Dark Angel

by Sally Beauman

  Jane’s voice broke. She felt confused. Her vision blurred. Hair? Why was she talking about hair? How could she be so stupid?

  “Look.” She lifted his hand so that his fingers rested against her face. His hand remained stiff and inert. “Look, I’m crying, Acland. Tears—can you feel them? I’m only crying because I’m so happy, Acland. I thought I’d lost you, you see. But you’re not lost. You’re found. Acland—can you hear me? Oh, please, can’t you see me?”

  The man below her gave no sign he heard her voice. His hand remained stiff. There was no answering pressure from his fingers, no trace of response in his eyes. Jane thought: I was always invisible to him; I am invisible still.

  “Acland, please, let me help you. You will be safe now. I shall look after you. I shan’t let anyone hurt you. I’ll take you home—Acland, think: Winterscombe. You’ll see Winterscombe. It’s spring there now—”

  Jane stopped. She dropped her own hands and drew back a little. Acland’s hand remained as it had been. He did not lower his arm. Jane had begun to shake. A bomb breathed in the distance. The air moved. She tried to force this upraised arm back down against the blankets, but it would not be forced. It was as stiff as the arm of a day-old corpse. She swung around.

  “What is wrong with this man—what is it?”

  She put the question angrily. The nurse took offense.

  “Wrong with him? What do you think is wrong with him? The same as is wrong with all the others. And you’re wasting your time trying to talk to him. Maybe he can hear—but if he can, he doesn’t listen. And he never speaks. Look—come and have a drink. Have a cigarette.” Her voice became conciliatory. “Come on, dear. It’s best to leave him. He’s mad.”

  VII

  LAZARUS

  “WEXTON,” I SAID, “WILL you read this?”

  I held out one of Constance’s black journals. Wexton, who had refused to look at any of them before, took it with obvious reluctance.

  “Please, Wexton. I want you to understand why they disturb me so much.”

  “After the caves?” He put on his reading glasses.

  “Five months later.”

  He moved to the window, where the light was strong. A clear, cold autumn day; outside, the sun shone on the gardens at Winterscombe. He bent his head to the page, and, in silence, he read the following entry. Constance had written it in this house, in October 1917.

  Full circle. We are all assembled here again. It was Gwen’s idea. The family home, the family circle—Gwen believes this will cure Acland, five months in London and six most distinguished doctors having failed.

  The weather is fine. There is a bright new window in the church, Denton’s memorial to Boy. Gwen took Acland to look at this yesterday, against Jane’s advice. He sat in his wheelchair, facing the window. Perhaps he saw it; perhaps he did not. Needless to say, he did not speak. Then, last night, his nightmares returned; his screams were so loud they woke me. I ran out onto the landing. I thought my father had come back.

  I stood there listening. People scurried to and fro. Even Montague woke and came out of his room. He saw me standing there; he put his arm around me. He offered to stay with me, but I sent him away. I do not need him now, not for the present. I need you, Acland. I am going to bring you back from the dead.

  Now listen to me, Acland, my dearest Lazarus: I’ve been patient, but I shan’t be patient anymore. You’ll get no loving kindness from me—let Jane supply the sops and the prayers. Kindness will not bring you back. They’ve wasted five months on kindness. You need harsher medicine than that: truth, for instance, not the consolation of lies.

  You think you’re wounded, Acland? Just wait—I can wound you in ways you wouldn’t believe. Stab, stab, stab. Whatever the Germans did to you, I can do worse.

  Shall I tell you about Jenna? Would you like to hear about your baby son, Edgar, whose eyes were exactly like yours—and who died three weeks ago, of a pleurisy? There’s plenty more.

  You see? Truth hurts. Words bruise. Time does not stop, Acland, and you cannot ignore that, any more than I once could. Remember that, next time you look through me.

  I need to be alone with you. Not for long—an hour would do, but even an hour is difficult, for Jane guards you ferociously. However, Jane is tiring; you are wearing even her optimism thin. So, I shall have my hour soon enough. Tomorrow, or the day after.

  Then, when you know how it really feels to have a mind full of rocks, and those rocks grinding, grinding—you can choose. Die if you want. After all, we both know death is the last best secret.

  But if you die, at least make it a glorious death, not this miserable dwindling away. Spit in the eye of this trumpery world; go out on a tide of triumphant blood. I’ll help you. What would you like? A gun? A razor?

  Or live—if you feel angry enough. Wager yourself against the world. It can be done. I do it. But make no mistake—you must be angry first, and you must keep that anger with you, forever and ever.

  Jane will promise you the old solaces: faith, hope, charity—can’t you just hear her? She will tell you there is a valley, and it is a quiet place, a restful place; it is just ahead; you can reach it. Don’t believe her. There may be a valley, but after that there is always another mountain range, and then another, and at the very end, when you have climbed them all, there will be one last precipice, one last stretch of black, black water.

  My husband is at the door. Acland, I shall stop writing now and lock this away. Don’t worry, I keep you secret; I still protect you. He is clever—so I have to be careful. Oh, Acland, do you remember the night you came to me and showed me your wound? You made a ring of bright hair and bound it about my finger—dear dead Acland, how alive we were then!

  Wait for me now. I shall come soon, I promise. I shall bring you two presents: death in my right hand, and life in my left. Dexter or sinister: think about it, Acland. I shall kiss you, and then you can decide.

  Wexton closed the notebook. There was silence.

  “Do you see, Wexton?” I said eventually. “She was in love with my father. I think he was in love with her. Always. Everything she says there, she did. Do you see, Wexton? It wasn’t my mother who brought Acland back to life. It was Constance.”

  “Odd.” Wexton did not appear to be listening. He pulled first at his earlobes, then his hair. He frowned. “Odd.” He turned. “I can’t remember. Is Constance right-handed?”

  “What? Yes. Yes, she is. But—”

  “Dexter or sinister. I kind of like that. Except”—he paused—“most people, unless they were left-handed, they’d offer death with the left hand and life with the right—don’t you think? She reverses it.”

  “I don’t see … It doesn’t seem very important—”

  “Oh, I think it is. A mirror image. It’s pretty clear which one she wanted him to choose. The razor hand. Was it a razor?”

  “Yes.”

  “A cutthroat, huh?” Wexton smiled. “But then a safety razor—apart from the fact it wouldn’t do the job as well—it doesn’t have quite the same ring.”

  “Wexton, please don’t make fun of this. I can see—the way she writes. But she always writes like that. She means what she says.”

  “Oh sure, I realize that. And I’m not making fun of it. It’s highly colored, but better than I expected. I wouldn’t mind reading a bit more.”

  “Wexton, this isn’t literary criticism. This is my father—”

  “Was she always that in love with death?” Wexton stood.

  “What? I don’t understand.”

  “Sure you do. Think. This is a love letter, right?”

  “I suppose so. In a way. One of many. Those journals are full of them.” I turned away bitterly. “And they’re all addressed to my father.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. She’s writing to death. She just happens to call him Acland.”

  “A love letter—to death?”

  “That’s how it seems to me. I could be wrong, of course.” He frowned. “You
know the line in Keats? And, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death? Only in her case she isn’t half in love—it’s a full-blooded romance. And death isn’t too easeful. In fact, as lovers go, he sounds pretty vigorous, wouldn’t you say? Stab, stab, stab … Go out on a tide of blood? It’s full of sex. Death as the ultimate sexual partner.”

  He stopped, as if an idea had just occurred to him. His face, alert and interested just a moment before, clouded. He shook his head.

  “I wonder …”

  He seemed about to say something more, then thought better of it. He was looking toward the future. I know that now, but at the time I misinterpreted his reaction. I thought there was a very good reason why Constance might have associated Acland with death, and it concerned the accident to her father. If Wexton had also made that connection—Acland, don’t worry, I keep you secret; I still protect you—it was not something I wanted to discuss then. I wanted those suspicions to go away; I was not ready to confront them yet.

  “Wexton,” I said, “you remember India—you remember the day I went to Mr. Chatterjee?”

  “Yes.”

  “You remember what he said about two women?”

  “Uh-huh.” Wexton’s expression became guarded.

  “It’s not that I believe in clairvoyance, exactly. Obviously, I don’t.”

  “Obviously.” Wexton smiled.

  “But two women—they are here, do you see? Constance and Jane. Constance and—my mother. He said I would have to choose between them. And I feel as if this is the place. Right here.”

  “One of them cured Acland, you mean? That story?”

  “Yes. I grew up with that story, Wexton. I still believe it.”

  “So do I.”

  “You see, if I could just be sure … which of them it was. Constance always claimed she did it.”

  “That sounds pretty typical. What did your mother say?”

  “She said it was God.”

  “I can imagine that. I mean, Jane—well, she would say that.”

  “It was all so strange, Wexton. If I could just be sure.”

  “You can’t. That’s the point, I’d say.”

  He hesitated. He crossed the room; he patted my hand in an awkward, affectionate way.

  “Can you hear your mother’s voice now? Constance isn’t drowning her out anymore?”

  “No. Not so much. I hear her—I think I hear her.”

  “Then think about it. Trust your instincts. Weigh one against the other and decide.” He paused. “And no, don’t ask me. You know what I think, anyway. But then, I’m hopelessly biased—”

  “You think it’s obvious?”

  To my surprise, Wexton shook his head.

  “Oh, no. I don’t think it’s obvious at all. I’ve never underestimated Constance’s powers. I certainly don’t now.” He gestured toward the journals. “As women, she and your mother were at opposite extremes. It was a duel of angels.”

  That phrase surprised me even more—Wexton was not usually given to exaggeration. He saw my surprise, and it seemed to amuse him. His face crumpled into his benevolent smile.

  “Why not? Life isn’t ordinary. It is extraordinary. I’ve always believed that.”

  “Truly, Wexton?”

  “Of course. But then I don’t like the prosaic—never did. It’s why I write poetry, not prose.”

  Having made this pronouncement, he settled himself in a chair by the fire. He lit one of Steenie’s aromatic cigarettes. He gave every appearance of an elderly man preparing for a pleasant midmorning doze.

  I returned to Constance, my mother, and my father: a love triangle, at Winterscombe.

  When I was a child, my father’s recovery was my favorite bedtime story. “Please,” I would say to my mother, “tell it to me again.” And she would: She would tell me about the caves, and her certainty that once she found the right one, she would also find Acland. She would tell me about the journey back to England, the long months in which Acland’s illness seemed incurable, and the night when, finally, he spoke. I knew what came next, of course—they married—and I knew what happened subsequently: They lived happily ever after, as people do in the best stories.

  I can’t remember how old I was when I first realized that there was another part of this story, a part my mother left out.

  Certainly, by the time I was twelve or thirteen, I understood that as far as the credit for my father’s recovery went, people were divided in their verdict.

  Great Aunt Maud, for instance, definite in all things, was most definite in this, no half-shadings: My mother nursed my father back to health. She was Acland’s good angel, Maud would declare, and she brought him back from his underworld with the undramatic gifts of common sense, coddled eggs, fresh air, and serenity.

  Wexton, too, a more reliable witness, supported Jane. He would bring out that Episcopalian word grace to bolster his argument. Steenie, on the other hand, was all for Constance. Constance, I learned, had also visited Acland on the day of his recovery: Constance, according to Steenie, was the dark angel who nipped in between my father and death. My uncle Steenie had had a classical education. In his—more lurid—version of events, Acland had already been rowed across the Styx; he shook hands with Hades. To spirit someone back from that place, Steenie claimed, required something a great deal more dramatic than common sense, or even love: It required daring, guile, bravado, and excess. All these qualities, Steenie argued, Constance possessed—in trumps.

  “Make no mistake,” he would cry, on his second bottle of Bollinger. “Constance shocked him back to life. I don’t know how, but she did it!”

  Steenie would wink when he said this. I disliked that wink—it made me nervous. Inevitably, I asked Constance to explain, and—equally inevitably—she never did. “Me—and a little black magic,” she would always say, then change the subject.

  Her journals were less reticent. There in front of me, blow by blow as it were, were all the details of Constance’s resuscitation process. As with much of what she wrote, they had a dreamlike clarity. I think I believed them then; I think I believe them still. One thing is important: Constance and my mother saw Acland on the same day, within a few hours of each other. Dark angel or not, Constance was a fast operator. Two days after she wrote the entry in her journals that Wexton had just read, her chance came: Jane left Winterscombe to spend the day in London.

  Two women; two accounts; two diaries on the table in front of me. My mother was good, also an innocent—and one of the penalties of innocence can be blindness. Before she left for London, Jane asked Constance to spend a little time with Acland in the course of the day. She did not like him left alone for long periods. She suggested Constance might read to him. She had believed Constance disliked sickrooms and expected reluctance. But I misjudged her, she wrote: Constance can be kind. She agreed without hesitation.

  Jane had two reasons for this visit to London: She was to see Jenna, and then, before catching her train back, she was to see Maud. The first of these visits was urgent: Jane was anxious for Jenna, who had lost her baby; Jenna, whose health was poor.

  There was, however, another reason for this journey, although it was one she was reluctant to admit. It would be the first time she had left Acland’s side since she brought him back from Étaples, and she needed that day’s space; she hungered for it.

  Acland’s condition was almost unchanged. His physical health might have improved—he ate, provided he was left alone to do so; he slept, after a fashion; he consented to be moved, from a bed to a wheelchair—but these were the limits of his cooperation. He still looked through, rather than at. He could not be cajoled, or tricked, into speech—although he screamed words that were recognizable when he had nightmares.

  At this compromise, this half-life, Jane rebelled. She could feel the rebellion drumming away at the back of her mind when she boarded the London train. It churned with the revolution of the train’s wheels, a gathering and metallic momentum, more insistent with each mile t
hat passed. Jane argued with herself. She reminded herself of all the appropriate medical and ethical points, one, two, three, four: It took time for a man’s mind to heal; it required patience, tenacity, perseverance, and faith. These it was her wish, and her duty, to provide. She looked out the window. Fields raced; hedges sped. She rebelled against such pieties. There it was, at the back of her mind. What Acland did was wrong.

  This she would not confront—yet. She would not deny it either. She would let it rest, there at the back of her mind, and as the day passed, she would travel toward it. By the end of the day, she might be ready for the confrontation. She believed this; it gave her an odd sense of freedom and exhilaration. She alighted at Paddington; she took a taxicab to Waterloo; she walked through mean streets, past the church where Jenna had been married, past the cemetery where her baby son was buried. Rebellion crept up on her. She lifted her face to the city sun. She thought, close, close, close.

  Six weeks after the birth of her baby, while Jane was still in France, Jenna, in need of money, had taken work. The job, although Jenna did not know that, had been procured for her by the lawyer Solomons, who had spoken to Montague Stern. Mrs. Tubbs was left to look after the child. A reluctant Jenna joined Florence Tubbs at Stern’s munitions works—a well-paid position, much sought-after. Jenna received twenty-four shillings a week; she packed shells.

  This work had left its mark upon her. One of the chemicals used in the shells was tetrachloride. Handling it produced side effects in the women at the works, including dizziness and acute nausea. It also affected the skin, turning it a jaundiced color; the shell-packers, for this reason, were nicknamed “canaries.”

  The Jenna who opened the door to Jane Conyngham that October morning was greatly changed: Poverty and grief had aged her; her youth had gone.

  “Please.” She took Jane’s hand, then pulled a shawl about her shoulders. “I want to go straight there. I want you to see it. It’s so fine. I could never have … I’m grateful.”