Cannonbridge (21 page)

“And more to the point...” Gabriela is at his side. “How is it connected? To Cannonbridge?”

“Blessborough,” Toby murmurs. “‘The guardian of Faircairn’. And yet...” He gestures around him. “Who would ever live here? Let alone want to guard it? Hardly the most hospitable environment.”

From somewhere behind them, Gillingham sniffs with a robust haughtiness. “Man’s more adaptable than you’d think,” he says, stepping forward. “Aren’t a lot of places on the planet where he can’t scrape by. He’s a survivor—he adapts to his environment. But there’s something here. Everything I’ve ever heard about this place says that there’s definitely something here.”

Toby addresses him. “Interesting to hear you say so. Exactly what, I wonder, have you heard?”

A stony look in return from the soldier. “Only rumours. Daft stories. Pub chat. Something about the war. Something which keeps people away.” Nick pushes his shoulders back (he’s puffing out his chest, Toby thinks, he’s actually puffing out his chest) and says: “So let’s have a look, shall we? Get us on some higher ground.”

Without waiting for a response, he strides away and begins, with determined agility, to climb the hill.

Gabriela touches Toby on the arm and favours him with what he takes to be a smile of amused collusion. “Come on.”

Toby is looking again at the dark sand. “Strange,” he says. “This is just so strange. You must’ve noticed. I mean, what is this stuff?”

“You’ll figure it out,” she says with an odd, infectious brightness. “You’ll find the right connection.”

And she is gone, moving skilfully through the gloom, easily keeping pace with the corporal. She calls back: “Come on!”

Toby does as he has been instructed but not before, without quite knowing why, he crouches down, scoops up some of the black sand and slips it into his pocket. As a kind of souvenir, he supposes. A memento to prove that the day’s adventure has not been a dream or a product of complete mental breakdown.

A line from a play comes back to him as he trots after the others and he murmurs it to himself as he begins the ascent. “‘I shall show you fear’,” he says, “‘in a handful of dust.’”

The hill is steeper than it looks and the climb is tougher than Toby is expecting. The sun rises and the dawn has arrived in full by the time they reach the crest of it, the three of them getting there as one.

Later, they will wish that it had been less bright—that they might not have seen it in such unforgiving detail, that they might have told themselves that it was only the product of shadows and their imagination. That they might have looked away.

All of them, in their own ways, have experience of the uncanny. All of them know what it is to be confronted by the inexplicable, the
unheimlich
, by those things which seem to make a mockery of rationalism, to explode any sane reading of the world as a cruel myth.

Yet they are all of them rendered speechless by the sight that greets from the peak of that terrible hill upon that impossible island.

Nick speaks first. “It can’t be.”

Gabriela murmurs “My God...”

“You’re seeing this, aren’t you?” Toby asks, horrified yet fascinated, appalled yet utterly riveted, open-mouthed at the dreadful majesty of the thing, its awful intertwining of beauty and terror. “The guardian,” he mutters. “The guardian of Faircairn.”

For a long moment, not one of them dares to turn away.

It is Gillingham who cracks first, turning and running helter-skelter back down the hill.

With one final, disbelieving glance, Toby and Gabriela do the same.

The rest is over very quickly—a giddy blur of panic and motion, down the hill, onto the beach beyond and into the boat, a frantic pushing off, a bout of demented rowing, the comforting roar of the motor, a swift retreat (though scarcely swift enough, it must be said) from the island of Faircairn.

Nick is swearing under his breath, other words interweaved amongst the profanity. “Sorry... I’m sorry... I can’t... Can’t help...”

Gabriela simply stares into the ocean, pale, thin-lipped, unspeaking, trembling.

And Toby?

Toby is lost in thought, feeling, not for the first time in recent months, on the precipice of his sanity, forging connections, trying to understand the shape of the pattern, asking himself over and over again the nature of that deepening evil which seems to compass him all about and which has come, very nearly, to eclipse his life.

1869

ALLEYNE WAY

WAPPING

T
HE HOUSE OF
Cannonbridge is not at all as Mr Wilkie Collins had imagined. The address, prised free from a rather shadowy acquaintance whose name is well known to Scotland Yard, lies in a distinctly low quarter of town, a crumbling mansion of dubious provenance deeper into the East than any man of good character and reputation might, of his own volition, wish to tread.

Mr Collins, however, knowing his reputation to be rackety at best, had little fear as to how such an expedition might be seen by others and, in this as in so much of his life, he was happy to forego the rigours of convention. Of that house, however, of that bleak, dilapidated, dusty old house, and of the man who dwelt within it—now, about these things, he is very concerned indeed.

It is already dusk as he approaches the property, he and Dickens having talked for much of the day. Several further pots of that augmented tea having been by now consumed, Wilkie Collins finds himself rather unsteady on his feet and uncertain in his gait.

He does his best, however, to walk with deliberation and purpose down the dirty narrow lane which leads off the grey, neglected thoroughfare to the house of Cannonbridge. He holds his too-large head up high and steps on with as much confidence as he can muster between the shadows and to the front door of the old, disreputable place, painted, a generation past, with green paint, now ancient and peeling, and to the large brass knocker of more recent vintage and fashioned into the shape of some circular serpent, which stands beady watch upon it. Wilkie takes the metal, cold to the touch, in his clammy hand, lifts it and knocks once, twice, three times.

No sooner has the last of these gestures been completed than the door is swung open and the writer finds himself confronted by a man of about his own age, looking forlorn and cast down. The fellow’s eyes are bloodshot, his skin has a wretched pallor, his movements are blurred somehow and indistinct, like a person walking underwater, and his hands and arms are shaking as if from palsy. His entire being, it seems to our Mr Collins, can do little else than radiate the utmost despair.

Taken aback by this vision Wilkie, almost before he has done so, finds that he has asked the gentleman the following question of startling bluntness: “Who are you?”

At this, the man sniffs miserably, seemingly unsurprised by the enquiry. “Swaine-Taylor, Mr Collins,” he says. “Daniel Swaine-Taylor. My friends,” he adds unhappily, as if that tribe has long since been extinct, “called me Dan.”

“How... how did you know my name?”

Mr Swaine-Taylor smiles feebly and the sight is indeed a grisly one. “We have a mutual friend, do we not?” he says. “In Mr Dickens? Besides, my master is expecting you.”

“Your master?”

“Come, Mr Collins. Let us not play games. You know who my master is just as he knows you, and just as he informed me some days past that you should be calling upon us tonight.”

“But how? How is that possible?”

“Time, to my master, is not as it appears to us. It is not a straight line. Rather it is a circle. It is a snake that swallows its tail.”

Mr Collins blinks at this extraordinary sequence of remarks and, thinking of that strange doorknocker, is in the midst of marshalling some challenge or reply when Swaine-Taylor raises one arm and beckons. “Do step inside now, sir,” he says. “Mr Cannonbridge is waiting for you.”

Everything that is in Collins—every instinct for survival, every superstitious urge for self-preservation, every impulse to flee—screams at him to remove himself from that benighted house at almost any cost. Instead, he only increases his resolve, pushes aside his imploring conscience, ignores the urging of his soul and steps over the threshold.

“Very good,” simpers Swaine-Taylor. “Now, pray sir, walk this way.”

It is gloomy within and the tapering corridor, singularly unwelcoming, along which Mr Collins now follows the ruined man, seems itself to possess a kind of malice, as though the presence of the little writer is in some sense an affront to it. Besides it is treacherous to navigate in the flickering half-light that is cast by sporadically-placed candles and Wilkie is able to catch only glimpses of the walls—shattered and crumbling, an occasional oil painting of striking ugliness hung there to disguise the worst of the decay. The floor is strangely spongy underfoot. Neither person speaks as they progress.

Eventually, a speck of light comes into view, grows steadily larger before Wilkie is ushered into a large room, lit a little better than the rest, its walls lined with books. He has been brought also, he realises, into the presence of Mr Matthew Cannonbridge.

The great man seems unchanged from those previous occasions on which Wilkie has spied him and he accords exactly, of course, with the Inimitable’s description. He stands upright in the centre of the room, arms outstretched in a rhetorical gesture of welcome, wearing both a dark dressing gown, wrapped tightly around him, and a smile which, whilst doubtless intended as that of an agreeable host, strikes Collins as quite the most sharkish that he has ever seen. There is also, he sees now, a lit cigarette smouldering in the author’s right hand, at the sight of which Collins feels a sudden stab of longing for that distinctive satisfaction which only tobacco can provide.

So caught up is he in his examination of his host (and many of the books upon the shelves are, sees Collins now, those by Cannonbridge himself) that he scarcely notices Swaine-Taylor, with a kind of croaking flourish, announce the visitor by name.

Wilkie is fully cognisant of the moment, however, and indeed is quite certain that he shall never forget it, when Matthew Cannonbridge turns his gaze upon him and says: “Mr Collins. You are most welcome.”

The smaller man, he of the ragged loping gait and the head that looks to be too big for his body, in spite of the prickling in his throat, the sweat that springs up upon his palms at the sound of these words and the concomitant ache in his head, remains determined to stand his ground. “Mr Cannonbridge,” he says, with as much graciousness as he can manage, “your creature told me I was expected.”

“That is so.” The smile is unwavering, the eyes hard and cold.

“Might I ask how that is so, sir? My enquiries were discreet, I told no-one of my intentions and I sent no word before me.”

Cannonbridge waves the question aside. “My gaze is not as other men’s.”

“How so, sir?”

At this, the smile diminishes just a little. “Now is not the time. But might I ask the reason for this call? The hour is a late one and, as you can see, I am at my leisure.” He raises the cigarette to his lips, inhales and lets loose a long, thin stream of grey smoke. Without having to be summoned, Swaine-Taylor scuttles forwards and catches the ash that has been dislodged by the motion with an inexplicable expression of the purest joy upon his face, in the palms of his upturned hands.

Trying his best to ignore the grotesquery of the scene, Collins presses on. “I am surprised, sir, given your apparent gift for prophecy, that you do not already know it.”

“Perhaps,” says Cannonbridge, shooing away the fawning figure of his manservant, “I wish merely to hear it directly from you.”

As the sole object of Mr Cannonbridge’s undiluted attention, Collins finds that he is shifting nervously to and fro and from foot to foot. With a considerable effort of will he rights himself. “I have been sent with a message.”

“Oh? And who has sent you?”

“Charles Dickens.”

“I see.” Cannonbridge’s tone is flat and unsurprised, leavened by the slightest suggestion of amusement. “And what does little Charles want with me?”

“This,” Wilkie says and, delving deeply into the pocket of his frock-coat, produces a thick manila envelope with the initials ‘M.C.’ inked hard upon the front of it.

Cannonbridge takes another drag on his cigarette. “And what is that?”

“Your money, sir, returned in full.”

An affectation of surprise. “My money, sir? Why, I do believe that it is more properly to be described as Mr Swaine-Taylor’s money.”

At this, the man in question leers, as if at some long-cherished private joke.

“Sir,” says Wilkie firmly, “as I understand it there is very little difference between the two.”

Cannonbridge appears to acknowledge the truth of this remark. “Perhaps,” he says. “And Charles wishes to give it back to me now, does he? My recollections of that time are, I confess it, somewhat dim and befogged but I seem to remember that he had no such qualms as a boy.” One final plume of smoke and the cigarette is done. Cannonbridge discards it upon the floor and Swaine-Taylor scrambles to collect and dispose of it.

Wilkie says nothing but only holds the envelope out before him, his arm shaking quite visibly.

Cannonbridge nods to his man. Swaine-Taylor capers over, takes the envelope from Collins’ hand and bears it, like a lap dog, to his master.

The paper is torn open. The contents are given a derisory glance.

“I think you will find, sir, that the amount is paid in full.”

Cannonbridge wrinkles his nose as if at the detection of some disagreeably pungent odour. “A pity,” he says. “Dear me. For I saw such profit in it.”

“Did you indeed, sir?”

“I did. For Mr Dickens is a phenomenon of the age, is he not? His words have become integral to our culture. Unlike, say, yours, Mr Collins. He shall surely fill every lecture hall in the kingdom. I suspect that you would struggle to do the same.”

“I do not deny it. I understand well my place in the scheme of things.”

The smile returns, broader than before. “Now that I very much doubt. You see, Mr Collins, what men like you never seem to understand is how much power there is within this envelope. Even in its return, Charles shall never truly be free of me. I will always be a part of him. As for others, well, see here...” He draws the banknotes from the envelope, raises them high above his head, tosses them into the air and watches them flutter towards the ground. He barks, once and terribly: “Fetch!”