III
A transitory warmth had come upon Salisbury as the day advanced and now, as Constance and Emily passed through the Harnham Gate, they were struck by how spring-like the close contrived to seem, with tightly wrapped shoots of daffodils sprouting from the grass, doves cooing beyond the walls of the Bishop’s Palace and the pale sunlight drawing a golden hue from the cathedral stone.
‘It has been like this ever since you arrived,’ said Emily, as they walked along, savouring the gentleness of the day.
‘Too good to last, you think?’ said Constance. ‘This whole winter has seemed like that to me, Emily: a taste of pleasures which may not endure.’
‘Why should they not?’
‘Because, for the moment, I am looked upon charitably by the arbiters of cathedral opinion. Should I follow the prompting of my heart, however, they will not be so understanding.’
‘Should you marry James, you mean?’
‘You know it is in my mind, then?’
‘I know it is bound to be. As does Father. How can it not be—?’ She broke off as one of the vergers turned out of the stonemasons’ yard and smiled broadly at sight of them. Cordial greetings were exchanged, approval of the weather shared, a longer conversation adroitly avoided. The verger passed on, and Emily resumed. ‘Miss Pursglove said as much when I visited her.’
‘How is she settling in?’
‘Admirably, as you shall see tomorrow. But do not attempt to change the subject.’ She smiled at her sister. ‘Miss Pursglove said how sorry she was to hear of your troubles but that, in her opinion – trenchant, as you know – they should not stand in your way. James and you are meant for each other. Her words, not mine.’
‘Very possibly, but words are easier than deeds. I cannot entirely forget William, much as he has hurt me.’
‘What do the doctors say?’
‘That he is no better. They do not forbid me to visit him, but they do not encourage it. And I hardly seem to have the heart to go.’ She looked into the middle distance. ‘What could we say to each other after all that has happened?’
‘Have you sought … legal advice?’
Constance’s gaze fell to the ground. ‘Richard tells me that, in the circumstances, divorce on grounds of insanity could easily be obtained. As easily, at all events, as such things can ever be obtained.’
‘Is that your intention?’
Her reply was scarcely audible. ‘Yes.’
‘It is what you must do.’ Emily squeezed her sister’s elbow. ‘It will set you free – to marry James.’
‘He has not asked me to marry him.’
‘But he will. The contents of this morning’s post did not escape my envious eye.’
Constance blushed and smiled. ‘Yes. He will.’ Suddenly, a look of alarm crossed her face. ‘But what of you and Father? A divorce in the family will scandalize the close.’
Emily looked around at the encircling array of red-bricked canonries and stone-faced deaneries. ‘They will revel in it, naturally, but then they will forget it. It’s not as if you live here, after all.’
‘But you and Father do.’
‘Father has grown too deaf to hear gossip. You need not worry on our account.’
‘But I do.’
‘Then, let me put your mind at rest. We wanted you to marry James twelve years ago – and we want you to marry him now. It won’t be the same, of course: it can never be that. But it will be what you both deserve: each other.’
It was the final blessing Constance wanted and needed to hear. As the two sisters passed on towards the Little Canonry, they both knew that the forthcoming trial in London could produce, however gargantuan its efforts, no decision to compare for significance with the one Constance had already taken.
IV
The room was dark, for the sun had gone from this side of Chester Square, and Hugo, curled fully clothed beneath the bedspread, was sleeping deeply. It was a relief and a satisfaction for Catherine to see his boyish head against the pillow, eyes happily closed. She could almost imagine he was a child again, sent to his room for one of his many misdemeanours, only to be found blithely dozing when she looked in to make her peace with him. She eased the door shut and walked softly away down the passage.
Bladeney House held for Catherine no memories that she wished to recall. She glanced at the portraits lining the curving staircase as she descended and silently cursed the serried likenesses of long-dead Davenalls. Still, there was comfort to be had in the way she had cheated them, a comfort only Hugo’s loss of the pending lawsuit could erase. For Hugo, she wordlessly told his ancestors, was not a legitimate Davenall at all. He was her victory over them. He was hers alone.
She turned into the music room and crossed to the french windows, shading her eyes to look out into the walled rear garden of the house. There were signs of neglect: she did not allow such slackness at Cleave Court. But here it did not matter. Here was a kingdom she was happy to leave empty, here was her dead husband’s hated realm of which she wanted no part. She would be gone in the morning. She would be gone and glad of it.
Catherine had only consented to visit London in order to hear from Mr Lewis (of Lewis & Lewis) what success had attended his enquiries in the United States. With the trial fast approaching, she had looked to him for long-overdue proof of who James Norton really was. But she had been disappointed. She and Hugo had travelled that morning to Mr Lewis’s offices in Ely Place. There they had been courteously received, plied with glasses of Madeira and assured of industrious detection to come. Yet what had three months of tireless probing into Norton’s past produced? Very little, as Mr Lewis had been forced to admit.
‘The problem in this case, ma’am, is a subtle one. Mr Norton’s account of his life and work in Philadelphia is accurate: that much we have established. But it only takes us back to the summer of 1881, when he successfully applied for a position with the McKitrick Advertising Agency. There are colleagues and acquaintances enough to tell us all we need to know about his activities since then. He visited Paris in January of last year, describing the trip as a holiday. He told nobody that he was going to see a doctor there, but, in the circumstances, that is scarcely surprising. Then, at the end of July, he resigned from his post and left the city, arriving in this country in the middle of September. Nobody in Philadelphia knew of his plans, but, again, in the circumstances, that is only to be expected.
‘Where we have experienced great difficulty is in tracing his movements before he arrived in Philadelphia. He applied to the agency from an address in Baltimore, but that, it transpires, was only a lodging-house. So far as we can establish, he spent no more than a few weeks in the city. Where he lived prior to that we have no idea. Nor does Mr Norton seem to want us to find out. All his statements are distinguished by their vagueness on that score.
‘If we start from the other end, it is no better. There was certainly a merchant vessel Ptarmigan which sailed from the Port of London on the eighteenth of June 1871, bound for Nova Scotia. It docked in Halifax on the twenty-first of July 1871. There is no record of it carrying passengers, but that, of course, is consistent with Mr Norton’s claim to have made a private arrangement with the captain. As for the captain, he went down with his ship off Brazil three years later. Mr Norton could have found this out himself, of course. He could have searched the records, as we did – and found a ship and a captain convenient to his purpose.
‘What we have to deal with is the cleverest of ploys. Mr Norton did not merely formulate his claim, then step forward to present it. He first sought to distract attention from who he really is by inventing another identity and authenticating it by spending a year in Philadelphia, where he won a reputation as hard-working, sober, respectable, solitary and essentially unremarkable: characteristics ideal for his purpose. He has been both patient and cunning: patient enough to have spent the past two years preparing for this trial, cunning enough to have foreseen all the ways in which we would seek to expose him. Whoever he reall
y is, he is a quite remarkable young man.’
Small thanks Mr Lewis’s report had won from Catherine and small thanks it had deserved. She had not needed him to tell her what a menacing opponent Norton was. All she required was a name to put to her enemy, and that Mr Lewis had been unable to provide.
The paucity of the evidence unearthed by their expensive enquiries in America had hit Hugo hard. If Catherine had known where he intended to go after leaving her at the corner of Ely Place, she would have tried to stop him. In a sense, she blamed herself for ever letting him believe his own absurd notion about Prince Napoleon. But she had not known the wretched man was in London again, nor that Hugo would be foolish enough to appeal to him.
So he had returned, red-faced from drink and injured pride, and had demanded to be told the truth. Only that habit of stamping when cross had been lacking to make it a perfect replica of the many tantrums of his childhood. But Catherine was not his mother for nothing. She had been able to call upon wrath enough to eclipse his own. She had crushed his demands as effectively as he should have known she would. He had not been told the truth.
No more of it, at all events, than she judged he could bear. His anger, as ever, had been swiftly spent. Where first Catherine had suborned she had later needed to soothe. For Hugo had cried – tears of wrenching childlike grief – at the threat to his pampered life. He had cried on her bosom, and she had put her arms around him and clasped him tightly, until the sobs had subsided and her son had recovered his peace of mind.
Now he slept, whilst Catherine considered what she must do to protect him. Perhaps Norton did not know how much more deeply she loved Hugo than she could ever have loved the clear-eyed Davenall that Gervase had fathered by her. Perhaps he did not realize that, even had she thought he really was James, she would have fought him for Hugo’s sake.
Catherine walked across to the harpsichord in the corner of the room, raised the lid and tried a few experimental notes. In need of tuning, as she might have expected. Yet the sound of the instrument – its high antique tones reaching her ears through the pure silence of the room – reminded her of her music teacher of long ago, a woman she had often thought of recently. It was as well the vile man had not had the nerve to tell Hugo the story of Vivien Strang.
Catherine sat down and began to play, slowly and distractedly but still proficiently, for Miss Strang had taught her well. Their lessons belonged to memories more distant than time alone could justify. They belonged to the forgotten discarded youth of Catherine Webster. They did not matter. Yet could she be so sure? The more she tried and failed to find another explanation, the more the unseen hand of Vivien Strang seemed to hold the answer. Where was she now? Where had she gone, what had she done, since the day of Catherine’s petty vengeance?
‘My own daughter saw you come in, dammit!’ said Colonel Webster, his voice hoarse from pointless railing.
‘I have not denied being out all night,’ Miss Strang replied with perfect composure. ‘I do not dispute the evidence of Catherine’s own eyes.’
‘Yet you refuse to explain yourself.’
‘I have said all that I will say.’
Webster slapped his thigh in baffled despair and turned to Catherine. ‘It rests with you, my girl,’ he said, with a roll of the eyes.
It was the moment Catherine had been waiting for, the moment when she might cleanse herself of the jealousy that burned within her. She had never liked Miss Strang; she did not believe a young lady’s governess should be quite so elegant and learned. And since she had noticed Gervase’s interest in the woman she had come to hate her. She hardly dared admit even to herself where she feared Miss Strang had been that night – or with whom. But that did not matter now, for now she had her chance to ensure she need never resent Miss Strang again.
‘It is inconceivable that the truth can be other than deeply disgraceful, Papa. Surely her silence confirms it.’
Webster sighed. ‘I fear it does. You must leave us, Miss Strang.’
‘I only hope,’ Catherine went on, ‘that other respectable families will be spared her unwholesome influence.’
‘That’s sure enough, since she’ll be leaving here without a reference.’
‘May I withdraw now, Papa?’
‘Mmm? Why, yes, my girl. Of course.’
She moved towards the door, passing Miss Strang as she went. ‘Goodbye Catherine,’ the governess said softly. ‘I will never forget your exemplary conduct this day.’
Catherine did not reply. With the haughtiest of sidelong glances, she left the room. An hour later, she watched from an upper window as Miss Strang boarded the carriage to be driven to the station. She watched – and celebrated her secret triumph. She was rid of the woman at last, and sure, now, that nothing could distract Gervase from her charms.
Catherine closed the harpsichord and stared into the silence that followed. She had behaved heartlessly, it was true; yet, when told at last by Prince Napoleon what Gervase had done that night, she had not regretted her actions, for regret was not in her nature.
She frowned, scorning the little flare of panic her thoughts had inspired. Was it truly possible? Norton, it seemed, knew of her governess’s unjust treatment. He knew what nobody could have told him – except Miss Strang herself. And Catherine did not doubt Plon-Plon’s claim that Miss Strang had borne Gervase a child. Therefore, could Norton be that child? Was his claim to be James the wronged governess’s long-planned vengeance? ‘I will never forget,’ she had said. Nor could Catherine forget – that Vivien Strang was a woman of her word.
V
It was late afternoon, but in Richard Davenall’s Holborn office evening seemed already to have closed on the crammed bookcases and yellowing stacks of paper, a chill grey herald of darkness that deepened its occupant’s mood of self-reproachful indecision. Three months before, he had staked his professional reputation on acknowledging James Norton as his cousin. Now, he admitted to himself if to no other living soul, he wished he had not done so. It was not that he disbelieved James’s claim: he could find no cause to do that. It was simply that, for whatever reason, certainty had left him. There was so much he did not understand, so much that remained hidden or unexplained, so much – his father would no doubt have said – to which he was not equal.
Glancing up at Wolseley Davenall’s faded photograph on the wall behind his desk – the lean, set, familiar features with their preserved hint of disapproval – Richard thought once more of the argument he had overheard between his father and Gervase in the autumn of 1859. ‘Lennox will have his money.’ But why? What had he been paid for? What, for that matter, would poor mad Trenchard have made of it – had he but known?
When Richard looked back from the photograph, he was no longer alone. He felt every muscle in his body tense at the sight of James Norton standing before him. There had been no sound, no warning of his arrival. But he was there none the less. And he was not a ghost.
‘Good afternoon, Richard,’ James said with a smile. ‘I’m sorry if I surprised you.’
‘No, no. Not at all’
‘Benson told me to come straight in.’
Benson, Richard knew, would have told James nothing of the kind. Nevertheless, he might well have been persuaded to let him enter unannounced. The question was why James should have wanted to take Richard unawares. To surprise him in just the mood which had indeed been upon him? To steal some glimpse of what he truly thought? With an effort that may have been apparent, Richard retreated towards an inexpressive professional manner. ‘What brings you here?’
‘I thought I’d look in on my way back from Warburton’s.’
‘A satisfactory consultation?’
‘Warburton remains confident, certainly.’
‘I’m glad to hear it.’
James took three slow casual steps across to a bookcase and leaned back against it, his elbows propped on one of the shelves. ‘Actually,’ he said, smiling amiably, ‘my visit does have a particular purpose.’
&
nbsp; ‘Oh, yes?’
‘I wondered if you would do me the favour of accompanying me on a journey this afternoon.’ He paused. ‘A journey, you might say, into the past.’
‘What exactly do you mean?’ Richard told himself to be cautious, but already he could feel the curiosity stirring within him.
James pushed himself away from the bookcase and moved to the window. ‘I’ve been thinking of undertaking the journey for some time, as a matter of fact.’ He put his hand to his mouth and patted his lips nervously, as if missing a cigarette. ‘I should not care to have to go alone.’
Was this a devious ploy or a cry from the heart? As ever, Richard could not be sure. ‘If it’s so important, I’ll happily go with you. But what’s our destination?’
‘Wapping, Richard. The spot where I thought to end my life twelve years ago. I feel I must go back – to exorcize the memory.’
So that was it: a risk too great, surely, for any impostor to run. With a rush of remorse, Richard wondered if it really was a memory James was seeking to exorcize – rather than the distrust that had grown between them. Either way, this promised to be the crisis he had sought that very morning to engineer. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘We’ll go.’
James looked back at him. ‘I wouldn’t want Constance to hear of it. She would think it morbid. That’s why …’
‘You waited until she’d gone away?’
‘Yes.’
It was as good an excuse as any, Richard reflected, if an excuse were needed. But pretext and reality had fused too often in his mind to be separable now. ‘I’ll say nothing to Constance. When do we go?’
‘At once, if you will.’ James glanced out of the window. ‘It’ll be dark in an hour. There’s no time to lose.’
They took a cab to the Tower and walked from there, through St Katharine Docks and on towards Wapping, threading their way along the confused and crowded thoroughfare of wharfs and warehouses, struggling to make themselves heard above the clattering hoofs and grating wheels.
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