He laughed. ‘You are a brave woman, Marian.’
‘That is not what people will say of me.’
‘Do you care what they will say?’
‘Once I would have done. But no longer.’
‘I hate the thought of Jos so much as touching you.’
‘If we go quickly, he never will again.’
‘Emily tells me you are to attend the ball at Midford Grange on Thursday.’
‘Susannah has spoken of it, yes.’
‘That will give me time to arrange a passage to the Continent from Bristol. I shall send Poulter with a phaeton to wait for you at the house. He will go unnoticed among the other drivers. It should be a simple matter for you to meet me, and we can travel on together. We will be long gone before Jos hears of it, you may be sure.’
‘Can it be so easily accomplished?’
‘If you are willing to depart with nothing but the gown you wear to the ball, I believe it can.’
‘So long as I depart with you, Lawrence, I am willing to relinquish all material possessions.’
‘You will have to relinquish your good name also, Marian. Remember that. They will call you an adulteress.’
‘I do not care.’ All the pretence and misery Jos had forced upon me stood renounced in that instant. In admitting my love for Lawrence Byfield, I was taking a step into the unknown. And I was rejoicing as I did so. ‘I am yours,’ I declared, returning his ever more frantic kisses. ‘Body and soul.’
‘Emily and Poulter will not be back … for an hour at least.’
‘Nor need I be … at Bentinck Place.’
‘One hour, then.’ He stared deeply into my eyes. ‘As a foretaste of all the hours to come.’
‘Yes.’ I smiled at him. ‘Let it be so.’
And it was so. He took me up to a small room beneath the eaves of the cottage, where a fire was burning. There, as the November afternoon greyed towards dusk, I gave myself to him as I had never, from the very first, given myself to my lawful wedded husband. There was passion where before there had only ever been brutality. There was love and all the physical fruits of it compressed into an hour. I had often dreamed how such things would be between two people joined in tender consent. To learn the answer was to clasp a magical truth and to glimpse the emptiness of Jos’s soul. All the forced serving girls and hired whores in the world would fail him in this. He could never know what Lawrence Byfield showed me that afternoon: the rapture of giving and receiving; the bliss of union, as like the angels in heaven as the beasts in the field.
I left the cottage while our enigmatic hostess was still absent and walked slowly up across Sion Hill towards Bentinck Place, composing myself as I went and praying there was nothing in my manner or appearance to betray the convulsion of my emotions. For three days more, I would have to act the part of Barrington and Susannah’s reluctant and oppressed house guest. Then freedom and happiness would be mine. It was not long to wait, though it seemed an eternity. It was hardly any time at all, set against—
And just like that, as abruptly as an interrupted sentence, I came to myself as Eris again. I was most of the way across High Common, with the foreshortened arc of the housefronts of Bentinck Place already in sight. I stopped in my tracks, frozen by panic and confusion. How had I got there? What was I doing? I stumbled to a nearby bench and sat down, breathing shallowly and sweating despite the chill of the morning. I looked at my watch and saw it was nearly noon. More than three hours had passed since I’d got out of the car: three hours and quite a few miles. I must have walked into Bath without realizing it. I certainly felt tired enough to have done so. Of course, I had realized it in a sense. The ride in the barouche and the stop at Weston were crystal clear in my mind. It wasn’t like remembering a dream. It was actually the opposite. Sitting there on that bench, I felt like a dreamer aware they’re dreaming, aware of the waking world they can return to if they simply open their eyes. It took no effort. The effort was all the other way.
But Bath was a dangerous place for Eris Moberly to be. That much I knew. The truth of it was something to grasp and hold on to. I had to get away. The longer I remained, the greater the chance, remote though it logically was, of encountering Niall Esguard. Perhaps it was approaching Bentinck Place that had shocked me out of the fugue. I decided to head for the railway station. I’d be able to get a taxi there. I got up and began walking fast downhill, across Weston Road and on through the park below the Royal Crescent to Queen Square. There was a slow-moving queue of traffic along the north side of the square, and I stood at the edge of the pavement, waiting to cross. For a second, I looked up at the elegant buildings around me. It really was no more than that – a momentary lessening in my concentration. But it was enough. The noise of the traffic ceased, the cars vanished and the square was quiet and empty. Nothing moved. Nothing told me for a fact what I knew for a certainty. This was Bath as it had once been. And I, too, was as I had once been.
‘Mrs Moberly?’ I heard somebody say. Fear gripped me with transforming force. I turned, the world reverting around me to the present as I knew it. And there, in front of me, was Montagu Quisden-Neve, muffled up in an overcoat and fedora, with a red-and-white polka-dot bow tie lurking garishly in the shadow of his upturned collar. He treated me to his faintly lecherous man-of-the-world smile. ‘Upon my soul, it is Mrs Moberly. What are you doing in Bath, my dear?’
‘I … I don’t …’
‘Are you quite well?’
‘I’m not … not sure.’
‘Did you come here to see me?’
‘No.’ I began to recover my composure. ‘Of course not.’
‘Why, then, may I ask?’
‘I don’t think it’s any of your business.’
‘I must beg to differ with you there, Mrs Moberly.’ He stepped closer and lowered his voice. ‘It would no more be in my interests than it would be in yours to have friend Niall come across you roaming the streets. He is still anxious to find you, remember. I frankly fail to understand what you can be thinking of.’
‘Another world.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I’d be happy to take your advice and leave the city straight away, actually.’ An idea had come to me. ‘Any chance of a lift?’
‘You don’t have a car?’
‘It’s in a lay-by, out beyond Corston.’
Quisden-Neve frowned. ‘You walked in from there, I suppose.’
‘As a matter of fact, I think I must have done.’
His frown deepened. He glanced at his watch. ‘This really is …’ Then he sighed, evidently conceding a pragmatic point to himself. My presence in Bath really was a problem he could do without. ‘Very well. My car’s just round the corner. I suppose I have little choice but to act as your chauffeur. Shall we?’ He led the way along the north side of the square, setting the stiffish pace of someone who suddenly felt conspicuous.
His car, a flashy old Jag going to seed at about the same rate as its owner, was just round the corner, in Gay Street. He moved a dusty stack of Illustrated London News to make room for me in the passenger seat, then we were away, back round Queen Square and out along the Bristol road.
‘Your husband should take better care of you, Mrs Moberly,’ he said as we flashed past Weston church and the terraces of Victorian housing that had long since replaced the surrounding cottages. ‘Wandering around the countryside is no occupation for a lady like you.’
‘You don’t know what I’m like.’
‘True enough. But even so—’
‘Sold my pictures yet?’
‘If you mean the Esguard negatives, I don’t recall saying I was going to sell them.’
‘You still have them, then?’
‘I see no profit in discussing the subject. Your best course of action is to forget about them altogether – and to avoid visiting Bath.’
‘What if I can’t?’
He looked at me askance. ‘Try harder.’
‘Why weren’t there any more?
’
‘What exactly do you mean?’
‘I mean, why was 1817 the beginning and end of it?’
‘Perhaps it wasn’t.’ He grinned his eager collector’s grin. ‘Perhaps she carried on the work, wherever she went after leaving her husband.’
‘And where might that have been?’
He shrugged. ‘Who can say?’
‘Lawrence Byfield spoke of going abroad.’
‘It would have been the obvious thing to do, but—’ He suddenly stamped on the brakes and skidded to a halt. A car behind us blared its horn, then overtook noisily, the driver shouting and gesturing at us. But Quisden-Neve didn’t even notice. ‘Just a moment,’ he said, staring at me. ‘You know about Byfield?’
‘Apparently.’
‘So Milo told you everything.’
‘What if he did?’
‘Did he tell you where they went?’
‘Did he tell you?’
‘Of course not. Otherwise—’ There was more blaring of horns. This time Quisden-Neve did notice. He drove on. ‘I had Milo’s solemn assurance that I was the only person he’d ever told about Byfield. He only told me because he was too ill to carry on ferreting about looking for clues as to where Byfield and Marian might have gone, assuming they did run off together, which wasn’t by any means certain. I agreed to conduct enquiries on his behalf on the strict understanding that the information would go no further.’ He slapped the steering wheel in irritation. ‘Milo didn’t play fair with me, he really didn’t.’
‘Perhaps you didn’t play fair with him.’
‘On the contrary. I didn’t explain my parallel interest in Byfield to him, it’s true, but then why should I have done? It was scarcely germane to the issue.’
‘What is your “parallel interest”?’
‘Nothing that need concern you. Let us return to what Byfield spoke of doing. How is anyone, even Milo, to know? He had the name, passed down from Barrington, as a candidate for the role of Marian’s lover. The name and nothing more. Yet you seem to be implying he knew what might have been in Byfield’s mind and hence in Marian’s.’
‘I’m implying nothing.’ We were through Corston now and in sight of Stantonbury Hill. ‘The lay-by’s just round this next bend. You’d better slow down.’
‘Why don’t we both slow down?’ He eased his foot off the accelerator and turned to give me what I think he intended to be a reassuring smile. ‘I for one am always willing to be open-minded about situations where cooperation may be genuinely and mutually beneficial.’
‘I thought you wanted me out of Bath.’
‘I recommended it.’ We rounded the bend and saw the car in the lay-by ahead. Quisden-Neve pulled in behind and turned off the engine. He pursed his lips thoughtfully, then said, ‘If you know where they may have gone, Mrs Moberly, I’d be prepared to offer you a share in the proceeds in exchange for the information.’
‘What proceeds?’
‘The negatives, if proved to be genuine, will fetch a small fortune at auction, boosted by publicity, of course. My book will bring in a lot of that.’
‘Your book?’
‘About Marian Esguard. And how she ties in with another research interest of mine. If she ties in. I have to trace her movements, and hence Byfield’s, after 1817 to nail it down. If you could point me in the right direction …’
‘I can’t.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘If Milo knew, he didn’t tell me.’
Quisden-Neve clicked his tongue. ‘A pity.’
‘So perhaps you’ll excuse me.’ I turned to open the door. As I did so, Quisden-Neve grasped me firmly by the elbow. I looked back at him levelly. ‘I don’t think we have anything else to say to each other.’
‘I disagree, Mrs Moberly. There’s a great deal of money at stake here.’
‘I’m not interested.’
‘Come, come. We’re all interested in money. But greed can sometimes blind us to the need to share it with others if any is to be made at all. I’m offering you what would effectively be a partnership.’
‘Thanks, but no thanks.’
‘Don’t rush into the decision. And don’t make the mistake of supposing it’s straightforward.’
‘It feels straightforward to me.’
‘You’re forgetting the muscular Niall. If you won’t help me, I may be compelled to help him.’
‘We made a deal about that.’
‘Overtaken by events.’ He grinned. ‘Returning to Bath really was rather foolish, you know.’
‘Let go of me.’
He did so. But his grin remained. ‘Enjoy the rest of the holiday with your husband, Mrs Moberly. And think about what I’ve said. Give me a call early in the New Year. You still have my card?’
‘You won’t be hearing from me.’ I opened the door and climbed out.
‘In that case,’ he called after me, ‘you’ll be hearing from me.’
I slammed the door and caught one last glimpse of his grinning face through the windscreen. Then he started up, pulled out into the road in a raking U-turn and sped away. I watched him go as the realization seeped into me that he meant exactly what he’d said. He sensed I knew more about Marian than I was willing to reveal. And I wouldn’t be rid of him until he’d found out how much.
I suppose that was when another realization dawned on me. I couldn’t go on as I was. There was just too much crowding in around me, too much of everything for my mind to hold. I had to find a way out, just as Marian had back in the autumn of 1817. I had to run where no-one could follow.
I got into the car and looked at the map. Midford lay a few miles south of Bath, an easy evening’s journey for the sake of a social gathering. I drove to it by as circuitous a route as I could manage, avoiding Bath itself. The village didn’t amount to much: a pub and assorted cottages huddled in the shadow of a disused railway viaduct. That wouldn’t have been there in 1817, of course. It was hard to imagine what would. I asked in the pub, however, and got immediate recognition of the name Midford Grange.
‘Take the turning for Combe Hay and it’s first on the right. They’re doing it up nice, so they say. You thinking of buying one of the flats?’
I implied I was and drove round to take a look. The Grange was a middling country house of steep gables and tall chimneys, partly obscured by scaffolding, set in neglected grounds bounded by a crumbling wall and rook-infested woodland. An estate agent’s board proclaimed its imminent conversion into six stylish self-contained country apartments. In the grey winter light, it looked cold and dismal. But Marian would have come there, as I knew I had to, by night and the glow of welcoming lamps.
I drove back to the hotel, had something to eat, then slept for two soothing hours. I felt calm now, and absolutely certain about what I had to do. I collected Conrad from the stables on schedule and let him talk me through his day over tea at the hotel, as darkness fell. Then he took himself off for a bath before dinner, leaving me by the lounge fireside. But I didn’t stay there for long.
Nobody paid me any attention as I walked out to the car and drove away. I was at Midford within twenty minutes. Already, nightfall was having its effect. The village felt different somehow, more remote, more watchful. I parked at the pub, put on the thornproof coat from the boot, took the torch and crowbar from Conrad’s toolkit, and walked round under the viaduct and down the lane to the Grange. The gates were closed and padlocked, but several stretches of the boundary wall were semi-ruinous. I scrambled over one into the thin end of the wood, and hacked my way through to the edge of the lawn surrounding the house.
The building was even darker than the starless sky, a slab of solid inky black. Plastic sheeting was flapping somewhere in the wind. There was no sign of life, least of all the life of times long past. But I knew Marian too well to doubt she’d come to me if I gave her the chance. I crossed the lawn and trailed the torch beam round the scaffolded section of the house to the source of the flapping: a run of new ground-floor windows no
t yet glazed, shrouded against the weather. One corner of the plastic sheet had worked itself loose. I loosened it further with the crowbar, then clambered in over the sill.
I was in a small square high-ceilinged room, plastered and floorboarded and fancily corniced, smelling of wood and cement and newness. I walked out into a hallway and into the next room. It was larger and rectangular, with a fireplace and French windows at the far end. It looked as if the builders had done a fair job of sweeping away all traces of the original design. I switched off the torch and let the darkness soak into my eyes. Nothing happened. The smell didn’t alter. The plastic sheeting still flapped. The present held me firm. A sudden fear gripped me that I might have lost Marian for ever. It was a fear that felt like grief, like a surge of pain. I closed my eyes and took a long, deep breath.
‘Do you think it possible that the gravity of your manner deters potential dancing partners, Marian?’
Barrington’s voice, low and simpering, came to me a fraction of a second before I opened my eyes and started back in amazement at the life and colour and noise that had suddenly filled and somehow enlarged the room. Chandeliers ran the length of the ceiling, ablaze with candlelight. The walls were covered with vast gilt-framed oil paintings of old men in wigs and hunting dogs and sloe-eyed ladies in sylvan settings. Between them pairs of dancers performed their measured steps and gestures, facing each other in the longways formation I had often seen before. The ladies’ gowns shimmered and the gentlemen’s shoes clipped on the polished floor. At the far end of the room, on a dais set up before the French windows, an orchestra played. Liveried servants and those sitting out the dance lined the walls. Glancing round, I could see the eager sparkle in the dancers’ eyes and sense the pleasure and the care they were taking. The gentlemen wore black or maroon tailed coats, with fancy waistcoats and paler breeches; the ladies elaborate ball-gowns, with puff sleeves, jewelled bandeaux and long white gloves. I was aware that my own gown was relatively plain and darker than most. But I was also aware that I had chosen it with more of a mind to travelling than to dancing.
‘Ignoring those who choose to speak to you could, of course, be equally effective.’
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