Dark Angel

by Sally Beauman

  “I want you out of that bed.”

  Acland pulled back the covers.

  “It’s all right. I know you can’t walk. You don’t need to walk. I shall lift you.”

  He picked her up. The sudden movement was dizzying. The room tilted and lurched, and Constance felt her hands scrabble, in their silly useless way, at the lapels of his jacket.

  He took her to the window. When they reached it, Constance gave a small cry, for it was open. He took her out onto the small iron balcony. Such air! Constance could feel its lightness, filling her lungs and clearing her mind. She gazed around her: the shapes of houses and clouds; the hiss of traffic. The sky swooped. She cried aloud again.

  “It’s raining.”

  “Yes. It’s raining. It’s raining quite hard, and there will be a storm. You can feel it in the air. Can you feel the rain? Can you feel it on your face?”

  “Yes,” Constance replied.

  She let her head fall back against Acland’s shoulder. She let the rain wash her skin. It whispered to her. She closed her eyes and felt the pinpricks of rain against her eyelids, her cheeks, her mouth. It was pleasant at first; she luxuriated in it. Then the rain began to penetrate her nightdress; it grew clammy and chill against her skin.

  “Take me back inside,” she heard herself say. Her voice surprised her, for it was like her old voice, only more cracked than before. Acland did not move, so she said the words again.

  “Take me back inside, Acland.”

  “No,” Acland said. It was then that Constance understood that he was angry—more angry than she had ever seen him.

  “Can you hear what I’m saying, Constance? Can you understand?”

  “Yes,” Constance began, but before she could say anything else, Acland gave her a cruel shake that jarred every bone in her body.

  “Then listen to me, and remember what I say. You’re killing yourself. You seem to expect that everyone will stand by and let you do it. I won’t do that—do you hear me? So, you shall choose, and choose now. Either you go back inside and begin living, or I’ll simply let go of you. I’ll stand here, on the edge, up against the balustrade, and I’ll let you go. It will be a great deal quicker, and less painful, than starving yourself to death. This way, it will be over in an instant. Forty feet down. You’ll feel nothing. You decide. Which is it to be?”

  As he spoke, Acland moved forward. Constance felt the iron of the balustrade brush her feet. She looked down; she could see the street below, heaving, then distinct. Forty feet at least.

  “You wouldn’t do that.”

  “Maybe no. Maybe I’m not quite callous enough—though I’d like to be. Very well. I’ll let you choose yourself. I’ll set you down. Look, the balustrade is quite low—you would only have to lean over the smallest amount, and you’d be over. There.”

  Acland lowered her. The paving was cold against her feet. Her knees buckled.

  “Hold on to the balcony rail. Like that. You can do it. You’ll have to do it. Let go of me.”

  Acland pulled her hands away from his jacket.

  Constance swayed against the balcony rail, reached for it, missed, and then managed to grasp it. Acland was behind her. Was he still close—or had he moved farther away? She thought she could sense him, just behind her, but when he next spoke, his voice was receding. Constance looked over the rail; the street beckoned.

  “Decide.”

  Certainly farther away now. Constance could scarcely hear his voice; it was being swallowed by rain and wind and sky. She could jump, she thought, and perhaps Acland was right: That was what she wanted. She would not even need to jump, as he said; all she had to do was lean, a very little. Then it would be done with: the black notebooks, and the black dreams, and the black worms that nibbled away at her heart in those dreams. Easy!

  Constance bent her head. She looked down at the street below with great concentration. It still beckoned, but with less vigor than before. Constance considered how it would feel, and how it would look, to be smashed on that pavement, to be easily crushed like the shell of an egg. Everything over; all done. It might be easy to drift toward death; to leap to it was another matter.

  She lifted her face to the rain and sniffed the damp urban air. She sniffed a future—there was a possible future there, after all. If she could will herself to die, she could also will herself to live: years and years of a future. She frowned at that future, and saw that it could beckon, too, for it was secret, and unknown, and therefore seamed with the loveliness of possibilities. Let go, or go on.

  Gamble, and go on: She could hear these words said to her distinctly, in a small clear voice. At precisely the moment she decided this voice gave good advice, which she wanted to take, her hands began to slip on the balcony rail. The street rushed up toward her with a speed that made her head buzz. She thought she cried out. Acland’s arms came about her. He had been much nearer than she thought.

  They stood still. The rain fell; in the distance lightning wavered; the sky growled.

  A summer storm. Acland, turning her toward him, looked down into her face. He looked puzzled, Constance thought, as if something was happening to him that he neither welcomed nor understood. A dazed look in his eyes, as if he had been struck an invisible blow.

  An expression of distaste came upon his face, a tightening of annoyance to his lips. In a quiet and weary voice he said, “Constance. Come inside.”

  “I cannot change,” Constance said to him, and it was much later the same night. She had taken some food. She felt new. She felt stronger. “I cannot change altogether. You do know that, Acland?”

  Acland had been holding her hand or, if not holding it exactly, had laid his own hand very close to it, on the bedcover, so their fingers touched.

  “I never asked you to change. You are what you are.” He paused. “Was it Floss? Was it the accident?”

  “Not just that. No.”

  “Freddie then? Your father’s journals?”

  “You’ve talked to Freddie?”

  “Yes. Tonight.”

  “Did he tell you what I did? What we did?”

  “Some of the things. I imagine he left out others.”

  “I shall not apologize. I shall not beg forgiveness.” Constance began to speak rapidly, her hands twisting back and forth. “Now you know me for what I am. You know me at my worst. I expect it was no surprise—I expect it just confirmed everything you ever thought. You never liked me, Acland.”

  “I disliked you, once upon a time, very much.”

  “Very well then—so you were right. I will not argue with that. I often dislike myself. I often hate myself.”

  “Is that why you punished yourself?”

  “Punished myself?” Constance was stung by his tone, as he perhaps meant her to be. She turned away.

  “You set out to die. You were fixed on it. That seems a punishment, of a kind.”

  “Maybe it was that. Perhaps.” Constance began again, more slowly. “I did not like myself. I thought I damaged people. I can’t explain it, Acland, and I’m not always like that. Sometimes I almost feel I might be good—or better, anyway. But then—something happens. I change, and I have to do harm. My father used to say …”

  “What did your father say?”

  “Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

  “You should forget your father. You should … cut him out of your mind.”

  “I am my father’s daughter,” Constance replied, and her hands again began to twist back and forth upon the sheets.

  She seemed feverish, Acland thought; he rested his hand against her forehead, which indeed felt hot. At the touch of his hand, Constance’s eyes closed. She moved a little, in a restless way, and then lay still. She should rest, Acland told himself; she should sleep. He moved away from the bed, sat down, then stood up and began to pace the room. After a while Constance’s breathing became regular. Acland crossed to the window, reluctant to leave her, and looked out.

  Freddie’s account had shocked Acland,
although he had tried to hide that fact from his brother. He had been shocked by what Freddie told him, and shocked by what he was sure Freddie left out. Freddie censored his story. There were gaps, and Acland found it was these gaps that obsessed him. He tried to concentrate his mind on the facts Freddie had imparted: the fact that Shawcross had kept journals; the fact that both Constance and Freddie had read them; the fact that Freddie now knew of their mother’s affair; the fact that, in some physical way, Constance had seduced his brother.

  “She liked to go to places where we might be caught,” Freddie said. “I don’t know why. Father’s study, or the back stairs. We went to your room once.”

  “My room?”

  “We went to everyone’s room, except hers or mine. Then … she’d touch me. Or I’d touch her. You know, Acland …”

  Acland, standing at the window, watching the storm recede, turned back to the bed. My room, he thought.

  Constance still slept; her cheeks were flushed, her hair disordered, spread out upon the pillows. She was a child still, Acland said to himself. He knew at once it was untrue. Constance had never been like a child, even in the days when he first met her. Even then her gaze—defiant, watchful, as if expecting hurt—had been that of someone much older.

  Someone had robbed her of her childhood. Acland took a step toward the bed. Constance cried out. She had begun to dream; he saw her eyelids pulse. She began to struggle, wrestling with the sheets. She pulled at the ribbons that fastened her nightgown. She cried out again. Then, eyes still tight shut, breath coming quickly, she lay still.

  Acland moved to the bed. The sheets had been kicked to one side; they were tangled with her legs. Her nightgown was disordered. Constance now lay as if a man had just made love to her: her arms flung out, her hair tumbled about her throat and face. One leg was still covered, the other bare. He could see her thigh, the darkness of sexual hair through the thin material of the nightgown. Her right breast was covered, the left exposed. That this child possessed breasts, that they remained full, the aureole wide and dark, despite her thinness, checked Acland.

  He reached across to draw the nightgown across her breast. His fingers touched its ribbons. Constance stirred. Her hand closed over his.

  “Touch me,” she said, eyes still tight shut. “Oh, yes. Touch me like that.”

  He felt the curve of her breast against his palm, the point of her nipple. Constance shuddered. Her eyelids flickered.

  Acland snatched his hand back. Constance opened her eyes. She pushed back the tumble of hair. She stared at him, her eyes wide, dark, and blank. Then comprehension flickered.

  “Oh, Acland. It’s you. I had a bad dream. A horrible dream. Take my hand. Please hold it. There. I’m better now. No—don’t go. Acland. Stay with me. Talk to me a little.”

  “What shall I talk about?”

  Acland felt wary; he hesitated, then sat down by the bed.

  “Anything. It doesn’t matter. I just want to hear your voice. Tell me, where is everyone else?”

  “At the opera, with Stern. They’ll be back soon. The nurse is here, and Jenna, too, if you want them.”

  “No, I don’t want them. That nurse is so grim. And Jenna fusses so. What a time I’ve slept. Has she married Hennessy yet?”

  “Not yet. Rest, Constance. Hennessy is in France. He joined up, don’t you remember? They’ll marry after the war, presumably.”

  “Don’t let’s talk about them. I don’t want to hear of them.” She moved her head on the pillows. “I hate Hennessy. I always did. He killed beetles. He would pull off their legs, shut them up in a box—he showed me once, when I was little—”

  “Constance. Rest. Forget Hennessy.”

  “He’s simple, just a little. That’s what Cattermole says. But I don’t believe it. I never did. I think he’s clever. Clever and grim. So huge. Does Jenna think he’s handsome, do you think? I suppose he is. Like a great oak. But he killed beetles. And moths. And spiders. He killed my father, I used to think—”

  “Constance, stop this. You shouldn’t talk. You’re feverish. Lie still.”

  “Am I? Am I feverish? Is my forehead hot?”

  She struggled against the pillows. Acland, growing alarmed, wondering if he should ring for the nurse, laid his hand against her forehead. It still felt dry, a little hot.

  “You see? No fever. No fever at all.”

  She lay back on the pillows. She fixed her eyes on his face.

  “I don’t think that now. I was younger then. Now I think—who took those Purdey guns?”

  “What?”

  “Francis’s guns. Someone took them. They were missing—Francis told me. He might have lied, of course. He might have taken them himself—”

  “Constance. I’m fetching the nurse.”

  “Don’t you know about the guns then, Acland? I thought you might. Or your father might. Don’t fetch the nurse. Wait. I’ll tell you a terrible thing—”

  “Constance—”

  “My father and your mother were lovers. They were. On and on. For years. Even Francis found out in the end. He saw them, that very day. Your mother, going into my father’s room. He’d lost something—Francis had. What was it? Something he needed … for his camera—that was it! Yes, he’d left it, and he went back and there she was, just closing the door of the King’s bedroom. Francis wept.”

  “Lie still.”

  “And Freddie. Both of them. Such tears. Did you weep, Acland? Oh, no—you knew. You already knew. Of course. I’d forgotten that. Acland, my head aches so. Hold my hand. No, tighter. There, you see? I’m calmer now.”

  “Constance. You must forget all this. It was a long time ago, five whole years—”

  “Acland, will you tell me one thing? Just one? That night—the night he died—where were you, Acland?”

  “I was at the party, obviously—”

  “Yes, but later. Acland, Francis says he looked for you, when the party was over. He couldn’t sleep; he wanted to talk. And he couldn’t find you. You weren’t in your room, you weren’t downstairs—”

  “Boy says that?”

  “He said it once.”

  “Well, he wouldn’t have found me. I wasn’t there. I was with … someone else.”

  “With Jenna?”

  “Yes. Now, can we leave this?”

  “All night?”

  “Yes. All night. It was dawn when I left. I never went to bed—”

  “All night. With Jenna.”

  Constance gave a deep sigh. All the strain and anxiety left her face. She lay back against the pillows.

  “There. You see? You have put my mind at rest. I knew you could. You see, I was so afraid—”

  “Constance—”

  “No, truly. I feel as if there had been this terrible weight on my back, pressing me down. And now it’s gone. You’ve cured me, Acland. Cured me twice. Once on the balcony, and once in here. I’ll never forget that—not as long as I live.”

  She stopped. She took his hand once more.

  “Stay a little longer. Talk to me. Tell me quiet things. Ordinary things. Then I’ll sleep. Tell me about your work. Where you go. What you do. Who your friends are. Please, Acland, don’t go.”

  Acland hesitated. For a moment his instinct was still to fetch the nurse, to leave the room—but Constance drew him to her. He wanted to leave; he was reluctant to leave.

  He looked around the room and found it lulled him. The stillness of a sickroom, the warmth of the firelight, the red of the coverlet. Constance’s eyes rested quietly upon his face. A strange evening, he thought, an evening out of time, set aside from the rest of life.

  “Very well,” he began. “My work. My work is very dull. Pieces of paper: I read reports and I write reports. I draft memoranda. I attend committee meetings. I am assigned to the Serbian desk, and the more I learn about events there, the less I understand. I have two wooden trays, Constance, one on the right side of my desk and one on the left, and by the end of the day I have to transfer all the piece
s of paper from the left to the right, and that is what I do. Every day.”

  “Do you come to decisions?”

  “Decisions? No, not for at least the next ten years. No, I make recommendations—and then watch them being ignored.”

  “So it doesn’t suit you?”

  “No. It doesn’t suit me.”

  “What would you rather do?”

  “I wish I knew. I’m not trained to do anything. I’m trained to read Greek and Latin and philosophy. I’m being trained—now—to take up some sort of position in the world, a powerful position, I suppose. It’s the expected thing. It doesn’t greatly interest me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it is so very predictable, I suppose. Look at us: Boy will return from the war. One day he will inherit Winterscombe. They’ll find some suitable profession for Freddie, just as they found one for me. Steenie may escape—but the rest of us?” Acland paused.

  It surprised him that he should say these things, since he had never voiced them to anyone else, not even to his friend Ego Farrell. Acland looked down at his own hands. They were narrow and pale; the skin was soft: the hands of a gentleman.

  “I lack will,” he said, and surprised himself again, for it was not his habit to admit weakness. He looked away. “We were all given too much—perhaps that’s it. Too much, too soon, too easily. So we never learned to fight.”

  “You could fight.” Constance struggled to lift herself against her pillows. She reached across and grasped his hands. “You could—you could, Acland. You could go anywhere, be anything, if you chose. Look at me. There! I can see it in your eyes. I recognize it. I always could….”

  “Constance, you’re tired—”

  “Don’t patronize me. It’s there in you, just as it is in me. We’re alike. You’re not meek and weak, any more than I am. You’re not one of nature’s Christians, Acland.” She smiled. “You’re like me. A pagan.”