Realm of Darkness

by C F Dunn

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said as we waited outside his study for our initial supervision of the second year, “I have you in thrall.”

  I should have known better, but I was young and naïve.

  Over the previous year I relished every moment spent at lectures and supervisions, absorbing each new experience like a sponge. I worked hard, gave my essays in on time, stayed up too late talking or watching films. We went punting on the slack waters of the Cam, avoiding missiles flung from the bridges and the ducks as they swam between boats. I had friends, even a boyfriend of sorts – Tom – who made me laugh and understood if I’d rather stay in and read than go out to the pub. I felt no longer alone or lonely; life was good and it could only get better.

  As a renowned lecturer, Guy maintained the highest academic standards, and students fought to get on his course. He would take five where other supervisors took three, because he could guarantee to have whittled them down by the end of the first term. His style was indomitable, formidable. When anyone spoke, he listened intently, often with a frown deeply embedded, and when he answered he spoke assertively and without pretence to flatter. Without a doubt his manner and intellect were intimidating; he did not suffer fools and he told them as much. If he displayed any kindness at all, it was in his single-minded pursuit of what he believed to be in his students’ best interests. Lean, spare – broad enough in the shoulders not to look scrawny and nearing six feet tall – his dark brown hair and faintly olive skin betrayed his Anglo-French parentage. He seemed more English than anything else, and I say English rather than British because he identified with an era that predated the Act of Union, and he had Royalist leanings. He appeared attractive, but not handsome, and, although many of his female students claimed they did not like him because of his manner, they blushed when he praised them and, after tutorials, twittered endlessly like sparrows in a dust bath.

  Partway through the Michaelmas term I waited with nerves of jelly as Guy returned our first essays. Constantly watching, summing up, assessing – restless energy directed his eyes and one foot that tapped with impatience. Smoke from a late summer bonfire drew a fragrant haze across his study. He rose, shut the window, and sat down. He moved with purpose – short, precise movements designed to get him where he wanted to go but no more.

  We waited expectantly. He smiled. He didn’t smile often, but when he did it meant one of two things: either he felt genuinely pleased – which was rare – or someone could expect a rocketing.

  “Right, let’s get started. Mr Vine, dross, raise your game or you’re off the course. Don’t expect an easy ride on the back of your school scholarship – that means nothing here, you’ve got to earn it.” He all but threw the essay at the pink-faced boy. “Mr Horton – a passing attempt. One or two acceptable points, but don’t rely on your A-level notes. Blake was good in his day, but he’s way off-beam now.”

  Greg surveyed his returned essay glumly, the furious red slashes and comments visible from where I sat. I raised an eyebrow in sympathy and he grimaced, still hungover from the rave the night before.

  “Miss Cam-er-ron,” he drew out Steph’s name. “Well, what can I say? If you continue to produce work like this you’re looking at graduating by Christmas and collecting your doctorate in a couple of years. Quite remarkable.” Steph beamed, but she missed the sarcastic undertones. Tom glanced at me and we both looked at her hoping she would read the signs, but she was a lamb to slaughter. Dr Hilliard cast his eyes over the lengthy essay. “What’s the going rate for this on the internet now? And don’t bother denying it; I had a student sent down last year for plagiarism. If you’re going to pay good money for this offal, give me credit and find something original – better still, write it yourself. Now, who’s next…”

  Tom dropped his pen and fumbled picking it up. I smiled encouragement.

  “Mr Falconer, ah yes, not at all bad. A collaborative attempt, was it?” Guy shot me a look. “Well, make sure you use spellcheck next time; there’s no excuse and I have a hang-up about bad spelling. Last, but by no means least, Miss D’Eresby… now there’s a name to conjure with, ladies and gentlemen – good, solid gentry stock – the backbone of England.” He tapped my essay against the side of his leg as I writhed under his gaze. “Who helped you with this?”

  Taken aback, I probably came across more defensive than I meant to be. “No one.”

  “Whose work is it based on – whose research?”

  “No one’s; it’s my own.”

  He said nothing more and I don’t know whether he believed me or not, but his stare became speculative. I didn’t know then what I know now – that he knew who I was, that he had been waiting for me and, until that moment, I believe he thought me overrated. And that is when it all began.

  I think he tested me at first; it certainly felt like it. He fired questions like bullets – thud, thud, thud – until I felt bruised from the onslaught.

  “‘Grave sins and shameless vices…’ Heinrich Bullinger, Zurich, 1540. So, Emma…” he would begin before I had time to sit down, “… if the common rural practice of sexual intercourse before marriage was approved, why did virginity become a valuable commodity in the economy of Upper Bavaria during the second half of the seventeenth century?”

  “Um…” I would say, blushing, as mice scurried around my brain looking for answers and my fellow students cowered in case he asked them.

  “Come on, Miss D’Eresby, this is well within your capabilities.”

  “Er… the new Reformation Ordinance of 1637 stated that all non-marital sexuality between men and women was forbidden, so what had been considered to be minor infringements became crimes in the Morality Courts, leading to severe punishment as a result of the Morality Decree of 1635. This was largely due to Counter Reformation – principally Jesuit – interpretation of morality laws. I think.”

  He clapped slowly. “Bravo, Miss D’Eresby, and quite rightly so. The Morality Laws – ‘Hurerei’ – or fornication ‘… that have grown rampant among so many…’ What grave sins have grown rampant among us, ladies and gentlemen? What indeed.” He skewered me with a look and I hurriedly dropped my eyes from his.

  I found it embarrassing. I worked out once that three-quarters of questions asked during any one session were directed at me. If I answered correctly he praised me fulsomely until I squirmed. If not, his comments were scathing. Either way I flushed lobster, and when I did, his eyes became almost hooded and he watched me carefully. I dreaded his supervisions at first, but gradually – as he saw that my interest in my subject equalled his own – his questions became less barbed and more intended to guide and teach, and my dread turned into anticipation, and then from pleasure to want.

  I experienced a frisson of excitement every time I entered his room, aware that he saw everything about me: the way I walked, how I wore my hair, whether I had worked all night or slept in that day. I began to dress for him, to leave a strand of hair loose so that it curled in the fenland mist. His self-assurance seemed almost arrogant, yet I found his confidence reassuring because I thought I knew where I stood with him. Like high stone walls there would be no room for manoeuvre, no space for reservation. He knew what he wanted and he wanted me. This man I so admired, whose work I emulated, whose passion for his subject matched mine, wanted me. Tom saw it, the others felt it, until Guy drove a wedge between us and they drifted away. But I sought his approval more than I feared their distance. I longed for his recognition of my work above all else because he withheld it, dangling it in front of me, feeding me tit-bits of praise – feeding my ambition, fuelling my desire. Stupid, stupid… but I was young and I was naïve.

  I should have known better.

  He indulged my obsession with the past. We spent increasing amounts of time in each other’s company but, despite his relentless pursuit, not once did he allow the standard of my work to drop. He demanded more from me than any other student. His criticism stung if I did not live up to expectations. He shredded my research if not
as meticulous as his own. He set tasks I could not hope to fulfil; except that, because he thought I could, I did. Now, in retrospect, I understand he intended grooming me in more ways than one, but then I saw only the interest of an older man who gave me what I wanted: his undivided attention, his absolute acceptance that what I pursued was mine by right, a validation in itself – no other justification needed, none sought, none offered. For the first time since the death of my grandfather I felt my interest in my subject vindicated.

  I missed the warning signs. Either I did not look for them or my lack of worldliness made me unaware. I was not deceitful, nor did I look for deceit in others, but I couldn’t deny the excitement I felt when I realized that his interest went beyond the professional. When Guy suggested a research project outside the demands of my coursework, I accepted without a second thought. When it involved long hours spent alone with him in his study, I did not demur. I might have been naïve, but I was not a fool.

  I did not flaunt his attention. I did not seek it when among others. When he first tried to touch me one evening, I surprised us both by the vehemence of my rejection. I upheld my moral integrity, and my natural reserve and self-preservation did the rest. He once said that I led him on and I grew hot and angry, denying it until he looked almost sorry he said anything, and he never accused me of flirting again.

  To give him his due, he didn’t rush things. He didn’t paw me like some scabby boy or try to touch me up like a dirty old man. He took his time, like a game of chess played over the following two terms, so I deluded myself into thinking I must be mistaken and his interest was purely academic.

  He arranged for his group of students to travel to London to see a Jacobean play. The first daffodils dotted the banks of the river as I made my way to our agreed rendezvous point. Roads became bloated with traffic as rush hour beckoned and fumes hung in the air, a choking sweetness clinging to my throat. Guy drew up to the kerb, hazard lights flashing, window down.

  “Get in, Emma.”

  I checked over my shoulder at the park beyond. “But the others…” A car honked behind him. He released the door lock and pushed it open from the inside.

  “They can’t make it. Get in, you’re holding up the traffic.” Keen to avoid his impatience, I did as bidden, and it was only later that I discovered he had bought just two tickets for that night.

  He drove us to London and he put on a Rolling Stones CD. I heard him laugh for the first time when he asked me what I thought about the music and I told him they were my mother’s favourite group. He made a comment about our age difference and I said that seventeen years to a historian was irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. When he went quiet, I realized he hadn’t been referring to our generational taste in music.

  We watched ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore, and over dinner spent the rest of the evening debating Ford’s portrayal of Giovanni as a virtuous and noble man overcome by passion and condemned by a moralistic society. Guy made me feel like an adult; when he asked my opinion he listened with genuine interest to my answers. I no longer felt the need to impress and began to drop my guard.

  There followed a series of theatre dates, concerts, a foreign film – always on the same day each week and followed by dinner beyond the immediate vicinity of Cambridge. Each time he took one small step towards intimacy and each time I let him. But I wasn’t a fool even if I behaved like one. I knew what he wanted from the way he slipped compliments into sentences like lovers between sheets, and I let him flatter me, lifting a strand of hair to the sun to admire the fire in it.

  For those first two terms after Michaelmas, as he nurtured my intellect I resisted his attempts to seduce me. Old-fashioned as it may seem, I believed in holding out for the man I wanted to marry, and without that level of commitment I could only foresee heartbreak and misery. I must have harboured hope, but more than my desire for his love, I ached for recognition as a serious academic contender.

  It was all academic. Teetering on the verge of love and with my resistance wafer thin, I went home one weekend for my birthday. It was hot. Indolent air, heavy with suppressed heat, pressed against skin already tacky with sweat. Mum and Nanna knew immediately, of course, as they read the light in my eyes, and I begged them not to say anything to my father. None of us wanted an argument. We needn’t have bothered. After a long career in the Army working to other people’s demands, Dad had yet to lose his abrasive attributes against which I frequently rubbed, and proved quite capable of initiating a confrontation without any help from me.

  He snapped open his starched napkin from its precise quarters and placed it on his lap. Friction sparked the moment he opened his mouth. “Have you given any thought to what you will be doing when you graduate, Emma?”

  Nanna and Mum exchanged looks. “Hugh, darling, not now; can’t this wait for another day?”

  “No time like the present,” he barked. “Well, Emma, have you made any enquiries yet? Most decent jobs will require a conversion course I expect, but with a good degree behind you – even if it is in history – you should stand a chance with the big boys.” Light faded from the tall breakfast room windows as a storm approached, and the first of the heavy drops began to fall onto the wide stone flags of the courtyard – dark splashes – like tears. The distinctive scent of summer rain on damp stone rose on warm currents of air. “Emma, I asked you a question…”

  I reluctantly faced him. “Yes, Dad, I have given it some thought.” The same thought as always; nothing changed – neither his questions nor my answers. “I’ll be applying for a place to study for a doctorate and, when I’ve completed that, I’ll look for a position at any university that’ll take me.”

  Nanna gave a little sigh, stretched out her arm, and lightly clasped my hand in hers. I smiled back at her.

  “Utterly ridiculous!” Dad growled, his fists on the table. “You know my thoughts on this matter…”

  “Yes, and you know mine,” I countered. “Look, please, can’t this wait until later? Mum and Nanna have gone to so much trouble to get this meal ready and there’s nothing we have to say to each other that won’t keep. Please.”

  He twitched his neck to free it of his stiff, starched collar in that annoying way he had when he knew he was in the wrong. “Of course – for your mother – but I expect a sensible response from you, young lady, no more of this… nonsense.”

  Mum shot him a cautionary “Hugh…”

  He tweaked his collar again and allowed a tight smile. “This looks splendid, Penny. What a feast.”

  I made an effort but I barely touched my food. I drank a glass of wine and instantly regretted it as a headache set in. All so familiar, this face-off across the dining room table, this simmering rancour that boiled over into bitter recrimination. Most of the time when at home I avoided my father, studying in my room at the top of the house, coming downstairs when I knew him to be out, or asleep, or in his potting shed, but my family upheld the traditions of mealtimes around the table, when neither of us could avoid one another.

  Mum put her arms around me when we were alone in the steamy kitchen. “I know, darling. I spoke to him before you came home but he won’t listen. I don’t think he can. He’s so worried about your future he can’t see what you’ve already achieved.”

  I rested my head against her shoulder, breathing in her comforting smell of freshly laundered cotton and the scent Dad always bought her for Christmas.

  “I’m doing fine, Mum – better than fine. Guy thinks I’m heading for a First. I already have an idea for my doctoral research, and Guy thinks…”

  Mum raised an eyebrow. “Guy seems to think quite a lot of you, it seems.”

  I reddened and smiled self-consciously. “Dr Hilliard then – he’s helping me put together a proposal. He thinks it stands a good chance of being accepted.”

  “Is that all he’s helping you with, darling?”

  “Mum, honestly! I’m the teenager – I’m the one who should be doing the innuendo, not you. Oh, but really, Guy ha
s been wonderful. Without him I don’t think I would be doing as well as I am. I owe him big time.”

  Deep lines between her eyes puckered as she placed her hands either side of my face, the little calluses where she gripped her tennis racquet tickling my skin. “Darling, he sounds wonderful and you’re old enough not to need me to tell you to be careful, but… be careful, Emma, you know what I’m talking about. His motives might not be as clear-cut as you are making them sound… Emma?”

  My eyes slipped from hers. “Yes, I know, Mum. I am careful – I’m always careful – don’t worry.”

  She pressed her cheek to mine. “I’m so glad you’re doing well; wouldn’t Grandpa be pleased?”

  The door opened behind us, letting in a draft of air as Nanna carried some glasses rattling on a metal tray. “What would Douglas be pleased about, Penny?”

  Mum took the tray from her and I started to wash the glasses. “That Emma is doing so well, Mum. Her supervisor – Guy, didn’t you say his name was?” I pulled a face at her because she knew perfectly well, “… seems to think she’ll get a First. Isn’t that marvellous?”

  Nanna’s eyes twinkled at me from behind her old-fashioned glasses. “Grandpa would be so proud of you, poppet; we all are.”

  “Except Dad,” I couldn’t help grousing, remembering I still had to face him.

  “Even your father. He just has a blind spot – he’ll grow out of it.” We all laughed at the family joke. She paused suddenly. “Guy, did you say? Guy… Guy – the name rings a bell. Oh, this old brain of mine needs a good spring clean. It’s a shame it’s too late and will have to wait for another year. No, I can’t place it. Never mind, it probably wasn’t important anyway. You never know, poppet, perhaps one day you’ll have Grandpa’s old position at Cambridge. Does the post still exist?” I nodded, grinning – Guy held it, but I didn’t think he would want to relinquish it to some upstart like me anytime soon. “Well, I look forward to your graduation ceremony – and if I’m not around for it, my darling, I’ll make sure I come as a ghost and bring Grandpa with me. Dead or alive, I’ll be there.” She laughed her clear, girlish laugh that lit up the whole room with her jollity.