The Drowning People

by Richard Mason

  I nodded again.

  “Well Daddy’s always on the lookout for danger signs; signs that I might be unhappy, that I might not be coping. He doesn’t want to take any risks with me, which puts a certain amount of pressure on a person as you can imagine.”

  “I can.”

  She bit her lip. “Oh God I’ve been so stupid.” She stubbed out her cigarette, half-smoked, with exasperated violence.

  “In what way?”

  “I’ve played right into Sarah’s hands.”

  “How?”

  “Well, when she published her monograph and the papers caught onto the suicides, I thought I saw my chance of getting rid of Charlie. I thought he wouldn’t want a mad woman as the mother of his children. Not even if she did stand in line to inherit a castle.” She paused. “So I staged a confession.”

  “You did what?”

  Ella fumbled in her bag for another cigarette and lit it. “I cried and I told him how unstable my family was, how there was something wrong with our genes. I even said I had a duty never to have children, for fear of passing it on.” She stopped. “Mental illness is probably genetic, you know. I thought it would scare him off.”

  “When in fact it did quite the opposite.” The mist was slowly clearing.

  “Not exactly,” she said quietly. “At first Charlie wouldn’t budge. He was going to stick by me loyally and all that. He kept on saying it was only my family, it wasn’t me, I had to rise above it.”

  I thought of Charles Stanhope’s earnest uncomprehending eyes and a sudden fear gripped my throat. “What did you tell him?” I asked quietly.

  Ella took a deep drag on her cigarette. For a long moment there was silence. Finally she spoke. “What did you expect me to tell him?”

  “Don’t tell me you … ”

  “All right, I won’t. But I did.” Her voice was small and thin, like a child’s.

  “You told him you were …”

  There was a pause.

  “Yes. All right,” she said at last. “I told him I was worried about myself. There, I’ve said it. I told him it wouldn’t be fair to marry him.”

  “Oh God.”

  “And do you know what he did?”

  I saw with complete clarity how things stood. “He told your father, didn’t he?” I said grimly.

  She nodded.

  “Oh Ella you stupid …” I could not find the words. Love and anger welled inside me; then pity too as I saw she was crying.

  “I thought Sarah was giving me a way out,” she said through her tears. “For the first time in her life, in her own twisted way, I thought she was being magnanimous. By stirring everyone up and making everything so public, I thought she was offering me a way to escape and so I took it. I had no idea things would turn out like this.”

  “Oh no.”

  “It seems strange to say it now, I know, but you have no idea how perfect it all seemed at the time. I thought I would be the least painful way of breaking with Charlie. He’d noticed I’d changed towards him, you see; he’s not stupid. He needed an explanation. And I could hardly have told him the truth.” She paused. “I didn’t think he’d tell anyone.”

  “I don’t believe you could have been so … ”

  “Don’t judge me James.” Her voice rang suddenly sharp. “Don’t judge me.”

  Mutely we stared at each other. I took her hand.

  “If you knew what these past two months have been like you would be kinder,” she said more quietly at last, drying her eyes. “I’ve been paying for my freedom I can tell you.”

  I sat silently, groping for words.

  “If you knew what it’s been like seeing my father so worried, so worried and with so little reason, knowing it’s my own fault…. If only you knew. Seeing him suffer like this has been punishment enough.” She looked down at the floor, away from me. “But what could I have done?” Her eyes met mine, searchingly. “Short of telling everybody everything, right down to why I got engaged to Charlie in the first place, there was nothing to do but pretend. I was trapped, Jamie; I couldn’t go back then. So I pretended.”

  I put my hand on her arm.

  “And God was it awful,” she went on. “I can’t tell you how awful. The situation got completely out of hand. I couldn’t control it any more.” She paused. “And that was when it got frightening. I tried to be myself again and found that I wasn’t allowed to be normal anymore. The whole system had already swung into gear, you see.” She drew breath deeply. “And then the talking started. And the newspaper articles. And the photographers. You’ve no idea what that does to you. Knowing that people are always watching: your family, your friends, the goddamn newspapers. I’ve been living in a goldfish bowl these past two months.”

  I nodded, still lost for words.

  “And the worst thing is that I know it’s all my own fault. I don’t know how I could have let it happen.”

  “Neither do I.”

  Ella gripped my hand. “Don’t say that to me. You’ve got to help me. You’ve got to help me get through this.” There was a pause. Her eyes met mine unflinchingly.

  “I will,” I said. “Of course I will.”

  “Oh Jamie. Thank you.”

  She leaned across the table and kissed me. Our lips met and I knew in that brief sweet touch that I would do anything for her. I knew and like a fool was pleased by that knowledge.

  “If you only knew what it was like,” she went on, sitting back, calmer now, “how draining it is having to be happy all the time. And I’ve got to be happy to convince them I’m sane. I’m not allowed one morose minute to myself before Daddy suggests I see a new therapist or Pamela wants to take me away for a ‘change of scene.’ That’s how I come to be in Prague, you know. This is a ‘change of scene.’” She paused. “And you’ve no idea how many frauds I’ve been taken to see; I’ve sat in consulting rooms from one end of Harley Street to the other.” She made an attempt at a smile. “You can’t imagine what it’s like. These people ask you to remember things, to tell them about traumas you’ve never had and insecurities you’ve never dreamed of. And the frightening thing is that things do start occurring to you; that all this attention does make you think that maybe there’s a reason for it after all. You start to doubt yourself and those around you. You begin to remember childhood nightmares.” She lit another cigarette and drew on it deeply. “And because I thought I should try to seem open with the doctors—they’re the ones you have to convince, after all—I told them all about my childhood, all about everything. Except Sarah of course. I could hardly tell them about her, about her and me.”

  I watched her shaking fingers as she put her coffee cup to her lips. “So what did you tell them?” I asked.

  “All sorts of things.”

  “Give me an example.”

  “All right.” She paused, thinking. “Well, when I was nine or ten I used to have a nightmare about a witch who lived in the closet in my bedroom. A wicked witch, like the one in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe who turned Mr. Tumnus to stone. Remember her?”

  I nodded.

  “Well in this dream she was always just about to turn me to stone and I was always running away from her, running and running through woods and fields and … you get the picture.” She smiled. “I was always looking for my father to rescue me. And I always woke up just as the witch caught me. Daddy never appeared.”

  “You told the doctors about that?”

  She nodded.

  “And what did they say?”

  “Well you must remember that shrinks aren’t paid to tell you you’re sane.”

  “What did they make of that dream?”

  “Oh all the usual stuff: lost mother, fear of stepmother, need for father. They told me that I was angry with Daddy for marrying Pamela—which couldn’t be further from the truth, incidentally—and started talking about Electra syndromes and the dangers of repressed grieving for a parent turning to self-mutilation or violence as a sort of attention-seeking measure. It was qu
ite ridiculous.”

  “Go on,” I said.

  “So I told Daddy I didn’t want any more doctors, that they were filling my mind with all sorts of evil things. You’ve no idea, as a matter of fact, quite how stable you have to be to emerge unscathed from a session with a really respected psychiatrist And Daddy went and told them that. He got very angry, actually, and stormed into Dr. Jefferson’s rooms and demanded an explanation, which was of course precisely what the bastard wanted. I was in denial now, you see. If I had a pound for every time some nut case quack who doesn’t know me from a bar of soap has told me I need to ‘face my problems’ I’d be richer than my father.”

  She stopped and there were tears in her eyes again. “Oh God Jamie. What have I done? What have I done?” Silently she took my hand.

  “Hush,” I whispered, getting up and taking her in my arms, holding her tightly. “It’ll be all right.”

  “Will it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t tell you how badly I need to hear that. Or how much I’ve missed you.”

  She clung to me. I held her until her tears had stopped.

  “And now tell me why you ran away from your parents yesterday,” I began when we were sitting opposite each other again.

  “That’s the final part of the story,” she said, fumbling in her bag for yet another cigarette. A pile of half-smoked butts filled the ashtray between us and the packet she pulled out was empty. Ella seemed surprised by this and screwed it up into a tight ball in her hand. “After the big blowup with Dr. Jefferson, Pamela suggested one of her ‘changes of scene,’” she said at last. “Basically London was no place for the invalid. The papers were having a field day as you can imagine. Which reminds me. Look at this.” She took a page from a tabloid newspaper out of her bag and handed it to me. In the center was a large photograph of her at a party. She was standing on a staircase alone, very pale. “Heaven only knows where they got this from,” she said. “Read what it says.”

  I took the newspaper from her and read the column quickly, scanning its melodrama with disgust.

  She looked as though she had everything, but Ella Harcourt, 24, heir to one of the country’s most stately homes, has a dark family history looming over her. Young, beautiful, intelligent, she is the toast of London… but how many years remain before the tragic curse of the Harcourts claims a new victim?

  Family Tree, Page 2

  Psychological Report, Page 15

  “That’s why they thought a change of scene would do me good,” said Ella dryly. “But they wouldn’t let me go alone—I’ve not been allowed to be alone at all since this thing started—so they came with me. I chose Prague because you were here.”

  I thrilled with gladness as she said this. “But why did you run away?”

  She paused. “I guess I figured it wouldn’t make much difference. We had an argument, at the Mocsáry viewing actually, and Daddy said something … about my ‘condition.’ And I thought: Well if they’re convinced I’m loopy, I might as well take a night’s freedom. Have you any idea how wonderful it is to be alone when you’ve spent two months being watched constantly, day and night?” She looked at me. “Oh I know it was wrong. But I was angry and fed to the teeth with the kid glove treatment. Can you understand that?”

  I nodded.

  There was a pause.

  “But now you’ve got to face the music,” I said firmly.

  There was silence. “You don’t mean you think I should tell them, do you? All about Sarah and Charles and… what I did. They’d think I was really mad if they knew the truth.”

  I saw her point. “No I don’t,” I said slowly, trying to think. “But when I left them a few hours ago they were sick with worry. You’ve got to go home and let them know you’re all right. And I think you’ve got some heartfelt apologies to make.”

  She bowed her head. “I know,” she said.

  “Then let’s go and get them over and done with.”

  So we got up, paid, and left the café. As we emerged into the crowds of Wenceslas Square Ella slipped her hand into mine. “Thank you, Jamie.”

  And she kissed me.

  “Sin” is a strong word to use; an ugly one. But I am no longer afraid of it. I know that Ella sinned by taking Charles from Sarah. I think perhaps that I sinned too by wanting her confession for myself alone. I was jealous of her confidence. When I might have advised her to tell the truth, to admit what she had done, I did not. I didn’t show her the dangers of deceit; I didn’t know them myself then. I see now, though—and this is the first of the lessons I have set out to learn—that lies are like the bars of a cage; that they solidify with time; that once you have built and left them about you, all is lost.

  The original sin of Ella taking Charles from Sarah shaped the events of her life—of all our lives—from then onwards. And in her weakness, which was partly my weakness also, she protected her sin with lies: lies to Charlie; to her parents; to herself, perhaps. She did not admit what she had done or seek forgiveness for it; at least she did not until made to do so by forces by then far from her control. And the truth, when it came, came too late; too late to save any of us, perhaps. At least that is how I understand it now; and I know that it is such resignation which I must seek. It is no use doing battle with events long past; my only hope is to understand, not to change them. If only I could do that I would be grateful; more grateful even than I was to Sarah. That gratitude, like its predecessor, might give me peace; it might grant me rest. And that, I think, is all I have left to wish for.

  CHAPTER 18

  THE MOCSÁRY SALE WAS SET for the following Monday, and over the weekend the galleries of First Auctioneers were filled to overflowing with buyers and the kind of people who dress to look like them. The casual crowds which had come to see the collection at first were thinning, their jeans and T-shirts giving way to the elegant suits and power ties of more serious money. Each day brought scores of telephone bids; and lengthy articles on the importance of preserving the art for the nation appeared in the serious newspapers. The less serious newspapers also chronicled the viewing—or more accurately, the clothes and love lives of the celebrity viewers—and Mr. Tomin had to have a press stand constructed at very short notice at the back of the bidding room.

  This and the fact that Princess Amelia remembered his name on her second visit made his swagger insufferable. In increasingly garish jackets he appeared smiling each day, telling favored clients in stage whispers that the catalog estimates were really very conservative. Eric and I followed him at a discreet distance, listening fascinated to his patter; and loath though we were to admit it we had to acknowledge that he was impressive. Sharp-nosed collectors from Western Europe and the United States unbent in his flattering presence; prominent members of the European aristocracy—taking their lead from the pink-cheeked and pearl-hung Princess Amelia—outdid each other to be charming; the gallery’s visitors’ book was eagerly passed from hand to hand by buyers anxious to record their presence at this self-styled historic event.

  Yes, Mr. Tomin did a good job. Even now I can marvel at the way he took a reputation and turned it into something legendary; at how he convinced the moneyed of Europe that Madame Mocsáry’s was a name to invest in and the nationals at home that it was one to glorify. By such men are great artists made.

  Eric’s mother arrived on the day before the sale, a tall stately woman with fine bones and beautiful hands. I remember meeting her for the first time; remember the easy elegance of her conversation and dress; the silver of her long hair; the sparkle of her dark grave eyes. She must have been as old as my own parents or older, but her movements had the easy suppleness of youth; and her face appeared lined only when she smiled. I can see that smile now, and as I see it I remember that it was Eric’s smile too; that when mother and son smiled their faces lit up; that when they laughed their mirth echoed and rang together. I hear them laughing sometimes, even now, in my dreams. But I heard their laughter later, when I knew the Vaugirards bett
er. In Prague I saw Louise only twice: on the afternoon of the sale itself; and on the night before it, her first in the city, when she took me and Eric out to dinner at Czardas, one of the chic new restaurants to have sprung up since the revolution. It occupied the first two floors of an old palace block in the Mála Strana, was within easy walking distance of both the French and the American embassies and was patronized almost exclusively by foreigners. As a result its prices were extortionate, its service impeccable and its atmosphere negligible. I thought it an odd choice until I learned that it had come with Mr. Tomin’s strong recommendation.

  Louise de Vaugirard was sitting on an uncomfortable modern chair when we arrived, an elegant figure in a long black jersey dress which hugged her thin hips. She wore no jewelry but a silver crucifix on a thin silver chain; and as she stood up I knew who she was, even before Eric had kissed her on both cheeks.

  “Maman, je te présente mon ami James Farrell,” he said.

  “But we must not speak in French,” she said in barely accented English. “The English do not care for languages not their own. Yes?”

  I blushed and said awkwardly that I thought French a beautiful language.

  Louise turned to Eric. “But he is every bit as charming as you said he was.” Turning to me again she gave me her hand. “I am delighted to meet you at last, Monsieur Farrell. My son has nothing but praise for you And my husband and I are deeply grateful for all you have done for the family here in Prague. I only wish that Eric’s father were here himself to thank you but unfortunately his affairs keep him in France.”

  We sat down; dinner was ordered and arrived, steaming, on gilt-edged dishes. In his mother’s company Eric was affectionate and deferential and slightly on edge. Though there was undoubtedly a closeness between them it seemed to me an uneasy one, based on a certain sympathy of spirit rather than emotional confidence or intimacy. Certainly Eric was not as easy with his mother as he was with me; nor, in her company, did he behave with me as he usually did. He watched more and spoke less; and his eagerness for us to like each other, expressed in many ways, touched me then. So Louise and I talked—of my childhood, my music, my time in Prague with her son—and Eric did not speak much unless appealed to.