Michael Cox (59 page)

AFTER A LIGHT supper, Madame and I drew our chairs close to the fire, for the wind and rain had made the evening uncomfortably chill.
I had been willing to postpone further conversation until the morning, but Madame, although exhausted by the effort, insisted on continuing her confession.
She implored me, first, to forgive her for what her love for my father had made her do. I told her that forgiveness might come in time; but not yet, not until every secret, every lie, had been laid bare.
‘There are no more of any consequence,’ she replied, wearily. ‘I have told you everything that we have kept from you. But if I have failed to satisfy you on any point, then ask me what you will. I cannot leave this world until I have regained your complete trust and affection.’
I assured her, with a kiss, that she would always have the latter. As for trust—
She seized my hand with sudden and such surprising vigour that I almost cried out.
‘Then tell me now, I beg you, how I may earn that trust. What more do you wish to know, dear child?’
‘For now,’ I replied, ‘two things. Tell me, first, did my father have any hand in the death of Mr Roderick Shillito?’
The directness of my question made her hesitate before replying. I had hoped for a categorical denial; but all she would say was that she had not been party to the many ‘private arrangements’, as she termed them, that my father had made over the past months.
‘He never spoke of them to me, or of what may have passed when he himself went to London. He told me of the attack on Mr Shillito, of course – I also read an account of it in one of the English newspapers; but that is all I know.’
Her eyes, however, spoke what we both thought: that my father had instigated the attack on Mr Shillito to prevent him from delving further into the true identity of the man calling himself Edwin Gorst whom he had met on Madeira.
Clearly wishing to avoid further unpleasant speculation on the matter, Madame then asked me to tell her the second thing I wished to know.
‘It concerns the death of Lady Tansor,’ I replied. ‘Why did the news drive my father away? Did you both not insist to me, in the strongest terms, that she was an implacable enemy to my interests, and that we were bent on her destruction? And did you not also tell me that, although my father had loved her once, his former feelings had turned to hatred for what she had done to him?’
‘He never ceased to love her,’ she answered, in a most pitiful voice, ‘even when he pretended to hate her, and even though it did not alter his great ambition to make her pay for betraying him. But her death was never contemplated by us. We worked only to bring about her public shame and condemnation, and then the restoration of your father’s line, through your marriage to Perseus Duport. I would go so far as to say that I think your father even harboured an absurd and impossible hope that, when all was done, and in some unimaginable way, he might effect a reconciliation with her. A mad fantasy, of course, but I now believe it to be the case.
‘He did not love me, as I once thought he did, when he and his first wife originally came here, from the Quai de Montebello. He had sought me out, with that diligence and perseverance that have always distinguished him; and I thought, in my poor foolish way, that he had done so because of some long-suppressed attachment towards me, which had begun when Emily and I were friends.
‘I could not bear what she had done to him – could not for one more moment tolerate such base and determined cruelty; and all for the sake of
him
– that conceited, conscienceless upstart, Phoebus Daunt, who was not fit to breathe the same air as your father.
‘So I persuaded myself that your father had brought his first wife to Paris with the express purpose of finding me again, and of renewing something that had been lost to him. Your mother came to think so, too; but he deceived us both in this, as in everything else. He did not love your mother either – although he professed to do so, and although he was always kind and affectionate towards her, except when he was taken by one of his black moods, and then we both suffered. But neither did he did love me.
‘No. It was always her. It will always be her. And now she is dead.’

II
Acceptance

I COULD NOT leave Madame alone, in the state of bodily and mental distress in which I had found her; and so, having no immediate reason to return to England until my affairs demanded, I sat down the next morning to write to Mr Wraxall, saying that I intended to remain in Paris until he should send for me. His reply assured me that he would now devote himself to the advancement of the legal proceedings, which, he was confident, having taken provisional advice from several eminent colleagues, could be brought to a successful conclusion as speedily as the workings of the law allowed.
The succeeding days passed quietly, as Madame and I continued to speak of these formerly hidden things. Something of our former intimacy began to return; but it soon became evident that the doctor had been right.
With alarming rapidity, my guardian entered into a terminal decline. I sat beside her bed, morning and afternoon, and often through the night, reading to her, or watching over her in sleep, as she had done for me as a child. I brushed her hair, bathed her face, plumped her pillows, and stroked her wasted hands when she grew restive, or cried out in her sleep. But with every day that passed, she withdrew into some silent and distant world, beyond the reach of all my loving ministrations.
Only once, a few days before the end, did she briefly emerge from her increasingly comatose state, to ask me to take off the little silver crucifix that she wore about her neck.
‘I wish you to have this, dear child,’ she whispered, so quietly that I had to place my ear close to her cracked lips and ask her to repeat the words. Then, just before slipping back into sleep, she asked: ‘Am I forgiven, dear child?’
‘Yes,’ I whispered back. ‘You are forgiven.’

SHE DIED DURING the third week of June, as swallows wheeled dizzily in a cloudless sky above the Bois de Boulogne.
I had left her side, just for a moment, having passed the long night watching over her, to open the window and let in the heavenly summer air. When I turned back towards the bed, I knew that she had gone.
An era of my life ended that day. I now stood truly alone in the world for the first time, on the brink of a new and strange existence.
Alone? Yes. Although I was no longer the orphan I had always believed myself to be, having now discovered that I had a father who lived, I felt no change in my condition. He was as dead and insubstantial to me now as the mythical Edwin Gorst had once been. What other family did I have, now that Madame, my second mother, had been taken from me?
Marie-Madeleine de l’Orme,
née
Buisson, was buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery. In her will, she left me the house in the Avenue d’Uhrich, together with a substantial sum of money, the remainder of her considerable fortune, inherited from her first husband, being apportioned amongst various charitable concerns in which she had taken an interest, and the two ever-loyal servants, Jean Dutout, and Marie Simon, who, it now appeared, had always known of her secret marriage to my father. To him, she bequeathed nothing.
She also left me a photograph – a self-portrait of my father, taken by him in the year 1853.
His face, of course, was completely familiar to me, for behind the magnificent beard and moustache, it was Mr Thornhaugh’s – long and lean, with a dark complexion; swept-back black hair worn almost to the shoulders, and thinning slightly at the temples; large dark eyes, just as my mother had described in her journal.
I have it still, and take it out sometimes, when I wish to remind myself that I once had a father.

BEFORE LEAVING THE Avenue d’Uhrich, I went to the authorities, and in due course the coffin of ‘Edwin Gorst’ was raised and disposed of. I then had my mother’s coffin removed to a new location, open and sunny, away from the constant shadows under which she had lain for so long. I also commissioned a new, upright, headstone to be made, carrying an inscription in English:

IN PERPETUAL MEMORY OF MARGUERITE ALICE BLANTYRE 1836–1859

This memorial was placed here by her loving daughter
July 1877

I REMAINED IN Paris for another month, at the end of which time I returned to England, although not immediately to Evenwood.
I had received a letter from Mrs Ridpath, inviting me to stay with her in Devonshire Street until all the legal matters were settled. This I gratefully, but firmly, declined; for whilst the offer was kindly meant, I regarded Mrs Ridpath as being somehow tainted by her association with my father, whom I had now determined I never wished to see, even if he made an attempt to communicate with me. Mr Wraxall then urged me to reside with him; but this invitation, although a far more congenial one, I also refused.
I settled myself instead at Mivart’s Hotel, where I was visited almost daily by Mr Wraxall, but where I had the freedom to do exactly as I pleased, when I pleased. I cannot say that I was happy there, still afflicted as I was by grief for Madame and by aching memories of Perseus, and constantly brooding on what the future might bring. Yet when my mind was not beset by troubling, and often irresolvable, thoughts, I experienced a kind of quiet contentment during those strange, undifferentiated weeks, as I explored the seething streets of the city my father had loved, filling my note-book with observations and descriptions, or sat contemplatively beside the great grey river, to wait upon events.

THE INQUEST INTO Lady Tansor’s death had returned its expected verdict of suicide and, following the evidence presented by Inspector Alfred Gully, of the Detective Department, the world now knew why the 26th Baroness Tansor had ended her life in the Evenbrook.
The ensuing scandal was immense. The Prime Minister had been immediately notified of her Ladyship’s death, and the reasons that had led to it. Her Majesty was then informed. According to Mr Wraxall (who had it on the very highest authority), she had listened gravely to her First Minister, before expressing relief that, despite having liked Lady Tansor well enough, she had never cultivated her at Court.
The nation’s public prints produced an ocean of articles and reports – sober, reflective, speculative, prurient, crowing, castigating, or pitying, according to the temper of the organ, or the disposition of the writer. Questions were asked in Parliament, whilst in society friends and enemies alike could talk of nothing else for months.
No objections being made, Emily Grace Duport,
née
Carteret, was buried in the Mausoleum at Evenwood. I did not attend the brief ceremony of interment, but received an account of it from Mr Wraxall. The mourners were few, confined – at the request of the brothers – to Perseus, Mr Randolph, and a dozen or so others. Mr Thripp officiated, managing, for once, to maintain a dignified brevity of expression on an occasion of such poignant solemnity that it robbed even the Rector himself of words.

I SHALL NOT weary my readers with the details of the legal processes, overseen by Mr Wraxall, that followed Emily’s death, and the public revelations concerning Perseus’s birth. The law duly took its ponderous course, my claim to be the rightful successor to the late Lord Tansor was ratified, and the day finally came when I returned to Evenwood, lady’s-maid and paid companion no longer, but as Esperanza Alice Duport, 27th Baroness Tansor.
Mr Wraxall was standing in the Entrance Court, with all the assembled servants and estate workers, as the carriage came down the Rise, rattled over the bridge, where the waters of the Evenbrook had brought Emily’s body to rest, and drew up before the front door.
‘Welcome home, your Ladyship,’ said Mr Wraxall, with a solemn bow.
‘Come now, sir,’ I replied, in mock admonishment. ‘I wish to hear no more “your Ladyships” from you. You will address me by my Christian name, if you please. This is my first command, and I shall expect it to be strictly observed.’
Thus, arm in arm, laughing as we went, and to the applause of the crowd, we entered the great house of Evenwood to take our tea.

ONE OF MY first acts as mistress of Evenwood was to appoint Mr Montagu Wraxall to the position of librarian and archivist. We have become very close, and spend a great deal of time in each other’s company. I no longer feel alone in the world. Mr Wraxall is always there, always ready with sound advice, always affectionately solicitous or, when the occasion demands, properly critical, and fiercely protective of my interests. He is my father now. I could want for no other.
For my dear lost Perseus, the calamity of his mother’s death, and the circumstances by which he had been dispossessed, were almost unendurable. He immured himself for some months in his London residence, seeing no one, and communicating with the world only through his solicitor. At length he quit England altogether for Italy, where he apparently intended to remain.
Following his mother’s death, Mr Randolph, as he had undertaken to do, had returned from Wales, alone, to attend the inquest. He was the subject of much admiration for doing so, being obliged to sit through the painful rehearsal of his mother’s iniquities, whilst enduring the stares and knowing looks arising from the now public knowledge of his marriage to Jane Paget, his mother’s former housekeeper.
With regard to his own position, he made no attempt to challenge my claim to succeed his mother, as he might have done. He had once assured me that he entertained no wish to be master of Evenwood, and I had no reason to doubt him; but I hoped also that he had abstained from legal contention for another reason, and that, after all, he cherished some regard for me – however small – of which his wife would not approve.

I DO NOT need to be told that I am blessed. I know it, and thank God every day for the enviable position in the world that I now occupy; but I have little contentment. I suffer much from depression of spirit, and am afflicted almost nightly by bad dreams and painful memories; for I am imprisoned still in the life my father made for me. My father – whom I once believed was dead, but who now lives, or so I must presume. My father – the murderer of Phoebus Daunt. My father – who stole my life and made it his own. My father – the ghost within me, the implacable ruler of my existence.
I sit here most afternoons, in the window-seat on which I once passed so many hours with Emily, reading her dead lover’s poems to her, idly conversing, or looking out over the terrace and the pleasure-gardens to the wooded horizon.
Sometimes I will pass the time, my back pressed against the ancient glass, blissfully absorbed in a new novel; at others, I contemplate yet again, as I think I always will, the events that have brought me to the state of life I now enjoy.
I stare constantly into the Glass of Time, that magic mirror in which the shifting shadows of lost days pass back and forth in dumb show before the eye of memory. As for the present, the days come and go in pleasantly uneventful – yes, and often dull – succession.
Yet I do not complain. I have new friends; I have become a great gardener, and have made many much-needed improvements to the house. I am learning Italian and Spanish, and have emulated Mr Thripp in procuring a terrier of my own – a lovably roguish creature with an infinite capacity for wickedness, Bowser by name, who steals my shoes and is constantly biting holes in my gowns. He has a formidable feline companion, red-haired and noble of aspect, but of a warlike disposition, who keeps him in check and whom I have called ‘Tiger’, after the cat whose acquaintance I had briefly made at the house of Mr Lazarus in Billiter Street.
I have also fitted out Emily’s old sitting-room with shelves that are already groaning under the weight of the novels and volumes of poetry, in English and French, that are sent to me every month; and a week rarely passes that I do not return to my mother’s journal, which I now possess in its entirety. It pains me more than ever that I was denied by Death from forming that infinitely precious bond between mother and child, for which – I now believe – there is no true substitute.
My greatest diversion is this house, this wondrous palace of plenty. I have become utterly entranced by its beauty, in a way that I never was before; and when I am obliged to leave it, even on visits to the Avenue d’Uhrich, I dream of its cupola-crowned towers, and especially of the little arcaded courtyard, with its fountain and dovecote, where I had sat and dreamed – so long ago, it seems; and then I yearn to return. I wander through its rooms and corridors constantly, both by day and by night, marvelling, touching, opening; for it is all mine now.
I shall never tire of this place. Even when I am an old lady, drooling and drivelling, wrapped in shawls, frail and bony, and rheumy of eye, I shall still wander these rooms, still wondering at the boundless, dreamlike splendour of it all. Perhaps my ghost will do the same, willingly turning its back on the heavenly home that faith promises, to haunt instead the earthly paradise of Evenwood through all eternity.
Sometimes, although I should not, and strive against it with all my might, I miss her – my former mistress. She comes into my thoughts at all times, and in all places, and I feel her presence everywhere, especially when I am taking my walks on the Library Terrace, or sitting here in the window-seat opposite the closet from where I had spied on her and Mr Vyse. I do not regret the final, unexpected consummation of the Great Task – Justice called for nothing less; yet I wish to my soul that it had not fallen on me to bring it about.
I also sometimes miss the heady days of adventure and intrigue. I would not have them return, of course, for their legacy has been a bitter one; but I confess that my heart beats a little faster as I live over those times once again, when I was Esperanza Gorst, maid and then companion to the 26th Baroness Tansor.
And so I take my leave of my patient readers. Time, in its unfathomable way, and the unknowable workings of Fate, have done their work. The Great Task has been accomplished; and my Book of Secrets can now be put away, never again – I pray – to be opened by me.