Dark Angel (76 page)

She stopped, appalled at what she had just said. When she turned, the light had gone from Stern’s face.
One more chance,
she wanted to cry out:
just one more chance.
Instead she said, “Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” Stern replied, turning away his face. He took her arm. “Shall we return to the house?”

“Montague—”

“You’re cold. We’ll discuss it another time,” he said in a curt voice.

Constance felt that voice shrank her; it shriveled her up. One hundred paces back to the door. By the door, Constance lingered. It was unbearable to go in. If she went in now, if she did not speak, it would be an end. But how to speak? She bent and picked up a handful of crisp snow. She crushed it tight in a ball between her fingers.

“Over dinner tonight,” Stern said in an indifferent voice. “We can discuss it then.”

He opened the door. Constance did not move. She did not believe him. They would not discuss it over dinner. This was not something that could be … discussed. She crushed the snow tighter in her hand.

“Montague …”

“Yes, my dear?”

“Do you ever feel confined? Shut up, closed away—so—so you cannot breathe, so the air is like a prison, so you reach out your hand and all you touch is bars—” She stopped. Stern was watching her now with attention.

“Yes,” he began in a cautious way. “I have felt this. I imagine most people have—”

“You could let me out,” Constance cried, clasping his hand, scattering the snow. “You could. Oh, I feel sometimes that you could. If I dared just a little bit more. I think then—I should be so free. So marvelously free. And you might be too. We might free each other. Oh, Montague—” She raised her face to his. “Do you understand me? Do you think I’m right?”

Stern looked down into her face, which was lifted to his, which was imploring. His own expression became gentler. Drawing her to him, he kissed her brow, then traced, in a tender, yet regretful way, the lines of her face.

“That is why I married you,” he replied quietly. “Did you not realize that?”

“When we return to London, Constance,” he began, after dinner that night, watching her down the length of the table, “we shall have to decide where to live. Do you have a preference?”

“Somewhere in London. And a place in the country, I suppose.” Constance spoke with care; she knew Stern was leading up to something. “Then, after the war, I should like to travel. I don’t care to feel too settled.”

“I know that.”

Stern looked down. He gave his attention to his wineglass. He moved the glass back and forth in an arc across the dark polish of the table. The servants had withdrawn. Between Constance and Stern was a monstrous pyramid of fruit, an epergne, flanking lines of silver candelabra some two feet tall. Constance looked about the room with a sense of despair. Massive chairs, vast banners with tattered heraldic emblems, great mauve paintings of Scottish glens.
Everything in this house is too big,
Constance thought;
even the chairs dwarf me.

“I could have Winterscombe within the year—if we wanted it.” Stern spoke suddenly, without looking up. “The house is security against my loans. I can call those loans in at any time. I see no possibility of their being paid back.”

He looked up. Constance stared at him.

“I could have Winterscombe,” he continued in an even voice, “but not just Winterscombe. Did you know I owned the Arlington estate?”

“No, Montague.”

“I bought it, after Hector Arlington’s death. I also own Richard Peel’s estate—you remember Peel, Denton’s old crony, who was quite happy to take investment advice from a Jew, rather less happy to have that Jew eat at his table? He died last autumn. I bought his estate from his executors. He had no children.”

“The Arlingtons’ and Peel’s
and
Winterscombe? Those estates adjoin.”

“Obviously. And then there is the question of Jane Conyngham’s land. She has the largest holding of all. She tells me she intends to sell.”

“And her land borders the Arlington land.” Constance watched Stern closely. “You could take four estates and make them one?”

“I could.” He seemed almost bored. “This place, too, perhaps. I like it here.”

“If you did that, how much land would you have?”

“Fifteen thousand acres—discounting the twelve here. Together with four houses—which would give us four to choose from. Winterscombe is not greatly to my taste, though it may be to yours. Jane Conyngham’s house is fine. Peel’s is even finer. We could look them over. If you disliked them, we could build.” He gave a dismissive gesture of the hand. “Houses do not greatly interest me. I have owned several. I feel obliged to fill them with things, and once they are filled, they rather bore me.”

“You mean it is the land that interests you?”

“Yes. I suppose that it is.”

“Why is that, Montague?”

“I like space.” Stern rose. He stood, looking down the table at her. “When I was a boy I dreamed of space. The house I grew up in had only three rooms. You could never be alone in it. However—you do not like to discuss Whitechapel, as I remember.”

Stern turned away. He moved to the windows, drew back the heavy curtains, and looked out. There was a full moon; Constance could just glimpse it over her husband’s shoulder, riding high in an unclouded sky. The stars were ice in the dark. She looked at their patterns. She looked down at her plate.

“Is that the only reason, Montague—your love of land?”

“Not the only reason. No. I have always wanted—this may surprise you—I have always wanted to have something I could pass on. You said once that you thought the subject of children did not interest me. You were wrong. I should like … a son. I should like to pass my land on to my son. Perhaps I have dynastic leanings.” He paused. “I have a dream, a recurrent dream, which I’ve had for many years. In that dream I see my son quite clearly. His face, his hair, every feature. We walk together, through our estates. We—survey them, perhaps. And we know, as we walk, that they are virtually limitless. We could walk all day and still not reach our boundaries. Sometimes we stand in the center of all that land. We look at it. And I say to him: ‘This is yours. Take it.’” He broke off. “My son is different from me, of course. He is freer than I have ever been. Anyway. That need not concern you. It is just a dream.”

“I would have thought it might concern me,” Constance said in a low voice.

“But of course. I’m sorry. I did not intend any slight—”

“Are you always alone with your son in the dream, Montague?”

“Yes.”

“I am never there—even now?”

“Not so far, my dear. I’m sure that will change, and you will make an appearance. My mind takes time to adjust, perhaps, to our marriage.”

“I’d have liked to be there.” Constance continued to stare at her plate.

“You manifest yourself in my dreams, Constance—you have for some time.”

“You’re sure?” She turned to him anxiously and held out her hand to him.

“But of course.” His tone was gentler now. He took Constance’s hand, then bent to kiss her.

“Such a sad face.” He drew back, tilted her face up to look at him. “Such a very sad face. Why is that? Have I made you unhappy?”

“A little.”

“Tell me why. It was not my intention.”

“I’m not sure. I might not want to live at Winterscombe. Or anywhere near Winterscombe. It reminds me too much of the past. Of my father—”

“Then we will forget that idea and build our little empire somewhere else. Think about it for a while, and then, if that is what you decide, we will change our plans.” He paused. “I think … it is not just Winterscombe, is it? There is something else?”

“I suppose so. I … Do you like me, Montague?”

“Such a question, from a wife to her husband! Of course I like you, Constance. I like you very much.” He frowned. “Perhaps I do not express myself very well. It’s my nature to be indirect. I have tried to make you see—” He stopped.

“Could you … almost love me, Montague?” Constance darted out her hands and caught his in an impulsive and pleading way. “It would be enough, I think—if you could almost love me.”

“Shall I tell you something?” Stern drew back. “It may answer your question. I’ve been certain—of my interest in you, of my concern, for a long time. Would you like to know when it was that I first noticed you?”

“Yes.”

“When we went to the opera, to see
Rigoletto.
And we stood in Maud’s drawing room. You told me what it was you thought happened in the opera—after the curtain went down.”

“Then?”

“Oh, I think so. The device about your mother, and her race—none of that was necessary, you know. I knew that I would marry you some months before you proposed.”

“I don’t believe it! You’re making fun of me.” Constance sprang to her feet.

“As you like.” Stern shrugged. “You are wrong. I would not risk making fun of you, nor would I want to. I’m telling you what I thought. That we would marry. That we might have children—in due course.”

“But you were still with Maud then—”

“Even so.”

“You made a decision—just like that, so coldly?”

“It did not feel cold at the time, though decisions are best made in such a frame of mind. I imagine you calculated your assault on me quite coolly. You see? We are two of a kind. If you would learn to trust me a little—”

“Do you trust me?”

“I try.”

“You won’t make me … live at Winterscombe?”

“No. I shall try never to make you do anything against your wishes.” He paused. “I had thought—obviously I was wrong—that you had an attachment to the place.”

“To the house? No.”

“To someone in it, perhaps?”

“No. Not now.”

“To Acland, for instance?”

“Why Acland? Why should you say that?”

“No particular reason. It was just an impression I had.”

“Oh, Acland and I were old enemies. He was my sparring partner, that is all. I do not think of him now. Acland is dead. I have a new antagonist, Montague. Look—I wear his ring upon my finger.”

“You wear a great many rings on your fingers,” Stern replied, examining the small hand Constance displayed to him.

“Only one of any significance.”

“Is that true?”

“Of course. I am a wife now. I am … almost a wife.”

“Shall we make you a complete wife?”

That was Stern’s reply, and it is there that Constance’s account of that particular night, and of her honeymoon, breaks off. There is a gap—literally a gap, of half a blank page. Then the following sentences, written in a hand which is almost illegible:

Montague was so good, so kind and patient and gentle. No games now, and no words. I did not manage very well. I bled. I waited. I thought he would say I was scrawny and clumsy, but he never did. I thought his eyes would hate me, but they didn’t. I think this confused me. I did a terrible thing. I cried out your name, Papa—three times.

I have managed better since. Montague never questions me. He is considerate at all times. When he touches me, I feel dead. He cannot wake me up. I want want want to wake up. We have to keep trying, both of us; we can’t stop. If I stand next to him, I have to touch him.

I shall have to tell him. I’m afraid to tell him. All those secret stories. All those little boxes. Shall I open them all—or just some of them?

“Tell me then, Constance,” Stern said to her.

It was still the night of Steenie’s preview party; Constance and her husband had returned home to the latest of their opulent rented houses. It was ten in the evening, and the telephone call that would so change their lives was still one hour away.

Stern sat by the fire, and Constance, her face set and concentrated, paced about the room. Punctilious in such matters, she was wearing half-mourning for Boy—a dress of advanced cut, made up in a muted lavender-colored material: a compromise between chic and the conventions of grief. There were signs, even so, that Constance rebelled against these strictures, for in her hands she held a most beautiful scarf, of the brightest colors: indigo, vermilion, violet. As she paced back and forth, she passed this scarf through her hands, sometimes winding its colors about her fingers and her rings.

She prefaced her explanation by saying that part of it had been told to Steenie earlier that evening, but, not wishing to hurt him, she had given him an edited version.

“And am I to have the uncensored account?” Stern asked in his dry way.

“Yes,” Constance replied, winding her scarf about her hand. “But even if you are angry, you must not interrupt. I see now that you have to know everything. I should have told you before. You see, Boy liked to photograph me—you know that. What you do not know, no one knows, is that Boy also liked to touch me.”

Constance then told her husband the following story. Since the only other witness to that story was dead, I have no way of knowing whether the story was true or whether Constance—unable to tell her husband the whole truth, even then—invented it. Perhaps parts of it are true; perhaps it is all true; perhaps it was a complete fabrication. Constance was not an ordinary liar, and she often used fiction, as a storyteller does, to convey a deeper truth.

You judge. One thing is sure: Constance’s role in all this is unlikely to have been as innocent as she made out. Remember how she posed for Boy’s photograph, in the King’s bedroom? Remember Freddie? If there is a hidden tempter in this account, a serpent carefully disguised in the long grass, I very much doubt that it was Boy. To portray herself as a victim would have been accurate had Constance been telling Stern the story of her father—but a victim of Boy? That I cannot believe. My reaction, however—and even yours—is less important than Stern’s. The question is: did Stern believe her?

It began with talking, Constance told him; talking developed into a series of games. The first game had clear-cut rules: Boy was the father and Constance the daughter. She was required to call Boy “Papa,” and when she visited him in his room, she was required to confess to this “papa” all her childish misdemeanors. Sometimes this new father was benevolent: He would say that her small crimes—rudeness to her governess, a torn skirt, a quarrel with Steenie—could be forgiven, and he would give her an absolving kiss. On other occasions (for no clear reason) this new father would decide the crime was more serious. “Inattention in church,” he would say. “Now that is very serious.” Or: “Constance, your reading of the book is slipshod. You must pay better attention to your lessons.” He would pause, frown. “Constance,” he would say, “I shall have to punish you.” The method of punishment was always the same. Boy would lean her across his lap and administer several stinging slaps. When this happened, a change would take place in Boy which, to begin with, Constance did not understand. His eyes would become fixed and glazed; he would stammer; the timbre of his voice would change; he would also have an erection