by May Woodward
A lull seemed to fall in the talking. Then started up again, even louder.
She caught an eye here and there which quickly glanced away. Far away at the head of the table, the mousy head of the Queen was straining to see what was going on.
Clemence threw Brandon Fanshawe one final look over her shoulder. He caught her eye… blinked heavily in what looked like embarrassment… and turned his attention to his plate.
See, you fool – I landed a duke. You and your wife will have to call me Your Grace. And go behind me when we go into dinner. So will Amathia – ha, Lizzy too!
She was relieved to reach the nude, marble statue of Napoleon which guarded the stairwell and way out. Two footmen flanked the main entrance, staring unseeingly straight ahead. One opened it for her.
Oh, how wonderful felt the wind.
She held up her face to the blizzard. Flakes melting on her outstretched tongue.
Philoctetes Consett was a scoundrel. And the thought of his sweaty hand inside her drawers made Clemence shudder.
But why not marry Philo, indeed? She would endure his slobbering intimacy twice a week, maybe, when the duty of begetting an heir pressed on him. Would he trouble her otherwise? Hah! Not as long as there were dancing-houses in the Haymarket.
And there was something else, too. The Consetts were Brandon Fanshawe’s cousins. His Sussex home Woodmancote neighboured the Consett seat, Kingsmede. They should meet often… At church. Out riding. As guests at Woodmancote…
Oh, what were they all thinking of her back there in Apsley House? Snickering behind their feathered fans? Footmen whispering… passing the word right down to the scullery maids? Clemence couldn’t help laughing to herself.
Good Lord, and the tattle that there would be among the ton… how delicious!
My dear, what’s this I hear about that Somerlee woman? Engaged to the Duke of Ardenne? Ensnared the poor duke through dark arts – that’s all I can surmise. Bewitched, the Somerlees are.
She should be locked away! Of course, the duke’s so young and gauche – can he really know what he’s doing?
Oh, I’m not so certain, Harriet. I hear he’s a bounder! Do you know he danced with my Lucy three times at our ball but failed to make any overtures of marriage to the poor gal? But they’re not old blood of course, the Consetts – one can always tell a yahoo dressed in gentleman’s weeds.
Clemence began to walk, out of the courtyard gates, away from the light and music of the Duke of Wellington’s seat. She’d reclaimed her otter-fur mantle on the way out, but on her hands wore nothing but black lace fingerless mittens, and on her feet satin dancing-shoes. She wound the cloak’s edge and lining around her goosepimply arms.
Wheels came crunching through the snow towards her. A Hansom slowed and halted. Down leaned the driver.
‘You all right, madam?’
‘Yes… yes… don’t fear for me. I just need some time alone. To think…’
She glimpsed the fellow’s doubtful frown in the light of the cab’s lamp. He hesitated. Go away, just leave me alone. She only thought the words… but she must have looked fierce: the cabman cracked his whip and travelled onward as fast as he could.
On she carried … into Piccadilly now. Dancing-shoes kept skidding on the ice where the snow had been cleared. Never been alone in the city before.
She made for one lamp, then the next – only way to pick your path along a pitch-dark London street. You would see quicksilver snowflakes slipping slantwise into the fuzzy aureoles of light – then vanishing again into the blackness.
Past the walking woman rumbled a cart. The horse pulling it snorted a plume of steaming dragon-breath. A tarpaulin covered the vehicle. She could not see the cargo. More poor men’s coffins? She had seen whole battalions fall to cholera’s celerity in the Crimea: a youthful trooper hallooing louche ballads at breakfast, sweating and febrile come noonday, and laid out by evensong.
She heard the bells ringing ten p.m… footsteps coming close… a beat policeman approaching… cross the street… avoid him… avoid everyone…
Did that shadow move? There – in the black ginnel between those two buildings? What if it did? Shadows cannot harm us. Wraiths… that is what shadows are. Ghosts from Balaclava… Aubrey’s ghost, James’s, all the war dead… why are you here, safe and well, when we are lost…?
A flash of silver blade. She let out one startled shriek. Then the form was gone again into the alley.
He’d reached for her windpipe. Cut her throat?
Her hand flew up. Was there blood? You have your wish, Aubrey, James…
Where was the blood? Shouldn’t a sliced artery be pumping like a burst pipe all over cobbles, wall, her lemon satin crinoline? No blood… but something had changed, something gone from her neck…
Clemence laughed. Her jewels! Of course. Her necklace was worth more to the shadow someone than her life.
The lamplights seemed to be swaying in her vision. As if they were at a light-ball of their own and doing a sashaying little dance. Or gliding like a ghost-ship slipping into the mist…
But she knew where she was. Recognised St James’s Music Hall in Regent Street right before her… came to a concert here once with Aunt Lizzy…
Lord, what were these warm and chilly shivers? Prickling all over… So hot. An inferno! So thirsty…
The snowy ground came hurtling up to her.
SEVENTEEN
To these angry waves you are just another bit of flotsam to be battered and tossed and flung wherever their current wills… you have no strength to swim yourself free! You swallow the saltwater as each tsunami overwhelms you! It is just chance if you surface… sometimes the rollers heave you to the world above. Gasp the air – before the waters suck you down again.
I am not alone in the ocean. Others are near and struggling. I feel their hands grab for me… can make out their sea-bruised features in the greenly gloom…
Dear Lord, save us!
Some vanish and do not reappear. Don’t let that happen… fight against it, Clemmie… Another man alongside me… I don’t know him… yet we cling to each other; but, Ah… over us washes the surf… my friend is gone – spinning, spinning, down, down into the deep.
‘Mater?’
Isn’t that my mother beckoning me from the Paradise Garden on the far side of the Eardingstowe ha-ha? But she’s been dead almost ten years…! How can she be here?
No, it is not my mama. My brother Ivo, rather – he’s an ordained vicar now, I remember, and he’s coming towards me wearing his clerical robes and dog collar.
Ivo fingers my face. Heavens – his touch is chillier even than the brine! Why, this seawater is not cold at all… but strangely warm.
Another hand strokes my brow. I reach out for this new, friendly limb. I know him now… my brother Richard.
Clemence’s eyes fluttered into semi-wakefulness. Leaping firelight filled her vision… so sore. In her ears was the sound of sleet rattling against window-glass.
She blinked, and blinked, until her painful sight was able to take in more images. The fire she could see was that in the hearth of her bedroom in Somerlee House, and she was in her own bed there. Her lemon-papered walls and peach-coloured curtains.
Toy Noah’s Ark with its dinky wooden animals sitting on the bureau – childhood memento she’d been too reluctant to part with; copy of Danby’s View of the Avon Gorge hanging on the wall opposite her bed; above it, a framed Daguerreotype of her aunt and Lizzy’s late husband the count; Clemence’s set of cartes-de-visites spread on the occasional table; watercolour miniatures of her brothers and sisters.
Why… she could barely open her mouth. How incredibly parched she was. When did she last drink?
She turned her aching head on the pillow.
Her sister-in-law was seated by her bedside. And Dickon was perched at the foot.
She saw fatigue in Richard’s features. No, not tiredness. He looked as if he had been crying.
Amathia lifted Clemence’s hand between both of hers.
‘Welcome home, sister dear.’
‘I have been ill?’ Clemence struggled to croak out the words.
‘Oh, a little.’ It looked as though Richard’s smile took valiant effort. ‘Just a wee touch of the cholera. It’s the season.’
Her head lolled onto one side.
‘We thought we’d lost you!’ Amathia pressed her hand tighter. ‘Your brother Ivo even gave you last rites.’
‘Yes… I think I saw him do it… must have been semi-conscious, I suppose…’
Richard rose, came close and stooped to kiss Clemence’s brow… her brother’s lips were warm… must have been the fever-inferno which had made the dream-touch seem so cold.
‘I’m off to tell Ivo you’re back – he’s hardly been off his knees, praying. And a message to Aunt Lizzy too – she’s spent days by your bedside… she’s only retired now to sleep.’
Richard slunk away with bowed head and sluggish gait. Now was not the time to be telling Clemence that four servants had taken the sickness from her; so had Clemence’s and Richard’s little sister and brother Margaret and John, and they would not be coming back from the sea.
When Richard had gone from the sickroom, Amathia went down to the morning-room. There her brother was waiting, an elbow leaning on the mantelpiece.
‘She’s very, very weak still,’ Amathia told him. ‘She’ll be a while mending. But out of the woods, I think. Thank the Lord,’ she said on a sigh of relief.
‘Thank the Lord, indeed!’
‘But anyway – well done you, Philo! You managed to charm Clemence. Sounds as if she was quite taken with your pretty attentions at the regatta and the ball.’
The Duke of Ardenne blew out a pleasurable mouthful of cigar smoke.
‘Wasn’t all pretend, you know, Mathy! She is quite a taking little thing.’
‘If you like the milksop type, I suppose! But, then, your taste in women isn’t very refined, Philo. Clemence is probably an improvement on the bride you would have chosen otherwise!’
A female servant’s voice was heard outside the door. Her footsteps passed quickly by along the corridor. Amathia gave a small gasp. Must not forget this was a Somerlee house. Aldgate had been the easiest place to bring Clemence the night she’d fallen poorly. Loyal bondsmen might be listening at every chink.
Amathia dropped her voice to a murmur.
‘Go back to your bachelor hovel, Philo. I’ll meet you there in an hour.’
They continued the conversation in the duke’s rooms in Mayfair.
‘Unless you’re adamant you want a big white wedding at Westminster, Philo, then we could have you and Clemmie joined in holy matrimony in just a few days’ time, by special licence.’ Amathia laid a hand upon his shoulder. ‘She needn’t even leave her sickroom.’
‘I could have done without the flux Lysithea’s legacy nearly flowed in on!’
‘Really, Philo! If the cholera had carried Clemmie off, she’d have taken her inheritance with her! Look, all we need is the services of some ambitious but penurious clergyman. You could offer him the vacant living on the Ardenne estate, and he shall be evermore grateful to you! No doubt you can think of a couple of persons you could do similar favours for who would act as witnesses?’
Philo raised his eyebrows.
‘All sounds rather shady and underhand, Mathy!’
‘But perfectly legitimate! Think of all the people who heard her profess her desire to marry you at the ball, Philoctetes – inebriated though she was? No-one would ever believe she was forced against her will!’
‘And if she does threaten to make a scene?’
Amathia went to the window-seat and draped herself there. Outside, the storm had not let up. Like teardrops on a human face, the sleet was meandering down the glass to softly settle in the rim of the pane. She could make out the hexagons, octagons and many-pointed stars which formed the crystals. Some had fiery hearts where they caught the light from the lamp which stood on the sill.
‘Clemence is a sick woman,’ Amathia said. ‘Has been since she returned from the war. Maybe even before that… We’d have no trouble from Clemmie if she’s shut away in an asylum.’
‘If only it was that easy to have someone inconvenient put away! Our loony bins would be overflowing, sissy dear!’
Amathia faced him.
‘Dozens can testify to her crazed behaviour on the night of the Wellingtons’ ball, from the Queen down to the cabriolet driver and policeman who found her unconscious in the snow!
‘It is my understanding, Philo, that the consent of three separate medical personnel is needed for a person to be certified insane. Our papa did a lot – an awful lot – for our Dr Neave, did he not? Dr Neave will do as he’s told, I’m sure. Then there’s that fool John Hall who was out in the Crimea. That’s two for a start. And what of Florence Nightingale herself – greatest heroine of our age? Her opinion will be considered sound, I’m certain of it.’
‘What about Lysithea? She might exclude Clemence from her will just to spite me… I know I would!’
‘Lizzy’s getting on in years. What do you reckon? Sixty-six or seven or so? And I’ve heard – from Dickon – that Lysithea’s been seeing a physician about heart murmurs.’
Philoctetes tossed his spent cigar into the hearth.
‘By Jove, sissy, I didn’t realise just how little you cared for the family who feed you!’ The duke gave a low laugh. ‘Papa might have ended up in Newgate as a debtor if it hadn’t been for Dickon, you know…’
‘I know that! But you think Richard acts out of Christian charity? Or for love of me and thee? Oh, no, Philo! He was after Papa’s title and the money he assumed went with it. I’ll never forget the look of anger on Richard’s face when he learned there was no money.
‘You remember that day Richard raged at Papa, accused him of trickery, hoodwinking him and Heaven knows what else? And it was only two days after that vicious confrontation that our father collapsed and passed away!’ Amathia wiped away tears with a shaking hand. ‘I blame Richard, Philoctetes, just as surely as if he’d struck a dagger in Papa’s heart.’
‘Steady on, sissy.’
‘Well, I’m angry, Philo! I’ve tried to be a fond wife to Dickon. Heaven knows I’ve tried! But he’s treated me with nothing but coldness! I’ve not had one kind word from him or loving look! I’ve given him love, tenderness, devotion, winning smiles… but I receive, at best, cordial indifference. And yet – just see the affection in those same eyes when he is with Clemmie or Lizzy – even, on one ghastly occasion, his whore! Oh, Philoctetes, I’m so miserable!’
‘I say, Amathia!’ Philoctetes gave an uncomfortable chuckle. ‘Can’t say Dickon and I have exactly hit if off either, but aren’t you, well, overdoing it, what?’
‘Oh, yes, of course! One more hysterical, irrational female, aren’t I?’ Amathia said. ‘I don’t expect you to believe that a member of your sex could be less than perfect.’
‘Now, look here, Amathia…’
‘You want the Schwangli legacy, don’t you? Well, we can have it, Philo.’ Amathia wiped away the last of her tears and smiled. ‘To be sure, we shan’t have a better opportunity than now – while Clemence is befuddled still, and Richard and the rest of the family, Lizzy included, are distraught over the youngsters’ deaths…’
A little gold fetter! Clemence gazes at a ring slipping onto her finger… at Philo smiling down from her bedside, holding her hand… at the young, pale vicar with the prayer book, who looks as if he could do with a good square meal. Are they truly married, then? She is too exhausted to say much. That tide of death which so nearly claimed her is still not far away.
A Black Maria is waiting at the gate of Somerlee Hou
se. This man is a warder leading her away to Newgate!
No, that is an undertaker’s wagon she can see, down there in the wet street. Someone in the household has died.
But she, however, is going to her bridal chaise… isn’t she? Willingly, too. More readily than the thousands of bartered brides through the ages whose raped wombs the aristocracy gestated in. She hasn’t been forced. Said ‘yay’ to Philo of her own will. She’s chosen Philoctetes Consett… hasn’t she?
1862
Three years later
EIGHTEEN
The passenger called out to the driver to halt the coach.
The large house ahead was half-hidden behind a grove of mature elms and limes. The carriage-sweep leading to the forecourt twisted and turned, and the hummocky ground helped to keep the building out of sight from the lane. The sun shone from behind the grey-tiled roof, and most of the frontage lay in shadow.
Built, perhaps, for some prosperous merchant, alderman or banker circa 1750, and now in other hands. Noisy rooks had colonised the three chimneystacks and gables of the dormer windows. Ivy was creeping over its great chamber.
Most folk who had no business with Dwellan House stayed well away. A lunatic asylum was a place to fear – like a crossroads or gallows tree.
‘Drive on,’ the visitor called to his coachman.
As the wheels drew him closer, Lord Brandon Fanshawe saw the outbuildings. Former stable-blocks had been converted into patient accommodation. High walls to the rear of each must contain the airing courts.
The superintendent of the asylum came out into the porch as the conveyance neared, to greet a distinguished and titled caller. Brandon alighted beside the steps which led to the house’s gabled entrance.
His eyes rose. A look of horror spread across his face. Dr Warburton followed the direction of Brandon’s look, above the façade and mullioned windows, to the battlements of the roof.