The Maker of Swans

by Paraic O’Donnell

  ‘Perhaps it would be best if I excused myself,’ Chastern says, leaning forward a little in his chair. ‘I do not wish to intrude upon such delicate matters.’

  Abel lifts his shotgun. ‘You just make yourself comfortable,’ he says. ‘This won’t take long.’

  Chastern clucks with irritation as he sits back, looking to Mr Crowe as if expecting him to intervene. Mr Crowe, though, has not taken his eyes from Eustace.

  ‘You are right,’ Eustace says. ‘It is not quite the right word. It hardly seems adequate, now that I reflect upon it, and yet I cannot think of a better one. I lack your gifts, remember, in matters of language. Here is what I suggest, then. Let her tell you herself, your fiancée. Let her explain her part in what happened the last time we were all gathered here. When she has finished – and I expect, since she has chosen to devote herself to you, that she will be entirely truthful – when she has finished, and when you have had leisure to reflect on what she says, then do please tell me what you feel is the right word.’

  Mr Crowe retrieves a squat tumbler of whisky from the mantelpiece. He gulps from it and massages his neck. ‘Eustace,’ he says. ‘Do not think that I am ungrateful for your long service, or that I forget the indulgence you have so often shown. We have lived an irregular sort of life, have we not? Yours has not been an easy station. I have not been blind to that, though I expect I shall go to my grave without learning the full extent of your sacrifice. My greatest failing, I think—’

  ‘She betrayed Clara.’

  ‘Is that so?’ says Mr Crowe, his manner almost absent.

  ‘Your showgirl,’ Eustace says, keeping his voice steady. ‘When she led Clara from the dining room, she was doing their bidding. She betrayed her, the child who was in our care.’

  Arabella begins to sing, her voice somnolent and viscous. Clara recognises the words – there is something about a dream, about tumbling from paradise – and the sluggish current of the melody. It is the jazz song that she was playing on the gramophone. There is some meaning in it, perhaps, that is intended only for Mr Crowe.

  She laughs to herself, spooling her hair around her fingers. ‘Oh, don’t look so cross, Eustace. After all, you weren’t quite what you seemed either, were you? But now, I suppose, I’m expected to make my tearful confession.’

  ‘Haven’t we had quite enough of this spectacle?’ Chastern interrupts. ‘The lady has had rather too much to drink, I fear. She is in no condition to give a clear account of anything.’

  There is a crisp click as Abel draws back the pump of the shotgun. ‘I’m not going to tell you again,’ he says. ‘You sit there, you cuddle your hot-water bottle and you keep your fucking mouth shut.’

  He turns to Arabella. ‘You were saying.’

  She tips her head back and releases a slow furl of smoke. ‘He came to the club, after I started seeing you. He told me I was a “striking talent”. A striking talent – can you imagine? There were people he knew at Covent Garden, roles I might be considered for even if I didn’t have quite the right background. Of course, I duly imagined it all. Isn’t it pathetic? But the best lies begin with a dream come true.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ says Chastern, looking away in disdain.

  ‘He said he could speak to the musical director, remind him of certain obligations. In return, all I had to do was give a little performance. That’s all it was, a little performance.’

  Mr Crowe turns his back to the room, bracing himself with both arms against the mantelpiece.

  ‘I didn’t know,’ she says, quietly this time. ‘I didn’t know what he wanted, not all of it. David was supposed to make a big show of being jealous when he found out, and you were supposed to – I don’t know – to overreact. To compromise yourself, he said, so he’d have some kind of hold over you. I didn’t know you’d kill him, for Christ’s sake.’

  She puts out her cigarette, crushing its remnants between her fingertips and scattering them over the ashes.

  ‘And I didn’t know they were going to take her, not until that night. I didn’t want to go along with it, but the other one, Nazaire, he threatened me. My God, the things he said.’

  Mr Crowe drains his whisky and dashes the glass against the back of the fireplace.

  ‘And I loved you by then. I wasn’t supposed to, but I did. But you know that, don’t you? Why else would I have stayed?’

  ‘Thank you, Arabella,’ says Eustace. ‘You will perceive your situation, Dr Chastern. This transaction, whatever its nature, will not be completed. Clara, as you can see, is no longer yours to bargain with. Even if there are other means by which you can compel Mr Crowe to give you what you want, we will not allow it.’

  ‘You?’ Chastern says. ‘You will not allow it? Do you think I am some footman, that I should take direction from the likes of you? The child authored some small deceit of her own, I suppose, to overcome Nazaire’s vigilance, but he will not be far behind you. Do not think this contingency went unconsidered.’

  Eustace glances at Clara. When she releases his hand, he takes the package from an inner pocket and hands it to Chastern without a word. He unwraps it with brisk irritation, seeing only the white cloth of the handkerchief at first. He flings it to the floor, when the bloodstain is revealed, and stares at it in revulsion.

  ‘You will recognise the monogram, no doubt,’ Eustace says.

  Chastern closes his eyes and spreads his fingers over the arms of his chair.

  Eustace continues in an even tone. ‘Clara observed him closely, as you may imagine, in the days before his death. She has offered certain insights into the nature of his malady. I cannot say that I fully grasp her explanation, but it has to do somehow with certain susceptibilities in the nature of living things, with the errors that occasionally arise, and with their multiplication.’

  Clara takes his hand again. She forms a quick sequence of characters. Eustace looks doubtfully at her, but she draws her fingertip emphatically across his palm, underscoring what she has written.

  ‘And with the rose,’ he says. ‘With the rose itself.’

  Chastern opens his eyes at this. He seeks Clara out, his lips taut with scorn. ‘Is that what she told you?’ he says. ‘I encouraged these delusions myself, I suppose, but I see now how much I was mistaken. She is a pitiful and afflicted child, that is all. She has spent too long alone, wandering the woods like a pygmy. She is capable only of untutored excesses, of abominations.’

  Clara tightens her grip on Eustace’s hand. He glances at her, strokes her tensed knuckles with his thumb.

  ‘Whatever the case,’ he says, ‘the implications are not altered. We are here to bring matters to an end.’

  Chastern sits up, clasping the handle of his cane. ‘How melodramatic you are, Eustace. You have savoured this prospect, no doubt. You have rehearsed this little set piece many times, I expect, in your moments of solitude. And you, Crowe. You would do well to remind the prodigal butler whose house this is. Perhaps you will impress on him also that your obligation to me is not so easily set aside.’

  Mr Crowe does not turn from the fire. For a moment, he appears not to have heard. ‘I will do as you asked,’ he says quietly. ‘I will give you what I have written.’

  Chastern reclines in satisfaction, settling his velvet collar about his chest. ‘You see, Eustace? This is a matter that does not concern you; a matter that lies, if I may say so, somewhat beyond your sphere.’

  Abel uncrosses his legs and sits up with a sigh of impatience. He shoulders the shotgun, aims at a point above Chastern’s head and fires. The noise, even in the large and richly furnished library, is colossal. Chastern cowers in his chair as flakes of masonry settle around him. Mr Crowe turns at last to face the room, dusting off his smoking jacket with a look of abstracted irritation.

  ‘If I might interject,’ Abel says. ‘I mean, pardon me and all that, but speaking as someone from this sphere, allow me to clarify our position. No, allow me to clarify my position. I don’t give a toss what his obligati
ons are. I have an obligation to put some fucking holes in you. I have an obligation to leave you worse off than your hired help left my brother. As soon as Eustace takes that little girl outside, that’s exactly what I intend to do.’

  ‘Crowe?’ Chastern’s voice is shrill. ‘Do you have nothing to say? Will you let this person reduce your house to rubble and butcher everyone in it?’

  Mr Crowe saunters to the drinks tray. He brushes plaster dust from his sleeve and half-fills another glass with whisky before taking a seat next to Abel.

  ‘My house? My house has been crumbling for years.’ He glances at Arabella. ‘Lizards crawl now among its stones. And you? I can offer you no shelter, Chastern. I cannot hope even to save myself. He has been coming for a long time, this man or someone like him. I will not stand in his way.’

  ‘You would sacrifice all you have?’ Chastern says. ‘You will be shown no more clemency, Crowe, not even if I am dead. Another will take my place. There are procedures.’

  ‘Procedures?’ Mr Crowe takes a slug of whisky and closes his eyes. ‘Do you not see, Chastern? Do you not see what you have set in train? Our time is past. We are eclipsed. And I find that I face the prospect with deep ease. It is my age, I suppose. There are sacrifices, you see, that I have already made, sweetnesses I tasted so long ago that they might as well have been plucked from the tree by Eve herself. I have a memory, you know, a memory so faint that when it comes to me, I hardly dare to breathe. I am a boy, or there is a boy. The boy is running under a wide and perfect sky. He is running, or I am running, towards a river. The water is dark and unrushed. The boy runs – he runs towards the river, and all around him the grass bends beneath the wind. It is almost nothing, you know, and might belong to anyone, but I can see it. I can see it, and I hunger for it more than anything. For that grass, for that river.’

  He turns to Abel, laying his hand gently on his forearm. ‘You are right to seek retribution,’ he says. ‘It is a pure wish, as blameless as thirst, and I will do nothing to hinder it. I ask only that you grant me a single concession. Let me show him what I have done. Believe me, I beg you, when I tell you that it will deepen his torment. To see what I have made, and to know that he will not live to possess it; that he will not tout it as his own, as he had planned, will not be consoled by glory until his rattling husk is finally tossed into its pit. You could devise nothing, I promise you, that would torture him more perfectly.’

  ‘What do you take me for?’ Abel says. ‘You know how long I’ve waited for this? You think I’m going to let him out of my sight now, after all that’s happened?’

  Mr Crowe leans towards him, draping an arm over his shoulders. ‘Look at him, Abel. You see how frail he is. Surely you do not expect him to clamber out of the window and bound away across the lawns? You will lose nothing by this, I assure you. Have I not given my word that I will not oppose you in this? And do not mistake me, my friend. You will have what you wish for because I will give it to you. Do not think that I could not have it otherwise. Your gun, in this house, will not always find its mark. It is old, this place, and its shadows are full of secrets.’

  He uncurls his fingers as he lifts his hand from Abel’s shoulder. The movement seems careless, and Abel does not see the spider at first. It is as plump as a date and lightly furred, descending his arm with patient deliberation, as if it were a flight of stairs. He leaps from his chair, the shotgun clattering to the floor, beating in terror at his sleeve until he catches sight of the spider again, creeping under the edge of the hearthstone.

  He stoops to retrieve the gun, but Mr Crowe hooks it towards himself with his heel, scooping it from the floor and examining its mechanism with apparent curiosity.

  Abel crosses the room to another chair. ‘Very fucking clever,’ he says. ‘You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?’

  ‘Forgive me,’ says Mr Crowe, returning the shotgun with a negligent toss. ‘A conjuring trick, merely. It is a weakness I have never quite managed to eradicate.’

  Abel turns to Eustace. He scrapes his knuckles self-consciously along his jaw. ‘There’s one way in and out of here, right? No trapdoors? No secret passageways, any of that?’

  ‘The doors may be locked from the outside. Once that is done, there is no way out. The windows are twelve feet above a terrace.’

  ‘Ten minutes,’ Abel says, facing Mr Crowe again. ‘And I’ll be right outside the door.’

  ‘I am deeply grateful. You have put my mind at ease.’

  ‘How easily consoled you are, after all.’ Arabella reclines languorously on the sofa now and stares at the ceiling. ‘Are you so untouched by betrayal? You had more heat in you than this when I first met you.’

  He gives a low and joyless laugh. ‘Betrayal? Is that what you thought it was? Belief, my love, is a species of innocence. I have been rather longer in the world than you, and there is little left, I’m afraid, of whatever innocence I once possessed. And you, Chastern, did you think your puppetry was so very cunning? The woman brought more calamity in her wake than a starving army, and you thought I would suspect nothing? I have engineered more plausible coincidences while at stool.’

  ‘It is a wonder to me,’ Eustace says, ‘that you did not think to share these misgivings of yours before so much harm was done. It is a wonder too that they have proved to be no impediment to your affections for this creature, that she was installed here long after the child was taken from us.’

  Mr Crowe does not look up. ‘Have you not been long enough acquainted with me, Eustace, to doubt what is apparent? You of all people should have learned to distrust what you see. It was doomed from the beginning, this little ruse of theirs. The child was not in our care, any more than Sirius is in the care of the Greenwich Observatory. No, it was not for me to intervene. I would only have hindered her progress. It was necessary to give him the satisfaction of his deceit, to appear to accept his little trinket.’

  Clara feels a hardening in the muscles of Eustace’s hand. ‘His little trinket? You are engaged to be married to the woman.’

  ‘She has bound herself to me, and shares my fate now. Do not think it any great gift, Eustace.’

  ‘Such tenderness,’ Arabella says. ‘Do you see now why I could hardly help myself? May I at least have a drink, since I have to sit still for all this?’

  Eustace ignores her. ‘She may be bound to you, but I am not. You and your bride, I’m sure, will wish to retain someone better suited to your habits.’

  Mr Crowe shakes his head sadly. ‘Ah, Eustace,’ he says. ‘You thought I could dispense with you so easily, after all we have seen? No, that need will not arise.’

  ‘Very well,’ says Eustace. ‘But I have other obligations. I must think of the child now. I must think of Clara, and her place is here. Her place has always been here.’

  Mr Crowe sets his glass down and turns to her. He says nothing for a long moment, and all the gaiety is gone from his face. ‘That much is true,’ he says at last. ‘It is Clara’s in a way that it was never mine. But it is all in hand, Eustace. I have spoken to Cromer, and he has seen to the formalities.’

  ‘You have given up the house? The library?’

  ‘They were never mine, Eustace, not truly. I cherished them once, but these things must pass from us, sooner or later. I was a custodian, nothing more, until such time as their rightful owner should take full possession. And she has returned, as I knew she would – as nothing on this Earth could have prevented. She has come into her estate. I am surprised only that it has taken this long, and that she left anyone living. There is some consolation in that, Chastern, surely? In living long enough to glimpse the truth.’

  Chastern regards him bitterly. ‘Consolation?’ he says. ‘I would hardly recognise it. I have been too long untouched by pleasure.’

  ‘Have you indeed? Well, there is no shame in it at your age. But come, it is time. Abel, if you are still agreeable, perhaps you and the rest of the company would be good enough to wait outside?’

  Abel stand
s, holding the shotgun across his chest. ‘Ten minutes,’ he says.

  Eustace motions Arabella towards the door, and she rises languidly to precede them. As she passes Mr Crowe’s chair, she pauses, laying her hand along his jaw. Clara cannot read her expression. It is not quite regretful, not quite scornful. He detaches himself, kissing and releasing her hand before getting up and crossing towards his desk. As he does so, he begins to sing.

  ‘Tu che a Dio spiegasti l’ali, o bell’alma innamorata … Come, Chastern. Let us do as Lucia did. Let us unfold our wings before God.’

  At first, Clara is not sure of what she is hearing. While Abel paces at the doors, she and Eustace have seated themselves in the passageway. Arabella has arranged herself on the sofa opposite, and has lapsed again into her jaded singing. Clara puts her head on one side, listening intently.

  Eustace looks at her, immediately alert. ‘Clara?’

  She shakes her head. The noise is indistinct, and Arabella’s slurred melody distracts her.

  Eustace turns to her angrily. ‘Hold your peace, can’t you?’

  When she hears it again, the sound from the library, she stands and approaches the doors. It is Chastern’s voice, reedy and beseeching. Seeing her concern, Abel turns and raps sharply on the door.

  ‘Time’s almost up,’ he says. ‘When I come in there, he’d better be reading a bedtime story.’

  There is no answer. From within, Chastern’s pleading can still be heard, though it has softened now to something barely more than a whimper. There are other noises too, dull and irregular, that Clara cannot identify.

  Abel bangs on the door with his fist. ‘That’s it,’ he shouts. ‘You’ve had your fun. Story time’s over.’

  In his agitation, he fumbles with the lock. Clara steps quietly in front of him, placing her hand on his. He moves aside, his face colouring. She turns the key easily and looks at him with a slight smile. There was always a trick to it.