Dark Angel

by Sally Beauman

  Before he raised the topic of Constance, Freddie—to my great relief—talked nonstop. I can see now that he was perhaps nervous. He put off the topic of my godmother and, prompted by the objects in the room, launched himself on long reminiscences. He told me all about flying mail planes in South America. He told me about his spell in Chicago, selling encyclopedias. We had the tale of the Berlin zoo, where Uncle Freddie had been in charge of the bears, and the period—more recent this—when he had had a half share in a nightclub, now defunct, called the Pink Flamingo.

  En passant, we also had Uncle Freddie’s numerous past enthusiasms: We had the stamp-collecting period, the crossword period, the Irish greyhound period. These, like their predecessors, had now decisively fizzled—I could tell that. They had been returned to Ireland. Uncle Freddie had a new enthusiasm. It was this which had been occupying him in the library all that summer at Winterscombe, while Franz-Jacob and I walked the dogs.

  It was, Uncle Freddie said with a flourish, detective novels. Freddie, always a fan of that particular genre, had now decided: if he could read them, why not write them? With this enthusiasm Uncle Freddie was, in fact, to find his métier: Later, after the war, he was to enjoy considerable success with his detective fiction. Then, however, he was still refining his methods, which he explained at length.

  “Three murders, Victoria,” he said in a confiding way. “There must be at least three—that’s what I’ve decided. I tried one. I tried two. But I’m settling for three. Yes, three—that’s the ticket!”

  He was standing at his desk, shuffling his manuscript as he said this. Then, without a pause, as if the one topic led naturally to the other, he embarked on the subject of Constance.

  I can see now that Uncle Freddie must have found that subject difficult, full of pitfalls. I think, in retrospect, that he must have doubted the wisdom of Steenie’s plan far more than he indicated. He had been steamrollered. I think he must have felt guilty and concerned, possibly even worried. But he had trained his memory to be comfortable even then: The picture of Constance he painted was a plaintive one.

  “The thing is,” he said, “I often think your godmother must be lonely.”

  “Lonely, Uncle Freddie?”

  “Yes, well, you see—in some ways she’s had a sad life. Her marriage, you know. I don’t think that exactly worked out….”

  I sat very still. A marriage?

  Uncle Freddie seemed lost in thought. After a long pause I finally dared the great question: Was my godmother divorced?

  “Oh, no, no. Goodness me, no.” Freddie, knowing my mother’s opinions on that subject, shook his head violently.

  “But—there were difficulties. That can happen, Vicky. Your godmother lives alone now—”

  “Is her husband dead?”

  “Well now, I’m not sure. He might be. He was very very rich, and the thing is … the thing is … your godmother never had children of her own. That is, she did have a baby once, a long time ago now, the year before you were born, I think. But she lost it. That made her very sad, of course—”

  “Did she pray for another one, Uncle Freddie? That’s what Mummy did.”

  “Well now. I can’t quite … Constance isn’t very religious, you see. Still.” He brightened. “Perhaps she did. You never know. And now she’ll have you to look after, so—”

  He stopped. I considered that while I was praying, Constance might have been praying too. Both our prayers were being answered, if that were the case. This frightened me, and perhaps Uncle Freddie saw that, because he changed tack quickly.

  “She loves animals!” he said, with the air of a conjuror producing a prize from a hat. “Goodness—now I look back, she and Steenie had a whole menagerie. There was a cockatoo, and some goldfish, a tortoise. Why, there was even a grass snake once—”

  He stopped. He shifted in his chair. He switched on the Tiffany lamp. Its stained glass made the walls jeweled.

  “Does she like cats, Uncle Freddie?” I prompted at last, when Freddie had been silent some while.

  “Cats?” He roused himself. “No, never cats, not that I remember. But she loves dogs. She’s had a whole succession of dogs. The first one was a King Charles spaniel—she adored him. His name was Floss—”

  He stopped again. I waited. When he did not go on, I prompted again. I asked what had happened to Floss.

  “Well, Floss came to rather a sad end. And your godmother was very upset. She loved him, you see, and afterwards—well, she grieved so much it made her ill. Seriously ill.”

  “Like measles? Like scarlet fever? Uncle Steenie had that once, he told me.”

  “Not exactly like that, no. Some people said … it wasn’t just Floss. The doctors, you know. And your aunt Maud. But now I look back, I can see … Yes, Floss—he was her best friend, you see. It all began one day in the park….”

  Uncle Freddie then told me the story of what happened to Floss. It was indeed a sad story. It showed my godmother in a very sympathetic light.

  “How did she get better then, in the end?” I asked. “Did someone buy her another dog?”

  “No, no. It was Acland. He … had a long talk with her. Sorted it out. She was as right as rain, then. In fact, it was then that she really came into her own—”

  He stopped. He looked as if he regretted what he had just said. At that moment, his “help,” a Mrs. O’Brien, who had already served us the tea, appeared in the doorway. Mrs. O’Brien was quite unlike the servants at Winterscombe, in that she wore carpet slippers and a flowered apron. She shuffled in now. Uncle Freddie rose. He seemed glad of the interruption.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—just look at the two of you now, sitting there in the dark,” Mrs. O’Brien pronounced. The Tiffany lamp did not count, it seemed, for she switched on the overhead light.

  In its glare all the magic colors vanished—and my godmother Constance vanished with them. Uncle Freddie did not mention her again.

  Thirty years later, however, others did. Once I began to look, there was a great deal of evidence concerning Constance’s illness, and not everyone agreed that it had been caused by Floss. Jane Conyngham, for instance, who had been summoned (as a nurse as well as friend) to attend a family conference on the matter in the spring of 1915, was cautious. Constance’s symptoms, she wrote. They are: refusal to eat, rapid physical decline, severely troubled sleep, cessation of menstruation. Could this be caused simply by the loss of a dog? I believe Constance’s troubles lie deeper than that. But the last of her symptoms could not, in mixed company, be discussed, its nature being delicate. And I was overruled by Maud, whose diagnosis was vigorous: anxiety at the war, exacerbated by the incident in the park….

  “The incident in the park!” Maud cried to the assembled company: Gwen’s Park Street drawing room, that emergency conference. “Forgive me, Jane. I bow to your medical knowledge, obviously. But I feel you complicate the matter. Let us consider this reasonably. It is perfectly straightforward—”

  “It isn’t. Jane’s right.” Steenie, who had been sitting in the window seat, sprang to his feet. “It isn’t just Floss. It’s something more. In any case, it doesn’t matter what caused it. The point is, she’s getting worse. She won’t even speak to me now. She just turns her head to the wall. And she looks so horrible—I can’t bear it. All her bones stick out. She has these dreadful sores on her skin—”

  “Steenie, that is enough. You are upsetting your mother. We all know this. She doesn’t eat enough to keep a sparrow alive. Broth, a little dry toast … Gwen, we have to find a way to stimulate her appetite.”

  “We have tried, Maud. Steenie has tried very hard. He spent three hours with her yesterday. She never said one word. A swallow of barley-water … I’m at my wit’s end—”

  “I blame the doctors. That last man was a perfect idiot—talking about a ‘decline’! That term went out with my grandmother. In my opinion we should blame the war! The incident in the park, too—but mainly the war. We worry—all of us worry—about our f
riends, about Boy in particular. And Constance worries, too—she was always most attached to Boy, if you remember. Why, she used to write him the longest letters. I posted one for her myself, once—before her illness, of course. Now—”

  “Constance writes to Boy?” Acland, speaking for the first time, looked up.

  “Of course. Whyever shouldn’t she?”

  “I’ve never known her to write more than a postcard, ever.”

  “Then that proves my point! She wrote to Boy because she worried on his behalf. In fact, it seems to me I may have hit the nail on the head. Anxiety about Boy—now that would explain everything. Am I not right? Acland? Freddie?”

  Acland gave a gesture of annoyance but said nothing. Freddie stared at the wall. Mention of Boy reminded him of Boy’s photographs. He was feeling sick.

  Maud, whose questions were often rhetorical, rushed on. “Gwennie, dear, don’t look so distressed. Now, listen to me. I think we need another opinion. I disliked that new man—such a graveyard face! What we need is a homeopath. Maud Cunard recommends the most excellent man—a Pole, I think, or was it a Hungarian? Anyway, he cured her sciatica, quick-smart, just like that. I think you should call him in. Jane, Montague—don’t you agree with me?”

  Montague Stern was sitting on one side of the room, reading a newspaper. Now he looked up patiently.

  “Possibly, my dear. It would do no harm to try, I imagine.” He folded his newspaper in half. “‘Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas’d,’” he murmured.

  “A mind diseased?” Maud gave one of her shrieks.

  “It’s only a quotation.” Stern returned to his newspaper.

  “Well, it is hardly an apposite one,” Maud rejoined smartly. “There is nothing whatsoever wrong with Constance’s mind. And I may say …” She drew herself up, cast a firm look around the room. “I may say that I very much distrust that kind of new-fangled notion. Viennese doctors? I believe they require you to write down your dreams. Such nonsense! In my opinion they are quacks, every last one of them. A friend of Gertrude Arlington, I hear, had the greatest faith in one of these men. She visited him three times a week—at twelve guineas a time, mark you—lay down upon a couch, and talked! I told Gertrude, I never heard anything more silly. If that is what one needs, one can do it for nothing. One simply invites a friend to tea, and—”

  Acland rose. “Shall we try and stick to the point?”

  “I am upon the point, Acland. I never depart from a point—”

  “I should like to know what the new doctor said.” Acland turned to Gwen. “Mama?”

  “The new doctor?” Gwen stared fixedly at her hands. “It was rather horrible. He was so stern. He said … well, he said that if there was no improvement by the end of this week, we should have to consider more aggressive measures. He said, if she cannot be persuaded to eat—eat properly; the barley water and the broth will not do—then they would have to make her eat. He would bring in a new nurse and they would … feed her by force.”

  There was a silence. Then Steenie stamped his foot.

  “Force-feed her? That’s disgusting. They wouldn’t do that.”

  “Of course they will not do it.” Maud rose. “Gwen will never allow it. What can this man be thinking of? Does he imagine this house is a prison, that Constance is some species of suffragette?”

  “Maud, he said we might have to. He said, if she refuses to eat, it’s the only way. She could die otherwise. He said so—”

  “You can’t. You can’t, Mama—please.” Steenie’s voice had risen. He was almost in tears. “You can’t let them do that—not to Constance. It’s horrible. I know what they do. I read about it. They strap them down. They put this tube down their throat. Then they take a funnel and—”

  “Steenie, please! That is more than enough.” Maud glared at him. “None of us requires details. Gwen, let us be calm about this. You are distressed. You’re not thinking clearly. Monty, would you fetch my smelling salts? Thank you. Now. Let us try to consider this thing in a sensible way. I shall telephone that homeopath—yes, that’s the first thing to do. And then, tonight, if we were to arrange a special dish, her favorite food, Steenie could take it up to her. Then perhaps Freddie could go in, and Acland. Acland, you should—you hardly ever sit with her. They could talk about pleasant things, ordinary things. Then, I feel sure—Why, Freddie, where are you going?”

  Freddie, who could bear this no longer, had risen to his feet.

  “I think I’ll go out,” he said. “Just for a bit of a walk. Then I can think. I need some fresh air …”

  Acland stood.

  “I’ll come with you,” he said.

  “Walk—or drive?” Acland said when they were on the stairs.

  “Oh—drive.”

  “Your motorcar or mine?”

  “Yours.” Freddie shrugged. “It goes faster.”

  “’Round London, or out of London?”

  “Oh, God. Out of London.”

  “I agree,” Acland said. “Out of this house and out of this city. Come on, Freddie. Hurry.”

  In the mews behind Park Street, where Denton had once kept his carriage horses, there were now garages. In the first was Denton’s Rolls; in the second was Freddie’s nineteenth-birthday-present runabout; in the third, huge, magnificent, a beast of a car, was Acland’s new acquisition: a red Hispano-Suiza Alfonso. Freddie stroked its long hood with love and with respect.

  “What will she do?”

  “Flat out? On the straight, sixty—maybe seventy. Shall we find out?”

  “Let’s.”

  Acland cranked the engine: a full-throated roar.

  They climbed in; Freddie glanced at his brother, whose face was tight and abstracted. Acland looked miserable. He eased the car out of the mews, paused at the junction with Park Lane.

  “Where are we going, Acland?”

  “Out of London by the fastest route.” Acland opened the throttle. “Anywhere. Somewhere. It doesn’t matter, does it?”

  He accelerated down Park Lane, heading south. Somewhere the other side of the river—Freddie had no idea where, for his knowledge of London was mostly confined to Mayfair and the streets around Hyde Park—Acland slowed.

  “Ego’s dead,” he said. “His mother had the telegram last week.”

  “Oh. I see.” Freddie hesitated. “I’m sorry, Acland.”

  “It happens.”

  “Is that what’s wrong, Acland? I knew something was wrong. I could tell it by your face.”

  “Yes. That.” Acland accelerated once more: they were reaching the suburbs now; Freddie could see open country ahead.

  “That. And other things. Constance, I suppose. The war. Everything. I just can’t stand the house, that’s all. It’s as if there’s a blight on it.” He changed gear, the noise of the engine mounted, and the wind began to whistle in Freddie’s ears.

  “Never mind all that, anyway. Let’s not talk. Let’s just drive—fast.”

  They drove fast—into Kent, Freddie thought, seeing houses give way to fields, and fields to orchards. They drove, and they thought.

  Freddie thought for a while about Ego Farrell, whom he had liked but had met infrequently—Farrell, who had seemed such a quiet man, and such an unlikely friend for Acland. He wondered how Farrell had died, whether he was shot or bayonetted or blown up by a mine or a shell.

  He tried to imagine what the war must be like, and how it would be if a doctor had not lied (Freddie was almost sure the doctor had lied) and you had to go to the front line and the trenches and the mud. Freddie had heard some stories about conditions in France, though Boy, when home on leave, had said very little, and most of the other officers Freddie had encountered in London had been similarly reticent. He read the newspapers, he read the statistics, but the newspapers then seemed to concentrate on victories; even retreats were made to sound ordered and tactical.

  They used gas now—the Germans used gas, and Freddie had heard accounts of the terrible injuries the mustard gas caused. B
ut even so, he found that his idea of the war was an insubstantial one, unfixed and imprecise, cloudy and shifting—a gaseous thing indeed. Freddie told himself there was a reason for this: It was because he was a coward.

  A double coward. He was a coward not to defy his mother and fight; he was a coward about Constance. He was the one person who knew what was wrong with her, after all; he knew it was not simply the incident in the park, as the rest of his family claimed. Constance’s illness, her visible wasting away—these things were caused by her father. It was her father, and in particular her father’s journals. Constance was dying of the past, Freddie believed, and he was too much of a coward to say so.

  Such thoughts were familiar to Freddie now; indeed, they went around and around in his head every day, a nasty tangled web of thoughts, which made his head ache and his stomach feel queasy. The journals, and Constance, and the things they had done, which were like the things Shawcross wrote about—Freddie could see that now. And his mother. That, too, for Freddie now found he could not bear to touch his mother, avoided even speaking to her, and shied away from her most casual embrace.

  These were the things that made him ill; these were the things that made Constance ill. Not just the war, not just the incident in the park, although they, perhaps, contributed. No. The past, he told himself again as the motorcar reached the brow of a hill and swooped downward. The past had poisoned them, and Constance—he was sure of this—had come to a decision. Since she could not force the past out of her system, since there was no emetic for a poison of this kind, Constance was willing herself to die.

  She would persevere, and within a few weeks she would succeed. After all, he had never doubted her willpower.

  “Was it Floss? Was it the incident in the park?”

  Acland had stopped the car, somewhere, anywhere, by the side of the road. He and Freddie were now walking. Along a farm track, along the side of a shallow valley. Freddie looked out upon the beauty of England in late spring: green fields, sheep with newborn lambs in the distance, a farm couched in the hills, with woodsmoke rising, the pale thread of a river below. He hesitated.