And where did Shelley find the little girl he brought home? Did he discover her in that Naples orphanage, or did he perhaps see a baby left a moment in some crowded marketplace, and decide it would have a better life brought up as his own? Take it with him there and then, and give it to his desperate and grieving wife as a substitute for the child she claimed he killed, only to see that mother’s face curdle to a mask of scorn. A sudden surge of nausea almost overwhelms Charles as he remembers his own sister – another golden-haired and green-eyed child – who was snatched in the street and never again found. Left perhaps to die, like this little girl, because she failed to find favour, no more real to those who took her than a puppy, or a porcelain doll.
You may think Charles is deducing a great deal here from very little, and extrapolating far too much from the pain of his own past, but you might change your mind if you knew (as Charles does not) that Shelley never made any attempt to see his first two children after the custody case, even though the ‘tyrannical court’ accorded him that right; that he once took up a child he found wandering, and it was only the merest chance the parents discovered her again; or if you had heard, as I have, a story still told all these years later by some Oxford city guides, of the day when Shelley switched two babies in the high street and walked serenely on, hilarious at his own joke, not caring whether the exchange was ever noticed, or if the changelings were ever returned to their rightful mothers’ arms.
Charles can picture now, and only too clearly, the bizarre and claustrophobic atmosphere in which this strange ménage played itself out – the looking-glass world Shelley built for himself, and then could not escape. Well might Claire have called it a folie à trois, for there is something tinged with madness in all these echoes and half-reflections, these endless repeating patterns, and the incessant giddying sense of having constantly to reassess what is real, and what is feigned. The two women drawing him always in opposite directions – one dark, one fair; one passionate, one chill; one always eager, one forever aloof. And what is Charles to make of the man at the heart of the maze – this man who is at once pitiful and pernicious, at once tender and terrifying? Because for all his talk of love and freedom, the fact remains that Shelley left his young and pregnant wife to take two teenage girls on a mad scramble across Europe, which rendered both of them social outcasts – one expecting an illegitimate child, and the other unlikely ever to make a conventional marriage. And yes, Shelley could have argued that brought up by Godwin as those girls had been, they would neither of them have cared about such conventions, but Charles suspects that whatever the philosopher may have preached about sexual liberation and the equality of the sexes, he would have recoiled in horror at his own daughter putting those precepts into practice in such a flagrant and irrevocable manner. Indeed, is there not a hint of that in this very letter? There would have been no need for Shelley to argue the case for the postponement of his marriage to Mary after Harriet’s death if Godwin had not been strenuously pressing for just such a ceremony, and at once. And is not Shelley’s attempt to place all the blame for his ill-treatment of his first wife to the account of the second a little discreditable? Was he really so weak – so easily manipulated? Charles sighs, thinking of Claire, remembering the tears in her eyes as she handed him this letter – this letter she has kept all these years as a pledge of love. And it can indeed be read as such, but it can also be read as a shameful attempt to defend an eight-year status quo that brought her nothing but pain, and stole from her whatever life and love she might still have found. The deeper Charles reaches into Shelley’s past the darker it becomes. Well might Maddox accuse him of bringing death and ruination to everyone about him; well might he conclude the poet’s was a midwinter heart.
Charles turns back to the room, wondering, for the first time and with sudden misgiving, whether he has been drawn into the same mirror world of deceit and subterfuge that had his uncle seeing murder where there was only suicide. A world as phantasmagoric as one of Shelley’s own nightmare visions, bearing all the appearance of daylight reality, but which is nothing more than the writhings of an overwrought imagination. It is time to draw a line; time to regain some detachment, some objectivity. He goes to ring the bell, and the door opens almost at once.
‘May I speak to your mistress, Annie?’
‘She’s indisposed, sir. She said to give you this.’
My part of our bargain has been fulfilled; I expect you now to honour yours. You will not be received in this house again until you have done so. I am not well – indeed I have been ill for many years – and I need repose. You have already occasioned me quite enough suffering.
C.C.
Both content and style sit rather oddly with the confident, flowing hand, and the bloom of health he saw in her face not much more than an hour ago. Nor does Charles quite concur that what he has caused Claire so far can really be called suffering. Inconvenience, yes, even irritation, but she’s turned the situation so smartly to her advantage he could almost believe she contrived it. Like all her sudden shifts of mood, it is disconcerting, and all the more so now.
The maid meanwhile is waiting. ‘Was there a message, sir? Madam said—’
‘Yes, yes. You may tell her that I will do as she asks. As we agreed.’
She bobs. ‘And Madam said you were to give me a letter, sir. Most particular she was.’
Charles takes it from the table where he left it and sees the maid smooth the pages and place them carefully, once again, in the trunk.
‘Will you be requiring dinner, sir?’
‘No, Annie. Indeed, I am not sure when I will next be here. I shall go upstairs and collect a few things. In case I should need them.’
‘Very well, sir. I will inform Madam.’
Out on the street the rain is falling finely, and the day failing in a gathering fog. It’s too late for Chester Square now, even had Charles a mind to go there. By the time he turns into Buckingham Street the mist has thickened to a heavy brown haze, and it’s only when he’s a few short yards from the house that he sees someone standing on the doorstep. Someone a little shorter than he is, a little thinner – someone who moves now into the light cast by the upstairs windows. Charles quickens his pace, a flicker of unease catching at his heart. ‘Sam?’ he calls. ‘Sam?’
Wheeler starts at the sound of his voice, then comes towards him through the fog. ‘It’s all right, Chas. Nothing to concern yerself about. Old Stornaway got a bit carried away, that’s all.’
‘Carried away about what?’ demands Charles, gripping Sam’s arm. ‘What’s happening? What are you doing here?’
‘Seems Abel went up to check on yer uncle earlier this afternoon and found ’im lyin’ on the floor, and a lot of books and papers strewn about the place—’
‘What do you mean on the floor? Is he hurt?’
He makes to push past Sam into the house, but the constable holds him back. ‘Easy, Chas. Like I said, it’s all right now. He’s got a coupla bumps ’n’ cuts but the doctor’s been and no ’arm’s done.’
‘The doctor’s been – and no one thought to send for me?’
‘Well, Abel probably weren’t thinkin’ that clearly. And Bow Street’s a lot closer than St John’s Wood.’
‘But why you? Why the police?’
Sam gives a shrug. ‘’E ’ad some wild idea the ’ouse’d been broken into.’
‘And has it?’
‘No sign. And that boy of yours swears all the doors was locked.’
‘And nothing’s been taken – nothing’s missing?’
Sam shakes his head. ‘I got Abel to ’ave a look, after we’d got ’im calmed down. ’E were a bit shame-faced by then. Realized ’e’d got everyone panicked over nothin’. Looks to me like yer uncle might ’ave woken up when no one was by and tried to take a look at the books by Abel’s chair. Only ’e’s a bit unsteady, and managed to trip over the blanket or some such, and in the process knocked a whole loada stuff flyin’. Seems the simplest explanation anyw
ay.’
Charles looks at him, remembering seeing his uncle struggle to his feet in exactly that way. He might well have done something similar again. The question is, what on earth was Abel doing leaving him alone?
‘Thank you, Sam,’ he says eventually. ‘For coming.’
Sam smiles. ‘You’re welcome. You know as I’d always do it.’
They shake hands and Sam strides up towards the Strand, whistling quietly under his breath. Charles, meanwhile, is making his way up the stairs, two at a time. Whatever happened before, the room’s been put to rights now, and Abel is sitting in a chair on the far side of the fireplace, a blanket drawn over his knees. He looks pale, and paler still when he sees Charles. ‘I were only gone a little while, Mr Charles,’ he starts. ‘I were lookin’ at those old files again, in case there were anythin’ I’d missed, and I just left yer uncle a minute to go upstairs. I only sat down for a moment – I cannae think how I came to fall asleep, it’s not like me at all—’
Something Charles cannot but accede, which in his current mood makes him only more suspicious. He says nothing to Abel, but goes over instead to his uncle and kneels down beside him. There’s a graze on his forehead that’s darkening to a bruise, but otherwise he seems unscathed. But as Charles reaches to touch the injury gently the old man opens his eyes and utters a strangled cry, throwing up his hands to shield his face. There are scratches on both palms. Charles frowns, and whispers soothingly to him, before turning to Abel. ‘Where are the books Sam said were on the floor? The ones my uncle was supposed to be reaching for?’
Abel glances across to the table by the fire. ‘Well,’ he begins hesitantly.
Charles gets up and goes to the pile. Half a dozen case-books are stacked together, but it’s the one on the top that he picks up. It’s the 1816 file – the file that started this whole affair. Only now the leather binding is scorched, and the edges of the pages blackened. Charles’s heart is hammering as he opens the book and turns to where Maddox’s notes on the Godwin case had been – where the allegation of murder had been. But the paper is so charred now that it crumbles away in his hands. There is nothing left; the words Charles deciphered are gone, the name obliterated. There is nothing to show the accusation was ever made. ‘What happened to this book?’ he says quietly.
‘It were on the fire, Mr Charles, when I came in. The boss were lying on the floor, and the book were on the fire. Billy pulled it free, but by then the flames had already took hold.’
‘And was that why you thought someone had been in here?’
Abel flushes. ‘Well, it seemed a mite coincidental, Mr Charles. That it shouldae been that book, of all of ’em, when ye’re workin’ on the same case. But young Mr Wheeler checked everythin’ downstairs, and he’s convinced no one couldae got in. So I have tae assume the boss dropped the book by mistake. He were sitting in that chair by the hearth, and I left it on the table next him when I went upstairs. I suppose I can see how it mightae happened.’
Charles looks at Abel, and then at the armchair. He, too, can see how it might have happened, but he, like Abel, is wary of coincidence, and more apt to see design than accident in such apparent happenstance. But if someone did indeed throw the book on the fire deliberately, is an unseen intruder more or less disquieting than the possibility that his uncle tried to burn the book himself? Has he, in fact, already tried to do that once before – that time during the storm? Charles had thought, then, that his uncle wanted to tell him something about the case, but perhaps it was the book itself he was after – the book he wanted to destroy. Has the old man been watching and listening all this time, trapped in his own silence, terrified of what Charles might discover, and what might be disclosed about his own past? But even that makes no sense, because if Harriet’s death was indeed suicide and not murder, what can there be in that for him to fear?
Charles sits down by his uncle and takes his mottled hand in his own. The old man’s pulse flutters like a pinioned bird. His eyes are open, but there is no recognition, no response.
‘Have you heard from Fraser yet?’ Charles asks, without lifting his gaze from Maddox’s face. ‘Does he remember the Godwin case?’
‘I’ve not heard from him, Mr Charles. I’ll be sure to tell ’ee if I do.’
Billy arrives with more tea, and Abel sets him bustling about Maddox. Tucking blankets, straightening pillows.
‘Where were you, Billy,’ says Charles, ‘when this happened?’
Billy flashes him a glance. ‘Down in the scullery, Mr Charles. ’Avin’ another go at those boots o’ yours. Like you asked. I ’eard Mr Stornaway cryin’ out and came up sharp.’
‘And Molly?’
Billy moves round behind the chair to pour the tea. ‘Don’t know, Mr Charles. At the market maybe. I didn’t see ’er.’
‘But neither of you left the door open, even for a moment – or saw someone loitering outside you didn’t recognize?’
‘No, not me,’ he says, coming back with the tea. ‘Don’t know about Molly. Best you ask ’er that yerself, Mr Charles. Sure you’d get more outa ’er than me, if you take my meanin’.’
Perhaps it’s his tone, perhaps it’s something about the look on his round pink face, but Charles is suddenly seized by an overwhelming urge to strike him. Which he suppresses, but only just. ‘By the way, Billy,’ he says sharply, ‘I thought I’d warned you weeks ago about getting drunk with the coster-boys.’
Billy’s face flushes an even deeper red. ‘I know, Mr Charles. I ’eard you the first time. I ain’t done it since.’
‘Don’t lie to me, Billy. I know you were out again with them the other night. I won’t have it – do you hear me? Coming back at all hours roaring, and throwing up in the kitchen.’
Billy opens his eyes wide in outraged innocence – or a very practised impersonation thereof. ‘You must be mistaken, Mr Charles. Weren’t me, and that’s a fact.’
But Charles has caught the boy out once too often already. ‘If I find out you’ve lied to me again—’
‘But I’m not lyin’, Mr Charles. Cross me ’eart and ’ope to die. It weren’t me, I tell yer – and if you really want to know—’
‘I’ve had enough of your impertinence, Billy. If it happens again you will be dismissed, and without pay. You will not get a second chance. Am I making myself clear?’
The boy drops his eyes, and mumbles, ‘Yes, Mr Charles.’
‘Very well. Now bring me paper and an envelope from the office. I have a note I want you to take to Chester Square.’
Billy nods again, and is curtly dismissed, but when he gets to the door he sees that Charles has already turned his back. The boy watches him a moment, playing with some coins in his trouser pocket, and the expression in his eyes now is one of unambiguous contempt. The contempt the cunning have always had for those who fancy themselves fine intellectuals, but fail to see the facts right in front of their faces.
* * *
The following morning Charles wakes at last from a dream of drowning to find Thunder perched squarely on his chest and peering down at him with that quizzical look any cat-owner will recognize at once. Charles heaves him off – not an easy task, given Thunder’s size – and goes to the washstand. A bad night’s sleep has left him with a headache and dark shadows under his eyes. Worse, he now faces the prospect of an audience with Lady Shelley.
He is kept waiting at Chester Square, as before, but this time there is another factor at work, of which he is entirely unaware. The mistress of the house is standing at a second-floor window, watching as Charles scuffs his heels on the pavement, and rubs his hands together against the cold. The room behind her is, at first sight at least, the mirror image of the drawing room below that we have already seen. The same long windows, the same washy sunlight filtering through the long muslin curtains, the same portrait, hanging in exactly the same place. But this time, the painting is the original, not a copy, and there is no candle on the table below and no fake wax lilies, only a plain white vase bearing
stems of green leaves crowned with clusters of tiny pink flowers; the air is filled with an irresistible sweet fragrance. It’s like a room from a totally different house. Refinement, taste, restraint; elegant furniture and shelf upon shelf of books. And books that have been placed here to be read, not looked at, for the volumes are stacked haphazardly, with gaps where some have been taken out and not yet replaced. In the far corner there is a small curtained bed, in which the poet’s widow is sitting, looking towards the light, and her husband’s face.
Were you in that room, your first thought, I’m sure, would be how very frail she is. How child-like. The woman who casts so long a shadow over this story, and has left such a monstrous and misshapen creation in her name, is so fragile in the flesh she makes all those around her seem clumsy and inept. Most obviously her own son, who is at this moment lighting his pipe rather cackhandedly with a spill lit from the fire. And as we approach the bed, we can see that this woman must once have been every bit as beautiful as her step-sister, although the quality of that beauty could hardly be more different. Everything about Claire so rich and dramatic – her complexion, her hair, her figure, her choice of clothes; Mary, by contrast, all pale delicacy, her skin white, her eyes grey, her bed-jacket a quiet cloud-coloured silk. And that famous hair of hers, silvered now but showing still some red gleams of burnished gold.
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