As Shadows Haunting

by Deryn Lake

  *

  Despite the fact that they were parting amicably, that it was agreed and promised they would remain friends for the rest of their days, Sidonie found it hard not to cry. The talented prodigy who had burst into her life like a firecracker, was finally going away. Alexei was off to France to appear on television, give two more concerts and then return, at long last, to Russia. It was goodbye, if not for ever at least for some considerable time.

  “I shall miss you, Tovarish,” he said, hugging her.

  “And me you.”

  “After my concerts at home I go to America, I think. Perhaps next year. We meet there?”

  “It depends on the dates, of course. But it sounds fun.”

  “Maybe by then you are married. This would not surprise me.”

  “Who knows, who knows?” Sidonie answered miserably, and turned away so that he would not see the tears which suddenly came welling up. Her life, looked at analytically, seemed to be nothing but a series of meetings and partings; Nigel, Finnan and now Alexei. Feeling very sorry for herself, Sidonie brushed her hand over her eyes and wheeled to look at him once more.

  “Give my love to Paris.”

  “You bet.”

  “And to Chantal?” It was naughty of her but she couldn’t resist it.

  Alexei looked slightly discomfited. “She has asked me to stay with her for a few days, yes.”

  “And why not, indeed? The world’s your oyster.”

  “But you are the pearl,” the violinist answered gallantly.

  “What an old flatterer you are. Now go on, they’re calling your flight.”

  It was like a replay of the last time they had said goodbye at the airport, only then she had known she would see him again, that it was only a temporary separation.

  “Alexei.”

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks for everything, it’s been wonderful.”

  “Thank you.”

  He bent to kiss her and at that moment a flash bulb went off and Sidonie realised they had been stalked by a couple of press photographers. Knowing that Madame de Chenerilles was still in the country and might well see an evening paper, Sidonie gave him a full-blooded kiss back.

  ‘And why not?’ she thought cynically. ‘I may as well get the last laugh somewhere along the line.’

  “I’m off,” said Alexei, tucking his violin case under his arm. “The press might get irritating.”

  He turned to wave to her at passport control, his face sad, his manner excited.

  “See you in America,” he called.

  “You bet,” she answered, imitating him, then turned on her heel and went back to the privacy of her car, away from the journalists, away from his warmth, towards uncertainty.

  *

  He was leaving town and making no secret of it, in fact, the unkinder critics said Lord William Gordon was creating a veritable meal of his decision to leave British shores.

  The Scots Magazine for September, 1770, carried a full report.

  Thursday last, set out for Dover on his journey to Rome, the Rt. Hon. Lord W— G—, once esteemed by the British Court one of the most accomplished young noblemen of the age. He is gone with a full determination never to return. He has cut his hair close to his head, carries a knapsack on his back, and intends walking to Rome on foot, with no other companion than a very large dog. He was ever remarked for his generosity, and has divided his horses, dogs, etc., among his acquaintances, several to his particular friend, the young Earl of T—lle. He has never appeared in public since the much-talked-of connection between him and a certain lady, by whose friends he was never pardoned, and from their behaviour, he had adopted the extraordinary resolution.

  “And so I should damned well think,” said Sarah, reading the story and feeling her choler rise. “The air will be fresher to breathe with that creature gone.”

  In the lonely miserable year she had spent since he had walked away, his mistress had not once seen the father of her child, nor had William offered support, be it moral or financial. He simply had not bothered to contact her in any way. It was just as if Sarah had ceased to exist and she could think of no more heartless thing than for a parent to turn his back on his own child, ignoring the fact that Louisa had ever been born. And now he was going, distributing his wealth amongst his friends rather than to his natural offspring.

  “I hate you, William Gordon,” she called aloud, throwing the magazine across the room. “You are a poxy cruel bastard whose despicable actions have condemned me to a life of misery. I hope you pay for it one day. Oh, God, I do.”

  A rush of hatred consumed her, so strong and so severe that a constriction gripped Sarah’s chest as a result. Gasping, she went to the front door and leant against the frame for support, breathing in the fresh air in order to calm herself.

  It was autumn and the trees in Goodwood Park had already taken on the brave military colours of the season. Deep red, the shade of blood, was overshadowed by the bright high vermilion of soldiers’ uniforms, the browns of cavalry horses adding their sombre touches in the fallen leaves. As she watched, a wind eddied these round and round in an airborne whirlpool and Sarah remembered how, in another home park at a time so distant it seemed a century ago, she and the Fox children had chased through the crackling carpet, carefree and careless, not one of them dreaming of the many sadnesses that lay ahead.

  Yet the clock could not be turned back. She had behaved both foolishly and recklessly and now must pay the price. Slowly and despondently, Sarah turned to go back indoors. Then, on an impulse she rushed outside again, scooped up an armful of leaves and threw them high in the air, standing beneath the cascade of their fall as if they were drops from a fountain.

  “Hurry up, life,” she shouted to the blood-red sunset. “Let me serve my penance quickly, and then let something good await me at the end of it all!”

  *

  As often happens after a hot summer, the trees were changing colour early, and as Sidonie drove back from Heathrow she noticed the yellowness of the leaves and felt the touch of melancholy that the end of another summer always brings. This, combined with the parting from Alexei, the absolute certainty that their relationship as lovers was over, put her in an introspective mood, a dark shadow hanging over her thoughts, as she wondered grimly where she would go from here, how many more men she would meet and lose before old age finally set in.

  She went through her front door knowing that in this frame of mind she would either get drunk or start to play. Acutely aware that the latter course was better for her health by far, Sidonie went down to the music room and hit the keyboard hard, plunging into a work by Soler with what she could only think of as fierce attack.

  Her great cure-all worked its usual magic and an hour later the musician was still practising, hardly noticing the time, vaguely aware that the garden had filled with shadow and that the moon was up, the first thin quarter holding the old in its arms. Smiling wryly to herself that she had successfully managed to fight off a fit of depression, Sidonie rewarded herself with a glass of wine, then started a piece by Handel, playing quietly and soothingly, almost in a dream. And it was then that a light was switched on upstairs, throwing a pool of illumination onto her lawn.

  Sidonie sat staring at it, suddenly hardly able to breathe, and then very gently, almost furtively, opened the garden door and stepped outside, going into the middle of the garden to look up at the house. The light was on in the flat above hers and somebody was moving about, she could see a shadow thrown against the living-room wall.

  ‘It’s his brother, his mother, anybody,’ she thought wildly. And then distinctly, not loudly but clearly, she heard Callas singing “Costa Diva”.

  “Finnan,” said Sidonie with certainty, and started to cry properly for the first time since Alexei Orlov had gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Adventure always having appealed to him and excitement of one kind or another being the very essence of his life, the blinding white flakes, the frozen g
round, the great drifts and icicles and sheet-glass lakes did not deter him from setting off. Wrapping himself warmly, pulling a beaver hat down over his eyes, the Duc de Lauzun set out in the grey dawning, leaving his lodging in Piccadilly on a hired horse, determined to reach Sussex by nightfall.

  The Frenchman took the main road to Chichester, conditions being far too hazardous to countenance a shorter route across country. But though he made good time, Lauzun ran into a blizzard at Horsham and was forced to hole up for the night. He found a decent inn by way of consolation and sat down in the inglenook fireplace, a tankard of mulled wine in his hand, contentedly reminiscing about his affair with Sarah, allowing himself the pipe dream that soon it would be rekindled.

  He had not seen her for six years, nearly seven in fact, his last glimpse of her when she had stepped over his prostrate form and headed off for Bath, leaving him to the mercy of her startled sister-in-law. But though, after that, he had returned to England only infrequently, gossip had been just as rife on the Duc’s side of the Channel, and Lauzun had followed the story of Sarah’s decline and fall with fascination. But now, on this particular trip to London, his delight in seeing her get her just desserts had vanished at the description of his ex-mistress’s desperate plight.

  “They say she does not leave the house for days, except to walk in the park,” Lauzun was informed while dining at Almack’s.

  “Has she no carriage?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “So she is virtually a prisoner?”

  “Within the bounds of her brother’s estate, yes.”

  “Damme, she was the belle of Paris when I first met her. How can she bear such a solitary existence?”

  “God alone knows. I almost find it in my heart to feel sorry for the stupid woman.”

  Lauzun had rounded on his companion. “She has been no more stupid than you or I, merely made to suffer publicly for it. It is that bastard Gordon who ruined her life. Why, I swear to God if ever I meet him I shall challenge him to a duel.”

  His friend had chortled, not in the least offended. “Odds my life, Monsieur, you’re a regular firebrand. If you feel that strongly why don’t you visit the poor creature? Lift her out of her gloom and so on.”

  Lauzun’s companion had winked and the idea had been born. Sarah’s former lover had decided then and there that he would be her saviour, a friend from the past prepared to show his loyalty, and also his love, should she require it! Now the Duc smiled lazily, remembering their times in bed together and how much he had taught her in that respect, and hoped that their affair might soon be reawakened.

  He followed in the path of the stagecoach the next morning, glad to see it slowly trundling ahead of him. At one point, just beyond Pulborough, all the passengers had to get out and push, Lauzun assisting, while the coachman and guards eased the horses through the drifts. It was exciting and also gave a glow of health, and the Duc was sorry to leave his companions at the hamlet of Boxgrove and make his way alone up the frosty track which led to Halnaker Farm.

  It was dark by now, a scarlet sun having sunk beneath the snows, and Lauzun was extremely conscious of the fear his late arrival might cause to a woman alone. Therefore, as he knocked on the door, he called out the words, “A groom with a message from Lady Holland, my Lady,” and was pleased, after a few moments, to hear the bolts being drawn back.

  A manservant with a lantern stood in the doorway, peering suspiciously as the Duc repeated his message, adding, “I would like to see Lady Sarah personally. It’s very urgent that I do.”

  “She’s upstairs in the nursery.” And the man jerked his thumb, standing aside to let Lauzun in.

  ‘A far cry from the old days,’ thought the Frenchman wryly as he made his way up the stairs in the darkness then opened the first door he came to and gazed into a room flooded with candlelight.

  Sarah was standing with her back to him, feeding her daughter from a bowl, and Lauzun stood in silence for a moment taking in the scene. His former mistress looked stunning, he thought, wearing a simple blue gown, her dark hair undressed, without powder, hanging loose about her shoulders, completely au naturel.

  The child, now five years old by the Duc’s reckoning, sat in a highchair, half feeding herself, half enjoying a spoonful given by her mother. She looked pleasant enough as children go but Sarah’s breathless beauty and the gloomy romanticism of her father had clearly eluded the poor creature. Smiling to himself, Lauzun took a step forward and then Louisa saw him and started to bellow in fright.

  “Who’s there?” called Sarah nervously, and wheeled round to see, her eyes widening in surprise. “My God, it can’t be! Is it really you, Monsieur le Duc?”

  “I have come through the dead of winter to be at your side,” he answered flamboyantly, and with that swept the lovely creature into his arms, ignoring the screams of her frantic daughter, and giving Sarah a long hugging embrace which brought the poor lonely woman to the point of tears.

  *

  How long she stayed in the dark, staring at the pool of light flooding her lawn, Sidonie never afterwards knew. She just sat there, sipping from her wine glass, with every thought in Christendom, or so it seemed, going simultaneously through her head. Above all the ideas one stood paramount, that to kiss and tell was weak, that to burden another with one’s own guilt was the palliative of the immature. Had she read somewhere, she wondered, that unpleasant secrets were best carried to the grave? That to force someone to listen to a story of errors committed was both cowardly and crass?

  For now the divine schizophrenia must finally come to an end. Alexei had gone, Finnan had returned, and Sidonie thought of the phrase, “Big girls don’t cry,” and prepared not so much to lie as not tell all the truth. Then she wondered about the woman who had answered the phone in Canada and whether she could possibly be the reason why Finnan had not yet rung to say he was back.

  “Confession cuts both ways,” she remarked aloud, and almost smiled at the irony of it all.

  But still the phone was silent and Sidonie, after lighting a couple of candles, continued to sit in the gloom until it dawned on her that her number was different, that she had changed it at Alexei’s behest before she left for Edinburgh.

  “You don’t want that Nigel maniac phoning when he feels like it. Get a new number,” the Russian had said, almost pleadingly.

  “Do you really think it’s necessary?”

  “I tell you that fat bastard is dangerous.”

  “Oh, don’t be so silly, he just drinks too much.”

  “Listen to me, Tovarish. He is fruit cake, or whatever it is you say. I beg you to watch your step.”

  Now she thought, ‘Finnan can’t contact me,’ and then immediately countered it with, ‘Then why doesn’t he come down?’

  But one look at the clock answered that question. It was half past eleven, not the hour for one civilised human being to call upon another. Yet, surely, there was no harm in her phoning him just to say welcome back.

  ‘Oh God,’ thought Sidonie, standing in her bedroom, the receiver in one hand, ‘why this dissembling? I’m guilty and I’m terrified and that’s the beginning and end of it. Sidonie Brooks, you are a wimp.’ And with that she put the phone down, opened her front door and went softly up the communal staircase.

  An opera CD was still playing very quietly in Finnan’s flat and she guessed that he was jetlagged, delaying the hour of going to bed as long as possible. Yet even then she lacked that final bit of courage which would enable her to ring the bell.

  Sidonie stood there vacillating and it was at exactly that moment that the door opened and Finnan O’Neill, of all the unromantic things in the world, appeared with a black plastic rubbish bag in his hand.

  “Jesus!” he exclaimed, jumping visibly. “Is it yourself, darling girl? How long have you been standing there?”

  “Hours. I didn’t know whether to knock or not.”

  “Oh sure, and wasn’t it always a foolish woman?” he said, terribly stage Irish,
and drew her into his arms for a hug that would last her the rest of her lifetime.

  *

  They sat talking quietly in the candlelight, two lovers of old grown serious.

  “It’s been terrible really,” said Sarah. “There are simply no other words to describe it.”

  “But surely, ma chérie,” answered Lauzun quietly, putting his arm round her protectively, “your family no longer continues to bear a grudge?”

  “No, things are much improved on that score. After my poor sister Cecilia died of consumption, Caroline felt that life was too short for us to remain enemies and I was invited back to Holland House. Louisa has forgiven me too. She loved her little namesake too much to stay away for long. As for Emily, she finds it hard to punish the sister she brought up in her household. Only my brother George and his wife remain somewhat distant.”

  “But what do they matter?”

  “They don’t really. It is society that matters, Armand. They have exacted their pound of flesh from me. I am not considered fit company to mix with and must remain hiding away, presumably until the day I die.”

  He who had come to seduce her but whose intentions, on seeing her plight, were now purely honourable, said, “Come to France. You will be welcome there.”

  “I doubt it. We live in a small world and everyone knows my shame.” Sarah turned to him earnestly. “The only thing I beg is that you do not hate my innocent child. She did not ask to be born nor is anything her fault.”

  “I would consider it an honour to be appointed Louisa’s legal guardian, if you would permit me,” answered the Duc solemnly.

  A flash of the old Sarah reappeared. “I pray that I shall be around a few years yet to care for her.”

  He smiled and nodded. “I am sure you will, my dearest woman. None the less it would give me pleasure for you to accept.”

  “Then I shall, gladly. It is a kind gesture.”

  “It is the least I can do.”

  “What do you mean?”