A Fatal Likeness (31 page)

“—but there is
one
fact which
is
incontrovertible, and which argues too strongly against Leeson’s involvement for a woman of your intelligence to continue to believe it.”

Her chin lifts. “And that is?”

“That an almost identical incident took place in Cumberland more than a year before—before Shelley had ever set foot in Tremadoc, and Leeson had even heard his name.”

“I do not believe it—he would have told me—it is false—”

“It is
not
false, Miss Godwin. I have heard it from Mr Shelley’s own lips. And that fact is itself both instructive and troubling. The former because of what it tells me of that young man’s mind; the latter because he has not spoken of it to
you.
”

She gets to her feet and begins to walk about the room, all the while avoiding his eyes.

“I am old enough, Miss Godwin, to have a daughter your age. I hope you will indulge me if I give you counsel now which might seem to usurp a father’s place.”

She throws a furious look in his direction, but he is not deterred.

“I am concerned for your safety, Miss Godwin, yours and your child’s. I have been so ever since I saw you at Pancras all those weeks ago. I beg you—leave this man and return to your parental abode as soon as you are able. I do not know what Mr Shelley has done to warrant such a persecution, but everything I have learned in all the years I have practised this profession tells me that it is of a nature—an enormity—such as to place both you and your unborn babe in the most urgent danger. No man practices such a pursuit for so long a period and with so unflinching a tenacity without there being a terrible and compelling reason at the heart of it. From what I have seen of him, I doubt very much that Mr Shelley is in the slightest degree competent to protect you from this nameless persecutor, but even if he is—even if his constant restless movement from place to place does indeed contrive to keep you always one pace ahead of the retribution that stalks him—what can he do to shield you from
himself
? Did you not say he is prey to violent nervous attacks? Have you not seen him walk in his sleep, and not know afterwards where he is, or what he has done? Did his own father not threaten to confine him to a madhouse?”

She is staring at him wildly now. “I never told you that—how do you know such things—” she cries, her voice hoarse.

“I know,” he says, going to her and gripping her by the shoulders, “because I have made it my business to
find out.
You know not the risk you run, Miss Godwin, you or Miss Clairmont. Believe me when I tell you there is no happy ending to this tale of love you believe yourself to be living. There is a lunacy in this man that renders him treacherous—to himself and to all about him.
You
may decide to take that risk—do not impose it upon your defenceless infant. Consult a doctor if you do not believe me—send for William Lawrence—he has made a study of such cases—”

“How dare you!” she exclaims, raising her hand to strike him, but he is too quick, and as he grasps her wrist and feels the pulse of blood beating hard in her veins, his face comes close to hers for a second time. Only now it is not pleading in her eyes, but fear. But is it fear of the man before her, or fear of something his words have awakened—something she has long known, and long suppressed?

A moment later Maddox inclines his head and releases her hand. “I apologise if I have offended you. That was not my intention.”

She snatches her arm away and marches to the door.

“You may call upon me,” he says softly, “at any hour of the day. Should you be in need.”

She does not turn but her hand pauses on the handle, before she throws open the door and is gone.

He knows it was a mistake to allow himself to be drawn in by this girl, but now he wonders if it is an even graver one to allow her to leave. He should have handled it better—at least asked her where they are lodging, for he has no means to find her—find her or protect her. Because he doubts very much that she will come to him again. Not unless she is in the most terrible extremity.

• • •

Christmas comes and passes. January blurs into February, and Mary Godwin has—almost—gone from his mind in the welter of a murder trial. Maddox has worked many, on both sides of the accusation, but this is more demanding than most, not only because the crime took place in Lisbon, but because the accused cut his own throat thereafter, and can now barely speak. After another night in the Newgate cells, slowly extracting what defence he may from a young man seemingly determined to die, Maddox returns early one Monday morning wanting only his breakfast and his bed. What he finds instead, is Fraser waiting in the hallway, holding a card.

“What is it?” he says, somewhat tetchily as he takes off his coat. “Have Phyllis draw my bath, would you?”

“You may want to see this first, guv. Young fellow left it not half an hour ago. Waited awhile getting more and more agitated, then said he’d go on ahead of you. He left about five minutes back.”

Maddox frowns. “I think I saw him. Turning into the Strand. I thought it odd to see one of his character abroad at such an hour. Thickset, heavy-featured, perhaps twenty-five?”

“And sweating, despite the cold. Seemed to have a lot on his mind.”

Fraser hands Maddox the card. On the face:
Thomas Jefferson Hogg, Middle Temple.
It is a name, of course, that cannot possibly mean anything to Maddox. Though indeed a lawyer by profession, if rather a mediocre one, we remember Hogg now as Shelley’s friend and biographer, though in March 1815 the latter is a long way in the future. The former role, however, is both current, and—as Maddox will soon discover—complicated.

“Did he wish to consult me on a legal matter?” asks Maddox. “Because if so I am afraid the hour is far too early for any sort of profitable discussion—”

“No, guv,” says Fraser. “Look on the back.”

It has been written in haste, and—it appears—at Maddox’s own desk, and with his pen:

Mary—Miss Godwin—begs that you will come.

Her need is desperate—I beseech you, do not delay.

T.J.H.

13 Arabella Road, Pimlico

“
Mary,
indeed,” says Maddox coldly. “It seems our young lawyer is on distinctly intimate terms with that rather irregular household.”

“An acquaintance of Shelley’s at Oxford—or at least that’s what he said to me,” finishes Fraser quickly, seeing Maddox raise an eyebrow at the missing
Mr.
“Will you go, sir?”

“I am afraid I will be unpopular with the coachman, but yes, I will go. I will change my clothes and be ready to leave in ten minutes. Wait for me outside.”

The journey takes little more than a quarter of an hour so early in the morning. The streets are for the most part deserted, and Maddox looks out of the window, ostensibly watching to see if they overtake their early visitor. But if he is honest with himself he is more concerned to avoid his assistant’s shrewdly observing eye. He is uneasily aware that Fraser already knows rather too much about his entanglement with Mary Godwin, and no doubt guesses even more.

Most of the houses in Arabella Road are still dark, but it is clear even in the half dawn that the Shelley establishment has raised itself more than a notch since Church Terrace, and Maddox wonders for a moment how the poet came by the money, and how much of his future inheritance he has already borrowed away. Number 13, by contrast with the rest, glares with the light of trouble, or distress. But if Mary Godwin is anxious to see him the same appears not to apply to her step-sister, who eyes him with a closed and wary look as she opens the door.

“I hope
you
may get some sense from her,” Claire says at once, “for she will certainly not speak to
us.
Three hours has she sat there, in silence—she is driving Shelley half distracted—he has had to lie down—”

There is something about her face—something nervous and yet at the same time excited, self-assured.

“What in heaven’s name is going on here?” Maddox says quickly, pushing the girl aside and forcing his way through the hallway to the sitting-room, Fraser at his heels.

He will never, afterwards, be able to rid himself of that moment. The girl sitting facing him on a stiff wooden chair in the centre of the floor. Her head bowed, her eyes dry. And in her lap, a swaddle of blankets. The size and shape of a new-born child.

The child does not move, but he knows instinctively that this is not the warm stillness of slumber. It is no baby she cradles, but a corpse.

There is something terribly wrong, Maddox knows that at once. The death of infants—especially those born before their time, as this must have been—is so commonplace as to be mundane. But there is nothing mundane here.

“When was she brought to bed?” he says quickly, turning to Claire.

Claire scowls. She seems impatient, even irritated, which in the circumstances is unaccountable. Or accountable only unsettlingly. “Two weeks ago. At our last lodgings. We thought the baby would not live—the doctor said we should not hope—but then it seemed to rally—only then Shelley became unwell—”

“
Shelley?
What has this to do with
Shelley
?”

“He began to have the most terrible seizures—spasms in his side that left him shrieking in agony. There was nothing for it but to move here—”

“
Move?
With an infant only a few days old and not expected to live?”

Claire looks up at him, unabashed. “Shelley did not like the other place. He said it was horrid—that it played upon his nerves.”

Maddox takes a deep breath, endeavouring to keep his anger in check. He has never, in all his years first as Bow Street Runner and now as thief taker, lost his temper with a client. It has been his hallmark, and a good part of his success, so the fact that he seems on the point of doing do so now both infuriates and alarms him.

“Has a doctor been called?”

“No,” the girl snaps. “I wished to, but
she
would not permit me—she sent Hogg to find
you.
”

Mary Godwin is now rocking backwards and forwards, her child cradled against her breast. More concerned now than ever, Maddox goes quickly to her and crouches down before her chair. “May I see?” he says softly. She seems reluctant at first, gripping the child even tighter, but he coaxes her gently and she eventually folds back the blanket covering the baby’s face. The infant is tiny—some weeks premature to Maddox’s untrained eye. There are pale blue shadows under her eyes, and flecks of dry foam speckling her lips.

“She seemed so much better yesterday,” whispers Mary. “I thought—I dared hope—that all might yet be well. She opened her eyes at the sound of my voice—she smiled—I am sure—she knew me.”

And as she touches a tiny cheek rigid with death, her words stumble, and the first tears come. “I awoke in the dark icy with fear—terrified by my dreams—and I wondered at first where I was—but then I saw there was someone in the room—someone standing over the crib, bending over my sleeping child. I thought I dreamed again—that it was nothing but the continuation of my nightmare—but when I rose this morning and went to the cradle my baby was cold.”

Maddox reaches across and edges the blanket a little looser. The baby’s yellow skin is darkening already to a dull purple, but he can see now that there are scatters of minute red marks about her eyelids; marks that Maddox has seen before, even if their full significance will not be formally documented by the medical profession for decades; marks which, if found about the eyes and face, are one of the first signs a modern pathologist will look for in cases of suspected strangulation.

There is a fear now, which clenches Maddox’s heart iron-hard, but he must not leap to conclusions—must not allow prejudice to out-run truth.

“Are you sure it was not, indeed, the delusion of a dream?” he says. “No-one could blame you—after days of watching—of broken and intermittent sleep. And did the doctor not say—it could have happened at any time—despite all your care—”

And now for the first time she raises her stricken eyes to his face. “It was no dream, Mr Maddox—I know what I saw. It was as you said—I should have listened—I should not have allowed him near my baby—”

Claire Clairmont rushes forwards, taking hold of her sister’s arm. “No,
no
! That is a
lie
! Why do you bring this horrible man here only to tell him such wicked falsehoods? He would never—you know he would never—”

But Maddox has already raised his hand to restrain her. He knows now—has known, indeed, since the first minute he entered this room. But she must say it—he has to hear her say it.

“Miss Godwin,” he says quietly. “There must be no misunderstanding here—no risk of error. Are you telling me that the figure you saw—”

“It was Shelley,” Mary sobs. “Heaven forgive me, but it was
Shelley.
”

There is noise now behind them and Maddox turns to see the young man standing in the doorway. He looks as if he hasn’t slept in months, his shirt half unbuttoned, stained at the armpits, and coming adrift from his breeches. Maddox has never seen him look so young, and wonders why that innocent idea should now be so very chilling.

“Ha!
—you!
” he cries, “I might have known! There is nothing for
you
here, Maddox—nothing for you to
investigate—
”

Maddox straightens up and moves towards him. “I would not be so sure of that,” he says, “were I in your place. But you may obviate the need for any such
investigation
by answering a single question. One, and one only. What were you doing last night at your daughter’s cradle?”

Shelley opens his mouth, then hesitates and looks down at his hands, turning them slowly palm up, palm down, palm up, palm down. And as he starts to speak, his voice high-pitched, hectic, monotonous, Maddox sees Claire Clairmont put her hand to her mouth as if suddenly nauseous.

“Some years since I made a study of dreams, and kept a daily notebook detailing those I had experienced. I became, in consequence, convinced of the existence of two variations of this phenomenon, the Phrenic and the Psychic. The former the dream of the mind, the latter the dream of the soul. I myself have had dreams in the midst of which a pleasant vision has been broken off by a terrifying dream within a dream—a dream of the soul to which the mind was not privy, but from the effect of which I started with horror on sudden waking—”