Painting The Darkness (27 page)

‘When he came here yesterday, I was certainly struck by the change that had come over him since I’d seen him in London. Now you’ve told me about his wife, I would probably have to agree with you.’

‘That’s just it,’ said Davenall, pausing on the doorstep. ‘In view of what you’ve told me, I’m not sure you should agree after all. Are
you
? Goodnight, Doctor.’

VII

Two days after returning from Bath, I received a letter from Constance. The postman had arrived just as I was leaving the house. Forestalling Hillier, I had sifted through the letters and come upon the one I had feared as much as hoped would be there. It was postmarked Salisbury and was addressed in Constance’s hand. Not daring to open it at once, I set off with it in my pocket
.

All the way across Regent’s Park, I wondered what she had said. Threading through the crowds in Baker Street, I tried to persuade myself that she was coming home, retracting her mad espousal of Norton’s cause, resolving, after all, to stand by me
.

Then, alone in my office at Orchard Street, the letter-knife shaking in my grasp, I knew it could not be so. A telegram could have said all I wanted to hear. This envelope, bearing her neat scrupulous hand, contained a different kind of announcement
.

The Little Canonry
,

Cathedral Close
,

SALISBURY
,

Wiltshire
.

15th October 1882

My dear William
,

You will wish to know that we have arrived safely and have settled in well. Patience is enjoying her new surroundings and sends her love
.

I have nothing to add to what I said before coming here and I cannot imagine that you have, either. Though I
know
you will not agree, I am more certain than ever that a parting at this stage is both necessary and wise. I beg you to respect my decision and not to attempt to visit me here until I have been able to settle my mind. You may be assured that I will impose the same conditions on James
.

These few words must suffice for the present. I feel too confused to write more
.

Constance

There it was, as bland and as brief as could be. She had sent our daughter’s love but not her own. I let the letter fall from my hand and flutter to rest on the desk, then felt for the chair and slumped down into it
.

How long I sat there, staring at the single sheet of notepaper, I cannot say. My reverie only ended when the telephone rang
.

‘
Yes?
’

‘
I have a call for you, Mr Trenchard
.’

‘
Who is it?’ I expected she would say it was my brother, who had insisted on installing the machine and was its most frequent user
.

‘
A Mr Richard Davenall, sir
.’

Why should Davenall telephone rather than visit me to report on his findings? Immediately, I grew suspicious. ‘Put him through
.’

‘
Trenchard?
’

‘
Yes
.’

‘
I’m sorry to raise you on this thing. I’m rather pressed for time.’ Was he really? I wondered. Or could he not face me with what he had to say?

‘
Have you learned anything?
’

‘
Regrettably, no. Catherine still refuses to discuss Miss Strang
.’

‘
What about Quinn?
’

‘
I … I have no more information about him.’ Had he been in the same room, I could have judged whether that hesitation implied he did know something but felt unable to trust me with it. ‘I’ll put my people on to him, of course, but, for the moment, there’s nothing else to be done
.’

‘
Nothing?
’

‘
Nothing at all
.’

‘
I see. Well, thank you for telling me
.’

‘
Trenchard—
’

‘
Yes?
’

‘
I’m sorry. Believe me
.’

I put the telephone back on the hook and stared again at Constance’s letter. She had asked nothing of me, save that I leave her alone and trust in her judgement. Now Richard Davenall, for all his infinite regrets, had asked the same. The message was clear. I encumbered the one and embarrassed the other. Neither would aid me in a search for the truth
.

I reached into the inside pocket of my jacket and drew out Nanny Pursglove’s photograph. There was Quinn, his blotched and faded image confronting me whenever I chose to look at it, fixed on the sepia-tinted paper as it was fixed nowhere else in the shifts and evasions of the Davenalls’ past. I smiled grimly and replaced it in my pocket. Nobody would help me find him. Very well, then. I would find him alone
.

VIII

The Salisbury watermeadows form an elongated oval of fertile pasture, criss-crossed by drainage channels and traversed only by the narrow causeway of Town Path. That morning, at the mid-point of the path, seated on a bench, a tall, solitary, elegantly dressed man was smoking a cigarette and savouring, through its drifting smoke, the soaring prospect of the cathedral spire, a grey pinnacle towering above the trees and clustered houses at its base. Most passers-by would have assumed he was merely an admirer of medieval church architecture paying homage to one of its finest creations, yet James Norton had, despite appearances, more pressing reason to be where he was, as might have been construed from his frequent consultations of a pocket-watch and wary glances up and down the path.

At length, he tired of his cigarette and crushed its extravagant butt beneath his shoe. Then, overlooked by no living creature save the retired dray-horse who occupied the field behind the bench, he drew a slim quarter-bound notebook from an inside pocket of his coat, leafed through it to a particular page and began studying the contents closely.

For all the apparent intensity of his concentration, Norton noticed the figure approaching from the southern end of the path almost as soon as it became conspicuous against the straggling wayside hedge. Immediately, without the least sign of haste, he slipped the book back into his pocket. He gazed towards the figure for several minutes until he was certain it was that of a woman: alone, respectably dressed, walking rather quickly and glancing about apprehensively, as if more nervous than anything in the time or place justified. With sudden decisiveness, Norton rose from the bench. As the woman drew closer, he removed his hat and began to smile. Only when she was about thirty yards away did he realize that a sororal resemblance had deceived him. His smile vanished.

‘Emily! What does this mean?’

‘She isn’t coming.’

‘May I ask why?’

Emily reached the bench and sat down heavily, as if glad of its support. ‘She cannot see you. You must understand that. I came to explain why it is for the best.’

Norton sat beside her and gazed intently into her face. ‘I think you will fail.’

‘You ask too much of her. She is married to another. Nothing can alter that.’

‘Who is this speaking really, Emily? You – or Constance?’

‘I am acting as her messenger. I also believe her message is born of wisdom. Only yesterday, she gave her husband a written undertaking that, in return for his forbearance in allowing her this time for reflection, she would not
see
you. You cannot expect her to breach that undertaking.’

Norton grew reflective. ‘No. Naturally not. Is that all that prevents her?’

‘What do you mean?’

He looked away, as if regretting the question, ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t ask you to anatomize Constance’s motives. They are, as you say, irreproachable.’

‘She has prayed for guidance. We all have.’

‘This must have been a great strain for your father.’

‘I cannot deny it. I know Constance feels terribly guilty for inflicting it upon him.’

‘As I do, Emily. As I do.’

‘All she asks is time to think.’

‘I’ve had a deal of that myself, over the years. Has Constance told you … why I left when I did?’

‘No. She said she had no right to speak for you.’

‘Ah, I see. Always so just. Well, I’m glad. It’s no story for a lady’s ears.’

‘Yet you told her.’

‘Because I love her. There can be no secrets between us.’

Emily’s jaw stiffened, as if a moment had come for which she had prepared herself. ‘If you truly love my sister, will you not spare her the ordeal of disobeying her husband by testifying for you?’

Norton’s head dropped. ‘So that’s it. That’s what you really came to ask me, isn’t it?’

Emily spoke hurriedly, her words coming at a pace that left no room for doubt or irresolution. ‘She has told me of her undertaking to testify for you at the hearing of your case. She will not go back on that. But I think you ought to know what it will mean for her. A final breach with her husband. The disapproval of respectable society. Public notoriety. Above all, our father’s position in the cathedral might well become impossible. I think you ask too much of her and I think you know it.’

Norton looked up. ‘You realize that, without Constance’s testimony, my case will be immeasurably weakened?’

‘Not in my eyes.’

A rueful smile. ‘Very well. Take back your message, Emily. There will be no subpoena. There will not even be a polite request. I will not ask Constance to testify.’

‘That is generous of you.’

‘It is probably very foolish of me. I will also respect her promise to Trenchard. That, too, is probably foolish, but it is at least honourable.’

‘Yes, James. It is.’

‘And it wins for me the accolade that you address me by name.’ He rose suddenly to his feet. ‘Farewell, then, Emily.’ He stooped to kiss her gloved hand, pausing to look into her eyes before releasing it. ‘For the moment.’

She did not watch him as he walked away northwards along the path, nor did she leave the bench to retrace her own steps. Instead, she sat where she was, gazing up at the slender impartial majesty of the cathedral spire. At length, she risked a glance to assure herself that he was out of sight. That done, she felt free at last to draw a handkerchief from her sleeve and dry her tears.

IX

‘Thank you, Benson.’

The clerk withdrew, leaving Richard with the file he had requested: a heavily strapped bundle of papers constituting the rent-rolls, tenancy agreements and agents’ reports pertaining to Sir Hugo Davenall’s Irish property. Richard sifted through them reflectively.

He knew the Carntrassna estate, as did its present owner, by name only. Ten thousand acres remained of the previously vast portion of County Mayo held since the seventeenth century by the Fitzwarren family. These Sir Lemuel Davenall had acquired by his marriage to Mary Fitzwarren, the sole heiress, in 1815, and strangely, despite their long separation, he had bequeathed it to her rather than to their son. Richard remembered his father railing
against
such a provision. Gervase, on the contrary, had seemed happy to forget not merely Carntrassna but also his mother in her wilful seclusion there.

‘Carntrassna?’ he had once said. ‘Millstone round my father’s neck. Glad to be rid of it. A liability, nothing more.’

Liability or not, the diminished acres had reverted to Hugo when nameless intruders had done old Lady Davenall to death in February 1882. Richard had never met her, but acknowledged that to live, for reasons of her own, amidst so much squalor and isolation for so long was an achievement of some kind. He had, like most Englishmen of his age and breeding, a firm opinion of Ireland and the Irish, an opinion based on no personal knowledge whatever but amply reinforced by the notion that a harmless eighty-four-year-old lady should be murdered for no better reason than that she owned a substantial amount of land.

Not that Kennedy, her agent, agreed with such an explanation of the incident. He had written a long letter, Richard recalled, absolving the peasantry of blame and reassuring Sir Hugo of their loyalty. There it was, interleaved with the endless lists of impecunious tenants. Several pages of it, in a firm punctilious hand. Richard pulled it from the bundle and cast his cautious eye over the contents.

Kennedy had been resident in Carntrassna House since February. An absentee owner no doubt suited him very well, hence the stress he laid on the justice and desirability of leaving matters as they were. It was not until the third page that Richard found the passage he sought.

On the morning of Sunday, 12th February, Lady Davenall was found dead in bed. A pillow had been used to suffocate her. There were plentiful signs that she had resisted, which is remarkable considering her age. Her bedroom window was wide open and a ladder had been placed against the wall outside, having
been
removed from a nearby store-shed. I know it will be said she was killed by Nationalists or resentful tenants. (I dare say you will have heard reports of the recent murder of two of Lord Ardilaun’s bailiffs in this neighbourhood.) I should therefore like to reassure you that the Carntrassna tenants have always held a warm regard for Lady Davenall and her family. I cannot believe they would have been responsible for such an outrage. Rather, given that some of Lady Davenall’s jewellery is missing, this seems to have been a simple case of a thief caught in the act. I am confident that the police will be given every assistance by the tenantry in identifying the culprit and that, when he is apprehended, robbery will be found to have been his motive.

But no culprit had been apprehended. The jewels had never been found. Lady Davenall’s murder remained unsolved. Richard had no difficulty imagining what Trenchard would claim: that Quinn was implicated in the murder and that the jewels had been sold in England to realize funds for Norton’s case. Yet there was nothing to suggest it was so. The proceeds would surely never have justified such a risk. Like so many other theories, it did not fit the facts. With a sigh, Richard slipped the letter back into the bundle and fastened the straps.

X

Evensong was at an end. Yet Canon Hubert Sumner, who had found in its prayers and hymns little comfort, lingered in his place, kneading the carved wood of the stall end and gazing mournfully at the flagstones beneath his feet. It was not spiritual relief that he sought. For the moment, he had abandoned hope of that. Rather, his delayed departure was intended to spare him the solicitations of fellow-worshippers who could not have missed his downcast looks.