation with a lady. As Richard approached them, his shoes squeaking on the polished floor, the lady turned and walked away past him, glancing at him as she went. She was sombrely dressed, in grey overcoat and black turban, her dark hair drawn up beneath it. Richard would have paid her little attention but for the flash of her eyes in his direction as they crossed. It drew his own eyes to her, and he was aware, for a fleeting instant, of a disdainful manner and a startling beauty combined in a presence wholly at odds with the functional disinfected surroundings.

‘Can I help you, sir?’ the sister said.

‘Oh … yes. I’m looking for Mr James Norton. I’m his cousin.’

‘My, he
is
popular this afternoon.’

‘Really?’

‘That young lady was asking after him.’

‘Isn’t Mr Norton well enough to receive visitors, then? I thought—’

‘You can see him if you don’t stay long. Come with me.’

The sister bustled ahead, and Richard followed, all thoughts of the dark lady who had come to ask but not to visit retreating before concern for his cousin’s health. He never thought to ask James who she might have been. Indeed, she soon lapsed altogether from his mind. Then, a week later, he read Trenchard’s statement. And there, waiting for him, was the description of Melanie Rossiter that was also a description of the lady he had seen at the hospital. ‘There was no mistaking the regal tilt of her jaw, nor the calm dark-eyed severity with which she greeted me.’ There was not indeed. Richard knew then that Trenchard’s ruthless seductress and the fashionable young lady asking after James were what all logic said they could not be: the same person.

Chapter Thirteen

I

RICHARD DAVENALL WAS
, by breeding and training, a cautious man. He knew, better than most, that suspicion counts for nothing in the absence of evidence. Accordingly, for all the doubts he harboured about his cousin, he continued to behave in every way as a considerate host should. There was nothing he did, as the winter passed, to imply that he had ceased to be the staunchest of James Norton’s allies, nothing he said, as the months slipped by, to suggest that he had ceased to trust him. Yet perhaps, when all was said and done, there did not need to be. Perhaps, in the end, intuition was enough to tell James that something had changed between them.

It was not immediate, it was not even consistent. There was nothing overt or hostile about it, yet it was palpable all the same. Some uncertainty entered their relations, some diffidence that grew into the watchful reserve of two men who have lost faith in each other but are not prepared to admit it. Whilst Constance was on hand, it represented nothing worse than a nagging unease, for the confidence she placed in the future was more than sufficient to eclipse their unspoken misgivings about each other. But when, in the middle of February, she decided that James’s recovery was complete and that she was free to pay an overdue visit to Salisbury, Richard sensed that, without her, some form of crisis was inevitable. In many ways, he was relieved at the thought, for he had come to crave an end to their
pretence
of fellow-feeling, however it might be wrought. Perhaps, for all he knew, James had, too.

On the fourth morning of Constance’s absence, the two men breakfasted together as usual. Watching James select his food from the hot dishes on the sideboard whilst he pretended to be absorbed in
The Times
, Richard asked himself once more the questions that had dogged him for two months past: Is he really James? If not, does he take me for a fool? Yet, if he truly is my cousin, how much worse than a fool would he think me for doubting him now?

A letter had come for James that morning and lay beside his place at the table. Richard watched as he sat down, opened it and smiled at the contents, a glimpse of which reminded Richard that this was St Valentine’s Day, a date when secret love can show its hand. For an instant he toyed with the idea that the sender might be the woman he had seen at the hospital. Then, as if reading his thoughts, James said, ‘It’s a valentine,’ adding, after a significant pause: ‘From Constance.’

‘Of course,’ Richard replied, clearing his throat nervously.

‘Did you think it was from somebody else?’

‘Certainly not.’ Richard tried to smile. There could be no doubt now that James was daring him to go further. Irritated by his own discomposure, he decided to do just that. ‘Though I suppose it’s not impossible that some young lady lost her heart to you whilst you were in Philadelphia.’

‘Perhaps not impossible,’ James replied levelly. ‘But not, in fact, the case.’

‘Still, you must have made some friends over there.’

‘None to speak of.’

‘No?’

This time James did not answer. He only smiled and promptly changed the subject. ‘I believe Prince Napoleon’s back in England.’

‘Yes. I gather he is.’

‘Have you been following the case in the papers?’

‘It’s been difficult not to.’ The Prince’s recent maladroit manoeuvres in French politics had indeed been given wide publicity. They had ended with his permanent expulsion from the country. He had taken refuge in London, where Richard suspected nothing short of absolute necessity could have driven him. The Prince appears to be as unlucky as he is ill-advised. He has a positive gift for misjudgement.’

‘I fear so.’

Suddenly, Richard saw another opening, one which, this time, might give him the advantage. ‘He certainly misjudged you – did he not?’

‘Did he?’

‘You caught him off guard, I remember, with a reference to events at Cleave Court in September 1846.’

‘Did I?’

Richard struggled to suppress any hint of overeagerness in his voice. ‘What were they, by the way? You’ve never said.’

James frowned. ‘I’m not sure I understand.’

‘I mean what were the events that so embarrassed the Prince?’

James did not reply at once. He returned Richard’s gaze calmly, raised his coffee-cup to his lips, took a sip from it, then said: ‘I don’t know. I must have been bluffing. Poor Plon-Plon’s whole life is an embarrassment to him. I must have calculated it was odds on his first visit to Cleave Court being no exception.’

‘Yet you specified an exact date.’

‘I can’t remember being that detailed.’

‘You were, believe me.’

‘Then, it must have been something Papa told me about. I’m afraid I can’t bring it to mind now.’ He smiled defiantly. ‘But I’ll certainly let you know … if I remember.’

Richard said nothing. He could not accept for a moment that James had forgotten the information he had used to threaten the Prince, but his reluctance to recall it now proved nothing beyond what Richard had
already
sensed: that their distrust had become mutual. He stared down intently at his newspaper, silently cursing his outspokenness. He had gained nothing by the exchange: nothing at all. The crisis had been neither confronted nor averted. It had merely been postponed.