Dark Angel

by Sally Beauman

  Constance bites her tongue between her small teeth. She bends forward. She concentrates. She fits the key into the lock and turns it.

  Inside the writing case there are a number of letters and bills, which she does not pause to examine. Beneath these, there is an exercise book with a black cover. It is the kind of book a pupil might use in school. It bears no identifying label.

  Constance’s hands are a little afraid to touch this book. They advance toward it and then they draw back. Finally they delve into the box. They remove the notebook. Its cover is not stiff. It may be rolled up, this notebook, like a newspaper.

  Constance rolls it as tight as it will go. She thrusts it down into the deepest pocket of her full black skirt. She examines the skirt. Does the bulge show? No, it does not.

  After this, she is quick. She relocks the writing case and closes the drawer. She replaces the watch chain upon the dressing chest. She does not look in the mirror on the chest, because she fears it. If she looked there, she might see her father’s pale face, his neat beard. He might do something very terrible: He might beckon to her.

  She returns to the chair where Gwen stationed her. She sits down quietly, in an obedient way. She thinks about her father. She tries not to think where they may have taken him. Wherever it is, she is sure it will be cold, and lonely.

  Shall she say goodbye, now? Shall she say it out loud? Constance hesitates. She can feel that her father is very close. It seems foolish to say goodbye.

  “Goodnight, Papa,” she says at last, in a small voice.

  The following week there was, as Dr. Haviland had foreseen, an inquiry of sorts. You would not expect it to be too thorough, that inquiry, and you would be right.

  Desultory might describe it; tactful might describe it. The local police, overawed, had no intention of offending such a prominent local landowner as Lord Callendar, whose cousin was Chief Constable of the County and whose closest friends were so prominent on the local judiciary.

  There was an inquest. Not one member of the Cavendish family appeared; they all gave written evidence. That evidence established with some accuracy the time Shawcross was thought to have left the party. It emphasized that Shawcross—a writer, after all—often took walks alone. Beyond that, it told the jury nothing.

  Cattermole, who did appear and who rather enjoyed the experience, was more forthcoming. Having explained that, for many years, the traps once used to deter poachers had been stored in a disused barn, where they rusted away, no one giving them a second thought, he moved on. Before the coroner could stop him, he reminded the jury that there had been Gypsies in the area for weeks. These Gypsies, he continued, had been found to have decamped on the very day the accident was discovered. Since neither he nor any of his men (he could vouch for them) would have positioned traps known to be illegal, he drew his own conclusions. The jury might do the same, he continued, as the coroner leaned forward to interrupt. In his view, it was the Gypsies who had placed the trap, intending mischief to his keepers or to him.

  The jury was composed of local men, including several tenant farmers from the Cavendish estates. Their verdict? Death by Misadventure. The matter was closed.

  Was this verdict accepted in the privacy of Winterscombe? Perhaps by some—though I think there were other members of the family who had their doubts. The only person to express those doubts out loud was Sir Montague Stern. He voiced them the day after the inquest, in his chambers in Albany in London; there Maud was visiting him, for the first time.

  “Death by Misadventure,” Stern said in his even way. “That is convenient. And neat.”

  Maud, who was distracted both by the attraction she felt toward Stern and by the details of his drawing room—such a restrained, perfect room, and full of perfect things, a great contrast to the man himself—did not take this in at once. When she did, she gave a small shriek.

  “Montague! Whatever can you mean? Obviously that was the only verdict. We all know it was an accident.”

  “Do we?” Stern stood by the windows. He looked into the street.

  “But of course. The Gypsies—”

  “I am not convinced by the talk of Gypsies.”

  Something in the way he said this drew Maud closer. She advanced a few steps. She looked at Stern, who was tall, whose complexion was pale, whose features bore the marks of his race, and whose eyes were heavily lidded. Those eyes told her nothing. He looked toward her, his expression appraising yet cool. They might have been discussing a dinner party, not a death. Again she had that sensation, experienced at Winterscombe, of a contained man, of contained power. She was shocked by what he said; also excited.

  “You cannot mean … If it was not an accident, then it would be a question of—”

  “Murder?” Stern gave a slight shrug, as if he found the word distasteful. Maud was tempted, but sensible. She stepped forward another pace, then stopped.

  “That is ridiculous. Unthinkable. Why, for a murder, you would need a murderer—”

  “Indeed. I would have said there might be candidates.”

  “Preposterous. I shall not listen to this. I believe you are trying to frighten me.” She hesitated. “Who?”

  Stern smiled. He extended a hand to her. Maud stared with some fascination at his hands, which were fine-boned, and at his cuffs, which were exceptionally white. A glint of gold at the wrist.

  “It is pointless to speculate.” Stern sounded more brisk. “The matter is resolved. It is unlikely to be investigated further. I like puzzles—that is all. I like to try to solve them. Purely for my own entertainment, of course.”

  Maud decided to change the subject; she debated whether to take his hand. She felt flurried.

  “This is a very beautiful room,” she began in a rushed way—a gauche way, and Maud was rarely gauche.

  “I am glad you approve.” He gave that odd, foreign half-bow. He gestured in a slightly dismissive way toward certain paintings on the walls and certain austere porcelain vases upon the shelves. “I like these things. I am a collector, of sorts.”

  Something in the steady way in which he said this, and something in his eyes as he did so, decided Maud. An acute memory came to her, of this man in her room at Winterscombe.

  Forgetting talk of inquests and more sinister matters, she took another step forward, grasped his hand.

  Stern also seemed to have forgotten their earlier conversation. Moving away from the window, his manner deliberate yet circumspect, he took Maud in his arms.

  The inquest over—the matter resolved—and it was time for the funeral. But where should it take place? Not at Winterscombe. That suggestion, made tentatively by Gwen, was scotched by Denton at once. In London, then, where Shawcross had rented rooms in Bloomsbury.

  Gwen took on the arrangements, for Shawcross seemed to have virtually no family. She worked hard, her mind busy sanitizing the past: an obligation, to an old family friend. By the time the ceremony actually took place, Gwen almost believed this herself.

  The funeral was not well attended. Gwen opened up her Mayfair house for the occasion. She did her best to ensure a large and distinguished congregation. On the day, she was mortified by the thinness of the turnout.

  Her family were there in force—naturally. But where were the many literary friends of whom Eddie had spoken with such warm familiarity? She had written to them all, these famous men. Now, where were they, the illustrious novelists, the poets of advanced views, the influential editors, the titans Eddie claimed to dine with so often?

  None in evidence. The arts were represented by Jarvis of the lavender cravat—who left the ceremony hurriedly, refusing an invitation to return to Park Street—and by a young American, introduced as Hitchings. He claimed to represent a New York journal. His breath smelled of whisky.

  Gwen, returning to her Mayfair drawing room, eyed the awkward gathering. She could have cried from pity and humiliation. A thin, chilly little group. Her own family; Boy’s fiancée, Jane Conyngham; Maud; Sir Montague Stern (invited at
Maud’s suggestion, he sent an outsize wreath). There was Constance, who had a cold and whose nose was running. There was a sad-eyed student who rented rooms in the same Bloomsbury house as Shawcross. There was an aging widow whose name Gwen did not catch, who claimed once to have introduced Shawcross to some literary editor.

  Apart from these, there was only one other mourner: a reedy young man, a solicitors’ clerk in a rusty black suit, who had never met Shawcross himself but was there to represent the firm’s partners.

  Jane Conyngham talked kindly to the student. Gwen’s family massed, to present a united front. Montague Stern, in a patient fashion, engaged the uncommunicative Constance. Gwen, feeling she could bear this no longer, motioned the solicitors’ clerk to one side.

  She drew him into the library. There, the young man enumerated some gloomy facts: Shawcross had been prevailed upon to make a will, it seemed, after the death of his wife; its beneficiary was Constance. Shawcross had, however, left his daughter very little. His banking accounts were overdrawn; his landlord and his tailors were clamoring for payment. All Constance would inherit, the young man said in a prim and reprimanding way, were her father’s books, his personal effects, and a batch of debts.

  There was a further problem: Inquiries had naturally been made of the most thorough kind; Shawcross, it seemed, possessed no near relatives. His parents were dead; he had no brothers or sisters; the nearest family still alive were his mother’s sister and her husband, who had a small business in Solihull.

  “In Solihull?” Gwen was not quite sure where this was, but whatever its location, she did not like the sound of it.

  These relatives had been contacted, went on the reedy young man, fingering an ill-fitting and yellowing collar. They had expressed their grief and wished their condolences to be conveyed to the child. However, they had made one thing clear: Their means were slender; they regretted, but they could not be made responsible for a child they had never met. Circumstanced as they were, it was out of the question—out of the question, the young man repeated impressively—for them to take Constance in.

  Gwen was offended by this. She was offended by the young man, by his collar, which had a tide-mark, and by his Adam’s apple, which jiggled as he spoke. She did not like the way he pronounced her name, rolling her title on his lips. She did not like the way his eyes added up her library and its contents.

  Gwen had learned hauteur. She gave the young man a diminishing glance. She dismissed these uncharitable relatives and the unpleasant place in which they lived; she dismissed the question of these footling debts, which she would ensure were settled. She dismissed, finally, the question of Constance.

  Constance would be taken in, she said, by her own family. This had been their intention from the first. Mr. Shawcross had been an old and valued family friend. Anything else—and she turned upon the young man a cold eye—would indeed have been out of the question.

  The young man possibly resented this remark and the way in which it was said. His sallow skin colored. He remarked that his firm would be much relieved, and matters would be facilitated.

  “Of course, there is the matter of the Bloomsbury accommodation. The rented accommodation.” He paused at the door. “That will have to be cleared. The landlord requires the rooms. We have already had Communications.”

  This he said in a nasty way, with a supercilious glance at a tiger-skin rug. Having thus disposed of Shawcross, who might have rich and titled friends but who was nonetheless insolvent, he took his leave.

  Two days later—her last task, she told herself, and felt relief—Gwen set off for Bloomsbury with Constance in tow. Constance insisted on accompanying her. She needed, she said, to pack her own things. It would not take long. One suitcase would be ample.

  The house was tall and gloomy. The communal hall smelled of wax polish and, more faintly, of boiled cabbage. Gwen leaned against the wall; she began to feel faint.

  It was Constance who insisted they must press on, Constance who led her up the wide stairs to the first landing and then on, upward, a steep climb, to the second floor.

  Gwen had been supplied with a key; the door to the Shawcross apartment was unlocked. She entered, for the first time, the place where her lover had lived.

  They had never met here, and these rooms were not as she had imagined them. Although she had known Shawcross was not rich, Gwen had a benign imagination, and in her mind’s eye she had seen these rooms as a pleasant and bookish place, a writer’s domain. She had envisaged bookcases, the glow of leather bindings in firelight; a desk, perhaps with a green-shaded lamp; neat piles of papers; an easy chair; some spaciousness. It had given her pleasure, often, when they were forced to be apart, to think of Shawcross here, sitting at this imagined desk, working, then breaking off to think of her.

  She had imagined him, perhaps, taking a meal, brought to him on a tray by some servant. She had imagined him, from time to time, inviting to this room some of the celebrated men whom he counted as his friends. She had seen them sitting either side of a bright fire, discussing life, art, religion, philosophy.

  This room resisted all such images. It was, in the first place, cramped, having been at some time subdivided. There were bookshelves, but they were gimcrack affairs; the books they contained, though numerous, were dusty. There was a desk, set in front of a grimy unwashed window overlooking a noisy street, but the desk, too, was cheap. There was an ugly lamp upon it. It was scattered with a confusion of letters, papers, proofs, bills. Gwen found this disturbing. Shawcross had taken such care over his appearance. He had always seemed to her so tidy.

  “There are three rooms altogether.”

  Constance had set down her small black case. She stood in the middle of the room. Her face looked pinched.

  “There’s my father’s bedroom—that is through there.” She pointed toward a door. “My room is next to it, across the corridor. It has two beds. My nurse slept in the same room.”

  She said this with an air of some importance, as if the fact that she shared with her nurse gave status.

  “Of course, she left some years ago. Papa did not replace her. I was older then. We managed very well without.” She paused, lifting her sharp small face to the window.

  “Do you like it here? I like it here. If you lean out of the window, you can see the square. And there is a church at the end of the street. I could hear its bells on Sunday mornings. St. Michael and All Angels. I always liked that name. All Angels—it sounds powerful, don’t you think?”

  Gwen made no answer. She sank down into an uncomfortable chair before an empty grate. On the shelves opposite were several empty bottles, a number of dirty wineglasses. She pressed her gloved hand to her brow.

  “Constance, perhaps … It is a little soon, I think, to do this. I am not sure I am quite able. It must be upsetting for you. Perhaps we need not stay. I could just arrange … well, for everything to be removed to Winterscombe. Then we could go through it later. That might be the best thing.”

  “I need my clothes.” Constance sounded obstinate. “I have some books. Some things of my mother’s—her hairbrushes. I left them here. I want them.”

  “Of course, of course.” Gwen attempted to rouse herself. She half rose, then sank back in her chair. She began to wish she had never set foot in these horrible rooms. She could so easily have sent someone else. She sighed. Curiosity, she told herself, curiosity of the worst kind had brought her here. Just once, before she relinquished him, she had wanted to see Eddie’s home. Well, now she saw it.

  “You stay there.” Constance was looking at her in a concerned way. “You look tired. I can do it—I know where everything is. It will not take long.”

  She rummaged around among the papers on top of the desk, bringing to their surface a letter on mauve paper. She picked up a bundle of proofs and pressed these into Gwen’s hand.

  “Look. These are the proofs for Papa’s new novel. You might like to look at those while you wait. I know how much you liked his work. He would
have wanted you … to read this.”

  Gwen was touched. She took the proofs. Constance gave her an approving nod. She picked up her case, then turned toward the bedrooms.

  Once the door was closed upon Gwen, Constance was swift.

  She went first into her father’s bedroom. She fetched a chair and, standing upon it, scrabbled around on the dusty top of his wardrobe. She found the key she sought, and with this key she unlocked the small cabinet beside his bed. This cabinet had two shelves. On the top was a collection of medicines, ointments, lotions, and pillboxes, for her father had suffered mild hypochondria. On the shelf below, neatly stacked, was a pile of black notebooks.

  Constance knelt. She leaned back upon her heels. What she was about to do frightened her a little, because these notebooks were secret—she knew that. Her father wrote in them every night. If she came in while he was writing in them, he covered them up or closed them. He always locked them away. He kept the key in his pocket, except when he went to Winterscombe, and then he put it in the dust on the wardrobe, out of sight.

  Would he want her to have them? Constance thought that he would. They were his special books, and now that he was dead they belonged to his daughter. I shall look after them for Papa, Constance said to herself. She pulled the notebooks out and arranged them in the bottom of her case. Her hands felt itchy. She wiped them on her skirt. Standing, she carried the case across the corridor and into her own room.

  She did not want to stay here a moment longer than necessary. From her closet she took two dresses—that did not take long. She pushed them into the case in a tangle. Some blouses, some crumpled petticoats, a nightgown, one pair of buttoned boots, which needed mending, and one pair of slippers.

  She had to sit on the case to shut it. When it was closed she realized she had forgotten the hairbrushes. She looked at these brushes, which belonged to someone she had never known: a stranger. She decided to leave them behind.

  When she returned to the sitting room she was out of breath. Her sallow cheeks were flushed. Her hands shook with her own daring.