The Devil's Mask

by Christopher Wakling

  Here he was, trotting out the same old hackneyed justifications, glib as a pamphlet. Up until now he had concealed such opinions from me. Why? Because he knew I disagreed? What of it? This wouldn’t be the first issue over which we’d stood at loggerheads.

  From upstairs came the sound of Sebastian’s piano. The noise had been there a while, I think, but I only became conscious of it now that he’d switched to playing something quick-fingered, light and jaunty. It set my teeth on edge. ‘You’re worried,’ I said softly.

  ‘You know that I will make this wrongdoing public. You’ve feared it all along.’

  Father shook his head and inspected the back of his hand, flexing his fingers as if they were stiff. ‘No, you won’t,’ he said.

  ‘The women the ship brought back here. You knew about that, too, didn’t you?’

  ‘That … venture … does seem to have been a mistake.’

  ‘A mistake? They’ve been killed. Whether to cover up their existence, or … I don’t know … but their blood is on your hands.’

  At this Father let out a gentle laugh, and recommenced shaking his head. ‘Inigo, your sympathies –’ he began, and his tone, and the laugh, and twittering piano upstairs, enraged me.

  ‘I’ll make it known,’ I cut in. ‘I’ll see you punished.’

  ‘No, you’ll desist,’ Father said.

  I stared at him. The shards of light made his brown eyes almost orange. They were unblinking and filled suddenly with a hostility beyond irritation.

  ‘As I was saying, your sympathies are understandable, given the mulatto whore your mother was.’

  Sebastian’s music seemed to slow down. I felt very still, calm. Here it was. An odd sense of reassurance descended.

  Father was searching my face for a reaction, and his voice rose when he appeared unable to detect it there. ‘The sacrifices I’ve made, and continue to make, for you. But I’ll tear it all up, I will! You stand before me, threatening me, but it will amount to nothing. Your … enquiries were fruitless. Understand that. Because if a word of your little discovery becomes public knowledge, I will see to it that your true heritage is exposed. Polluted. The fruit of a half-blood plantation whore, tupped in drunken folly. I have stood by you, raised you as if you were a true son. Yet Lilly Alexander will walk away, trust me. And your professional life will be finished, before it has properly begun.’

  ‘This morning,’ I started, and my voice sounded as quiet in my head as his had sounded loud. ‘This morning I freed two prisoners awaiting trial for murder from Justice Wheeler’s lockup. Then I robbed three graves. Finally, I took part in an assault upon the Justice himself, leaving him bound hand and foot in a gravedigger’s shed. I think my prospects, both professional and marital, are already beyond repair.’

  In fighting to recompose himself, the corners of my father’s mouth twitched, as if at some private joke. ‘Do you think judges any less swayable than clerks, Inigo?’ he said at length.

  ‘No. Nor do I think newspapers immune to corruption. But I doubt very much they can all be bought at the same time.’

  He did not deny this, but inspected the back of his hand absently again, and finally shut the ledger on his desk with an air of having reached a decision.

  ‘You’re worse than he is,’ he said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘At least he’s predictably obstinate. I thought, no I hoped, you had better sense.’

  ‘Who do you mean?’

  Father slid the book forward on the desk and planted his elbows wide. His fists bounced together, the left one in shadow, the right crawling with bright liver spots. ‘Why your master, Mr Carthy, of course.’

  ‘Carthy? You know of his whereabouts?’

  ‘He is safe.’

  ‘What do you mean, safe? Don’t tell me … that you’re responsible for Adam’s absence?’

  ‘On the contrary. He came to see me. He was a step ahead of you. I imagine he thought you’d catch up eventually. And so you did. He clearly holds you in high regard.’

  ‘I hold him higher still,’ I said through gritted teeth.

  ‘I know, I know. And that is why, even if you have a cavalier disregard for your own good fortune, you will not want to see him harmed.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘As I say, he came to see us. He has been encouraged to view things afresh.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  Father turned his palms upward. They glowed pink, and his face above them appeared to reflect the colour. Whether in triumph or repressed agitation, his blood was up.

  ‘You turned my own brother against me,’ I said.

  ‘It was safer than using somebody else. Men in that line of business have a habit of getting carried away.’

  He said this softly, as if expecting me to recognise a kindness in what he’d done. I think it was then that I realised he had lost his senses. The air in the room had a muffled, stale quality. Sebastian’s piano playing petered out upstairs, breaking first into chords, then individual notes spaced further and further apart, as if the instrument was slowly giving in.

  ‘Can’t you see,’ Father was saying now, ‘I’m just trying to do what’s best for the family? That’s always been my aim.’

  I stared at him, and saw a man capable of saying or doing anything in pursuit of his own ends. Which were what? Turning a profit, the success of the firm. It did not make sense. He’d been no more than ordinarily ruthless in furthering his mercantile aims for as long as I could remember. Certainly he’d not – to my knowledge at least – pursued an illegal scheme such as this before.

  ‘And I shall not be swayed from doing what is best for us all, regardless of your mewling objections, Inigo. If the only way to halt you in your folly lies with your good friend, Carthy, then, unfortunate as that is, so be it. He is safe, for now. But if you publicise your findings, I shall be unable to vouch for his continued safety in the future.’

  The manacles were still hanging from my right fist. I let them drop to the floor entirely now, for fear of acting upon the burning impulse to wreak damage – and hurt – with them there and then. I think the only thing that held me back from lashing out was the knowledge that Carthy would not have done so. The answer lay with him. Like a man trapped in an upturned hull, I had to force myself to sip at what air there was in the study, fighting not to lose control.

  ‘You underestimate Mr Carthy,’ I muttered.

  Again Father appeared to struggle against an inclination to grin.

  ‘You do,’ I said, my voice rising. ‘You cannot vouch for him at all. Even if I keep my counsel, and he is released unharmed, you cannot be sure of his silence in the matter. In fact, if I were forced to take a bet upon it, I would say he will be all the more likely, for having been interfered with, to report our findings himself! Though you try to dress the thing up in terms of a bargain, he won’t be bought off. He’s cut from more principled cloth.’

  Now Father did smile broadly enough to reveal his stained incisors. ‘Oh Inigo,’ he said. ‘You really have no idea. Everyone weakens eventually. We’re all susceptible to a change of heart. Should you be fortunate enough to see him again, I think you may find Mr Carthy … so altered.’

  Sixty-nine

  Oni cradles the man’s head in her lap. He is still now, his breathing more regular, his features sharpening in the swollen mass of his face.

  He still hasn’t eaten. But the real danger comes from his having drunk so little in the four days he’s been with her, only what she’s been able to run into his mouth, most of which has leaked straight out again. He has not surfaced for long enough to concentrate.

  Oni is not surprised to see this violence directed against one of their own. She witnessed it often enough on the ship. Though they use race as a means of distinguishing slaves, at its heart the men’s cruelty is colour-blind. The oddness of their having directed it at this man, she considers, has more to do with his clothing than his skin. Ordinarily, fine stitching offers protection. On board, those
with the brightest buttons fared best. But this man’s transgression, whatever it was, tore through the shield of his frock coat easily enough, it seems.

  Since he cast this poor soul into her cell, the man has come for her on three more occasions. Each time is worse than before. His cruelty feeds on itself. When she failed to satisfy him he turned to her pain. Beyond that lay sight of her spilled blood. Then, as his horrible, mottled hands closed around her neck, and the room’s edges blurred, what light there was shrank to a merciful dot. His panting was, for a moment, overrun by the birdsong. Even the burning of his fingers around her throat spread out into the warm glow of sun on her bare shoulders.

  It tasted and sounded and felt like an invitation: give in, stop breathing, the sensation said.

  And were it not for the invalid, she would gladly have accepted this fate. But he needs her. She knew that the man had put him with her to die. On board the ship all captives were forced to eat, and even exercise. Yet the devil cast his fellow white man face down in the straw here, unconcerned whether he starved – or thirsted – to death.

  Oni fought to breathe and the dot of light grew brighter. The devil-man finished. He let go and her mouth filled with bile. She forced the room back into unforgiving focus, rolled up on to one arm and looked back along the brick wall to where the invalid lay where she had left him, unmoving and slumped on his side. She hated him for making her come back.

  The devil hitched himself back into his trousers and rubbed his hands across his face. He was breathing as heavily as she was. Before he left he looked down at her, a quick devastating glance empty of malice, lust or shame.

  Oni sat up, fetters tinkling disingenuously. She crawled over to the invalid as the door banged shut behind her. She gathered him up on to her lap.

  Now she dips her fingers into the water bucket again.

  Seventy

  ‘W-w-what do you mean if Inigo sees Mr Carthy?’

  I spun around to see that Sebastian had stolen into the room while Father was speaking. His lips were ashen, his face silt grey. Neither of us had noticed him; I saw Father’s head jerk-to angrily.

  ‘And w-w-what do you mean a-a-altered state?’

  In a voice dripping with soothing intent, Father said, ‘Sebastian. I expected you to keep to your quarters, at least until you were feeling better.’

  John, still moving with an underwater languor, re-entered the room behind our youngest brother. Father’s confidence was draining even as the colour mounted in his cheeks. A tick appeared under his right eye. John retook his seat on the faded ottoman. Father blustered on, saying, ‘And you too? What is the meaning of this? I told you to retire to your room.’

  John said quietly, ‘This involves us all. We must hear what is being said.’

  The lack of colour in Sebastian’s face was alarming. He looked as if his blood had been let. I went to him and took hold of his birdlike shoulders. ‘It’s all right. I know what’s going on. No matter what he has involved you in, I know you are not to blame.’

  He blinked amazedly. Father had risen from his creaky chair, and now moved to the trophy wall, beneath which stood his inlaid filing cabinets. ‘Well. Perhaps you’re right,’ he said carefully, addressing my brothers in turn, and then me. ‘If we’re all together again, then let’s reach a joint understanding, finally. Let’s talk the matter through. As I promised you both that I would, I’ve been apprising Inigo of the firm’s recent investments. He has concerns, but together I’m sure we can see a way to ameliorate them.’

  There was something catlike about his feigned unconcern in those moments. He was ignoring a danger, yet something inside him had coiled tight – to spring away, or fight.

  I steered Sebastian towards a chair, but he shook me off and said, ‘W-w-what do you know?’

  ‘Everything,’ I said. ‘I know about the Bright & Co. stake in the Western Trading Company and the Belsize. I know the ship sailed the golden triangle. I know of its illegal trading in slaves. I know three females were brought in error – or a mistake of judgement, at least – to these shores. I know whoever wanted them changed his mind. I know they ended up murdered.’

  ‘Murdered?’ said Sebastian.

  ‘The three bodies, recently found, were all black women, and all connected with the ship. I have evidence.’

  ‘But the labourer took one, and then the s-s-suicide, and the woman dead of exposure. They were freed, but lacked the capacity to … f-f-fend for themselves.’

  ‘Quite so, Sebastian,’ said Father. ‘They lack the capacity. But Inigo here is still intent upon putting the savages’ needs ahead of our own.’ I glanced up at him. He was leaning on the filing cabinet awkwardly; despite the bluster he could not even stand up straight. ‘As I feared, he intends to pursue Mr Orton’s agenda of making the firm’s involvement in the trade public. I was just in the process of persuading him otherwise.’

  ‘Three slave women?’ muttered John. ‘What about the fourth?’

  Father, his back to the three of us still, stiff in his black frock coat, laughed softly and said, ‘There was no fourth.’

  ‘Yes, there was. There is.’

  ‘Nonsense. Sebastian, help John back to his room –’

  ‘She’s down below now.’

  ‘He’s delirious.’

  ‘With Carthy. The two of them all but dead. I have seen them with my own eyes.’

  ‘Silence!’ Father thundered.

  He was still leaning across the filing cabinet. No, not leaning, reaching. I guessed his intent a fraction too late and stood powerless as he spun around swinging his twelve-gauge up into the crook of his arm. Its twin barrels wavered from Sebastian to me accusingly. My hands rose automatically from my sides, spread to placate.

  ‘It is enough,’ Father growled, ‘that this corrupted mulatto bastard should seek to destroy us …’ the gun’s twin barrels dropped to my feet and rose back to my chest again ‘… but no true son will do the same. Now …’ he swung the shotgun at Sebastian and John … ‘the two of you will retire. Neither of you are in your right minds, it seems. You will permit me to sort this out.’

  John stood up from the ottoman, his head bowed. He crossed the rug, his footsteps heavy, motioning at Sebastian to get up. Father stepped forwards after him, the gun now trained on me again. He would pull the trigger; I could see it in the firm line of his mouth. The depths of my brothers’ complicity drained me of words with which to remonstrate. But as John reached my side he dropped to one knee swiftly and, before I could register what was happening, he had grabbed up the iron restraints from where I had let them fall. He swung round and the chain unfurled and caught the barrel of Father’s shotgun, smashing it to one side, the gun discharging in the process. The shot was deafening in such confines. Father staggered backwards and John was upon him, the manacles taut across his chest, blue smoke enveloping them both. I sprang forward to help, and managed to wrest the shotgun from my father’s clutches as John forced him down to the floor.

  The air hung heavy with the burnt metallic smell of gunpowder. Compared to the blast, the sound of Father’s hobnails raking the floorboards was scratchy and thin.

  ‘The sea chest,’ John grunted. ‘There. Look for a brass ring. The keys are on it.’

  Father was still struggling, but ineffectually. Though by no means frail, he simply hadn’t John’s heft. I turned to look for the keys and found that Sebastian had already yanked open the chest. He was rummaging within it furiously, casting padlocks, lengths of chain, and restraints aside. A choking sensation took hold in me. It felt as if I had swallowed a hunk of gristle which my throat was powerless to work down. Finally Sebastian surfaced holding a brass ring hung with black keys. ‘This one?’ he asked.

  John turned and nodded. Seeing the chest’s up-flung contents he glanced at me. The knuckling sensation intensified in my chest as I selected a length of chain, two pairs of restraints, and a padlock and key. Father’s railing took on a bewildered, pathetic strain. I could not look him in th
e eye. My hands were shaking. John and I worked in silence; we chained Father’s wrists to his ankles and padlocked the end of the chain to itself, having first run it through the fireplace’s wrought iron grate.

  Despite all that he had done, the sight of my father chained on his side, his lips twisting with empty threats, sickened my heart.

  The three of us left him there.

  Led by John, and moving as if through a dream, we descended through the scullery, beyond the big house’s empty basement rooms, and into the catacomb of its cellar. The final door we came to, beyond which lay the coal hole, had been reinforced with a crude iron strips. It was bolted top and bottom. The familiar dock-stench had a rank and decaying quality down here. John drew the bolts back with an apologetic force which told me he’d done it before. Then he turned the key in the lock.

  My eyes had adjusted to the cellar-gloom, but could not at first break apart whatever was slumped against the vaulted brickwork at the end of the coal hole. Clumps of matted straw were strewn on the damp floor. Inching through the muck, my hand to my mouth and nose against the smell of excrement and sickness, I accidentally stubbed over a wooden bucket, prompting the shape to shift within its blankets up against the far wall. I advanced again, steadying myself with a hand on greasy bricks. One figure became two, a black woman seated with her back to the wall, and a prone man, his head clutched to the woman’s belly. I knelt down beside the pair. At length Sebastian returned with a candle. Together we disentangled Adam Carthy from the slave woman’s embrace.

  Epilogue

  There’s a seagull standing on the wall not three feet from my table, just the other side of this windowpane. If I move my head a fraction one way or the other its defiant outline bends and blurs a little. Imperfections in the glass. I raise my coffee cup, still watching the bird. Its beer-bottle neck twists this way, registering the movement with unblinking eyes, monumentally unconcerned.

  Across the street, the curtains on the top floor are still drawn. Adam Carthy has yet to rise from his bed. He sleeps late most mornings, and retires early, but he’s gradually regaining his strength. Anne is his greatest comfort, of course, and precisely because she does not try to comfort him. Young children don’t accept weakness in their parents. Even when he was at his most broken, she could do nothing but ply him with normality, and demand that he wake up and read to her. His first words, on pulling through his month of darkness, were to Anne. ‘You need to learn for yourself,’ he told her. ‘A is for anchovy.’