Some Old Lover's Ghost (11 page)

They married at the beginning of January, in the Catholic church in Cambridge. Jossy wore white satin, which emphasized her big bust and hips. Daragh, standing at the altar, glancing back over his shoulder, felt a shudder of panic-stricken regret. The ranks of well-dressed strangers, and Jossy herself, plodding up the aisle on the arm of her uncle, seemed nightmarishly unfamiliar. His bride should have had a different face: his bride should have had dark gold hair and cool grey eyes. It was as though he had become caught up in someone else’s dream. He had to force himself not to run.

Jossy had wanted a honeymoon. She had proposed six weeks’ motoring on the continent, but Daragh had pointed out to her that it was winter. In truth, he had not been able to imagine being stuck for weeks in a motor car with Jossy, in a country where his lack of a foreign language would deprive him even of a conversation with the barman in the evenings. Daragh suggested London and Jossy happily agreed. They were to spend their wedding night at the Savoy Hotel. Daragh, driving down the Great North Road in the sports car that Jossy had bought him as a wedding present, thought that the worst of it was almost over. The horror that had seized him in the church seemed ridiculous out in the cold blue of a fine winter’s afternoon. He’d have a drink or two when they got to the hotel – not too many, though: he had, after all, a last duty to fulfil. He knew that it hadn’t really sunk in, what he had done. He hadn’t climbed the ladder a rung or two; he’d leapt to the top. Southam Hall was his, the farm was his, even the steward’s house where that peculiar boy and his uncle lived was also legally his. He had rid himself of the last vestiges of his Irish accent; he had devised a less shameful background. His talent for mimicry and invention seemed to have paid off: not one of Jossy’s smart friends had refused to shake his hand at the reception. When Daragh remembered his previous arrival in London, less than a year before, he told himself how lucky he had been. Born lucky.

At the Savoy, they dined on caviar and smoked salmon, and drank the best champagne. Whenever Daragh looked up, Jossy’s
dark eyes were watching him. When that began to grate, he reminded himself that they didn’t have to spend the rest of their lives in each other’s pockets. He would make something of the estate, and Jossy – well, Jossy would have children. Lots of them. The sooner the better.

After dinner, he whirled Jossy a couple of times round the ballroom, and then escorted her upstairs to their suite. There, she stood in the bedroom, fiddling awkwardly with the buttons on her gloves, her hair spiralling out of the tidy sculpture her hairdresser had made of it that morning.

Daragh extracted the remainder of Jossy’s hairpins, unbuttoned her gloves and peeled them off. Kissing her neck and shoulders, he undid the hooks and eyes at the back of her dress. Her eyes were tightly closed, and he was unsure for a moment whether she was aroused or terrified. When he touched with the tip of his tongue the hollow of her spine, she moaned, so he didn’t worry any more. The dress slid to the floor, a pool of spangled black, and Daragh let the straps of Jossy’s slip fall over her shoulders.

It was when he began to tackle the complicated boned and laced undergarment that she wore beneath her slip that he found the scrap of paper. It fell to the floor, and he picked it up, and said, ‘What on earth is this?’

Jossy’s eyes opened and her face went brick red. She mumbled something.

‘Pardon?’ said Daragh.

‘I said, it’s your letter.’

He was still confused. She said, ‘You remember, dear, the one you wrote to me before we met. I’ve worn it next to my heart ever since.’

He unfolded the paper, and read,
Since I saw you that day, I have been able to think of no-one else. I long to see you again, to speak to you …

Daragh said, ‘I didn’t write this.’

‘Of course you did, my love. You don’t mind me talking about it now that we’re married, do you?’

He looked first at Jossy, and then back at the paper. His
signature was at the foot of the page. All the clichéd, overblown phrases were written in an approximation of his handwriting. Daragh felt cold inside; cold and rather sick.

He went to the window and forced himself to read the letter all the way through.
The image of your beauty has not left my eyes … If I could only hear your voice, touch your hand … I know that I am unworthy of you, but love can conquer all … Do not speak of this letter again, my love. I crave your pardon for my temerity in writing this. Tear it up, burn it …

Yet Jossy had neither torn up the wretched thing, nor thrown it into the fire. When Daragh glanced back at her, she was still standing in the middle of the room, her corset unlaced, her thighs fat and white above the tops of her stockings.

She whispered, ‘Are you cross that I kept it?’

Daragh shook his head. Shoving the letter in his jacket pocket, he muttered, ‘Excuse me a moment, won’t you? Too much champagne.’

In the bathroom, he rinsed his head under the cold tap and tried not to be sick. He knew that something was terribly wrong, but he could not quite work out what. When he was sure that he was capable, he went back to Jossy, and took her to bed.

But after it was over, Daragh lay awake for a long time in the darkness. Perhaps all this was a mistake, founded on sand. Perhaps he had been meant to take another road entirely. Perhaps someone had deliberately pushed him onto the wrong path, manipulating events to take advantage both of Jossy’s gullibility and his own ambition. The fine linen sheets, the down pillow, the silken coverlet seemed just then horrible to him.

Forcing down panic, he tracked the train of events. Someone had written that letter, copying his handwriting, forging his signature. It had been sent to Joscelin de Paveley, purporting to tell her that he loved her. Because of that letter, he had married Jossy and not Tilda. Daragh released himself from Jossy’s sleeping embrace, slid out of bed, and from the adjoining chamber rang room service and ordered whisky and cigarettes.

From the garden, throwing frost-rimmed logs into the basket, Tilda heard the loud hammering on the front door. The log slipped out of her grasp, splintering on the icy flags, as she recognized Daragh’s voice. Her hands were shaking, and her fingernails were blue with cold. Slowly, she gathered up the scattered fragments of wood, and carried the basket into the scullery.

They were in the kitchen. Sarah’s voice first.

‘I think you should leave, Mr Canavan.’

Then Daragh. ‘I’ll not leave until you tell me the truth!’

Tilda opened the kitchen door. Daragh was standing at one side of the table; Aunt Sarah was seated at the other. Sarah looked round. ‘Go to your room, Tilda.’

‘Oh, come
on.’
Daragh’s smile was unpleasant. ‘I think Tilda should stay, don’t you?’

Tilda shut the door behind her. Yesterday – Daragh’s wedding day – she had walked for miles, her head bowed against the wind, following the long line of the dike until Southam and all who lived there were erased from the horizon.

‘Why are you here, Daragh?’ she said bitterly. ‘Shouldn’t you be with your wife?’

‘I wanted to have a little chat with your Aunt Sarah.’ Daragh’s face was flushed, his black curls tangled. ‘I wanted to ask her about this.’ He waved a piece of paper in the air.

‘Please go, Daragh.’ Tilda’s voice was cold. ‘Neither of us wishes to speak to you.’

She saw him blench. His gestures were over-large, his voice unnaturally loud. She realized he had been drinking.

‘I wanted to explain.’ Daragh’s finger jabbed in Sarah’s direction.
‘She
has to explain—’

Sarah sat at the table, her hands folded in front of her, her expression haughty and controlled.

‘There’s nothing to explain, Daragh.’ Tilda opened the scullery door to show him out. ‘Go home.’

‘Read this.’ As he pressed the sheet of paper into her hands, his breathing was audible. ‘Read it.’

Tilda looked down.
I know that I am unworthy of you, but love conquers all
. Daragh’s name was at the foot of the page, Miss de Paveley’s was at its head. Tilda crumpled the note and flung it to the floor.

‘I won’t read your love letters, Daragh. Get out!’

He seized the letter from where she had dropped it, flattening the paper with one sharp movement of his hand. ‘I said,
read
it!’ He pushed her forward.

Tilda gasped. Aunt Sarah cried, ‘Let her go,’ and rose out of the chair. Words and phrases danced in front of Tilda’s eyes.

Daragh said, very softly, ‘I didn’t write it.’

Tilda pointed a shaking finger to his signature.

‘I didn’t write it. Shall I tell you who wrote it?
She
wrote it. She wrote it so that I wouldn’t see you any more.’ As he turned to Sarah, Daragh’s face was bone white. ‘That’s true, isn’t it?’

Tildastared at Sarah, waiting for her denial. But Sarah Greenlees remained silent, her body rigid, her features as still as if they had been carved in stone. In the silence, some of Tilda’s anger slid away and was replaced by fear.

Daragh’s fist struck the table.
‘Tell
her, won’t you, you old witch? Tell her that it’s because of
you
that I married Joscelin de Paveley!’

Sarah spoke at last. ‘You married Miss de Paveley because you were greedy.’ Her tone was one of quiet satisfaction. ‘You married her for her money.’

‘I married her because you contrived it!’

Sarah Greenlees whispered, ‘You have got what you deserve, Daragh Canavan.’

There was a tight pain behind Tilda’s eyes, as though someone was pushing at her sockets with the balls of their thumbs. The room, and Sarah’s face, had altered, becoming unfamiliar and strange. The wreath of dried hops and the cut paper shelf liners seemed fragile, lacking in substance. When she looked at the books and crockery on the dresser, their disarray jarred her.

‘You’ve got what you deserve,’ repeated Sarah. ‘And so has Miss de Paveley.’ Then she started to laugh. The sound oscillated around the small room.

‘Good God.’ All the colour had drained from Daragh’s face. ‘She’s insane. Quite insane.’ He stared at Sarah, and then at Tilda. He whispered, ‘I loved you. I loved you so much,’ and then he turned on his heel and left the house. The car engine roared as he drove away at speed.

Her muscles did not seem to be working properly, but Tilda went to the sink and filled a cup with water and placed it in front of Sarah. Then she sat down at the table, waiting. When Sarah had stopped laughing and had drunk a few mouthfuls of water, Tilda spoke. ‘Is it true?’

All the blood seemed to have gone from Sarah’s face. Her skin was translucent. She nodded. ‘I knew you were in love with him. I found a letter in your room. I copied his handwriting.’ The hysteria had gone, and Sarah’s tone was flat and exhausted.

‘Why?’

Sarah looked up from the glass. Her face was ravaged and old. ‘Because he isn’t good enough for you.’

Part of Tilda seemed to crumble, the confident assumptions of childhood brutally destroyed. Only a small piece of her remained detached, seeing everything with great clarity.

‘Why Joscelin de Paveley? Why did Daragh have to marry
her
?’

Sarah shrugged. ‘Why not? I knew he’d want her money. I knew the girl desired him.’

Tilda was almost convinced. But then she remembered Sarah’s laughter at the squire’s funeral, and knew that Sarah, who never went to church, had gone there not to mourn Edward de Paveley’s death, but to celebrate it.

‘No. That’s not enough. You
hate
them. You hate the de Paveleys.’

Sarah’s eyes darkened, yet she did not speak.

‘Why?’
whispered Tilda. When Sarah did not answer, she said harshly, ‘If you don’t tell me the truth, then I shall leave. I’ll go,
and I’ll never come back. I’ll live how we used to live, travelling. But without you, this time.
Tell me.’

There was a long silence. Then Sarah said slowly, ‘I hated Edward de Paveley because of what he did to my sister – to your mother.’ Her eyes narrowed, and her voice was low and venomous. She whispered,
‘I
curse the de Paveleys and all their issue.’

Tilda couldn’t speak.
Tell me
, she thought.

‘Edward de Paveley was your father,’ said Sarah. The words were like a sigh.

‘I didn’t believe her at first. I thought that Daragh was right, that she was mad. And perhaps she was, a little – perhaps the sort of powerlessness that Sarah had felt when she discovered what had happened to her sister had unbalanced her. Her need for revenge had become an obsession. She told me how she’d left home when her father died, and how Deborah had gone to work at the Hall. She told me everything. She showed me a copy of my mother’s committal certificate. She had a little case of pathetic and dreadful mementoes – a lock of her sister’s hair … an old doll they’d played with as children … a replica of the posy of flowers she’d put in Deborah’s coffin.’

I had stopped writing. I knew that I would remember every word Tilda said.

‘I still left her, of course. I couldn’t bear to stay in that terrible place. I packed a bag and took my egg money and left Southam. I didn’t know where to go. I knew only that I had to get away – far away. I walked to Emily Potter’s house. I didn’t tell her everything, I couldn’t bear to. It just hurt and hurt and I had to be away. I had to forget both Sarah and Daragh, and start again. I had to be someone different. I felt … oh, I suppose I felt that the past had done me such terrible harm that I wanted to have no past. Of course, you can never escape the past. I learned that eventually. What happened to Deborah, and what I myself did – what I am – all these things were inescapable.’

I refused to believe her. You could change yourself and start again. You could put aside the weak, defenceless creature that you had once been, and grow a shell that covered your heart, your spleen. You had just to keep building up the layers.

‘Emily was wonderful,’ Tilda added. ‘She lent me money and found a train timetable. I decided to go to London. I knew London would be a good place for starting again. It sounded so anonymous.’ She smiled, and just then I could picture so clearly the young girl that she had once been: Tilda in her home-made dresses, with her long, beautiful, medieval face, and her grey eyes that made men like Daragh Canavan forget what they had meant to do with their lives.