The Drowning People (40 page)

It is difficult to describe the first impact of that knowing; the way things fell so suddenly, so alarmingly into place. The quickness of it frightened me, I think; the speed with which so much disintegrated: my past; my marriage; my unthinking, unquestioned trust in my wife. I was not immediately angry; no, anger was not my first response. I was numb at first, I think; numb and disbelieving. I could not understand. And for the first few awful minutes that numbness shielded me; it allowed me to smile encouragingly at Miss Reid; to wait calmly until the tourists had left the room; to compose myself before returning to the corridor and nodding good day to the guards at its far end. The rage came later, as I walked back to my study, through the long corridors of the house which should have been Ella’s and mine. And alone in the sanctuary of my book-lined room the tears came; and I sobbed with the ugly retchings of a man no longer used to them.

Sitting here now the events of yesterday afternoon seem an age away: further than Ella’s trial or Eric’s death. It seems years ago, though it was only yesterday; only yesterday that I sat crying at my desk amongst the scattered, silver-framed records of my and Sarah’s joint past; only yesterday that the realization came of what I had to do.

It was much later that I went to her sitting room.

And I was calmer by then; the hours had soothed me. I was soothed also by the thought that everything was in place; that I was properly equipped. I did not trust my nerve, you see; even then, knowing the truth as I did, I knew also my wife’s power to move me. And I knew that I could not hope to endure a night of tearful explanation without losing all resolve. If I was to act, I had to act soon; and I steeled myself with the memory of Sarah’s quiet voice telling me that Ella had hanged herself in her cell and that it would only upset me to read her letter.

Waiting in her room, surrounded by her clutter, I looked at Sarah’s things: at her books and her papers and the pictures scattered about; at the photograph of Margaret’s christening which stood on her desk; at the one of me, so conscientiously kept, taking my final bow on the night of the Hibberdson final. And I could not believe that the woman to whom all these innocent things belonged, the woman with whom I had shared so many years of my life, for whose security I had sacrificed so much, could possibly have done such a thing. Even then I hoped I was wrong; even then I was willing to be persuaded. The consequences of Sarah’s guilt were looming already, you see; and already I was afraid of them. I had no wish to hear what she had done; to know for certain what had happened. And with more self-possession she might have fooled me still; for we were not equals yet. With more self-possession she might still have convinced me—in the face even of such damning evidence—that I had made a terrible mistake; that it was I, and not she, who deserved punishment.

Waiting in her sitting room I heard the crash of the waves far below: relentless; eternal; relieved, at last, by the tap of her heels on the stone of the corridor; by the creaking of the hinges as she opened the door. And seeing me she smiled, surprised perhaps by my promptness. I am not usually the first at meals.

CHAPTER 33

I
T WAS THE LOOK ON
S
ARAH’S FACE
that betrayed her; the way the color drained from her cheeks and her hands shook. Not greatly, and she stopped them quickly; but enough for me to know. And remembering it now, now that all else is clear—was, indeed, made clear by my wife herself—I find, beyond the knowledge of what she did, beyond the revulsion of it, a kind of … Incredulity? A fascination rather, I suppose; for there was daring in her horror. A distorted courage, even; the courage of which she was so proud. I haven’t the words to describe how I feel. At the end of this long day too much has been disturbed for me to find the rest I had looked for; hoped for. And I know now that understanding does not always bring peace; that knowledge does not always bring clarity.

She was raving by the end, you see: moving restlessly about the room; talking quickly, almost eagerly; excitedly. And there was something mesmerizing in her intensity; in her lucidity even then. She was relieved to have found an audience at last, I think; relieved and resolved to claim the recognition she had never thought to have. It was that resolve which shocked me most; the pride with which she told me—hoping for what? for praise?-—of what she had done. I had expected denial, perhaps; or at least a show of remorse. I had hoped for both; I see that now. But she was unrepentant to the end; and it never occurred to her that I would have the strength to punish her for what she had done.

But I am rambling again; trying to find some sense in all of this; some sign—and any would do—of a grander plan. For surely there is some purpose in our suffering: in mine and Ella’s; even in Sarah’s. There must be; I know there must be. But what it is I could not say.

My wife began on the offensive, but her attack did not last long. “Is it customary for a husband to rifle through his wife’s desk?” was all she said.

And when I did not reply she shrugged slightly, as if to admit that indignation was a clumsy defense, unworthy of one such as she; and patting her hair, which was straying from its bun, she came to the sofa and sat down—with every semblance of normality, her composure quite regained—at the tea table. Sarah had a gift for smoothing things over, you see; a gift she had used many times in forty-five years of married life. And perhaps she thought that she could work her magic again yesterday, for she began to pour, quite in her usual manner; and all that betrayed her agitation was the unusual clatter of the cups and saucers as she arranged them.

“What is this?” I said quietly: said not asked; for I knew.

“I beg your pardon, darling?”

My wife did not look up, pretending to busy herself with the tea things. And I can see her now, her dark hair streaked with gray, her body as slender and as graceful as it had ever been, bending over the teapot, uncertain. It was that uncertainty which betrayed her; that sudden vulnerability which was not calculated and which exposed the pretty, manipulating tears of the past. Her façade, so long maintained, was cracking. I had pierced it; I knew that even then. And her strength, once seemingly so endless, drained through the puncture before me.

Silently she poured the tea.

And as it splashed into the cups I thought, inconsequentially, distractedly almost, that she had grown more beautiful with the years; that the fragile, misleading beauty which she had shared with her cousin suited the lines and straight-backed deliberation of age. She was wearing a long, old-fashioned dress of teal blue, a shade darker than her eyes. And her arms seemed thin as they lifted the heavy pot.

“Tell me what this is,” I said again, but less insistently this time; for now that power was mine I found—as I had known that I would—that I had no idea how to wield it. Having deferred to her for so long; having in so many ways allowed my wife’s wishes to lead and to direct my own, I was uneasy with this upsetting of the balance between us; uneasy and confused. And some part of me— a part which feared that at the last I would succumb; that at the last I would lack the resolve to punish her as she deserved—was relieved that I had made my plans already. Even in my anger I pitied her, you see; and Sarah sensed from my voice that I did so and lifted her eyes to meet mine and looked at me silently with great art. She was expert in her affects even then; I realize that now. And it took all my strength to resist her mute appeal.

But I said nothing; and in the silence she handed me my tea.

“It’s the key to the great hall,” she said unexpectedly, a few moments later. And when she spoke she did so calmly, with quiet consideration; for Sarah knew my weak- nesses. She knew that I was helpless in the face of her vulnerability. And so she sat, the bones of her neck showing taut and delicate above the neck of her dress, her hands in her lap, her head tilted a little.

“Tell me how you got it,” I said at last: almost willing her not to; dreading what she might say.

“I have nothing to hide, James,” she said slowly, a picture of bruised innocence. And it was only then that her fragility—so artfully maintained until then—gave way for a moment to a brief flicker of pride. For a moment, no longer, she looked proud and unafraid. And although she looked away again, and wiped her eyes as though a tear had trickled from them, it was too late. And Sarah knew it. When she spoke again it was in quite a different tone.

“Have we really come to this?”

“Yes,” I said evenly, drawing strength from my repulsion; allowing her ill-concealed pride and all it provoked to feed my fury; struggling to conquer the sensation of a rising nausea. From the sofa my wife continued to look at me; but her spell was broken and she knew it. For the first time in our married life I was immune to the power of her pale blue eyes; they had lost their hold over me. And from that moment I was free.

“In that case ask me any questions you like,” she said almost haughtily, sensing this perhaps. “I see that you have rifled through my desk; that you have found something you should not have found.” She rose and walked across the room to the windows; and looking out to sea, or perhaps at the rocks below, she turned her back on me with splendid indifference. All efforts at placation were over now, I saw, for Sarah did not waste her energies in vain or throw her tender glances to the swine. The lines were drawn; and her last effort at concealment was delivered with the air of a grave warning.

“You would do well to think carefully before asking me anything,” she said, “because I will tell you the truth. And that is not always as palatable as one might wish it. If you take my advice you will return what you have taken from me and think no more about this.”

But I knew as I listened that I had done with Sarah’s forgetting. There was no way back now; we had come too far. Her illusion was shattered. And so I asked the first of many questions; and perhaps I knew, even then, that we were nearing the end.

“Did you kill Alexander?” I asked quietly.

And in the silence that followed I thought that Sarah had probably not expected anything so direct as this; that she would break now into confusion. But her answer, when it came, showed only irritation; annoyance at my rebellion. She was not accustomed to losing the upper hand, you see; and my newfound daring seemed to infuriate her.

“I see you have decided to ignore my warning,” was all she said; icily.

“Yes.” And as I spoke I felt something close to exhilaration in my defiance.

“Then you must have my answer.”

“Yes.”

“And my answer, also, is ‘yes.’” For the first time since she had gone to the window my wife turned to face me. In silhouette against the setting sun I could hardly see her face; but her hair seemed ringed in fire. “I killed him,” she said slowly; then, after a pause: “And to anticipate your next question … another ‘yes.’ It was no coincidence that Ella went to jail for her father’s murder.”

So it was done; it had been said. I knew the truth now; knew it more certainly than I had known it hours before, when I had stood in the great hall watching the backs of retreating tourists in disbelief, thinking only of being alone. I knew; I had knowledge. But truth to tell, at that moment—at that precise moment—I hardly felt at all. I was drowning already, perhaps; drowning though I did not know it. And it was Sarah and her quiet calm—for so long my only lifeline—that was dragging me under. I see that now.

Then I could see nothing; and conscious only of a room beginning to blur as quick, hot, childish tears filled my eyes, I could only ask her why; why she had done it.

There was silence; my wife seemed to be considering the question; and she chose her words with chilling succinctness.

“Ella had everything,” she said at last; slowly. “And from me who had no one and nothing, she took the person I valued most.”

She had moved from the window as she spoke and walked now across the room: very upright in her blue dress; her hair falling in wisps from its neatly pinned bun. And as she sat beside me on the sofa I smelled her clean, warm smell: of powder and rose water. She no longer smoked. But it was her eyes, not her smell, which will stay with me; her eyes and her words. And remembering it now I cannot bear to think of the hardness in them as she spoke; of the way she underlined, by her physical proximity, the vastness which separated us. For I learned then—as I am beginning to accept only now, I think—how little I had ever meant to her; how little she had ever cared for me in any but the most material of terms. I tell myself now that my wife’s calculation made connection with others impossible; that she could not share herself openly, however hard she tried, because of what had been taken from her. And I think as I do so that I am probably right; that by the time she married me Sarah was incapable of feeling, though she simulated it with such ease. I was no more than the crowning glory of her success; I see that now. And part of me knows that it could not have been otherwise.

It was the knowledge of my wife’s dissimulation that hurt me most, I think; the dawning suspicion as she spoke that she had never been true. It was that which destroyed our past; that knowledge, as certain as it was unspoken, which made a mockery of all our years. And I realized, as I listened to her speak, that the Sarah I had known—the Sarah I had loved, even—had never been anything more than an artful façade, designed to preserve my allegiance and prolong my subjection; for Ella’s cousin never lost her fear of betrayal. In the glow of the setting sun she came alive; alive with triumphant radiance. And there was something terrible in the contrast between her beauty and her words; something chilling in the way she spoke to me of loss and jealousy and grief and revenge with such barely containable pride.

“You hardly need me to enumerate Ella’s blessings,” Sarah said; stiff still, almost childlike in her stiffness. She sounded like a little girl. “She had a father who doted on her; freedom; friends; this house. The best of all worlds. And still she took him from me, from me who had no one.”