Dark Season

by Joanna Lowell

  He had forced Phillipa into death’s open arms.

  She didn’t guess the sordid details, of course, but now she would wonder. Why did she jump? Why would Phillipa have jumped? If she needed fodder for her spiritualist antics, for blackmail, he had given her plenty. Five years ago, he had closed everything inside him, set seals upon his heart, and now, this woman, this stranger, was opening them one by one.

  Part of his mind whispered to him that he should trust her. Trust her even though circumstances told against her. But she had no connections he could verify, no one who would attest to her identity. She had adduced no evidence to exonerate herself from Lizzie’s charges. She hadn’t even attempted to deny them.

  That irrational part of him countered, seductive, insistent: Trust yourself then. What facts could he collect that would weigh heavier in the balance than his own impressions? She was intelligent, courageous, stubborn, intuitive, awkward, shy, beautiful. She made him want to talk, to invent stories just to amuse or soothe her, to tell her things he’d never told anybody. She made him want to throw caution to wind, dismiss every rational measure, and rely on his instinct to guide him. His animal instinct, which would guide him straight into her bed. Christ. Before he did anything else, he needed to talk to Clement. Get another perspective.

  At last the door opened. Jenkins let him into the hall and took his coat, hat, and gloves. Isidore rubbed his hand across his roughened jaw. He hadn’t shaved. Or eaten.

  “Is Lord St. Aubyn at breakfast?” He started for the breakfast room. Clement

  always breakfasted from half nine to half ten.

  “No, my lord.” Jenkins intercepted him.

  “He isn’t out?” Isidore studied the butler’s face. Clement was a creature of habit. At ten a.m., he wouldn’t move from The Times and two eggs soft-boiled if the house were on fire.

  “No, my lord.”

  Was it his imagination, or had Jenkins the Expressionless grimaced?

  “Well, where is he then?”

  Jenkins hesitated. Something thudded above them. Isidore glanced up then at Jenkins, eyebrow raised.

  Jenkins sighed. “I believe you’ll find him in the library, my lord. I’ll send up a tray. Perhaps … ” He hesitated again. “It would do him good if you could convince him to eat.”

  It was unlike Jenkins to offer a comment that could so nearly be described as opinion. Foreboding made Isidore’s jaw clench. What now? He climbed the stairs, silent as a prowler.

  Most libraries smelled like … well, libraries. Leather and vellum and wax and dust. Isidore’s nostrils flared as he pushed open the door. Turpentine. There was a large canvas on the easel silhouetted against the south-facing window, an enormous Venetian window, rain streaking the panes. He listened at the threshold for movement, breathing. Nothing. Just the muted sound of the rain.

  “Clement?”

  He stepped into the room. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined the west wall. Smaller, glass-fronted cabinets flanked the fireplace with its curving marble surround, scrolling rosettes supported by acanthus-leaf corbels. Coals glowed in the iron grate.

  “Clem?”

  He walked over to the center table, the surface piled with papers and books. A delicate, hand-stitched volume lay open to a vividly colored print: a man, naked, heavy flesh marbled blue, eyes staring, mouth open. A man flaming in hell. He turned the pages. A naked man unhorsed, he and his mount upside down, falling together into fire. Isidore’s eyes skimmed the words.

  Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.

  He lifted one heavy sheet, then another. He came to a page densely scripted; little drawings interspersed the words, washed with blue.

  Proverbs of Hell

  He closed the volume. Clement’s tastes had changed. Once it had been The Annual of British Landscape Scenery that lay thumbed open on the table. Isidore was the one who’d loved Blake.

  He sifted through an adjacent stack of engravings, a wolf-like beast rendered by many different hands. Now it stood in profile, leering with red lips. Now it leapt from the trees at peasants who ran toward their hayricks, arms stretched out. Now it crouched atop a woman, open jaws prepared to fix on her neck.

  “The beast of Gevaudan.”

  Isidore let the print drop.

  “You have quite a collection,” he said. He turned toward the voice. Clement was slouched in a leather chair in the far corner of the room. He wore the evening dress he’d worn the night before at Tenby’s, minus the cravat. His coat was spattered with crimson blood.

  Isidore almost started. Paint. It was only paint. Blood didn’t stand out on black fabric, thick and red. Blood darkened. Blood dried and flaked away like rust. The blood in Phillipa’s hair had turned sticky, then, quickly, so quickly, it had stiffened. Her black curls had swallowed any hint of its color.

  Clement laughed. He tapped his head.

  “The beasts are in here,” he said. His voice was thick. “My friend.” He laughed again. “Go ’way,” he called at the footman’s knock.

  Isidore frowned. “Put the tray on the lamp table.” He waved the footman toward the marble-topped table. He rocked back and forth on his heels, studying Clement, until the servant had positioned the tray and made his hasty departure. There was a bottle of whisky standing by Clement’s left foot.

  “You didn’t leave much for breakfast.”

  Clement tracked the direction of Isidore’s glance to the bottle and smiled thinly.

  “Didn’t know I’d have guests.” He knuckled his eyes. “It’s early for you, isn’t it, Sid?”

  “Early or late. I don’t know.” Isidore approached him slowly. “The days and nights have been running together.” An album lay on the floor to the side of the chair. Clement must have knocked it off the arm. Isidore went and picked it up. Los Caprichos.

  “Goya?” He lifted his brows. “I remember you preferring Girtin. More hills and clouds. More topography, less torment. Herbs, not hobgoblins.”

  “Don’t push me, Sid.” Clement’s voice was strained. He had a faint golden shimmer of stubble on his jaw. His eyes were bloodshot.

  “No, of course not.” Subdued, Isidore handed Clement the album. They didn’t know how to be easy with each other anymore. Clement accepted the album with indifference. He had paint on his knuckles. Isidore resisted the urge to look toward the easel. He would wait for an invitation. He and Clement had always respected each other’s privacy. That was part of why they’d been able to share so much.

  Not even Clement. Those had been Phillipa’s words when she swore him to secrecy. Sid, promise me. No one can know.

  He sniffed the air. “There’s ham on that tray.” He walked over to it. “Toast?” he asked. He carried the tray back to Clement, resting it on the windowsill. Clement ignored the proffered round of bread, sinking further into the chair. Isidore had seen Clement worse for drink hundreds of times, but never quite like this. Never slouching and sullen. Usually alcohol intensified his fastidiousness. Made him enunciate his words like an Oxford don and walk as though he followed a chalked line.

  “You left before I could talk to you last night.” Isidore leaned his hip against the wall, buttering the toast. He folded a piece of ham on top. The explanation for Clement’s odd behavior had to lie in the exchange he’d interrupted.

  “What did Ella say to you? You looked … ” As though you’d seen a ghost. He took a bite of ham and toast. Crunching the hard crust of the bread with his molars, he felt a twinge of pain. He swallowed. “You looked as though the conversation was not agreeable.”

  “Ella?” Clement lifted his chin from his chest and tried to focus his eyes. “You use her given name?”

  Isidore placed his toast carefully on a plate. He was conscious of a strange, nervous energy thrilling through him.

  “After the party, we became … better acquainted.” I knocked her into the Thames, dragged her to shore, carried her half a mile in my arms, cut off her boots in my coach, and g
ained an intimate knowledge of her toes. Her toes, by the by, are beautiful. He took a breath. “I will lay the whole matter before you. Your opinion will be very valuable to me as I decide my course of action.”

  “Get rid of her.” Clement lurched out of the chair, and Los Caprichos fell again to the floor. “You want my opinion? There it is. Send her away. Give her money if that’s what it takes. Buy her a cabin on a steamer to America if you can and be done with it.”

  Isidore felt an icy wave rippling through him. The chill creeping out.

  “Tell me what she said to you.”

  Clement staggered forward. His arms wrapped Isidore’s throat. Isidore’s hands twitched, but he did not strike. He stood motionless. Clement’s weight pulled his neck down, and he tensed his muscles, standing straight, allowing Clement to hang from him, half strangling, half embracing. Clement smelled like turpentine, liquor, sweat. Isidore pushed him, gently, and Clement released his hold. He stepped back, and Isidore saw that he was crying, soundlessly, tears coursing down his cheeks.

  Isidore had never seen a grown man cry. He couldn’t bear to look in Clement’s face. He turned away and stared blindly at the wall of books. Clement touched his shoulder.

  “Let me show you my nightmare,” he said.

  Isidore followed him to the easel. The room felt cold as a tomb, but maybe it wasn’t the room. He was cold as a tomb. All of his organs had turned to ice.

  Clement kicked away the oilcloth he’d laid over the floorboards. He stood to the side of the canvas, turned away from it, facing Isidore. His cheeks were livid and tear-tracked. Isidore glanced at him. He let his eyes slide over the canvas and rested his gaze on the rain-streaked window. He didn’t know how long he stared at the thin panes of glass.

  He was afraid. He was afraid of Clement’s tears. He was afraid of the paint drying there on the canvas. He had faced every kind of brutality with unflinching calm, and these little, harmless things—a few drops of salty water; crushed pigments—threatened to undo him.

  Finally, he forced his eyes back to the canvas. The brush strokes were small. The colors jewel-bright. A beast on a balcony loomed over a young woman in a black-and-red gown. The glazed black of the night sky contrasted sharply with the white marble of the courtyard beyond the balcony. The light that spilled through the French doors glossed the beast’s black fur, the young woman’s black hair. The beast was on its hind legs, like a man, wore trousers like a man, and a waistcoat. Its furry chest split its white shirt wide open. The feet were furry, tipped with cruel claws. The claws on the furry hands were crueler; they dangled over the woman, ready to tear her to ribbons. The beast had a lupine face, rapacious jaws. One of its pricked ears was notched. Its eyes were blue.

  His mouth had gone dry.

  “I could show you more. I have a dozen of them.” Clement stepped beside him and examined the painting. “The beast changes. Wolf. Ape. Bat. Donkey.” He laughed, a harsh sound, almost a sob. “Its eyes are the same.”

  “What does this mean?” Isidore was trembling. The cold, he couldn’t fight it.

  “Isidore.” Clement’s voice was steady now. Isidore felt physical relief as he tore his gaze from the hideous beast, the terrified girl, but Clement’s hectic face provided no comfort. His sea-green eyes shone, the whites threaded with red veins. “I found her. I found her on the balcony. Her skull … ”

  The cold had numbed everything. He couldn’t feel his limbs. He didn’t trust himself to move. Didn’t know if he could move. He listened to his own voice as though a stranger were speaking. It was a stranger who said the words with such calm.

  “I don’t understand you.” As though it were an abstract point of logic they were discussing, or a mathematical equation.

  “I heard you fighting. I heard her tell you that she was running away to Paris.”

  Isidore said nothing. His frozen organs had stopped his blood. How long before his eyes would frost over? He saw white light at the corners of his vision.

  Clement’s features were unrecognizable. Contorted by his inner struggle as he formed the words.

  “She was not … faithful to you. She was breaking the engagement. She was leaving you for a lover. I heard you threaten her. She screamed at you. She was hysterical. I couldn’t listen. It was wrong of me to stay as long as I did. I went downstairs. I thought you’d come down, and when you didn’t, I went back up. I couldn’t find you. The balcony doors were open. I went onto the balcony. Oh God.”

  The recollection of that horror overcame him. He blinked his eyes rapidly, as though to banish the vision.

  Isidore’s hands found Clement’s collar. He bunched the fabric and shook him with all his strength, shook him until he heard his jaws clack together hard enough to chip the teeth. He let go, panting. The color had drained from Clement’s lips.

  “She was dead.” Clement’s voice held the wonderment he must have felt when he first saw her. Disbelief. Awe. “The blow had cracked her skull. I lifted her up … and I rolled her over the railing. There wasn’t much blood. Wiping it away was the work of a moment.”

  Isidore didn’t realize he was on the floor until he heard Clement drop to his knees beside him. Those green eyes were more familiar to him than his own. But the face was a mask. The pale lips moved.

  “I know you couldn’t have meant it.”

  He understood the words, but the sentence made no sense. He shook his head.

  “You were out of your mind.” Clement was shaking his head too, but his eyes seemed to stay in the same place. Fixed. Isidore could see nothing else.

  “I thought I could bear it. For your sake, Sid, I thought I could. I cannot. I cannot.”

  They sat in silence. The rain still pattered, as though the world had not turned upside down.

  Isidore made his fingers into claws on the polished wood of the floor. “You never spoke of this to me.”

  “We both knew,” Clement whispered. “An unholy covenant. Made in silence. Kept in silence. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wish I hadn’t done it. Then I picture you dragged into the street, hung for murder before a crowd of thousands.”

  The ice floe inside of him began to break apart. He didn’t know what would happen when it shattered completely and feeling returned. Would he scream? Would he hurl himself through those panes of glass? For years, he had carried the burden of his guilt. But Clement had carried a burden just as terrible. To protect him. Each had suffered alone a hell of his own making.

  “I didn’t kill her.” It gusted out of him. “I would have lost my arms at both shoulders before I lifted a hand to her.” I didn’t kill her. For an instant, he felt a wild surge, the desire to run, to skip, to clap his hands, like a slave whose manacles have fallen open, whose chains are broken. She hadn’t leapt from that balcony in wrath and desperation, to punish him, to punish herself.

  She had been murdered. Now the chains wound about him tighter than ever, squeezing the breath from his body. She had been murdered.

  Clement was staring at him. “She was dead. I saw her.”

  “Someone else dealt the blow.” There. That piercing crack—the ice had broken. His breath stuttered. He crossed his arms around his chest and heaved forward and back with such violence he would have dashed his forehead on the floor if Clement hadn’t braced him, brought him up short.

  “Sid, don’t lie to me. It’s the one thing that could make this damnation worse. Don’t lie to me.”

  He couldn’t catch his breath. He wrenched free of Clement’s grasp and scuttled backwards on the floor. Not even a beast. A beetle. His back hit a table leg. Blake’s proverbs were poised above, ready to spill down, to bury him. A dead body, revenges not injuries. The most sublime act is to set another before you. The crow wish’d every thing was black, the owl, that every thing was white. The tygers of wrath … The cut worm … The bones of the dead …

  “She betrayed you.” Clement’s look blended compassion and repulsion both. “You were furious. I’d never heard you
sound like that. Like a baited bear. You said you’d die before you let her go to him.”

  “She didn’t betray me.” Now the truth would out. He should have told Clement years ago. He’d kept his faith with Phillipa and in doing so nearly destroyed his best friend. “Our engagement was not what you thought. It was … ” What was Clem’s phrase? An unholy covenant.

  He needed fortification for this confession. He stood in stages. He felt his muscles lock then tear apart. A knife was scraping them from his bones. He stumbled to the whisky bottle.

  “I am going to finish this whisky,” he said hoarsely. “And then I am going to tell you the truth. I’m going to tell you everything.”

  “If you didn’t kill her … ” Clement remained on the floor, one leg tucked beneath him, one knee bent, forehead propped upon it. His golden hair curtained his face. “Who did?”

  “I don’t know. Yet. I’m going to find out. ” He took a burning pull of whisky. “And I swear by God’s wounds, I am going to kill him.” He barked a laugh. “Now if they hang me, they’ll have to use a silken rope. I am a Peer of the Realm.” He kissed his left fingertips and bowed. A lord at the gallows. He laughed again, swallowing more whisky.

  Excess of sorrow laughs. Blake had worked feverishly on the day of his death, sketching scenes from Dante’s Inferno. In his engraving, The Circle of the Lustful, he depicted those gray bodies twisting in a whirlwind, those men and women whom love bereav’d of life. He wondered if Clement possessed a copy. He wondered if throwing it in the fire would break the circle, end the agonies of those weary souls. His lips twisted.

  Of course it wouldn’t. The flames would devour the paper, mimicking the action of the blacker, infernal flames.

  He was done with symbols, with futile gestures. Finding and killing Phillipa’s lover, Phillipa’s murderer—that was the only act that remained to him. An act of vengeance. Pure. Absolute.