Caught in the Light (23 page)

"I'd like to satisfy myself on that point."

"Yes, yes. All right." She waved her hand irritably, the smoke from her cigar describing a tetchy zigzag in the air. "You've convinced me. I'm not trying to argue. But we can't go on like this. Don't you see? It's all getting dangerously out of control."

"Maybe that's inevitable, if we're to find Eris."

"Maybe." She nodded thoughtfully. "Maybe so."

"Daphne, why don't you just give me the tape and trust me to deal with the consequences of whatever I learn in Guernsey?"

"Because that's the easy way out. And I've been taking the easy way out for too long."

"What do you suggest, then?"

"I suggest you listen to the tape, here, right now, with me. Then we can discuss what to do for the best."

"What about your clients?"

"It's Good Friday. I don't have any. So we'll play the tape, Ian. Afterwards we'll agree a course of action."

"And then?"

"We'll carry it through. Together. You and me."

"You mean '

"I mean this is going to be a team effort from now on."

"Hold on. I'm not sure '

"Those are my terms." She stabbed out the cigar in an ashtray on her desk and stared, almost glared, at me. "Take them or leave them."

"Right. OK." I smiled ruefully. "I'd better take them, hadn't I?"

"I think so, yes." She sat down beside me, instantly growing gentler in her manner, yet more solemn at the same time. "You have to understand that the fugue Eris described on the second tape had a profound effect on her. Previously, she'd gone along with my suggestion that there was an identifiable, explicable and, most important of all, treatable psychological explanation for her dissociative experiences. Subsequently, she could never quite bring herself to believe that. The fugue life was real to her. As real as her other life, in many ways."

Now wasn't the time to tell Daphne that it seemed equally real to me. "You mean she no longer regarded the Marian persona as delusory?"

"Not in any way. The vicarious trauma of the rape, in particular, seemed to fix Marian deep inside her."

"But that didn't mean more frequent fugues?"

"No. Fear kept them at bay, I think. Fear of what she might experience if she reverted to Marian again."

"Yet she did revert?"

"Ultimately, yes. I'd taught her various mental disciplines to help her focus on everyday practicalities. Our sessions had degenerated into little more than holding operations in that sense. My approach was based on the theory that if we could achieve a fugue less period of some length three months was the target then Eris would have the confidence she needed to address the true origin of the fugues, which I remained certain lay strictly in the realm of psychopathology."

"You never wondered if she was right to believe in their reality -however you define it?"

"Of course not."

"But now, with all that's happened since?"

"Now is different. And totally outside my professional expertise. That's why I'm trusting you with so much that Eris believed and had every right to believe would go no further. I can excuse myself on the grounds that she deceived me. About her marriage, about every detail of her life. But the question remains: why did she deceive me?"

"You never made the three months, of course."

"No. Our last session before Christmas was on the sixteenth. She told me then that her husband had arranged for them to spend most of the holiday at the same hotel near Bath where they'd gone at Easter. He was hoping it would cheer her up, apparently. He'd noticed how depressed she'd been. Thought the break would do her good. So it might have done, somewhere else. But going back to Bath struck me as unnecessarily risky. I advised Eris to talk him out of it. She said she'd tried, but he was adamant he knew what was best for her. Besides, she was confident she could get through the trip unscathed. That surprised me, so much so that I took it as evidence that we really were making progress. I should have seen her confidence for what it was, of course: a subconscious yearning to return to Marian's life. Our next appointment was for the sixth of January, and I was naturally apprehensive about the condition I'd find her in. I'd given her a tape to record her experiences during the gap between sessions as I had during the previous lay-off."

She rose, crossed to the desk and removed a small padded envelope from one of the drawers. A franked stamp and handwritten address were visible on the side she showed me. "It arrived on the seventh. The day after our appointment. Which Eris didn't keep. The sixteenth of December was the last time I saw her." Daphne let the tape slide out of the envelope onto the desk. "When I'd heard what's on the tape, I knew why she hadn't come to see me. And why I had to find her. But, as you know .. ." She raised her spectacles clear of her nose with her fingers and massaged the bridge. "I'm still looking."

CHAPTER EIGHT

Sorry I couldn't face you with this, Daphne. It's not that I distrust you. I distrust myself. I look on you as a friend now. I remember you warning me not to do that, but some things can't be helped. The result is I've started wanting to spare your feelings. I know you still believe we can get on top of this thing, but I don't. I'm not sure I ever have. Now I'm certain, though. What's worse, I don't really want to try any more. I can either give in to it or run away from it. Those are the only choices. So I reckon you may as well be spared the agony of trying to find some other way that doesn't exist. But I know you'll want to hear what brought it all to a head, and it really does help to talk about it. There's no-one I can talk to apart from you. That's what I'm doing, even though you're not sitting across the. room from me as I speak. But you'll listen. I know you will. And you'll understand. I hope.

We went down to Somerset on Christmas Eve and everything seemed fine to start with. The weather turned cold and there wasn't much incentive to leave the hotel fireside. Conrad threw himself into the parlour games that were organized for guests and took me on occasional tramps round the local lanes. But he didn't suggest revisiting Lacock or going into Bath, and I didn't either. Apart from anything else, I was afraid I might bump into Niall Esguard. I felt safe in the vicinity of the hotel and planned to sit it out there until we went home.

If Conrad had stuck close to me, I'm sure that's what I'd have done. But he'd booked himself a day's hack on the Mendips, courtesy of some arrangement the hotel had with a local riding stable. Since I've never ridden, that meant I had the day to myself. It was a long day, too, because Conrad wanted me to drive him down to the stables for an eight o'clock start and pick him up again at four. The place was near Shepton Mallet and on the way back to the hotel, navigation's never been my strong point, I took one wrong turning after another and found myself on the Bristol road. I turned east off that and the signs started reading closer and closer to Bath, so I pulled into a lay-by and tried to make sense of the map.

It was early on a Sunday morning in the middle of a long holiday, so, as you can imagine, there was nobody else about. I got out of the car to try to get my bearings. There was a wooded hill away to my right that I thought was probably the one named on the map as Stantonbury Hill, but the sun was in my eyes and I couldn't really be sure of anything. It was so bright and low in the sky that it blinded me for an instant. I turned away and blinked, waiting for my sight to clear. As it did so, I realized the colour of the fields was suddenly sharper, the hedgerows and patches of woodland a mellow gold, as if they were in full autumn leaf. The sunlight that had dazzled me was noticeably warmer on my back. The chill was gone from the air, the frost from my breath. The car had vanished and the road had changed. The white-lined tarmac had become a dusty earth-and-flint lane. I felt a flutter of something like a ribbon at my throat.

And at once I realized I was in Barrington's barouche, returning to Bath from a drive into the country west of the city. Barrington himself sat opposite me; the splayed girth of his long yellow coat seemed to magnify his bulk, which had surely increased even since the summer. His plum-coloured waistcoat was stretched to bursting point over his stomach, which his slouched posture did not show to advantage. Every burrow in his pocket for his snuffbox was a struggle. I could not help wondering whether Susannah, who was sitting beside me beneath an excess of travelling rug, found the prospect an edifying one. If not, it would have explained the determination with which she gazed at the hilltop to our right.

"We had an altogether delightful picnic with the Aislabies hereabouts in June, did we not, my dear?" she remarked.

"What?" Barrington's attention appeared to have been elsewhere. I had the discomforting notion it had been fixed on me.

"The Aislabies. In June. Yonder. Was that not where Mr. Aislabie pointed out to us the course of the Roman dyke?"

"Wansdyke," Barrington specified.

"Quite so. Mr. Aislabie knows much of such matters, Marian," Susannah continued, turning towards me. "You will find him to be a very well-informed gentleman."

"I'm sure I would," I said. "If I were ever to meet him."

"Oh, but you shall. The Aislabies are of the party this evening."

"I did not know you were to have company this evening."

"You must remember this is Bath, my dear, not Tollard Rising. Company of a sociable and stimulating nature is the guiding purpose of the city."

"Yes," said Barrington in a sour tone. "Of sociability and stimulation there is no end."

"Exactly," said Susannah, not apparently detecting the slightest hint of sarcasm in her husband's voice. "And I can conceive of no better tonic for your oppressed spirits, Marian. We are pleased to have this unexpected opportunity to share with you the benefits of life in Bath. Are we not, Barrington?"

"Uncommonly' was his grudging reply, merging with a snort as he inhaled enough snuff to quench a candle.

It was obvious to me, as it must have been to Susannah, that Barrington was anything but pleased to be acting as my host. I was in no position to complain, since I was an equally reluctant guest. I had been wished upon them by Jose in circumstances that were embarrassing and disagreeable to all three of us. Jose's resolution to govern me with a close and strict hand had endured for less than three months, though what I had suffered during those months had made them seem more like years. I had to guard my memory not to dwell upon the cruelties and indignities he had inflicted upon me at Gaunt's Chase in the weeks following Mr. Byfield's departure from Legion Cottage. There were things he had done to me which I knew now were things he had always longed to do and which he falsely justified on account of my supposed mis behaviour All he had accomplished, however, was to free me of any sense of obligation to him. Abomination reaps its own reward. I no longer regarded myself as his wife.

Tiring of the effort involved in torturing me, Jose had decided to return to London, but not, as he had originally threatened, with me. There were corners of his life he still did not want me to glimpse, even though, had he but known it, my opinion of him could sink no lower. I had hoped, with little confidence, that he would leave me to my own devices at Gaunt's Chase. Then, little by little, I might reassemble my heliogenic laboratory and return to the researches which, since their abandonment, had sometimes seemed as distant as dreams. But Jose had no intention of restoring any degree of liberty to me. I was consigned to his brother and sister-in-law for safe keeping, until such time as he wished to reimpose direct supervision of me.

What Jose had told Barrington, and what Barrington had told Susannah, I had no means of knowing and no wish to enquire. The truth of my position in their house that of a comfortably accommodated and courteously treated prisoner was apparent from the first. I had been there for just over a fortnight without succeeding in having a waking hour to myself. The servants had clearly been instructed to warn their master or mistress of any attempt on my part to leave the house unaccompanied. A secret rendezvous with Mr. By field was what they feared, of course. His name was never mentioned. The reason for what Susannah termed my 'oppressed spirits' was never alluded to. But it was understood plainly enough.

As gaolers, however, Barrington and Susannah lacked the vital ingredient of zeal. They embarked upon the role conscientiously enough, but tired rapidly as one week stretched to two and beyond. Barrington had become first bored, then discontented. Susannah had grown excessively talkative and short-tempered with the servants. I irked them and they irked me. We were united by an unspoken desire to be free of each other. And in that desire lay my opportunity to test the strength of the shackles Jose had sought to fasten round me.

"We shall be returning to Bath by way of Weston, I take it," I remarked in what I judged to be a casual manner.

"Indeed," said Barrington.

"Miss Gathercole lives by the churchyard there, does she not?"

"I believe so."

"She entreated me to call for tea if ever I was in the neighbourhood."

"She did?"

"I said that I would be charmed to do so."

"Good God."

"She is a meek and solitary creature, Barrington. We can surely show her some small consideration."

"She is a liability as a whist partner and a so retest of patience as a conversationalist. I do not know what greater consideration I can be expected to show her than that of refraining from the direction of her attention to such pitiful truths."

"It would be embarrassing not to take up her invitation."

"I could bear such embarrassment with fortitude."

"But I could not."

"Go then." The words were out of his mouth before he could weigh them against his obligations to Jose.

"If you will set me down by the church, I will devote an hour to Miss Gathercole and enjoy a bracing walk back to Bentinck Place across Sion Hill. It is a fine afternoon. I feel I would benefit from the exercise and I am sure Miss Gathercole would appreciate the company."