The Devil's Mask (9 page)

Dusk was turning the grey sky a dirty green before I set off for home. Even after I was certain the man had gone, I could not bring myself to move from the uneven floorboards. I felt peculiarly calm. Nothing that bad had happened. I'd thought it might, and had nearly brought disaster upon myself by fighting, but had held back. The man said there were mantraps sprung in these half-built mansions. Was that really the case? No matter, the danger had passed. Now I could sit and look at the view through this jagged gap without fear. Sky, hills, city, docks, trees, building works, rubble, sheer wall. The matchstick masts of some ship or other inching its way into port. I'd kept my head. I would not be painting the rubble with my own blood any time soon.

Such had been the intended lesson, surely, that I was master of my own destiny?

I lost the moving masts among the clutter of those others already moored in the harbour. Where had the new ship come from? What did her cargo comprise? What precious stuff, packed tight in her hold, would the stevedores soon be busy unloading? And how much of it would the ship's owners declare?

‘Anchovies, alabaster, alum,' I recited out loud. ‘Argol, arms, arsenic.' I shook my head. What did I care?

I stared long and hard at the city bubbling beneath its
cloud of grime. It was as full of scheming and scamming as the next place. Why risk everything, or
anything
even, battling against so commonplace a corruption? From up here you could see where the town ended and all else began. I had experienced so laughably little of the rest of the world. Though sharp, the knife had barely scratched me. Abducted! A melodramatic word. The memory of the fright served only to prove how thoroughly … intact … I was now.

Eventually, I stood up and shook out my limbs. Despite the long walk that morning and the fright of what had happened since, I felt light and abuzz and strong. I took deep breaths, savouring the fresh air. A church bell tolled in the distance. Its chimes did not resonate so much as evaporate above the city. I missed counting the hour, so checked my pocket-watch for the time and gave a start upon seeing that it read six o'clock. The poetry recital! If I paced it out, there would still be time to change my shirt and make it to the Alexanders' house within the hour.

The poet was a woman. Her name was Edie Dyer. Upon making this discovery Mrs Alexander was all for turning around and going home, which reaction others seemed to have had as well, for visitors to the recital rooms were as yet thin on the ground. But the prospect of a spoiled evening so worked upon Lilly – her wide eyes set to quick-blinking, and the gloved fingers of her right hand fluttered before her mouth – that her father, Heston, overruled the proposed retreat immediately. ‘Man or woman, poetry's poetry,' he explained to the audience members assembled in the foyer. This seemed magnanimous, but the shrug the merchant gave as he spoke betrayed his opinion that neither sex could redeem the activity from being, at heart, a waste of time.

Lilly recovered her composure admirably once the evening was no longer in doubt. She put her head together with Abigail, their eyes darting this way and that. My fiancée looked younger today. Something to do with being beyond the sanctuary of her own house, perhaps. I felt a surge of protectiveness and took a step in the girls' direction.

‘Bombazine? Bum-be-seen rather!'

‘And shouldn't someone explain that sleeves these days are trimmed and puffed?'

Lilly's laughter was a note higher than her sister's. I drew up short.

‘A brooch and earrings that matched might not hamper her cause, either!'

‘I think the poor thing is a little beyond that.'

Following their gaze, I caught a glimpse of a slender young woman in an oddly old-fashioned, dark dress. She was quickly obscured behind moving backs. Before I could think of anything to add to their conversation, Lilly and Abigail had turned their attention to others amongst the guests, and I was left staring at my boots. They were dirty, dull despite the gleaming foyer lamps. I recalled the yawning drop that had stood before them earlier and my stomach turned over.

‘You look pale, Inigo,' said Mrs Alexander. ‘You're not feeling unwell, I hope?'

Something in her tone suggested that an affirmative response would not have disappointed her, and not just because it would have afforded an excuse for the party to go home.

‘Thank you but no, I'm fine. Tired, perhaps. That's all.'

‘I always find the entertainments are more bearable on the back of a hard day's work,' Heston Alexander said.

‘Enjoyable rather than bearable, dear, I'm sure.'

‘Hmm? I suppose. What have you been up to that's driven the wind from your sails, then?'

‘Oh, I don't think Inigo wants to relive his day now. Once was surely enough!'

I shot my mother-in-law-to-be an enquiring look, then wished I hadn't, for it registered in the wobble of her head. The woman liked nothing better than a chance to register a perceived sleight. She knew nothing of anything anyway. Lilly was still tittering with her sister – about another woman
who was wearing kid gloves the wrong shade of yellow – behind me. Weariness welled up.

We stuttered through to the recital room, an expanse of red and gold burnished by lamplight. Concentric rings of plush chairs held a small stage at bay. I stood to one side and let the family jockey for position; Lilly eventually triumphed over her mother in her conspiracy to secure us seats together. This victory left me curiously flat until, as I sat down, Lilly took hold of my hand, and the warmth of her palm pressing through her silken glove stirred me to glance her way. She has the finest profile. A gentle chin, sweet lips, a pretty nose, and her skin, in this flickering light, was a coral pink. The chatter whispered itself silent like a breeze through meadow grass. I confined myself to a single pump of Lilly's hand, hard enough for the delicate bones within to flex and rub across one another. I felt her stiffen for an instant in her seat before I let go. A figure climbed on to the stage. Before Lilly and her sister had clashed heads in their urgency to whisper their recognition, I suspected what was coming: the poetess, Edie Dyer, was the thin woman in the black dress about whom they had been gossiping in the foyer. She was young, but appeared undaunted. A chair had been set on the stage. She picked it up mannishly and moved it into the shadows. There was something brazen about the woman, apparent not just in her unconventional dress but in the set of her bones. She was all angles, with a mile of gawky neck, and raw-looking wrists, and long fingers – no gloves. She took in the audience unhurriedly and without smiling, waiting for the final murmurings to die down, and pushed a strand of fallen hair – there was no way it could be termed a ringlet – away from her forehead before reading her first poem.

I listened.

I was drawn in and forgot myself.

Had I been asked to explain what the poems were about at the end of the reading I could not have done so, but word by word, line by line, verse by verse, they made sense. They were like dreams, realer than real in the moment before waking, then gone. The rustle of Mrs Alexander's skirts and Lilly's flower-water scent and the fact that my knees were skewed sideways to avoid the back of the seat in front of me, none of it had the power to distract me while the woman read. There was something oddly direct about the poems. The crags and buzzards and herdsmen and pastures and brooks in them were just crags and buzzards and herdsmen and pastures and brooks. Where were the satyrs? The heroes? The gods? By failing to invoke them and writing so … straight … the woman's verses were confrontational and mesmerising. Pain was hurtful; impoverishment was miserable; glimpsed hope was enough to make a heart soar. The woman's verses were infuriatingly good. It was well into the recital before I realised none of the lines rhymed.

At some point I had let go of Lilly's hand. I glanced at her to check how she was enjoying the reading and saw that she was already looking at me. Beyond Lilly, I made out the profiles of her sister and mother, both of whom were looking to the stage – Abigail with a wry smirk, Mrs Alexander disapprovingly, her mouth more than usually pursed. It appeared that past them Heston Alexander, whose chin had dropped to his chest, was asleep.

My walk out to Long Ashton, those scrawny children, my premonition about the washed-up body and the initials. The
shock! A coffee sack thrust over my head. A carriage climbing a hill, building sites, the long, long drop. Dock duties and death. The sense I'd strayed somewhere I shouldn't have, and the revelation, once my misstep had been pointed out, that I was the sort to flee from consequences so swiftly. Was I driven by curiosity and nothing else? How easily my obligation to Carthy had been brushed aside. What mattered more, deep down, was Lilly's white throat and her tinkling silly laughter, and the coffee stain on Mary's apron and the heft of her hip beneath it. Coffee! Too much, and not enough sleep, and a father and brothers I could not reach, and now this complication of a girl in her widow-like dress with her awkwardness and assuredness and her words, words, words, which were somehow wrapping me up safe and belittling me at the same time.

The poet's recital ended. I was careful to keep my applause short. There was much waving and sidestepping and nodding in recognition from Mrs Alexander and her daughters as they worked their way through the other audience members and out into the foyer. Between them they seemed to know everyone. Heston followed behind with me, yawning and stretching and saying, ‘Marvellous, poetical,' and clapping me on the back before adding, ‘though of course I can't claim to have a trained ear.'

‘The verses were original.'

‘Hmm? Absolutely. Certainly she gave me an appetite. Lord! I could eat, and dinner awaits!'

Heston attempted to steer his wife towards the door, but Mrs Alexander held firm on the carpet with a mincing smile, indicating that she and her daughters were in conversation
with a man whose moustache, I noticed, was the colour of egg-yolk. Heston cast around for somebody of his own to accost, beckoning me as he homed in on Lloyd Sutherland, the new owner of the recital rooms no less, who was himself holding forth amongst a group which included … the poetess. Before I knew what was happening, I found myself face to face with the woman. My prospective father-in-law appeared either to have forgotten her already, or considered her unworthy of including in his interruption; he opted instead to compliment the new owner on his purchase of so important a civic space, then asked him directly when he expected to see a return on his investment.

The poetess looked away with a feline lack of concern.

I shuffled from foot to foot.

Heston Alexander, perhaps sensing his faux pas, eventually offered his hand to the young woman and explained confidentially, ‘This young man is also prone to a bit of art, you know! Pictures, etcetera.' His work done, he turned back to Sutherland and asked with what other entertainments he intended to improve the city.

I felt the colour rising in my cheeks.

‘You paint?' the young woman murmured.

I offered my hand and managed a stilted, ‘Inigo Bright.'

‘What sort of paintings do you make, Mr Bright?'

‘No. I don't paint. Mr Alexander was mistaken in referring to my doodlings as art. Simple ink drawings are my limit.'

The woman laughed openly. Her eyes were too close together, her nose too big in her face. Yet the slash of mouth beneath it …

‘What sort of quill do you prefer?'

‘Quill?'

‘Yes. For drawing. Don't pretend you're not troubled by the choice. It must matter more to an artist than it does to a writer, and I'm obsessive about these things. My father gave me a stock of hawk feathers last Christmas. I'm still using them. You can hold a finer point on a hawk's outer wing feather than is even possible with crow. The issue I have is that I'm left-handed. There are far fewer right-winged feathers of any bird for sale, and I'm particular about curvature; the quill absolutely has to fit properly in my hand. I tried a swan's feather once, but found it overrated.'

Was this in earnest? There was glitter in those close-set eyes. Unsure whether or not they were mocking me, I mumbled something about how gulls' wing-feathers were unusually straight, and possessed a longevity which few other quills could match.

‘Seagulls. Really?'

‘Yes, they're like goose, but better. They flex well, yet they're strong.'

‘Well. I'll try gull next then.'

She was serious, no doubt about it; I heard myself offering to make a gift to the woman of one of my – Carthy's in fact – gull feather quills to try out.

‘That's a kind offer. I'll take it up on one condition – that you show me how they have worked for you.' Her eyes were still amusedly bright but their gaze was more penetrating than before. ‘Let me see some of these drawings you've made.'

‘I couldn't impose …'

Somebody had arrived at my side. It was Lilly. While I introduced my fiancée, the poetess looked her over as
dispassionately as she had regarded her audience. A pause followed, in which I was unable to look squarely at either woman. Instead, I was distracted by the chandelier flickering above our heads. As I stared at it, one of its flames puttered out. The poetess eventually broke the silence. ‘Mr Bright was just agreeing to show me some of his art,' she confided.

‘Oh,' said Lilly. She pressed her hands together and stuck out her chin. ‘I've seen a sample already. It's lovely. He has a … fine touch.'

Immediately, I launched into a conversation about – of all things – the new science of gas lighting which I'd recently read about. More reliable than oil lamps, less smoke. I indicated the chandelier. Better than candles. Less easily blown out.

‘How fascinating,' said Edie.

‘Yes,' agreed Lilly uncertainly.

‘Where shall I visit to inspect your work?' the poetess asked me. ‘And receive my gift, of course.'

I mumbled Carthy's address, conscious that Lilly was wavering beside me. I offered her my arm. The shadow of a smile played on Edie's lips, but her eyes remained flatly serious. She thrust out her hand. To take it, I had to let go of Lilly again. I did so. The poetess's grip was cool and firm and the muscles in her thin forearm worked in the sliver of exposed wrist as she shook my hand. I backed away with Lilly. Gulls' feathers, gas lamps, gifts. I flinched again from the memory of myself.