Painting The Darkness (26 page)

Perhaps it was to that impetuous excess of their youth – not the greatest or the gravest, to be sure, but somehow the most memorable – that Gervase had meant to refer, on the occasion of what was, in the event, their final meeting. Plon-Plon had been in England for the funeral of the Prince Imperial, the witless youth having contrived to be slain by Zulus while serving in the British army, and had sought refuge from the lachrimose hospitality of the Dowager Empress in Chislehurst by adjourning to Bladeney House, in search of reviving levity. But Gervase had not been at home; Quinn had referred him to the master’s club.

July 12th, 1879. A late but far from balmy dusk was settling on London. Though the respectable shops would all now be closed, Plon-Plon chose a circuitous route from Chester Square, for it was not the respectable that he most loved in this city. A Saturday evening in summer would bring the loitering pickpockets and rouge-faced whores out in force. To them and whatever was most scabrously remote from the severity of his own unadmiring kind, Plon-Plon was drawn as is a choking man to air.

In Jermyn Street, he passed the hatter he often patronized, hesitated before rejecting a turning towards Pall Mall and so passed, with an ill-suppressed lightening of his step, into the Haymarket and its rapidly filling streetload of all he found most raw and relishable in the life of the city.

The theatres were rapidly filling, prostitutes gathering in knots by their entrances, pub doors opening on gushes of noise, cabs discharging their fares on to the crowded pavements. Plon-Plon, enjoying here his anonymity as much as his surroundings, ambled through the ruck,
shrugging
off the ragged-trousered boys who twitched at his sleeve, eyeing but not pausing to engage the blowzy preening whores who winked at him from every doorway. He glanced down alleyways and basement steps wherever music and light beckoned, laughed at the slouching toughs and top-hatted drunkards, leered at the fresh-faced girls whose charms had not yet been sold too many times; he was in his element.

Suddenly, a blundering figure in evening dress lurched from a side-alley and cannoned into him as he walked past. Plon-Plon staggered from the impact, muttered an oath and turned to see the other man clinging for support to a lamp-post. The snarling rebuke died on his lips. It was Gervase.

‘I was coming to see you at your club,
mon ami
.’

Gervase pulled himself upright. ‘This is my club,’ he said, smiling grimly.

‘You do not look well.’

The other laughed. ‘Did I ever?’ Then he swayed perceptibly on his feet and leaned against the wall behind him for support.

Plon-Plon clapped him on the shoulder. ‘What is it, Gervase? Too much wine?’

No. He could see that it was not. Unsteady and slurred of speech though his friend was, he was clearly not drunk. He was sweating, though the night was distinctly cool. A muscle in his cheek was twitching with visible rapidity. His eyes were bloodshot. He looked old and pitiably frail. ‘Why are you here?’ he said, with sudden clarity.

‘The Prince Imperial was buried today.’

‘Yes, dammit, of course. I read of it. Shouldn’t you be consoling the Empress?’

‘I left her taking tea with my wife.’

‘Tea? Christ, tea!’ Gervase’s face creased with pain. ‘Why do these women want nothing but tea?’ He stared wildly at Plon-Plon. ‘Remember that tea-party when we were young, old friend? The one where I delivered a message on your behalf. The one where I played the pander for you.’

‘I’m not sure—’

‘I won the bet, what? I won the bet.’

‘
Oui
,
mon ami
. You won.’

‘Do you want to hear a joke, Plon-Plon? I think I was cursed that day. I’ve never stopped paying … for winning that bet.’

‘Let me support you … as we walk.’ So saying, Plon-Plon hoisted Gervase’s arm round his shoulders and began to pilot him across the street; clearly, the Haymarket was no place for him in such a state.

‘They want to say that James is dead.’

‘Is he not?’

‘They want to put Hugo in his place.’

They reached the opposite pavement. Plon-Plon headed towards a turning that he knew would take them to Pall Mall. ‘Children can be a trial,
mon ami
. A trial – and a sadness.’

Gervase was shivering now and leaning more heavily on his companion. ‘I’ll show them all,’ he whispered. ‘She shall not cheat my son.’

‘Cheat Hugo?’

‘No.’ A grinding of the teeth. ‘Not Hugo. My son.’

‘I do not understand.’

‘Nobody does, Plon-Plon. Nobody does.’

‘Do you want to go to your club?’

Gervase’s voice now was little more than a murmur. ‘Home.’

‘Then, I must hail a cab. Can you stand alone?’

‘Alone? Oh, yes. Always alone.’

Leaving Gervase for a moment, Plon-Plon moved to the edge of the pavement. Empty cabs were readily had on the runs away from theatreland; there was one approaching. It drew to a halt beside him. Asking the driver to wait, he stepped back to his friend.

Gervase was calm now and steady on his feet. He was gazing up at the sky, where the stars were pin-pricked against the night. ‘Where is he now, do you suppose?’ he muttered.

‘Into the cab,
mon ami
. Do you wish me to come with you?’

‘No. Quinn is well used to my … turns. But you aren’t. Dreadfully sorry, old man.’

Gervase climbed aboard, and Plon-Plon closed the door behind him. ‘You will feel better tomorrow,’ he said with a smile. ‘No more talk of cheating.’

‘Hah! A fig for their plans.’ Gervase snapped his fingers and, as he did so, Plon-Plon saw by the light of the driver’s lamp that his friend’s face was once more bathed in sweat. ‘It is I who will cheat them,’ he said, smiling broadly. ‘In the end – before the end – I’ll tell them.’

‘Tell them what?’

‘Where he is, of course.’ Gervase extended his hand from the cab window and grasped the loose flesh of Plon-Plon’s cheek between his finger and thumb. ‘A wager without honour is a wager with the devil. Ain’t it so, old friend?’

‘Perhaps,
mon ami
. Perhaps.’

Gervase laughed, the laugh of a man in fever, or of a man who has seen what his future holds. Releasing Plon-Plon, he slapped the side of the cab. ‘Chester Square, cabby. Go like the devil!’

The hansom took off at a trot. Gervase waved once to his friend in farewell, then slumped back in his seat and passed, as Plon-Plon watched, away into the night.

‘
Votre Majesté! Votre Majesté!
’

Plon-Plon jerked his head upright. What joker dared throw such a redundant title in his face? There was a man stooping over him, an old crooked figure in a frayed and faded coat. The man’s face, close to his own, was wizened and drawn, grey flesh stretched to the verge of translucence over sharp white bone. His hair, shaven like a convict’s, bristled from the skin of his head and jaw. His eyes, green and gleaming, stared intently at him.

‘
Votre Majesté Impériale!
’

‘
Citoyen, mon homme, c’est tout
.’

‘
Non, non
.’ The man tapped the side of his head. ‘
Je me souviens de vous. Alma. A côté du Commandant en Chef
.’

‘
Mais oui
.’ Plon-Plon smiled. A derelict old soldier remembered him, riding by at Alma nearly thirty years ago. Now he recognized the coat. It was the greatcoat of a common soldier in the French Imperial Army. He reached up and grasped the man’s arm in a fraternal gesture, loosening his grip when he felt how spindly was the limb beneath its sleeve. He took a gold coin from his pocket and pressed it into the veteran’s hand. ‘
Pour vous, mon brave
.’

‘
Merci, mon général
.’

‘
Merci, mon ancien soldat
.’

The man hobbled away. Which had wrecked him, Plon-Plon wondered – the Empire or the Republic? It scarcely mattered. At least he had remembered.

It was growing dark and cold. Time to go home and mortify his wife with some casual blasphemies. Plon-Plon rose. Suddenly, he thought of Gervase again, transformed from the dashing English officer of their Crimean prime into a stumbling, raving old man, abandoned on a London street. What had he meant, with all his wild words? Nothing, in all likelihood, unless, of course, James Norton was the unpaid debt on his wager with the Devil. No, Plon-Plon told himself. Better to believe it was nothing. Better by far. He shook his head and turned for home.

VI

When Dr Fiveash heard that he had a visitor that night, he once more regretted letting Dr Perry slip away for the weekend and descended to his consulting-room prepared to give short shrift to whichever of his junior’s patients had been so inconsiderate as to call on him. Accordingly, he did not know whether to be relieved or sorry when he found Richard Davenall waiting there for him.

‘Davenall! I’d have received you in the drawing-room if I’d known.’

‘No matter, Doctor. This will serve very well. You might say I’m here on a medical matter.’

Fiveash ushered him to a chair and relieved him of his coat. ‘I’m not sure I understand you.’

‘Trenchard has told me all about Miss Whitaker.’

‘Oh, that? I was going to call on Baverstock tomorrow and put him—’

‘Did Trenchard explain to you his theory that Miss Whitaker was put up to spy on you by a former servant of Sir Gervase?’

Fiveash frowned. ‘No. I gave him Miss Whitaker’s old address and that’s the last I saw of him.’

‘Then, I’ll tell you on his behalf.’

Whilst Davenall did so, Fiveash fetched a bottle of whisky from the rear of his medicine cupboard and poured them both drinks. His frown deepened during the account and, by its end, he looked a sorely puzzled man.

‘You don’t appear to find the theory convincing, Doctor.’

‘It’s not that.’

‘Then, what?’

‘This man Quinn …’

‘As I say, Lady Davenall had reason to discharge him from her service some three years ago. There’s no reason to suppose he remained in this area. Quite the reverse. It’s much more likely—’

‘That’s just the point. I thought Lady Davenall must know.’

‘Know what?’

‘He visited her husband regularly in the nursing home. I rather think Quinn was the last visitor Sir Gervase had before he died.’

Davenall stared at him in amazement. ‘Quinn? A regular visitor?’

‘So the nursing staff assured me.’

‘But that’s not possible. He’d been dismissed by then.’

‘That hardly prevents a man visiting his former employer. The first I knew of it, I must admit, was at the very
end
. March of last year, it would have been. I had stepped up the frequency of my calls because Sir Gervase was manifestly in the final stages of his illness. He had become agitated and spasmodically coherent: the last flare of the candle before it goes out, you might say. I gave it little thought at the time, for obvious reasons, but, looking back, I suppose the circumstances were somewhat strange.’

Dr Fiveash reached Cedar Lodge that morning regretting more than ever its windswept location above the Avon Gorge. It was a spiteful day, greyly bleak and rawly chill, the sort of day, he morbidly reflected, when patients who have endured winter finally abandon hope of spring.

The matron met him in the hallway. ‘I think Sir Gervase has made up his mind to go,’ she announced. ‘He’s been very talkative.’

They began an ascent of the winding, echoing stairs. ‘H’m. Made any sense?’

‘None. Asking for his family, I should judge.’

‘Then, he must ask in vain, for I doubt he’ll see them again in this world.’

‘There’s somebody with him now. Not a relative though.’

‘Oh? Who, then?’

‘He’s never given his name. He calls regularly. I think he said he’d served with Sir Gervase in the Army.’

Their routes diverged on the second landing, and Fiveash made his way alone to the room where Sir Gervase Davenall had lately awaited death in merciful oblivion. When he opened the door, he saw the visitor rise hurriedly from a bedside chair and turn towards him. He recognized him at once as Quinn and struggled for a moment to recollect what he had been told about his departure from Cleave Court.

‘Quinn, isn’t it?’ he said, advancing across the room.

‘Yes, sir. Just called in to see the old master.’

Fiveash looked down at his patient – gaunt, grey and marked for death. He was drawn up higher than usual on
the
pillows, one arm flung clear of the covers, the hand cast claw-like on the quilt, its fingers twitching. His eyes, Fiveash noticed, were fixed on Quinn, following him as he slowly moved to the end of the bed.

‘I’ll be off, then.’

‘Very good, very good.’ Fiveash deposited his bag on the chair Quinn had just vacated and unstrapped it. A click from the other side of the room told him that he was now alone with his patient: Quinn had gone.

As he looked up from the bag, something on the bedside cabinet caught his eye. For those denied the power of coherent speech, Cedar Lodge supplied a small pad of paper and a pencil to cater for any desire to communicate. Sir Gervase had, in Fiveash’s recollection, never displayed any. Yet now he could clearly see that a sheet had been torn from the pad and that the vague imprint of a message had been left on the sheet beneath. Idly, he picked up the pad and peered at it: the imprint was indecipherable. Then he looked at Sir Gervase – the staring eyes, the taloned twitching hand – and shook his head. No, he could not have written anything. He replaced the pad, dismissed the matter from his mind and burrowed in the bag for his stethoscope. When he next looked at Sir Gervase, he saw that he was smiling.

‘By the way,’ said Fiveash as he showed Richard Davenall to the door, ‘what was the medical matter you wanted to discuss?’

‘Mmm?’

‘You said it was why you’d called.’

‘Oh, yes. It was about Trenchard. I’m somewhat concerned about his … state of mind. His wife’s left him, you know.’

‘Good God. He didn’t tell me that.’

‘I wondered if you would agree with me that, in the circumstances, he might be jumping to outlandish conclusions. Clutching at straws, as it were. Detecting conspiracies where none exists. In short, cracking under the strain.’