A Fatal Likeness (17 page)

“I am a good judge of character, Lady Shelley.”

“If you believe
that,
you will be even more pathetically vulnerable to her ploys. Let me see,” she says, folding her hands firmly on her lap. “I am guessing, of course, but I imagine that despite your obvious enthusiasm for your new acquaintance, you have already been taken unawares, on more than one occasion, by an unexpected, not to say capricious, change of mind—”

“Well, that’s hardly—”

“Moreover, I surmise that there has been at least
one
instance when you have found yourself—rather to your surprise—giving her comfort of a physical, not to say
intimate
nature. Can you contradict me?”

Charles’ cheeks, now, are the ones to burn. He turns away, ill-at-ease.

Lady Shelley, meanwhile, smiles a thin superior little smile. “I last saw Miss Clairmont more than a year ago at our place in Sussex. Her niece had been staying with us—at
Miss Clairmont’s
request, I may say—and had become engaged during that visit to a very presentable young man. It was quite the whirlwind romance—they had each been disappointed in love, and found a natural, not to say touching, comfort in one another. All was going along very nicely until the morning Miss Clairmont was expected, when poor Madre burst into my room gasping, ‘Don’t go, dear—don’t leave me alone with her. She has been the bane of my life since I was two years old.’ I had been preparing at that moment to go up to town, expressly to avoid any danger of encountering that woman, but seeing Madre so distressed there was no longer any question of my departure. And it is just as well I stayed, for Miss Clairmont took violently against the engagement from the first moment she heard of it—she had not been in the house half an hour when her poor niece came rushing up to my room, and flung herself sobbing at my feet, crying ‘Save me! Save me from my aunt—she is kneeling on the floor of the drawing-room cursing me!’ I was not going to permit that sort of behaviour in
my
house, so I locked dear Madre in her room at once for her own safety, and went down to Miss Clairmont myself. I found her, I am sorry to say, in a state of complete frenzy—sobbing and shrieking and throwing off the most horrid accusations against us all, accusing Madre and myself of inducing her niece to treat her parents like the dirt under her feet. And various other vile things not fit to be repeated. I decided there and then that I had no choice but to say—and in Miss Clairmont’s hearing—that I was sending for the doctor to administer a drug to her. That worked the trick, may I tell you. She became quieter at once and ordered the carriage that very minute. We have never—any of us—seen her again, though I am told she does not scruple to abuse us behind our backs, even if she can no longer do so to our faces.”

She slips a sideways glance at Charles, who is still turned away.

“It is merely one example,” she continues relentlessly, “albeit an extreme one—of what my Lord Byron used to refer to as her ‘Bedlam behaviour.’ We have all seen it, over the years. The Clairmont blood brings nothing but misery, and that woman is a curse and a plague to all about her. And as much of a charlatan, may I say, as that mother of hers. Who was, I can tell you for a fact, not even married to her father, whoever
he
was—”

But this last is one step too far. Charles swings round to her, his face furious. “Have you heard that old saying, Lady Shelley, about those who live in glass houses and how inadvisable it is for such persons to start casting stones?”

She is not triumphant now: The rage he sees in her eyes is more than a match for his own. Had the door not opened at that moment there is no telling what either might have said. Sir Percy glances from one to the other, and sees that his wife’s solid bosom is heaving with indignation.

“Thought I ought to look in. I could hear the rumpus from the morning-room. Jane?”

“It seems,” Lady Shelley says with difficulty, “that Mr Maddox is tempted to believe the lies and
fabrications
”—this with a venomous glance at Charles—“of Miss
Clairmont.
Seems, indeed, ready to credit that
we
are the persecutors in all this—we and our dear Madre.”

Sir Percy takes a step or two farther into the room. “Have to say, Maddox, that that would be most unwise. Tricky customer, that one. Could lead you a long way down a very wrong road. Very wrong road.”

“Tell him,” urges Lady Shelley grimly. “Tell him about your sister. Tell him what happened to Clara.”

Sir Percy shakes his head. “Not sure we really want—I mean, private family business and all that—”

“
Tell him,
Percy.”

He takes his pipe from his waistcoat pocket. As much to have something to do as anything else, it seems, for he makes no attempt to light it.

“Back in ’18 when the mater and pater were on the Continent, this Clairmont woman took it into her head there was some problem with that child of hers. Some gossip she’d been told about Byron claiming he was going to make her his mistress when she was old enough. Complete rot, clearly, his own daughter and so forth, but the Clairmont woman worked herself into a state of first-class hysterics and left the pater no choice but to go trooping off with her halfway across Italy. Seems His Lordship agreed to let her see the child, but only if the pater and mater were in attendance. Only trouble was, pater had omitted to mention he’d left the mater back in Bagni di Lucca. Filthy hot summer, five-day journey, baby sick and small boy in tow—dreadful prospect for a woman alone. Got there eventually to find the pater completely taken up with the Clairmont woman and her brat. Baby meanwhile was getting no better and local quack worse than useless. Mater eventually insisted they take it to a reputable fellow in Venice, but by the time they got there, doctor couldn’t be found, despite pater’s best efforts. Fits, dysentery. Quite hopeless. Died at the inn, in mater’s arms.”

Silence descends. Sir Percy’s clipped monotonous delivery only heightens the utter horror that must have overwhelmed Mary Shelley that long last day, with no help at hand for hours ahead. Charles knows now, and only too well, what betrayal it was that poisoned the Shelley marriage, and why Mary blamed her husband for her baby’s death. And not just her husband, but her step-sister, whom she must have seen as equally culpable, equally selfish. Charles had promised he would be Claire’s champion—would do all in his power to assist her with these people—but he has never disliked or distrusted her more than he does at this moment.

He takes a deep breath. If it is to be done, ’twere best it were done quickly.

“I will be brief, Sir Percy. I imagine we would both prefer that this matter was concluded as swiftly as possible.”

He sees Lady Shelley bristle at that ‘both’ that so pointedly excludes her, but she says nothing.

“During the time I was resident at St John’s Wood I was able to ascertain that Miss Clairmont does, as you suspected, possess a considerable quantity of Shelley papers. But given her
relation
to your mother, that can hardly come as any great surprise.“

Sir Percy’s flush deepens, and he swallows uneasily. “Go on.”

“It might have been helpful, when I was last here, if you had seen fit to inform me who exactly she is. But no matter. The facts are these. Miss Clairmont discovered me one night, examining those papers, and accused me at once of being in your employ. There followed what I suppose you might term a frank exchange of views, but by the end of it we had come to an understanding.”

“Which was?”

“Miss Clairmont asked me to tell you that she is willing to sell the papers.” Which is, of course, strictly true, as far as it goes, but given the rather sanctimonious statements he has just made, he’s taking at best a rather oblique position here as regards the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Sir Percy turns away, so that Charles can no longer see his face. “All of ’em?”

“Everything she has,” replies Charles. “She says she wishes to be free of the past.”

Sir Percy nods. His back is inexpressive.

“But there was one condition. She asked me to negotiate with you on her behalf.”

Sir Percy’s head lifts. “And you agreed?”

“I did.”

“I think we have heard all we need to hear.” Lady Shelley lumbers to her feet. “We will consider Miss Clairmont’s proposal, and inform you in due course of our decision. In the meantime I expect you to return whatever monies advanced to you that have not yet been spent, less an appropriate fee for the time expended. Good day to you.”

It is with an obscure intuition of defeat that Charles follows the butler back down the stairs. Double agency has always been a dangerous game, and he has the distinct impression the Shelleys have been playing with a completely different end in view, and one they seem—he is not sure how—to have achieved. It’s a conviction that lasts half-way across the square, and it’s only when he reaches Eccleston Street and pauses to cross the road that he realises he’s being followed. By a girl. Her hand clasped to her head to keep her cap in place, and her apron billowing about her in the wind as she runs towards him calling his name.

“Mr Maddox?” she says, half out of breath as she catches up with him. “I have a letter for you, from my mistress.”

Charles takes the paper she holds towards him.

“This is from Lady Shelley?” he says with some irritation—surely the damn woman cannot be claiming her money back already?

“No, sir. From
Mrs
Shelley. She said I was to give you this. But only after you had left the house.”

Charles looks at her, then at the letter.

“Thank you,” he says, tucking it into his breast pocket.

“And she says if you have a reply, to address it to me. All her letters are opened, you see.”

“Very well—”

“Alice. Alice Parfitt.”

She bobs a curtsy and is gone.

He’d intended to walk back, but changes his mind now, and waits for the omnibus. It’s relatively empty, at this time of day, and he makes his way to the back, past three thickset women with baskets of vegetables, and a muttering man with an ulcerous face and a grey coat patched at the elbows. And once he finds a seat where he won’t be overlooked, he takes the letter out and opens it. The writing is unsteady, and the ink faint, with here and there a darker word, as if the pen had been gripped more tightly.

Mr Maddox,

I do not know you, but I met your great-uncle, once or twice, many years ago. I doubt very much he will remember me—his must, after all, have been a more than usually crowded and eventful life. But I remember him and I recall, even now, his acuity of mind, and was saddened indeed to learn of his recent infirmity. And yet there is a part of me that almost envies him—there have been times when I would willingly have exchanged the anguish of consciousness for such a blessed insensibility—times when I have yearned for even the possibility of forgetting. But I digress, and this is not, in any case, a letter of condolence.

My son has only now informed me that he engaged your assistance in the matter of Miss Clairmont’s papers; this, of course, you know. But he has also confessed that one part of his reason for hiring you for this task was that he might, thereby, discover whether any records still remained in your uncle’s possession, relating to the task he undertook for my father in the winter of 1816. Had Percy spoken first to me, I should have urged him to plainer dealing, and I am writing to you now, if not to excuse his deceit, then at least to explain it.

After my husband died, I supported myself and my one remaining child for many years by my own efforts, and as both a dutiful and a loving son Percy feels a special obligation to provide for me, now, in his turn. His wife, likewise, has always been especially protective, and particularly wary of any matter that might threaten to injure either my reputation, or that of my husband. So you will understand, I hope, when I tell you that their interest in your uncle’s lost papers was motivated only by this natural, indeed laudable, concern. It was entirely by chance that Mr Maddox happened to be working for my father at the very time my husband’s first wife met with her tragic end, and your uncle became, thereby, cognisant of certain facts and events, quite inconsequential in themselves, but which we, of course, would wish to remain private to ourselves alone. Having met your uncle even so very briefly, I am convinced that were he able to speak for himself in this matter, he would respect that wish—nay, see it as his obligation, as a distinguished practitioner of his trade, to keep all such matters confidential. This conviction I have, in turn, communicated to my son. I have likewise assured him that since you are the only heir Mr Maddox has ever had, and the successor now, to his business concerns, you may also—surely—be relied upon to adhere to the same honourable code.

I would wish that this is all I had to ask you, but I must touch now on a far more delicate subject. I found your great-uncle to be a man of both judgment and discretion, and I am about to pay you the compliment of assuming that you share his personal qualities, as well as his professional principles. I must speak now, and with that understanding between us, of Miss Clairmont and my husband, much as I would wish to avoid so repugnant a matter. But having spent as much time in her company as I am told you have, I would have you know the truth. No doubt she has given you a most persuasive account of her own history, and has painted me as a monstrous and unfeeling wife, forgetful, now, even of what is due to my husband’s memory. Do not mistake me—I care not what she says of me, for my own reputation matters very little. But I
do
care what she says—or might publish—of Shelley. I know there have been allegations, more than once, that Miss Clairmont was his mistress, but I tell you, Mr Maddox, as I have told others before you, that it is all a wicked lie. My husband
never
had an improper connection with her, and I find it unbearably painful that he should still—after all these years—stand thus slandered. I cannot say for a certainty whence such accusations have sprung, but you have met my step-sister, and talked with her, and I am sure you will have perceived that vein of phantasy and
mélodrame
that is so peculiarly her own. I recognise it, because I too have struggled to see beyond the belligerent and often hysterical woman Miss Clairmont is now, to the timid and trusting girl she was when first we met. A girl who has been striving all her life for love, and never found it. I have ever tried to do my duty by her, but even when we were children together I often wondered if there were not some deficiency—some fatal lack that led her to ape me in all I did. All I had,
she
wanted. My clothes, the way I arranged my hair, even—and to my horror—my Shelley. I dreamed—after his declaration of love, after our decision to elope—of freedom and escape, and found to my dismay she was bound to me even more inextricably than before. I do not know, even now, how she persuaded him to take her with us—for we needed no interpreter, and wanted no companion. All I know is that I came down the stairs that summer dawn and found her there, her trunk packed, her cloak about her, and the strangest of strange expressions on her face, threatening to wake the whole house there and then if I did not agree to her coming.