Pale as the Dead

by Fiona Mountain

  The text below that illustration read:

  ‘Her expression varied in shades of sadness, as if a premonition of early death overshadowed her life,’ wrote Sharp, whilst Ricketts called her ‘A delicate wraith, a ghost in the house of the living’. According to Evelyn Waugh ‘Her fading beauty bore taint of underlying decay. She brought Rossetti the icy breath of corruption and mortality.’

  The image gave credence to the legend of the exhumation of Lizzie’s coffin, how little changed she’d been. Even in life, hers had always been a cadaverous beauty.

  Natasha closed the book, picked up the collection of portraits and glanced through the delicate pencil drawings. There must have been a hundred different versions of the same face. Some of the portraits were straight head and shoulders, some full length. She was reclining in an armchair, her hands folded in her lap; reading, head bowed; sitting on the floor, her legs tucked under her; or in a basket chair, profiled against a window. Always in the same high-necked blouse and plain long grey skirt.

  The pictures seemed to reveal much more about the artist than the model, were somehow almost harrowing. Perhaps because, like Jeanette’s diary, you knew how the story ended.

  But it wasn’t Lizzie Siddal who was haunting Natasha. It was Bethany Marshall. Or whoever she was.

  Seventeen

  AS A CHILD, Natasha used to sleepwalk. Steven would find her wandering in her nightgown along the dark corridors of their house and carry her back to bed. Sometimes she’d wake to find her feet dirty and scratched, and she’d know she’d been out in the garden, barefoot.

  She was pretty sure she hadn’t been sleepwalking for years. But when she awoke and went downstairs to make a cup of tea just before seven, she wondered if she’d been at it again.

  As soon as she reached the hallway the cold hit her. It was freezing, the quality of the air markedly different to that in her bedroom, and there was noise coming from the living room, a faint rattling. She pushed the door open. It was still totally dark outside.

  The window was flung wide, the heavy drapes flapping slightly. The sound she’d heard was the iron curtain hoops jangling on the pole.

  The book of sketches of Lizzie Siddal was open on the desk, the pages rippling to and fro. Standing there in only a T-shirt, Natasha shivered. The catch had somehow worked loose and the window must have blown open. That was it. But the wind, if there had been any, had died down to little more than the gusty breeze, ever present so high in the hills.

  She banged the casement shut firmly. The catch was old, rusted stiff. How in heavens could it have drifted open of its own accord? A voice inside her head answered: It couldn’t. So what then? If she had been sleepwalking it was the first time she’d headed for a window rather than a door.

  She dragged the curtains across, glanced down at Lizzie’s portrait. Snapped the book shut too.

  Feeling a little melodramatic, she took a large pewter candlestick from the windowsill. She inched through to the kitchen, peering behind doors. Then upstairs. The house was empty.

  She was wide awake now, still a little spooked. She went back into the kitchen, made tea and took it to her desk and switched the iMac on. The bright screen was reassuring. As she waited for it to run through the set-up she doodled in her notepad, flowers and spirals.

  She scribbled the name Margaret Wood, circled it. Margaret was an archivist at the Public Record Office at Kew who, as Natasha had told Bethany, had done in-depth research on Lizzie Siddal’s life and family, using the census returns and PRO certificates. Perhaps it would be worth giving Margaret a call. Way too early yet for sane people to be at work though.

  She logged on to check for e-mails, watched messages start to pop up in the inbox, highlighted in red.

  She used to love receiving letters and postcards from Steven when he was travelling, still did, and e-mails seemed to carry that same sense of expectation. She and Marcus used to send them to each other all the time. Little jokes and anecdotes about what they were up to, just to say hello. Now there was just the tiny stab of disappointment each time it didn’t happen.

  The iMac pinged to say all messages had been received, six in total. The e-mails comprised a new business enquiry, to which Natasha quickly replied with proposals, hourly and project fee rates. There was also a brief note from Steven letting her know he’d said it was OK for Sheffield University to get in touch directly regarding a talk they wanted her to give on internet sources for local historians. A chatty message from a friend with a joke. A quote from the Tideswell Parish News. We apologies for the typographical error in the last edition, in which we described Mr Tom Rogers as a defective in the police force. He is, of course, a detective in the police farce. Also a note from Will, reminding her about the party on Saturday. ‘Just in case it had slipped her mind.’ Which it had.

  She printed the joke and clipped it to her notice board, filed the enquiries and put the University material in the in-tray. Told Will she’d see him at the weekend.

  At the start of her investigation, Natasha had checked the Genealogical Research Directory as a matter of course, fired off e-mails to half a dozen researchers who’d registered that they were interested in the Marshall name. The final couple of e-mails were responses from two of them, a chap in Canterbury who said he had done some work on the Gloucestershire Marshalls and there was no recorded link between them and the Marshalls of Savile Row. He had not come across any current descendants of the Savile Row branch. The second was from a woman, Sue Mellanby, who lived in Cambridge.

  Hi Natasha, I was delighted to receive your message. My mother is now in her nineties and her mind is sadly not as clear as it was but she spent many of her younger days working on our family tree and I have a distinct childhood memory of being shown Dr John Marshall’s grave in Ely and being told that he was ‘one of the family’. Unfortunately my mother does not share this memory, and having only recently picked up where she left off, I can’t tell you any more than that at this stage. My mother has, however, told me that she made contact with several branches of our family in the Midlands and she says, though I must stress again her age and state of health, that she remembers hearing of a little girl named Bethany.

  Just reading her name sent a zing of elation along Natasha’s spine.

  I have put out some feelers to some of the contacts from Mum’s notes though I expect many are long out of date. I will, of course, let you know if anything comes of it.

  Natasha replied with a note of thanks.

  Boris was whining at the door to be taken out for a walk. Natasha quickly dressed and grabbed an apple to eat on the way.

  It had grown lighter and there was the palest glimmer of sunshine, a tiny patch of pale blue sky on the horizon beyond the woods. The low lying mist in the valley made Snowshill seem like a kingdom in the clouds.

  When Natasha was able to get to sleep at a reasonable time she enjoyed being up early in the morning, when the day was clean and new. But this time, as so often lately, seeing the dawn meant she’d hardly slept and had a headache that made the freshness seem raw, bringing a sensation of being wrenched from warmth and security.

  Lizzie Siddal had had trouble sleeping too, and then she went to sleep for ever.

  Sleep and death had long been linked. You saw that euphemism on gravestone epitaphs all the same, and in poems and prayers. The idea that sleep was a short death, and death a long sleep from which it is possible to one day awake. It was once believed that during sleep the soul left the body to go walking with spirits.

  She helped Boris over the stile, a slightly comical procedure, then vaulted over it herself, got into a stride. Walking was like swimming: if you hit a rhythm, you felt like you could go on for ever.

  She didn’t have time to sit back and wait for whatever information might feed through from the Genealogical Research Directory. There had to be something else she could try.

  Boris chased after a Frisbee thrown by a little boy, dressed in his school blazer, with a German Shepher
d. Both dogs tussled with it for a minute until Natasha called Boris off. The little boy shouted thanks as Boris bounded towards a large puddle and pawed his reflection with a splash.

  Natasha decided what she’d do. If you don’t find what you’re looking for in the likely places, look in the less likely ones. She’d telephone Margaret Wood to arrange a meeting. Then she’d ask Mary if she was up to a trip to the records centre at Gloucester, to see what she could find out about Jeanette’s brother John and little sister Eleanor, beneficiaries through which the diary just might have passed. And she’d e-mail Toby to ask if he’d do some digging around in the Pre-Raphaelite archives at his favourite haunt, the British Library, to firm up details of any links between the Marshalls and Lizzie Siddal. When all that was sorted out, she’d drive to Broadway for a swim. She’d perhaps invite Mary and James round for supper. See if Mary fancied coming swimming as well.

  Everything decided, she felt better.

  As soon as she returned home she opened the contacts database on the iMac, found Margaret’s number and made an appointment to see her tomorrow at ten.

  She put the receiver down and noticed that the answering machine was flashing. Another early bird who’d called while she was out. She pressed play.

  Froze.

  A male voice, young, gruff, slightly muffled as if to disguise it. ‘She doesn’t want to be with him any more. Just back off all right? Leave her alone.’

  Eighteen

  NATASHA SWAM BENEATH the water, holding her breath.

  She surfaced into air and light and noise.

  She had never felt out of her depth before.

  She should get out right now. Tell Adam she couldn’t help him.

  What had she got herself involved in? A simple lovers’ argument, turned into a potential suicide, turned into what? There was one obvious conclusion. Bethany had left Adam to be with someone else and was afraid of telling him. The explanation fitted, yet somehow didn’t fit at all.

  Try this then. Someone didn’t want anyone poking their nose in, didn’t want Bethany found. The phone call was a warning off. Natasha could hear Mary now. Another TV detective show plot. The ‘suicide note’ was a plant, a cover-up. Because Bethany was already dead and someone wanted to make it look as though she’d done it herself.

  It all sounded ridiculous. Then why did she feel just a little scared?

  Mary was at edge of the pool, cutting through ripples, her pregnancy concealed. She reached the deep end, turned round and kicked back. Her face pale against the blueness, eyes open, her hair a cloud beneath the water.

  Adam had told Bethany drowning was a peaceful way to die.

  The dazed look in Bethany’s eyes when she’d emerged from the Windrush. Had the experience made her wonder what it would really be like?

  Surely, at some point in their lives, everyone had.

  Natasha went through a phase of holding her breath under water, practising, counting, seeing how long she could last, a few seconds more once the air had all been expelled, until the pressure in her chest increased and she felt light-headed. She stopped just before it really hurt.

  She was suddenly curious to see the photograph Adam had taken at Little Barrington.

  If she gave up now it would be because she was afraid – no other reason. She wasn’t sure how she could live with herself, what would happen if she once let fear get the better of her.

  She’d rather be angry, a much more useful emotion. She tried to work herself up to it. How dare someone threaten her? How dare they think they could intimidate her?

  She rang the studio from the hotel foyer. A confident female voice answered. The girl introduced herself as Adam’s assistant, Angie. ‘I’m afraid he’s not here,’ she said.

  ‘Do you know if he’s free tomorrow?’

  ‘He’s busy for the next couple of days.’

  ‘How about Friday?’

  ‘We’re doing a shoot which isn’t due to finish until five.’

  The last session of the exhibition. ‘Could you tell him I’d like to see him then?’

  ‘I say due to finish, but with Adam that doesn’t mean it will.’ Her tone was almost obstructive.

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll drop by anyway.’

  ‘Who shall I tell him to expect?’

  ‘Natasha Blake.’

  There was a moment’s silence in which Natasha guessed the girl was waiting for her to elaborate, but all she got was a thank you and goodbye.

  Natasha wondered if Angie and Bethany had ever met at the studio. For some reason she thought Adam might have done his best to make sure they didn’t.

  Nineteen

  NORMALLY NATASHA WENT up to London perhaps twice a month, once a week at most, storing things up so she made the best use of her time. Now she was beginning to feel like a regular commuter. She’d arrived early enough to grab a parking space near the ticket office and had joined the other regulars at the buffet car. It made her think of something Arnold once said. ‘You move to the city to get a job well paid enough to buy a house in the country. The world’s gone mad.’

  She drank her scalding coffee and watched the fields turn into suburbs, the water towers at Didcot looming like a Sci-Fi space station. Her mobile rang, not a number the phone recognised. She hit the answer button, said hello but there was no reply. She listened to crackling silence. She waited a few seconds, then hung up. 1471. Number withheld again. She wondered if it was the same person who’d left that message on her machine. Another attempt to scare her off.

  * * *

  ‘I don’t recognize her I’m afraid,’ Margaret Wood said, scrutinising the photograph Natasha had given her.

  They were sitting on a bench outside the Public Record Office, with egg rolls and plastic cups of chocolate that were almost too hot to hold, watching the swans, geese, ducks and the odd moorhen pecking about in the reeds. The Thames lay just the other side of the railway line, beyond the hedge, close but invisible. Instead there was a man-made river, or lake, with an artificial island in the middle, and a concrete waterfall, rimmed by a paved forecourt and lawns around which were ranged the pale brick buildings housing the Record Office’s documents. Ninety-three miles of them, Margaret had just reminded her.

  It would have been almost peaceful but for the constant roar of jumbos flying to and from Heathrow. They flew so low Natasha had an urge to wave to the passengers.

  She took the picture back from Margaret. ‘Her name’s Bethany Marshall. I was wondering if she wrote or telephoned recently?’

  ‘Well, now that does ring bells. I didn’t actually speak to her but a colleague handed her details over. Before Christmas it was. She wanted me to send her…’

  ‘Information on Lizzie Siddal.’

  Margaret looked a little nonplussed. ‘Yes.’

  Natasha could barely contain her excitement. ‘So she gave you an address.’

  ‘Just e-mail.’

  Naturally. In cyberspace you could be anyone you liked. ‘Could you let me have it?’

  ‘I don’t see why not.’ Margaret’s eyes crinkled. ‘I’ve known you long enough to trust you. I told her to call to arrange to come and see me if she wanted any more information but she never did. Do you mind me asking…?’

  ‘Actually, it was Lizzie Siddal I wanted to ask you about.’

  ‘She’s definitely not telephoned.’

  Natasha smiled. ‘What prompted you to start researching her life?’

  Margaret took a sip from the steaming cup. ‘A friend took me to see a Pre-Raphaelite exhibition at the Tate. Years ago now. There was one of Lizzie Siddal’s pictures there, Clerk Saunders it was called. A scene from Walter Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Borders, where a woman is confronted by the ghost of her murdered lover. It was very striking, the figures rather stiff and spiky but beautiful in their own way, rather intense. It struck me that she was the only woman represented in the entire show. I read about her in the catalogue and looked her up in a couple of books, and it intrigued
me because she was drawn as such an enigma. No one seemed to agree about even the basics. If she was to be recognised as an important female Victorian artist, a recognition her pictures obviously merited, it’s only right that someone should attempt to shade in the landscape of her life. Don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I started with the birth, marriage and death records, all the usual. Her father’s in the trade directories, a Sheffield cutler who moved to London. And she’s in the census returns too, living at home in the Old Kent Road, then listed as married, her occupation an artist/painter at 14 Chatham Place. I remember her friend, Emma Maddox Brown, was staying on the night of that census.’ Margaret paused while there was yet another interruption, a tube train trundling on its way to Richmond. ‘Of course, before family history started to become so popular, people didn’t think of parish records and censuses as a source of historical research did they, amazing as it may seem? I wrote it all up in an article for Family History magazine. That’s what I sent on to Bethany.’

  Natasha noticed that along with pretty sapphire and diamond engagement and wedding rings, Margaret wore a third, rimmed with the tiniest emeralds that flashed like cat’s eyes: an eternity ring, symbol of everlasting love, which nobody seemed to wear any more. It was an interesting contrast to Margaret’s businesslike demeanour.

  ‘I could hunt out the notes I made for the article if you think they might be useful,’ Margaret said. ‘You’d have to give me a day or two. I know where they are, or at least which box, but it’s just a matter of getting a moment to myself. I’ve got my daughter and her little ones staying until the weekend so the evenings are pretty hectic, as you can imagine.’

  She broke off another chunk of sandwich and threw it into the water. A duck gobbled it up greedily, a sure signal to others to come paddling over from the far side of the pond. She tore off more crust which she hurled as far as she could towards the new arrivals, feeling Margaret’s eyes on her. She’d no doubt scold her grandchildren for doing the same thing, kind but firm, telling them not to waste their lunch.