Dark Angel

by Sally Beauman

  “I can’t make love to you on a pile of old galoshes. Well, I could …”

  “I can tell that,” Jenna says.

  “But I won’t. Come outside, to the birch grove.”

  “What about the dress? I must iron that dress.”

  “Damn and blast that dress—”

  “Oh, I’ll say that, shall I, to Miss Conyngham?”

  Jenna kneels; she presses her mouth against his. Acland feels her tongue flicker across his lips; her breasts brush against his palms. Her eyes, which slant upward in her face and are full of light, tease him.

  “I’ll come. But I’ll do that dress first. Skip the petticoats—she’ll not notice. Ten minutes—you can wait that long.”

  “I can’t.”

  “If I can, you can. You’ll have to.”

  Jenna can be firm; she is always practical. Now, she buttons up her dress with quick deft fingers. The beautiful breasts are hidden away, the starched bib of her apron pinned back in place, her hair—in considerable disarray—twisted expertly back and pinned in a loop at her neck.

  Acland watches with fascination. He watches her hold the hairpins between her teeth, watches her bend her neck, gather the hair, twist it, pin it; it is done in a matter of seconds. Acland loves this matter-of-factness in Jenna; he loves to watch her dress or undress; he loves the absence of coyness.

  The first time—and Acland will never forget the first time—they went to the boathouse, down by the lake. Acland was in a torment of physical desire and mental anguish. His heart raced; his body pulsed; his mind popped with questions, arguments, justifications, explanations. He was then sixteen, a virgin, as was Jenna. It seemed to Acland that to explain to Jenna that he loved her was a matter of terrible magnitude. He could not lay one hand on her until he was quite sure she understood that. On the other hand it was becoming pressingly urgent to touch her, and not to speak at all. Acland stood in the boathouse, scarlet with emotion, torn by instinct, a highly developed intelligence, and an education—an expensive education—that had always emphasized the primacy of words.

  Jenna, standing a few feet away, frowned at the water. Its reflection made patterns of light and shade on her face; her mouth, then her eyes, seemed to dissolve in its brightness. She turned, gave the still-silent Acland a long and considering look. Then, without a word, she began to undress. She took off all her clothes, as neatly and practically as she now, in the cloakroom, refastened them. She folded them in a small pile. She unpinned her hair. She stood in front of Acland, the first woman he had seen naked. Her skin was roseate. Her body’s curves astonished him. Light moved against her thighs and her breasts. He stared at the unexpected darkness of her nipples, at the secret lineaments of legs, arms, waist, throat, hair.

  “Let’s,” Jenna said.

  Jenna, Jenna, Jenna, Acland thinks now, leaving the house, taking the path that leads to the birch grove. He does not say her name aloud, but the words are like a great shout of triumph in his mind. In the distance, over the woods, the black rooks rise from the branches, as if they, too, heard that silent shout and were disturbed by it.

  They circle, cry their raucous cries, then settle. I have found my religion, Acland the unbeliever thinks to himself—and, because his mind still delights in ideas, paradoxes, ironies, he smiles to himself, develops the notion in his mind, toys with it.

  By two-thirty Steenie is asleep. Constance, who has been waiting for this moment, creeps into his room and looks down at him. His cheeks are faintly flushed; he breathes evenly.

  On two occasions in the past—once as a baby, with croup, once when he was eight years old and contracted the deadly scarlet fever—Steenie almost died. Constance wonders if it is the fact that he was twice so close to death that makes his mother love him. But it cannot just be that. Gwen also loves Boy and Acland and Freddie, and they are all strong and healthy; they never had to rest every afternoon, as Steenie does.

  Constance frowns. Perhaps if she herself were close to death—would that make her father care? Would he sit by her bedside right through the night, the way Gwen told her she did when Steenie was ill? He might, Constance thinks. He might, even though he is a man and always so busy. Busy, busy, busy—that is the problem: busy writing and must not be disturbed, busy changing to go to a party or to make a speech at some literary gathering, busy even when just sitting in a chair, because when he is sitting (he once told her impatiently) he is occupied; he is thinking.

  Hate him being busy, Constance thinks; hate him being here, at Winterscombe, where he is busier than ever, busy with Gwen, always with Gwen…. Constance clasps her hands, twists around in an odd tight little pirouette of rage. She would like to stamp her foot or cry or tear something or smash something. But she must not do that—she must not wake Steenie. If Steenie wakes, she will never get away.

  She tiptoes to the door and peeps through into the day nursery, and yes, it is safe. No sign of Steenie’s governess, and old Nanny Temple, who must be a hundred (she was Denton’s nurse, which is unimaginable), is fast asleep by the fire. Easy! Constance creeps past her, out into the corridor, and along to the back stairs. One floor down and she is at the far end of the East Wing. Here there is a maids’ service room, where the hatboxes and trunks are unpacked and the dresses of the women guests can be hung up, sponged, and pressed.

  She peeps into the room. There is a maid there, ironing one of the frocks. Constance can feel the heat of the stove used to warm the irons; she can smell the hot scent of drying cotton and linen. She edges around the door, and the maid starts, then smiles at her.

  Constance knows this maid. Her name is Jenna; she lives in the village with the Hennessy family, for she is an orphan, and she is walking out with the head carpenter’s son, Jack Hennessy. Constance has seen them together in the village; she has watched their sedate walks with interest. She has also watched other assignations of Jenna’s which were much less sedate. Jenna, she hopes, does not know this.

  Jenna changes irons; Constance sidles into the room.

  “Miss Conyngham’s dress,” Jenna says, indicating the flounces of silk. She holds the new iron close to her face to test its warmth and then eases it, with an expert hand, along a length of frilling. “I’m dressing her tonight. Doing her hair for her. Everything.”

  Constance looks at Jenna with scorn. Jenna, it is true, has a lovely face. She has long, heavy hair, and that hair shines, is the color of chestnuts. Her complexion is clear, and—Constance resents this—she has particularly beautiful eyes, of a dark hazel color; their gaze, which is steady, is also perceptive. Not a fool, Jenna. However, her hands, damaged by housework, are square and reddened, and she has a marked country accent. Constance prefers to think of her as stupid. Jenna looks content to be doing this task, even proud, and Constance finds that pathetic. Why be proud to iron another woman’s dress? Proud to wear it, perhaps—but to press it?

  “It’s an ugly color,” Constance says. “Green. Nasty dark-green. Green isn’t fashionable, not in London.”

  The maid looks up and stares at her. Then she says quietly, “Ah, well. It looks pretty enough to me. I dare say it will do—in the country.”

  There is possibly a mild reproach in that remark. Constance looks at Jenna more carefully, and the maid, who cannot be stern for long, as Constance knows, gives a sudden smile; her cheeks dimple.

  “See.” She puts her reddened hand into the pocket of her apron. “I kept you something. Don’t say where it came from, mind now. And don’t let no one catch you. You’re supposed to be resting.” She holds out to Constance a little sweetmeat, one of the petits fours Gwen serves with coffee. It is a tiny marzipan fruit bedded in a wisp of chocolate, an apple tinted green and pink, with a clove for a stem and strips of angelica for leaves.

  “Don’t you go swallowing the clove now. Leave that bit. I don’t want you choking.”

  Constance takes the sweet. She knows she should thank Jenna, but somehow the words will not be spoken; they stick in her throat, as thanks
always do. Constance knows this is one of the reasons everyone hates her.

  The maid seems not to mind, though; she just nods at Constance and goes back to her ironing. She seems anxious to finish it and her hands move deftly. Constance edges back to the door. She studies Jenna a moment—Jenna, who is only a few years older than she is; Jenna, who is sixteen and content with her lot; Jenna, who will always be a servant—and then, with a jerky little movement she runs out, down the back stairs, and out into the gardens.

  There, hidden by a bush, she pauses. Some guests are outside; she can hear the murmur of their voices in the distance. But not her father’s. Where will her father have gone after luncheon? Constance’s head lifts, like an animal’s. She waits for a moment, listening, calculating, and then—keeping out of sight of the house—runs in the direction of the woods.

  When she reaches the woods she is more careful. She pauses to catch her breath, chooses judiciously the path she will take. Not the main paths, of which there are two: one leading in the direction of the village and one to a small Gothic folly, which Gwen, stupid Gwen, calls a gazebo. No, neither of those paths; Constance ducks aside, and takes a small track. This track, narrow and overgrown, winds its way around to the far side of the wood, on the other side of the coverts. Only the keepers are supposed to use it, but they do so infrequently, preferring the more direct route from the village.

  Here it is quiet, still, a little frightening; here you are unlikely to meet anyone else. Constance, however, knows that other people use this path besides herself, for that reason. Her father uses this path; Gwen Cavendish uses this path. Constance has spied on them—oh, yes, Constance has seen them.

  It is muddy here, and brambles catch at her skirt; young nettles brush her ankles and sting her, but Constance does not pause. She does not take any of the other little tracks. She presses on, deeper into the woods, toward the clearing.

  Still, she must be watchful; Constance knows this. She scans the undergrowth ahead, for there are traps in these woods, and not just for animals. Cattermole uses man-traps, Freddie told her, to catch the poachers. Freddie described them. There are steel traps with jagged jaws that close on a man’s leg. There are pit traps, with sharpened staves, for the unwary. Constance was not sure she believed Freddie when he told her this with such relish. Man-traps, she knows, have been illegal for some years. Even so, she intends to be careful.

  Every few yards she stops, listens, pokes at the undergrowth ahead of her, but there is nothing there—just celandine, the scent of wild garlic, and silence. All the same, Constance is a little frightened; when she reaches the clearing she is out of breath. Here the grass is short and safe. She sits down, panting. Will Gwen come this afternoon? Will her father? It must be past three o’clock by now. If they do come, it will be soon.

  Then, just as she is lying back on the grass, feeling its coolness and dampness seep through her dress, she hears the noise. A rustling, then silence; then a rustling again.

  She sits up, startled, ready to run away. She hears the sound again, just behind her, in a mound of brambles. She sits as still as a stone, listening to her heart hammering; then she realizes how foolish she is being. No person could make such a little noise. It must be an animal, a small animal.

  And when she goes to investigate, parts the thorns and foliage, bends down, she sees a rabbit. At first she cannot understand why it does not run away, why it is twitching and jerking like that, and then she sees the snare around its neck, the thin twist of wire. With every jerk the wire noose is tightening.

  Constance gives a little cry of dismay. She bends to the rabbit; the rabbit, terrified, jerks more vigorously.

  “Oh, keep still, keep still,” Constance cries aloud.

  No way of releasing the noose from the neck—it is too tight and the rabbit is bleeding. She must first unwind it from the sticks it is fixed to—and that is hard. The job has been done well, cunningly. She twists and pushes, tugs at the sticks. The rabbit is still now, just a tremor of movement, and Constance feels a surge of hope and happiness. The rabbit knows; it knows she is rescuing it.

  There! The snare is released from the sticks. She can lift the rabbit clear of the undergrowth, which she does.

  Very gently, cradling the rabbit in her arms—it is only a small rabbit, almost a baby—she brings it back to the grass of the clearing and lays it in the sun.

  She kneels down, strokes the gray fur, wipes at the runnels of blood with her petticoat. The rabbit lies on its side; one eye, almond-shaped, looks up at her. She must disentangle the noose now, Constance thinks, untwist it…. She reaches forward, and the rabbit convulses.

  Constance draws back in terror. The rabbit’s head lifts, jerks, falls. Its paws scrabble at the earth. It urinates. A tiny drop of blood drips from one nostril. Then it lies still. Constance knows at once that it is dead. She has never seen a dead animal before, let alone a dying one, but she knows for certain. Something is happening to the rabbit’s eye. As she looks at it she can see it is clouding.

  Constance kneels back on her heels; she is trembling. There is a tight pain in her chest. She cannot swallow. She knows she would like to scream; she knows she would like to kill the person who did this.

  Suddenly, wildly, she jumps up. She picks up a stick; she whirls around the circle of the clearing, smashing at the undergrowth, at the nettles, the brambles, the places where more snares might be hidden. And then she sees it. Just to the right of the track she came by, disguised by branches she has now knocked aside. She stops, lets the stick fall, stares down in disbelief.

  There is the man-trap, just the way Freddie described it. A metal mouth, two jaws of steel edged with rusty teeth, a springing device; in the sunshine the jaws grin at her.

  Constance stands very still for a moment. Does the trap still work? It must be an old one, a broken one…. Constance looks more closely. It does not look broken. The undergrowth around it is trampled, as if it were newly placed. The branches that were over it, the ones she moved, are freshly cut; their leaves are only just wilting.

  She stares at the trap for a long time, fascinated and repelled, tempted to poke at it with a stick, frightened to do so but wanting to know for certain if it works. The jaws grin; the branches of the trees lift in the breeze and fall. Quite suddenly Constance loses interest in the trap. She has remembered the time; it must be three-thirty by now. The wood is silent; her father must not be coming. She will go and look for him.

  But first she must bury the rabbit. She cannot just leave him.

  She goes back to the rabbit, touches its fur, which is still warm. The blood on the fur is drying. Poor rabbit. Sweet rabbit. She will make a fine grave for him.

  She picks up her stick again, selects a place, scratches at the earth under a small birch tree. The ground is soft after weeks of spring rain, but even so the job is difficult. Discarding the stick, she digs with her bare hands. It hurts her hands and tears the nails, but she manages it. After some fifteen minutes she has made a shallow indentation in the earth. Into this, absorbed, concentrated, Constance lays a bed of pebbles, then covers the pebbles with grass. The grave looks inviting now, a nest, a bed for her rabbit. She picks some of the wildflowers from the edge of the clearing: yellow celandine, a violet, two early half-opened primroses.

  These she lays around the edge of the grave, kneeling back on her heels to admire her handiwork. Then, gently, she picks up the rabbit. She lays it in the grave, on its side, and puts a celandine between its front paws to take with it on its journey. Then she covers the body of the rabbit with tufts of sweet grass. At first she lays the grass so the rabbit’s head is still uncovered, so it looks as if it has a green quilt. Then—she does not want the earth to go in the rabbit’s eye—she covers its face. A sprinkling of earth; more earth; she tamps it down firmly and rearranges grass and leaves on top of the mound.

  Her rabbit. Her secret rabbit. Constance kneels beside the mound, head bent. It is only when she pushes a strand of hair back from her fac
e that she realizes there are tears on her cheeks. Sweet rabbit. Secret rabbit. Is it for the rabbit that Constance—who never weeps—has been crying?

  From his perch in the branches of the oak tree, Freddie has a commanding view. In one direction he can look down the path from the woods to the estate village; in the other he can look back across the lawns to the house. He himself cannot be seen, which is precisely why he has come here.

  Freddie leans back, settles himself as comfortably as he can, with his back against the trunk of the tree, his bottom well supported by a smooth branch. Then, smiling to himself, he extracts from his pockets the cigarette he purloined that morning from Acland’s bedroom. He unwraps the paper he has secreted it in, lights it, and inhales. He coughs a little, but not very much, and he is pleased with himself: He is making progress.

  The first cigarette (cadged from Cattermole, hand-rolled) made him violently sick, which caused Cattermole great amusement. Since then, Freddie has been practicing: one a day, occasionally two—no more, or Acland might notice his supply was depleted. Acland’s cigarettes, the best Virginian tobacco, supplied by a firm in London, are a great improvement on Cattermole’s. They are mild yet pungent; they produce in Freddie an agreeable light-headedness. He now has it down to a fine art: the whole business of lighting the cigarette, wafting it around in a devilish sophisticated manner, and finally extinguishing it. He has modeled his performance on that of the actor Gerald du Maurier, whom he saw playing the gentleman burglar Raffles a few years previously. Du Maurier, the man Freddie most admires in the whole world, had a certain way of holding his cigarette which Freddie is hell-bent on copying. Now, he feels he has succeeded; slightly narrowed eyes—that was it—the tube of tobacco held at a negligent and rakish angle …

  He makes the cigarette last and extinguishes it with reluctance. He consults his pocket watch—almost three—considers what he might do now the high point of the afternoon is over.