The Ghost Writer (18 page)

"It was clear that she had ceased to love him, and that matters between them had come to a crisis, long before she met Henry St Clair. De Vere, you see, had been her fathers protégé in the City. Horace Ward trusted him entirely, and so the terms of the marriage settlement allowed him to do more or less what he liked with Imogen's fortune, and, a few years later, with everything that came to her under the terms of her fathers will. De Vere had always allowed her whatever she asked, but in such a way that almost everything she had ever bought was, at law, his property, even her clothes and jewels, as she discovered when she first asked him for a separation. If she left him, he assured her, she would leave with neither her money nor her son—in whom de Vere took very little interest; he seemed, she said, quite devoid of fatherly feeling, which made the threat even worse. And so she stayed.

"Until the day she met Henry St Clair, she had gone on playing her part with a sort of compliant indifference, waiting until Arthur would be old enough for her to leave. But from that day forward, she was playing for her life. When she was with St Clair, she never thought beyond the moment; away from him, her mind swarmed uncontrollably with plans, imaginings, hopes, longings, fears. Yet outwardly, as she knew from the compliments of her acquaintances, she had never looked more serene.

"Her husband, as she thought, suspected nothing. It was, she said, like tiptoeing around a sleeping gaoler, day after day, always managing to creep back into her cell before he stirred. Everything, she felt, must wait upon the completion of the portrait. Throughout that spring and summer, she was sustained by the conviction that if only St Clair could finish the picture before they were discovered, all would be well.

"In September, she was obliged to go away with her husband for a fortnight at some great country house. The day after their return to town—it was a Sunday, but she could wait no longer—she slipped away to the studio, where she found Henry St Clair contemplating the finished portrait. She was standing before the picture, with his arm about her waist, when something made her glance over her shoulder. Ruthven de Vere was standing in the doorway.

"S
HE HEARD HERSELF SAY, WITH PERFECT COOLNESS,
though she knew it was hopeless: 'Ruthven, this is Mr Henry St Clair, the artist, who as you see has just completed my portrait. I was keeping it as a surprise for you. Henry, my husband, Mr Ruthven de Vere.'

"St Clair stood paralysed. De Vere did not, by so much as the flicker of an eyebrow, acknowledge his presence. He offered his arm to Imogen as if they were quite alone. She allowed herself to be led from the room, down the narrow rickety stairs and out to a waiting cab, without another word being spoken.

"They reached Belgrave Square, still in silence. She had resolved to answer no questions, respond to no threats, volunteer nothing. But with Arthur—still only thirteen, though thankfully away at school—as hostage, her resolve soon crumbled. Besides, she was in fear of her life. If he had raved and ranted, she thought she could have resisted, but de Vere's constraint was terrifying. There was a sibilance about his speech that reminded her of steam escaping from an engine, and when his spittle touched her cheek, it burned like acid.

"That one glimpse from the doorway of the studio had fired a train of suspicion that burned through hours of question and accusation, towards an insane conclusion. They were alone in his study; he had ordered the servants to admit no one, and to remain below stairs. Treating every denial as an admission, he forced the date of her meeting St Clair back and back through the years until he had persuaded himself that they had been lovers before he, de Vere, had even met her; from whence it followed inexorably that Arthur was not his child.

"She had refused, until then, to admit that she and St Clair had been anything more than friends. Now she saw, too late, that her denials had spurred her husband toward the most dangerous delusion of all. In that extremity, she believed that the only way to save Arthur's life was to surrender her own: if her husband strangled her, or beat her to death, then surely the police would lock him up and Arthur would be safe.

"So she told him the truth—exactly what truth, she did not say, and I did not ask—expecting him to strike her down. Instead he grew quieter; but still he pressed and pressed for an admission that St Clair had been her lover throughout the marriage until, goaded past endurance, she said "No, but I wish he had been.

"He was standing over her as she spoke. She waited for the blow to fall, but without another word, he turned and walked out of the room, locking the door behind him.

"She rang repeatedly, but no one answered. Hours passed; she paced the room, rehearsing every imaginable horror. It was close on midnight before he returned.

'"I have decided,' he said, 'that you will leave this house tomorrow morning. You will take your son away from his school—he will no longer be welcome there—and do with him as you please. But there are conditions.'

'"First, you will sign over to me all of your property: every farthing not already assigned to me by your father; every jewel, every trinket, everything but the clothes you stand up in.

'"Second, you will sign a paper confessing to your adultery with St Clair.

"'Third, you will sign an undertaking never to see or communicate with St Clair again.

'"Fourth, you will undertake never to communicate with any of our mutual acquaintance. You will leave London and never return. I wish it to appear that you and your son have vanished from the face of the earth.

'"Defy me in any particular, and you will lose your son. I fear you have spoiled him, but it is not too late to remedy that. You will also be branded in court as an adulteress, and I will bring an action against St Clair for alienation of affection which will bankrupt him.'

"'Why should I trust you?' she asked. 'Since you intend to be merciless in every other respect, why not keep Arthur, and make my punishment even more cruel?'

'"Because as long as you have your son, you will live in fear of losing him. As you surely will, if you do not keep to the letter of our agreement. As for trust, you must rely upon my word as a gentleman—and hope that I will be more scrupulous than you have been about your marriage vows.'

"He had already prepared the papers. One by one he set them before her. She signed mechanically, fatalistically, scarcely bothering to read what he had written, and then declared that she would leave the house at once. But he insisted she remain that night, alone in her bedroom, to give her 'time for reflection. The bell, he said, had been disconnected, but she would find a cold supper waiting for her.

"Dizzy with fatigue and hunger, she dragged herself up to her room and bolted the door. There was also a connecting door between her bedroom and her husband's, opening into her room. It was locked already, but the key was missing.

"Despite her exhaustion, she had no intention of sleeping, but within minutes of eating her supper she felt overcome by an irresistible drowsiness. The food had been drugged. Fear lent her enough strength to drag a heavy chest across the connecting door. She collapsed onto her bed and sank into an abyss of darkness, from which she emerged the following morning with the sensation that her head was on fire. In the mirror she saw that her face and neck had turned a livid shade of purple.

"Her first thought was that her husband had exacted a terrible revenge. But the door into the corridor was still bolted on the inside; the chest stood where she had dragged it, blocking the connecting door; the window remained fastened on the inside, and from the sill to the area below was a sheer drop of thirty feet. The room was undisturbed, her pillow unmarked. Even if a corrosive spirit had somehow been introduced into the room, it could not have injured her so terribly without damaging the bedclothes.

"Then it occurred to her that she might have been poisoned as well as drugged. Apart from the burning sensation, she felt well enough, but how long would this last? Sick with horror, she dressed, put on a veil to hide her face, and despite her husband's threats, gathered up a few pieces of jewellery left to her by her mother, as well as all the money she had in her room.

"Thus far, she had not heard a sound from her husbands room, Listening at the other door, mustering the courage to open it and confront him—for surely he would be lurking outside—she became aware that the usual morning bustle was absent. Very quietly she undid the bolt and peeped out. The corridor was empty, the house completely still. All the way down to the front door she expected him to pounce, but no one appeared; for all the signs of life, the house might have been deserted, She let herself out into the street and secured a cab."

T
HEODORE FELL SILENT
. H
E HAD BECOME SO ABSORBED
in his own narrative that he continued to stare at, or rather through the portrait until Cordelia took his arm; then he turned slowly towards her like a man waking from a dream.

"I am very sorry, my dear. I fear I have said far more than I intended. The fact is, I was back in the drawing-room downstairs, thirty years ago, listening to Imogen. Even her voice was altered—by the illness, I mean—I had remembered it as a vibrant contralto; now she spoke in a hoarse, whispery monotone, all expression lost..."

"Uncle, why do you call it an illness? He
must
have poisoned her."

"I know, I know; and so your father always believed. But I asked a specialist privately, and he assured me there was nothing in nature that could produce such an effect. One man thought it might be Saint Anthony's Fire; another said it resembled a severe case of scalding, but her condition grew worse, not better, for weeks afterwards; we had a nurse here, all the time. Drugged or not, she would have woken instantly if she had been burnt ... besides, there was no possibility of physical attack. No one could have got into that room."

"Uncle, why did you say physical attack' like that? Do you mean she might have been attacked in some other way?"

"Not unless you believe ... but no, no ... I think we must put it down to a rare and horribly malignant infection, brought on by the strain of events."

Cordelia wanted to ask what he had been going to say, but the recollection was plainly so distressing that she did not like to press him.

"And Henry St Clair?" she asked. "Did she see him again? I suppose she must have, when he brought the picture here."

"No, my dear, she did not. And it was not St Clair who brought it here. Which brings me to the part that concerns you."

Cordelia's feet were numb with cold; her breath was clouding the chill air, but she did not want to break the thread. Serene, untouched, untroubled, Imogen de Vere gazed back at her while Uncle Theodore collected his thoughts.

"Of course she was desperate to let him know what had happened. Against my advice, she wrote to him the day after she arrived here, but at my insistence she did not give him this address. De Vere knew nothing of me, and I feared that even this minor breach might bring him down upon us. I tried to get word of Henry St Clair by indirect means, but without result, and soon she was too ill for us to think of anything else.

"For at least two months—it seemed a lifetime—she was delirious with pain, for all the doctors could do for her. But as she began to convalesce, I could tell that anxiety about St Clair was preying upon her mind, and so I agreed to go up to London and seek him out.

"It was midwinter by then, bleak and dismal. I took a cab from Victoria and sat wishing I had never heard of Henry St Clair as we jolted and slithered through the frozen slush, and the streets grew darker and narrower. At the restaurant—which was dim and narrow, and smelt strongly of garlic—I was told that Mr St Clair had gone away, weeks ago, nobody knew where. I thought perhaps they were protecting him until, with the proprietors daughter acting as interpreter, I learned that all of St Clair's belongings, including the entire contents of his studio, had been carried off by the bailiffs. I spent the rest of the afternoon confirming what I feared. St Clair had been in debt to various moneylenders; the legacy he claimed to have received had evidently been only the latest in a series of loans. De Vere had bought up all of his debts and called them in, bankrupting St Clair and seizing everything he possessed, including the portrait."

"Then how did it come here?" asked Cordelia. "Did you buy it from him?"

"No, my dear, I did not. I attempted to trace St Clair, without success. Nothing more was ever heard of him; he simply vanished from sight. All I ever told Imogen—I should have said, by the way, that all she wanted was to know that he was alive and well; quite apart from the risk to Arthur, she knew by then that the disfigurement would be permanent ... I told her that the restaurant people had lost his forwarding address. She never learned what de Vere had done.

"Your father, as you know, was privately tutored here. By the time he turned sixteen, he was already so well-grown that de Vere would not have dared touch him; and if Imogen hadn't made Arthur swear never to approach his father, I think there would have been some sort of reckoning.

"But I must come to the point. Imogen lived—that is to say endured—the rest of her life here, without once going beyond the parish boundaries. We never heard from de Vere, or any of her former acquaintances—it must indeed have seemed as if she had vanished from the face of the earth. At her own request, we placed neither a death nor a funeral notice in any of the newspapers. Your father's army friends knew that his mother had died, but if news of her passing ever reached her old circles, nothing came of it.

"Now of course poor Imogen had nothing to leave your father. He had his commission by then, but a junior officer's pay is small, and my own fortunes had taken a turn for the worse. The business was on its last legs. I had taken a mortgage on this house, and was paying the interest out of what remained of the principal. It looked as if we should soon have to sell up and move to something exceedingly modest. With your father's help, I managed to hold out for another year, but the ground was slipping from under us.