A Fatal Likeness (22 page)

I handed her my card and saw at once she knew the name.

“Maddox,” she said slowly. “I believe I have heard of you. Did you not assist Shelley in the matter of Tremadoc, a year or so past? I saw him so rarely at that time, and things were not well between us …”

Her voice trailed off then, and I saw her put her hand to her eyes.

“I did attempt to be of assistance,” I continued, affecting, out of delicacy, not to notice her gesture. “But I am afraid I found neither testimony nor evidence to corroborate your husband’s assertions.”

“You might have had mine,” she replied, a little tartly. “Had you asked. I could have confirmed every word. I witnessed it all. The shots of the gun, the damage to the wainscoting, the cries of revenge. It was truly terrifying.”

She pulled her shawl more tightly about her. ”No-one knows the truth of that night but Shelley and I. Neither what happened, nor why.”

It was a curious thing to say, in the circumstances, and I was about to question her further when there came a sound from within. As she turned back into the room, I saw a little girl, perhaps three years old, sitting on the threadbare chair near the fire. She seemed a delightful child, her hair golden, her eyes as blue as her father’s, and her rosy cheeks plump and dimpled; whatever hardships her mother might now be enduring, it was clear this child was well fed and nurtured. She whimpered again, then, and I saw that her doll had fallen to the floor and I stepped forward at once, forestalling her mother, and restored the plaything to the child’s lap.

“What a pretty string of blue beads you are wearing,” I remarked, not knowing what else to say, and never having had experience of talking to children.

“They were her father’s gift,” Mrs Shelley told me. “He hung them from the hood of her cradle, the day she was born, and now she cannot bear to be parted from them.”

“What is her name?”

“Ianthe,” she replied. “Ianthe Eliza.”

“It is a pretty name. And an unusual one. From Ovid—the
Metamorphoses.
”

I was about to relate the story, but recalling that it is, after all, rather a disconcerting one, I thought better of it. Mrs Shelley, for her part, smiled sadly. “I know nothing of such things. All I know is that Bysshe was most insistent on the name. He wished her to be called Ianthe Mary, but I have never liked the latter, and I insisted in my turn on Eliza, for my sister. And I am thankful now that I did. How could I have borne to have my little girl share
her
name? To be reminded every day of
her
and what she did, and the ruin she has made of my life, as if I do not have memories enough to torment me?”

Again, I thought bitterly, again Shelley evades all blame. Again his conduct is excused, and the women he has ruined torture them
selves
in their desperate endeavour to exonerate him.

“
She
is culpable, not he,” said Mrs Shelley, seeing my look, and guessing perhaps my thought. “We were happy, he and I, before he met
her.
We had our darling daughter and another coming, and all was well, before he became infatuated with that horrid old man William Godwin. And then
she
seduced him with all her wild talk and taking him day after day to her mother’s grave, till at last she told him she was overcome by passion for him, and gave herself to him, then and there, on the very gravestone her mother lay beneath. It is not right, Mr Maddox, it is not
right.
”

By now she was weeping piteously, and as I saw her search blindly for a handkerchief I offered my own. And as she took it, and as the shawl slipped a moment from her grasp, I saw. I saw her secret, and I knew what it was that had driven her from her father’s house.

“You are with child?” I asked gently.

She flashed me a look then, though whether of anger, fear, or shame, I could not tell.

“Please go now. I do not wish you to be here when my sister returns.”

“But surely there is more I can to do assist you—does your husband even know of your condition?”

“No!” she cried, her eyes wild. “And he must not be told of it!
Never!
”

“But he must discharge his duty!” I exclaimed, my mind in fury. “Not merely towards your existing children, but towards this one yet unborn. To have behaved so despicably—to have continued to exercise all the rights of a husband, while presenting himself in that character to another woman—another woman who has already borne him two children—”

“You do not understand,” Harriet wept. “Bysshe is not to blame—I have not seen him—not since—not since long before—”

But I knew she was lying; I was certain Shelley had visited her here, just as he had, all too probably, visited her at Chapel-street prior to his departure for Geneva, and the miserable predicament in which she now found herself was the only too obvious result. I was on the point of remonstrating with her once more, despite her tears, when the door flew open and a woman strode into the room, holding a small boy by the hand. He ran at once to his sister’s chair where he climbed up beside her, and proceeded to watch us in that quiet, circumspect way children acquire who have known little but disturbance in their lives, and wish not to add to the sum of it. The young woman in question—though I use the adjective out of courtesy, rather than exactness—turned at once to me. The first impression I gained of her was of a height and an appearance utterly at odds with her sister’s; from a distance she might well have been deemed handsome, with her abundant black hair and pale complexion, but standing as I was, within a few feet of her, I could see that her skin was seamed with the small-pox and of a dead white, and her hair, of which she was evidently very proud, coarse and wiry.

“Who are you, sir?” she demanded. “My sister is not nearly well enough to receive casual visitors.”

“Please, Eliza,” whispered Mrs Shelley, going at once to her side. “Mr Maddox was offering to help me. Perhaps he might be able, if he knew—”

“
I
can give you all the assistance you need,” replied Miss Westbrook firmly, leading her resolutely to the bed. “You need no-one but me, Harriet,” she said, as she settled her gently against the pillows, “you have never needed anyone but me. And now that that villain has gone, we may be together once more, and forever.”

Seeing her then, bent over her sister’s prone body, her hand to her cheek, and her eyes full of a burning tenderness, I wondered. Wondered if Mrs Shelley might have sought more than concealment in fleeing her father’s house; wondered, indeed, whether the story she once told Shelley of her yearning to escape a domestic oppression might have had nothing to do with a supposed parental tyranny, but have been, instead, a naïve and girlish attempt to describe a domination of a far subtler nature, and from which, it seemed to me, she had never truly escaped.

At that moment Miss Westbrook seemed to recall my presence, for she straightened up, marched swiftly to the door, and held it open. There was no mistaking the gesture, just as there was no mistaking the look that flickered across Mrs Shelley’s face as I stepped briefly towards her and made my bow.

“You know where you may find me, Mrs Shelley,” I said gravely, contriving to leave a fold of bank-notes on the table by the bed. “I am at your service, and will remain so.”

“Mr Maddox?” said Miss Westbrook as I drew level with her in the doorway. “Do not call again. We need no interference from strangers. However seemingly benevolent.”

I had, needless to say, no intention of acceding to this demand, but recognising that it was useless to attempt to see Mrs Shelley again in her sister’s presence, I judged it best to wait until the morrow, and call upon her again then. But other urgent business calling me from town, I was not able to make good on this intention. The first I knew, therefore, of what had occurred was when I was summoned from my breakfast on Sunday to see ‘a lady.’ A most insistent lady, the housemaid informed me, and not to be gainsaid, despite the day and the early hour. I did not stay to don my coat, but went down at once. But it was not—as I hoped—Mrs Shelley, but Miss Westbrook I found awaiting me there. I had scarce opened the office door when she fell upon me with fevered eyes, gripping my arms and commanding me in ragged tones to reveal what I had done with her sister.

“I have done nothing with her, madam,” I countered stoutly, pushing her, somewhat indelicately, from me.

“You
must
know!” she cried. “I know all about you—going to her lodgings claiming to be her friend and all the while in the pocket of that odious man. And do not seek to deny it—I saw the note she left—she found out you know—what the two of you were conspiring—”

At this moment George Fraser came to the door with a look of enquiry on his weather-beaten features, attracted, no doubt, by the sound of raised voices. I assured him that all was well, and requested he ring the bell and have the maid bring coffee. I then turned back once more to my interlocutress. The interruption had done little to calm her fury; her sallow cheeks were red and her bosom heaving with suppressed emotion.

“Perhaps,” I said, indicating a chair, “you would have the goodness to explain what you mean, Miss Westbrook, and then I will attempt to be of assistance to you. The discovery of persons absconded, kidnapped, or otherwise missing being one of the services I am pleased to offer.”

If such words sound sardonic now I fear they were indeed so; at the time I thought only that poor Mrs Shelley had endured her sister’s suffocating affections long enough, and had sought, for a few days at least, to elude them. I knew furthermore that Harriet now had money, and might have secured herself a room in a far more salubrious establishment than Hans-place. Miss Westbrook, meanwhile, glared at me with palpable hatred, and for a moment I thought she was on the point of hurling abuse in my face and storming from the room, but I have encountered such as her before and I continued coolly to hold her gaze. A few moments later she dropped her eyes and sat, almost meekly, in the chair I had proffered. I likewise took a seat, and composed myself upon it. “Now, Miss Westbrook, perhaps we might advance a little. You say your sister is no longer at her lodgings?”

“She has not been seen since taking an early dinner yesterday,” she replied forlornly. “Mrs Thomas said she had become ever more despondent and gloomy since Thursday last, saying little and keeping largely to her bed. That was when
you
called, Maddox—this is all
your
fault—”

I held up my hand. “There is no evidence whatsoever to support that assertion, Miss Westbrook, and I am not accustomed to let such unfounded accusations go by unchallenged. Now, you spoke of a note?”

She nodded, and extracted a sheet of paper from her reticule.

Is it not enough that I should be pursued by those dreadful letters, but that they should harry me now in person? That man—that Maddox—is in Godwin’s pay—he is
Godwin’s
creature. The mischief that man has made is not to be told & now he wants nothing more than to get me out of the way so he can marry his daughter off to
my
husband. Money, money, money is all he thinks on & my Bysshe it is who has paid the price. He is no longer the man I loved—a cruel imposter has taken his place. I know now there is no joy in this unhappy world; I can only pray there is another where those that have endured as much suffering as I will at last find peace.

Do not think to follow——

“To what letters does your sister refer?” I asked.

“Do not feign ignorance,” Miss Westbrook hissed. ”You know very well that Harriet has received letter after letter, each one viler than the last, telling her that no-one regards her, that it would be better for all if she were to put an end to a life that is a torment to her, and which renders her nothing but a burden to all those unfortunate enough to be associated with her.”

“And from whence do these letters come?” I asked, my throat dry, though I knew the answer; knew and feared it.

“From
Bath,
” she replied. “From
Bath.
As well you know.”

I got from my chair then, and walked to the window, remembering that it was just such a letter, from that same place, that had cast poor Fanny Imlay into the last melancholy that had driven her to a pauper’s grave. Remembering that, and cursing myself in equal measure that Harriet Shelley had discovered—I knew not how—that I remained, in theory if not in fact, employed by the one man she seemed most to fear.

I turned then and strode to the door, and called down to Fraser to have the carriage brought round at once. Then I faced my interlocutress and took a deep breath. “You are correct in one respect, Miss Westbrook. I
was—
I stress the word—recently commissioned by Mr Godwin to discover the whereabouts of your sister—”

She gasped then and half rose to her feet, but I interrupted her. “Please hear me out. I said I
was
employed. By the time I paid that call on your sister I no longer considered myself to be so. The concern I expressed for her situation was genuine, and sincere. And I give you my word that I have told Godwin nothing of her being at Hans-place. If he has knowledge of that address he has not had it from me.”

I confess I feared a tirade then—a rain of fists or a fit of hysterics—but I was wrong. She merely slipped slowly back into the chair and began to weep. Great gasping sobs that seemed to tear her very frame apart.

“What am I to do?” she wailed. “I cannot bear the thought of life without her—if Harriet has harmed herself—if she has left me—”

I moved quickly towards her then, and helped her to her feet. “As I stated before, Miss Westbrook, I am skilled in recovering those who are absent, from whatever cause. Indeed there is no man in London better placed than I to find your sister. But I need your help. You knew her best, and it is vital, therefore, that you recruit your spirits as well as you may and assist me, for her quick discovery may depend on something that you alone know, even if you are not at present aware of it.”

She nodded then and endeavoured to still her tears. Fraser appeared at the door with my coat over one arm and my hat in his hand, saying the carriage awaited us downstairs.