Painting The Darkness (68 page)

‘No. I had no idea.’

‘Did he not mention it to you yesterday?’

‘Yesterday?’

‘When he visited you.’

Trenchard frowned. ‘He hasn’t been here, Richard. I haven’t set eyes on him since that day last year at Lincoln’s Inn.’

Could it be true? Richard had felt so certain, so positive that James had been to Ticehurst. Recovering the envelope, he held it out for Trenchard to see. ‘It was posted in Tonbridge yesterday evening, not fifteen miles from here. I assumed—’

‘I don’t know why he should be in Tonbridge, but he wasn’t on his way here.’

Suddenly, Richard felt uneasy. If James’s letter had come as a bolt from the blue to Trenchard, his calmness was inexplicable. Every month for the past ten, Richard had visited him in this famously well-appointed repository for the wealthily insane and had sat with him in his room, listening to him rail against his plight. Despite all the honeyed words and well-meant promptings of his attendants, Trenchard had kept fresh in his mind every one of his grievances against those who thought him mad. He had refused either to forget or to forgive. But now, without warning or reason, he had seemingly done both.

‘You will do as he asks, won’t you, Richard? You will bring this to the attention of the authorities?’

‘Of course I will. But what of James? I’d hoped you might know where he’d gone.’

‘Abroad, by his own admission. To avoid facing Constance, I suppose, with all that he did to win her from me.’

‘He doesn’t say that.’

‘No, but why else should he go? Why else should he flee when he had nothing to lose by staying?’

Richard hardly felt he knew Trenchard any longer.
Angry
, baffled, foolish: he had been all of those. But never guarded or knowing or subtle: never as he was now. Nor had thirteen months in a lunatic asylum made him so. This was a transformation of the recent past. This, Richard could not help but feel, was the transformation of one who knew what was about to happen.

IX

‘I fear I must ask you some further questions, ma’am,’ said Inspector Gow, in a voice which suggested he wished to convey more regret than he actually felt.

‘Of course, Inspector,’ Constance replied. ‘I do understand. Please proceed.’

‘Has your sister told you of Miss Pursglove’s statement?’

‘She has.’

‘From it we know that Sir James was heading north along the canal bank that morning. Where do you suppose he was going?’

‘To the aqueduct and back, presumably.’

Gow sighed. ‘That, ma’am, is what he told Miss Pursglove. We know it is not what he did. I’m advised that a man wishing to catch the first train to London and setting off from here on foot might well find it quicker, and certainly less conspicuous, to walk up the canal to Bathampton, rather than go over the hill into Bath. From Bathampton, he could catch a stopper to Chippenham and connect there with the fast train to London.’

‘I’m afraid I couldn’t say, Inspector.’

‘Take my word for it, ma’am, it is so. He could have been on his way to Newmarket before you were even awake.’

‘Or on his way virtually anywhere else.’

‘Quite so. But we do have evidence of rather closer links between Quinn and your husband than you had cause to suspect.’

‘Such as?’

‘Quinn had in his possession documents relating to a bank account in Zurich: an account held jointly in three names, of which Quinn’s was one and your husband’s another. Did you know of the existence of such an account?’

‘No, I did not.’

‘The balance is a very healthy one, to judge by the statements we found in Quinn’s safe: tens of thousands of pounds, in fact, with more being deposited regularly. Can you suggest where the money might be coming from?’

‘No.’

‘Not, I’ll warrant, from a gold mine in New Zealand. I think the source is rather closer to home, don’t you?’

‘I’ve really no idea.’

‘But your husband was one of the depositors, ma’am.’

‘My husband does not discuss his financial affairs with me, Inspector.’

‘I daresay, but the date the account was opened is interesting: the fifth of September this year. I gather from your sister that Sir James was in Zurich around that time. Can you confirm that?’

‘The three of us were there around then, yes.’

‘So your husband would have had the opportunity to open such an account in person?’

‘I really—’

‘But he never discusses his financial affairs with you.’ Gow smiled. ‘I’m sorry. It quite slipped my mind. Of course he doesn’t. What about his other affairs?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘The third name in which the Zurich account is held is that of a woman, ma’am: Miss M. Devereux. Do you know the lady?’

‘No.’

‘The name means nothing to you?’

Constance’s mouth set in a determined line. ‘Nothing at all, Inspector.’ But the colour that had come to her face suggested a different answer.

X

The first snowfall of winter had come to the grounds of Ticehurst Asylum in its sheltered fold of the Sussex Weald. No bird sang in the powdered privets, nor wind stirred the festooned firs. Even the ivy-clad façade of Ticehurst House wore a beard of white to complete the scene of frozen strangeness.

Down a long straight path leading away from the house towards the distant roof of an ornamental pagoda, two men walked at a sombre pace, hats pulled well down over their ears, greatcoat collars turned up round their chins, the snow crunching beneath their feet in time with their strides. One was William Trenchard, an inmate of the asylum. The other was Abel Kitson, his attendant. To the untrained eye, however, they would have appeared like two friends of similar backgrounds and tastes discussing the ways of the world during an afternoon stroll. Kitson himself, had he been asked, would readily have admitted that Trenchard was neither well-bred nor addle-brained enough to fit readily into the bizarre but ordered society of Ticehurst.

Nor would he have needed to look far for examples of the type of inmate Trenchard clearly was not. Beyond the rhododendron hedge that lined the path, the Reverend Sturgess Phelps and Lord Tristram Benbow were currently engaged in a snowballing contest, the Reverend Phelps having temporarily forgotten his oft-voiced conviction that he had been unfrocked as a result of an Anglo-Catholic conspiracy (affecting the highest reaches of Church and State) in order to indulge the forty-eight-year-old Lord Tristram’s unshakeable belief that he was still a boy of twelve.

‘Do I take it, Mr T,’ Kitson said, smiling as a stray snowball arced across their path, ‘that you’re shortly to be leaving us?’

‘What makes you think so, Abel?’

‘Well, you’ve been looking around the grounds this
afternoon
with what I can only describe as an expectation of nostalgia.’

‘Hah!’ Trenchard clapped Kitson on the shoulder. ‘Why the devil does Newington employ doctors in this place when you could give him all the psychological insights he needs?’

‘Because, Mr T, I’m too busy playing the double bass at his musical teas to play the doctor as well.’

‘You’re wasted, Abel, believe me.’

‘You admit the diagnosis is correct, then?’

‘Perhaps. I have hopes, as you know.’

‘More than hopes, I should say.’

‘I assure you—’

‘Two visitors in as many days, one a solicitor? The signs are clear, Mr T, crystal clear.’

‘Richard Davenall comes every month. As for my brother—’

‘Brother?’ Now it was Kitson’s turn to laugh aloud. ‘That man was no brother of yours.’

‘How would you know?’

‘Call it a psychological insight.’

Suddenly, bursting on to the path between the rhododendrons in a scatter of snow and a cloud of frosting breath, came the crouched and black-clad figure of the Reverend Sturgess Phelps. ‘You two!’ he cried at sight of them. ‘Which way did he go?’

‘If you mean Lord Tristram …’ Kitson began.

‘Not Lord Tristram, you dolt,’ Phelps screeched. ‘The stranger!’

‘I’m afraid we haven’t—’

‘He’s a Puseyite spy, not a doubt of it! But never fear: he won’t escape me!’ With that, Phelps lurched away through the bushes.

Kitson watched the troubled priest describe a purposeful zig-zag away across the snow-covered lawns, before deciding, on balance, that he would come to no harm. When he looked back along the path, he saw that Trenchard had gone ahead and was standing now on the
wooden
veranda of the pagoda, gazing out to the south across the white-wreathed countryside.

‘Looking for something, Mr T?’ Kitson said, on catching him up.

‘Waiting more than looking, Abel. Tomorrow is the twenty-ninth, isn’t it?’

‘I believe it is.’

‘What time do you think it’ll get light?’

‘Between eight and half-past, I should say.’

Trenchard nodded thoughtfully. ‘A little over sixteen hours, then.’

‘Who was he, Mr T, your mysterious visitor? Not your brother: you’ve described him to me before, and that fellow who came here yesterday didn’t match him by a mile. So who was he? He spent nearly all day with you. You must have had a lot to talk about.’

‘We did, Abel. We did.’

‘But you’re not going to tell me what, are you?’

Trenchard smiled ruefully. ‘No, I’m not.’

Kitson clicked his tongue in mock disappointment. ‘After all you’ve confided in me.’

‘Don’t take it to heart, Abel. What he told me I can’t tell another living soul.’

Trenchard did not exaggerate. He was bound to silence by the most solemn of promises. Two days before, he would have dismissed the idea of keeping a secret for Sir James Davenall as absurd, yet he had since agreed to do just that. For now he knew the truth – and knew also that it could never be told.

‘What do you want with me?’ he remembered demanding, when he had seen who was waiting for him in the empty visiting-room: not his brother, as he had been informed, but the tall, slim, irksomely elegant, infernally cool figure of Sir James Davenall. ‘Come to gloat, have you?’

‘Far from it.’

‘Then, why have you come?’

‘Because I want to tell you freely what I’ve tried till now
to
prevent you finding out at all costs: the truth. I want to confess, you might say.’

It was a trick, Trenchard had felt certain, some vile twisted scheme to increase his agony of mind. ‘Confess that you’re not James Davenall, you mean?’

‘Exactly.’

Still Trenchard had believed Norton was taunting him. ‘You want to provoke me into making accusations which will be taken as further proof of my insanity. That’s it, isn’t it?’

‘No. It isn’t.’

‘It must be. Constance has married you, hasn’t she?’

‘Yes. Five days ago.’

‘Believing you to be James?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then, what do you mean by coming here now and admitting you’re not? Is it because we’re alone, without witnesses, because I’m a certified lunatic whose word counts for less than nothing? Is that why you feel free to torment me? Damn you, Norton, you’ve taken my wife and my liberty – isn’t that enough?’

‘Yes. It’s enough. Enough to make you the one man entitled to hear the truth from my own lips. You’re not mad. We both know that. And now I’m prepared to tell the world so. To end your confinement here. On one condition.’

Trenchard had not dared to believe release was possible. Yet he could not have denied that, if any man could bring it about, it was Norton. ‘What condition?’

‘Hear me out. That’s all I ask. Listen to what I have to say. As to witnesses, when I’ve finished I think you’ll be glad there aren’t any.’

And so Trenchard had been. Now, as he heard again in his mind Norton’s long and calmly told story, the story he had heard in silence as they sat together in that dismal room, he was more certain than ever that Norton was right: it must remain secret for ever.

‘My real name is Stephen Alexander Lennox. I was born at Murrismoyle, County Mayo, on the twenty-eighth of July 1843. My father, Andrew Lennox, was agent for the Carntrassna estate of Sir Lemuel Davenall, whose estranged wife Mary lived in Carntrassna House whilst he remained in England. My parents were both Scottish by birth. They had married, and kept a farm, in Scotland before moving to Ireland in 1840.

‘Although my earliest memories of Mayo date from the famine years, when the peasantry died in their thousands and most of those who survived fled across the Atlantic, I can only recollect a carefree, not to say cosseted, childhood, insulated in my nursery at Murrismoyle from the tragedy unfolding about me. Not until Denzil O’Shaughnessy became my tutor and shared with me his knowledge of the world and its ways, did I begin to understand how privileged my upbringing was.

‘Privilege, however, did not extend to warmth. My father was a cold remote figure to me, and my mother, though affectionate at times, could as often lapse into timid tight-lipped reserve. They gave me every comfort and advantage, yet seemed to take no pleasure in doing so. It was strange indeed to see the tenants on the estate raising large and happy broods of children in turf-hutted squalor whilst I grew up in pampered joyless solitude.

‘Only when I had grown to manhood did the contradictions of my early life become apparent to me. At the time, I did not wonder why I should be educated at home rather than banished to a distant school. Nor did it ever occur to my mind that my father treated me more as a dutiful guardian would than a loving parent.

‘I was told of my father’s decision to emigrate, like all of his decisions, without warning. I was sixteen at the time and hopeful of winning a place at Trinity College, Dublin. Our sudden removal to Canada, and thence to the United States, came as a complete and far from welcome surprise. Nor was I given any explanation of the move. There had been no disagreement with Lady Davenall – that I could
discover
. It was simply that my father had somehow acquired sufficient money to warrant our making a new and independent life elsewhere.

‘And a new life it certainly was. We moved to New York, where my father bought a vineyard on the north shore of Long Island and an elegant house near Port Jefferson. How he financed or conceived his transition into the wine trade I did not understand, but, at first, he prospered and was able to send me to Yale to complete my education. A year there converted me into an arrogantly well-educated young man happy to forget his obscure Irish origins.