Painting The Darkness - Retail

by Robert Goddard

  ‘I was twenty-two years old. My upbringing had been pampered and privileged. I was the possessor of considerable wealth and the heir to more. The world was at my feet, and I believed it belonged there. At the time, I would have described myself as the exemplar of the English gentleman, deserving of every one of the advantages I enjoyed. Now, looking back, I see that I was a vain and foolish young prig.’

  The hush was complete. The court was in his power. For this brief space, they were his to convince. While it lasted, his opportunity was infinite.

  ‘That is admirably frank,’ said Russell.

  ‘I object, my Lord,’ said Giffard, rising to his feet. ‘What my learned friend calls admirably frank I call intolerably offensive to the memory of a fine young man.’

  Mr Justice Wimberley compressed his face into a vinegary frown. ‘Clearly, Sir Hardinge, it is one thing or the other. But it is too early to say which. You may proceed, Mr Russell.’

  ‘Thank you, my Lord. Let us go forward one year. How would you describe yourself, then, in June 1871?’

  Again, a finely judged pause. This time, the court was ready for it and waited patiently. Then Norton resumed. ‘I was a year older but no wiser. I had had the good fortune to become engaged to a young lady of excellent character. Had we married, I have no doubt she would have been an improving influence on me. As it was, I was conscious of no need for improvement. The freedom to indulge my every whim – indeed, my every vice – seemed its own reward. My arrogance and my folly had merely increased.’

  ‘Would you care to name your fiancée of those times?’

  ‘I would rather not. She married another, believing me to be dead. I wish to cause her no embarrassment of any kind.’

  ‘I protest, my Lord.’ Giffard was once again on his feet. ‘The plaintiff’s delicacy is the most transparent evasion.’

  Mr Justice Wimberley appeared to find these harrying tactics tiresome. ‘If so, you may press the point in cross-examination later, Sir Hardinge. Pray proceed, Mr Russell.’

  ‘When were you due to marry … this young lady of excellent character?’

  ‘Our wedding was fixed for the twenty-third of June.’

  ‘What prevented it?’

  ‘On the eighteenth of June, I left the country.’

  ‘Under what circumstances?’

  ‘Under circumstances of total anonymity.’

  ‘Please elaborate.’

  ‘I had spent some days in London whilst my fiancée remained with my family in Somerset. I had returned there briefly on the seventeenth. I had met my fiancée and informed her that I could not marry her. I had left a note for my parents indicating that I intended to commit suicide. I had then come back to London and taken a cab to Wapping.’

  ‘With what purpose?’

  ‘The purpose implied in my note: suicide. By drowning.’

  ‘What led you to contemplate such a desperate course?’

  The crisis had been reached. All eyes were turned on him, all ears straining for what he would next say. This was the moment when he would either open his heart on a dead secret or pile invention on a nerveless lie. This was either penance or perjury.

  ‘I had been unwell for some months, unmistakably so for some weeks. I had succeeded in concealing the symptoms from those close to me, but they were none the less acute. I had therefore consulted my doctor.’

  ‘The family doctor?’

  ‘Yes. Fiveash. A good man.’

  Russell looked up at the judge. ‘Dr Fiveash will be testifying later, my Lord.’ Then he swung back to the plaintiff. ‘What was his diagnosis?’

  ‘Syphilis.’

  Somewhere in the gallery there was an ill-suppressed snort of laughter. Mr Justice Wimberley looked up irritably. ‘I will clear the court if there is any ribaldry. Proceed, Mr Russell.’

  ‘What treatment did Dr Fiveash suggest?’

  ‘None, beyond palliatives for the immediate symptoms. He said that the disease had progressed beyond his power to halt it and that a slow decline, albeit with many remissions, was inevitable. A decline, that is, unto death.’

  ‘Did he offer you no advice?’

  ‘Only that to marry was unthinkable.’

  ‘Quite. You accepted that?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Tell me, did this diagnosis surprise you?’

  The handsome, well-spoken and patently healthy plaintiff gazed into the middle distance. ‘Not entirely.’ The only movement now was on the defence side. Sir Hugo Davenall and his solicitor exchanged an anxious whispered word. Sir Hardinge Giffard looked round at them, then back at Norton. Mr Justice Wimberley shot a silencing glare in their direction, then up at the public gallery, where ribaldry seemed once more to threaten.

  ‘Why were you not surprised?’

  ‘Because I had been in the habit of consorting with prostitutes.’

  Was that a low whistle from the press seats? If so, it was rapidly lost in another intervention by Giffard. ‘My Lord, this is the most appalling slander on an eminent and respectable family.’

  Mr Justice Wimberley affected not to hear. ‘You openly admit to having been grossly immoral, young man?’

  ‘I do, my Lord.’

  ‘Whilst actually engaged to a young lady whom you described as of the finest character?’

  ‘Yes, my Lord.’

  The judge shook his head sorrowfully. ‘Dreadful, dreadful,’ he muttered. ‘Proceed, Mr Russell.’

  ‘The diagnosis did not, then, surprise you. How did it affect you?’

  ‘It forced me to recognize the depth of my moral degeneration. It compelled me to realize that I was not merely unable to marry, but also unworthy. It drove me to face the truth: that I had lived such a lie that I had no right to live at all.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I was in despair, consumed with self-pity and self-loathing in equal measure. To tell the truth seemed worse than simply to end my life without explanation. I resolved to kill myself.’

  There was a stifled sob from the public gallery. The woman who had arrived late was crying gently into an embroidered handkerchief. Mr Justice Wimberley looked up, but uttered no word of reproof. Tears seemed almost appropriate.

  ‘And that is what led you to Wapping on the evening of the seventeenth of June 1871?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘What did you do there?’

  ‘I discharged the cab near a public house. There I sat drinking until the premises closed. I waited in a neighbouring churchyard until the streets had emptied. Around midnight, I descended some stairs that led down from an alley beside the inn to the river. The tide was running high, and it was a moonless night. I could hardly have wished for more favourable circumstances in which to jump in without being seen. I had carried a loose coping-stone from the churchyard and intended to strap it to my person in order to weigh me down. It was whilst engaged in that operation that I was surprised by a police launch moving slowly by. They didn’t see me, because I jumped back into the shadows, but they passed by so close that I could hear what was said by the two men on the deck.’

  ‘What was said?’

  ‘The first man said something like “Good night for jumpers, George”. I didn’t understand what he meant. Then the other man replied: “It is that. I hooked out two myself last night. Fair turns me up to see them laid out on the deck like fish on the monger’s slab, half the Thames seeping out of their mouths.”’

  There were gasps around the court, involuntary expressions of disgust by those for whom Norton’s account had become all too vivid. Mr Justice Wimberley glared at the plaintiff. ‘This is in the worst possible taste, young man. I must ask you to restrain your language.’

  ‘I am sorry, my Lord, but those were the words used. They had a profound effect on me. After the launch had gone by, I stayed where I was, thinking of how it would be for my family and fiancée if I should be “hooked out”. Somebody would have the gruesome task of identifying me. Worse still, I might be rescue
d alive. Until then, I had not considered what was physically involved in committing suicide. When I did, it was fatal to my resolution.’

  ‘Your nerve failed you?’ said Russell.

  ‘Yes.’ At a distance of eleven years, some shame still attached itself to his voice. ‘Only the coping-stone went into the river. I walked back up the stairs and crept silently away.’

  ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘I walked the streets all night. I hardly knew where I went. By morning, I knew I could not do what I had set out to do. But nor could I return to those who would think me dead and tell them what was even worse than that I had taken my own life. Accordingly, I took a berth in a steamer sailing for Canada. I had hopes of summoning the willpower to jump overboard in mid-ocean. I failed. When the ship reached Halifax, Nova Scotia, I was still aboard.’

  ‘What did you do there?’

  ‘I was aimless, ill and without purpose. I travelled to the United States and took cheap lodgings in New York. Largely in order to buy the alcohol and quinine which gave me some relief from my condition, I found employment as a cab-driver. Several months passed. Then a strange thing happened.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘I began to feel better. At first, I assumed it was one of the remissions Dr Fiveash had warned me against. But it wasn’t. Time was to show that I did not have syphilis after all. Earlier this year, I obtained a conclusive verdict to that effect from the most eminent of specialists. My exile, you see, had been pointless. I had wasted eleven years of my life in fleeing from the consequences of a disease which I did not have. I had forgone my birthright … for no reason at all.’

  ‘And now you wish to reclaim it?’

  Norton hung his head. ‘In so far as I am worthy of it, yes, I do.’

  A silence fell, a silence in which all who had heard his statement, his confessions of failure as well as his claims of title, contemplated the emotional meaning of what he had said. Norton looked solemnly down at the floor, his nobility and his weakness urging his audience to believe him.

  ‘It’s a lie. It’s all a damned bloody lie!’ A dishevelled swaying figure was on his feet in the gallery, bellowing down into the well of the court. He was waving his arms angrily at Norton, as if ordering him to leave. ‘Don’t believe a word he says! Can’t you see?’ His voice grew hoarse. He turned towards the gangway, apparently set on descending from his place. He had to pass the latecomer with the embroidered handkerchief as he went, but he succeeded only in cannoning into her. She looked up into his drunken confused face with an unexpected softness of expression.

  ‘William!’ she said, with a gasp of astonishment.

  II

  The usher told me I was lucky to escape being detained overnight for contempt of court. He had hold of my collar at the time and was bundling me out past the gatehouse into Chancery Lane. Fortunately, he took me for a harmless drunk. Had he known the depth of the anger which had seethed within me during Norton’s parade of lies, he might have been more inclined to hand me over to the police.

  I leaned against some railings a little way up the street, recovering my breath and struggling to rid myself of the dreadful anxiety imposed by what Norton had said. He had changed his story – and I could guess why. The Davenalls would not want him to revert to his original claim to have inherited syphilis from his father, but it was not to oblige them that he had shouldered the blame. When I saw Emily weeping, I realized the depth of his cunning. She was his messenger to Constance. She would persuade her that he was sacrificing his good name to protect those dear to him. And she would urge her to stand by him. His address had not been directed to the court, but to Constance, whose active support, if he could win it, would carry all before it.

  A man leaned out beneath the gatehouse arch and stared towards me. Taking his peaked cap for that of a porter who thought I had not moved off smartly enough, I turned and walked away up the street. Strangely enough, though, I could hear footsteps behind me as I went, as if he were following me. At the end of the street, I swung round and there he was, no more than ten yards away.

  He was no porter. The cap was grubby and old, the rest of his clothes patched and threadbare. But he was no tramp, either. His handlebar moustache was waxed, and in his left hand he held a smoking cigar. His right hand held nothing, because it was not there. The arm was a mere stump, its sleeve tied beneath it in a flamboyant knot.

  ‘Do I know you?’ I said.

  ‘I should say not,’ he replied. As he drew closer, I saw that he was a positive rag-bag of contradictions, his smile disclosing a row of rotten teeth for all the affected clip of his voice, his sparse grey hair and pockmarked skin suggesting somebody quite other than the jaunty cigar-smoker with the scarlet cravat who swaggered towards me. ‘Saw your … display … in there,’ he said, glancing back towards Lincoln’s Inn.

  ‘What of it?’

  ‘Thought I’d congratulate you …’

  ‘There’s really no—’

  ‘On one of the most damnable shows of impetuosity it’s ever been me misfortune to witness.’ He thrust his cigar into his mouth and grinned crookedly.

  Norton had drawn all my anger: there seemed none left for anyone else. ‘Is that all you have to say?’

  ‘Matter of fact, no. Fancy we might have somethin’ in common.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ I hailed a passing cab, gave it directions to St John’s Wood and climbed in.

  ‘You think wrong, old man.’ I looked back at him. ‘What we have in common is a grudge against the Davenalls.’ He winked and twitched the stump of his right arm. The gesture and his hint of complicity were repulsive but irresistible. I held the door of the cab open and helped him aboard. We set off together.

  I had expected him to introduce himself, but instead he said: ‘What’s your part in this?’

  ‘If you must know, the fiancée he talked about is my wife.’

  ‘Aha, an affair of the heart. Might’ve known.’

  ‘Might you?’

  ‘In my day, we knew how to decide this kind of thing.’

  ‘How would that have been?’

  ‘One of us would’ve called the other out.’

  When I looked at him, I saw that he was smiling. My words began to catch up with my suspicions. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘The name’s Thompson.’

  ‘How did you lose your arm?’

  ‘Gervase Davenall shot it off in a duel, more than forty years ago.’

  ‘You were Lieutenant Thompson, of the Twenty-Seventh Hussars. You fought a duel with Gervase Davenall in May 1841.’

  He frowned. ‘You’re well informed. Yes, that was me. Broke a couple of teeth chewin’ a swagger-stick while they sawed this off for me pains.’ He glanced down at his stump. ‘Had to leave the Army thanks to Gerry Davenall. Now this and the braid on me cap’s all I have to show for servin’ Queen and country.’

  ‘You must have known the risks you were running.’

  ‘Risks be damned! I don’t regret it. It was a fair fight.’

  ‘Then, why did you say you bore a grudge?’

  ‘Because maimin’ me was worse than not killin’ a horse with a broken leg. The Army was all I knew, dammit. And he was me friend once. He might at least have made a clean job of it.’

  ‘You were friends?’

  He smiled at the recollection and pitched his cigar butt out through the cab window, ‘Oh, yes. We were like that.’ He crossed the first two fingers of his left hand in a symbol of comradeship. ‘Once.’ Then he snapped them apart. ‘We were chums at Eton. That’s why we joined the same regiment.’

  ‘You were at Eton together?’

  ‘Don’t look so surprised. I wasn’t always a one-armed old beggar. Time was when I was a handsome young rip, with the pick of all the ladies. Just like Gerry.’

  ‘Is that what you fought about – a lady?’

  He sniggered. ‘Could say, old man. Could say a lady.’

  ‘I’ve no time for guessing games. Tel
l me or not, as you please.’

  ‘Don’t cut up so rough! I thought you’d be curious.’

  ‘I am. But I’m also impatient.’

  ‘Cards on the table? I need money. You can see that for yourself. It’s no fun when your boots let the rain in, nor when your chums won’t take your IOUs any more.’

  ‘That’s your problem. Why should I pay you to tell me what you quarrelled about with Gervase Davenall all those years ago?’

  ‘Because you want to know who James Norton really is. Don’t you?’

  The cab swayed violently as it turned into Tottenham Court Road. I lurched across the seat, collided with Thompson and found my hand resting on the stump of his right arm. He chuckled at the speed with which I recoiled.

  ‘Saw through him this morning, you see. He did well, but not well enough. He’s not James Davenall.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘You hope that, you mean. The difference between us is that I don’t give a damn, but I know who he is.’

  Could it be true? Did he really know? I looked into his lined and ravaged face, the eyes glinting with desperation for all the mocking humour of his smile, and found no answer save my need to believe him. ‘How much do you want?’

  His smile broadened across the brown and jagged teeth. ‘Twenty pounds would get me out of a hole. Shall we say guineas, since we’re both gentlemen?’

  ‘I don’t have that much on me.’

  ‘Then, give me something … on account.’

  I drew a five-pound note from my wallet. ‘What will you give me … on account?’

  He grasped the note between his thumb and forefinger, but I did not release it. Then he made a reproachful face. ‘That’s hard, old man. Damned hard.’

  ‘Earning money this way’s bound to be.’

  He drew his hand away and slumped back in the cab. ‘Fair enough. I’ll tell you some of it. He challenged me because I wouldn’t take somethin’ back. Somethin’ I said in the heat of a damn fool argument. I reminded him that I’d caught him out, three years before, at a ball we’d both attended in Norfolk. Country residence of a fellow-officer. It don’t matter who. Fancy-dress event, to celebrate the coronation. God, it was a long time ago. Summer of thirty-eight. I was so young then I’m not even sure I was the same person.’