Arthur and George (43 page)

“Arthur, my dear,” she interrupts. “There is something I wish to talk about.”

He looks surprised, and slightly alarmed. If he has always valued her directness, there is a residual suspicion within him that whenever a woman says something must be talked about, it is rarely something to a man’s comfort or advantage.

“I want you to explain to me your involvement in . . . do you call it spiritism or spiritualism?”

“Spiritism is the term I prefer, but it seems to be losing currency. However, I thought you disliked the entire subject.” He means more than this: that she fears and despises the whole subject—and,
a fortiori,
its adherents.

“Arthur, I could not dislike anything you are interested in.” She means less than this: that she hopes she cannot dislike anything he is interested in.

And so he begins to explain his involvement, from experiments in thought-transference with the future architect of Undershaw to conversations inside Buckingham Palace with Sir Oliver Lodge. At all points he stresses the scientific origins and procedures of psychical research. He goes very carefully, making it sound as respectable and unthreatening as he can. His tone as much as his words begins to reassure her a little.

“It is true, Arthur, that Lily has talked to me a little about table-turning, but I suppose I have always considered it against Church teaching. Is it not heresy?”

“It goes against Church institutions, that is true. Not least because it cuts out the middleman.”

“Arthur! That is hardly a proper way to speak about the clergy.”

“But it is what, historically, they have been. Middlemen, intermediaries. Conveyors of the truth at first, but increasingly controllers of the truth, obfuscators, politicians. The Cathars were on the right line, that of direct access to God untrammelled by layers of hierarchy. Naturally they were wiped out by Rome.”

“So your—do I call them beliefs or not?—make you hostile to my Church?” And therefore, she means, to all its members. To one specific member.

“No, my dearest. And I would never seek to dissuade you from going to your Church. But we are moving beyond all religions. Soon—very soon in historical terms—they will be things of the past. Look at it this way. Is religion the only domain of thought which is non-progressive? Wouldn’t that be a strange thing? Are we forever to be referred to a standard set two thousand years ago? Cannot people see that as the human brain evolves, it must take a wider outlook? A half-formed brain makes a half-formed God, and who shall say our brains are even half-formed yet?”

Jean is silent. She thinks that the standards set two thousand years ago are true ones which should be obeyed; and that while the brain might develop, and produce all sorts of scientific advances, the soul, which is the spark of the divine, is something quite separate and immutable, and not subject to evolution.

“Do you remember when I judged the Strong Man competition? At the Albert Hall? He was called Murray, the winner. I followed him out into the night. He had a gold statue under his arm, he was the strongest man in Britain. Yet he was lost in the fog . . .”

No, metaphor was the wrong approach. Metaphors were for the institutional religions. Metaphors paltered.

“What we are doing, Jean, is a simple thing. We are taking the essence of the great religions, which is the life of the spirit, and rendering it more visible and thus more understandable.”

These sound like tempter’s words to her, and her tone is crisp. “By seances and table-turning?”

“Which look strange to the outsider, I freely admit. As the ceremonies of your Church would look strange to a visiting Zoroastrian. The body and blood of Christ on a plate and in a cup—he might think that was sheer hocus-pocus. Religions—all religions—have become mired in ritual and despotism. We do not say, Come and pray in our church and follow our instructions and perhaps one day you will be rewarded in the afterlife. That is like the bargaining of carpet salesmen. Rather, we will show you now, as you live, the reality of certain psychic phenomena, which will prove to you the physical abolition of death.”

“So you do not believe in the resurrection of the body?”

“That we go into the ground and rot, then at some future time are put back together whole? No. The body is a mere husk, a container which we shed. It is true that some souls wander in darkness for a while after death, but that is only because they are unprepared for the transition to the farther side. A true spiritist who understands the process will pass easily and without anguish. And will also be able to communicate more quickly with the world he has left behind.”

“You have witnessed this?”

“Oh yes. And hope to do so more frequently as I understand more.”

A sudden chill goes through Jean. “You are not, I hope, going to become a medium, dear Arthur.” She has a picture of her beloved husband as an aged huckster going into trances and talking in funny voices. And of the new Lady Doyle being known as a huckster’s wife.

“Oh no, I have no such powers. True mediums are very, very rare. They are often simple, humble people. Like Jesus Christ, for instance.”

Jean ignores this comparison. “And what about morality, Arthur?”

“Morality is unchanged. True morality, that is—which comes from the individual conscience and the love of God.”

“I do not mean for you, Arthur. You know what I mean. If people—ordinary people—do not have the Church to tell them how to behave, then they will relapse into brutish squalor and self-interest.”

“I do not see that as the alternative. Spiritists, true spiritists, are men and women of high moral calibre. I could name you several. And their morality is the higher because they are closer to an understanding of spiritual truth. If the ordinary person to whom you allude were to see proof of the spirit world at first hand, if he were to realize how close it is to us at all times, then brutishness and self-interest will lose their appeal. Make the truth apparent, and morality will take care of itself.”

“Arthur, you are going too fast for me.” More to the point, Jean feels a headache coming on; indeed, she fears, a migraine.

“Of course. We have all our lives ahead of us. And then all of eternity together.”

Jean smiles. She wonders what Touie will be doing for all of the eternity she and Arthur have together. Though of course the same problem will present itself, whether her Church turns out to be telling the truth, or those low-born mediums who so impress her husband-to-be.

Arthur himself is far from getting a headache. Life is on the move again: first the Edalji case, and now Jean’s sudden interest in the things beneath that truly matter. He will soon be back to full gusto. On the doorstep he embraces his waiting girl and, for the first time since Touie’s death, finds himself reacting like a prospective bridegroom.

Anson

Arthur told the cabby to drop him at the old lock-up next to the White Lion Hotel. The inn lay directly opposite the gates of Green Hall. It was an instinctive tactic, to arrive on foot. Overnight bag in hand, he followed the gently rising drive from the Lichfield Road, trying to make his shoeleather discreet on the gravel. As the house, slantingly lit by the frail late-afternoon sun, became plain before him, he stopped in a tree’s shade. Why should the methods of Dr. Joseph Bell not persuade architecture to yield secrets, just as physiology did? So: 1820s, he guessed; white stucco; a pseudo-Greek façade; a solid portico with two pairs of unfluted Ionic columns; three windows on either side. Three storeys—and yet to his enquiring eye there was something suspicious about the third. Yes, he would bet Wood a forty-point start that there was not a single attic room behind that row of seven windows: a mere architectural trick to make the house taller and more impressive. Not that this fakery could be blamed on the current occupant. Peering beyond the house, across to the right, Doyle could make out a sunken rose garden, a tennis ground, a summer house flanked by a pair of young grafted hornbeams.

What story did it all tell? One of money, breeding, taste, history, power. The family’s name had been made in the eighteenth century by Anson the circumnavigator, who had also laid down its first fortune—prize money from the capture of a Spanish galleon. His nephew had been raised to the viscountcy in 1806; promotion to the earldom followed in 1831. If this was the second son’s residence, and his elder brother held Shugborough, then the Ansons knew how to foster their inheritance.

A few feet back from a second-floor window, Captain Anson called softly to his wife.

“Blanche, the Great Detective is almost upon us. He is studying the driveway for the footprints of an enormous hound.” Mrs. Anson had rarely heard him so skittish. “Now, when he arrives, you are not to burble about his books.”

“I, burble?” She pretended more offence than she took.

“He has already been burbled at across the length and breadth of the country. His supporters have burbled him to death. We are to be hospitable but not ingratiating.”

Mrs. Anson had been married long enough to know that this was a sign of nerves rather than any true apprehension over her behaviour. “I have ordered clear soup, baked whiting and mutton cutlets.”

“Accompanied by?”

“Brussels sprouts and potato croquets, of course. You did not need to ask. Then semolina soufflé and anchovy eggs.”

“Perfection.”

“For breakfast, would you prefer fried bacon and brawn, or grilled herrings and beef roll?”

“In this weather—the latter, I believe, would suit. And remember, Blanche, no discussion of the case over dinner.”

“That will be no hardship to me, George.”

In any case, Doyle proved himself a punctilious guest, keen to be shown his room, equally keen to descend from it in time for a tour of the grounds before the light faded. As one property owner to another, he showed concern over the frequency with which the River Sow flooded the water meadows, and then asked about the curious earthen mound which lay half-concealed by the summer house. Anson explained that it was an old ice house, now put out of business by refrigeration; he wondered if he might not turn it over to the storage of wine. Next they considered how the turf of the tennis ground was surviving the winter, and jointly regretted the brevity of season that the English climate imposed. Anson accepted Doyle’s praise and appreciation, all of which assumed that he was the owner of Green Hall. In truth, he merely leased it; but why should he tell the Great Detective that?

“I see those young hornbeams have been grafted.”

“You do not miss a trick, Doyle,” replied the Chief Constable with a smile. It was the lightest of references to what lay ahead.

“I have had planting years myself.”

At dinner, the Ansons occupied either end of the table, with Doyle granted the view through the central window out on to the dormant rose garden. He showed himself properly attentive to Mrs. Anson’s questions; at times, she thought, excessively so.

“You are well acquainted with Staffordshire, Sir Arthur?”

“Not as well as I should be. But there is a connection with my father’s family. The original Doyle was a cadet-branch of the Staffordshire Doyles, which, as you may know, produced Sir Francis Hastings Doyle and other distinguished men. This cadet took part in the invasion of Ireland and was granted estates in County Wexford.”

Mrs. Anson smiled encouragingly, not that it seemed necessary. “And on your mother’s side?”

“Ah, now that is of considerable interest. My mother is great on archaeology, and with the help of Sir Arthur Vicars—the Ulster King of Arms, and himself a relative—has been able to work out her descent over a period of five centuries. It is her boast—our boast—that we have a family tree on which many of the great ones of the earth have roosted. My grandmother’s uncle was Sir Denis Pack, who led the Scottish Brigade at Waterloo.”

“Indeed.” Mrs. Anson was a firm believer in class, also in its duties and obligations. But it was nature and bearing, rather than documentation, that proved a gentleman.

“However, the real romance of the family is traced from the marriage in the mid-seventeenth century of the Reverend Richard Pack to Mary Percy, heir to the Irish branch of the Percys of Northumberland. From this moment we connect up to three separate marriages with the Plantagenets. One has, therefore, some strange strains in one’s blood which are noble in origin, and, one can but hope, are noble in tendency.”

“One can but hope,” repeated Mrs. Anson. She herself was the daughter of Mr. G. Miller of Brentry, Gloucester, and had little curiosity about her distant ancestors. It seemed to her that if you paid an investigator to elaborate your family tree, you would always end up being connected to some great family. Genealogical detectives did not, on the whole, send in bills attached to confirmation that you were descended from swineherds on one side of the family and pedlars on the other.

“Although,” Sir Arthur continued, “by the time Katherine Pack—the niece of Sir Denis—was widowed in Edinburgh, the family fortunes had fallen into a parlous condition. Indeed, she was obliged to take in a paying guest. Which was how my father—the paying guest—came to meet my mother.”

“Charming,” commented Mrs. Anson. “Altogether charming. And now you are busy restoring the family fortunes.”

“When I was a small boy, I was much pained by the poverty to which my mother was reduced. I sensed that it was against the grain of her nature. That memory is part of what has always driven me on.”

“Charming,” repeated Mrs. Anson, meaning it rather less this time. Noble blood, hard times, restored fortunes. She was happy enough to believe such themes in a library novel, but when confronted by a living version was inclined to find them implausible and sentimental. She wondered how long the family’s ascendancy would last this time round. What did they say about quick money? One generation to make it, one to enjoy it, one to lose it.

But Sir Arthur, if more than a touch vainglorious about his ancestry, was a diligent table-companion. He showed abundant appetite, even if he ate without the slightest comment on what was put in front of him. Mrs. Anson could not decide whether he believed it vulgar to applaud food, or whether he simply lacked taste buds. Also unmentioned at table were the Edalji case, the state of criminal justice, the administration of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and the exploits of Sherlock Holmes. But they managed to steer a course, like three scullers without a cox, Sir Arthur pulling vigorously on one side, and the Ansons dipping their blades sufficiently on the other to keep the boat straight.

The anchovy eggs were despatched, and Blanche Anson could sense male restiveness farther down the table. They were eager for the curtained study, the poked fire, the lit cigar, the glass of brandy, and the opportunity, in as civilized a way as possible, to tear great lumps out of one another. She could scent, above the odours of the table, something primitive and brutal in the air. She rose, and bade the combatants goodnight.

The gentlemen passed into Captain Anson’s study, where a fire was in full spate. Doyle took in the glisten of fresh coal in the brass bucket, the polished spines of bound periodicals, a sparkling three-bottle tantalus, the lacquered belly of a bloated fish in a glass case. Everything gleamed: even that pair of antlers from a non-native species—a Scandinavian elk of some kind, he assumed—had attracted the housemaid’s attention.

He eased a cigar from the offered box and rolled it between his fingers. Anson passed him a penknife and a box of cigar matches.

“I deprecate the use of the cigar-cutter,” he announced. “I shall always prefer the nice conduct of the knife.”

Doyle nodded, and bent to his task, then flicked the cut stub into the fire.

“I understand that the advancement of science has now brought us the invention of an electric cigar-lighter?”

“If so, it has not reached Hindhead,” replied Doyle. He declined any billing as the metropolis come to patronize the provinces. But he identified a need in his host to assert mastery in his own study. Well, if so, he would help him.

“The elk,” he proposed, “is perhaps from Southern Canada?”

“Sweden,” replied the Chief Constable almost too quickly. “Not a mistake your detective would have made.”

Ah, so we shall have that one first, shall we? Doyle watched Anson light his own cigar. In the match’s flare the Stafford knot of his tiepin briefly gleamed.

“Blanche reads your books,” said the Chief Constable, nodding a little, as if this settled the matter. “She is also very partial to Mrs. Braddon.”

Doyle felt a sudden pain, the literary equivalent of gout. And there was a further stab as Anson continued, “I am more for Stanley Weyman myself.”

“Capital,” Doyle answered, “Capital.” By which he meant, It is capital that you prefer him as far as I am concerned.

“You see, Doyle—I’m sure you don’t mind if I speak frankly?—I may not be what you would call a literary fellow, but as Chief Constable I inevitably take a more professional view of matters than I imagine most of your readers do. That the police officers you introduce into your tales are inadequate to their task is something which is, I quite understand, necessary to the logic of your inventions. How else would your scientific detective shine if not surrounded by boobies?”

It was not worth arguing the toss. “Boobies” hardly described Lestrade and Gregson and Hopkins and . . . oh, it wasn’t—

“No, I fully understand your reasons, Doyle. But in the real world . . .”

At this point Doyle more or less stopped listening. In any case, his mind had snagged on the phrase “the real world.” How easily everyone understood what was real and what was not. The world in which a benighted young solicitor was sentenced to penal servitude in Portland . . . the world in which Holmes unravelled another mystery beyond the powers of Lestrade and his colleagues . . . or the world beyond, the world behind the closed door, through which Touie had effortlessly slipped. Some people believed in only one of these worlds, some in two, a few in all three. Why did people imagine that progress consisted of believing in less, rather than believing in more, in opening yourself to more of the universe?

“. . . which is why, my good fellow, I shall not, without orders from the Home Office, be issuing my inspectors with cocaine syringes and my sergeants and constables with violins.”

Doyle inclined his head, as if acknowledging a palpable hit. But that was enough play-acting and guestliness.

“To the case at hand. You have read my analysis.”

“I have read your . . . story,” replied Anson. “A deplorable business, it has to be said. A series of mistakes. It could all have been nipped in the bud so much earlier.”

Anson’s candour surprised Doyle. “I’m glad to hear you say that. Which mistakes did you have in mind?”

“The family’s. That’s where it all went wrong. The wife’s family. What took it into their heads? Whatever took it into their heads? Doyle, really: your niece insists upon marrying a Parsee—can’t be persuaded out of it—and what do you do? You give the fellow a living . . .
here.
In Great Wyrley. You might as well appoint a Fenian to be Chief Constable of Staffordshire and have done with it.”

“I’m inclined to agree with you,” replied Doyle. “No doubt his patron sought to demonstrate the universality of the Anglican Church. The Vicar is, in my judgement, both an amiable and a devoted man, who has served the parish to the best of his ability. But the introduction of a coloured clergyman into such a rude and unrefined parish was bound to cause a regrettable situation. It is certainly an experiment that should not be repeated.”

Anson looked across at his guest with sudden respect—even allowing for that gibe about “rude and unrefined.” There was more common ground here than he had expected. He ought to have known that Sir Arthur was unlikely to prove an out-and-out radical.

“And then to introduce three half-caste children into the neighbourhood.”

“George, Horace and Maud.”

“Three half-caste children,” repeated Anson.

“George, Horace and Maud,” repeated Doyle.

“George, Horace and Maud Ee-dal-jee.”

“You have read my analysis?”

“I have read your . . . analysis”—Anson decided to concede the word this time—“and I admire, Sir Arthur, both your tenacity and your passion. I promise to keep your amateur speculations to myself. To broadcast them would do your reputation no good.”

“I think you must allow me to be the judge of that.”

“As you wish, as you wish. Blanche was reading to me the other day. An interview you gave in the
Strand
some years ago, about your methods. I trust you were not grossly misrepresented?”

“I have no memory of being so. But I am not in the habit of reading through in a spirit of verification.”

“You described how, when you wrote your tales, that it was always the conclusion which first preoccupied you.”

“Beginning with an ending. You cannot know which path to travel unless you first know the destination.”