At this she burst into tears and buried her face in her hands until such time as I stood up and went to fetch her a handkerchief, which she accepted gratefully, blowing her nose loudly in it before wiping the tear stains from her cheeks. ‘It’s a terrible business,’ she said then, helping herself to a little more port from the bottle. ‘I’m afraid I have not any confidante in which to place my secrets.’
‘Well, then, you must place them here,’ I said hesitantly, ‘unless you would prefer that I go downstairs for your mother, of course.’
‘No, not her,’ she said loudly, making me jump in my chair. ‘She mustn’t know any of this. She would throw me out of the house.’
Immediately, I suspected the worst. She had arranged another marriage, or worse, she had already undertaken one and was with child. Whatever it was, I wished that I had no involvement in the business. ‘You must tell me how I can help you,’ I said then, moved by her obvious unhappiness.
She nodded and took a deep breath before speaking. ‘Arthur is in charge of the school where I am currently in training. Arthur Dimmesdale is his name.’
‘Dimmesdale ... Dimmesdale ...’ I said, sure that the name meant something to me, but not quite sure where to place it.
‘We have been having an illicit romance,’ she continued. ‘At first it was innocent, it grew out of a mutual affection we had for each other. It was entirely natural. We enjoyed each other’s company, we would dine together sometimes, he took me on a picnic in the early months of our courtship.’
‘The early months?’ I said surprised. ‘How long has this relationship existed then?’
‘About six months,’ she answered, a figure which predated our own acquaintance and overlapped with her alleged affair with the Prince of Wales.
‘And what about the young prince?’ I asked her cautiously.
‘What young prince?’
‘Well,’ I said, laughing slightly, unsure whether the conversation had ever really taken place, so absurd did it seem now, ‘you mentioned that you had an understanding with the Prince of Wales. That you were planning on eloping together as his mother would never agree to the match.’
She stared at me incredulously, as if I was the worst kind of madman she had ever had the misfortune to meet, before bursting out laughing. ‘The Prince of Wales?’ she asked, between her convulsions. ‘How could I be having a relationship with the Prince of Wales? Isn’t he just a child?’
‘Well, yes,’ I admitted. ‘I did say that originally myself but you seemed convinced that -’
‘You must be mixing me up with someone else, Mr Zéla,’ she said.
‘Matthieu, please.’
‘You must have a veritable harem of young girls confiding their problems in you,’ she added with a flirtatious smile. I sat back in my chair and knew not what to say to her. The conversation had taken place – I could remember it distinctly – and now here was another. It was now that her position as a fictionalist first became clear to me. ‘Anyway,’ she continued eventually, ‘Arthur and I have become more than friends, I am ashamed to admit. He has...’ – and here she paused for dramatic effect, her eyes darting from left to right as if she was already on the stage – ‘he has known me, Mr Zéla.’
‘Matthieu -’
‘He has taken from me that which can never be restored. And I am damned to admit that I allowed it. For such was my own passion for him, you see. I am in love with him but now I fear that he does not love me.’ I nodded and wondered whether I was expected to ask questions or not at this point. She was staring at me, wild-eyed, and it did appear to be my turn to speak so I asked her further about Arthur, whose name was swimming through my mind as I attempted to place it. ‘He is in charge of our school,’ she answered. ‘And worse ... he is a man of the cloth.’
‘A priest?’ I said, astonished and ready to laugh now as she took the deception further and further.
‘A minister,’ she replied. ‘A Puritan minister at that. Ha!’ she laughed, as if the very idea of Arthur’s puritanism was no more than a joke to her. ‘He has sought to deny our affair but the other teachers have gotten wind of it. There are moves to eject me from my position. The rest of the staff, they consider me a harlot, a woman of no shame and, because they fear divine retribution if they criticise Arthur, they have turned on me instead. They have demanded my dismissal and, if he does not agree to it, they intend to stand up in front of the whole school and denounce me for a wanton. When my parents hear of this, they will kill me. And as for Arthur ... Why, his whole career could be at risk.’
Suddenly, like a lightning bolt, it hit me. I stood up, ostensibly to get another bottle of port, for the one we had both been drinking from had been almost empty before and was drained now. Beneath my bookcases, which were on the far side of the room behind her, I took a bottle from the cabinet and reached up to take down the volume which I was sure lay behind this fiction. It was a new book, published only a year or so earlier, by the American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, and had proved a popular success with readers. I skimmed through the pages, looking for the name, and I came across it quickly, on page thirty-five, the name whose scurrilous adventures had caused such a scandal in literary circles not twelve months earlier: ‘“Good Master Dimmesdale,” said he, “the responsibility of this woman’s soul lies greatly with you. It behoves you, therefore, to exhort her to repentance, and to confession, as a proof and consequence thereof” Arthur Dimmesdale. Puritan minister and lover of Hester Prynne. I sighed and replaced the book on the shelf and the bottle in the cabinet; I suspected that Alexandra had no further need of alcohol.
‘I saw him tonight,’ she said as I returned to my seat, an elbow on the arm-rest, my cheek flattened to the heel of my hand. ‘He was following me through the streets. He means to kill me, Mr Zéla. Matthieu, I mean. He means to cut my throat so that I might never be able to explain my side of this story to anyone.’
‘Alexandra,’ I said, ‘are you sure that you are not just imagining things?’
She laughed. ‘Well,’ she replied, ‘I realise that the streets are dark, but-’
‘No, no,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘This whole relationship, I mean. Arthur Dimmesdale. His name is familiar to me, is it not?’
‘You know him?’ she asked, her eyes opening wide as she sat forward in her chair. ‘He is a friend of yours?’
‘I know of him,’ I answered. ‘I have read about him. Is he not a character in -’
‘What was that?’ she said quickly, a noise on the corridor outside alerting her attention, the simple creak of floorboards as a breeze passed through. ‘He is here!’ she declared. ‘He has followed me! I must leave!’ She jumped out of her seat and threw her coat on again before heading for the door. I followed, completely unsure of what I should do next.
‘But where will you go?’ I asked her and she touched my arm gently in thanks.
‘Don’t worry about me,’ she said. ‘I will go downstairs to my parents’ home. With any luck they will not have heard of my behaviour yet. I’ll sleep there tonight and make my plans in the morning. Thank you, Matthieu. You have been a great help.’
She kissed me on the cheek before disappearing through the door. Alexandra Jennings, self-styled bearer of a Scarlet Letter, sole inhabitant of a world which she created for herself on a daily basis.
May Day arrived and with it the opening day of the ‘Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations’. I was in the Crystal Palace from five in the morning, seeing to the final preparations, making sure that all those in the receiving line would be in their places in time for the opening ceremony. Although it was quite warm out, there was a slight drizzle in the air which I hoped would clear up by mid-morning, when most of the carriages would be en route. Over half a million people were expected to gather in Hyde Park that morning, awaiting the arrival of the foreign dignitaries along with the young Queen Victoria and her family. The building had been finally finished, with the very last touches added only hours earlie
r. As far as the eye could see were arranged the displays and exhibits, containing everything from chinaware to steam engines, hydraulic pumps to national costumes, butterflies to butter churns. The colours and ornaments stretched out in a rainbow of display beneath the glass surroundings and there was a constant sound of the intake of breath as the visitors passed through, amazed by the wondrous sights which greeted them at every juncture. The Queen herself arrived at lunch time and formally declared the Exhibition open. The foreign delegates were presented to her before Sir Joseph Paxton himself gave her a tour of the British exhibits and she later wrote of the experience in her diaries with admiration for the craftsmanship that had gone into the preparations.
It was near midnight by the time I returned home to my rooms but I felt as if the time had passed by within about the space of an hour. I could hardly recall a day so filled with excitement and the luminescence of artistry as had been gathered before me then. The Exhibition was a success – eventually over six million people would pass through it – and all the hard work which had gone into it had paid off. Although I felt gratified by my work, I could see what a small hand I had actually played in the preparations and contented myself with the knowledge that I had managed to take even a tiny role in one of the great events of recent times.
I settled down with a book and a glass of wine; naturally I was exhausted but decided to wind down a little before going to bed. I was expected back at the Crystal Palace the following morning and so required sleep if I was to be of any use whatsoever. I thought I could hear a commotion coming from downstairs in the Jennings household but gave it barely a thought until footsteps came charging up in my direction and someone attempted to gain entry to my room, which I had locked after coming in.
I stepped quickly towards it and was about to shout out to ask who was on the other side when I heard the familiar voice of Richard, raised in anger for the first time, calling my name as he banged on the door with a clenched fist.
‘Richard,’ I said, opening it at once, fearing that he was being attacked on the other side and before I could say another word he pushed through, driving me against the far wall and holding me there with his hand pinning me by the throat. The room spun in my surprise and it was a few moments before I realised exactly what was taking place. I kicked out but, in his anger, his strength had increased and it took the sensible actions of his wife to pull him away from me. I collapsed on to the floor, coughing and spluttering, and holding my wounded throat with one hand.
‘What in God’s name -?’ I began before he cut me off by kicking out at my prostrate form, cursing me for a dog and a traitor.
‘Richard, get off him,’ roared Betty, grabbing her husband with equal force and pushing him back until he landed on my sofa. I took advantage of this moment to struggle to my feet and prepare a defensive position for another attack.
‘You’ll pay for this, Zéla,’ he roared and I looked from husband to wife in amazement, unsure what crime I could have possibly committed to receive such treatment from my sometime friend.
‘I don’t understand,’ I said, looking to Betty for an explanation, expecting her to be slightly more open to reason than her husband. ‘What’s going on here? What am I supposed to have done?’
‘She’s just a child, Mr Zéla,’ said Betty, bursting into tears, and I feared that she might attack me next. ‘Couldn’t you have left her alone? Just a child.’
‘Who is just a child?’ I asked, shaking my head, pleased to note that, although Richard had taken control of himself again and was looking furiously in my direction, he did not appear poised for another attack.
‘You’ll marry her,’ he said to me before looking at his wife and speaking as if I was not in the room. ‘Do you hear that, missus? He’ll marry her. There’s no other choice.’
‘Marry who7.’ I begged, sure that I had caused no offence to anyone that could merit such a terrible punishment. ‘Who on earth am I to marry?’
‘It’s Alexandra, of course,’ said Betty, looking at me irritably as if to suggest that I should get past the denials and move straight on to the retribution. ‘Who do you think we’re talking about?’
‘Alexandra?’ I roared, finally unsurprised. ‘Why on earth would I marry Alexandra?’
‘Because you have tarnished her, you cur,’ cried Richard. ‘You stand there, look at the cut of him will ya, and deny it? Do you? Well?’
‘I most certainly do,’ I said firmly. ‘I most certainly do. I haven’t so much as touched your daughter.’
‘The lying -’ He sprang from his seat but this time I was ready for him and punched him in the nose as he leaped towards me. Although I had not intended on hitting him hard – merely hoping that the blow would prevent him from attacking me again – I immediately heard the sickening crunch of a bone breaking and I gasped as he fell to the floor, blood pouring from the centre of his face as he cried out in pain.
‘What have you done?’ gasped Betty, rushing to her husband’s side and screaming as she pulled his hands away to see the torrent of blood coming from his broken nose. ‘Oh, call the police!’ she cried out to no one in particular. ‘The police, someone! Murder! Murder!’
By three O’clock the following morning the story was settled. Alexandra and I were both summoned to Richard Jennings’s kitchen where we stood sullenly on opposite sides, staring each other down. I had explained privately to Betty Jennings the conversations I had already had with her daughter and she had shown little surprise by them. The doctor had treated her husband’s nose and he sat there sulking, his face purple with bruising, his eyes baggy and bloodshot.
‘Alexandra,’ I said quietly, looking in her direction and pleading for honesty, ‘you must tell them the truth. For both our sakes, please.’
‘The truth is, he promised to marry me,’ said Alexandra. ‘He said that if I ... if I let him have his way with me he’d take me away from here. Said he had all the money in the world.’
‘A couple of months ago she was marrying the Prince of Wales!’ I cried in annoyance. ‘Then she was having relations with a character straight out of The Scarlet Letter! She’s mad, Mrs Jennings, mad!’
‘You promised!’ roared Alexandra.
‘I did no such thing!’
‘You have to marry me now!’
‘Child, shut up!’ screamed Betty Jennings, most likely feeling that enough was enough. ‘That’s an end to it, both of you. Alexandra, I want the truth now and there’s neither of us leaving this kitchen until I get it. Mr Zéla, you go on back up to your rooms and I’ll be up to you presently.’ I moved to protest but there was no arguing with her. ‘Presently, Mr Zéla!’ I returned to my rooms.
I met Richard the following afternoon as I was supervising an area occupied by the Cornish Quiltmakers’ Association. If anything, his face seemed even worse than it had the night before but he approached me sheepishly and immediately apologised for his behaviour.
‘She’s always been like that, you see,’ he explained. ‘I don’t know why it is that I fall for it every time. But when a man thinks his daughter’s been tampered with, well -’
‘Really,’ I said, ‘there’s no need to explain. But you realise that there is something wrong with the girl, don’t you? She’s told me some wonderful tales over these last few months. I believed some of them at first too. I promise you, she’ll land herself in a heap of trouble one of these days if she’s not very careful.’
‘I know, I know,’ he said, looking sad and dejected. ‘But it’s not as simple as all that. She’s just blessed with an over-active imagination, that’s all.’
‘Please,’ I replied, ‘there’s a difference between an imagination and a downright lie. Particularly when the person passing it off as the truth actually believes what they’re saying.’
‘Right enough,’ he acknowledged.
‘So what are you going to do about her?’ I asked after an incredibly annoying period of silence had passed. ‘You realise I’ll have to move out because o
f this. She needs help, Richard. Medical help.’
‘Well, sir,’ said Richard, turning and taking my arm, pressing on the bone as if even now, despite his apology, it would have done him the world of good to knock me unconscious. ‘If you ask me it’s better to be the harmless child that tells the stories than the gullible fool who believes them.’ I gasped in surprise. He was excusing her behaviour, was that it?
‘Your daughter should be a novelist, sir,’ I said angrily, pulling away from him. ‘She could probably find a way to fashion a brand new story on every single page.’
He shrugged and said nothing as I walked away.
A few years later, while holidaying in Cornwall, I caught sight of Alexandra Jennings once again. It was in a newspaper report in The Times. The brief article, dated 30 April 1857, stated the following:
A London family were killed tragically when their house burned down during the night, Friday. Mr Richard and Mrs Betty Jennings, along with their four children, Alfred, George, Victoria and Elizabeth, all died after a burning coal caught with a rug, sending the entire house up in flames. The only survivor was another daughter, Alexandra, 23, who told our reporter that she had been away from the scene when the fire had taken place, staying with friends. ‘I feel like the luckiest girl in the world,’ she was reported to have said, ‘although I have, of course, lost my entire family.’
Perhaps I was becoming an old cynic, but as I read it I found her alibi less than convincing. She had never been violent, in my experience, but I couldn’t help but wonder what stories she had been spinning in the intervening time and what tales she would fashion from this disaster. I read a little further, but the article concerned itself with the events of the inquest, until the very last paragraph, which contained the following.
The former Miss Jennings, a widow herself and a teacher in a local school, has vowed to rebuild the house where she was born. ‘It contains all my childhood memories,’ she told us, ‘not to mention the fact that it was where my late husband Matthieu and I were happy during our brief marriage.’ Alexandra’s husband died tragically six months after their marriage from tuberculosis. There was no issue.