Michael Cox (28 page)

17

In Which Lady Tansor Opens Her Heart

I
I Am Admonished

I
CLOSED
Mr John Lazarus’s recollections in a most desolate state of mind. I now knew something of my father; but the knowledge had brought no solace, only a desperate, impossible longing to experience his living presence as he had really been, and not as the subject of distant recall.
Now Mr Lazarus (of whom I had formed a very high opinion) had also given me a fleeting impression of my mother, and of my Blantyre relations, of whom I had never before heard.
Marguerite
. The image of that moss-covered gravestone in the Cemetery of St-Vincent came rushing back to me once more as I remembered how I had tried so hard to form an idea of what the person who had borne that most musical name had looked like in life – tall or short, dark or fair – and whether she had been as sweetly disposed as her name suggested to my childish imagination. From Mr Lazarus’s account, she seemed indeed to have been just such a person, indistinct and ghostly though she remained in my mind. Soon, I hoped, the transcriptions from her journal, which Mr Thornhaugh had promised to send me, would help to bring her person and character into clearer view. For the moment, I must be content with what I had – a little fragment of kind Mr Lazarus’s memory.
I lay down on my bed, feeling suddenly dispirited, and oppressed by urgent questionings. A person mentioned by Mr Lazarus – Mr Roderick Shillito, of whom I knew only that he had been a former school-fellow of Phoebus Daunt’s, but whose name had struck an instant chord of recognition – gave me particular concern. He had been present at the dinner given in my Lady’s house in Grosvenor Square during our recent trip to London – ‘a former school-friend of Mr Phoebus Daunt’s’, as she had described him to me then. To learn now that he had been acquainted with both my parents on Madeira twenty years earlier might be another singular coincidence, like the matter of the initials ‘B.K.’ yet although coincidence – sometimes of an extraordinary character – is far more common in life than we often suppose, I hesitated to ascribe to it Mr Shillito’s present association with Lady Tansor. Could my father’s evident distaste for this gentleman have arisen from some previous acquaintance? Might there even have been a connexion between my father and Mr Shillito’s school-friend, Phoebus Daunt?
At that moment, breaking in on these thoughts, the bell in the corner of my room finally sounded. My Lady was calling for me.

‘MISS GORST!’ EXCLAIMED Mr Armitage Vyse. ‘Come in, come in!’
He had opened the door to my knock, and was standing, leaning on his stick, smiling expansively. My Lady was sitting by the fire, staring blankly into the flames, and holding a sealed envelope.
‘How are you, Miss Gorst?’ he asked, with the utmost geniality.
‘Quite well, sir, thank you,’ said I, dropping a dutiful curtsey.
‘Splendid! Splendid! Now then, come and sit by the fire, won’t you?’
He ushered me over to the little sofa opposite Lady Tansor, and then sat down uncomfortably close to me, still smiling in that odd, sinisterly affable way of his. My Lady made no movement, but went on looking intently into the fire.
At length, she turned towards me. Her face was drawn, and there were dark rings around her eyes.
‘This is for you,’ she said, coldly, looking down at the envelope. ‘From Mr Wraxall.’
‘Mr Montagu Wraxall,’ added Mr Vyse, stretching out his long legs and cupping the back of his head in his hands, in a highly comfortable and self-satisfied manner. ‘Capital fellow! Quite a legend in our profession, you know. Sharp, very sharp.’
His tone was genial and confiding; but the play of his eyes sent a chill through me, making me feel that I had inadvertently stepped on to dangerous ground. I could only guess that an association with Mr Wraxall was something that both Mr Vyse and my mistress wished to discourage, as being in some way threatening to their purposes.
‘We chanced to call at North Lodge this morning,’ said my Lady, in a flat, emotionless tone, which nevertheless alarmed me, ‘and Mr Wraxall asked whether we would deliver this note to you. He also enquired after you, and said that he was sorry that business had kept him away from Evenwood much longer than expected. I confess that I was not aware that you and he were on such familiar terms.’
‘Oh no, my Lady!’ I protested, with some alacrity, sensing now a hint of challenge in her voice. ‘Nothing in the least like that.’
‘Forgive me, Alice. I was under the impression that you made Mr Wraxall’s acquaintance for the first time at Professor Slake’s funeral.’
‘That is so, my Lady.’
‘But it seems that you have continued the acquaintance without my knowledge,’ she went on.
Why was she quizzing me in this manner? I could see no impropriety in the acquaintance with Mr Wraxall; but it was now abundantly clear that my Lady, like Mr Vyse, viewed it with disapproval. The thought then struck me that the reason might be connected with the murder of Mr Paul Carteret, in which the late Professor had taken such a close interest. I therefore resolved to say nothing concerning my conversation on the subject with Mr Wraxall.
Facing her gaze, I explained that I had met Mr Wraxall, quite by chance, coming out of the Dower House, and that he had expressed the intention, on his return to North Lodge, of inviting me there to take tea.
‘Oh ho!’ exclaimed Mr Vyse with a cynical chuckle. ‘To take tea, eh? There’s a thing!’
‘In that case,’ said Lady Tansor with a chilling look, handing me the envelope, ‘you may take your note.’
There was a moment’s silence.
‘The Dower House, you say?’ she then asked, in a manner that suggested she had been turning a troublesome matter over in her mind.
‘I beg your pardon, my Lady?’
‘You said you encountered Mr Wraxall by chance at the Dower House.’
‘Yes, my Lady. He was collecting some letters that Professor Slake had written to—’
I hesitated, realizing immediately that I should not have done so. My Lady’s face was now fully alert, and her great black eyes were on me.
‘Yes, Alice?’
‘Letters written to your late father,’ I resumed, as coolly as I could.
‘Letters to my father?’
‘Yes, my Lady.’
‘And did Mr Wraxall inform you further on the contents of the letters?’
‘No, my Lady. Mr Wraxall had yet to examine them. I know only that there were a great number.’
She rose, and walked over to the window. Mr Vyse coughed, and smiled in an avuncular fashion.
‘Well now, Miss Gorst, you are to be raised to a new station in life, I think,’ he said. ‘Companion to her Ladyship, eh?’
‘Yes, sir.’
I lowered my head demurely, determined to say as little as possible; but Mr Vyse seemed equally intent on filling the silence.
‘No more than you deserve, I’m sure; and yet less than you might once have expected – as a lady born, I mean.’
‘I was brought up an orphan, sir,’ I replied, ‘as I think you must know; and although I may have enjoyed the advantages of a good education, I cannot – and do not – lay claim to any special privilege of birth. I am perfectly content with my present station, which is so much more than I could once have hoped for, and am grateful for the favour my Lady continues to show towards me, and which I shall constantly endeavour to deserve.’
A pretty speech, I thought, intended as much for my Lady as for Mr Vyse, who was about to make his reply when my mistress broke in.
‘I am not at all sure, Alice,’ she said, ‘that it was right for you to say you would take tea with Mr Montagu Wraxall. However, I shall not positively forbid you from going, although I hope you will now see that it was imprudent of you – and somewhat presumptuous – to accept his invitation without consulting me first. I have made many allowances, as you must acknowledge, with respect to your situation here, allowances that have never been extended to anyone else in your position; but there are limits to my tolerance.’
‘Limits,’ said Mr Vyse, nodding sagely.
‘I had hoped,’ she added, ‘that there would be no more secrets between us.’
I marvelled at her hypocrisy. Secrets, indeed! She lived and breathed secrets, and yet she would berate me for keeping mine!
‘Perhaps,’ ventured Mr Vyse, ‘if Miss Gorst were to let your Ladyship read Mr Wraxall’s note, it would go some way to assure you that no impropriety had been intended, and would put things back on a proper footing. You wouldn’t mind that, would you, Miss Gorst? Indeed, I’m sure you had every intention of showing the note to her Ladyship of your own accord, on receiving it. Say now, am I not right?’
He had me, and he knew it, sitting there with his ear-to-ear smile, the light from the fire flashing off his watch-chain and seals, so assured, so studiously affable, so curiously at ease.
With choice denied me, I walked across to where Lady Tansor was standing, and handed her back the unopened note.
‘No more secrets, Alice,’ she whispered.
‘No, my Lady.’
It took but a few seconds for her to read the note, which she then gave back to me with a black look. Saying not a word, she walked quickly to the adjoining bed-chamber, slamming the door behind her.
I glanced down at the paper, and the few lines written thereon:
DEAR MISS GORST,—
I am returned at long last.
Christmas is nearly upon us, but if you are still minded to accept my invitation, then I should be very glad to welcome you next Sunday, the 31st, at three o’clock, at North Lodge.
I shall have another guest, a young friend of mine, who has come up from London to spend this festive time with his ailing father. His wife will be there, too, so you will not be unchaperoned.
Yours very sincerely,
M.R.J. WRAXALL
‘Well, then,’ I heard Mr Vyse say, as I finished reading and was placing the note in my pocket, ‘all done, and everything set to rights. And tomorrow is Christmas Eve! What could be more pleasant?’
He was now standing, his back to the fire, leaning on his stick, and regarding me with another of his unsettling smiles. He seemed everything benign, charming, and considerate, but I knew otherwise; I knew also the danger that he posed to me, having now the vivid recollection of him, disguised, nose to nose with the villainous Billy Yapp.
I was considering whether I should wait for my Lady to come out of the bed-chamber, or to return upstairs to await a further summons, when there was a single tap at the door, which opened to reveal Mr Perseus, standing motionless in the doorway, his face, as ever, an impassive mask. Then I saw that he was clenching and re-clenching his fist as he looked, first at me, and then at Mr Vyse’s dandyish figure. It was such a little thing, but something in this involuntary gesture spoke of his resentment at finding Mr Vyse standing so brazenly before the fire in his mother’s private apartments, as if by right of possession.
‘Ah, Vyse,’ he said, coldly courteous, ‘here you are – and Miss Gorst, too.’
‘Here I am, indeed,’ replied Mr Vyse, utterly unabashed, and giving an exaggeratedly cordial bow. ‘Won’t you come in?’
The affront was clearly intended. As if Mr Perseus Duport needed an invitation by a house-guest to enter his own mother’s apartments!
Closing the door behind him, Mr Perseus stepped into the room and looked about him.
‘Where is my mother?’ he asked.
‘Alas, she woke this morning with one of her headaches,’ drawled Mr Vyse. ‘At my suggestion, we went out in the barouche, well wrapped up, of course – I have found a strong dose of clean country air to be a capital remedy for headaches. I’m happy to say that my recommendation met with her Ladyship’s approval, and that she returned much refreshed, although a little fatigued. She is now resting.’
You lie easily
,
sir,
I thought, as he gave me a sly, collusive glance.
‘Well, then, I shall not disturb her,’ said Mr Perseus. ‘I merely wished to inform her that my brother has returned from Wales, and that Shillito has also arrived. He’s in the Drawing-Room, and is asking for you. I suppose you’re at liberty to come down?’
His antipathy towards Mr Vyse was clear, although the latter remained inviolable in his beaming complacency.
‘By all means,’ came the reply. Then, turning to me: ‘I think you may be excused, Miss Gorst. Her Ladyship will ring for you if you are needed.’
I gave him a little bob by way of answer, and made to leave. As I did so, he addressed Mr Perseus once more.
‘I’ve been congratulating Miss Gorst on her good fortune. Her days of drudgery will soon be over. My Lady’s companion now! Altogether a remarkable instance of the triumph of breeding over circumstance. Blood will out, blood will out!’
Ignoring this glib pronouncement, Mr Perseus moved to open the door for me, making a slight inclination of his head as I passed by. Then, for the merest instant, our eyes met, and in that brief span of time I saw something that, I confess, made my heart suddenly pound. What was it? I could not then say; but I left my Lady’s apartments with an inexplicably lighter heart than when I had entered them.

MR LAZARUS’S RECOLLECTIONS still lay on the table. Lighting my candle, and idly opening the volume, my eye happened to fall on the account of the reception held for the Blantyre family, at which my father and mother had first met, and on the description of Mr Roderick Shillito – who, even now, was no doubt taking his ease in the Drawing-Room with Mr Vyse.
What would happen when I was introduced – as I surely must be – to this gentleman? Would the name of Gorst call up memories of the man he had encountered on Madeira twenty years ago? This might expose me to suspicion, even danger. I was at least forewarned, although this gave me scant comfort.
Just then the bell rang, and so down I went again to my Lady’s apartments.

II
In Which I Am Elevated Once More

SHE WAS SITTING by the fire, steadily contemplating the brightly flaring logs. There was no sign of either Mr Vyse or Mr Perseus.
As I entered the room, she turned her face – wan and haggard – towards me.
‘Come and sit down, Alice,’ she said, gently. ‘There’s something I wish to say to you.’
I took my place again on the sofa opposite her. To my surprise, she leaned forwards, and took my hands tenderly in hers.
‘I had a friend once,’ she began, in a quiet, reminiscing way, ‘the dearest friend in all the world – the only true friend I ever had. When we were together, we were inseparable, like the closest of sisters.’
She looked away for a moment. I saw that her eyes were moistening, and I was about to speak when she raised her hand.
‘No, Alice. Say nothing. The memories are painful to me, even now, and are made more so because my own dearest sister was taken from us when I was young – you must, I’m sure, have been told that the poor sweet thing fell into the Evenbrook, and was drowned. Years later, for a period on which I shall ever look back with the fondest remembrance, this friend filled the empty space in my life left by my dear sister. We shared every confidence, every hope and dream; and, in this state of deepest affection and trust, we passed into womanhood together.
‘She would come to stay at Evenwood every summer, and became a great favourite of my father’s. But then certain – circumstances – sundered the bond between us, making it impossible that we could continue our former intimacy.’
‘And you have never seen her since?’
‘Never,’ she sighed. ‘I have had no word of her these twenty years – neither has anyone ever taken her place. I have a numerous acquaintance, of course, here in the country, and in Town; but there has been no one like her.
‘There was a most rare sympathy between us, you see, although we were quite unlike in so many ways. She could be skittish and irresponsible – she seemed to dance heedlessly through life, whereas I had grown up serious in my outlook, and cautious in all my doings. But I suppose we completed each other, and made a whole out of our differences. We were so differently made, too. She was a little doll, with the most wondrous fair hair, and the palest of blue eyes, whilst I, of course, was dark, and as tall as a man. We must have made an odd sight!’
Giving a sad little laugh, she released my hands, and leaned back in her chair, lost in fond memories.
We sat for several minutes without speaking, listening to the crackle of the glowing logs. Then she reached forward to take my hands in hers once more, and looked deeply into my eyes.
‘Now, dearest Alice, this is what I wished to say. From the very instant I saw you, I knew that, one day, we would be friends – true friends, as this person and I had once been. You came to me as a mere servant; but, as I have told you, I saw through your disguise. I knew you for what you truly were.’
Oh, those transfixing eyes, black as pansy petals, like the eyes of some Byzantine icon gazing steadfastly into eternity! So beautiful, so captivating, so infinitely mysterious! I felt myself sinking into their shifting, treacherous depths, succumbing helplessly to their power, as so many others had done. Her words had alarmed me at first, until it was clear that they contained no suggestion of menace. On the contrary, they had a tender sincerity that I had never heard her give voice to before – and it was bewitching.
‘You will find it strange,’ she went on, ‘that I should speak so – after all, I have known you for only a short time. It is strange to me, I confess, this inexplicable affinity that I feel exists between us. I have struggled to resist it, being naturally conscious of the disparity of our conditions in the world; and I have tried – so very hard! – to maintain the relations that ought properly to exist between mistress and maid, as I attempted to do earlier, over your acceptance of Mr Wraxall’s invitation. But I can resist no longer.
‘You may not believe it, but I am beset with troubles, and have no one in whom to confide. I see your disbelieving look, but it is only too true. Of course I have my dear son, Perseus; but there are some things a mother cannot say even to her children – and others, perhaps, that must be kept from them, for their own sakes.
‘The consequence is that I feel utterly alone in the world. I confess that I can no longer bear the prospect of living out my days bereft of an attachment to someone of my own sex, an attachment of the kind I once enjoyed with my former friend, and for which I daily yearn.
‘And so: will
you
be such a friend to me, Alice, as well as my paid companion, from this day forth? My true, devoted friend?’
‘I do not know what to say, my Lady,’ I said, affecting a look of gratified confusion, although inwardly exultant. ‘This is so – unexpected – so undeserved—’
‘Oh, Alice, you dear little goose!’ she laughed. ‘You must say yes, of course; and then you must stop addressing me as “my Lady” – I mean when we are together like this. My name is Emily Grace Duport; and so – except when we are in company, or in the presence of my sons – from henceforth you must call me Emily.’
‘But,’ I protested, ‘you and your former friend were of an age. I am so young, so ignorant of the world. Surely you need a friend of your own age?’
‘Nonsense!’ she cried. ‘You are young in years, of course, but you have an uncommonly wise head on your shoulders. And why should I not have a younger friend, especially one in whom I truly feel there exists such reciprocity of outlook? You feel it, too, I know – that our lives were meant to become entwined. Say you feel it!’
I could not deny it, for it was no more than the truth – the reason, indeed, why I had been sent to this place. Whereupon, on hearing my whispered admission, she fell to her knees in front of me, threw her arms around my neck, and kissed me.
‘There!’ she said. ‘Sealed with a kiss!’
My amazement, on finding my mistress kneeling before me in an attitude of ardent supplication, and speaking to me in such a demonstrative manner, may be readily imagined. It brought to mind the sight of her, overcome by grief, kneeling before the tomb of Phoebus Daunt; but now her face was bright with hopeful entreaty, and – to my further astonishment – I found myself returning her embrace, and sinking into a curious state of willing submission, from which I roused myself only with the greatest difficulty.
I could not conceive what had wrought such a startling change in her – a transformation so sudden and complete that it seemed, even to my suspicious eye, to be wholly untainted by subterfuge. I own that I was in a perfect daze, knowing that I must not trust her, and yet feeling flattered and touched by this effusive offer of friendship from the one person in the whole wide world whom I could never call my friend.
My Lady sat back in her chair once more with a contented sigh.
‘Do you remember,’ she asked, ‘when you first stood before me, and I asked you whether you thought we would become friends?’
I said that I remembered it very well, but had never dared to hope that such a thing could ever come about – ‘although, of course,’ I added, ‘I wished it very much.’
‘It’s Fate, you see. I am certain – as I have been certain of few other things in my life – and I am truly, truly glad of it.’
‘As I am also,’ say I, reaching out and taking her hand. ‘Truly.’
We sit for several moments, saying nothing, each preoccupied with our own thoughts.
‘Naturally, it will not be easy for you, Alice,’ she observes after a while. ‘You’ll feel awkward and constrained, no doubt, by this sudden change in our relations. But I wish you to be as happy in my company as I know I shall be in yours; and so you must strive to overcome your natural delicacy, which does you the greatest credit, and try to treat me as if I were your equal – I mean of course in our private moments, away from the world’s gaze, and never in front of the servants. In public we must be more circumspect. You’ll then appear as my paid companion, and we must take care to temper our conduct accordingly.’
‘Ah, yes,’ I say, compliant as you like, ‘the proprieties must be observed, of course. Friends in private, mistress and companion in public.’
‘Exactly!’ she cries. ‘You always understand, dear Alice.’
Oh yes, my Lady
, I think.
I understand perfectly
.
We talked on for half an hour or more; or, rather, I was content to let my new friend talk away, which she appeared most eager to do, whilst I smiled and nodded in a gratefully accommodating manner, until the darkness began to gather, and it was time to light the lamps.
‘Do you know, Alice,’ she said, standing up and reaching out her hands towards the fire, ‘I think I should like to spend some time in London again after all. It will be quite different now, having you to keep me company. I’m sure I shall not hate it if you are with me. We’ll go to the theatre, and to concerts. Oh yes, to concerts! I have not been to one since – well, for such a long time. You’ll like that, won’t you, dear?’
Rain was now beating against the windows, driven in by a howling wind.
‘And then,’ she continued, in a rapt, musing sort of way, not waiting for a reply from me, but walking over to the window-seat to look out across the rain-swept Park, ‘we can make expeditions – to the Zoological Gardens, perhaps, or to the Tower. Of course there are also people you should meet, to whom I can introduce you, and so bring you out into the best society, as I told you I wished to do.’
She looked magnificent in her trailing dark-grey gown, which hugged her tall figure, and set off her pale skin to perfection. Who would not admire her, and wish to be her friend?
Seeing her standing there, so mysteriously alluring in the fire’s glow, I knew that I could never admit to Madame what I could hardly admit to myself: that I was becoming captivated by this woman, whose still unrevealed iniquities I had come here to expose to the world. What a contradictory and perplexing thing is the human heart, that it can be at once attracted to and repelled by the same object, and drawn, despite itself, to what it seeks to destroy!
Thus it was, just three months after my first coming to the great house of Evenwood, that I ceased my employment as maid to the 26th Baroness Tansor, and became the chosen friend of Emily Grace Duport,
née
Carteret – the woman whom my guardian angel, Madame de l’Orme, had assured me was my sworn enemy.