The White Devil (26 page)

“
If through some accident you have never received the last letters sent by me . . .
Starts with a guilt trip—where’s the money to keep me well fed? Where are the funds for
my
journey abroad? He wants his rich boyfriend to give him some cash. And Byron, typically, is selfish in all the wrong moments. We’re talking about a man who later left his own daughter to die in an Italian convent.”

Cade scanned the pages.

“It’s illegible for a while.
My coughing and
—unreadable, maybe
fever
—
continue
. . .
but while these keep me sitting up all the night kerchief clenched to my mouth, it is you and news of you which I . . .
looks like
thirst for
. He’s still feeling well enough to be rhetorical. It doesn’t last. Neither does his writing paper. This is where the crosshatched writing quite overloads the page. Next letter.”

He placed one leaf down and picked up the one beside it. “
There is a core of disease in me not easy to pull out. I have ceased to attend to the firm.
Harness’s position was at a London company, in shipping, very middle class at the time, which is to say poor by our standards. Can you imagine his isolation? Grown too fancy for his impoverished family. Homosexual, alone, broke, and dying? His world would have been growing smaller by the minute.
I live on the guineas put by—and even these are scarcely put to use as I cannot eat. I cannot abide food for the cankers that afflict my mouth. My few visitors chide me for my pallor and insist I eat animal meat—but I am done with both—animals and visitors—and my chest is in a nervous state such that when I draw breath spasms shake me and I cough blood. It is black & thick.
”

Dr. Cade frowned at the manuscript. “Tough way to go, TB. But he’s not through yet. The one obsession that keeps him going is Byron.
I am relieved only by your love
,” Cade continued reading. “
In those words—your love—is comprised my existence here and hereafter.
But it turns sour when he finds—again, typically—that Byron has taken up with someone else. Another young man. Now the love song shows the discord of jealousy. Mind you, Byron is in and out of London
all
this time, and seems never to have visited Harness.

“
H’s letter reached me . . .
I reckon H is Hobhouse, a close friend of Byron, and as such likely a mutual acquaintance with Harness . . .
you have a new ‘friend’ espied with you often in London whose name none know but whose countenance all seem agreed is handsome and dainty and fair. Men seldom agree on anything in such unison.
Bitchy remark. Not only is he dying; he’s been betrayed. Byron has a new boy toy, a pretty one, and one who’s well enough to run about town with him. Let’s see, from here, little is legible until
pretending fair creature . . . black cloud—
must be ‘fills’
—my mind.
Ah yes, then the imperative.
Tell me who this is
. Harness seems, now, determined to take action.
I am coming to Albemarle Street, expect me
.”

“Stalking,” observed Andrew.

Dr. Cade nodded approvingly. “I like that. Very apt. Stalking,” he repeated, as if remembering it for later. “No letters for several days,” he resumed. “It appears Byron has given Harness the slip.”

“What did he do? Did it work?” cut in Andrew.

“Well, Harness is very persistent,” Dr. Cade answered. “Listen.
My dearest . . . I trust this finds you well at Brighton. You have gone there quickly I am told—the same day as my visit to your rooms.
Byron’s dodging him, you see.
Mrs. Leckie . . .
must be the landlady . . .
was kind enough to tell me your FRIEND accompanied you.
See the caps?” Dr. Cade held the letter up for them to look at, smiling. “Now two days later. Pursuit has failed Harness. He tries more guilt. He should have known Byron better—the man was no nursemaid.
Can you not return to London, even for an hour? When you see me & my need you will forgo all other loves. Today I was going on in good spirits quite merrily—when—in an instant—a cough seized me and I vomited two cupfulls of blood. It is my death warrant. I must die. I wish for death every day and night to deliver me from these pains, and then I wish death away, for death would destroy my only hope for joy—a single sight of you.
Very sweet, as far as it goes, but jealousy gets the better of him.
The one who enjoys such a vision in my place, I most determinedly do hate. This hate grows and blooms even as I decay and die.
Illegible, but it goes on for a time on this theme of hate because he’s still on it”—Dr. Cade flipped the paper—“on the next page.
The flowering of it,
he says,
will be to destroy him.
”

“To destroy him,” Andrew repeated. “He means he will kill his rival.” Andrew’s eyes leapt to Persephone.

“As I said. Hell on wheels.”

Persephone coughed. It was a long, itchy, persistent cough, and it interrupted the discussion.

Andrew watched her, a sudden and unnamed suspicion aroused in him. She remained pale, withdrawn.

Stalking
.

Andrew had said it, trying to be the clever student, to impress the teacher. But he had unwittingly supplied his own answer. With a crash of misery, he realized his vision of Harness from the night before might not have been a dream at all.

“Are you feeling okay, Persephone?”

“I’m all right.”

“Are you sure? How does your chest feel?”

“My chest?”

The group looked at Andrew, puzzled by his question.

“Your cough,” he said, defensively.

“I’m perfectly fine,” she said crossly.

“I’m worried about you. You don’t look well.”

“You’re being silly.”

“Shall I go on?” Dr. Cade asked.

Reluctantly, Andrew nodded. But his eyes kept finding Persephone, watching her for any change, while he listened to Dr. Cade’s remarks.

“So here,” boomed Dr. Cade, “is the last letter of this extraordinary series, dated June 1809, just a month before Byron sets sail for Portugal. The most passionate of all. If that’s the right word.
Dearest—You are going to SD.
Not certain what that is. SD? Sounds like a place-name, but I could find no meaningful reference.
HE is coming with you. I know. H wrote me and told me all. I will summon all my remaining strength. I am coming to you. There, where we once met, I will find you, destroy him, and all will be well.
You said it very well before.” Cade nodded to Andrew. “He is a stalker. A nineteenth-century stalker. For all Byron’s flaws, you can see why he avoided Harness. The young fellow’s jealousy literally drove him mad.
I will find you, destroy him
. . . doesn’t leave much room for metaphorical interpretation. It’s a death threat.” Cade dropped his reading glasses onto the table. “Still, one is left with many questions. Who was this other lover? And more practically, how did these letters end up all together, at Harrow School? And what is
SD
?”

Persephone murmured weakly.

“What’s that?” demanded Dr. Cade, loudly, without any sympathy.

Persephone coughed again.

“Water,” said Andrew. “Is there something here for her to drink?”

“Upstairs. The fountain,” said Lena.

Andrew ran up the flights of stairs, panic pulsing in his mind. He felt, for a moment, insane. Persephone was sick. He perceived it. The disease was taking her over at this very moment. His hands trembled as he filled a paper cup of water in the bustling library. He carried it carefully downstairs, back to the consultation room. Yes, she was definitely pale. Yet all these people were sitting around calmly.
Of course they are. They didn’t see what you saw, last night
, he told himself. He handed the water to Persephone. She drank the water gratefully.

“Speech Day,” she croaked at last.

“Speech Day?” Dr. Cade repeated. He tossed back his head, as if to search for the words’ meaning on the ceiling.

“Speech Day. At Harrow,” Andrew explained, suddenly understanding. “It’s kind of like graduation, at the end of the school year. A bunch of seniors . . . Sixth Formers . . . memorize speeches and deliver them. Byron and Harness might have met on that weekend like . . . like old friends meeting at Alumni Day.”

“
You’re going to SD
.” Cade repeated the words to himself. “To Speech Day. Yes, of course. It’s in the summer, is it?”

“Early June. So they would have got together at Harrow, on Speech Day, in 1809,” Andrew said, putting the pieces together. “That must be where they exchanged the letters.”

“That meeting would have been a real prizefight,” Cade declared, holding the letters. “After all these.”

Lena protested. “But these are only Harness’s letters, I’m certain. One handwriting only.”

“Quite right. There was no
exchange
of letters. Byron returned all of Harness’s letters,” Cade exclaimed. “They were toxic. Who would want to keep them?” He grew more animated. “And it explains the receptacle. He would not exactly tie these with a ribbon. And he would not want his Harrow friends to see them. So he returned the letters . . . in a biscuit box. Probably one he picked up in a local shop, or near his lodgings at Harrow. A hastily obtained container. Lucky for us—airtight!” Cade grinned, delighted. “This is good! Very good!”

Cade opened his mouth to ask more questions. But this time he was unable to speak because Persephone coughed again, loudly. The cough perpetuated itself; hacking; scratching; on and on, as the lungs searched for, but never found, the blockage. It bent Persephone double.

Andrew’s stomach fell. Here it was. He had been both right and wrong. Right that he had seen the vision, and known, instinctively, that Harness had infected Persephone. Wrong that he had not acted upon it immediately.

The faces of his companions instinctively screwed up in disgust and sympathy—then finally—finally!—Persephone’s cough seemed to have found the blockage; something
caught
, at last; and she—with a grimace; and not having time to grab a handkerchief—delivered some liquid into her palm. She held up her hand and looked at it.

Agatha spoke first.

“Oh my God! Persephone!” she shrieked. “It’s blood! Andrew! Persephone just spit up blood!”

Andrew leapt to Persephone’s side, both he and Agatha immediately bending over her, staring at the hand Persephone had extended. She now withdrew her hand, trying to hide it. A puddle of blood, bright red and gleaming.

“It’s nothing,” she said weakly. “Stop worrying.”

“We are worrying,” protested Agatha. “You’ve been looking funny all morning. We’d better go. We’ll go to my room and you can lie down. I’m sorry, Dr. Cade.” They coaxed Persephone from her seat. Professor Cade remained seated, disappointed; his audience was breaking up. Lena Rasmussen whispered to him—
I need these back, sir
—and took the precious letters from him, tucked them back in the box, and disappeared into the rolling stacks again. Then the group became a chaotic scrum, circling around Persephone, moving her through the passage between the high shelves back to the narrow staircase.

“I’m taking her back to London,” Andrew said.

“London?” protested Agatha.

“She needs to go to the hospital.”

Andrew wrapped his arms around Persephone and led her up the narrow stairs, through the student library, where they drew stares, and out under the silent colonnade. Andrew and Agatha moved their friend back through the courtyard, retracing their steps toward Trinity Street. It suddenly seemed a long way to walk.

“Are you really leaving?” exclaimed Dr. Cade, who had followed them out.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Agatha called over her shoulder. “Thank you,” she added, to Lena.

Andrew heard Cade boom out after them: “I intend to publish this you know!” Then, he added: “How can I contact you?” They didn’t answer. As they reached the portal on the far side of the courtyard, he called out again, with a desperate note: “
Do you want credit for the discovery?
”

Andrew kept his arms wrapped around Persephone. He kept leaning over to check her face, check the pallor there, check for the shallowness of her breathing, check for things that made her look like Roddy sucking air out of that black punching bag for dear life, or like Theo
don’t think it
like Theo lying cold and stiff and vaguely purple with gravel on his eyebrows. Agatha peppered him with scolding counsel
there’s an infirmary we can be there in ten minutes
but he ignored this. He knew what he needed to do.

HE HALF GUIDED
Persephone, half carried her, through those streets they had dashed through the night before. Now the route back to the train seemed endless. A market square, crowded, but no one offering to help.
It’s okay, I know where to take you
, he told her.
You’re overreacting
, she murmured, then began another attack of heaving coughs that bent her double right there in the street, people giving them a wide berth, disgusted, like they were some degenerate pair—
druggies, needles, HIV
! It’s like people knew, could sense symptoms that lay outside the normal curve of colds and coughs.
Did you get blood again?
he asked desperately.
I don’t think so
, she answered.

At last they reached the train station. He left her on a bench with Agatha—who had stopped protesting a while back, and now merely followed and hovered—as he ran in to check the timetables. The next train left at 12:55. It was now 11:57. Nearly an hour. He choked with anguish. He could not wait an hour. He ran back outside. Persephone remained upright—thank goodness—and had resumed that self-sustaining, self-protecting posture, hands gripped together, shoulders hunched, eyes shut and focused inward. But her face had gone the same cheesy pallor

Know what caseosis is?
Dr. Minos had said
When your lungs turn to cheese