The Dark Clue

by James Wilson

  Some time in the night I was woken by the sound of my door opening. There was a little light left from the fire. The figure of a man crossed before it and then stopped and looked at me. No more than a dim silhouette, but I knew him at once – though to see him there, and at such a time, was as strange as looking in the glass and finding another face where my own should have been.

  ‘Walter?’ I said.

  He did not answer. I thought perhaps I was dreaming, and reached for the box of matches to light the lamp. Immediately he lunged towards me and put his hand over mine.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why?’ I said. ‘Walter, what are you doing?’

  He said nothing, but sat on the bed, with his face turned away from me. After a few moments his shoulders hunched and his neck arched and he started to sob.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  He dropped forward, his head in his hands, crying almost silently.

  ‘What is it?’

  He tried to speak, but could not catch his breath. I stroked his back.

  ‘Tell me!’

  After perhaps half a minute he said:

  ‘Futile.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Life.’

  ‘Your life? My life?’

  ‘Ev-’ he began; and then had to gulp for air, and broke off abruptly.

  There! You’ve given yourself hiccups,’ I said, in the smiling voice I have heard Walter himself use, to cajole his children from tears. But instead of soothing him, I succeeded only in provoking a renewed outburst of sobs.

  ‘It’s not futile,’ I said, hastily changing tack, ‘it’s not!’ – though since I had no idea what ‘it’ was, I felt as foolish as a doctor trying to treat a wound he could not see.

  Walter did not respond at first; but then suddenly turned, and laid his face on my breast.

  As a child must on his mother. A man must on his wife.

  And like a mother and a wife I comforted him. Without reflecting. I held his head against my cheek. I fondled his hair. I whispered: ‘Ssh. There. There.’

  He grew quieter. I thought perhaps he had fallen asleep; but then I was conscious that his arms had tightened about me, and he was starting to caress me, as I have never been caressed.

  Dear God, what did I think? That he was incapable of harming me? That it was normal for a brother to touch his sister so?

  The truth is I did not think anything. I merely obeyed some impulse in me that must have lain slumbering all my life, and now awoke, and told me what to do. I caressed him too, as I have never caressed anyone. There was no beginning to it, and no clear notion in my head of any end. We seemed suspended – as if someone had abstracted us from the world, and set us down in a strange place where we could act without consequences.

  Until Walter began pulling at my covers.

  ‘No,’ I whispered.

  But he did not stop.

  ‘No!’ I said more loudly, trying to push him away.

  But he was too strong for me. In a moment the blankets were gone, and he was tearing at my nightgown.

  ‘Walt-!’ I began; but he drew the nightgown over my eyes and mouth, forcing the word back between my lips, and held it there.

  ‘Do you not love me?’ he whispered.

  I heard his boots clatter to the floor; and then he was struggling to remove his own clothes. But with only one hand he was slow and clumsy, and at length, in his frenzy, he forgot himself for a moment, and uncovered my face.

  All these years I have called him my brother.

  He is not my brother. He is -

  He was staring at me. Staring at what no man has ever seen. But not like a man. His mouth was wet. He was panting. I thought of a cat about to eat.

  I could have cried out again, but what then? The only help at hand was Davidson. How could he intervene between Walter and me?

  I tried to appeal: ‘Walter. Please.’

  He dragged my hair across my face, pressing it down so tightly I could barely breathe.

  I did not try to speak again. I feared he would hurt me.

  I had not known before what the gospels mean by possession. I had thought it perhaps no more than a primitive word for madness.

  But Walter was possessed. A demon had subdued his true nature, and taken control of his faculties and his will. A demon that was not content to destroy innocence and trust and hope, but must enter every cranny, and turn what it found there to evil.

  Not only in Walter, but in myself.

  For was not this the hellish parody of something that – despite myself – I had thought of? Had I not sometimes dreamed about it, even; and for a moment after I’d woken fancied I felt him beside me?

  I had pitied myself for it, and cursed my own folly – but not hated myself, for by bearing it alone I was, in my own small way, heeding our Saviour’s injunction to take up my cross and follow him. As He had died to save the world, so by my own inward death I might keep those I loved from harm.

  But even this consolation was taken from me. For mixed with the horror and the pain – I cannot deny it – there was throb of pleasure too. A mockery – an inversion, like a Black Mass – of the joy I had imagined.

  So it was not enough that Walter should betray me, his wife, his children, himself.

  I must betray them all, too.

  He gave a cry. It was not even his voice, but the desolate yelp of a beast. And then he lay there, so rigid that I thought the demon had fled, leaving him insensible or dead.

  I was weeping too much to speak or shout for help, but at length I found the strength to move, and try to push him from me.

  At once, without a word, he got up, and left the room.

  My sense of time is awry. My sense of everything.

  A moment ago Mrs. D. knocked.

  ‘Pardon me, miss, but we were just wondering …?’

  Wondering what?

  I looked at my clock and saw that it was past eleven.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m not well,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, dear. Can I get you anything, miss?’

  ‘No. Thank you.’

  ‘Shall I call Dr. Hampson?’

  ‘I think I’ll just rest.’

  ‘Very good.’ Footsteps receding, then returning. ‘Did Mr. Hartright say he was going out early, miss?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘Only he didn’t come down to breakfast this morning. And Davidson says he isn’t in his bedroom, or in the studio.’

  I have washed. And washed and washed. But I cannot look at myself in the glass.

  Cannot even pray.

  Later

  It is after four-thirty. Mrs. D. again. Was I sure she could not bring me anything? Yes. Was there anything else? Yes – could they please telegraph my sister, to tell her we have been delayed? Very good.

  A pause. Then: Mr. Hartright has still not returned. Did I think he would be requiring dinner? I could not say.

  I hope not.

  Let him go hungry. Let him know he can never enter this house again. Let him understand that what he did has put him for ever beyond the protection of society, the comfort of home, the love of family, the respect of friends.

  Let him suffer.

  Later still

  Just midnight. He is still not back.

  I feel as if I have just passed two sleepless nights without an intervening day. And now am beginning yet another.

  Each has its own mood. The first: horror. The second: rage. The third:

  What?

  I am standing at the edge of a great ocean, that stretches as far as the eye can see. If I lived for a thousand years, I should not be able to pass to the other side.

  Sadness.

  Is he out there somewhere, cold and wretched and at his wits’ end? Aghast at what he has done, and utterly at a loss to know what he should do now?

  Is he dead, even?

  Six hours ago I should have been happy enough to think so. Six hours ago I should have been glad to kill him myself, had I had the m
eans to do so.

  To know that he had been punished. That I should never have the anguish of seeing him or talking to him again. That my power, in the end, had turned out to be greater than his.

  But now I cannot help remembering him, not as he was last night, but as the Walter I knew before. Or rather, the many Walters – for over the past ten years he has been to me teacher, friend, confidant, colleague and brother. And in every one of those characters I would have trusted him – more completely than any man I have ever met – with my honour and my life.

  What drove him then to act as he did?

  Am I in some part to blame?

  Sunday

  I can scarce hold the pen.

  I have never known such fury or such shame.

  He did not return during the night. At nine o’clock this morning I forced myself down to his studio, thinking he might have let himself in by the garden gate and gone there rather than to the house.

  But he hadn’t. The air was cold and stale. The great murky picture was still on its easel, and looked no more finished than before. When I touched it the paint was not quite dry, but a skin had started to form on the surface.

  It was as I turned away from it that my foot struck something heavy beneath the painting table. I could not tell what it was, for it was hidden behind the old sheet Walter uses as a cover. I bent down and lifted the cloth.

  There, jammed against the leg, was a small locked deed-box.

  I drew it out. It was shiny and unblemished, and so light that at first I thought it was empty. Perhaps Walter had only just bought it, and not had a chance to use it yet. Or removed the contents, and taken them with him.

  But as I set it down again, I heard something slither along the bottom, and knock against the end.

  Not loose papers. Too solid for that.

  A diary?

  I scoured the room for a key. I opened drawers, peered into the chipped jug he uses as a brush-holder, looked under rags. Nothing.

  I carried the box into the house and ordered Davidson to break it open. At first he was reluctant; but when I said, ‘Mr. Hartright’s life may depend on it,’ he immediately went and fetched a poker, and set to with something like enthusiasm – for he is now desperately anxious about Walter, though he is at pains not to show it, and was clearly relieved to feel he might at last do something to help him. When he was done, I took it to my room, and locked the door behind me.

  Inside was nothing but a plain notebook. I opened it at random. The first lines I saw were:

  Others may read a journal. No-one must read this.

  I felt a small bitter shudder of revenge.

  I told myself I should try to be dispassionate, like a doctor examining a patient, with but one end in view: to diagnose the disease that had changed him so dreadfully.

  But I could not do it. I would master myself for a few pages, and then come upon something that suddenly swept away my puny defences, and made me weep and tremble. When I reached his account of what happened after my reticule was stolen, I was sick in the wash-bowl.

  I still cannot bring myself to set down the details of what I read.

  But I think I can now at least partially understand why he acted as he did.

  And I know I must accept some responosibil

  When I had finished I went down again to the studio. I found the scalpel he uses to sharpen pencils, and stood before that vile picture, and slashed it until it was no more than a tangle of stained threads.

  Then I steeled myself, and wrote to Laura:

  Walter is not well.

  Must remain in London for the time being.

  Return as soon as it is safe to do so.

  My poor sister.

  Later

  After an early luncheon (no more than a plate of soup and some bread; but enough to fortify me, and to persuade Mrs. Davidson that I was strong enough to go out) I returned to my room, and put on a mourning dress. My greatest horror was of people brushing against me, for my skin felt so sensitive that I feared even the slightest contact would make me sick. Wearing black, I thought, would protect me, since people shrink instinctively from grief; and if without warning I suddenly started to weep – as I have done often over the last two days – the veil would both account for, and partially conceal, my tears. I waited on the landing until I heard the Davidsons going into the kitchen (for to explain my appearance to them in the present circumstances would have been quite beyond my power) and then crept downstairs and out into the street.

  I had no definite plan: only the certainty that to take action of some kind – however fruitless it might turn out to be – would be preferable to staying passively in my room, with nothing but Walter’s notebook and my own tortured reflections to occupy me. I had thought of walking through the park, and hoping some inspiration would strike me; but as soon as I stepped outside I realized that it was too cold, and too slippery underfoot. I went only as far as the end of the road, therefore (where I knew I should not be visible from the house), and looked about me for a cab.

  But there was not a cab to be seen. Or, rather, there were hundreds to be seen, but none to be had; for they were all taken. I watched them pass in an almost unbroken stream: men going about their business; mothers returning from the shops with presents for their children; servants sent out at the last minute to get a bottle of sherry or some more glasses or another side of beef for tomorrow.

  All that purpose. All those places to go. What should mine be?

  I pondered the question for perhaps a quarter of an hour as I stood there, stamping my feet and rubbing my hands together inside my muff. I had almost given up all hope of finding either a destination or a vehicle to get me there when a hansom drew up on the other side of the street and a woman laden with parcels got out. And all at once I seemed to have the answer.

  I struggled across the road and called to the cabman: ‘Are you free?’

  He nodded. ‘Where to, miss?’

  ‘Fitzroy Square. And then to wherever I tell you.’

  He looked at me curiously for a moment, and then nodded again.

  ‘Long as you got the money,’ he said, with the off-handed assurance of a man who knew he could find another customer more easily than I could find another cab. ‘Get in.’

  I had, of course, no intention of calling on Elizabeth Eastlake. Wherever else Walter was, he would not be with her. And in my present state she would succeed in prising my secrets from me in ten minutes, whereas I had no prospect of learning her secrets at all.

  But 7 Fitzroy Square was where this quest began, and I felt a sudden urge to see it again – to see again all the places to which the search for Turner had taken us. Partly, I think (though I was barely conscious of it) because of a primitive belief in coincidence, which made me suppose I was more likely to find him again where I had seen him before – as a child will seek his dead mother in the rooms and haunts he associates with her in life. But partly also because, after being trapped for so long in the confusion of my own inner world, I felt that seeing the outer world again – the solid, incontrovertible world of stones and bricks, of streets and crowds – would help to clarify my mind, and perhaps offer me a clue to Walter’s own thinking, and to his probable whereabouts now. And I think – I hope – I was right.

  The last few days have made me a stranger to myself. Before, when setting out to revisit some familiar place, I have generally known what response it was likely to evoke in my breast – elation or gloom, relief or regret. Now, though the register of my emotions is pitifully shrunk, I can no longer predict with any certainty which part of it will be touched. I had supposed that seeing 7 Fitzroy Square again would make me anxious, or depressed, or even weaken my resolve, and tempt me to confide in Elizabeth Eastlake after all; but I had not imagined it would make me angry.

  Everything – the imperious windows; the well-swept steps; the wide front door – looked exactly the same, as if it were altogether too grand and self-satisfied even to notice the cataclysm that had st
ruck me in the two weeks since I had seen it last. And I was scandalized by it. I wanted to break the glass – splinter the wood – mar the perfect paintwork.

  But I did not get out. After glowering at it for a few moments, with something like hatred in my heart, I told the driver to take me to Queen Anne Street. Turner’s house was still there, though (unlike the Eastlakes’) it seemed to have borne its share of the world’s suffering. It looked careworn and dilapidated, and the windows were covered with a fine dust, which gave them the dull opacity of a blind man’s eyes. I wondered whether the gallery still stood behind it – the gallery where Calcott and Beaumont and Caro Bibby had once marvelled and debated. I could not help picturing them there; and thinking how those passionate lives, which but forty years ago had burned so hotly, and felt the causes they espoused so fiercely, were already cold and forgotten – as if a man is of no greater moment than a match, that gives a second’s brilliance, and is spent. Somehow, their stories, and Turner’s story, and our story, worked themselves together into a kind of melancholy thread, and I began to follow it, like Theseus – though with no thought or hope of slaying the monster when I reached the end.

  I followed it across the sluggish tide of traffic in Oxford Street; and down New Bond Street, where the brightly lit shops were decked with sprigs of holly and ivy, and seemed to taunt me with their promise of innocence and merriment. I followed it into Piccadilly, where I saw the Marston Rooms, and thought for a moment of the woman Walter had met there, and of how even now she must be dressing, and putting on her musk in preparation for her night’s work; and then down St. James’s and into Pall Mall, and so past Marlborough House, where we had first glimpsed the unimaginable beauty of Turner’s work, and its dreadful power.

  I followed it into Trafalgar Square, where it wound into the National Gallery and the Royal Academy, and became more complex yet – twisting into itself the machinations of Sir Charles, and the furious martyrdom of Ruskin, and the despair of Haste; and so by a natural progression to Haste’s house in Cawley Street, where I stopped the cab. The lower windows were all boarded up, and it struck me with a jolt (the force of my own feelings again took me by surprise; for the thought of it made me cry) that Haste’s son must have finally lost his long battle against the bailiffs. But then I glanced up, and saw a defiant glimmer from the attic casement, and felt suddenly quite unreasonably cheered.