The Dark Clue (21 page)

She nodded (though I think she was still puzzled, for her expression continued to hover between seriousness and jest) and said:

‘She was, I believe, a great trial to him and his father, and died mad.'

‘Really?' said Walter. ‘She was committed, you mean?'

‘Yes.' Her voice was barely audible. ‘To Bethlem Hospital, I think. Though I – I'm not certain.' She hesitated a moment; and when she went on again it was with a kind of breathless urgency that made her sound, for the first (and last) time, harassed and defensive. ‘He never spoke to me about it. We all knew that he confided in my father, but it was too sacred a subject to be openly discussed.' She wrung her hands, as if she despaired of making us see. ‘What you must understand, Miss Halcombe – Mr. Hartright – is that he was more like one of our family than a friend. And no family can long survive if its members do not respect each others' sensitivities and secrets.'

Walter stared at her for a moment; and then nodded and laid down his notebook and pencil.

‘Shall I pour out some wine?' he said.

‘If you please,' said Mrs. Bennett, with a grateful look.

At the mention of the word ‘wine', I noticed, her husband held out his hand in readiness, and kept it there patiently until Walter tapped his wrist to alert him, whereupon it closed on the proffered tumbler like a sprung trap. He did not drink, however, until we were all similarly provided, and Mrs. Bennett cried:

‘We should do as we always did! Raise your glasses, everybody! Here's health and happiness to us all!'

To listen to the Right Reverend Bishop of This, and Her Majesty's Secretary of State for That, telling us that
innocence
must at all cost be preserved and protected, you would think that no virtue excited greater public admiration; yet can we imagine a man of the world, or a woman of fashion – or a costermonger, or a lady's maid, come to that – freely admitting to being
innocent,
or thanking the man who so describes them? No, for to be
innocent
is not merely to be blameless – it is also, is it not, if we are entirely honest, to be childish, and foolish, and ignorant (horror of horrors!) of
how things really go on?
Yet sitting there, a tumbler of
brown sherry in my hand, and seeing Mrs. Bennett's unfeigned joy at the sunshine playing on the murky water, and the caress of the cold air on her cheek; her delight at the company of friends yet living, and the memory of others now dead, I could not but reflect that
we
are the fools – for have we not, in our thoughtless desire to seem
practical
and
sensible
, taken strength for weakness, and weakness for strength? Here was an elderly woman, who had known her share of the tragedies and reverses that befall us all; and yet somehow, miraculously, they had not embittered her, or – whatever marks they had left upon her outer form – corroded the girlish loveliness of her soul. She still (you could hear it in the exuberance of that strangely young voice) took simple pleasure in the mere fact of being alive, in loving and being loved, in wondering at the beauty of God's handiwork – and surely that made her stronger, and more fitted for existence, than the most worldly-wise cynic on earth, who thinks he has seen the essential hollowness of life, and seeks only to while it away as agreeably as possible before it is taken from him?

‘Health and happiness to us all!' we called back, as lustily and unselfconsciously as children, and quite impervious to the quizzical looks of the captain and his mate in a passing tug.

‘Now, Miss Halcombe,' said Mrs. Bennett, taking up a plate, and searching in the basket for cutlery. ‘Let me help you to something. Some beef and salad?'

‘Thank you.' I had half-forgotten the purpose of our expedition already, and would have been quite content if no-one had mentioned it again all afternoon; but Walter was not to be so easily deflected, and pursued his quarry with a doggedness which – though I had seen it before, when he had been fighting for Laura's happiness and honour – still took me by surprise. Setting down his glass, and reaching once more for his notebook, he said:

‘You saw him often at your house, then?'

‘What, Turner?' cried Mrs. Bennett. ‘Oh, yes, constantly! It seems, indeed, when I look back, that all my earliest recollections are in some way bound up with him. Truly, Mr. Hartright, you never met a merrier creature!'

The food was quite forgotten again, and she settled happily back in her seat. This, you could see, was the Turner she loved to
talk about: not the madwoman's son, but the light-hearted playfellow.

‘He would romp endlessly with us children,' she went on, ‘making houses for us with wooden bricks, and then knocking them down, or letting us wind and unwind the long cravat about his neck as if he were a maypole.'

Walter laughed. ‘And did you continue to know him in later life?'

‘Oh, certainly. For a few years, indeed, we saw more of him than ever, for he built a little lodge for himself and his father at Twickenham – I can't remember when exactly, it must've been ‘thirteen or ‘fourteen, I suppose, there's a Miss Fletcher there now; and so we became neighbours, after a fashion, and we were forever meeting at either our house, or his, or getting up picnic parties together on the river.' She impulsively stretched a hand towards her husband, and smiled at him, though he could not see her, with her head on one side, and her eyes bright with tender recollection. ‘Charles there, and his brother Tom, who became a surgeon, and me and my sisters, and our father, and Miss Phelps the singer, and Ben Fisher, who went to India, and Sam Fisher, who joined the army, and Mr. Maxwell -'

‘Humph!' said her husband, loudly, startling us all; for (save when he had raised his hand to drink) he had been as impassive as a statue, and this was almost the first sound he had uttered.

‘My husband did not approve of Mr. Maxwell,' said Mrs. Bennett, with a teasing laugh – which seemed, nonetheless, to contain some undercurrent of sadness, or regret.

‘Why not?' I began; but she silenced me with a sharp nod towards Mr. Bennett, which plainly said:
Wait, and he will tell you himself.

And, sure enough, after a few seconds, he said, in a ponderous, wheezing voice:

‘Not so much I didn't
approve
of him, my dear. He depressed my spirits, that's all, with all his talk of rocks and bones.'

‘What, he was a geologist?' said Walter.

The old man nodded. ‘Every generation has its own trial. For mine it was geology.'

‘Not
all
your generation, my dear,' said his wife, with a weary
smile that suggested this was an old dispute, rehearsed between them many times before. Then, evidently determined to wrest the conversation back from him, she hurried on, before he had time to reply: ‘It certainly wasn't a trial for Turner, Mr. Hartright. Mr. Maxwell told me he might have been a geologist himself, so great was his understanding -'

‘Turner was not obliged, as I was, to sit by a dying woman,' said Mr. Bennett, suddenly, the passion of his words curiously at odds with their slothful delivery, ‘and try to persuade her that she could still trust in God's love for her, and for the dead infant at her breast, despite the discovery of so much evidence that seemed to contradict His word. If He has lied to us about the age of His world, why should we believe His promise of redemption?'

There was something plaintive, even desperate, in his tone, as if the perplexity was his, and he was hoping we might ease it; but what comfort can a layman – and a stranger, at that – bring to a clergyman whose mind has become a muddy battlefield, so trampled by the ceaseless advance and retreat of faith and doubt that every argument and counter-argument must already seem wearyingly familiar? No-one spoke for a few moments; and then Walter said cautiously:

‘Was Turner not, then, much occupied with religion?'

Mr. Bennett shook his head. ‘He was a pagan!'

‘He came to church with us, when he was staying,' remonstrated his wife, gently; but the old man only shook his head the more, and gave a disgusted ‘Hah!'.

‘I never discussed theology with him,' said Mrs. Bennett, pursuing her theme with some warmth now, ‘but no-one could have felt the sufferings of his fellow-creatures more keenly, or tried harder to obey our Lord's injunction to love his neighbour as himself.'

This seemed to reduce her husband to speechless incredulity; for he could not make a sound, but merely continued shaking his head so vigorously that I feared he must become dizzy, and faint.

‘There are, I think, some who would be surprised to hear you say that,' said Walter, mildly. ‘Many people think he was cold, and mean, and -'

Mrs. Bennett reddened – she was incensed – her friend was under attack, and she must fling herself into the task of defending
him, even if it meant forgetting her manners, and not allowing Walter to finish.

‘They would not think so if they had known him as I did,' she said. ‘He could appear rough and suspicious sometimes, I know – that was a deficiency of his early upbringing and education. But look within – and there you'd find the truest, most affectionate heart that ever beat.' She paused, searching her memory for some telling incident or characteristic to prove her point. At length she found it; and burst out:

‘Another man, for instance, might have neglected us, in favour of more fashionable acquaintances, as soon as he had become wealthy, and much sought-after, might he not? History, I am sure, is full of men who have done so. But not Turner – his feelings for us were as a son for his father, and a brother for his sisters, and were not to be changed. The day my father died, Mr. Hartright' – her voice rose, and became more animated, as if this was the
coup de grace
, and proved her case beyond all reasonable doubt – ‘Turner wept like a child, and threw himself into my arms, sobbing, “Oh, Amy, I shall never have such a friend again!”'

It struck me that if Turner had been the paragon she was suggesting, he might have shown more concern for her loss, and less for his own; but Walter merely nodded, and said:

‘So you never found him morose, or taciturn?'

‘The kindest of us can be morose sometimes, Mr. Hartright,' she replied, glancing at Mr. Bennett. ‘I've seen Turner gloomy, particularly in his last years. Once or twice I recollect coming upon him looking melancholy, and asking him the matter, and being told (here she adopted a gruff voice, with a distinct cockney twang), “I've just parted with one of my children, Amy” – by which he meant he had sold a painting. But how I remember him best – out here, in a skiff, or cooking dinner on the bank with the rest of us, or' – pointing to the shimmering park that stretched away from us, until it seemed to vanish beyond a flimsy muslin haze at a bend in the river – ‘Tying up there in the hay, – no! Never! He was always singing, or making jokes – though often no-one else could understand them. If he was quiet it was because he was looking at the effect of light on the water, and trying to draw it, or struggling to write a poem.'

‘A poem!' said Walter, surprised.

‘Oh, yes, he loved poetry.' She hesitated, and then – with a faint blush – went on: ‘Once, after a picnic, I found a scrap of one of his verses on the bottom of the boat, and – I know I should have given it back, but please remember, I was very young! – I kept it.' She reached inside the collar of her dress, pulled out a little gold locket on a chain, and opened it. ‘I carry it still, to this day,' she said, removing a tiny pellet of folded paper and handing it to Walter. ‘Here.'

As if, in that simple act, she had broken the spell that tied her to the past, and brought herself back into the mundane present, she laid a hand on my arm and said: ‘Now, I am being a miserable hostess, Miss Halcombe, and' – raising her voice, and calling indulgently – ‘yes, I know, my dear, a miserable wife, too. We must all eat, without delay.' She handed me the plate she had already prepared for me, and quickly filled another. ‘Mr. Hartright, would you be so good as to pass that to my husband?'

But Walter was still engrossed in reading, and seemed not to hear; and when she repeated the question he said:

‘Would you mind if I transcribed this?'

‘No, not at all,' said Mrs. Bennett. ‘But I fear my husband will die of hunger.'

‘Why don't you let me do it,' I said (for Walter, being seated in the middle of the boat, was the only means of conveying anything back and forth), ‘and you can resume your proper function as a waiter?'

So he handed it to me; and I copied into his notebook the following lines:

pure and clear

Past
meadowo sweet meadows
tree-fring'd meadows and blessè;d golden glebes

Where linger still the shades of Pope and Thomson;

And Albion's mighty workshop,
wreath'd in blackest smoke
industrious yet,

And wreath'd in blackest smoke; until at length

He flings the fragile barks of
HOPE and
BEAUTY, HOPE and JOY

Into the raging sea, where th'ensanguined sun
bloodies
bloodying the clouds

Tolle
Speaks of the storm to come

When I had done, Walter and Mr. Bennett were eating voraciously; while Mrs. Bennett, having taken one-and-a-half mouth-fuls, had quite forgotten about food again, and was in the middle of a story about Turner and Miss Phelps. I had missed most of it; but it seemed to concern a debate about the refraction of light from floating objects, which Turner had tried, finally, to resolve by dropping a lettuce-leaf into the water. Standing on the bank, however, he had lost his balance, and fallen into the river himself, flapping his arms, in the vain attempt to save himself, like the wings of a bird – at which Miss Phelps (here Mrs. Bennett began to giggle at her own anecdote, something any etiquette book will tell you you should avoid doing at all costs) had cried: ‘Ah, Joseph
Mallard
William Turner!'