(2011) What Lies Beneath

by Sarah Rayne

  But it had not.

  The instant Jan entered St Anselm’s its atmosphere fell about him like a leaden cloak and he had the strong feeling that for all its centuries of worship, there had been deep unhappiness here. A darkness, he thought, that’s what I’m sensing. A deep, lonely, despair.

  The church was small, as he had expected, and very decayed. Parts of the roof had gone, but the thick stone walls were still standing and everywhere was cool and dim. The scents of damp and of dank plaster, and what Amy had called the tainted smell were very strong.

  Rotting vegetation thrust up between the cracked stone floor, and some of the marble statues had fallen from their plinths and lay splintered in the aisle and apse. But the pews were still there, as if waiting for the worshippers who had once sat and kneeled in them, and the altar stood against tall windows, which were the traditional three-fold structure. Two of the windows were broken, and shards of glass clung to the framework, glistening like tiny icicles, but the central window was still in place.

  Amy went forward to examine the altar, stepping warily through the debris, and Jan was walking towards a low archway to see what lay beyond it, when she called to him.

  ‘Jan – look at this.’

  ‘What have you found?’

  ‘I don’t know if it’s of any interest, but come and see.’ She was standing directly beneath the left altar window. Shards of glass lay everywhere, some of them quite large sections, still partly encased in thin lead strips. ‘Look.’ She pointed to a nearly oblong piece. The colours were faded almost to monochrome, but the picture was clear: a female figure in flowing draperies, seated at some kind of musical instrument.

  ‘St Cecilia, almost certainly,’ said Jan, studying it. ‘Patron saint of music.’

  ‘But look at the scroll thing over her head,’ said Amy. ‘It’s musical notation, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it is.’ Jan went closer, heedless of the fact that the hem of his coat was trailing in the mud and dirt. ‘Have you got a tissue or a handkerchief or something? Thanks.’ He took the tissue and with infinite delicacy propped the piece of glass against the wall, then began to wipe the surface clean.

  Amy offered him the rest of the tissue pack. ‘Can you read the music?’

  ‘Just about.’ He peered closer. ‘It’s only very brief, and it could be anything, of course—’

  ‘But it could be Ambrosian?’ said Amy, hopefully.

  He smiled at her. ‘I’d have to compare it with known notation, but it might be from the Sanctus melodies.’

  ‘That’s good, is it?’

  He smiled again, and went on studying the glass. ‘The chants of the Mass are divided into the Ordinary – fixed points in the service, which don’t change, and of which the Sanctus is a part – and the Proper where the texts change depending on the feast.’ He delved in his pocket for a notebook, and began to copy the notes. ‘It’s a very simple, but very beautiful chant,’ he said. ‘And if I could match this with the Sanctus notation it could be definite proof of St Anselm’s musical past. Can you get a couple of really clear shots of this?’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Jan straightened up, pocketing the notebook. ‘What a tragedy that this church was left to rot. The carvings are beautiful and the stained glass must have been exquisite.’

  He returned to his exploration. Amy watched him for a moment, then concentrated on photographing the glass. She was pleased she had found it; Jan’s eyes had glowed with fervour.

  She finished photographing the glass, then took several of the altar.

  ‘What you are doing?’ said Jan, turning round as Amy clambered over the pews. ‘Be careful – you could easily turn your ankle on those stones.’

  ‘There’s something shiny in that corner,’ said Amy. ‘Half under that window – there was a sort of glint when I took that last photo.’

  ‘If it’s the amber stuff again, don’t touch it.’

  ‘It’s not the amber stuff.’ She negotiated the pews with care. ‘Good job I’m wearing rubber soles. Damn, I can’t reach it. I probably shouldn’t say damn in a church.’

  ‘There’s only the spooks to hear you.’

  ‘I’ll bet they’ve cursed a bit in their time. OK, I’ve got it.’ She held up a small oblong plaque.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s filthy,’ said Amy, screwing up her face in disgust. ‘Wait a bit, I’ll find another tissue. It’s crusted with disgusting mould, but there was that sheen of something in the camera flash. I thought it might be brass or even silver.’

  She bent over, cleaning the oblong industriously, then gave a soft hoot of satisfaction. ‘Brilliant, it’s inscribed. I thought it looked as if it was.’

  ‘What does it say?’

  ‘I think it’s brass, like you see on church pews or pulpits. It says: “Donated by the Cadence family, 1920. ‘I have learned to look on the still, sad music of humanity.’ ” Wow.’ She scrambled back over the pews to show him. ‘The Cadences are the family who used to live at the manor,’ she said. ‘They were some kind of merchant bankers, I think, or one of those ultra-posh private banks for the super-rich. I only know about them because of helping at the library,’ she added, in case Jan thought she had any sympathies with plutocracy. She reached out to trace the engraved words with a fingertip. ‘I suppose it could have come off one of the pews, but I wonder why 1920 was significant? To commemorate someone who died in the First World War?’

  ‘They’d have named him in that case,’ said Jan.

  ‘True. D’you mind if I have a look to see if there’re any more of these? If so, I might liberate one for the library’s exhibition. I’ll leave this one where it is, though.’

  She went back to the altar. The Cadence family were all long since dead, including the man with dark hair and sexy eyes in the photo dated Christmas 1910. It would be interesting to know who he was, though. The line about ‘the still, sad music of humanity’ was disturbing. It suggested some kind of lesson learned or some deep tragedy. Amy would look it up at the library.

  Jan’s voice broke into this. ‘Amy, it’s half-past one. Are you hungry? How about I buy you lunch at the Red Lion as a thank you for helping me?’

  ‘That’s the kind of thanks I like,’ said Amy. ‘OK, we’ll leave the spooks to themselves.’

  Chapter 17

  London, 1912

  Serena had relived the night when Julius attacked her over and over again. The dreadful thing was that it was not Julius’s madness or his brutality she kept remembering: it was the way he had crouched sobbing in a corner of the room afterwards.

  She sought for an emotion that would drive this memory out and that would also drive out the fear of the approaching birth, and after a while was aware of resentment – not towards Julius, but towards the child. She tried to quench this shameful emotion, but it stayed on her mind like a bruise. Julius might be dead by the time the child was born, but Serena knew that every time she looked at his son or daughter the painful memory of its father would taunt her. She did not think she could ever love this child. She did not think she could even like it.

  Each morning she had violent spasms of sickness, so severe her insides felt as if they were being wrenched out. Her ankles and wrists swelled painfully and so grotesquely that in places her skin cracked and split. Serena hated this almost more than the sickness. She took to wearing loose teagowns with long, wide sleeves and trailing hems. The gowns were mostly sent from Bond Street and Knightsbridge stores; Harrods and Debenham and Freebody were always so obliging. The dresses covered the swellings and sores quite well but, to make sure no one caught sight of them by accident, Serena told Dora and Hetty to keep all the curtains three-quarters closed. Yes, she said snappishly, she did mean all day long – she had a constant headache and the light hurt her eyes. She left her own rooms less and less. Dora and Hetty were young and spry, and quite able to scamper up and down the stairs with trays.

  Guests to the house we
re discouraged, except for Dr Martlet, although when he suggested performing another of the embarrassing intimate examinations – ‘to make sure the child is in the proper position’ – Serena discouraged him. She hated that kind of examination, with its fearsome instruments, but she was more afraid of what he would say if he saw the rash and the sores under her flowing gowns. So she said she was not feeling quite up to an examination today. They would consider it on his next visit.

  Crispian had written to her twice, and Dr Martlet said he had had an untidy scribble from Gil. Julius had not written, but Serena had not expected that because Julius seldom wrote to anybody. Crispian’s second letter was sent from Nice, although he said by the time it reached England they would probably be halfway round Italy. They were all very well and hoped to see a little of Nice while they were here. They had all suffered brief bouts of seasickness but Gil Martlet said cold champagne was helpful so they were taking a few bottles of Veuve Clicquot on board.

  After reading this Serena told Mrs Flagg to serve a glass of chilled champagne at dinner each evening. It did not, in the event, help her own sickness a great deal, but she enjoyed drinking it so much she took to drinking a glass with her lunch as well. And since one glass made her feel better able to face what was ahead, she increased it to two glasses with lunch and three with dinner.

  Dora and Hetty said having the curtains closed all day made the housework a fair trial. You could not see a hand in front of your face. Hetty had left a broom on the stairs the other day while answering the door to Dr Martlet, and Mr Flagg had missed seeing it and tumbled over it. His language had been shocking and Mrs Flagg had to rub his shoulder with arnica, which stank out the kitchen for an entire day.

  Dora said it was becoming a nightmare to wait on the mistress, what with her trailing silks and chiffons. Dora was partial to a bit of silk, but not when the hems were dragged over the floor like a weeping willow, making a deal of washing and ironing because the mistress could not be doing with anything grubby.

  ‘And silk scarves round her neck,’ said Dora, over a midday dinner of Mrs Flagg’s roast mutton.

  ‘Ladies in the desert fold scarves over their faces,’ said Hetty. ‘I read about it in a novel. P’raps she’s trying to start a new fashion.’

  ‘Some hopes of that with madam never setting foot out of doors,’ said Mrs Flagg, passing the potatoes to Flagg, because people had to eat, even if the mistress had taken to a diet of champagne, nasty windy French muck.

  Dora, who liked to live in an atmosphere of friendliness, asked Mr Flagg to tell about the journey the master and Mr Crispian were on. Where would they be about now? Mr Flagg had a book of maps that showed where other countries were with little coloured pictures; Dora thought it was ever so interesting although you couldn’t pronounce half the names.

  ‘No, nor want to,’ said Mrs Flagg, who could not be doing with Abroad ever since she and Flagg had taken a day trip to Ostend and she had been sick on the ferry crossing.

  Flagg was pleased to be appealed to and he looked out the atlas there and then, spreading it on the table so as to trace the route for the two girls.

  ‘All those places,’ said Dora, as she and Hetty pored over the map of Italy and the Adriatic Sea. ‘Romantic, I call it.’

  ‘I don’t know about it being romantic, it’ll be a long time before they get home,’ said Mrs Flagg, setting down a rhubarb tart and reaching for the pudding dishes, while Flagg removed the atlas in case somebody spilled custard on it.

  Dr Martlet called most days, generally just after lunch, which Serena considered a very suitable time. He could be offered coffee, which Flagg generally brought upstairs, and then poured out. Today, however, it was Flagg’s half-day and it was Hetty who carried in the tray and set it down. Serena did not trust Hetty to pour coffee, so she dismissed her and poured it out herself.

  It was unfortunate that as she handed Dr Martlet the cup, the long sleeve of her gown fell back, showing her forearm. The rash was particularly bad that day, crusted and bleeding, and although Serena pulled the sleeve down at once Dr Martlet had seen it.

  He stared at her arm and, in a voice of unmistakable horror, said, ‘Lady Cadence, how long have you had those sores?’

  ‘Not very long. A few weeks. My wrists and ankles tend to swell – I told you that.’

  ‘Yes, but . . . May I look at your arm more closely?’

  He did not touch her at all, but he looked carefully at the sores and asked if there were any others. ‘On your body? Between your legs?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Serena quickly. ‘This is only where the skin has cracked and become dry from the swelling. That’s all it is,’ she said, a bit desperately. ‘I usually put hand lotion on, but I forgot it this morning.’

  ‘Don’t put lotion of any kind on,’ he said. ‘It won’t help and it might make it worse.’ He sat back, looking at her, and incredibly there were tears in his eyes. ‘Oh, my dear Serena,’ he said. ‘I’ve prayed this wouldn’t happen.’

  He had always addressed her as Lady Cadence before, but now, it was as if a mask, diligently kept in place all these years, had slipped. Serena was not offended because of his evident distress and concern. She said, ‘But they’re just patches of dry skin, aren’t they?’ Fool, she was saying to herself. You know what it is; you knew almost from the first appearance of the marks.

  Dr Martlet sat very still for a moment, then he said, ‘I’m afraid it’s something far more serious than that.’

  Serena heard herself say, ‘I’ve got the same disease as Julius, haven’t I?’

  She willed him to say of course she had not; that it was just dry skin, or some condition resulting from the pregnancy. She was even hearing the comforting words in her mind.

  Gillespie Martlet said, ‘Yes, I’m afraid you have.’

  Serena sat very still for several minutes. Then she said, ‘Once, you told me that the disease my husband has can eventually affect the brain. Will that happen to me?’

  ‘In your husband’s case,’ he said, ‘the disease went untreated for far too long. He hid it from us all. For years, perhaps. In your case, though, we know about it early enough to try a number of treatments.’

  ‘How effective are the treatments, though?’

  ‘Some can be very good,’ he said, but Serena heard the note of evasion.

  She said, ‘But if they aren’t effective – it could encroach on my brain?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, it could.’

  1912

  Before they left England, Dr Martlet had told Crispian the syphilis was encroaching on Julius Cadence’s brain. ‘I’ve been measuring the progress of it as far as one can measure such a thing,’ he said, ‘and it seems to me that there’s been quite a rapid deterioration in the last three months. It’s by no means a constant process, though, so it might slow down.’

  ‘But not reverse?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ said Martlet. ‘Crispian, you need to know that now it’s reached this stage – now the disease has a firmer hold of him – there will probably be episodes of violence and also extreme personality changes. Those episodes will become more pronounced and more frequent. And – I’m sorry, Crispian – but in the end you may find that not only does he not know you, you won’t know him. He’ll turn into a stranger.’

  But as the ship left Italy and began the long haul around the coast of Greece, Julius seemed almost normal. They docked briefly at Patras, where Jamie went ashore to explore the ancient cathedrals and pursue the tradition of Byzantine music in the city. Crispian went with him, interested to see something of the place, leaving Julius with the ship’s doctor, who did not want to come, on the grounds that once you had seen one port you had seen most of them. He would spend his afternoon quietly on the ship, Dr Brank said, although he would be very grateful if one of them could bring back a bottle of the local wine. Perhaps a couple of bottles, in fact, or maybe best make it the round half-dozen while they were about it. He was by way of making a collection of
wines of the world.

  ‘It’d be ungenerous to refuse that request,’ said Gil, and accompanied Crispian and Jamie for the first half-hour of the exploration, then proceeded to vanish.

  By half-past four, Jamie and Crispian, meeting by arrangement in one of Patras’ squares, began to worry that something had happened to him. They set off to scour the city, finally running him to earth in a dim subterranean room where he was involved in a card game with six sinister-looking men of uncertain nationality and dubious probity.

  Told they might miss the ship’s departure, he said, ‘Balls, dear boy. The ship would never sail without its wealthiest passengers.’

  Pressed for an account of his activities, he said he had gone into the wine shop in quest of the doctor’s wine, had there been recognized as English, considered as a result to be lavishly rich and forcibly enlisted in the game that was in progress below the shop. Crispian and Jamie knew how it was with card games, he said; once you started playing, time ceased to exist.

  ‘But it’s been nearly five hours,’ said Crispian, furious.

  ‘That proves my point.’

  He was unrepentant and amiable, and on the way back to the ship counted his winnings with satisfaction. After this, he listened with apparent interest to Jamie’s description of how he had managed to find a conservatoire devoted exclusively to Byzantine music and had been able to hear a little of one of the classes.

  Crispian, who for the last couple of weeks had been deciding that Gil was not nearly as wild as gossip painted him, realized angrily he had been wrong. Gil was every bit as wild, and he was untrustworthy and reckless as well. Those strange and disturbing moments of closeness – intimacy, if you wanted to call it that – that had passed between them could be ascribed to nothing more than Gil’s mischievous streak. Crispian would put them very firmly from his mind and he would certainly not allow them to happen again.

  They were several days out into the Aegean Sea when the last shreds of sanity fell away from Julius Cadence.