Painting The Darkness - Retail

by Robert Goddard

  When Quinn had finished, turned on his heel and stalked away towards the house, Sir James made no move to follow. He merely lit a cigarette and smoked it slowly through, leaning on the fence and gazing thoughtfully into the distance. A horse came across to him from the middle of the field and nuzzled his arm, but he scarcely seemed to notice. Whatever far and secret stretch of the past or future his mind had fled to, there it stayed and, as Roffey knew, there it could not be followed.

  An hour later, both he and Sir James were aboard the London train.

  VIII

  Richard Davenall’s house in Highgate was where Constance had nursed her beloved James back to health in the autumn of 1882. It held for her happy memories of their slow second courtship. Accordingly, she could not have imagined a more fitting or agreeable location in which to spend the two days immediately prior to their wedding. She arrived there with her sister Emily on the morning of Saturday 22nd December in the best of spirits; in that radiant mood, in fact, which only the imminence of a long-denied fulfilment can confer.

  This alone, she thought later, must have accounted for her failure to notice any of the many omens there were to detect: Emily’s pensive reticent mood on the journey from Salisbury, her consultation of the clock at every station, her increasingly fretful state as they crossed London; Braddock’s stilted formality on their arrival at Garth House, his direction of them to Richard’s study rather than to their usual rooms.

  All these signs should have alerted her, but, as it was, only when they entered the study to find Richard standing grim-faced by the fire, with, alongside him, a large, bearded man whom Constance did not recognize, did she realize that something was amiss. She crossed the room, kissed Richard on the cheek and knew at once, by the way he shrank from her and looked elsewhere, that his reservations of a month before – his hints of disloyalty to James – were about to bear their bitter fruit.

  ‘This is Mr O’Shaughnessy,’ he said hurriedly, turning to the other man. ‘From Galway.’

  ‘Your servant, ma’am.’ O’Shaughnessy stooped to kiss her gloved hand.

  ‘I am pleased to meet you, Mr O’Shaughnessy. What brings you to London?’

  ‘Duty, ma’am.’

  Constance turned to introduce her sister. As she did so, she caught in Emily’s expression a flush of something close to guilt. Though she might not know this man, she did know why he was there.

  ‘Would you care to sit down?’ said Richard.

  Constance did not care to sit down, not whilst her companions were shifting awkwardly from foot to foot and exchanging complicitous glances. But nor did she see why she should have to plead for an explanation. She stared straight at Richard, defying him to look away a second time.

  ‘I’m sure we’d all be more comfortable—’

  ‘Tell her!’ Emily interrupted, in an anguished voice. ‘Tell her and have done with it.’

  They were all in it. Richard, the Irishman, her own sister: she saw that now. They had joined forces to some purpose she could not guess at. ‘Tell me what?’ she said at last, struggling to retain her composure.

  Richard pursed his lips and glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece; it showed ten minutes to noon. ‘It might be best … if we waited.’

  ‘Waited for what?’

  ‘Tell her now,’ Emily pleaded.

  ‘Very well.’ Richard faced Constance, this time without flinching. ‘This gives none of us any pleasure, my dear, but it has to be done.’ He sighed. ‘Your eyes, I fear, must be opened. Opened, that is, to the truth. If you had agreed to postpone the wedding … But let that pass. I am sorry. Truly sorry. But I cannot let you marry James … in ignorance of his real identity.’

  She glanced from one to the other of them. Richard pained. O’Shaughnessy embarrassed. And Emily torn between fidelity to her sister and to whatever higher truth she thought she was serving. ‘What do you mean, “his real identity”?’

  ‘He is not who you – who we – thought he was. He is not James.’

  They were mad. They had to be. How could Richard – or Emily – believe such a notion? After all that she and they had suffered for the sake of acknowledging James, how could they doubt him now? It made no sense. Yet, when she looked into her sister’s eyes, she saw that it was so. They had deserted him. They had deserted her.

  ‘His real name is Stephen Lennox, a half-brother of James. Astonishingly similar, as we know, but not James.’

  ‘You believe James to be an impostor?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’ve changed your mind about him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘As have you, Emily?’

  Tears were flowing down Emily’s face. But they were not the tears of indecision. ‘He is not what he seems, Constance. He is not true to you.’

  ‘And you, Mr O’Shaughnessy? What is your part in this?’

  O’Shaughnessy cleared his throat as if to answer, but Richard did so for him. ‘Mr O’Shaughnessy was Stephen Lennox’s tutor for eight years. He will be able to identify him.’

  ‘Identify him? I cannot believe you mean this, Richard.’

  ‘I fear I do, my dear.’

  There was a tap at the door and Braddock looked in. ‘Sir James has arrived, sir.’

  ‘Show him in,’ said Richard. ‘And ask Benson to join us. Then come in yourself.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  ‘It would be as well if we had as many witnesses as possible,’ Richard explained when Braddock had gone. ‘There must be no room for doubt.’

  Constance could not speak. Her faith in James was intact, but around it lay the ruins of her faith in Richard and in Emily. From the horror of what they believed she could only recoil. When James entered the room, she flew to his side and found, in the strength of his clasp and the confidence of his gaze, the comfort she craved.

  ‘There’s nothing to worry about, Connie,’ he said, holding her close and staring across the room at the other three. ‘I’m here now.’

  ‘Do you know what they’ve been saying?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I know. Surprised to see me, Richard? Perhaps you thought I wouldn’t show up.’ With the gentlest of touches, he disengaged himself from Constance. ‘This gentleman, I take it, is the celebrated Mr O’Shaughnessy.’

  ‘You know who he is,’ snapped Richard.

  ‘Do I? Perhaps we should let Mr O’Shaughnessy be the judge of that.’ The door clicked shut behind them. He glanced back at Braddock and Benson, who stood side by side, solemnly attentive. ‘The party appears to be complete. Well, gentlemen’ – he smiled at Richard and O’Shaughnessy in turn – ‘shall we proceed?’

  IX

  After all the difficulties he had experienced earlier in the year, Plon-Plon felt bemused by the absurd ease with which he had now accomplished his task. There he stood, in Vivien Ratcliffe’s large and comfortably furnished drawing-room, a December gale rattling the window beside him and buffeting the rhododendrons in the long and sloping garden beyond the glass. And there she stood, a tall grey-haired woman, more wizened than he had expected, yet also more gracious of bearing: the one Strang sister to break free, or be cast out, of her father’s house.

  Behind her, the fire roared and crackled in the grate and the wind moaned in the chimney. She did not speak, but her eyes – the only part of her that had not grown old – searched his face with all their proud preserved intensity. He wondered what Gervase would say if he could see her now, frail and elderly, but as defiantly haughty as ever. Would he still think the wager had been worth the prize?

  ‘You do not seem surprised to see me, madame,’ Plon-Plon said, determined to break the silence. ‘I might almost believe you had been expecting me to call.’

  ‘After all this time, Prince? I hardly think so. Indeed, I cannot imagine a single good reason why you should wish to seek me out. But, then, your reasons were seldom good.’

  Plon-Plon permitted himself the faintest of smiles, then said: ‘I think you know why I am here.’

/>   ‘I have told you. I cannot imagine.’

  ‘You covered your tracks well, I must say. Even your sisters know nothing of you.’

  ‘You have seen them?’ A note of incredulity had crept into her otherwise guarded voice.

  ‘There was no other trail to follow, madame.’

  ‘How did you know where to find them?’

  ‘Catherine – Lady Davenall, that is—’

  ‘Her!’ Vivien’s eyes narrowed. ‘So. You are here at her bidding, are you?’

  But Plon-Plon did not care to be taken for any woman’s errand-boy. ‘Largely, madame, on my own account.’ It struck him then how alike Catherine and Vivien had grown, how sourly elegant, how icily untouchable. Just as Catherine declined to grieve for a dead son, so Vivien wasted no curiosity on the sisters who had disowned her. ‘You will not pretend, I trust, to be unaware of recent events affecting the Davenall family?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Her lips flirted with a smile, then dismissed it from their presence. ‘It has afforded me considerable satisfaction.’

  ‘You admit that?’

  ‘Why should I not? You of all people, Prince, should know what I suffered at their hands.’

  ‘Quite so, madame. Quite so.’

  She stared at him for several moments, then said: ‘What are you implying?’

  ‘As I said, I believe you know why I am here.’

  ‘No. I do not.’

  Yet she had expected him: he was sure of it. The ease of his admission, the gravity of his reception, the calmness of her manner: they all smacked of prepared defences. ‘Where is your son, madame?’

  ‘My son?’

  ‘Let us prevaricate no longer. The man calling himself Sir James Davenall is an impostor. You know that. I believe him to be your son by Sir Gervase Davenall. I believe him to be your revenge for all the wrongs inflicted upon you by Sir Gervase and his wife.’

  She was laughing. He had never heard her laugh before, but now the sound of it rose mockingly to his ears. Yet there was no joy in it. When her face relaxed back into its sombre lines, no pleasure was to be seen in her eyes or remembered in her gaze. ‘Is this what Catherine believes, too?’ she asked, with sudden flashing venom.

  ‘Yes.’

  Her scrutiny of him intensified. ‘Truly?’

  ‘Why else do you think I am here?’

  ‘To offer me your overdue repentance, Prince. I thought old age might have elevated your soul. I see that I was wrong. Well, no matter. I have no need of revenge, but, if I had, this delusion of yours would supply as good a form of it as any.’

  ‘Does this amount to a denial, madame?’

  ‘What you allege, Prince, is too absurd to warrant a denial.’

  ‘Then, tell me: where is your son? Where is the son you bore Gervase? Or do you propose to deny bearing his child?’

  Vivien walked slowly across to the window where Plon-Plon stood and stared at him with frank hostility. ‘I once threw blood in your face for daring to remind me of that. I was once so dazzled by you that I went to meet you, by night, when I knew I should not. What was my reward, Prince? Do tell me. Was it just? Was it fitting? Was it fair?’

  ‘No, madame. It was none of those things. For the follies of my youth, I can offer no reparation, to you or to myself. Your reward for being Gervase’s victim was to be turned out by Catherine, turned away by your family—’

  ‘And forgotten by you?’

  It was as well, he thought in some separate dispassionate part of his mind, that he had waited this long, waited till he was old enough to bear the shame of what he was about to admit. ‘Yes, forgotten. Until I was forced to remember.’

  ‘Forced by whom?’

  ‘By your son, madame. When Monsieur Norton, as he was then called, revealed that he knew what had occurred at Cleave Court, what crime had been committed in the maze that night, thirty-seven years ago, I knew who he must be, though I tried to close my mind to the possibility. For how could he know what happened, unless he had heard it from his mother’s lips?’

  Vivien looked away, out through the window, into the garden and beyond, to where heaving surf crashed across the crumbling rocks of Torbay. In her wistful gaze Plon-Plon thought he saw the first sign of the weakness he had hoped to exploit.

  ‘He should not have confronted me with it, although it served his purpose at the time. Ultimately, it has proved a fatal mistake.’

  ‘Fatal?’ she said in an undertone, her eyes still fixed on the distant foaming sea.

  ‘To your cause, madame. To your conspiracy.’

  ‘There is no conspiracy.’

  ‘Why deny it? In one sense, you have merely given him what is rightfully his: his birthright. Do not think I blame you. I see the justice of it. Truly, I do. But I cannot allow it to continue.’

  Then, at last, she looked back at him. ‘You cannot allow it?’

  ‘For all our sakes, madame, the pretence must be ended.’

  ‘Very well.’ She nodded gravely. ‘I must ask you to wait here for a few minutes, Prince, whilst I fetch something. Something which will indeed end the pretence.’ And, with that, she walked slowly from the room.

  X

  Absolute silence reigned. Denzil O’Shaughnessy walked steadily forward, until he was standing but a foot or so from Sir James. They were about the same height, and their eyes, meeting naturally, held one another in a timeless interval of piercing scrutiny. Only when O’Shaughnessy stepped to one side, as if to examine Sir James’s profile, did their gazes part, and then only for a moment, because O’Shaughnessy swiftly resumed his place in front of Sir James and, as soon as he did so, their unblinking stares were rejoined.

  ‘Well?’ said Richard impatiently.

  But neither man seemed to pay him any heed. They were remote from those looking on, alone in a realm where their confrontation was all that mattered, where nothing could be heard but their own unspoken exchanges.

  O’Shaughnessy cleared his throat and, reaching out, took Sir James’s right hand in his. Both men remained expressionless as O’Shaughnessy held the hand out flat, looked down at it, then released it once more. He took a deep breath and, turning back to Richard, said: ‘I am satisfied.’

  ‘You recognize him as Stephen Lennox?’

  O’Shaughnessy shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I am satisfied that this man is not Stephen Lennox. The absence of a scar on his right hand confirms it. He is not my former pupil.’

  A note of desperation entered Richard’s voice. ‘But he must be. For God’s sake, man, think again.’

  ‘When he first came into the room, I thought he might be Stephen, but I see now that he is not. I am more certain of that than of anything in this world.’

  ‘But, if he isn’t Lennox, then who …?’ Richard’s voice faded into silence as his gaze moved from the stubborn insistence of O’Shaughnessy’s face to the slowly emerging smile on the face of Sir James Davenall.

  XI

  Plon-Plon had been alone for no more than a few minutes when Vivien returned. If she had been to fetch something, it was small enough to be slipped into a pocket, for she carried nothing in her hands.

  ‘I expected you to call, Prince, it is true,’ she said, rejoining him by the window. ‘But not for the reason you suspect.’

  ‘Then, why?’

  ‘Because Cora warned me you would.’

  ‘La traîtresse!’

  ‘Do not be too hard on her. It made no difference. Nothing could.’

  ‘What do you mean, madame?’

  ‘Read this.’ She slid a single sheet of paper from a pocket of her dress and handed it to him. Plon-Plon held it up to the light and clamped a monocle in his eye. It took him no more than a few seconds to see what the document was and to scan its contents. ‘It is true I bore a son to Sir Gervase Davenall,’ Vivien said. ‘That is his death certificate.’

  Plon-Plon had been as certain as he had been mistaken. There, before him, in crabbed thirty-
year-old clerical handwriting, was the proof of his error. ‘Oliver Strang, died 2nd August 1854, aged seven years. Cause of death: cholera.’

  ‘You cannot imagine the poverty and degradation I endured for Oliver’s sake. And it was all for nothing. Even after his death, I went on believing that it was not only right, but possible, to lead a noble life. Not until the saintly Miss Nightingale sent me home in disgrace from Scutari, and every hospital in the land closed its doors against me, did I understand the depth of my folly. From that moment on, I did whatever was necessary to obtain the wealth and privileges my son had been denied. As you see, I succeeded. I am no longer a good woman, but I am a happy one. That, Prince, is the only kind of revenge I desire.’

  Plon-Plon looked at her in blank astonishment. ‘But, if he is not your son, madame, then who … ?’ His words trailed into silence. He knew the answer to his unfinished question. But he did not dare to voice it.

  XII

  Sir James Davenall and Constance Sumner were married that afternoon. After what had happened, neither had any wish to wait another two days; Constance could hardly remain in Richard’s house under such circumstances, and James, now he had been vindicated, was eager that they should at once commence their life together.

  Richard did not attend the wedding, shocked by his own misjudgement into believing that a further reconciliation was impossible. Emily, however, amid floods of tears, was forgiven by her sister and her new brother-inlaw, though not, it seemed, by herself. She it was who saw them off after the ceremony at Paddington station at the start of their journey to Cleave Court, where they were to begin a new life, at last unfettered, as Sir James and Lady Davenall. For all the anguish that day’s work had caused, it had at least sealed their future happiness as man and wife. They who had believed themselves lost to each other were joined now for all time.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I