“It is late and I am tired.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Get out.”
“Elizabeth…”
“Get out,” she screamed and wheeled round at me, her face ablaze, picking up the blue bowl from the mantelpiece. That bowl, the one she had used to humiliate me, to put me in my place. It served its purpose again, as it crashed into the wall behind me and shattered into a hundred pieces. She was terrifying. I was terrified. Then the fury drained from her face and she became calm again. It was as though I wasn’t there, as if she was talking to herself. Perhaps it was the drug that was causing this whole thing. Maybe I had come under the influence of it as well, and this was all some nightmare.
“I must try and sleep tonight. I hope I can.” Then she started talking in French, and I understood not one word of what she was saying. Eventually I realised she had completely forgotten about me; didn’t even realise I was there. I slipped out of the room and out of the house. I was shaking.
CHAPTER 18
By the morning I felt terrible, and had convinced myself I was completely to blame. She was a widow, still in shock. I had tried to take advantage of her. I had wanted to, in any case. The drugs repelled me; I knew they existed, of course; you couldn’t be a crime reporter without coming across them, but to see a woman like her so reduced was a terrible thing. It made her all the more fascinating as well.
I was more obsessed than ever. Failure is more beguiling than success; all I could think of was what might have happened, and I relived the scene in my mind again and again, each time with a different outcome. I thought of it so much, and so intently, that I half-felt I was going mad as I tossed and turned on my uncomfortable bed, hoping desperately that sleep would come and relieve me. Eventually, I got up; it was still only half past five in the morning, and there was no one else up in the house. I tiptoed out—the last thing I wanted was to come across anyone else and have to talk—and walked out. I drank some tea at a stall in the King’s Road, there to serve the deliverymen on their rounds, but could not face the idea of eating anything.
At half past seven I was in St. James’s Square, far too early to knock on the door, but with nothing else to do. I was determined to return and talk. But I had to wait; I walked round in circles, sometimes fast, sometimes dawdling. A passing policeman looked at me carefully. I went into St. James’s Piccadilly, but the air of holiness had no effect on me at all. I looked into the shopwindows, sat in Piccadilly Circus, watching people pass by as they hurried to work. It was raining slightly and I was getting wet, but I didn’t notice; I was only aware that I was damp and cold, but it might have been happening to someone else.
And eventually I decided that the time had come, and that I could properly knock on the door. It was twenty past eight.
“Good heavens, sir, whatever has happened? Has there been an accident?” It was one of the maids, a cheerful, plump girl with a country accent, who let me in. The sort who, in another life, I might have taken a shine to.
“No. Why do you ask?”
As I took off my coat, I turned slightly and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and knew precisely why she asked. I looked terrible. I had not shaved, my clothes were rumpled, my shirt collar dirty. I had bags under my eyes from exhaustion and there was an unhealthy grey pallor to my skin. I looked very much as if I’d been in an accident.
I panicked. I couldn’t possibly put my carefully thought-out conversation into action looking like that. I wanted to seem calm, reasonable. Man of the world. And I looked like a tramp. That was why the policeman had been looking at me in such a professional way. “I think I’d better leave…”
“Her Ladyship asked me to take you to the sitting room when you arrived,” said the maid. “She said you were expected. Can you find your own way?”
I was being anticipated and out-thought at every step. So I was that predictable? She must have given that order before she even went to bed, so easy it was to read my mind. I felt a sudden surge of anger, but I did as I was told. I was perfectly free to leave. I could easily have said that I had changed my mind and walked out. I could easily have acted outside her plan and surprised her, regained the initiative by showing I was not so simple. But I desperately wanted to see her. I had absolutely to see her, otherwise I thought I might collapse. Certainly all the time in between would be merely wasted, an interval before I was again in the same room with her. It was the only thing that mattered.
So up I went and was brought coffee on a silver tray, with cream and sugar. And some toast, which I ate. The fire was lit and I dried myself. I tided up my clothes as best I could. Only the stubble on my chin reminded me of what I must look like.
Certainly Elizabeth did not when she came in. She shut the door, came over with her arms open and a smile on her face, and kissed me on the cheek.
“How wonderful to see you, Matthew. I am so glad you came.”
Wrong-footed again. I had anticipated the capricious cruelty of the night before; had considered the possibility of coldness and distance. Even an apologetic embarrassment. I had hoped that she too had had no sleep. I did not imagine that she would act like a society lady welcoming a friend. All my preparations, my pre-formed speeches collapsed uselessly.
“Your Ladyship,” I said stiffly. She looked at me with an affected air of pique and distress. She was entirely herself again. With the passing of the drug from her bloodstream, she was once again vivacious, lively, entirely in control of herself and the situation. She also looked as if she had slept well. Apparently that is one of the benefits of morphine, if it is taken carefully.
“Come and sit by me while you finish your breakfast. Are you well? You look a little haggard,” she added.
I sat in the armchair, feeling myself to be behaving rudely as I did so. She was pushing me into revealing myself as petulant and immature. I didn’t like that.
“You’re upset,” she said, this time seriously and gently. “I suppose you must be.”
I remained silent.
“Will you forgive me? I know I behaved appallingly. Please believe me when I say that I intended no hurt. You are the very last person in the world I would wish to upset.”
“I suppose you are going to say you don’t know what came over you. That is was all the fault of the… of the drugs,” I said stiffly.
“No. I wasn’t going to say that at all,” she said sadly. She did not look at me. I could not have stood that. It was too crude a weapon for her to use, however effective it would have been.
“I had hoped you would have understood,” she said when it became clear I was not going to say anything at all. “But you don’t.”
“No.”
Now she did look at me, but not in the way she had done the night before. This time her gaze seemed wholly innocent and regretful. Still I did not dare meet it.
“You poor young man,” she continued. “Does it sound condescending if I say that?”
“Of course it does.”
“It isn’t. It is merely the truth. Shall I speak plainly, then? In an unladylike way? Shock you some more with the way I talk of subjects which you think I should be too refined to mention? I have seen the look on your face, you know. There is little you can hide from me, however skilled you may think yourself.”
I suppose I must have glowered at her, as eventually she continued. “At the moment you are confused and angry. You wished to make love to me; I encouraged you then capriciously changed my mind. You thought you knew what was going on inside me, but in fact you understood nothing at all. Otherwise you would realise I was trying to protect you.”
“I do not need to be protected by you,” I said stiffly.
“Not by me. From me,” she corrected. “Look at you. One small misunderstanding and you are a wreck. You have been obsessed with me all night. You haven’t slept. You look like a tramp. Do you know how easy it would be to ruin you utterly?”
“I don’t think—”
“That’s because yo
u do not know what you are talking about.” There was a long break as the maid came in with another tray of coffee. Elizabeth thanked the woman, and watched as the coffee was poured, talking to her as she waited. I, in contrast, said nothing at all, acutely aware that I was radiating misery from my chair. Eventually the maid left, and the door was shut. Elizabeth sipped her cup thoughtfully for a while, then put it down.
“Do you not think it strange that a widow, grieving for her recently lost husband, should behave in such a way? Or did you merely think that foreigners must be like that? Not at all proper like the English?
“I am angry, Matthew. And frightened. And last night I wished to take it out on someone. As I say, I am ashamed of myself. But not for any reason you might have imagined.”
“What do you mean?”
“John died in the stupidest way imaginable. He was careless, thoughtless. His moment of absentmindedness means I have to spend the rest of my life without him. Obviously I knew that would happen eventually. He was much older than I was. But I wanted more time with him. The only person in the world I have ever truly cared for. Ever. I had a debt to repay. He fell out of a window and robbed me of my chance. I wanted to punish him, but I can’t, of course. So I thought I’d pick on you.”
She stopped, and I opened my mouth to reply but realised I didn’t know what to say.
“It’s very easy. A glance here, a suggestive movement. A provocative question. And your sleep evaporates and you take on that look of tail-wagging devotion that I detest so much. John was dead, but I could easily replace him, although not with someone half as good as he was.
“Please don’t think I thought all this through, that I was simply playing with your affections. I didn’t know what I was doing. And then last night I came to my senses. Only just, though. Do you really think it would have been better had I allowed you to make love to me? It would only have postponed the rejection, and made it ten times worse when it came. It was vain and cruel of me. I apologise for that without reservation. But I do not apologise for saving you from the consequences of your naïveté. You are no match for me, Matthew. Only John has ever been that.”
“You have a high opinion of yourself.”
“No,” she said sadly. “A very low one.”
“I don’t understand a word you are talking about.”
“I suppose you don’t. One day, when you are as old as I am…”
“You are beautiful.” The words rushed out of me; they sounded stupid.
She smiled. “Once that would have pleased me,” she said. “Words like that, truly meant, were like gold to me when I was young. Now I no longer care.”
“You loved him?”
“Yes,” she said. “Very much.”
“Why?”
She sighed and looked across the square, at all those people whose lives were nothing like her own. She seemed almost interested in them.
“He was my comfort, my friend, my warmth. The fixed point of a turning world, always there.” She stopped and looked at me, almost mischievously. “I have had lovers, you know, in the past decade or so. I do hope I have managed to shock you again.”
“I’m learning,” I replied.
“But I have never loved anyone else. Do you understand the difference?”
“I have had neither the money or the leisure to explore such subtleties.”
“Censorious. Well, perhaps you are right. But there is a big difference. I hope you discover what it is, one day. Because you will never truly love someone until you do.”
She fell silent again, a look of terrible sadness on her face. “Do you believe me when I say I want you to find this child? Or do you think there is some other motive behind it?”
“I really don’t know anymore.”
“I do want it. When John died, it was a terrible shock. I suppose I still am in shock. I have lost him forever. But when I read the will, do you know what my reaction was? Anger? Shame? Disillusionment?”
“Maybe. All of them?”
“None of them. I was happy. There was a piece of him still alive, somewhere. I dreamed of finding this child—I imagined a ten-year-old boy sometimes, sometimes a young woman about the same age as I was when I met John. I hoped there were many children, even. Getting to know them, bringing them to live with me. Having a family in this world. Because I have nothing now. Nothing of importance, just wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. It is all John’s fault, you see.”
I looked puzzled.
“He taught me the pleasures of love and companionship, of trusting people and knowing them. Before that, when I was young, it was all just a game. Who you knew, how you made your way in the world. There was no time or space for real warmth. John gave me a world of affection, and I fell in love with that as much as I fell in love with him. Do you know the pleasure of doing nothing with someone, of simply sitting in the same room with them? Or of going for a walk where neither talks? He taught me that and now it is all gone. And the world is my reality again. I am frightened and alone, Matthew, more than a man like you can even imagine.”
“And you never had children?”
She shook her head gently. “I fell pregnant, a year or so after we married. I was so happy, I couldn’t believe it. I used to just sit and clutch myself, and cry with the joy of it. I thought my life would be complete.”
“What happened?”
“It was born and they took it away from me.” She shook her head. “The midwife wrapped it up, put it by the fire to keep it warm, and sat around to keep it company until it died. They didn’t let me see it again. It’s what they do, did you know that?”
I said nothing.
“The doctors told me that I couldn’t have anymore. That another pregnancy might kill me. So,” she said brightly, her eyes shining, “that was my chance, you see. It took years to recover fully. John stayed with me every moment, every second, brought me back to myself. As close as I could get, anyway. I lost my dreams then and they never came back.”
“I will find this child for you,” I said. “If it lives.”
“Do you doubt it?”
“Many children die young,” I said.
There was a very long pause. She sat silently, thoughtfully, and I realised that I was back—back in her power again, if you want to put it like that.
“Tell me,” I said after a while, “what do you know about the state of your husband’s companies at present?”
She was not interested. “That his shareholdings are in the hands of the executor and will remain so until this is settled.”
“Precisely.” I took the buff folder out of the bag I had begun to carry around with me. “Look at this.”
She did as instructed, but quickly, just long enough to register incomprehension.
“This indicates that a large amount of money has been removed from them. It also perhaps explains why the announcement of his death was delayed.”
“How so?”
“Have you seen the list of prominent shareholders? They’d lose a fortune if shares in Rialto declined. Half the politicians in the land have bought shares.”
She looked scornful. “Bought?” she said with a snort. “You don’t think they bought them, do you?”
“How else…” Then I realised what she was saying.
“I know little of the details of John’s business, but I know how the world works. These were gifts. Inducements. Bribes, if you want to be honest about it. They wanted rewards for giving him contracts; he obliged because he could remind them of his generosity, if necessary. And now, of course, I can do the same.”
Her eyes, very briefly, flashed with excitement; then they dulled again. “I do not intend to,” she said. “But you are right; it is a reason for Mr. Cort to become so interested.”
“And the money?”
“That I do not know.”
“Do you realise the implications of this folder?”
“Perhaps. But maybe you should tell me.”
“It means that your in
heritance will be very much less than you imagine. Indeed, if news of it comes out, the companies could collapse and you would be left with nothing at all.”
“I see.” She seemed to be taking it all very calmly. “Is your knowledge of the law as good as your knowledge of finance?”
“They are both equally feeble, as you know. In this case, I am going on what your husband’s solicitor told me.”
“So what should I do?”
“I don’t think there is anything you can do.”
“Dear me, what a time this is,” she said with a smile. “You tell me one day I am about to become the richest woman in the world, and the next tell me I am to be a pauper. No one can accuse you of precision.”
“There are many things I do not understand here. I will tell you them, if you wish. Then you have to take a decision. Do you want me to pursue them, or do you want me to concentrate on the original matter of the child?”
“Go ahead, then. Confuse me some more.”
“Was you husband interested in spiritualism?”
She stared at me. “Spiritualism?”
“Yes. You know. Table-turning. Seances. Auras from the beyond. That sort of thing.”
This finally woke her up. She threw back her head and laughed. “John? Table-turning? Of course he wasn’t! He was the most practical, down-to-earth, materialistic person I have ever known. He had no interest or belief in such things. None at all. Why, he didn’t even go to church.”
“Then why was he attending spiritualist meetings?”
“I’m sure he was not.”
“I’m sure he was. Listen.” I read out some notes I had taken from his appointment book.
“Madame Boninska?” she said when I was finished.
“Otherwise known as the witch-woman. She was found murdered two days after your husband died.”
I had silenced her, this time. She had nothing to say. She wanted to find it all amusing, but could not manage it.
“Why would your husband consult a medium? The obvious next question is whether there is any connection with her death. Or his?”