‘Or his claim to have such proof is as irrational as his outburst in court. I blame myself for leaving him alone these past weeks, alone to brood on his resentments. He has not James’s strength of mind, Emily. There’s no telling what he may have been reduced to. Come: we must see him at once.’
‘You wish me to accompany you?’
‘If you will.’
‘But he’ll be expecting you to be alone.’
‘Since William claims to have proof, he cannot complain if I choose to bring a witness.’
Emily was so flattered at being asked to accompany her sister that she scarcely considered what awaited them at The Limes. Constance, however, was already debating in her mind whether William’s proof was merely a forgivable device to lure her home or a contemptible bid to add his voice to those already denouncing the man she had secretly loved all her adult life. Whilst Emily busied herself with bonnet and muffler, Constance reconciled herself to facing at last the unthinkable choice between her lawful husband and the only man she had ever truly wanted to marry.
VI
I was lying on the chaise-longue, the furniture of the room, its very walls, blurring and shifting around me. I was panting desperately, straining for breath, my heart pounding. My hands, with which I twitched feebly at my collar, were awash with perspiration. Above me, in the very cornicing of the ceiling, plaster serpents uncoiled and hissed their grey probing tongues.
I pulled myself into a sitting position and hung my head, listening to the rasping quest of my throat for air. There were dragons woven in the pattern of the carpet. They had always been there. Yet now they were moving, massing, marching, leering up at me. I dragged my head upright. On the other side of the room, the oil-lamp on my desk pulsed with a golden unnatural energy. Its light was dazzling, its heat tangible.
There came a tapping at the door, scarcely audible yet persistent. When I rose to answer it, my weakness vanished, all its symptoms of a disabling fever transmuted into a certainty of mental and physical strength. I strode to the door and turned the handle. But it was locked. I turned it again and again, to no avail.
The tapping continued, its volume unaltered. ‘Who’s there?’ I shouted. The force of my voice shocked me. It seemed to echo within the confines of the room, bouncing back at me from walls and ceiling and floor. Only when it had faded into absolute silence did I hear the answer, in tones as soft and insistent as the knocking that had gone before.
‘Melanie. I’ve come as you asked.’
I stooped close to the frame and whispered my reply. ‘I didn’t ask you. Why have you come?’
‘Because you wanted me to.’
‘No. Go back. Leave me alone.’
‘But you wanted me.’
‘No, I tell you. No.’
Something akin to a stifled sob reached my ears, then a rustle of fabric.
‘Melanie?’
There was no answer. Suddenly I regretted what I had said, regretted it with the ferocity of an immense and sickening remorse. I dropped to my knees and peered through the key-hole. There she was, retreating along the passage, her long dark hair flowing over a white shift. I heard myself shouting her name: ‘Melanie! Melanie!’ She stopped and turned slowly round. ‘Come back! Please come back’.’ She smiled and ran towards me.
I was on my feet, grappling with the handle. But still it would not yield. I heard her rattling it from the other side, then her voice, raised in distress. ‘You said you would let me in.’
‘I can’t. It’s locked.’
‘You have the key. You could open it … if you truly wanted me.’
Of course. The key. I had it all along. I reached into my waistcoat pocket and drew it out, then stared at the crazily magnified angles and notches of its patterns, stared and tried to comprehend what deception they represented.
‘What are you waiting for?’
‘There’s something wrong. This isn’t the right key.’
‘Of course it is.’
‘No. It’s … for something else. I can’t remember what, but …’
‘Try it …’
‘No. I mustn’t. I know I mustn’t.’
‘Do you want me, William? Do you truly want me?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Then, open the door.’
I slipped the key into the lock. It was a perfect fit. I heard the lock slide back as I turned it. Then I pulled the door open, creaking on its hinges.
She had gone. The passage was empty. It was not possible in the time it had taken me to open the door, yet, nevertheless, she had vanished. I felt sick and nervous, inexplicably ashamed. I leaned against the wall as a numbing weakness washed over me and my head whirled.
Then I saw, at the end of the passage, beckoning light in an open doorway. When I moved towards it, my feebleness dropped from me like a mantle. I strode forward, laughing and enjoying the sound of my laughter as it echoed in the fabric of the building. I reached the doorway.
Melanie was standing by the fire, brushing her hair, drawing out the long luxuriant strands of it, then letting each lock fall back to rest against her shoulders. The warm flickering firelight shone through the thin white cloth of her shift, showing me, by the inviting mobile curves it painted, that she was naked beneath.
‘Where is he, William?’ she said softly.
‘Who? Who do you mean?’
‘You know who I mean.’
I entered the room and walked to the window, uncurtained against the night. Rain was spitting against the black glass, a sound like her knocking at the door, against glass as raven-dark as her hair.
‘Where is he, William?’ she said from behind me.
I looked out of the window, down into the driveway at the front of the house. There, at the far end, where the drive met the road, was Thompson. I knew him by the stump of his amputated right arm, close-clad though he was against the beating rain.
‘Where is he, William?’
I looked back at her. She had removed the shift. She let me watch the firm pale movements of her body as she took a glass from the mantelpiece and drained it at one gulp. Then she turned to look at me, smiled faintly, shook her head so that her hair shimmered and stirred against her bare shoulders, and said once more: ‘Where is he?’
I wrenched my head back to the window. Thompson had advanced a pace and was standing by the right-hand gate-pillar. He was looking up towards me, angling his head as if uncertain of what he saw.
‘You must tell me where he is, William.’
She was standing by the bed now, facing me in the full glow of an oil-lamp, her pale flesh warmed by its golden light to ripe beguiling perfection. A single red rose stood in a vase on the bedside table. She plucked it from the water and held it against her lips whilst beads of moisture from its stem and petals sprayed across her breasts.
‘Where is he, William?’ she said breathlessly. ‘You know you have to tell me.’
The question had become the only issue between us. If I told her what she wanted, her body would be my reward. I turned once more to the window and saw Thompson’s rain-lashed figure in the drive, peering up at me. He raised his left arm in recognition, and I heard myself saying: ‘He’s there. He’s there, waiting for me.’ Then a black shape, blacker than the night, moved from its hiding-place behind the pillar of the gate, raised itself above Thompson and, swooping down, engulfed him.
‘You had to tell me, William. You know you had to tell me.’
In that moment, I hated her. She had lain on the bed and drawn the sheet up about her, her pale mocking face turned to the pillow, the halo of black hair spread out across the white fabric.
I walked unsteadily towards her. She turned to look at me. ‘You may punish me now you’ve told me,’ she murmured. ‘If you wish.’
I reached down, tore back the sheet and raised my hand to strike her, then froze in mid-movement. She lay prone and spreadeagled, her wrists and ankles fastened by thick cords to each bed-post. She lay naked, bound and at my merc
y.
‘You may do,’ she whispered, ‘whatever you wish.’
I moved to the end of the bed and looked down at her, at her slender ankles chafed by the rope, at the stretched muscles of her calves and thighs, at the parted humps of her buttocks, at the endless black tresses of her hair reaching down her back, at her face, half-turned towards me, and at the smile I could see, flickering on her lips.
‘Whatever you wish.’
Suddenly, I, too, was naked, crouching on the bed above her, aroused beyond my power to imagine. As I plunged into her, she screamed. And as she screamed there came another voice, raised in a shriek of agony. It was Thompson, crying for help out in the darkness while I thrust into the black-haired creature of his betrayal, Thompson’s and the night’s collective screech of withering scorn for what I had done. The vase toppled over and smashed on the bedside table. When I looked towards it, I saw that the rose had vanished and the tide of spilt water advancing towards me was the colour of blood. Then I, too, screamed – and woke.
The ringing was not in my head. It was the doorbell. It had been ringing, I knew, for a long time. There was Cook at last. I could hear her plodding up from the basement, complaining as she went.
I sat up in the bed. What was I doing there? The jolt of a searing headache hit me. Then I looked round and saw Melanie Rossiter, naked and asleep beside me.
There were voices in the hall below. ‘I’m expected, Cook. Didn’t you know? Where’s Hillier?’ It was Constance. ‘Where’s my husband?’
I was in the guest room. The fire had nearly extinguished itself, but the gaslight reaching in from the passage sufficed to show me where I was – and who was there with me. The dream, all its contents in unearthly focus, whirled before me. I looked down at Miss Rossiter and shook her by the shoulder. She moaned but did not stir. Her right arm was flung out across the sheet, but her wrist, which I had seen rubbed raw by the ropes that bound her, was unmarked.
‘He must be in his study. We saw the light was on. I’ll go up to him.’
I flung myself from the bed and cast about for my clothes. They were not there. I must have left them in the study. All I could find was my dressing-gown, discarded at the foot of the bed. I scrambled into it and lunged towards the door.
It was too late. Already, I could hear Constance’s footsteps on the stairs. A board creaked beneath me as I stepped into the passage, and there was Constance, nearly at the top of the stairs, turning towards me and frowning at what she saw.
‘William? Why didn’t you wait up for me? Didn’t you get my telegram? What are you doing in the guest room?’
She reached the landing and moved along the passage, narrowing her gaze as she approached. I could not move, I could not speak. My mouth opened, but no words came.
‘William!’ she said. ‘What’s the matter with you?’
As she neared the doorway, Melanie Rossiter’s voice came from the room behind me. At all events, part of it was her voice as I knew it, but part also an expert degraded, ill-bred parody. ‘Where you gawn, sir? Won’t you come back to bed?’
Constance stopped in her tracks and stared at me. ‘Who’s that?’ she said. ‘Who’s in there?’
‘It’s cold ’ere on me own,’ Miss Rossiter called. ‘Won’t you come an’ keep a girl warm?’
Constance brushed past me and pushed the door wide open. What she saw was Melanie Rossiter with the covers flung back to her waist, stretching and yawning in the bed, then blinking at the sudden intrusion of light.
At last, I found my voice. ‘I … I can explain. It’s not …’
Constance glared icily back at me. ‘Get her out of this house.’
‘It’s not what it seems. In God’s name, believe me.’
She looked me up and down, then glanced into the room, where Miss Rossiter had turned casually to avoid the light. ‘How can I believe you? You knew I was coming. You asked me to come. You promised proof. What is this proof of?’ She was quivering from head to toe with the effort of restraining herself.
‘Wait,’ I said. ‘There is proof. Yes. That’ll show you the truth of the matter.’ I turned and raced along the passage, knowing that, if I could make her read Miss Rossiter’s statement, there was some faint hope I might yet persuade her that all was not as it seemed.
I threw the door of the study open and stumbled in. There were my clothes, draped across the chaise-longue. Tugging my waistcoat out from the rest, I found the key in its pocket, then lurched across to the escritoire, fumbled with the lock, opened it at the third attempt, reached in and pulled out the envelope from where I had left it.
‘Here!’ I shouted. ‘Here it is!’
Constance was standing in the doorway. I ran back to her and thrust the envelope into her hands. She stared at me uncomprehendingly. ‘What is this?’
‘Her statement. Hers.’ I pointed towards the guest room. ‘This is some mad pretence. She’s not what she seems. This statement proves it.’
For a moment, Constance hesitated. Then she slid one finger along the seal of the envelope and opened the flap. I watched her face intently as she drew out the contents, hoping against hope to catch some glimmer of a favourable reaction. But all I saw was a squirm of distaste. There had been no time for her to read anything, but, in her expression there was a look of such revulsion and contempt as I had never seen before. My eyes moved to what she held in her hands: not pages filled with Miss Rossiter’s neat script, but a batch of photographs. I snatched them from her grasp.
They were all of Melanie, posing nude in some studio disguised as a bedroom. In the first photograph, she stood by a dressing-table, brushing her hair, her head turned away from the camera. In the second, she lay on a pillowed coverlet, sipping from a champagne-glass, the lens trained closely on the pale curves and creases of her proffered flesh. In the third, she was standing, pictured from the waist up, smiling coquettishly and holding a rose in the cleft between her round dark-nippled breasts. In all of them, she had contrived to combine self-possession and blatancy in a way that only seemed to heighten her wantonness.
‘Is that the whore?’ said Constance slowly.
I looked at the fourth photograph. In it, Melanie lay prone on a bed, her arms and legs stretched wide and roped to the bed-posts. The position of the camera, behind and above her to one side, was instantly familiar to me, as was the glimpse of her face, framed by the dark locks of her hair, turned from the pillow to look back and project from the picture her mocking smile of carnal complicity.
‘Is that the whore?’ Constance repeated.
I could not answer her. Speech was beyond me. I could only stare in disbelief at what I held in my hands. I could only gape in horror at its final proof that she had destroyed me.
The door of the guest room slammed down the passage. Melanie Rossiter, fully dressed but with her hair still flowing to her waist, strode towards us. Constance’s back was turned to her, so she could not see, as I could, the hint of irony in her face.
‘Sorry if I’ve landed you in it, sir,’ she said. ‘You should’a told me your missus was due back. Don’t worry: I’ll go quietly. We’ll say no more abaht the fee. Keep the pictures as a memento.’ She paused at the top of the stairs and let me see in her eyes the relish of the huntress who has slain her quarry. ‘’Ope you enjoyed me,’ she added with a smile. Then she turned and began her descent without a backward glance.
My eyes swivelled back to Constance, but found in her face only a depth of loathing I could never hope to erase.
‘How could you?’ she said at last. ‘How could you do this to me?’
My ruin was complete. There was nothing I could say or do to make her think me innocent, nothing to appease or exonerate. All I could do was step back, close the door against her unanswerable accusations and turn the key in the lock.
I pressed my forehead against the cool forbearing wood and felt the tears course down my cheeks. This, I knew, was the end.
VII
Harvey Thompson had be
en sitting at the end of the Lamb and Flag’s crowded bar for an hour, swapping lewd jokes with the barmaid, and had finally despaired of collecting the other sixteen pounds of his bargain with Trenchard. Indeed, he was about to leave when a hard-faced man in a shabby overcoat moved on to the stool next to his and offered gruffly to buy him a drink.
‘No, thanks, old man. Must be on me—’
‘I’m told you’re owed sixteen quid.’
Thompson turned and looked at the newcomer: stockily built, dark hat pulled well down over grey craggy features, short powerful fingers holding the money for his drink. ‘Well, since you mention it …’
‘I’m from Trenchard. He couldn’t get here himself, so he sent me. What’ll you have?’
‘Me usual, thanks. Maisie knows what it is.’
The barmaid came and served them, raising her eyebrows to Thompson at sight of his unsmiling companion.
When they were alone again, Thompson said: ‘I didn’t expect a … substitute.’
‘Why should you care, as long as you’re paid?’
‘Why indeed? Shall we sit down?’
They moved to a table in a smoky confidential corner. There was something flinty and threatening in the man’s gaze that disturbed Thompson. Already, the bargain was beginning to lose its appeal.
‘Sixteen was the balance,’ he said uncertainly. ‘But I’m not sure—’
‘Who do you say he is, then?’
‘Sorry, old man?’
‘Norton. You told Trenchard you knew his true identity. There’s the money.’ He laid three five-pound notes on the table and weighed them down with a sovereign. ‘So let’s have it. Who do you think he is?’
‘Let’s not rush it, old man.’
‘Why not? What are you waiting for?’
‘Nothin’. It’s just that …’ He looked at the stranger’s grim unyielding face and did not like what he saw. ‘What did you say your name was?’
‘I didn’t. Does it matter?’
‘Suppose not.’
‘Well then?’
Thompson’s instincts told him to refuse the money, but his creditors were pressing. He could not afford to obey his instincts. He reached towards the piled notes. ‘You can tell Trenchard me hunch: Norton’s Gerry Davenall’s son, all right, but not—’
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