by Y. S. Lee
This sort of waiting was always difficult, thought Mary. It was a delicate push and pull, between being poised for anything and eschewing undue haste. Although Angelica seemed entirely immersed in her thoughts, Mary felt increasingly conspicuous following her in what was merely a large circle. She chose a plot of bushes at the south-east corner of the square and disappeared behind it.
Waiting in stillness was harder yet. Mary had to be vigilant, constantly turning her thoughts and anxieties away from James Easton, Anne Treleaven, Ivy Murchison. She had to have confidence that Angelica would keep to her established circuit around the square and not suddenly dart into a side street. Mary was not naturally a woman of great faith, and so the minutes oozed by, lethargic and grudging. Mary counted them slowly, whilst mapping the square in her mind, exploring its possibilities for exit and entrapment. When that exercise was exhausted – Angelica had now performed nine unhurried laps of the path – Mary breathed deeply, felt her stomach rumble. She’d eaten nothing since midday. She thought longingly of a nub of cheese, a small bread roll. A boiled egg. Better yet, a cold chicken leg. So intent was she upon this fantasy that she nearly missed the nautical sweep of a tall lady’s skirt as it glided along the path.
A moment later, however, Mary straightened, spine tingling. The woman was veiled and dressed in simple dark raiment. Yet something about her bearing was deeply and alarmingly familiar, as it had been two days ago, outside the Bank of England. Mary rose from her hiding place and followed at a cautious distance. Sure enough, the woman walked with quiet confidence towards Angelica and took her by the arm.
To her credit, Angelica did not cry out. She jumped in surprise, then turned to face the woman. She spoke to her in a low tone – Mary was still too distant to discern any words – and, for answer, the woman raised her veil. Prepared as she was, Mary had to bite back a gasp. Those pale, glittering eyes. That prominent jaw, made squarer by thin lips. They sat ill with the expression on the woman’s face, which was of maternal pride and affection. But it was unmistakably she: Maria Thorold.
Mary’s stomach turned over. Her eager hunger soured into nausea and her heartbeat felt violent enough to bruise her ribs. She fell back a step, then wondered if her movement had been too sudden. Yet luck was with her. The two women were focused only upon each other. A few moments later, the veil fell again, and Mrs Thorold took her daughter’s arm once more. They began to stroll.
Mary abandoned all notion of returning to her post behind the bushes. She had no intention of permitting Mrs Thorold out of her sight now that she was really, truly found. A moment ago, she had been merely a vague threat, a sort of Agency bogeyman. Now, she was here. She represented real danger, but she could also be apprehended. Mary realized how sound a decision it had been to stay quietly behind some bushes and risk Angelica’s wandering off unsupervised. Mrs Thorold would surely have been watching from a distance to ensure that Angelica was alone. Had Mary been trailing her … she shuddered and stopped the thought there.
She was interested in the women’s postures. Each held herself erect, at a cordial distance from the other. Yet Mary thought that even from her distance she could discern Angelica’s tense scepticism, her readiness to pull away. This was in contrast to Mrs Thorold’s uncharacteristic eagerness: she seemed to do most of the talking, her head pivoted towards Angelica.
When Angelica next spoke, it was accompanied by a gesture towards a nearby bench. Mrs Thorold demurred but eventually agreed, although she chose a bench further towards a corner of the square. It sat just within the yellow haze cast by a gaslight, and was ringed by open space. It was a good choice for privacy, and Mary bit her lower lip. How would she ever overhear a murmured conversation?
In daylight, it would have been impossible to get anywhere near the Thorolds’ bench. Tonight, however, the rapidly falling darkness was her accomplice. Mary left the square by the nearest exit, although it pained her to turn her back on the women even for a moment. Still, they would only feel confident in their solitude if it was genuine. She made a wide circuit around the square and, after several agonizing minutes, re-entered at the corner behind the Thorolds. There was a wide, sturdy oak tree some yards behind the bench, just outside the circle of gaslight. It was far from ideal, but better than open ground. And, as Mary eased herself into a comfortable position against the tree trunk, she realized that luck was still with her: mother and daughter were speaking in normal conversational tones, rather than hushed and secretive whispers. Even from her limited vantage point, Mary could catch enough words to fill in the gaps with confidence.
“Most mothers are commonly, unjustifiably proud of their children,” Mrs Thorold was saying. “But you have accomplished much. I am proud of you, Angelica, although I can take no credit for your achievements.”
Angelica’s tone was pleased, confused, a trifle embarrassed. “That’s enough about me, Mamma. I am dying of curiosity to know more about you. Where do you live? What is your life like?”
An expressive sigh. “Oh, my dear. It’s been a curious few years in exile. As you yourself know all too well, we fell from the heights of luxury and social advantage into lives as penurious outcasts. Your father’s estate was forfeit, of course, as a result of the terrible crimes of which he was accused and convicted.” A pause. “I do not say that he committed them, my dear. I find it impossible to believe that your poor father was capable of such evil. But he was convicted, and we have all paid the price.
“You will think that I left London because of the disgrace, and that part is true. But the main reason I live in France, my dear, is that I, too, was left penniless by the crime. Rural France is relatively inexpensive. I pawned my jewels and have been living on their proceeds ever since.”
Angelica’s intake of breath was loud. “Oh, Mamma! I never even thought to ask…”
“And rightly so,” said Mrs Thorold. Her tone was perfectly pitched between maternal love and steely self-possession. “After the way I treated you. I am grateful that you are here at all, and willing to speak with me.” Another pause. “In any case, we have both survived the sort of disaster that would cast other women into the streets, or the poorhouse.”
“Have you thought how you will live once that money runs out?”
Mary smiled at Angelica’s practical bent. So much for cosseted débutantes and starving artists.
Mrs Thorold sighed. “My money is almost gone, and that is why I’m back in England. I must confess, Angelica, that I haven’t many ideas. I have no education to speak of, no conspicuous talents. My own parents are long dead, and their families dispersed. Even if they would own me, after such a disgrace, I have been unable to find them. I am utterly without resources.”
“Have you tried to find some sort of work?” There was genuine curiosity in Angelica’s tone: she hadn’t the faintest idea what the answer might be.
A puff of disgust. “Work! I am not above hard work, my dear. But tell me what I can do! It’s not merely the lack of training that stands in my way: I am beyond the middle age, my dear girl, and for that reason, nobody wants me.”
“Your age might be an advantage as a governess, or a paid companion.” Angelica’s voice was timid, as though she knew how weak this sounded.
Mary grinned in the darkness. There was a rich and satisfying irony here of which even Angelica must be uncomfortably aware.
“The difficulty of such work is twofold: first, one is forced to depend upon the mercy and kindness of others, and obey their slightest whims. The second is that the paucity of the salary makes it impossible to save any money. Accepting such work will ensure that I must labour until I can labour no more, after which time I am certain to be destitute.”
A silence. Then, slowly, Angelica said, “You speak rightly, Mamma. I have recently been talking to a lady who is in much the same position, and while she seems resigned to her situation, she says no differently.”
“And this lady is content with a life of threadbare servility, followed by the workhouse?�
�� There was distinct contempt in those words: shades of the old Mrs Thorold.
“If she has other ideas, she has yet to tell me of them.”
“Well, not I. And in the same predicament, you would be no tamer, I wager.”
“Ask me in ten years, when I’m no longer a young, aspiring musician.” Angelica appeared to be thinking hard. “Have you any little store of capital left, Mamma? You might try renting a house and taking in lodgers.” She hurried on, knowing it sounded preposterous. “It needn’t be seedy. There must be any number of genteel widows in reduced circumstances…”
“Like myself?” There was even the hint of a smile in Mrs Thorold’s voice.
“Well, not unlike you…”
“My dear, it’s a promising plan, but I haven’t enough money to risk it. If I live carefully, I’ve enough for a few months yet. If I fritter it away on the lease of a house and cannot find sufficiently respectable lodgers, I am lost.”
Another pause, and then Angelica said, “You sound as though you’ve considered all these ideas closely, Mamma, and rejected them. Have you other plans, in their stead?”
Instead of answering the question, Mrs Thorold shivered dramatically. “The weather is cold this evening, is it not? Much as I used to love this city, I have come to prefer the heat and sunshine of my adopted home in the south.”
“So you intend to return? Why did you come to London at all, Mamma? Was it to see—” She seemed to choke on the end of her intended sentence.
“Your father?” Mrs Thorold sighed. “I wish I could have seen him, one last time. But as you know, I am still under suspicion. Impossibly evil accusations have been levelled at me. I could not run the risk of falling into the hands of the police.”
“Yet if you are innocent, surely the truth will emerge? If you have not committed such crimes, how can they prove their case against you?”
“My dear, sweet girl.” Mrs Thorold’s laugh was utterly mirthless, and disturbingly familiar to Mary. “You are still young enough to believe in grand ideas of justice and truth. But I am old enough to know of many instances of justice miscarried and innocent people irretrievably wronged. I cannot take that chance, Angelica.” She sounded suddenly fierce. “I will not risk my neck on the supposed intelligence and honesty of strangers. Not while I have a choice.”
Angelica’s voice was very quiet. “And what choice is that, Mamma? If you starve, it matters not whether it is here or in France.”
Again, Mrs Thorold failed to answer Angelica directly. Instead, she picked up an earlier thread. “You said, ‘if’ I was innocent. Are you so uncertain, daughter?”
A pause. “I am largely certain.”
“But a frisson of doubt remains?”
“Mamma, I am not accusing you of anything.”
“Yet you lack faith in me.”
“Mamma, I feel as though I scarcely know you. You were an invalid for years. I was brought up by the nurse, the governess, the finishing school. I met you at the dinner table, and scarcely elsewhere. I am not complaining of this, yet I ask you: how could I feel absolute confidence in your character, when this is the case?”
“Because circumstance is the key to this puzzle. As you say, I was an invalid for most of my adult life. I was only healed of my complaint after I moved to France, where the climate is so much more salubrious. A life-long invalid might be able to plot criminal destruction, but carrying it out requires sustained physical vigour.” In her fervour, Mrs Thorold turned to Angelica, raised her veil and seized her daughter’s hands. “I can’t be guilty of those heinous crimes, Angelica, precisely because of who I was.”
Mary could only admire Mrs Thorold’s stagecraft: dignified yet impassioned, emotional yet governed by logic. It was a tour de force.
Angelica seemed to return the pressure of her mother’s hands. “Thank you, Mamma. The accusations seemed impossible to me, too. But I am glad to hear the truth from you.”
“I am both glad and relieved, Angelica. You are my only remaining relation; my child. I should like to know that our future is free of such shadows.”
Mother and daughter sat in silence for a few minutes, still clasping hands. Their words, however, reverberated in Mary’s thoughts. Angelica’s doubts, and Mrs Thorold’s clever, circumspect denials, were oddly reminiscent of her own last interviews with her father. She was glad that he’d lacked the strength for such strategy, an eloquent succession of half-truths. Better to have a drug-addicted killer for a parent than a lying murderess. Or perhaps Angelica would disagree. Both Lang Jin Hai and Maria Thorold were criminals in the eyes of the government. Ultimately, that was all that mattered.
Enough. Mary bit her lip. Any superficial resemblances ended there.
Mrs Thorold broke the lull. “Are you cold? Shall we walk?”
“I would prefer to go somewhere warm. Indoors. A coffee-room, perhaps?” Angelica hesitated. “My treat.”
“At this hour? My dear, your Viennese habits are showing. Any of London’s coffee-houses willing to serve ladies – poor excuses though they are for true Continental cafés – are long since closed. Ditto for restaurants, if we could even afford one.”
“I’d forgotten,” admitted Angelica. “Well, I suppose there’s nothing for it but to remain here in the park.”
“I’d have thought you’d be inured to the cold, living so far north as you do.”
Angelica shivered. “It’s a different cold, here. Damp. It gets into everything, and one’s clothing is never quite dry.”
“Terrible how one doesn’t even notice it until one’s been away, and suddenly it’s insupportable.” Mother and daughter laughed briefly, united in discomfort and expatriation.
“So tell me, then,” said Angelica, emboldened by this renewed – perhaps brand-new – intimacy. “How much longer do you intend staying in town? There’s no suitable work. You’ve no more jewels to pawn. How and where will you live, Mamma?” A thought seemed to occur to her. “My situation in Vienna is little better. I lodge with my music teacher’s family and share a bedroom with his young daughter, so I can’t even offer you a roof over your head.”
“That wasn’t my secret intention behind our meeting,” said Mrs Thorold, sounding dry but unoffended. “I haven’t much of a history as a mother, but the least I can do is not hinder your musical career by clinging to your petticoats.”
“That’s the third time you’ve not answered my question, Mamma. This refusal is unnerving. Why are you so loath to tell me about your future?” Angelica’s voice held a new note of anxiety. “You are not planning anything … extreme, are you?”
Another pause, during which Mary’s thoughts ran in an entirely new direction. She had always assumed that Mrs Thorold’s plans must include another large and audacious criminal scheme. But what if she’d been wrong? What if Mrs Thorold intended self-harm, instead, and this was her way of saying farewell to her daughter? It would be a shameful end to a stained and warped life, but it would, at least, be her decision. One couldn’t say the same for the workhouse. And if Mrs Thorold did plan to commit suicide, what was Mary’s responsibility to stop her before she could take another life, even if it was her own?
Mary thought again of her father. Was a courageous suicide of more value than a dishonourable life? It was the Chinese way, yet he had not chosen it. Perhaps her father had been more English than she knew. He might have understood Angelica’s bleak horror of the taboo of self-murder. The stigma that would attach to Angelica and any children she might have. The denial of burial in Christian ground. Above all, the endless, exquisite anxiety about how different things might have been.
“If by ‘extreme’, you mean destroying myself, then you may rest assured, my girl. There is yet too much fire in this old bed of coals for me to entertain the possibility.”
Such are the complexities of family devotion that Angelica’s shoulders actually sagged with relief. Eventually, however, she said in a wary tone, “How else might one define ‘extreme’?”
“How might others define the term, you mean?”
“You’re prevaricating again, Mamma.”
“True,” conceded Mrs Thorold. “For I should not describe my plans as the least bit extreme. In fact, they seem rather apt, to me, featuring a strong element of poetic justice.”
Mary rolled her eyes. Mrs Thorold had the most thoroughly fractured sense of justice she’d ever encountered. “Apt”, from her, could mean anything at all, so long as it significantly benefited her.
“Mother!”
“Hush, Angelica. We are yet in public.” Mrs Thorold turned her head left and right, glancing behind the bench. Mary froze. The darkness was in her favour – by rights, the glare of the gaslamp ought to render blackly invisible anything outside the glowing circle – but she had a half-superstitious faith in Mrs Thorold’s powers.
“Mamma, you are talking in riddles!” Angelica’s voice was no less fierce for being a whisper.
Mrs Thorold sounded amused, indulgent. “You were always very literal. Shall I unfold my scheme for you, then?”
“Anything, so long as you stop hinting and alluding in that portentous way.”
“I am speaking entirely seriously now, daughter. I can only take you into my confidence if you promise faithfully to keep my plans a secret, and never reveal what I am saying to another living soul. Are you able to make and keep that promise?”
Mary hitched herself forward very slightly, fighting to hear clearly over the sudden roar of blood in her ears.
Angelica was silent for a short while. Then, in a very subdued voice, she said, “Is it possible to make such a pledge without becoming part of the scheme? I can’t promise to join anything blindly. Not even for you, Mamma.”
“That is wise, Angelica. And yes, so long as you swear perfect secrecy, I shall not ask you for a thing.”
“In that case, I promise.”
“Swear it,” insisted her mother. “On your father’s grave.”
Angelica’s voice was shaking now, but she said in a low, hoarse tone, “I swear on Papa’s grave.”
