Dark Angel (105 page)

I stopped again. Stern’s eyes rested on my face; he was watching me now, I saw, with marked attention.

“Quarrel? And which quarrel was that?”

I was blushing. Having stepped into that particular pit, I could see no way of extricating myself. I looked at my watch.

“It’s getting very late. I was just thinking, perhaps I ought to go.”

“My dear, you were thinking no such thing. What quarrel?” It was said politely, but again I could feel the force of his will.

“You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s just that it wasn’t the most tactful thing to have said—I can see that.”

“It was untactful? And why was that?”

“Because you don’t want to speak of Constance,” I replied in a rush. “I can see that, and I respect that, and I didn’t intend to mention her—”

“You did not mention her. You mentioned a quarrel.”

“Yes, well, I know about that. There was a … disagreement about money, between you and my parents. It was why you and Constance never returned to Winterscombe. Constance explained all that to me. I understand. I’m sure it’s a bad idea, to borrow money from friends. It always leads to disagreements—”

I stopped for a third time. Every addition to that embarrassed explanation was making things worse. Stern was now frowning with some displeasure.

“But you are wrong,” he said in a cold voice. “I quite agree with you that to borrow from, or lend to, friends can be unwise. However, I never lent to your parents. Nor was I asked to. In fact”—the frown deepened—“I cannot recall having quarreled with them, on any occasion. I simply ceased to see them, after the end of my marriage.”

I had risen to my feet. As he said this I sat down again. I said, in a miserable way:

“Oh. I must have misunderstood. I am sorry.”

Stern continued to look at me, his face thoughtful. He extinguished the cigar. He allowed the silence to continue, and then, as if coming to a sudden decision, he leaned forward.

“Is something wrong, my dear? You look unhappy. What you have just said hardly justifies that expression. Whatever is wrong is rather more serious than a conversational faux pas, I think. Won’t you tell me? Wait.” He held up his hand and smiled. “If I am to be treated as a father confessor—and at my age I am quite used to that—then I must first have a brandy. You, too, my dear. No, don’t argue. You will like it. It is very good brandy.”

It was very good brandy. It hit the back of my throat and warmed my stomach. I stared at the glass, wondering whether to speak or not.

“If it helps you,” Stern began quietly, “consider my age. Consider my … position. I think you will find that there is very little you could say to me that would surprise me. Also …” He hesitated. “Frank speaks to me, you know. I am not unacquainted with his hopes—and with some of his worries.”

“Frank confides in you?”

“There is no need to look so fierce, my dear. Frank Gerhard, as I’m sure you know, is both loyal and—for his age—very discreet. He has said nothing to me about you, or anyone close to you, which he would not say to your face. However, I can draw certain conclusions of my own. So why not tell me what is worrying you? You need not be concerned—it will cause me no pain or embarrassment, should you wish to speak of my wife.”

That last remark, I think, was not true. I am sure that it did cause Stern pain when I spoke of Constance—I could see it in his eyes. Nevertheless I did so. I hope I was not disloyal, but I was desperate for his advice. In many ways I can see now that the question I was asking him was the same question I had been asking all my life: Who
is
Constance, and what is she?

I did not tell him the story of the Van Dynem twins or that moment of revelation in her drawing room. I can see now that I did not need to. What I said centered on Constance’s capacity for fiction. I tried to explain her interventions between Frank and me; I tried to explain her gift for turning truth inside out. I tried to explain the central issue: When I was with Constance, I did not know myself.

Stern heard me out to the end.

“You see,” I said finally, “I love Frank very much. I also love Constance. And I can see—she is going to make me choose between them. She will force a confrontation. And I’m afraid—I’m so very afraid—of that.”

“I understand,” Stern said after a long silence. He looked across the room in an abstracted way, as if trying to decide something. The silence went on so long it seemed he had forgotten I was there. Then, just as I was about to suggest that I should leave after all, he roused himself.

“Listen, my dear,” he said. “I shall tell you a story.”

That story was about an apartment in New York, and I will tell it to you in due course. It was about the apartment where, all those years later, Constance would leave me her journals, with her little note:
Here I am.

I am certain it was a story Stern had never told before and would never tell again. I think he told it for his own sake as well as mine, as if it held a truth that he had to examine one last time. He did not say that. When he had finished, he made a dismissive remark about his wish that history should not repeat itself. I thought for a moment that he regretted having spoken.

Then he leaned across the table and took my hands in his. His dignity remained unimpaired, but the composure had gone; his face was marked, almost scarred, with the deepest emotion.

“That was how, and why, my marriage ended,” he said. “I tell you this because I admire your friend who has just left us, and because, as far as he is concerned, you should not hesitate. If it comes to a choice, that is the choice you should make.” He paused. “And I tell you this for one other reason, because our predicaments are alike. No matter the circumstances, despite everything, I have always loved my wife.”

Later the same evening I returned to Frank’s apartment. There, I told him the story that Stern had told me; he listened in silence, his back to me, looking out at the night sky from the window.

“I knew he loved her,” he said when I had finished. “He rarely speaks of her. I still knew.”

“She has lied to me, Frank. I can see that now. Not just little lies. Big ones. Lies that matter. Lies that go right to the heart of everything. She’s lied about my parents, about Winterscombe, the quarrel—”

“Did Stern explain that?”

“No, he didn’t. But she did lie. It was nothing to do with money—I can see that. She’s lied about her marriage, about Stern. She’s lied about herself. I feel I don’t know her anymore. I don’t know how to speak to her, how to trust her—”

“I think … you’ve known that for some time.” He came back to me. “Darling, haven’t you?”

“Perhaps. Half-known. Didn’t want to know. Refused to admit. All those things.”

“Can I say something to you, something important? About her, and about those lies?”

He sat down next to me and put his arm around my shoulders. “It has to be said. Sooner or later. I had hoped … but I see now we cannot evade this.”

There was a silence.

“She took our letters,” he said at last, with a quiet reluctance. “Darling, you must know this. You must have realized. If she has lied to you, that was the worst lie of all. Are you listening to me? I know I’m right. She took the letters.”

I stared at the floor. When had that possibility first occurred to me? When had I first acknowledged it? I knew the answer to that: It was the night Bobsy van Dynem died, when she gave that small dismissive nod to his brother, and I had understood—Constance liked to break people.

“I’ve thought of it,” I said. “I even thought of asking her. But she would only deny it. It’s not something that I could ever prove.”

“I know she took them.” He hesitated, frowning. “In some ways, I think I’ve always known, from the very first moment I met her. When she kissed me, that first day—do you remember? Then I told myself I was wrong—it was impossible. But it isn’t. It’s feasible, and … it’s in character.”

“I can’t believe that—I still can’t believe that.” I turned to him imploringly. “She does love me, Frank.”

“I know that. I don’t doubt it for one second. But what she loves, she destroys.” He stopped. “You do understand—she will destroy you, if you let her? She’ll break you down, and break you apart—step by step. And she’ll do it so skillfully, so sweetly, you’ll never feel it happening until it’s too late. That’s what will happen—if you let her.”

“That isn’t true.” I stood up. “You shouldn’t say that. It makes me sound so weak.”

“You are not weak.” He sounded resigned. “But she has one great advantage. You went to her as a child. You know what the Jesuits say? Give me the child, and I will give you the man.”

“That’s not true either. I am not her woman—”

“No, you are not. But a part of you belongs to her. When you doubt yourself, that is Constance, who wants you to doubt. When you know something to be true, and you doubt—that is Constance. When you doubt us, when you doubt me—that is Constance also.”

I knew what he said was true, and the sadness with which he said it cut me.

“Is it so wrong to doubt?” I said at last.

“Sometimes. Very wrong. I think so. Maybe
I
am wrong—” He broke off. “But I believe, when we all have so very little time, maybe we shouldn’t waste too much of it. On doubts. Or on delays. And there I am at fault—I know that.”

There was a pause. I saw him look around the apartment; then he turned back. “I thought we should wait—until circumstances were perfect. Until I could give you the things I thought you should have. I can see now that was wrong. I said I would make a speech—but now I think I won’t make this speech. I love you, and I want to marry you, Victoria.”

One month later, and a few weeks before the date set for our marriage, Montague Stern suffered a heart attack; he died shortly afterward. I learned the news in a long, distracted, and emotional call from Constance. I was in France, and Frank (to Constance’s vexation) was with me, taking two weeks away from the Institute. When I told him, it was a Friday morning; we were sitting on a hotel terrace, over an early breakfast. A most beautiful summer’s day, the sky unclouded. The house I was decorating lay across the valley; the river Loire lay below us, snaking into the distance, mile upon mile. The movement of the water was invisible.

When I told him the news, Frank rose and turned away from me. There was a long silence.

“When did it happen?” he said finally.

“During the night.” I hesitated. “Frank, she’s terribly distressed. She was not acting. I shall have to go back.”

Frank turned his face away toward the river. He said carefully:

“She hasn’t lived with Stern—she’s virtually not spoken to Stern—in nearly thirty years. But she is so distressed that you have to go back? You will fly three thousand miles, interrupt your work—after all that has happened?”

“She is his
widow.
They never divorced. That one time he came to the apartment, after Bertie died … Frank, if you’d seen her face then … In
her way,
she loved him.”

“We’ve discussed the results of her love.” His face stiffened. “Stern deserves to be mourned—but not in her company.”

“I promised her I would go. The funeral is Sunday. It will be Orthodox. She begged me to be with her, and I agreed. Frank, whatever she’s done, I cannot just turn away from her. She’s losing everyone. She’s lost Stern; she’s losing me—”

“Is she?” he said sharply. “You are marrying me. That does not mean she’s losing you.”

“
She
feels she is. And it’s true, in a sense. We are not close, as we once were. Frank, please—she’s asking for my help. She just wants me there a short while, a week—”

“She is asking for your help?” His face darkened. “Very well, then so will I. I ask you to stay here. I ask you not to go to her.”

“Frank,
why
? What harm can it do now?”

“I’m not going to discuss this.”

I think I had never seen him so angry. I watched him fight that anger, and his face—passionate a moment before—became closed. He stood looking down at me. Then, in a cold voice, a voice he had never used to me before, he said: “Very well. You will go back, and I will go with you. I should attend the funeral in any case. I would like to be there. Assist your godmother through her period of distress. I don’t imagine it will be a long one.”

He was wrong. Constance’s grief was deep. It also lasted for months.

She insisted, when I arrived, that she would attend Stern’s funeral the next day without me. “I am going alone, in my own way,” she cried angrily when I tried to dissuade her. “He was
my
husband. Why should you be there? You never knew him.”

Her manner was imperious and agitated. I knew that if I told her then that I had met Stern, it would have provoked a scene. The next morning I tried to explain that Frank had known Stern and would be at the funeral. I am not sure she listened, or that she heard me. She was pacing up and down the room, dressed in black from head to foot, brandishing a letter sent by Stern’s solicitors. I had already been made to read this letter, which gave the preliminary details of Stern’s will. The bulk of his estate went to charity; his properties, which were numerous, had been left to Constance.

“Look at this letter! I hate this letter! I hate lawyers! I hate the words they use! Houses—how dare he leave me houses! Especially
these
houses. Scotland, the house where we spent our honeymoon—he’s left me that. How could he do something so cruel? I know what he was trying to do—make me think, make me remember. It won’t work. I’ll sell it. I’ll sell all of them.”

I had promised her that I would wait at her apartment for her return. That return grew later and later. The funeral, I knew, would be over by midday. It was late afternoon when Constance made her appearance.

The black clothes drained all color from her skin. Her face was ashen. She would neither sit nor stand still. She paced up and down, up and down, beginning a sentence, breaking off.

“I hate time!” she cried out at last, in a violent way. Her eyes looked black, as they always did when she was angry. Her black-gloved hands shook.

“Why can’t we stop time? Why can’t we wind it back? It marches over us—can’t you hear the sound of its boots? I can.” She covered her ears with her hands. “Tramp, tramp, tramp. It deafens me. It makes my heart ache. I want it to stop. I want it to go back. Oh, I wish I were God!”