Black Silk (17 page)

The questioning continued for twenty minutes. Graham became more and more unhappy, wallowing in a mixed sense of déjà vu and deprivation. Submit was not only removed from him by the physical barrier of Tate, she became a stranger—or, worse, familiar in that terrible sense of being so much like Henry. The questions were directed mostly to her. She answered in clipped monosyllables. Yes. No. He was. No. No, never before. Tea. Outside. Certainly not.

She had, like Henry, the ability to rise above such situations. Hers, like Henry’s, was the watchful reticence of someone unwillingly involved in something ugly—though she did what Henry would not do. She wrapped herself in the mantle of her irrefutable integrity and saved him.

The only amusing incident concerned Arnold Tate. During the questioning, he became vaguely agitated. He tried to break in once, but the superintendent drew the
line. He would give up his marginal prerogatives of insinuation and intimidation, but he would not give up his absolute authority to chair the meeting itself. He declared that Mr. Tate was being allowed to lend moral support strictly at the discretion of the London Metropolitan Police. His eloquent speeches and arguments were not welcome here; if he persisted in trying to interrupt, he would be asked to leave. For the rest of the interview, the barrister sat on the edge of his seat, like a schoolchild bursting to be called upon to add his brilliance to the discussion. But he remained mutely censored, gazing into the side of Submit’s face as if he might brace her with his vision alone.

She didn’t really need all this heroic gazing. She acquitted herself, and Graham, very well in fact. How very believable she could make it, Graham thought, that he and she were not close friends.

Graham and Submit left at the same time, though in a manner that could hardly be called together. They rose, made their way down the hall, bumping against curious strangers then each other, like two random marbles in a confined play of obstacles. Once outside, Graham saw she was beside him. He touched her arm, wanting to express his gratitude to her. Then he realized, looking into her face, into wide, glassy eyes that didn’t see him, that there was nothing to be grateful for. There had been no charity, no kindness, no friendly turn done him. Only an obligation to the truth. Instead he murmured, “I’m sorry.”

She didn’t even turn.

Though Arnold Tate did. He buttonholed Graham on the front steps as Submit slipped away.

“You should know,” he said, “if that stupid little official causes you any more difficulty, that you have a very different and very good defense.” Graham did not have much doubt whom Tate might want to save any further difficul
ties. “I happened to speak to the girl’s solicitor yesterday. He mentioned that she had come by a day ago asking what was meant by a ‘limited guardian,’ which is what you are named in the documents. She wanted to know if you would get the children if something happened to her.”

“What did he tell her?”

“That he wasn’t sure.”

“He wasn’t sure!”

“Don’t worry, all you have to do is register with the court that taking her children in the event of her death was not part of your understanding of the settlement. Guardianship is always a matter of consent. But this explains the girl’s note in a different light, doesn’t it? She meant by your ‘killing’ her that she thought her death would obligate you finally to do what she had wanted all along. It makes it a sure suicide.” Tate seemed very satisfied.

“Pardon me?” Graham took him by the arm. “Are we talking about my having to go to court again? Or else be obligated to care for this woman’s children?”

“Only briefly.” Tate was becoming irritable. At the street, Submit was attempting to hail a carriage. One slender arm was raised in the air.

“Briefly? I don’t want to go to court again! I thought I could just pay the money—”

“To whom? Look.” The barrister turned toward Graham. “Your solicitors very wisely arranged the money as a settlement on the mother. It was not attached to the children in any way—a device to remove you further from accusations of fatherhood, which you seemed to favor at the time. No one imagined the girl would do herself in, for heaven’s sake. We were all busy trying to keep her hands out of your pocket.” He added brusquely, “Nor, I might add, did anyone foresee you might argue for the privilege of paying two hundred pounds a year for the rest of your natural life.”

“Well, I certainly might—”

“Then speak to your solicitors. I had no hand in drawing up any of the documents, nor did I advise you to sign, as I recall.” Tate wrenched himself away.

Graham took the stairs quickly, but Tate was not above a dead run. It was he who won the right to hand Submit into the carriage. Then, just before the door closed, she leaned once more into view. She bent her head toward the counselor as if to consult with him in lowered tones. It was then that Graham saw that she was crying. She was racked with a kind of mourning for which he had no understanding. It engulfed her, as securely and completely as the carriage swallowed her up into its hollow center. In one bounding leap, Tate followed her inside.

Graham was left at the bottom of the steps, no more able to move his feet than his eyes. The door hung open on her darkness. One could hear the hysterical breaks of air across the lawn. Then she leaned forward, her veils drawn over her—she was swathed in layers of filmy black. She closed the door, and the carriage pulled away.

The vehicle jerked and halted and pulled forward again. The street was congested with conveyances, horses, mules, and people on foot. At the juncture behind Whitehall, the leisurely open carriages on parade around St. James’s Park mixed with pedestrians and carts and wagons in a barrage of noise. Submit’s carriage could barely move. It lurched along with the same uneven rhythm of her breath. “A-Arnold,” she said as she tried to control her sobs, “I have to get back to Mo-Motmarche.”

Her counselor opened the windows wide on either side. The street noise rushed in, but so did a mild breeze. Through grenadine silk, this breeze touched her hot eyes and cooled her face. Her veil clung to her wet cheeks.

Arnold’s shoulder fell into her as the vehicle gave a sudden surge. He righted himself, then drew one short arm
around her. “There, there, my dear.” He patted her shoulder. “It’s all right.” His musty, woolly wig pressed against the side of her head.

She turned, repeating into his silk robe, “I ha-have to get back to Mo-Motmarche.”

Arnold’s voice was quietly bewildered, solicitous. “I am doing everything I can. William simply thinks he can hold out—”

“Give him everything else, all the money he wants—”

“That would not be astute. Motmarche requires a fortune to exist. You can’t separate it from its finances, or it will fall beyond use.” He paused. “I want to ask you something.”

Submit wiped at her face through her veil with the back of her gloved hand. Everything felt scratchy, itchy, irritating against her skin and wet mouth.

“Did he do something?” Arnold asked.

“Wh-Who?”

He leaned away a moment. She was presented with a handkerchief. “Netham,” Arnold continued. “Whether you realize it or not, Submit, you are very vulnerable right now.” He paused. “You mustn’t fault yourself…if Netham has done something untoward.”

“Arnold, I was dragged all the way to London to say he did
nothing
, which is what he did. Why do you accuse him—”

“Perhaps because he has such a history of being guilty.”

“He is an innocent gentleman who is—”

“Extremely good-looking, who looks as innocent as a lamb.” He snorted. “As if innocence would stand there with its vest hanging open and its shirtcollar missing. No gentleman would have been seen in that room like that—”

“They questioned him for nine hours!”

“I’m sure they didn’t question him the entire time. Some of it was spent waiting while they fetched you.”

“During which time they could have let him go home!
There was no reason to hold him like a prisoner in that room! It was pure harassment—”

“Oh, Submit. What
did
go on out at the inn at Morrow Fields?”

She moaned, still crying. “He came for the box. Just exactly as I said.”

“Of course. Now, listen to what I’m about to say if you can. You must remember, a peacock doesn’t take a sparrow too much to heart. Graham Wessit is thirty-eight years old, without having made a commitment to any woman that lasted longer than a year. Whatever commitments he does make tend to run concurrently at best. His finances are so disordered that his house must be open to the public in order for him to stay afloat. He spends inordinate amounts on clothing, more still on entertainment, has a weakness for flashy jewelry and a greater weakness still for flashy women. No one can make any sense of his life, least of all him. He has never had a profitable interest in anything, only a tyro’s interest in a hundred shots in the dark. His only long-standing fascination is, so far as I can tell, for blowing things up. He has burned down two flats, caused a major fire in his back gardens, not to mention half a dozen incidents when he was growing up. Graham Wessit is as scattered and dangerous as loose sparks.”

“Arnold.” She looked up at him through watery eyes. “You don’t need to tell me any of this. I am perfectly capable of sorting out Graham Wessit for myself.”

“I am just afraid not—”

“Oh, Arnold—Please just get me back to Motmarche.”

He bowed his small, round head. “I don’t know how to get you there any faster than I am.”

Submit drew in a sob. “I want my life and my husband back!”

“You can’t have that, my dear.”

“I know,” she sobbed, a hiccough of half a dozen breaths.
“I know. Nothing can ever be put back. Oh, Arnold—” Submit stopped trying to control anything. Crying let loose inside her, like vital parts, organs, threatening to sob and hiccough their way up.

The carriage jerked to a steady, even pace, as Submit finally mourned. For Henry. For her lost home, her lost life. And ultimately for her lost illusion: She mourned what every human being mourns in the first moments of full adulthood—that even inside a friend’s arms one can be totally, absolutely alone.

Graham watched Submit’s carriage as it turned down the Mall. He would have given anything to have been allowed Tate’s place just then. He would love to have known, could almost feel, the closed privacy of Submit Channing-Downes’s intimate sadness. God help him, but he wanted to know that woman—

A voice interrupted. “Where, Your Lordship, would you like the babies taken?” A short young man in a neat suit of clothes stood beside him.

“The what?”

“I’m sorry,” he explained further. “I’m from the district court. The twin boys—” He raised both elbows. “Where shall I have them sent? Can you take them now?” The packages he carried kicked against him, then one of them let out a howl.

Graham could think of no grounds for protest as the man handed them over. They were small, warm, heavier than expected, and faintly, disconcertingly wet. Graham furrowed his brow. As if in response to this, the second baby began to cry as well. Graham found himself holding a duet of screaming, squalling discontent. He stared down.

More bewildering gifts from the dead.

Graham would tell the whole story to Submit that summer: Shortly after his recovery from “scurvy,” he left the sponsorship of Henry Channing-Downes. One night, at the peak of one of his and Henry’s more impassioned, circular arguments, Graham simply packed two light bags and left.

Henry, in retribution, shut off all funds:
until you are back where you belong
. At nineteen, Graham became an earl in title alone; he had no legal access to his earldom or any of its income without his guardian’s consent. Graham went to Elizabeth Barrow, who took him in, then abetted him further by finding him a livelihood in the only milieu she knew. For almost two years, Graham supported himself by appearing on the London stage. He ate, much to Henry’s red-faced confoundment.

The year Graham turned twenty, Henry pronounced his ward dead; a fatal disappointment. For four years, they didn’t speak or correspond. Only reluctantly, as Graham began his forceful march back into society in his own style of paradoxically scintillating and sullied ascent, did Henry eventually reestablish a strained adult relationship. A note at Christmas. An invitation to an elaborate wedding to which Graham never went.

On his way to Netham, Graham bent his route around the posting house once more. Actually, it was not on his way, since Netham was southwest and Morrow Fields was northwest of London. He could never say, “I just stopped by…” or “I happened to be….” It would always be a planned digression, a decision. This time, the widow was not at home.
She still lived there, he was assured, but was on an errand in town.

He could not wait that day and did not see her. But it set a precedent. He would go out of his way in future trips. “I go there to check on my cousin’s welfare,” he would respond if anyone were so nosy as to ask. But even he realized these detours had more to do with checking on his own.

Graham rode by horseback to his house in Netham, arriving in the dark. It was just after three in the morning. He was unshaven, unfed, and damp. It had rained the last hour of the way, but it had seemed foolish to try to stop and find shelter at that point.

There was no one to greet him, which suited him. He was an unannounced eight hours—exactly one night’s sleep—early. As he stepped into the house, the rightness of pushing on struck him in the face. The house was dry and warm. In a structure that was slow to heat, slow to cool, the atmosphere of late day still lingered in the dark. And there was the familiar odor, as each house has, conspicuous to its owner only in the first moments of return from a long absence. At the beginning of every summer, he met anew the strong smell of lemon oil, mahogany, of age mixed with tallow, burned coal oil, and burned wood. In a house with seventeen fireplaces, the air of Graham’s Nethamshire home was always faintly redolent of warm fires and charred stones. This blended with a rich, contradictory coolness and the smell of the earth-bed quarries that had delivered up the walls of the building itself.

Graham dropped his saddlebag where he entered and began to take off a glove with his teeth. A chandelier overhead tinkled lightly from the falling air currents of early morning. The back gardens were in bloom already—as he moved by the east window, the scent of rainy roses wafted toward him. He stopped, felt through a drawer, found matches, then left his second glove forgotten on the candle
stand as he brought a candelabra forward. He lit the wicks, one, two, three. For a moment, his own reflection wavered in the mirror over the table. He saw the dim reflection of a man wrapped to the chin, eyes bloodshot even in the faint light, a stubble of whiskers noticeably flecked with grey on his upper cheeks (causing his side whiskers to creep unfashionably higher and higher). Graham recognized the face, marginally. Then he deposited boots, wet leather, blankets, and damp wraps in a path that led up the stairs. A trail of possessions would eventually mark his exact way to bed.

In his private apartments, he lit a lamp from the wick of one candle. And there, on his bed, the sight of ordinary things gave him very unordinary pleasure. Recovered blessings. Clean sheets, a down coverlet, a fresh nightshirt pressed soft and smooth with an iron, and the book he’d been reading several weeks before.

He frowned. Why had he been in such revolt against these things? If there were something cluttered, something unsorted, about his life, it was not in these inanimate items. He could safely resume a material comfort and sort through the rest later. He got undressed, slipped on his nightshirt, and climbed into bed.

On the following day, Graham discovered that Rosalyn was not in the house. She had been, but she had gone again with her husband, this time to Weymouth. She had not stayed long in Netham, though long enough to make herself at home: Most of her trunks were in a bright, spacious room down the corridor from Graham’s—not a very convenient distance for assignations, but it was a room with a sunny, eastern exposure. He could well imagine her in it and was not unhappy she had selected it. Several of her brushes were out on the dresser. Dresses were airing by a window. Her perfume, particularly under the canopy of her bed, clung to the air. Overall, Graham found a harmony of order, both in
her room and outside it, that bespoke Rosalyn’s presence, her energy and attention.

A number of guests had arrived. Rosalyn had seen to their arrangements. The Carmichaels: father, mother, three older daughters, a toddler boy and a nanny. Lord Peter Tilney with his mother. The Honorable Jerome Moffet with his wife and nephew. Sir Gilbert and Lady Stone. And, surprisingly, Charles Wessit, the viscount Blanver, with his sister, the Lady Claire; Graham’s son and daughter. All were settled in. Graham was faintly curious—and amused—that Charles and Claire had shown up early. He had yet to mention to Rosalyn that he had two adolescent offspring, children by a long dead, all but forgotten wife. He wondered how this little omission had gone down with Rosalyn.

He would take the very next opportunity, he assured himself, to put his children in the larger context for her. “I have a rather unfatherly propensity to forget them, to forget my marriage, the whole notion of family life. I have no talent for these things, Rosalyn, no experience as a member of a family. Not even as a child, except of course for the experience of gunfire ending loud arguments.” He wondered if she would believe he couldn’t marry her because he was afraid he might shoot her. He tried this argument out. “I have a deep, emotional childhood scar.” It might have played fairly well on stage—it was being used pretty broadly in the most recent serial episode. In fact, Graham had hardly known his parents. He had hurt worse when his pet rabbit had died. The deaths of his own parents had been more in line with, say, the death of King George. Sad, momentous, but mostly stimulating a desire to jockey for comfort and position under the next reign.

Rosalyn at least was perfectly civil in the note she left behind. She had met both Charles and Claire, she said, then diplomatically said no more. She seemed to have accepted with her customary grace that country life with
Graham would include two spoiled, neglected, rather nasty near-adults.

The staff at Netham had structured the usual upper-class accommodation to the entertainment of whole families. The children were separated off by age. The house was staffed to see to them. The children were regulated either away from adult activities or, as in the case of the older ones, organized to be occasional, silent, secondary participants.

Graham quickly found himself enmeshed in the last days of July, enjoying himself and finding that summer and Netham—and age thirty-eight—were not such bad places to be.

He laughed out loud at dinner. He played cards for pennies and took—with deep, infectious pleasure—seven shillings two off William (who had arrived the day after Graham) and a pound sterling off Tilney. Tilney squawked with satisfying indignation.

On the third day, with the Wexfords, the Smithsons, and the Meadowingtons now among the company, Graham was up at dawn. He stood out front, in pinks for the fox. There, with the others, he drank his breakfast of whiskey and coffee. After the hunt, there would be a huge meal set up on the front lawn for all who came. Graham drank in the liquored coffee, the fresh morning air, and the pleasant spectacle of his own well-received hospitality as he berated the dogs and traded jokes with his guests and the neighboring squires.

The horns sounded, and he galloped off but ended up with the group that lost the fox entirely, wandering about in circles until he fell into—and took—an improvised steeplechase. Winning it was not a matter of much pride. Some of the best riders were still more successfully hounding the fox, and with or without skill, he had by far the best mount. His horse took to the air like a bird. Graham hadn’t jumped since the previous summer, and at the first gate he proved it by taking a solid fall. But by the third hedge, the exhilara
tion, the anticipation, the experienced leap in emotion that went hand in hand with the physical one had brought back past summers and shed years and concerns. His win seemed to please everyone else, as if he had been returned to them, the prodigal son.

He was cheerfully exhausted as he rode up the cobbles of his own front drive. It was almost ten in the morning, the sun not quite having had a chance to steam up the day. In front of the house, where the sun had to work its way over a copse of trees, the front garden was still in shade. Dew glistened on blades of grass, on foliage, like fine glass beadwork.

A long table covered with a white cloth was set under the trees. On it stood a dozen bottles of brandy, a host of small glasses, cheese and breads and jams and cakes, steaming coffee and tea. It was enough to feed the entire district, which was just as well, since most of the district had either participated or come to watch the earl’s first summer hunt. Grooms stood by to take the horses, as did kennelmen to grab the dogs, while miscellaneous servants kept flies and bees from the comestibles.

After Graham, others began to come in. The houseguests and the locals who had joined in the hunt gathered, some in make-do plaids and wraps, the more affluent dotting the cool morning with the hot scarlet of their coats. There were no chairs, the host not wanting to encourage indefinite stays—noblesse oblige had its limits. Guests and locals alike would arrive over the course of the next few hours, imbibe some of the manor house hospitality, duly greet and rub shoulders like the egalitarians they weren’t, then depart for home or lodging, returning to their positions in the hierarchy and status quo.

Graham wandered off to the side, nursing his second cup of coffee and his third shot of brandy, thrown together in one cup. He sipped and viewed the scene, thinking of genteel paintings with their posed and perfectly dressed
gentry. “For the Hunt.” This crowd was more diverse, more rumpled than anyone would dare paint. Perhaps it was more charming as well. He watched and thought that he liked people, speaking as an observer and not a participant.

But he was eventually drawn in again. There were wagers: who would come in next, who would come in before whom, who would get credit for the fox. Several people had already claimed credit—the fox was in (though half a dozen bemused guests, still out, would be hours more in discovering this). Graham was invited to participate in the bets, but ended up being named judge to a different wager concerning a riderless horse—who would come in on foot? The more people pressed him, the more aware he was that he wanted to break for a bath and a change of clothes. But he remained, the roaming host to this affair, chatting and waving people in. A stiffness in his muscles forecast a stiffness in his bones by evening; another dim pain foretold a healthy bruise up his right flank, the result of his fall. Then he saw Rosalyn’s carriage roll up, and with it rolled up such a surge of relief and affection that he began toward it at a half-run, despite his aches and complaints.

As the carriage pulled away from the front door, a pair emerged. They saw the activity on the lawn and started toward Graham. Rosalyn and a man. Graham had never seen him before, yet he knew immediately who he was. He stood nearly as tall as Graham himself. He was beefy and full, thick-necked with shoulders that were not easily—or else not very skillfully—tailored into a coat. Graham stopped dead in the middle of his front lawn.

The two people came forward, Rosalyn a few paces behind like a reluctant, errant schoolgirl. The man came forward with a kind of enthusiasm—an unwilling curiosity perhaps. They came close enough that someone should have spoken, though no one did. Rosalyn’s face said a thou
sand things. Apologies, regrets, above all an unprecedented awkwardness. Finally, the man stuck out his hand in an offer of the bizarre custom shared by Americans and tradesmen, the grasping of strangers by the palm.

“I’m Gerald Schild,” he said.