Dark Angel (24 page)

Write about hate—and its purity.

Tonight, the comet. Conceived by an accident of elements
—
like my daughter. Hot and gaseous
—
like my father.

Odd, the associations of the mind. I miss my mother. Dead these twelve years, well-rotted by now. I think of her every day still. Blotting her lips after every kiss. She was clean and cold and distant. Like the moon.

“Tinkers. Romanies. Gypsies. Vermin. Mark my words. They’ll be at the back of it.”

Denton takes a hefty swallow of port, swills, gulps, and glowers. Dinner is over; the women have withdrawn. To his left and his right Denton has his cronies; certain of their sympathy (they are landowners, too), he has reverted to his current
idée fixe.

“Thought they’d been moved on,” remarks Sir Richard Peel, chief among the cronies (old Dickie Peel, chief magistrate, fearless huntsman), and he frowns. His estate adjoins Denton’s; if Denton Cavendish loses pheasants this month, he is likely to lose them next.

“Moved on? Moved on?” Denton almost chokes. “Of course they were moved on. But they’re back. Down by the railway bridge. Filthy ramshackle lot. Thieving. Spreading dirt and disease. Hennessy’s boy Jack saw them up near my woods last week, told Cattermole. You want to see to it, Peel.”

“Common land, down by the bridge. A bit difficult …” Sir Richard says musingly, and Denton’s nose purples and quivers.

“Common land? What’s that supposed to mean? Means they can do what they like, does it? Means they can sneak into my woods at night and pick my birds off as they please? Means they can come into my village with their filthy flea-bitten lurchers—disgusting brutes; poisoning’s too good for them. One of them got at Cattermole’s best bitch last year. Mounted her, right outside the church—nothing Cattermole could do. Drowned the puppies, of course. Sunk them in a sack in the river—but that bitch of his hasn’t been the same since. Not the dog she was. Got into her system, you know, tainted her. Spoiled her. And she was a good bitch once. One of the best. Fine nose, nice soft mouth. And now …”

For some reason the sad fate of Cattermole’s bitch seems to affect Denton deeply. His chin sinks against his chest; his eyes glaze. As his cronies leap in with other similar stories of Romany outrage, Denton seems not to hear them. He shakes his head, mumbles to himself, grasps the neck of the port decanter, and slops more port into his glass.

His third glass, Shawcross notes from the far end of the table. Drunkard. Sot. Philistine. Denton the cuckold was already drunk by the time they sat down to table; now he is well and truly soused.

Shawcross takes a small and ladylike sip of the port, which happens to be excellent, and then pats at his small neat mouth, his beautifully pomaded beard, with a snowy napkin. The sight of the cleanly napkin, his own small cleanly hands with their carefully buffed and manicured nails, pleases him. His nostrils quiver; the smell of carnation soap, of his own fine cologne, generously applied, reassures him. With a tight supercilious smile he averts his eyes from Denton’s end of the table and surveys the guests closer to him. To his left, receding into the distance, are a senile earl, a prim bishop, his acquaintance Jarvis (who has cornered some Cavendish neighbor with a fine collection of Landseers). Nothing very promising there.

To his right sits the prominent financier Sir Montague Stern, in conversation with George Heyward-West (percentage points again, no doubt of it). Beyond them, a group of younger male guests, including Hector Arlington, whose father’s land adjoins that of the Conyngham family. Arlington, an earnest and studious young man, is rumored to be an amateur botanist of some distinction. Shawcross permits himself a small sneer—a botanist! Nothing there.

Beyond Arlington, a group of elegant young Etonians with braying accents and, beyond them, interspersed with a number of unnervingly prominent men, sit Gwen’s trio of elder sons: Boy, who is looking flushed and anxious; Frederic, who has contrived to become slightly drunk; and Acland, who has been silent and preoccupied for most of the evening.

Shawcross sees Acland stifle a yawn, and notes that Acland seems to be drinking only water. He notes, too, that Acland appears to be listening to the man next to him, but in fact is not; he sees that Acland’s gaze moves from face to face, and he has the impression that that gaze misses very little.

Acland’s regard is always unsettling to Shawcross, and he turns away now lest he should be forced to meet Acland’s eyes. Shawcross has the feeling—it has intensified these last months—that Acland does not merely dislike him, Acland
knows.
He knows of the affair with Gwen; he knows, or senses, the contempt Shawcross feels for Gwen—a contempt Shawcross had always believed well hidden. That question, earlier, tossed by Acland across the tea table:
Shawcross, you never told us. How did you divert yourself this afternoon?
No accident, that question, Shawcross feels, and carefully calculated to cause him unease. God, how he loathes that boy…. Shawcross makes a small ceremony of lighting a cheroot, conscious that Acland’s eyes are upon him now. He shifts in his seat. Apart from anything else, he hates that Acland should see him as he is now, socially disadvantaged, speaking to no one, yet again left out. Clearing his throat, Shawcross leans forward and interrupts the monetary murmurs to his immediate right.

George Heyward-West breaks off with a look of surprise. The financier, Sir Montague Stern, is more urbane. He takes Shawcross’s interjection in his stride, admits him to their conversation, turns it to include him. Within seconds they have passed from equities to opera; Shawcross is mollified.

Montague Stern is known as a prominent patron of Covent Garden; Shawcross, who is unmusical, knows nothing of opera and cares less, but at least it counts as one of the arts; at least it is a subject of some sophistication, preferable to belchings and grumblings about gypsies and hounds.

He manages a quite passable witticism (he feels) on the subject of Wagner, and eyes Sir Montague’s waistcoat, an unconventional affair of embroidered crimson silk. Shawcross relaxes, and Sir Montague, a generous man, does not correct him when he confuses Rossini and Donizetti.

Shawcross sips his port more heartily, aware that he is becoming slightly, pleasurably, indulgently drunk. A couple of swallows and he feels ready to dazzle. Opera into theater, theater into books …

Conscious, at the back of his mind, that Acland’s eyes are still watching him, Shawcross grows more expansive still. Let Acland watch; let him try to find fault if he can! Shawcross is not the outsider now; he is in full metropolitan flood, and the names of fashionable deities (all friends, all such close close friends, Wells, Shaw, Barrie—such a charming little man, Barrie) pour from his lips like rosewater, nectar, balm.

Sir Montague listens quietly. Occasionally he nods; once or twice (Shawcross does not notice) he shakes his head. Shawcross feels elation take its hold, even risks a small triumphant glance in Acland’s direction. Safe, safe on his gracious and bountiful home territory, literature in general, in particular those works of literature penned by himself. Here, on these heights, no one can snub him and no one can sneer—no one present at this table anyway. Sir Montague? A cultured man, certainly; an intelligent and sophisticated man, yes, but Sir Montague’s attention only adds to the sense of security Shawcross now feels.

For Sir Montague, alone of the men present, is in no position to patronize and look down. He cannot despise Shawcross for his breeding, his schooling, his manners, his way of dress. And why not? Why, on the contrary, can Shawcross feel that sweetest sensation of all: that it is he who can condescend, he who can patronize?

Simple: Sir Montague is a Jew. He came—or so rumor says—from the very humblest origins, and though he may have risen high, very high, he cannot leave those origins, racial and social, behind. They are marked in his features, recognizable in his waistcoat, traceable, just occasionally, in his voice, which has a richness, a cadence that sings of Central Europe, not the English shires.

Splendid, as far as Shawcross is concerned, for of course he despises Jews, just as he despises women or the working classes, the Irish, any person with a dark skin…. To ally himself with Sir Montague against the philistines, yet to be sure at the same time that he, Shawcross, is innately superior—oh, the pleasure is exquisite. His witticisms spiral to new heights. He feels acute disappointment when the port drinking ends and his performance is curtailed.

“My dear fellow,” he says, and rests his hand on Sir Montague’s arm. “You haven’t read it? But you must. You would appreciate my finer points, I feel sure. Once I return to London—no, please, I insist! I shall send ’round a copy—signed, naturally. Just let me have your address. It shall be with you first thing.” Sir Montague inclines his head; he gives a small (foreign) half-bow.

“My dear fellow,” he says—his tone is gracious; Shawcross sniffs no irony at all—“My dear fellow. Please do.”

Later the same evening. The party now is in full swing, and Gwen’s drawing room glitters with laughter, warms with conversation. Later the same evening, as spirits mount and the advent of the comet draws near, Boy Cavendish takes Jane Conyngham to the gun room.

The visit is prompted by Jane, and it springs from desperation. Hours before, over dinner, when they were paired yet again, Boy exhausted the only subject—photography—that ever animates him. Valiantly, as course succeeded course, he and Jane tacked back and forth on the choppy seas of polite conversation. Boy’s replies were distracted, often monosyllabic. By the time Jane was toying with cabinet pudding, they had finally foundered on the sandbanks of travel. There they discovered that while Jane (who loves museums, who never moves a step without her Baedeker guide) has been to Florence, Rome, Venice, and Paris, Boy’s expeditions abroad have been more limited. He spends his summers at Winterscombe, his autumns at Denton’s Scottish estates, his winters in London. Prompted by Jane, Boy recalls that he did, once, make an expedition to Normandy with his aunt Maud, but that was when he was very young, and the food made him sick.

“Papa,” Boy says, blushing painfully, “Papa doesn’t really approve of ‘abroad.’”

Once the men join the women in the drawing room after dinner, things improve, for Acland draws Boy to one side and Jane is left—to her relief—with Freddie. Freddie is less pleased by this situation; he does not wish to be trapped with Jane. He frowns in the direction of his elder brothers, who both look pale and appear to be arguing. He turns back to Jane and, mustering his training, compliments her on her dress.

In fact, Freddie does not like this dress—a particularly gloomy green—but he manages to inject some sincerity into his remark, for Jane does look well. Her thin face is flushed with faint color; her hair is attractively arranged in soft waves, which emphasize the height of her forehead and her wide-spaced hazel eyes. Acland has contended in the past that Jane is not plain, that her intelligence shines through her face, lending her a kind of beauty. Freddie would not agree with this (Acland being perverse) but he does manage the remark about the frock. Jane frowns.

“Freddie, please don’t be polite. The dress is … a mistake.”

“I’m sorry?”

“It had good intentions, this dress….” Jane pauses. “They have not been fulfilled.”

Jane glances toward the figure of Acland as she says this. Freddie finds the remark incomprehensible, possibly a joke—and he never understands Jane’s jokes.

An awkward silence falls. Freddie scans the drawing room for assistance and finds none. He manages to catch the eye of Hector Arlington, but Arlington, seeing Jane, moves rapidly away.

Freddie knows why this is: Arlington was once expected to marry Jane—expected to do so by her family, anyway. The match was promoted with great energy by her aunt. Arlington—a confirmed bachelor, according to Acland—managed to extricate himself before gossip compromised him. Freddie doubts Boy will have such an easy escape. Not if his father has anything to do with it.

What a fate, to end up with a bluestocking! Freddie gives Jane a sideways glance. According to Acland (again) Jane was offered a place to study literature at Cambridge and refused it when her elderly father fell ill. Freddie squirms in his chair and wonders how he may decently leave. He cannot decide whether the idea of university women is appalling or funny.

“Is Boy unwell?” Jane asks, with a suddenness that startles Freddie.

“Unwell?”

“He looks so pale. I thought at dinner he seemed a little distracted….”

Probably worrying about the proposal,
Freddie thinks to himself, and hides a smile.

“It’s the weather, I think. He said earlier that he had a headache. Oh—and he’d lost one of the bits of his camera tripod. You know how he fusses about that camera! It won’t stand up without it. I expect he’s fretting about that.”

“I don’t think so. He must have found it. He was taking photographs earlier, by the lake. The swans, you know. I was with him. It was just before dinner.”

Again Freddie suppresses a smile. So: clearly Boy has had an opportunity to propose and has funked it.

“Yes, well, I can’t think of a reason then,” he says politely. “Anyway, he’s coming back now,” Freddie adds with relief as Boy leaves Acland’s side. “Perhaps you’ll excuse me?”

He makes a speedy exit. Boy sits by Jane, and—to her increasing despair—the appalling stilted conversation begins again. Nothing, it seems, can animate Boy, not music, books, the other guests, the advent of the comet—nothing. Somehow the conversation comes around to shoots, from there to guns, from guns to the famous Purdeys. Jane remarks that they must be very fine. She remembers her brother, Roland, settling for Holland guns, which he said were good, but not quite as—

“I’ll show you them, if you like. I’ll show you them now.” To Jane’s astonishment, Boy interrupts her. He rises to his feet. He holds out his arm. He sets off at a fast pace, Jane in tow. He appears not to notice the knowing smiles and indulgent glances as they leave the room, but Jane sees them. So, people think the proposal is imminent—and they are wrong.