He shuddered. We all did.
‘There was a period I had nightmares almost every night. I would see her standing next to my bed, still burning and blistering, shouting at me! Telling me I should have left her up there to die, rather than let her spend the rest of her life looking like that.’ He looked at the bottle in McGray’s hands. ‘Before that I only drank a little glass of port at Christmas …’
‘Is that the reason you got yourself intoxicated tonight?’ I asked.
‘What else, Inspector? The first thing I heard upon coming back was what happened to the girl this afternoon. On top of her mother slowly losing her mind and her boor of a brother … It will sound silly to you, but until today I’d never contemplated the thought of her … well, growing up into womanhood. And what a future awaits her …’
It was a looming thought indeed, and it left us all in an eerie silence. McGray was the first to break it.
‘Does the lassie blame ye as well?’
This was what completely shattered Mr Wheatstone’s spirit. He buried his face in his hands and whimpered.
‘No!’ he mumbled. ‘She’s a true angel … the little girl thinks I saved her.’
He said no more after that, or brought his face up again, but the way he dug his fingernails into his scalp was more eloquent than a thousand words. His own hands were the claws of unmitigated guilt; the man himself his own tormentor, forever unable to forgive himself.
‘Stoker,’ said McGray at last, ‘please bring some strong coffee for the lad. I’ve shaken him enough.’ Stoker bowed and went out, while McGray approached Mr Wheatstone to pat him on the back. ‘There, there. Ye seem a wee bit too passionate for an Englishman. Are ye sure yer not part Scottish – or Irish?’
He could not have concealed the spark in his eyes. I wondered if he’d sent Stoker away on purpose before asking the question.
‘Must be my drop of Irish,’ said Wheatstone, making me draw in a deep breath. ‘From my mother’s side.’
McGray nodded, looking more pleased than surprised. I thought he would press more about the Irish ancestry, but he would follow an entirely different thread. ‘Mr Wheatstone, we’ve heard about another person who seems to feel guilty about that lassie. Miss Terry.’
Wheatstone let out a bitter laugh. ‘Of course. She is the one who discovered the girl. During the run of Henry VIII, about a year before Faust premiered. Miss Terry insisted and insisted she be top angel. She must believe she passed the poor girl’s sentence, and she has clearly tried to get some atonement.
‘Miss Terry was the one who had Mrs Harwood and the children hired when the family went into debt. I myself heard her once appealing to Irving. That Harwood boy now thinks he’s invincible; he must know the guilt that Miss Terry feels and takes advantage of it, the little turd. He does as he pleases and insults whomever he wants, yet he’ll never be dismissed as long as Miss Terry is around.’
McGray paced for a moment. ‘Ye saw the banshee under Regent Bridge,’ he said, coming closer to Mr Wheatstone. ‘And ye saw Mrs Harwood’s fit at the theatre … D’ye think that … perhaps …?’
Mr Wheatstone rubbed his temples. ‘Before today I would have said it was impossible.’ He sighed as if he carried all the worries of the world. ‘After today … I’m not so sure.’
A footman came round then, bringing a tray with steaming coffee and telling us Mr Stoker had gone back to greeting guests. We left Mr Wheatstone to compose himself and told him we’d be around for a while in case he needed to tell us anything else. Before we left the small room, McGray whispered in the footman’s ear.
‘Don’t leave the lad on his own. Ye understand? If anything happens, come and fetch us.’
The young man nodded and I saw Nine-Nails slide him a handsome tip.
‘Do you fear for him?’ I asked McGray in a low voice.
‘Indeedy. If Mrs Harwood’s really acting as a banshee …’ He did not bring himself to finish the sentence. ‘We should keep an eye on her too.’
We summoned two other officers, who came in dripping rain all over the red carpets. One of them was Millar (who barely recognized McGray in his finery). We asked the other chap to look after Mr Wheatstone. Millar was to guard Mrs Harwood’s corridor, but to keep a low profile – the last thing the woman needed was to know that the police suspected her.
Back to the ballroom, I let out a weary sigh. ‘I should feel a little more at ease with those two being watched.’
‘Aye,’ said McGray, turning down champagne from one of the waiters, ‘but I cannae help feeling all this is so fuzzy – like looking out through a grubby window. Can we even tell for sure what we are pursuing? A prophecy that might not even –’
‘Sirs …’ a voice called us from behind.
It was a soft, meek voice, and when we turned our heads I could not believe my eyes. It was none other than Freddie Harwood.
‘What d’ye want?’ McGray snapped at once, but then we realized that the boy was ghastly pale, as if he’d seen a ghost.
‘What is the matter?’ I asked.
The boy spoke fast and with little breath. ‘I need to talk to you. But I don’t want her to know.’
‘Who?’
‘You know who,’ he said, a hint of his usual insolence ever present. ‘Can I see you before you leave? I’ll be waiting in the music room. Tell no one!’
And he ran off immediately, becoming lost amidst the crowd. We were, of course, going to pursue him, but before we moved two steps ahead, all the lights in the room went off.
Fifth letter from the partially burned stack found at Calton Hill
Unlike the others, this sheet has no salutation. – I. P. Frey.
Dead beetles for dragon scales, stencilled Bolton sheeting for cloth of gold, coarse salt for glistening snow,
wooden crowns, wooden thrones,
wooden goblets, wooden swords,
and then painted pine for ebony,
cut up wrapping paper for autumn leaves,
bleached cock feathers for angelic wings,
a lady of easy virtue for a mythic queen –
28
There was a general cry and I felt my heart skipping a beat, instantly regretting not having brought a weapon. McGray had, and he elbowed me as he pulled it from his breast pocket. I heard him stride forward, pushing people aside, and I groped after him in the pitch black, but then we heard several awed voices.
A small yellow glimmer appeared at the top of the stairs, not much brighter than the flame of a single taper, but it grew slowly, shedding light on the graceful figure of Ellen Terry. Holding a little oil lamp up high, she was wrapped in a white linen shroud that made her look like a phantom.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ I mumbled.
After a well-measured moment to let us catch our collective breath, Miss Terry dragged herself down the stairs with restless, animal-like movements, grasping the banister with a trembling hand, her legs twisting at seemingly impossible angles. With her frenzied eyes and the sharp shadows projected by the lamp, she was a disturbing thing to behold.
She stopped halfway down, curling up around the light. Amidst the darkness her bright clothes appeared to be floating, as she reached for imaginary water and began rubbing her hands in desperation.
‘Out, damned spot! Out, I say!’
I could feel her madness and despair, her voice hissing and quivering at the precise moments, and her pale eyes flickered in every direction, as if haunted by voices all about her. I felt the impulse to run to the side room, fetch Mr Wheatstone and ask him if that was what he’d seen under Regent Bridge – Would he have seen Miss Terry’s performance at all, being always at the backstage running the effects? – However, the crowd had packed up closely around us, and I soon realized I could never get the man in time.
And there was something else that caught my attention.
McGray looked stricken, like a dam about to burst. His hand was still stuck in his breast pocket, the Scot frozen to his very core. His bo
dy moved only in an involuntary tremor, as if Miss Terry’s lines had injected ice into his veins.
‘… who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?’
I also trembled, realizing exactly what was going through Nine-Nails’ mind.
Was that what young Amy McGray had looked like six years ago? Had she been thus torn? Had she appeared so much a deranged, tormented creature? She must have, and only then did I realize the nuts and bolts of that ghastly moment; McGray must have found his sister in the most dreadful state imaginable, the then sixteen-year-old girl still covered in their parents’ blood.
Miss Terry descended a few more steps, stumbling quite artistically as she mentioned the death of Macduff’s wife, and she crouched again but a couple of yards from the spectators. McGray was on the frontline, and his whitened face gleamed under the lamp’s light.
He caught Miss Terry’s eye, and for an instant the actress lost her focus. They stared at each other for a split second that seemed to stretch for ever, and I could not tell who was the more affected. McGray’s mind I now knew fairly well; Miss Terry’s, on the other hand, was a mystery.
She looked away, trying hard to concentrate on the little flame, yet suddenly looking confused. She took a deep breath, and with her next lines everyone else must have thought that was all part of her act.
‘Here’s the smell of the blood still,’ she whispered, hissing like a snake, and then turning to despair. ‘All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand …’
And then she wailed. What a piercing, devastating sound that was; anguish itself, like a steel blade running on glass and drilling into our ears. She let out a second wail, and a third, the last one diminishing and quivering as her lungs ran out of air.
She petrified us all. Not a murmur, or a cough, or the ruffle of clothes could be heard. Miss Terry had us all hanging by a thread until she decided to speak again. As she concluded her soliloquy, her voice gradually faded into an eerie whisper, ‘to bed … to bed …’ sending shivers down everyone’s spines.
Miss Terry crouched at the foot of the stairs, and tremblingly blew out her lamp’s flame. There was but a blink of solid darkness, before all the lights went back on and the crowd exploded in cheering and applause.
I had to take a deep breath, and so did McGray.
Like a phoenix, Miss Terry rose to her feet, dropping the white cape and revealing her majestic green dress. Next to those iridescent beetle wings, all the other ladies’ beads and spangles looked cheap and dull.
She stood tall and proud, her arms outstretched, receiving the cheering as it if were a life-giving force, and Irving joined her from nowhere and held her hand to kiss.
‘Welcome, ladies and gentlemen!’ he bellowed, smiling and looking more jubilant than I’d ever thought he could.
Tonight he was not the monster everyone in the theatre feared. Tonight he was a patrician figure with the grace that can exist only in dreams: welcoming, charismatic, buoyant with joy, and so was his speech. His voice was deep, his enunciation perfect, the sound masterfully projected from the depths of his swollen diaphragm.
‘Honest, steadfast work is almost sure to bring rewards and honours,’ he was saying, ‘and Edinburgh’s warm welcome has given us all a renewed zest for existence! A distinction which will be remembered for as long as the annals of our stage will last … Sir John, for instance! Many a time you have honoured us with your presence! And I believe the illustrious Lady Anne is also here tonight …’
I shook my head at the pomposity of his words. No wonder people fell for his charm.
While Irving thanked and lauded every person under the Scottish sky, I drew closer to McGray and muttered, ‘Are you all right?’
He gave a quick nod, struggling to collect himself. He had to pat his cheeks to recover some colour.
‘Where’s the brat?’ he asked, his eyes looking for Freddie. ‘We should ask one o’ the waiters to go fetch him.’
‘I’d be more interested in keeping Miss Terry within our reach. She is our strongest lead right now.’
We both looked at the staircase, where Irving’s flattery continued. ‘You cannot think it strange,’ he said, ‘that every fibre of my soul throbs, as my lips try to utter the truest, warmest, most earnest thanks to –’
He hushed all of a sudden, just as a butler hurried in, walking so stiffly I doubted his knees were jointed. He approached Irving and whispered in his ear. I was close enough to make out the words ‘entrance’ and ‘not invited’.
Irving’s face betrayed him, his bushy eyebrows contorting and his frown deepening like cuts into his skull. There was horror on his face, as if the ghosts in his brain were taking shape before his eyes.
People began to gossip, and then there was a general gasp coming like a wave from the main entrance. All our heads turned to find two thin, very young men, around Elgie’s age, coming in as if they owned the entire building and everything inside it. They certainly wore expensive dinner jackets and sparkly cufflinks.
They were Irving’s sons.
One needed but a glance to realize it. They were both the spitting image of their father: the same long face, the cheekbones just as sharp, the thick eyebrows and even the stern way they beheld everything. Irving could not have denied his parenthood even if his wife had entertained as many lovers as Miss Terry.
They approached slowly, parting the silent crowd like a knife does soft butter, and planted themselves right in front of their father, one of them even brushing his arm against McGray’s.
I could not tell who was the more mortified, Irving or Miss Terry. They could have been playing Macbeth beholding Banquo’s ghost, and Lady Macbeth at the exact moment before her wits snapped.
Worse, more painful than a scandalous rant, was the boys’ silence, which seemed to last a lifetime.
‘Good evening, Father!’ said the elder brother – Harry – as mordantly as only a handful of people on this planet are capable of. Curiously, I saw Catherine in the background, standing on her tiptoes and stretching her neck like a meerkat. ‘You look well.’
‘Our invitation must have got lost in the post,’ added the slightly younger one – Sydney.
Amidst the paralysed crowd, Miss Terry was the first to move. She pulled up her hem, turned her back on everyone and left the room with brisk steps. It was as though the ruffling of her skirts was the only sound left in the world, and in her haste some of the beetle wings ripped off and fell on to the carpet.
There were cruel smiles creeping upon the Irving boys, their teeth as white and sharp as their father’s.
Stoker stepped ahead, as if appearing from thin air. ‘Sydney, Harry! You are so welcome.’ He had to grasp the boys’ hands to shake them, and then made a gesture to the musicians, who began playing a lively polka. ‘You boys need no invitation.’
‘Of course we don’t!’ snapped Sydney. ‘Our inheritance is paying for all this extravagance.’ His eyes went from the champagne bottles to the piles of oysters and the enormous wheels of French cheese.
The music somewhat covered his words, but the people who did hear would pass them on to all the other attendants within minutes. I saw King Duncan, elderly and regal as he looked, beginning a dance with one of the witches, and some of the actors followed his lead in a pathetic attempt at diverting attention. However, even they kept watching the Irvings out of the corners of their eyes.
Henry Irving finally faced his sons, but he spoke awkwardly. Suddenly he was the teenager and his offspring were in charge.
‘Boys, I’ve not seen you in …’
‘A few years,’ said Harry.
‘How’s the wench?’ asked Sydney, finally setting Irving’s temper on fire.
He leaned towards them and hissed something at them. Unfortunately, I did not manage to hear, but it must have been something truly spiteful, for the young faces became distorted with anger.
Sydney was the colour of parchment when he answered back. ‘Never.’<
br />
‘We are staying right here, at the Palace,’ said Harry, holding his brother back, for the teenager looked as if he could have punched his own father’s face there and then, ‘we are right next to your suite, in case you haven’t noticed. Come and see us when you’ve returned to your senses. We want to have a little chat.’
Sydney pulled away from his brother and stormed off, once more parting the crowd. Harry cast his father an intense, hateful look, before leaving too.
Irving was both enraged and terrified; an expression I had seldom seen. Stoker tried to rest a hand on his shoulder, but Irving brushed it aside, and as he did so his eyes fell on McGray and me.
Embarrassment was added to the mix. How could a single man’s face show all those feelings at once? Rage soon took over them all though, and he barked at us, spitting with every consonant.
‘A pox on you!’ and he turned on his heels and rushed away.
Stoker’s eyes followed him. The Irishman looked as perturbed as if someone had just dropped dead. ‘You’ll want me to explain this scene now, I suppose?’
‘Nae,’ said McGray, ‘but thanks, lad. I’d rather go to the source itself.’
‘Miss Terry first?’ I asked. ‘Or Henry Irving?’
‘Terry,’ said McGray. ‘Better to approach Irving with some prior knowledge.’
‘That bitch sent them!’ Miss Terry spluttered as soon as she saw us step into her parlour. Her eyes were wrath itself. ‘And it’s not the first time she has done such a thing!’
She covered her mouth swiftly and lowered her voice, pointing at her bedroom door. I assumed Susy was sleeping there.
A Mask of Shadows: Frey & McGray Book 3 (A Case for Frey & McGray) Page 19
