Painting The Darkness (7 page)

VII

Trenchard was whistling in the dark. Constance had not tired of Nanny Pursglove’s recollections, nor yet of her recital of the ways by which she knew James Davenall. It was simply that she had returned in her mind to that last leavetaking in June 1871 and wished now, whilst she could engineer some time alone, to return to it in person.

Nanny Pursglove’s home stood hard by the canal. Constance knew that she had only to walk up the steep lane to the lock-keeper’s cottage and could there gain access to the towpath. She did so unhurriedly, glorying in the solitude of the gentle afternoon. For this, she knew well, was the way she had come before, walking up from Cleave Court in answer to her fiancé’s summons. She knew no better now than then what it was that troubled him, but went obediently, sensing as she trod the path that this was to be no ordinary rendezvous.

The canal dappled sluggishly at the bank. On its other side bunched the greenery of Conkwell Wood, beyond
whose
slopes, then as now, stretched secret pastures where, if you knew the path, as they once had …

A narrowboat came into view, turning into the straight from the aqueduct ahead of her. Below, to her left, lay the river and the railway line. Behind, in cosy ignorance at Nanny Pursglove’s cottage, her husband sat seeking ways to deny what, even now, she dared not quite admit herself.

On that day in 1871, she had reached the bend wondering if he would, as promised, be there waiting for her. She had hesitated in the shelter of the overhanging trees, felt heat and doubt grow momentarily, then had gone on, and found him, leaning against the parapet, gazing down at the river and smoking a cigarette, his hair a touch awry, his cheeks hollow, his eyes shifting and uncertain. He had looked up at the sound of her approach, had smiled without erasing that first impression of desperation in his pose, had stepped forward to kiss her and been the first to speak.

On this day in 1882, she reached the bend unnerved by her own presentiments. She hesitated in the shelter of the overhanging trees, recalling the words and expression of their rejected visitor, retracing in her mind the lines of his unexpected letter. ‘Neither of us can forget, can we?’ In that he had been right. How could he know? Unless …

She went on. She walked slowly, following the curve of the towpath as it rounded the right angle described by the canal. A little way ahead, the waterway narrowed as it crossed the aqueduct. The open valley loomed suddenly beneath her. A man was standing in her path, leaning against the parapet, smoking a cigarette. He was there, as she now knew she had foreseen he would be. He was there, awaiting her.

VIII

‘
… So I didn’t believe them when they told me he was dead. No, you may be sure of that. I said to Mr Quinn, I said: “If Mr James tells me I’ll see him again, then I know he’ll be as good as
his
word.” Quinn scoffed at that right enough, as he scoffed at much else. I wish he was here now to admit I was right. Not that he would. No, not him. It was odd, now I come to think of it, that Mr James didn’t ask why Quinn had left. Not that I knew the ins and outs of his going, of course, but he was Mr James’s valet, when all’s said and done. Yet, when I mentioned him, Mr James said nothing at all, almost as if he already knew what—
’

The clock on Miss Pursglove’s crowded mantelpiece struck five. Baverstock started in his chair. ‘Upon my soul,’ he spluttered. ‘Is that the time? I should have been in Bath half an hour since. Where’s your wife, Mr Trenchard? We must be going
.’

It was absurd. I had almost forgotten that Constance had left us. Now I grew suddenly anxious: she was long overdue. Leaving Baverstock with Miss Pursglove, I hurried out into the lane, but there was no sign of her. My anxiety increased. I tried the uphill route, thinking she might be out of sight at the top, but came only on the canal, and a bailiff in waders by the bank, cutting back the reeds. I asked him if he had seen a lady pass that way. He paused in his work to consider my description, then nodded slowly
.

‘
Ar, more ’n ’alf-hour ago. She followed the towpath towards the aqueduct
.’

‘
Aqueduct?
’

‘
That way.’ He gestured with his thumb. ‘Just under the mile
.’

I found myself running in the direction he had indicated. His words had struck a chord. During our courtship in Salisbury, Constance had occasionally referred to her last meeting with James Davenall ‘by the aqueduct’. There could not be two. This had been no mere stroll for fresh air’s sake. This had been the retracing of a route that led unerringly to a lost allegiance. I quickened my pace, fleeing as much as pursuing the suspicions already massing in my head
.

IX

He had been the first to speak.

‘When you told me in your letter that you were to visit Cleave Court, I knew it was not to seek my mother’s reassurance as you said, but to seek reassurance of a different kind. So here I am. You knew I would be waiting for you, didn’t you? Now as then.’

If you had happened to be standing on the river bank beneath the Dundas Aqueduct that October afternoon, if you had happened to look up and see two people standing by the parapet, one an elegant, modestly bearded man in a grey jacket and pinned cravat, bare-headed and gazing imploringly at the other, a woman in a violet dress, lace shawl and ribboned straw hat, one hand clutching the coping stone with an intensity mirrored in her face, what would you have thought? Would you have read the struggle of wonder with doubt in her expression as she looked towards him? Would you have guessed the question already forming on her lips?

‘How did you know? Who told you these things? It isn’t possible that—’

‘Nobody told me, Connie. I lived it, like you, with you. There’s no illusion, no trick. I met you here eleven years ago, when the leaves were green, not yellow.’ He glanced back at the basin beyond the aqueduct. ‘We crossed at the lock gate and walked up through the woods. Didn’t we?’

He looked at her directly, seeming to compel her to recollect, with him, the events of that day. Her reply, when it came, was from the distance of eleven years. ‘Yes.’

Now he was looking past her and speaking more loudly. ‘We went as far as the bluebell meadow, didn’t we?’

‘Yes.’

‘And there …’

Suddenly, Constance spun round. Her husband was standing twelve yards away, panting slightly, his face contorted not with exertion but with trust betrayed. She put her hand to her mouth. ‘William—’

‘Be silent!’ Trenchard’s voice was a stern travesty of its normal self. He strode past her and stopped beside Norton. ‘You followed us here, didn’t you? You staged this meeting to convince my wife—’

‘I staged nothing!’ Norton removed his elbow from the parapet and squared his shoulders, facing Trenchard without the slightest flinch. ‘I came here for the same reason as Connie. Had you not intervened, I would have told her the truth about why I went away—’

‘Easy to say!’

‘—and why I have returned.’ He smiled faintly. ‘Now that must await another opportunity.’ He looked at Constance and bowed stiffly. ‘Until we meet again.’ Then he turned and walked smartly away across the aqueduct.

Not until Norton had passed from view beyond the canal basin did Trenchard speak to Constance and then without looking at her. His words were addressed to her, but his gaze remained fixed in Norton’s direction. ‘You should not have come here, Constance. You should not have spoken to him. Don’t you see what harm you’re doing?’

Constance, too, was looking elsewhere. ‘I hardly know what I see any more.’

Trenchard took her arm. ‘Come back with me now. We will speak no more of this. Henceforth, you will leave me to handle this affair. You will not see him again. I forbid it. Should you do so by chance, you will not speak to him.’ They began to move slowly back along the towpath, back towards where Baverstock would be waiting with his four-wheeler to hurry them to the station. ‘Do you understand me, Connie?’

Her reply was meek enough to suggest compliance. ‘I understand.’

Indeed she did. She understood that day, for the first time, where her duty lay.

Chapter Three

I

THROUGH THE DECEPTIVE
calm of the day after our visit to Somerset, I watched Constance as a gaoler would his charge. There were no bars, of course, no keys, no locked doors, just all the other barriers that Norton had succeeded in erecting between us. It was only a week since he had entered our lives and, already, the possibility that he might be James Davenall was worse than any certainty
.

Patience played on the carpet after tea that Sunday afternoon, and Constance sat reading by the window. I slunk away to my study, where at least silence was normal, if no more bearable, and sought in vain to calm my anxieties. If only I could have talked to Constance, if only I could have asked her the vital question: if she believed him, what of her love for me? But I had placed an embargo on all such conversation, and she had abided by it. I had asserted my authority as head of the household, and she had respected it. I had insisted on being left to deal with the matter alone and now, pacing the room or peering uneasily from the window to check that the street was empty, I realized how helpless I was to do so
.

My confused state of mind must explain the foolish course I took the following morning. Leaving home after an early breakfast, before Constance had risen, I diverged from my normal route to Orchard Street and proceeded to Paddington, harbouring the absurd notion that I might be able to take Norton unawares at his hotel and extract from him a withdrawal of his claim
.

The clerk at the desk intimated that he was taking breakfast
in
the dining-room: I went straight in. There, sure enough, at a pillar table, Norton sat reading a newspaper and smoking a cigarette over the last of his coffee. The room was full but quiet in the way of such establishments at such an hour. A periodic rattle of cutlery and waiters’ whispered enquiries were all that was to be heard
.

Norton saw me approaching him, but displayed no reaction. He did not even lower his newspaper. Eventually, after standing awkwardly by his table for some moments, I said: ‘I’d like to speak to you
.’

Now he consented to fold the newspaper away. ‘Then, sit down
.’

I did so, eyeing him over the table through a curl of smoke rising from his cigarette, which he had propped in an ashtray. ‘Preferably in private
.’

‘
I haven’t finished my coffee,’ he said, ostentatiously refilling his cup. ‘If you wish to speak to me, you must do so here. If not, I shan’t object
.’

I lowered my voice. ‘Because you think you can work your mischief on my wife alone
.’

His tone remained level, nonchalantly pitched, his eyebrows arched as if to imply disdainful surprise at my remarks. ‘It is because we have nothing to say to each other. We both know what it is that you fear
.’

I leant across the table. ‘All I want of you is an undertaking that you will cease to harass my wife
.’

‘
I am not harassing her. You are, by your clumsy attempts to prevent us meeting. I must tell you’ – he smiled – ‘as one who knows her, that you will only succeed in alienating her by such a course of action. Were I the fraudster you believe me to be, I would take greater pleasure than I do in your inclination to self-destruction
.’

He had me, pinned and helpless, in this venue that I had chosen for him. ‘After Wednesday, you will be obliged to do as I ask
.’

‘
On the contrary. After Wednesday, I rather suspect you will lose what little authority over Connie you think you retain. Did she tell you that she had written to me?
’

‘
You lie!
’

‘
Ask her yourself – if you dare. I would show you the letter, but, as a gentleman, you will understand that I must respect its confidentiality
.’

Again, he had perfectly exploited my weakness. If I did ask Constance, it would imply that I believed him. And, if I believed him, could I believe her answer? ‘There is no such letter. You will not succeed by such ploys in sowing discord in my marriage
.’

‘
I’m glad to hear it. Unhappily, there is no need to sow a crop when it is already sprouting. Has Connie ever given you a full account of what took place on the last occasion we met before my … time away?
’

For answer, I could only stand on a crumbling dignity. ‘There are no secrets between us
.’

He drained his cup, then smiled across at me. ‘But there are. In fact I rather think that may be all there is between you
.’

I stood up abruptly, the legs of my chair scraping loudly on the floor. I wanted to be away from his cruel ironic stare, but could not find a retreat that seemed other than headlong. ‘You have said enough
.’

‘
You initiated this conversation. You are at liberty to end it
.’

I did so. But, as I walked away across the dining-room with what decorum I could muster, I sensed his smile broadening. I sensed he knew now that he had me where he wanted me
.

II

Tuesday, 10th October 1882 was a day of preparation for the principals in what would soon be known as the case of
Norton versus Davenall
. Norton himself spent the greater part of it closeted at the Staple Inn offices of Warburton, Makepeace & Thrower, rehearsing with Hector Warburton all that the following day’s examination might hold for him. It was a close grey day of incipient fog, perversely clammy enough for Warburton’s office windows to stand open to the noise and smoke of the city. Warburton himself approached all legal business in the same way:
would
it pay and would he win? His entrée to the finest brains of the Bar was frequently attributed to his record of bringing them only the finest ingredients. And in the case laid before him by James Norton he detected ingredients calculated to appeal to the most demanding barrister.