The Fallen Architect

by Charles Belfoure

  Like the woman on the road, many Britons were outraged when Layton received only five years’ hard labor. A man stealing sixpence from a tobacconist shop got put away for five years too. The papers howled for weeks. It was because Layton was a gentleman with friends in high places, they claimed. He should have been hanged.

  But they didn’t understand. The punishment wasn’t just five years. It was daily torment for the rest of Layton’s life. A day didn’t pass when thoughts of the Britannia didn’t crush him to earth, like a huge boulder dropping out of the sky. Visions of the two dead children were an especial torment; again and again, he saw their smashed bodies being carried out of the theatre. He agreed with the woman on the road. If only they had hanged him!

  The day before his transfer from London to Mulcaster, Layton had tried to kill himself. In his cell, he cut strips of cloth from the underside of his musty mattress and formed them into a noose. Only the thought of his wife, Edwina, and his son, Ronald, stayed his hand. When they vanished from his life after only six months, the thoughts of suicide returned. But each time Layton was on the verge of carrying it out, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. As far-fetched as it seemed, he believed it was still possible to hold his son in his arms again. Losing his wife, whom he loved with all his heart, was a terrible blow, but the loss of Ronald was almost as crushing as the guilt over the disaster. He thought of him constantly, but the one unforgettable memory of his son was seeing him run through a field of red poppies one summer at their home in Surrey. Barely taller than the flowers, Ronald crashed through them with joy. Layton ran that one image through his mind thousands of times in prison. It never failed to bring a smile to his face, maybe the only time he did manage a smile in Mulcaster. He knew he was probably fooling himself about seeing his son again, but that was what they called hope, and it had prevented him from killing himself at least half a dozen times. Hope was what kept a man alive in life, and especially in prison. When his prison term drew to a close, Layton thought of committing suicide upon release. He had no family, friends, or profession. A dark, terrifying void awaited him. Why go on? But again, the thought of seeing Ronald kept him going, irrational as it seemed.

  Layton walked slowly along the gravel road, looking at the farm fields that ran along both sides toward the horizon. He reached into his jacket pocket and took out the corn muffin he had smuggled out from his last prison breakfast this morning. Climbing over a low rubble wall, Layton found a place to sit under an elm tree. It was a sheer delight to sit on the grass and savor the muffin, chewing slowly, holding the flavorful crumbs on the tongue. After being in prison, the simplest of pleasures were wonderful. More than that, it was the feeling of being in an open field all by himself. There was no such thing as privacy in prison. One was constantly surrounded and watched by others, stuck in a six-by-eight-foot cell with another human.

  Finishing the muffin, Layton lay flat on his back and gazed up into the bright-blue morning sky. A few wispy clouds drifted by. He closed his eyes, took long, deep breaths, and exhaled slowly. When some twenty minutes had passed, Layton rose, made his way back to the road, and started walking west. Except for a passing farmworker with a rake on his shoulder, he had the road to himself. At an intersection of the road was a weathered sign that read WRAGBY—5 MILES. This town may have a railway station, he thought.

  Only when he heard a faint sound in the distance did his head lift up. The murmuring roar was like the growling of an animal. It increased in volume; curiosity won out, and he turned.

  On the horizon line in the middle of the road, a small, squat object was coming toward him. Layton stood, mesmerized. At about two hundred yards, he recognized the source of the noise and smiled. It was a horseless carriage. In 1900, when he’d been sent to prison, they had still been extremely rare, more likely to be seen in France or Germany than in England. Although he’d seen pictures, he had never encountered one in person or known anybody who owned one. Not even his rich clients had such a thing. Besides terrifying horses, they were said to be very unreliable. Often, in an ironic twist, horses had to tow a broken-down horseless carriage to a mechanic.

  But now, standing at the side of the road, he could see the oncoming vehicle roaring along without trouble, its engine humming steadily. Layton loved anything mechanical, and the machine hurtling down the road fascinated him. It was bright red; its thick rubber wheels had matching red spokes and no top. The driver wore goggles and a long, tan coat and was holding on to the thick wooden wheel with gloved hands. At the front of the carriage were two shiny brass headlights; a sculpted metal ornament was situated atop the engine.

  As the machine drove past, the driver twisted his head at Layton and slowed to a stop.

  Layton trotted over.

  “Hello there. Need a lift, old chap?” the man shouted over the roar of the engine.

  Layton nodded.

  The driver opened the side door.

  “Jolly good of you to stop,” shouted Layton.

  “Glad to help,” said the driver, his eyes fixed on the road.

  “This is quite a machine,” Layton shouted as they took off.

  “It’s a Darracq Flying Fifteen from France. Runs like a top.”

  The feeling of the rushing wind exhilarated Layton. They must have been traveling at least thirty miles an hour! The countryside flew by in a blur; he felt an unfamiliar smile crease his face.

  “Motoring’s my passion, but you have to watch out these days. Constables are setting speed traps, fining you a quid for going too fast.” The driver snorted. “Can you believe that nonsense?”

  “It’s bloody amazing. These things will put the horses out to pasture,” Layton yelled over the roar of the engine.

  “I hope so. Be far less shit and piss on the roads!”

  “Any English cars?”

  “I hear a fellow named Rolls is coming out with one.”

  “We live in remarkable times,” said Layton, touching the metalwork of the vehicle.

  “Yes. Soon, we’ll be flying these things in the air.” The driver saw Layton’s look of disbelief and laughed. “’S true! Two American brothers have created a glider with an engine! It can stay up in the air for a good long time. Before you know it, we’ll all be flying about like birds.”

  In prison, Layton had been entirely cut off from the world. Such isolation was part of his punishment; it was as if he’d lived on one of Jupiter’s moons. Martians, like those in H. G. Wells’s War of the Worlds, could have conquered Earth, and he’d have been the last to know. To think, flying machines had been invented! What else had he missed?

  “So you’ve never heard of the Wright brothers?” the man asked.

  “No,” Layton said and hesitated. “I’ve been away for a bit.”

  The driver glanced over at him. Even with his clothes hidden beneath his motoring outfit, Layton could tell he was an English gentleman, born and bred. He would be far too polite to ask another gentleman why he was out walking on the road.

  “How far are you going?” he asked instead.

  “Wragby.”

  “I turn off about a mile before.”

  “That’s fine. So good of you to give me a lift.”

  “Please,” the driver said. “Think nothing of it.”

  4

  As Layton walked the short distance to Wragby, he fumbled about inside his trouser pockets. Among the coins, he felt a house key. A deep sense of gloom descended upon him as he stared at it.

  The key to his house. His beloved house, designed so lovingly for his family. Every square inch calibrated to his personal satisfaction.

  The wonderful thing about an architect designing his own home was that he didn’t have to answer to anyone. Usually, he had to get the client’s approval for every aspect of his design. Was this window style all right? Was the shape of the roof to their liking? They were paying for it, after all; they had the ri
ght. But when he built his own house, the architect had only to please himself. Every idea could be tried. The smallest detail could be included. No one could order him about. And his house in West Surrey had been the house of his dreams.

  Layton remembered the wonderful day it was finished, standing before it with Edwina and Ronald. The rooms were spacious; the ceilings, high. The windows looked out onto a gorgeous garden designed by Daphne Scott-Thomas, the greatest gardener in England. Layton had enjoyed his home for only two years, but they had been wonderful, especially the Christmas celebrations with his boy. And Edwina’s garden parties were some of the most popular society events of the summer season. In 1899, Country Life Illustrated even wrote a long article about one of them, including many photos of the house, which led to some new commissions. Layton never tired of compliments on his design, especially from fellow architects; that praise meant the most to him. He had even won an award from the Royal Institute of British Architects. The framed and engraved certificate was no doubt moldering away now in some Surrey trash heap.

  In his tiny shared cell in Mulcaster, Layton used to close his eyes and transport himself to the house. In his mind, he walked through its great rooms and garden. He experienced every square foot—the stonework, the paneling, the oak plank floors, the high ceilings. It helped keep his sanity intact during those long five years.

  Now the house belonged to someone else. Convicted felons in England gave up their right to property. When the house became part of the divorce settlement with Edwina, there was nothing he could do. Layton’s only satisfaction was that the money from the sale would eventually go to Ronald. His son had loved the house, especially when running through its wide, long halls, dragging a length of string that his orange-striped cat, Leo, chased after. He hoped that when Edwina left with the boy, she took Leo with them. It always gave Layton a warm feeling at night to see the cat snuggled in the covers, asleep with Ronald.

  To his right, a stream paralleled the road before meandering off into the fields. Layton walked down the bank to its edge. He looked at the brass key once more, then threw it into the slow-flowing stream with a flick of his wrist. It made a faint kerplunk sound when it hit the surface. For a moment, Layton stared at the spot where it had sunk. Then he continued on his way.

  About fifteen minutes later, the spires of a square, neo-Gothic church tower appeared over the tops of the trees in the distance. He was almost to Wragby. All market towns in the English countryside had at least one church, which towered over the small cluster of buildings below.

  Taking shelter behind a huge tree some ten yards off the road, Layton began an accounting of his capital. Damned lucky, he thought, that he’d forgotten to empty his pockets before he entered prison. The fifty-eight pounds and five shillings made up every last cent he had in the world. This, for a man who’d earned at least five thousand per annum for the past six years. It was what an underbutler on a country estate would make in a year. He knew it would not last long.

  Pocketing the cash, Layton walked back to the road. There were more people out now. He saw a couple driving a horse cart, a man on a bicycle. Once in town, he leisurely strolled past the shops, then stood in the doorway of a butcher and watched with great curiosity as the villagers passed by. He hadn’t seen ordinary people in five years. A man in brown tweeds and a derby, a woman in a green dress with a scarlet shawl, an old man doddering along on a cane—each had a story, a life full of complications, happiness, and disappointment. What had their lives been like during the time he was in prison? Layton wondered. His jaw tightened. No matter how terrible their sadness and suffering, they had had their freedom. They could come and go as they pleased.

  From the right, two young girls came skipping across the road. Of perhaps ten or twelve years in age, they were laughing and chattering away. One had shoulder-length chestnut hair; the other was blond, her locks tied with red ribbons. The second Layton laid eyes on them, his mind snapped like a light switch to the night of the disaster. He saw anew the limp body of a young girl being carried out of the theatre, her long hair hanging over the edge of the canvas stretcher. Perhaps the daughter of the woman outside the prison. A sick feeling swept over Layton; he clasped the corner of the storefront till his knuckles went white. Behind the stone walls of Mulcaster Prison, he had been cut off from the real world. Though the disaster haunted him, there were no sudden jolting reminders of the death he had caused. He turned his head as the girls passed, hoping it would lessen the pain. It didn’t.

  Layton sat on a bench outside the shop, breathing heavily, his head bent to the stone sidewalk. Directly across the road was a pub called the Yellow Dog, and he made his way to it. It was a Saturday afternoon, and the village pub was crowded with people laughing, joking, and enjoying themselves. When he’d entered the pub, he’d feared everyone would recognize him, that a hush would descend upon the rowdy room. But not a single person noticed. He took his pint to the farthest corner anyway, claiming a small table well out of view. At any moment, he felt, someone’s eyes might lock on him, a flicker of recognition might spark. He could hear the whispers now: “Blimey, isn’t that Layton, the Butcher of the West End?” People would stare in disbelief, then attack him with fists and bottles.

  But somehow, after four hours in the pub, nothing happened. The stout tasted wonderful. Layton ordered pint after pint, prompting the barmaid, who had seen her share of drinking, to comment that he was making the Guinness family even richer today. In prison, he’d forgotten a chief attribute of alcohol: it dulled the mind, made you forget your troubles and feel happy. There were times in Mulcaster when he’d wished he could tear off the top of his skull, reach in with his hands, and rip out the horrible memories. Now, thankfully, he had alcohol to rid him of the torment.

  Layton kept drinking and drinking. Each swallow made it easier to forget. At closing time, the publican shoved his near-unconscious body into the street. Totally plastered, he staggered through the streets until he found the railway station, then passed out in a doorway of a grocer directly across the road. He didn’t know that a man who had followed him from the pub was standing over him. The burly man backed away, then took a running start and swung his black, hobnailed boot into Layton’s stomach.

  5

  When the dawn came, Layton stirred and opened his eyes, which felt as if they had been glued shut. The first thing he saw was a blurry image of the Wragby railroad station across the street. People were milling about, meaning it was now open. As he rose to his feet, he felt an excruciating pain in his midsection, which caused him to plop back down to the pavement. Taking hold of the doorframe in the entry to the grocer’s, he pulled himself up, groaning in pain.

  Layton dragged his body into the station and purchased a ticket on the next southbound train. Out of sheer habit, he paid for a first-class seat, though third class would have been one-quarter the price. Fifteen minutes passed, which he spent stooped over on a wrought iron bench, suffering from a pounding headache and blurred vision in addition to the terrible pain in his torso, before the train rumbled up to the platform. Compared to his living accommodations for the last five years, his plush, scarlet upholstered seat in the first-class compartment felt cozy and quite luxurious. Watching the lush green countryside blur by the window soothed him and cleared the cobwebs from his head.

  At Mulcaster, his cell had only a two-foot-square window that looked out over a rock-strewn dirt lot. Layton and hundreds of other inmates were sent there each day to crush stone with sledgehammers. In all his time in prison, he never laid eyes on anything verdant. Now, stone cottages, pastures full of cattle, groves of trees, and fields of rye and barley flew by. After about ten minutes, Layton turned from the window to his fellow passengers. One, a corpulent man in his fifties in a black suit who was already seated in the compartment when he boarded, was staring at him. His puzzled look said all too clearly, “Where have I seen this fellow before? The army? The club?” When he saw that Lay
ton had caught him staring, he averted his eyes and pretended to read the Strand Magazine on his lap. But his eyes kept flitting up, and he was clearly racking his brain, trying to remember. Layton squirmed in his seat, realizing that every stranger he encountered now was a potential enemy who could identify him. When the conductor came to check tickets, the man began staring again. Unable to bear such intense scrutiny, Layton rose, walked out of the compartment, and found an empty one. His head leaning against the window and the rails rumbling beneath his feet, he considered his options.

  Rather, it seemed as if he had only one option. He had no choice but to take on a new identity and try to start life anew. Layton smiled to himself at that thought. A false identity did not trouble him, because he’d been living under a false identity for twenty years; he was as much an English gentleman as the hogs on the farms that the train was passing. I am a fraud, he thought. A charlatan who skillfully hid my common-as-dirt, working-class origins.

  The instant a child in England was brought into the world, he was placed on a rung of a tall, invisible social ladder. And there he stayed for the rest of his life. Layton’s rung was located in the village of Puddletown in Dorset, a lush farming country overlooking the English Channel. More specifically, on Cherry Lane, in a thatched-roof cottage of local stone built by his father, Thomas Layton. His late mother, Fanny, was the eldest daughter of a shoemaker in Charminster, a village to the west.

  While Layton’s rung was solidly on the working-class—and thus lower—half of the ladder, in England, each caste had its distinct parts. Sharp and often cruel divisions existed between those who worked for themselves and those who worked for others. Thomas Layton was a master mason with his own business, albeit a small one, that employed others. He thus enjoyed superior rank. Enhancing his position further was the fact that he was a landholder; he owned a cottage and outbuildings on two acres.