Michael Cox (34 page)

THROUGHOUT THEIR TIME in the Quai de Montebello, my parents’ marriage had continued to be a generally happy one, even though their financial circumstances were often precarious, despite the regular sales of my mother’s work. The plan to live in England had accordingly been abandoned, and, by mutual consent, Paris was now to be their permanent home.
Soon after removing to the Avenue d’Uhrich, however, as is evident from several entries in my mother’s journal, certain fractures began to appear in their previously happy union – the reason for which, although never explicitly stated, caused my mother considerable pain and anxiety. Disagreement and dissension seem to have arisen, in part, from my father’s insistence that no communication of any kind should pass between his wife and her Blantyre relations, a most unreasonable prohibition (it seems to me, as it did to her), which went hard on my mother; for she loved her parents and sister dearly, and had hoped that the irrevocable fact of her marriage would effect a reconciliation – with her nearest relatives, if not with her uncle.
Although it pains me to say it, I have also inferred a degree of unexplained antipathy between my mother and Madame de l’Orme, and must additionally mention two or three veiled references to certain events in my father’s former life in England, the continuing consequences of which appear to have contributed, perhaps in no small way, to my mother’s growing unhappiness.
Whatever the causes of their troubles, my father became distant and unpredictable in his behaviour, often shutting himself away for long periods, and leaving the house after dark to wander the streets. I cannot be sure whether this sad state of affairs persisted, or whether it was resolved; for from the middle of July 1857, the journal extracts sent to me by Mr Thornhaugh cease. They do not resume, and then only briefly, until September of that year – on the first day of which month, at about three o’clock in the afternoon, I was born in a room overlooking the high-walled garden of Madame de l’Orme’s house in the Avenue d’Uhrich.

IV
The Last Words of Marguerite Gorst

MY DEAR MOTHER’S health was fatally weakened by the effort of bringing me into the world. She died on the 9th of January 1858, and was buried in the Cemetery of St-Vincent, under the slab of granite that I later came to know so well.
The final entry in her journal, written just three days before her death, speaks of her joy at my birth, and of the many hopes she had for my future life. She also expresses, most poignantly, her sorrow that her own parents continued in ignorance of her marriage, and now of the existence of a fine and healthy granddaughter. These are the last words that she ever wrote, and with them I shall now conclude:
6th January 1858
My life now is over, although Dr Girard persists in the kindly pretence that it is otherwise. I shall never again see dear Papa and Mamma, or my sweet, exasperating sister, with all her impetuous ways; and they will never now see their beautiful grandchild and niece. This is a most terrible and unnatural deprivation, which pains me beyond words; but Edwin has insisted that it must be so, and my love for him remains such – despite all that has happened between us – that I cannot, and will not, go against his wishes, even in the extremity of impending extinction. For I know that Death’s net is all about me, and soon I shall be gathered in.
I left Madeira in the highest hopes of lasting happiness; and, indeed, I
was
happy with Edwin for a time – happier than I had ever been in my life. But all has changed –
he
has changed – since we left dear Monsieur Lambert’s, and particularly since the birth of our darling daughter, on whom Edwin completely dotes.
When he is not restive and fidgety, he is distracted and preoccupied, as if his mind cannot escape from the unremitting consideration of some irresistibly compelling subject. He locks himself away, scribbling in his note-book, or writing letters – to whom, I do not know; he walks about the garden deep in thought, for hours on end; he goes out at night, returning just before dawn.
He is silent at meals, even with M— he neglects his work; and now he complains of headaches, for which only his drops – he claims – can effect relief.
Does he love me? Has he ever truly loved me? He has been the dearest, kindest friend and companion, my rock and support; and even through all the dark days of the last months, he has come back to me, on many occasions, as the Edwin I once knew, whom I shall never cease to love, even when I am in my grave. But love? True, entire, enduring love – matching, point for point, the love that I bear
him
, and have so borne since the very moment of our first meeting? Has he ever felt this for me? I ask myself the question over and over, but no answer comes.
M—has insisted on staying with me until Edwin returns, although I wished to be left alone. She is sitting by the window as I write this, looking down into the garden. From time to time, she turns towards me and smiles. We speak little, having now nothing more to say; but we have reached a kind of understanding, for Edwin’s sake, which I believe contents us both.
From my bed I can see the bare branches of the chestnut-tree, and the high grey wall, tipped with iron spikes, that separates us from our neighbour, Monsieur Verron. Soon those branches will begin to bud with new life, and my darling girl, my little Esperanza, my precious hope, will lie beneath its canopy of gauzy green in soft sunlight, kicking her little legs, or dreaming unknowable dreams. Although I wish it could be otherwise, I am resigned to the necessity that she must be brought up here, under M—’s roof; but I have the comfort of knowing that she will want for nothing, and that she will go out into the world as a lady.
The pain has returned, and still no sign of Edwin with Dr Girard. I wish so much that he would come!

22

In Which Madame’s Third Letter is Opened

I
By the Lake

T
HUS MY
mother died, and with her the written record of my early life in the Avenue d’Uhrich came to an end. I had learned all I could of my parents from the journal extracts that Mr Thornhaugh had sent me, and from the recollections of Mr John Lazarus; but, to my bitter disappointment, much was still unexplained.
I wished particularly to know about the period after my mother’s death, during which my father had been my only parent, and also the circumstances of his own death in 1862, when I was five years old.
All I had been told by Madame was that, a year after the loss of his wife, my father had quit the Avenue d’Uhrich, leaving me in her temporary care. Long nurturing an interest in the ancient civilizations of the Near East, his plan had been to travel in those regions with the purpose of gathering material for a popular work on the Babylonian Empire, in which the small publishing concern for which he had been producing translations had expressed an interest. He had intended the trip to last not more than six months; but after only two, his letters to Madame had ceased, and no more was heard from him for several years. At last, in April 1862, a letter came from an official in the British Embassy in Constantinople informing Madame that he had died in that city of scarlet fever a week or so previously.
The necessary arrangements were made, and in due course his body was brought back to Paris, to be buried next to that of his wife’s.
Strangely, although I can recall being told by Madame that Papa would not be coming home ever again, I have no memory of his interment, only of being taken, some days later, to see – for the first time – the two stone slabs beneath which lay the mortal remains of Edwin and Marguerite Gorst.
I felt no grief – of that I am certain – at the deaths of my parents, for it was of course impossible for me to remember even the smallest detail concerning either of them. They were little more than names, chiselled into those two inexpressive granite slabs. Madame had become my only parent; and soon she would be joined by dear, kind Mr Thornhaugh. I would have mourned Madame most grievously had they put her in the cold earth, and laid stone over her; but I did not then mourn Edwin and Marguerite Gorst, for they were strangers to me then, their actuality blotted out by the all-sufficient care of Madame. Not until I was older did the keen agony of loss begin to empty its subtle poison into me; and not until now, in the great house of Evenwood, did I weep for them.

SLEEP OVERTOOK ME swiftly that night, and I did not wake until past my usual hour. But it was Sunday, the last of the present year, and church was not until ten o’clock.
Mr Randolph was sitting alone in the Breakfast-Room, sipping his coffee, when I entered. He looked up expectantly.
‘Miss Gorst!’ he cried, giving me one of his warmest smiles. ‘There you are. I’ve been waiting for you. If you’re minded, perhaps you’d care to make our expedition to the Temple today, after church – if it’s not at all inconvenient?’
It is perfectly convenient; and later that morning, having endured Mr Thripp’s valedictory sermon to the departing year, we make our way to the Lake, on the far side of which, dominating a terraced mound, stands the Temple of the Winds.
Although the morning is generally overcast, the piled grey clouds are broken here and there by enlarging chinks of pallid sunlight. Our talk has run on the various activities and incidents that took place during the recent Christmas celebrations. We laugh again at Mr Maurice FitzMaurice’s unintentionally comic theatrical performance; agree that Sir Edgar Fawkes has grown even redder of face and fatter of girth; and wonder whether Miss Marchpain’s sister ever found her missing gloves (Mr Randolph surmises that they were purloined, as love trophies, by gallant Captain Villiers).
We inspect the Temple, once an elegant addition to the Park’s amenities, but now falling rapidly into ruin, and slowly begin to retrace our steps back up the path towards the carriage-road. We have been conversing for some time of nothing in particular when Mr Randolph suddenly falls silent. With evident nervousness, he then asks if I would allow him to address me by my Christian name.
‘Of course you may,’ I tell him, seeing no harm in it. ‘Your mother has always called me Alice; but I have another name, as I think you know, if you’d prefer that.’
‘Do you know,’ he smiled, ‘I believe I would. It’s so distinctive and mysterious, and suits you so much better than Alice. Yes. Esperanza it shall be. It means “Hope”, I think.’
‘It does.’
‘Well, then, it exactly expresses how I feel – I mean the hope that I’ve been holding, these long weeks past, that I might be to you what I wish so much for you to be to me.’
Then, almost before I know it, he is asking whether he can come to me privately, at a time and place that would be convenient to me, in order to speak on a matter of the greatest importance to him.
‘I have something very particular I wish to put before you,’ he continues, his eyes seeming to shine with a great purpose. ‘I have wanted to speak to you – that is, to ask you – ever since we walked back together that day from the Duport Arms. In fact I seemed to know from the first moment we met how it might be between us. Don’t you find that strange?
I
do – most strange – that I should be so sure so quickly. But it’s true nevertheless. I knew straight away, you see, that you’d be – oh, dash it! I’m such a pudding-head at this sort of thing. My brother would know how to put it so that you’d understand, but I don’t. So will you let me come to you, when you’re ready to hear me, so that I can ask you – well, what I want so much to ask you?’
Was this hesitant declaration a prelude to making a proposal of marriage? Although I can scarcely believe it, that is what I now conclude from his awkwardly fervent words, and from the impassioned look in his eyes. Since my arrival at Evenwood, I have grown exceedingly fond of Mr Randolph. It touches me greatly that he had appeared to like me from the first, and that he had demonstrated so clearly a wish to befriend me. It seems, however, that I am right to suspect that there is now some deeper prompting at work, and that his recent talk of friendship has been meant to convey another, more significant meaning.
To have captured the heart of Mr Randolph Duport was a most wonderful thing, and it makes me feel almost cross with myself, and not a little ashamed, that I must reject the proposal I am certain that he is intending to make. I will do so with every expression of gratitude for the honour he has paid me, and with no small degree of regret; but I can envisage no bond existing between us other than sincere and steadfast friendship. Precious though that might be, it is not enough. When I marry, I must marry for love, true love – nothing less.
‘You express yourself perfectly well,’ I tell him, ‘and of course I shall be very willing to hear what you wish to say to me. My time, however, is not my own, for I am required to be in constant attendance on your mother.’
‘Well, then,’ says Mr Randolph, breezily, ‘we must endeavour to make time, if we can.’
I am about to prevaricate further, but the words die on my lips.
We have arrived at a green-painted boat-house. On one side of the path, the shimmering surface of the Lake stretches away towards the Temple of the Winds atop its terraced mound; on the other, a broad area of newly planted saplings drops gently down to the glimmering Evenbrook.
‘Hey, you there!’ Mr Randolph suddenly shouts out. ‘What the devil are you doing?’
I follow his eyes.
There, crouching down behind an area of low bushes just beyond the boat-house, is a man. He is wearing a leather cap, and his black hair hangs down in long greasy strands. I know him instantly, for he has often invaded my dreams since our return from London.
It is Billy Yapp, known to the world – as Mr Solomon Pilgrim had told me in Dark House Lane – as ‘Sweeney’.
I think at first that I must be mistaken. Then, as the man breaks away from his hiding-place and begins bolting towards the river, I get a clear view of the raw-boned, villainous face that had terrified me so in the Antigallican public-house. There is no mistake.
In an instant, Mr Randolph sets off in pursuit; but, although he is fit and strong, he is no match for Yapp, who quickly gains the cover of the woods that border the northern bank of the Evenbrook and disappears from view.
I wait for Mr Randolph’s return in the greatest consternation, having concluded that Yapp must have been sent to Evenwood on the instructions of Mr Armitage Vyse. But for what purpose? To spy on me – or to do to me what I am certain he had done to Mrs Barbarina Kraus?
After five minutes or so, to my immense relief, Mr Randolph comes back up through the trees, hat in hand, and breathing hard from his exertions.
‘Lost him,’ he puffs. ‘Damned fellow can run.’
‘What do you think he was doing?’ I ask.
‘Nothing conducive to the common good, I’ll lay money on that. Not a local either, by the look of him. But don’t alarm yourself. We’ll go back now and I’ll send some of the men round the Park, though I’ll wager he won’t linger here.’
As we gain the junction with the carriage-road, a tall figure on horseback is approaching from the direction of the Western Gates. As it draws nearer, I see that it is Mr Perseus.
He momentarily reins in his mount when he reaches us, throws me a look of the utmost disfavour, and then – without a word to either of us – spurs off towards the house.