Sleep, Pale Sister

19

I know, I know. I was deliberately cruel. And I enjoyed it, too, stalking her through the graves as panic overtook her, watching her trying to hide, falling, slipping, and finally running her to earth, picking her up from the muddy path and having her cling to me like a child, her tears soaking the loose hair which straggled around her face. Now I could afford to be generous; she was mine once more.

As I comforted her, I began at last to understand a little of Henry Chester; the power I had over her was fundamentally erotic, her tears the strongest of aphrodisiacs. For the first time in my dissolute life a woman was mine, body and soul. She was poignantly eager to please, devouring my face with her lips in sweet repentance. She swore she would never try to defy me again and in the same breath vowed she would die if I abandoned her, spinning me in a carousel of different sensations. I fell in love with her all over again; the moment I had begun to think I might tire of her she had come to me, renewed.

Wild words gasped in darkness against my salt hair: ‘Oh, Mose…it tears me body from soul…I need you…I’ll never let you go, never let you leave me…I’d kill you, rather…’ She took a ragged breath, her pale face turning towards mine. For a moment, a trick of reflection from the distant streetlamps revealed her features in dramatic light and shade; her huge eyes black and stark, her lips bruised with shadow, her lovely face distorted in such a grimace of thwarted passion that for a moment I felt uneasy. She looked like some vengeful black angel with madness and death in her outstretched arms. She had already shed her outer clothing and her skin glistened livid in the strange light. She took a step forwards, my name in her mouth like a curse, then she was in my arms with a scent like lavender and earth and sweat clinging to her skin. We made love where we stood, she murmuring her mad nonsense all the time. Afterwards I felt convinced that somehow, in the black climax of my passion, I had made a promise which later I might be required to keep.

Effie was sitting on a gravestone, curled up like a child and shivering; putting my hand on her forehead I realized that she was feverish, and I tried to persuade her to dress quickly, so that she should not catch cold. She hardly responded, looking at me with blank, tragic eyes, and I felt my earlier irritation returning.

‘Can’t you help me, for God’s sake?’ I snapped as I struggled with the fastenings on her dress.

Effie continued to stare at me through the blackness like a drowned girl under a lake.

‘Come on, Effie, you can’t stay here all night,’ I said in a gentler tone. ‘You’ll have to get back home before Henry finds out you’ve been gone.’

But Effie just sat. She looked ill, her skin white and burning as sulphur. I could not send her back to Cromwell Square in such a state unless I wanted the whole scandalous affair made public; equally, I could not let her stay in the churchyard; it was cold-even I had begun to shiver-and she was already feverish. On top of that she needed a change of clothes; her own were muddy, the hem of her dress torn. There remained only one option and, as I examined it, I felt a hot grin forming around the region of my stomach; there was a certain poetry in the idea…

‘Come on, my dear,’ I said briskly, hoisting Effie to her feet. ‘I’m taking you to see Fanny. I’ll see that she lets you wash and gives you some clean clothes, then you’ll be able to get home before the servants are up.’

Impossible to tell whether she had heard me; but she allowed herself to be manoeuvred along the path towards the street. Once she started at a sound from behind us, her pointed fingernails scoring the flesh of my wrists, but for the most part she was passive. I left her standing by the gate as I found a hackney and I saw the coachman’s brows twitch as I lifted her in-a guinea in the hot palm of his hand soon put stop to his curiosity-but otherwise the few passers-by did not spare us a glance. All the better.

The house in Crook Street was lit up, of course, and the door was answered by a remarkably pretty red-haired girl who beckoned me in. Effie followed me without protest, and I left her with the pretty girl as I went in search of Fanny.

I have to say that Fanny always kept a genteel house: a card-room, a smoking-room, a parlour in which gentlemen relaxed in the opulent surroundings and talked to the ladies. She never allowed lewd behaviour in these rooms-for that there were private rooms on the first floor-and anyone failing to meet her standards was politely barred from the establishment thereafter. I have known gentry who were not so discriminating as Fanny Miller.

I found her in the smoking-room-she had always had a taste for those thin black cigars-fetchingly if eccentrically clad in a tasselled purple hat and matching smoking-jacket. Her tawny curls, barely restrained by a couple of amethyst clasps, glinted against the dull velvet. One of her cats stared coldly at me from her knee.

‘Why, Mose,’ she said with sweet composure, ‘what brings you here?’

‘A trifling problem,’ I replied lightly, ‘and a mutual friend. Could I impose for a moment?’ This last remark addressed Fanny’s smoking companion, an elderly gentleman with a wavering hand and a roguish expression.

Fanny’s agate eyes travelled from my muddy shoes to my face and back. ‘Do excuse me,’ she said to her elderly friend and, leaving her cigar in a china ashtray and removing her cap and jacket, followed me into the passageway. ‘Well, what is it?’ she demanded, rather less sweetly.

‘Effie’s here.’

‘What?’ Suddenly the eyes were hard pinpoints of fire. ‘Where is she?’

I did not understand her sudden fury, and I began to explain briefly what had happened. She cut me off with an angry gesture. ‘For God’s sake, be quiet!’ she hissed. ‘Where is she?’ I mentioned the girl with whom I had left Effie, and without another glance at me Fanny was off up the stairs, her beautiful mouth set in a furious line.

‘What’s the problem?’ I called after her, grabbing the sleeve of her velvet gown. She spun round, her hand raised to strike mine away; it was with a great effort of will that she did not. When she spoke it was with a venomous calm.

‘Henry’s here too,’ she said.

20

Somehow I seemed to recognize the room. As I drifted, my spirit coiling half in and half out of my body like a genie from a bottle, I seemed to see the little bed with its patchwork quilt, the table, the stool, the pictures on the wall, with the eyes of memory. Mose, Henry, the strange insanity which had overpowered me in the graveyard were reduced to the level of dreams, myself a dream’s dream in the floating dark. I vaguely remembered arriving at the house in Crook Street, being led upstairs…friendly hands in mine; faces; names. A girl about my own age with bright copper hair and emeralds in her ears: Izzy. A plump, good-natured lady, bodice cut very low over opulent white breasts: Violet. A tiny Chinese girl with hair like jet and a jade ring on every finger: Gabriel Chau.

I remembered their names, their voices, the soft mingling of scents on their powdered skin as they undressed me and washed my face in warm scented water…then all was blank for a time, and now I was clean and comfortable in the narrow white bed, wearing a child’s ruffled linen nightdress, my hair combed and braided for sleep. I dozed for a while and awoke calling for my mother, aged ten again and afraid of the dark. Then Fanny came to bring me a drink of something warm and sweet; but in my mind Fanny became confused with my mother, and I began to cry weakly.

‘Don’t let him come back…’ I begged. ‘Don’t let him in, don’t let the Bad Man in!’ For some reason I was afraid Henry would come in and hurt me, though Henry was in bed miles away, and in my feverish confusion I clung to Fanny and called her ‘Mother’ and cried. There must have been laudanum in the drink, because I slept again for a while, and when I awoke, my head ringing and my mouth dry and slack, I was afraid. I sat up abruptly in bed, thinking I heard someone standing outside the door. A floorboard creaked and, looking at the thin seam of light under the door, I saw the shadow of somebody standing there, heard his low, harsh breathing against the panels. A huge, delirious panic seized me then, and I tried to flatten myself against the foot of the bed, the quilt around my face, but even in the sounds of the bedclothes the breathing continued in my head, and I thought I could hear a creak of metal against wood as the predator began to turn the door-handle. In spite of myself I had to look as the seam of light became a broader and broader ribbon, revealing a man’s square outline in the doorway.

Henry!

For a moment, I was not sure whether the drug I had taken was giving me delusions; all rational thought was suspended by stark terror, and again I began to lose my knowledge of my own identity. I was no longer Effie, but someone younger, a child, a wraith…

‘Who’s there?’ His voice was sharp, but not with anger; I could almost fancy he sounded uneasy. When I did not answer I heard his voice rise, almost shrilly. ‘I said, who’s there? I can hear you. Who is it?’

I shifted helplessly and Henry took a step forwards.

‘I can hear you, you little witch. I can hear you in the dark. Who are you?’

In a voice which was not my own I uttered the first name which came into my head.

‘Marta…Marta Miller. Please-leave me alone, go away.’ But Henry had taken a step forwards when he heard the name. He was three feet away from me and, although he could not see me, I could see his face in the landing-light, staring and distorted with something like fear.

‘Let me see you.’ There was more than urgency in his voice. ‘Come into the light so that I can see you!’ He grabbed at me, and I pulled away, sliding over the bedpost so that I was hidden in its deeper shadow. I hit my foot against the bed as I fell, and I cried out sharply. ‘Please! Leave me alone! Go away!’

Henry cursed softly and took another step into the dark.

‘I won’t hurt you. I promise.’ His voice was ragged, pretending softness. ‘I just want to see your face. Damn!’ he cursed as he kicked blindly against the bedstand. ‘I said come here, by hell!’

Suddenly there was a sound of hurried footsteps on the landing; I glanced over the bedpost, and there was Fanny, a tray of milk and biscuits in one hand, one eyebrow cocked in cool astonishment. Henry was out of the room in a second; as I saw them together on the landing for the first time I was amazed at how tall Fanny appeared; she dwarfed Henry gloriously, dazzling as some Egyptian goddess. He almost visibly shrank from her, holding out his hands, placatingly.

‘Who’s that in there?’ he asked, his tone almost apologetic.

Fanny’s smile was as bright and cold as broken glass.

‘My niece, Marta,’ she said. ‘She’s ill with the fever, delirious. Why do you ask?’ There was a challenge in the question, but Henry shifted his gaze uneasily, unwilling to take it up.

‘I heard sounds…’ he began vaguely. ‘I…They made me nervous. And she wouldn’t show herself, the naughty thing. I-’ He broke off with a forced laugh. ‘I never knew you had a niece.’ There was a question in the remark.

‘You’ll see her one day,’ promised Fanny. She stepped into the room, put the tray on the bedstand and closed the door.

‘Come now, Henry,’ she said firmly as he seemed to linger, and I heard their footsteps grow fainter as they walked down the passageway towards the stairs.

21

It was almost dawn when I reached Cromwell Square and I was exhausted, my mind clouded with drink and the savage perfume of that house, a sultry combination of incense, smoke and the feral reek of cats and women. As a penance I had forbidden myself to take a cab home but in spite of it all I felt a continuing sense of filthy satisfaction which no amount of walking could obliterate. She had been young-about fifteen, by no means as young as Fanny had promised-and pretty, with curling brown hair and vivid rosy cheeks. She was no virgin, but was prepared to enact the part for me, pretending her reluctance and even crying real tears for me.

Don’t look at me like that! She was only a whore, paid to do my bidding; if she hadn’t enjoyed it she would have looked for some more decent profession. As it was, a golden guinea soon dried her tears, and it was not ten minutes afterwards that I saw her cheerfully going back upstairs with another customer. Your sympathy is entirely wasted on such creatures, I assure you: from the earliest age they are corrupt beyond belief. At least I was able to slake my guilty thirst upon them, rather than upon Effie. It was for her sake that I did as I did: believe me when I say that in my heart I did not betray her. She was my icon of purity, my sleeping princess…I knew she had the seeds of debauchery in her, but it was up to me to ensure that they should never be allowed to grow. My love could keep her chaste and whatever sacrifices that entailed I was willing to make them for her sake.

Oh, there were lapses. At times her latent sensuality was such that I could not help a momentary weakness, but forgave her her nature, even though she cheapened herself in my eyes, just as I forgave my mother for causing that first unforgivable lapse of mine.

I crept past Effie’s room and opened the door to my own. It was dark and I could barely make out the shapes of the washstand, the bed and the wardrobe in the candlelight. I pulled the door closed behind me and set the candle on the mantelpiece. I stripped off my clothes and turned towards the bed-then caught my breath in shock. In the glimmering shadows I could see a child’s face against my pillow: eldritch green eyes glinting in a fierce and vengeful expression of hatred.

It was nonsense, of course: there was no child. How could it have come into my bed at dead of night? There was no child. To prove it I forced myself to look closer. The livid gaze fixed mine once again; this time I caught sight of needle-sharp teeth bared in a snarl. Recoiling, I grabbed the candle. Dragging the long flame in a streamer of smoke behind me I thrust it at the apparition, spraying hot wax on to the bedclothes and on to my naked skin. The creature leaped at me, jaws open in sibilant defiance-and with a mixture of anger and desperate relief I recognized the thin brown shape of Effie’s cat as it slashed past me into the darkness, vanishing between the curtains and out through the open window.

My face in the wardrobe mirror was mottled with livid marks, and my mouth was bracketed with tension.

I was furious with myself that a mere cat should have caused me such unreasoning terror, and even more furious with Effie, who had taken in the stray on some ridiculous whim. What name had she given it? Tisiphone? Some outlandish nonsense from one of her books, I supposed: I knew I had not found them all. In the morning, I promised myself, I would give her room a thorough search to find what she had been hiding from me. And as for that cat…I shook my head to dispel the image of the face on my pillow, green eyes glaring rank hatred into mine…Only a cat. All the same, I took ten grains of chloral, a new drug recommended by my new friend Dr Russell, before I could bear to lay my head on that pillow.

22

I remember her cool, strong hand against my hair. Her face in the lamplight, white as the moon. The sounds of her dress; the scent of her perfume, warm and golden with amber and chypre. Her voice, low and calm, singing without words in time to her rhythmic stroking of my hair. Low adown…low adown. Henry was a bad dream, melting away now into a million little teardrops of light. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked away a heartbeat stronger than my own: my heart was light as a dandelion clock, counting off moments into a warm summer night like silken seeds. My eyes were closed, gentle dream-thoughts spindling away into the welcome darkness of sleep. Fanny’s voice was speaking very gently, very sweetly, every word a caress.

‘Shh…sleep. Sleep, little girl…so sleepy…shhh…’ I smiled and murmured as the fronds of her hair brushed against my face.

‘That’s right. Shh…Sleep, my darling, my Marta, my love.’

Rocked in the cradle of her arms I allowed myself to drift gently. As she stroked my hair I watched my memories drift away like floating balloons. Mose…the graveyard…the exhibition…Henry…However bright the memory I could will it to float away and, after a time, I saw the bright cloud of balloons, strings entwined, colours glowing in the setting sun. It was such a beautiful sight that I think I spoke aloud, in a lost little-girl’s voice.

‘Balloons, Mother, all floating away. Where are they going?’

Her voice was barely audible against my hair. ‘Far, far away. They’re floating up into the sky, right into the clouds…and they’re all different colours, red, yellow, blue…Can you see them?’

I nodded.

‘Float with them for a while. Can you do that?’

I nodded again.

‘Feel yourself going up…up into the air with the balloons. That’s right. Shh…’

I realized I was beginning to rise without momentum simply by thinking about it. I rose right out of my body, drifting, the peaceful image of the balloons still in my dreaming mind.

‘You floated like this before,’ said Fanny gently. ‘Do you remember?’

‘I remember.’ My voice was no more than a wisp, but she heard.

‘In the fairground,’ insisted Fanny.

‘Yes.’

‘Could you go there again?’

‘I…I don’t want to. I want to go with the balloons.’

‘Shh, darling…it’s all right. Nothing can hurt you. I just need your help. I want you to go back and tell me what you can see. Tell me his name.’

I was floating in a sky so blue that it hurt to look. Over the horizon I could see balloons rising. Beneath me, a long way down, I could see the tents and the awnings of the fair.

‘Tents…’ I murmured.

‘Go down. Go to the tent and look in.’

‘N-no…I…’

‘It’s all right. Nothing can hurt you. Go down. What do you see?’

‘Pictures. Statues. No, waxworks.’

‘Closer.’

‘No…’

‘Closer!’

Suddenly I was there again. I was ten years old, curled up against the wall of my bedroom as the Bad Man came towards me with lust and murder in his eyes.

I screamed. ‘No! Mother! Don’t let him! Don’t let the Bad Man come! Don’t let that Bad Man come!’

In the red haze of my drumming blood I heard her voice, still very calm: ‘Who, Marta?’

‘No-oh-ohh!’

‘Tell me who?’

And I looked into his face. The terror peaked, a frozen eternity…then I knew him. The terror fell away and I awoke, Fanny’s strong arms around me, my tears soaking into the crushed velvet of her gown.

Very gently she repeated, ‘Tell me who.’

After a moment I told her.

My mother held me close.

23

I suppose a century ago they would have called me a witch. Well, I’ve been called worse things, some of them true, and what people think has never been a worry to me. I can make up a broth that will calm a fever or brew a posset for dreams of flying, and sometimes, in my mirror, I can see things which aren’t reflections. I know what Henry Chester would call that: but then again I have my own terms for the likes of Henry Chester, and not ones you’d find in the Authorized Version, either.

If it hadn’t been for Henry Chester, Marta would have been twenty years old this July. I’m rich enough to have left her a tidy fortune: there’d have been no danger of her walking the streets. I’d have found her a house, a husband if she wanted one; anything she asked for I’d have given her. But when she was ten years old Henry Chester took her from me, and I waited ten years to take his Effie from him. I’ve not had much time in my life for poetry, but there’s fearful symmetry in that pattern, and that’s justice enough for me. Cold, to be sure, but none the less bitter for that.

I was young when I gave birth to Marta, in as much as I was ever young. She might have had thirty fathers but I didn’t care. She was all mine…and, as she grew, I took pains to shelter her from the kind of life I was living. I sent her to a good school and gave her the education I never had; I bought her clothes and toys and gave her a respectable home with a schoolteacher, a distant relative of my mother. Marta came to see me as often as I dared invite her-I did not want her to be exposed to the kinds of people who came to my house, and I never allowed any of my clients up to the little attic I made into a bedroom for her. I invited her to my house for her birthday and, although that evening I was expecting guests, I had promised I would make up for neglecting her. I kissed her goodnight…and I never saw her alive again.

At ten o’clock I heard her calling me and I ran up to her room…but she was already dead, lying sprawled across the bed with her nightdress around her face.

I knew the murderer had to be one of my clients, but the police simply laughed at me when I demanded they investigate. I was a prostitute, my daughter a prostitute’s daughter. And the clients were wealthy, respectable men. I was lucky not to be arrested myself. As a result my daughter was buried under white marble in Highgate cemetery and her murderer was allowed to forget her for ten years.

Oh, I tried to find him out. I knew he was there: I smelled his guilt behind his respectable façade. Do you know what hate is? Hate was what I ate and drank. In my dreams hate walked alongside me as I stalked my daughter’s murderer and painted the streets of London with his blood.

I kept Marta’s room just as she had left it, with fresh flowers on the bedstand and all her toys in a basket in the corner. Every night I crept up there and I called her-I knew she was there-begging her to give me a name: just a name. If she had given me a name in those early days I would have killed him without the slightest remorse. I would have gone to the gallows in Biblical glory. But in ten years my hate grew hungry and lean, like a starving wolf. It grew clever and slinking, watching everyone with the same suspicious amber eye: everyone, and one man in particular.

Remember, I knew him: I knew his eager, shameful appetites, his abrupt self-loathings, his guilt. The girls he asked for were always the youngest, the unformed ones, the virgins. Not that there were many of them, but I’d seen him watching the beggar-children in the street, and I’d seen his paintings, the old hypocrite: sick longings fit to make an honest woman choke. But he wasn’t the only one I suspected and I couldn’t be sure. I tried to reach my little Marta; at first with candles and the mirror, then with the cards. Always the same cards: the Hermit, the Star, the High Priestess, the Knave of Coins, Change and Death. Always the same cards in differing order: always the Hermit flanked by the Nine of Swords and the Death card. But was Henry Chester the Hermit?

He was clever, you understand. If he’d run I would have known for sure; but he was a cold one. He kept coming, not often, maybe once a month; always polite, always generous. I followed other quarry: men who, too abruptly, had stopped visiting after Marta’s death. A doctor, one of my long-standing clients, suggesting that my little girl had died of some kind of a fit; epilepsy, he said. I didn’t believe it for a minute. But pain and time eroded my conviction; I began to doubt the purity of my hate. Maybe it had been a fit, or an intruder, lured by the prospect of easy pickings. Inconceivable that one of my clients could have committed such an act and remained hidden for so long.

My vengeance slept. Then I learned that Henry had married. A child scarcely out of the schoolroom, they said. A girl of seventeen. Suspicion woke again in me-I’d never been sure of him, never-and my hate went out to them both like a swarm of wasps. What right had they to happiness when Marta was rotting in Highgate? What right had anyone?

I followed them to church one day, hoping to catch a glimpse of the bride, but she was all swathed in black, like a mourner, and I could only see her thin little face under her bonnet. She looked ill and I could not help but feel a drawing-towards her, something which was almost pity. She looked so like my poor lost Marta.

I’ve no liking for preachers: I’d come to see Chester and his wife, not to listen to the sermon, and so I was the first one to see her go. One minute she was listening, the next she was gone, her head tilting forwards like a child saying her prayers. Now, I’ve long had the knack of seeing things that most of you don’t, or won’t see, and as soon as Mrs Chester fell I could see that it was no ordinary faint. I saw her pop out of the body, naked as the day she was born, bless her, and, judging by the look of surprise on her face, I’d guess it was the first time it had happened to her.

A pretty thing she was too, not a bit like Henry Chester’s ethereal paintings, with a beauty natural to herself, like a tree or a cloud. No-one else could see her-and I don’t wonder, in all that army of churchgoers. No-one had taught her that trick: she must have learned it all by herself, and I guessed she had other talents she didn’t know about. Right there and then I wondered whether she might not know something that could help me…I called her, in my mind, and she looked at me sharp as a needle: I knew then that she was the answer to all my questions. All I had to do was bring her to me.

Her name was Effie and I watched her many times without her knowledge, calling her to me from Marta’s little room at the top of my house. I saw she was unhappy, first with Henry, then with Mose. Poor, lonely little girl: I knew it would only be a question of time before I brought her to me and I began to care for her like a daughter. I knew her mind, her haunts…and when I saw her at the fair I knew that this was my chance to talk to her alone.

The crystal-gazer was happy enough to give me her place for the price of a guinea: I sat in the shadows with a veil across my face and Effie didn’t suspect a thing. She was so sensitive to my thoughts that I didn’t even have to put her to sleep: she did it herself…but even so, it was not until she began to speak to me in my daughter’s voice that I truly realized how unique, how precious she could be to me. If she could bring back the voice so clearly, what else might she be capable of? My head was spinning with the possibilities: to see my little girl again, to touch her…why not? Believe me, I wished Effie no harm, but her reaction on being jolted out of her trance astonished even me. The girl was too precious to lose; I couldn’t let her go.

Sure enough, before I had to delve too far, she gave me the name I wanted. Henry Chester, the Hermit, the murderer of my daughter…

I was past the age now of wanting to scream my rebellion on the scaffold. If there was to be a sacrifice, this time it would not be me.

24

It was an accident, I tell you. I never meant to kill her. I was going to tell you about it, but it was so long ago…

Her mother always made me feel uneasy: she was too solid. I felt dwarfed by her, fascinated and repelled by the abundance of her. She seemed barely human: as if beneath her rosy skin I should find, not the blood and muscle of an ordinary woman but some strange compound of black earth and granite, like an Egyptian idol with agate eyes. Her scent was a corrupt sweetness, like a million flyblown roses; a lingering, occult caress from all the secret places of her woman’s body to the shameful longings of my heart. And that woman had a daughter!

I saw her peering out at me through the banisters. Eyes as green as glass fixed me in the half-light from the landing and, as my own gaze focused upon her, she gave a little laugh and jumped to her feet, ready to disappear up the stairs if I moved. She was barefoot and the light outlined her body through the fabric of her nightdress. She had none of her mother’s fearful solidity: the little changeling was almost insubstantial, with straight black hair falling over a hungry, pointed face…and yet, there was a resemblance. Something in the eyes, maybe, or in the fluid grace of her movements: so might golden Ceres have been mirrored in pale Persephone.

I asked her name.

She tilted her head at me; her eyes filled with lights. ‘I’m not supposed to tell.’ The Cornish accent was light, almost imperceptible, like her mother’s, a soft blurring of the syllables.

‘Why not?’

‘I shouldn’t be here. I promised.’ If it had not been for her smile and the way her body stood out against the light I might have believed in her innocence, but I knew that, standing there above me, like a parody of Juliet on the balcony, whatever her age she was her mother’s creature, conceived in sin and bred to pray upon sinners like myself. I could almost smell her perfume from where I stood: a troubling, deceitful combination, like amber and swamp water.

‘I promised,’ she repeated, drawing away from the banister. ‘I have to go.’

‘Wait!’ I could not control my response. Hastily I began to climb the stairs, sweat prickling my temples. ‘Don’t go. I won’t tell. Look’-fumbling in my pockets-‘I’ll give you some chocolate.’

She hesitated, then reached out her hand for the sweet, which she unwrapped immediately and began to eat. Pushing my advantage, I smiled and put my hand on her shoulder.

‘Come now,’ I said kindly. ‘I’ll take you back to your room and tell you a story.’

She nodded solemnly at this and ran quietly up the stairs in front of me, her bare feet like white moths in the darkness. There was nothing I could do but follow.

Her room was tucked away under the eaves of the house, and she jumped on to the bed, legs tucked beneath her, and pulled the bedspread around her. She had finished the chocolate and I watched as she licked her fingers clean in a gesture so potent that my knees almost gave way beneath me.

‘What about my story?’ she asked pertly.

‘Later.’

‘Why not now?’

‘Later!’

The perfume was overwhelming now. She shook it from her hair like a fall of flowers, and in the midst of it I detected the rank smell which might have been my own lust.

I could bear it no longer. I stepped forwards and seized her in my arms and buried my face in her, drowning in her. My legs gave way and I fell with her on to the bed, holding on to her in desperation. For an instant she seemed awesomely powerful, her eyes widening like ripples into the darkness, her open mouth screaming silent curses. She began to struggle and kick, her hair like a flight of black bats fanning out over my face, smothering me with its weight. At that moment, with her lithe, serpentine body coiling against mine, her hair in my mouth and the sickly smell of chocolate in my nostrils, I was certain she was going to kill me.

There was a rushing in my ears and a terrible panic seized hold of me. I began to scream aloud in terror and disgust. I was the sacrifice, she the granite death-goddess gasping for my blood. With the last of my sanity I grabbed at her throat and tightened the grasp as hard as I could…the little witch fought like a demon, screaming and biting, but I found that my strength had returned…

God was with me then: if only I had had the courage to leave the house and never return, perhaps He would not have turned His face away from me…but even in the trembling aftermath of that dreadful battle I felt a kind of unholy excitement, a triumph, as if, instead of quelling the rising tide of lust within me, I had simply opened up the door to a lust of a different kind, one which could never entirely be slaked.

25

I have little recollection of returning to Cromwell Square: it was almost daylight and in a few hours the servants would be about, but Henry was not yet home. I was able to let myself into the house, to undress by myself and to slip into bed. I slept a little, but I had to take more laudanum to combat the evil dreams which threatened my sleep. I could no longer distinguish between reality and imagination so that I wondered whether or not I had dreamed the events I thought had taken place in Crook Street…Had I spoken to Henry? Had Fanny come to me as I slept? At about six o’clock I fell into a deep sleep, and I awoke two hours later when Tabby came in with my chocolate. My head ached dreadfully, I was feverish and, although I tried to show a cheerful face, Tabby guessed immediately that something was amiss.

‘Why, Mrs Chester, you don’t look well at all!’ she observed, pulling the curtains open and drawing closer to the bedside. ‘You’re as pale as can be!’

‘No, Tabby,’ I protested, ‘simply a little tired. I’ll be all right presently.’

‘I’ll tell Mr Chester you’re not well, ma’am,’ said Tabby firmly.

‘No!’ I hastily softened my tone: it would not do for her to sense my panic. ‘No. That won’t be necessary.’

She looked doubtful. ‘Maybe you’d like a drop of laudanum, ma’am?’ I shook my head.

‘Please, no. It’s only a little headache. I’ll be better for this excellent chocolate.’ I forced myself to sip it, even though it was scalding hot, and I smiled reassuringly. ‘Thank you, Tabby, you can go now.’

She left the room with some reluctance, looking over her shoulder as she went, and I told myself that I could not count on her to keep my illness a secret from Henry. Sure enough, ten minutes later he came into the room with a glass and the laudanum bottle.

‘Tabby tells me you won’t take your medicine,’ he said. His eyes flicked to where Tizzy was sitting on my bed, and his mouth twisted sourly. ‘I’ve told you before that I don’t like that cat in your room at night. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was what was causing your illnesses.’

‘It seems to me,’ I said, ‘that both Tabby and you are far too concerned with my health!’ My sharp reply startled me as much as it did Henry, and I flushed and mumbled something apologetic and confused. I tried to remember why I should feel such sudden hostility towards Henry…and then I remembered the dream-was it a dream?-in which I had witnessed…It was at the back of my mind, tantalizingly close to recollection, but I could not remember it fully. Only the impression remained: that feeling of disgust and hatred, a thirst for vengeance which did not seem to be my own. The violence of the emotions shook me all the more because I could not remember why I should feel them, and it was with a trembling voice that I continued: ‘I’ll be all right. Please, don’t give me any more laudanum.’

He gave me a look of contempt and began to measure drops from the bottle into the glass.

‘You’ll do as I say, Effie. I’m in no mood for your temper this morning. Take your medicine now, and another dose with your midday meal, or you’ll make me angry.’

‘But I don’t need any medicine. Just let me go for a walk in the fresh air…’

‘Effie!’ His tone was cold. ‘I will not allow you to cross me. I know your nerves are bad, but you put me out of all patience with you! If you were a real wife…’ He bit off the rest of the sentence. ‘If you persist in this wilful behaviour,’ he went on in a quieter tone, ‘I shall wash my hands of you and refer you to Russell. He has plenty of experience with hysterics.’

‘I am not an hysteric!’ I protested. ‘I…’ But, seeing the expression in his eyes, I submitted and took the drink, hating him but unable to resist.

‘That’s better.’ His eyes were hard and somehow triumphant. ‘And remember, a less patient man would soon have had done with your tantrums. I promise you that if you cause any more disorder with your tears and your stubbornness I will call Russell to see you. If you won’t drink your medicine I’ll make you drink it; and if you won’t behave as a good wife should, I’ll expect the doctor to tell me why. Is that understood?’

I nodded, and I saw a smile flicker behind his eyes; a malicious, furtive smile.

‘I made you what you are, Effie,’ he said softly. ‘You were nothing before I discovered you. You are what I say you are. If I want you to be an hysteric, an hysteric is what you will be. Don’t think the doctor would believe you rather than me; if I told him I thought you were mad, he would agree. I can say it when I like, Effie. I can make you do what I like.’

I tried to speak, but as his exultant face swam in and out of focus before my tired eyes. I was conscious only of a terrible urge to cry. Perhaps he saw it; because the hard line of his mouth softened and he leaned to kiss me gently on the lips.

‘I love you, Effie,’ he whispered, his tenderness even more frightening than his anger. ‘I do these things because I love you. I want you to be mine, to be safe, to be well. You have no idea what filth there is in the world, what dangers for a lovely girl like you…You have to trust me, Effie. Trust and obey me.’ Gently but firmly he turned my face to look at his. His expression was concerned, but in his eyes I could still see that dancing, cruel glee. ‘I’d do anything to protect you, Effie.’ His intensity was almost unbearable.

‘Even lock me away?’ My voice was barely a whisper. His gaze was steady, his flat voice almost disguising the malice.

‘Oh yes, Effie. I’d kill you rather than see you spoiled.’

He left me then, and as I lay on the bed, my mind a drugged haze of confusion, I tried to remember what I knew about Henry Chester-but all I could recall was the image of Fanny’s calm face, the feel of her hand against my hair, and an image of balloons…

I awoke at about twelve o’clock, feeling less tired, but very dull and confused. I washed and dressed myself and went downstairs to the parlour. Henry had already gone out. I decided to walk to Highgate to clear my head and to escape the oppressive air of the house. I was about to put on my cloak when Tabby came in carrying a tray: seeing me dressed to go out, she started in surprise.

‘Why ma’am! Surely you’re not going outside, after you were so ill this morning!’

‘I feel much better now, Tabby,’ I replied mildly. ‘I believe a walk will do me good.’

‘But you’ve not eaten a thing! Here, look; I’ve got some nice gingerbread in the oven-it won’t be more than a few minutes-and you always used to like a piece of warm gingerbread in the old days.’

‘Tabby, I’m not hungry, thank you. Perhaps I’ll take something later, when I get back. Please don’t worry.’

Tabby shook her head. ‘Mr Chester wouldn’t be at all pleased if I let you go out today. He said that you mustn’t go out for any reason, with the state you were in, ma’am.’ She flushed slightly. ‘I know you’d like to go, ma’am, but try and see the sense of it. There’s no point in causing the poor gentleman any more worry…and he did say, ma’am.’ There was a crease between her eyes. She was fond of me…but Henry was master of the house.

‘I see.’ For an instant I was flushed with rebellion: what did Henry’s instructions matter? Then I remembered what he had said about Dr Russell, and Tabby’s artless repetition of his words: ‘the state you were in’. I felt a sudden chill.

‘Perhaps I’ll stay in after all,’ I said with pretended nonchalance, taking off my cloak and forcing myself to sit down.

‘I think you’d better, ma’am,’ said Tabby in a motherly tone. ‘Perhaps you’d like some tea? Or some chocolate? Or some of that gingerbread when it comes out?’

I nodded, my forced smile cramping my jaw. ‘Thank you.’

I strained to maintain my calm as Tabby tidied the parlour. It seemed that she spent an eternity lighting the fire, plumping the cushions, making sure I had everything I needed. I could have told her I wanted to be alone, of course: but her devotion to me was real and touching-and besides, I didn’t want her to report to Henry that I had been at all nervous or unbalanced. His threat had been clear…The very thought of it filled me with a hysteria I struggled to overcome: if I was judged too ill or unstable to leave the house alone, when could I see Mose? When could I see Fanny?

I sprang to my feet and ran to the window. I looked out at the garden, where the rain had just begun to fall. I opened the window, stretching my arms out, feeling the moisture on my face, my hands. The rain was warm, the scent of the wet garden sharply nostalgic, like the churchyard at night, and I felt some of my panic diminish. Leaving the window wide behind me I returned to my seat and tried to think clearly, but the more I tried to marshal my thoughts the deeper I drifted into that half-world of the previous night, where every memory seemed touched with a narcotic deceit. Perhaps Henry was right; perhaps I was going mad. If only I could see Mose…

No! Not yet. First I had to convince Henry that I was well enough to be allowed out alone. He was the enemy, I told myself firmly; he was the guilty one, not me. I had a right to hate him. I had a right to be unhappy.

It was the first time I had admitted as much to myself; in a quiet way I declared war on Henry that day, a war filled with hate and cunning. He might think he had all the weapons, but I was not the pretty idiot he thought me: I would prove that. I, at least, had the advantage of surprise…

26

I didn’t see Effie the next day and, to tell the truth, I didn’t miss her: I had serious things on my mind. For a start, a volley of creditors had seen fit to descend upon me en masse demanding payment. If I had had the advantage of Fanny’s crystal ball, no doubt I would have arranged to be elsewhere when they called, but the melancholy fact was that I was obliged, after some small unpleasantness, to pay out a sum of almost a hundred pounds. This left me sadly depleted and I spent a dreary afternoon poring over my accounts, after which I was forced to admit that I was in debt to the tune of over four hundred pounds, a sum that even I found difficult to make light of. A pleading note from Effie did nothing to cheer my mood: her maid-Em, wasn’t it?-brought it at six in the evening, by which time I was pleasantly castaway over a bottle of wine and most unwilling for a repetition of our tryst of the previous night. I opened the note (heavily sealed) and by the light of my candle attempted to decipher Effie’s laboured scrawl.

Dearest Mose,

I must see you as soon as possible; I am in a Desperate Situation. Henry will not let me leave the House and threatens me with the Doctor if I do not obey. I must escape, but I have nowhere to go. Please call when Henry is working. You must help me. I love you.

E.

I read the artless missive with no great relish. I could tell from the handwriting and the heavy underscoring that Effie had been in a state of great agitation when she wrote it, but I thought nothing of that. I knew how easily Effie could be thrown into hysterics and, as there is none of the Sir Galahad about me, I dismissed the whole thing with the minimum of thought.

I make no apologies: I’ll not be at the beck and call of any woman, especially one in distress; I’ll leave the fairy stories for the likes of Henry Chester. Tales in which the handsome prince runs off with the princess always seem to end with a sentence of marriage for the handsome prince-and I sensed a desperate threat in Effie’s little note. So I ignored the letter. It was the kindest thing to do, I told myself, make a quick end to the whole affair, leave her to her daydreams, and soon enough she’d find another man to pin her hopes on. I was fond enough of her to be glad that no scandal would come to her through me.

Scandal. Now that was an idea.

I had been so absorbed in making my decision over Effie that for a few minutes I had actually forgotten my own financial problems. In my moment of philanthropy I had missed an opportunity which shone out at me sweet and clear as sunlight…and which might indeed solve my problems, and Effie’s, too. Through the mist of the wine my mind began to make rapid calculations.

Don’t call it blackmail: that’s such an inelegant word. Call it creative investment if you wish. I had no love for Henry Chester. If he was fool enough to prefer girls in brothels to his ravishing wife he might as well pay for the privilege. He had plenty of money; I, on the other hand, had none. He was steeped to the eyes in his scruples; again, I had none. God was on his side-what more could he want?

I picked Effie’s note out of the waste basket, smoothing the creased page reflectively. I hated to deceive her, but for the moment I would play her game.

I reached for a pen, sharpened it and wrote a quick note to Effie. Then I put on my coat and called a cab to take me to Crook Street. I had the feeling that Fanny could give me a great deal of help if I asked her.

27

I knew he would come: his greed and selfishness were the strongest and best things in him and I knew he would not disappoint me. If he had not, I suppose I would eventually have fed him the idea, but it was much better that he should come to me with it himself. He played all his charm to me that evening, little knowing that our aims were similar. He needed me, he said, to set the stage for a scandalous little scene which would ruin Henry if it were exposed. His Academy exhibition, his marriage, his standing in the church…all would be at an end if even a hint of the pious Mr Chester’s secret activities were whispered in the right ears. And there was Effie, of course: Henry seemed to be holding the threat of a nerve doctor over her to ensure her obedience. If she were to reveal her knowledge to him, Henry would be powerless to frighten her again.

Mose was quick to point out that he would not be the only one to benefit from the plot: Effie would be freed from tyranny, he would earn a little much-needed tin (only a little, for he was not a greedy man) and I…Well, there I had him at a disadvantage. He could not understand why I refused the money; was it affection for Effie which prompted me? Was it some undisclosed grudge against the good Henry? I could tell he was itching to be told, but I laughed and told him nothing. He was too clever and unscrupulous to be trusted even with a truth he would not believe.

‘No, no, Mose,’ I said, smiling, ‘I’ll not say a word. Call it a grudge if you like, or simply a woman’s love of mischief. Besides, Effie’s a good girl and I hate to see her made unhappy by that hypocrite. What’s your plan?’

Mose grinned. ‘You tell me when Henry is expected at your house,’ he explained. ‘Arrange for me to watch him with one of your girls. After that, all I have to do is to write a nice little letter, with quotes and references and a promise to reveal details to all interested parties, and I promise you Henry will pay what I ask him when I ask him, as often as I please. And all that without any risk at all.’

I frowned. ‘But how will any of that help Effie?’ I asked. ‘I can see how it would benefit you, but before I agree to any such plan I want to be certain that Effie will be happy.’ I feigned puzzlement for a moment. ‘I suppose you could write to her, too…’ I suggested tentatively.

‘No!’ Mose’s face lit up. ‘I have a much better idea. I arrange for her to be there with me. Then, if Henry calls my bluff and refuses to pay, I have a much more reliable witness-who better than his wife? If she reveals that she saw him in a brothel, which of his fine, churchgoing friends will ever speak to him again?’

I looked at him with some admiration. What an apt pupil he was! So high on his arrogant pinnacle that he never realized how easily he was being manipulated.

‘Effie here too…’ My voice trailed off. ‘I would never have thought of that. But I like it,’ I decided, more forcefully. ‘I think it will work. Tell Effie that Henry will be here again next Thursday at midnight. Tell her to be here at eleven. I’ll hide her before Henry arrives. You be there at twenty past twelve, giving Henry time to prepare himself. I’ll see to the rest.’

28

I spent my entire day at the studio working on The Card Players. I was very satisfied with the canvas; it was a powerful piece, with Harper sitting slouched against the wall with his elbows on the table and his face half tilted into the light, watching his hand with that expression of clever nonchalance which so typified him. A greenish oil-lamp guttered uncleanly above him, highlighting the greasy walls and the unvarnished table and throwing into sharp relief the thick glasses filled with milky absinthe.

I had sketched in the figure of the woman in charcoal, using a town model for the posture only: I wanted her to be in half-profile, one hand on the table in front of her, the other holding the Queen of Spades playfully to her lips…Soon I would need finer material, some dark-haired unknown. Not Effie, I decided; definitely not Effie. First, I hated to see her sitting so intimately with Harper, even in my own painting, and secondly…It was a vague, nebulous refusal, a sensation of unease as I envisaged her in my studio. Why should I be uneasy? I asked myself. She had sat there for me a thousand times. Why not this time? I could not answer. Instead my memory threw me a brief image, cold and intense as a brush with a ghost…a thin face staring at me in the dark, a voice like lace and frost whispering together, a scent of chocolate…

From where had that rogue memory surfaced? And that face, unformed and yet familiar, the white blur of little Persephone’s face in the gloom of the underworld? I clenched my fists in frustration: I had seen her before, my Queen of Spades. Who was she?

Who?

When I arrived home, Effie was working at her embroidery, demure as a good child. The silks were spread about on the ottoman, on the footstool, on the grey flannel of her dress, and the threads and the long panel of tapestry were the only colour about her. She might have been a nun with her hair loose like a coif around her shoulders and, for a moment, her seeming purity was spectral, terrifying, like a vision of the Holy Virgin. Then she looked up, and in that instant I saw her face like that of a vengeful crone, grimacing in hate and fury, a white-haired Norn older than time with my life held by a thread in her knotted fingers. I almost screamed.

Then the light shifted again and she was Effie, her expression as meek and innocent as that of the Sleeping Beauty in her tapestry. I wondered what spiteful thoughts had been playing in her head and, seeing her smile, I determined to take care. There was something knowing about her smile, something which belied her timid voice when she greeted me. Had she been out? Had she been reading the forbidden books? Had she searched my room?

I forced a smile in return. ‘Are you feeling better now, Effie?’ I asked.

‘Yes, thank you, much better. My headache is quite gone now, and I have been working at my embroidery all afternoon.’ As if to underline that, she put the tapestry aside and began to wind the silks into a tidy plait.

‘Excellent,’ I said. ‘However, bearing in mind your condition this morning I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to go out for a few days at least.’ I expected her to protest at this, knowing from Tabby how she liked to go for walks, but Effie did not flinch.

‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘I think it best to stay in the house while I am unwell: I should not like to catch a chill in the cemetery.’

‘And no reading,’ I added, thinking that if anything was going to shake her composure it would be a reference to her precious books. ‘I’m certain that for a girl of your fanciful temperament, novels and poetry can only do incalculable harm. I have several improving books, as well as a store of tracts for you to read if you wish, but I have taken the rest of your books from the library and would ask you not to purchase any more.’ I fully expected an outburst at that, but she merely nodded-and was that the tiniest smile on her pale lips?-and began to lay away her embroidery in her work-basket.

‘I want to try and finish this tapestry this year, if I can,’ she said. ‘I think it might be pretty as a fire-screen, or maybe the centrepiece for a bedspread. What do you think?’

‘As you wish,’ I said coolly. ‘I’m no judge of such things.’

I was surprised and rather disturbed. She had been helpless and hysterical that morning, wailing and crying like a spoilt child; now she was cool and self-possessed, her politeness almost a form of contempt. What secret was she keeping from me?

I watched her carefully over supper. As usual she ate little, but consented to take some bread and butter when I commented upon her loss of appetite. She was docile, sweet, and charming-why then did my stomach clench at the thought of her docility, her sweetness? My unease and dissatisfaction grew and eventually I retired to the smoking-room and left her alone.

I told myself that I was simply nervous: I had hardly slept the previous night, I had worked all day in the studio and I was tired. That was all. But somehow that was not all. While I was away something had happened to Effie, something secret, perhaps even something dangerous. In a strange, undisclosed way, I felt that Effie was no longer alone, no longer mine. I stayed awake late into that night, smoking and drinking, racking my brain to discover what had finally awoken my pale little sister.