The Drowning People (41 page)

“Took whom from you?” Even through the blur I had to ask; I had to know.

“Charlie Stanhope,” said Sarah quietly.

And I thought, for the first time in years, of Charlie Stanhope: tall; awkward; loyal.

“Charlie?”

“Yes.” My wife looked at me. And she stood up again and crossed once more to the window, restless as she spoke. The sun was slipping over the horizon; the room was hazy now. “Ella took him away. She took him away and showed me she could take him and then she discarded him. That was what hurt most; the fact that she didn’t even want him.”

And from far-off years I saw Ella by another window looking out onto the same sea and I heard her tell me, in tears, what she had done.

“And the day she broke her engagement to him I made myself a promise,” Sarah continued. “A promise to take all that she loved most from her. To show her what loss was really like.”

I said nothing; I could not.

“And I think I have kept it,” my wife finished with, quiet triumph.

Still I could not speak.

“It was no easy task, I assure you. Even as you judge me understand that.”

“I do.” And I understood also, I think, that this was Sarah’s moment; that now she could not help but claim her glory.

She had told no one, you see; over long years of enforced secrecy she had remained silent. But the urge to tell had always been there, I suspect; the urge of a proud nature which seeks acknowledgment. And I think that yesterday afternoon, her guilt exposed, she was fearless and past caring. That is how I understand it now, at any rate. Even then Sarah thought herself invulnerable, you see; and she spoke with a readiness made compelling by its lack of shame if nothing else. Standing at the window, the sun behind her, she glowed with victory; and I see her now, though it is dark in here and cold and she is dead and nearly buried, with a clarity which will never fade. I see her and I hear her and I listen to her still.

She began boastfully, exulting coolly in the challenge of it.

“You have no idea how difficult it was,” she said. “Depriving Ella of all she had: of her father; her friends; this house and all that went with it. No easy task. And it required daring, believe me. Courage.” She paused, looking out to sea. “But also a great deal of meticulous planning,” she went on at last. “That was where success lay and I realized it. I knew that attention to detail was everything; and I think you will agree that although a risk was involved—and, frankly, that was unavoidable—I did all I could to eliminate it, to reduce it to manageable levels.”

“But…”

“Don’t interrupt. It was all such a long time ago. I haven’t thought of it for years; my train of thought mustn’t be broken.” And she continued with splendid indifference, talking as much to herself as to me; relishing all the intricacies of her daring. “Of course Uncle Cyril’s party was a blessing,” she said quietly, introspectively almost. “And the fact that Ella and I looked so alike. That had to be the foundation of my plan, I knew; and curiously enough, it was you who proved to me how things might work.” She turned from the window.

“Me?” I asked hoarsely.

“Long ago. In Hyde Park. A summer’s afternoon. Don’t you remember? You thought I was Ella. And the way you behaved at the Hibberdson prize-giving just confirmed things. It was so obvious from your disappointment when we spoke that you’d made the same mistake. That gave me confidence.” She smiled. “And it made me sure that if you could be convinced, from a distance, others might be convinced also; particularly if all the details were right. Hair; clothes; posture. You know.”

I did know.

“So without asking Ella, which might have given everything away, I had to find out what she was wearing. That was the first step. And that was where that ridiculous friend of yours came in so handy.”

“Who?”

“Camilla Boardman her name was, wasn’t it?”

I nodded, my throat dry.

“I went to her for fittings, you see, counting on her notorious indiscretion. And predictably, without my asking, she told me on my second appointment, in the
greatest
confidence”—Sarah’s eyes sparkled as she imitated my friend—“that Ella would be wearing a man’s dinner jacket. Admirable for my purposes, of course, because at once distinctive, unusual for a woman to wear, and easily obtained.”

“I see.”

“And Camilla was hardly happy when I stopped going to her and wore a dress by someone else. But that couldn’t be avoided. I needed to be brashly noticeable in the crowd, you understand. Brashly noticeable so that enough people would see me to cover my disappearance for five or six minutes. That, I thought, was all it would take if I planned properly; and in the event I was only away for seven. Not a long time in the middle of a party, particularly when you have made certain of speaking to enough people.”

“Which you did….”

“Of course. And everything else was planned in advance.” Sarah was talking quickly now; almost tripping over herself in her eagerness. “I had the right clothes; a blond wig of real hair, cut and parted like Ella’s; two keys to the great hall, one of which was in Ella’s pocket before the party even began.”

“The other of which is this?”

“Yes. Kept for a keepsake.”

“I see.”

“Foolish, I know; but an irresistible mistake.”

My tears had gone now; and I watched my wife with sickening attention as she moved about the room with restless concentration: first to the fireplace; then to the window; then to the sofa again. The tea things lay forgotten on the table, our cups untouched. And though she brushed against the handle of the teapot as she passed it in the twilight, nearly knocking it over, she gave no sign of noticing that she had done so. Instead she talked, with mesmerizing fluency; and I listened to her and thought with dread of what she had done and of what I had yet to do. I am not, by nature, a violent man.

But Sarah talked on, oblivious to me and my thoughts; and she spoke with increasing pride in a kind of unthinking stream, her usual quiet manner completely overthrown.

“It was easy work to remove the original key from Cyril’s desk for a night while I had duplicates made in London. And I wore the wig when I went into the shop to get them done because it’s little touches like those that make all the difference, you know. And although it was a slim chance, I thought that if I dressed and spoke like Ella the man might recognize her from her pictures in the papers later on and come forward.”

“Which he did.”

“Yes. And then there was the physical preparation.”

“Of what sort?”

“Well, Alexander was a big man and I’m not particularly strong, so I had to practice the lift to make sure I got it right. That was weeks before. And on the night of the party itself there were endless things to do. So many details; and with such time constraints. Timing was everything.”

“What did you do?”

She stopped, disoriented for a moment; and I saw that I had interrupted her flow. “While we were all dressing,” she began slowly again, as if trying to remember it all, to leave no detail untold, “I put a note under Ella’s door asking her to meet her father secretly in his room at eight, and to wait for him if he wasn’t there. I couldn’t have her turning up anywhere while I was on the balcony with Uncle Alex, you see.” My wife smiled at me. “I got him to come up by saying that the speeches were going to be made from the great hall, not in the marquee, which he thought rather a good idea. And he waited for me while I changed. I think he was quite amused by my clothes, in fact. I told him Ella and I were dressing identically as a joke.”

“Go on.”

“Well so far so good, but the point of highest risk was still to come.” My wife looked at me; and I wondered suddenly how I could have lived with her for as long as I had done with so little idea of who she was. Our marriage, in all its wealth of peaceful detail, seemed suddenly unreal; unreal before the shining fire of Sarah’s eyes.

“I couldn’t be visible to everyone for too long,” she was saying. “A moment was all right, but more than that was an unacceptable risk. On the balcony itself I stood behind him as much as I could, and I can’t tell you how it unsettled me when old Lord Markham called out for Ella to show herself. I had to act quickly then.”

“So you pushed him.”

“Lifted him
then
pushed him. It was quite a complex maneuver, in fact. But it caught him so completely by surprise and the balustrade in any case is very low. It wasn’t difficult in the end. I almost lost my nerve when he clung on like he did, though; and I thought he might scream my name or something. So I had to loosen his grip as quickly as I could.”

“That was when people thought you were helping him.”

“Yes, though I can’t imagine why. It was ludicrously clear what was happening. That was the point. And as soon as he had fallen I went in and ran to my room; took off the wig and my clothes; put them in a bag and the bag into a drawer where no one would think to look for it; put on my dress and went downstairs. No more than seven minutes, the whole thing. Oh, and on my way I liberated the note I had given Ella, which fortunately was on the dressing table in her room. It was printed, of course, so no real harm would have come of anyone finding it. The police would have thought it was a fake she had written to herself. But I was glad to get it nonetheless. And the next day, when all was quieter, I simply took the bag down to the cliffs, added a few stones, and threw it off. It was done.”

“But Ella accused you.” I had been drawn in, now; drawn in to Sarah’s story in all its manic glibness. And she pounced on my observation with delight.

“Of
course
x she did. I had known that she would. Being innocent herself, she was the only person who could have known—really known—the truth.”

“But you had prepared for that already,” I said slowly; and I saw the sweep of Sarah’s plan with sickening clarity

“Clever, wasn’t it?”

I said nothing.

“That little monograph; my book. Everything paved the way. And when Ella was weak and stupid enough to use insanity as her excuse for ending with Charlie, the game was as good as won. You should never underestimate the power of the press. Those jurors’ minds were made up before ever they walked into the courtroom; and she had lied to the family for so long that no one was really surprised by what she seemed to have done. Shocked, of course, but not surprised. She had been seeing psychiatrists for years by the time I killed Alexander. And her hysteria, however understandable you and I might know it to be, did her no favors at all. Even when she tried to tell the truth—and she told the court doctors all about her relationship with me, for instance—she wasn’t believed. She was caught by then; she had nowhere to turn.”

There was silence.

“I don’t believe it,” I said hoarsely.

“Yes you do.”

But it was still with something like disbelief that I looked at her, silhouetted against the fiery last rays of the sun; and it was then that I knew that I was the last thing she had taken from Ella.

“Losing Charlie taught me something,” said Sarah softly; calmer now. “It taught me to observe, to understand people. For the first time in my life I learned to please.”

I looked at her steadily.

“Ella had always been the charming one, you know,” she went on. “I had never been able to compete.” She paused. “But when she took Charlie I set myself to learn her ways. And I learned how easily men are swayed by women….” She stopped short, realizing what she was saying, perhaps.

And in the silence I remembered our lunch on the day of Ella’s conviction and the ease with which I had fallen.

Without looking at my wife again I left the room.

CHAPTER 34

T
HE CORRIDOR WAS GLOOMY IN THE DUSK
; and I sat alone in the window seat at its farthest end watching the last of the day-trippers catch the last of the boats just as Ella and I—years ago though in the opposite direction— had caught the last of the boats on my first visit to this place. Perhaps I half expected Sarah to follow me; to offer some word or gesture of regret. At the last moment I almost lost my nerve, you see; I nearly retreated in the hope of being able to forgive.

But forgiveness was not asked, as I had known that it would not be. And listening to the breaking of the waves I sat alone, staring at the door to my wife’s sitting room, wondering what right I would have had to grant it in any case. None, I knew. And so I sat, watching, as the corridor sank into darkness and filled with the first of the images I have since come to know so well again. Ella in the park, with her bitten nails: the beginning of it all. Her crumpled limbs in the sunshine of my attic. Her red eyes later, in that crowded courtroom, when she was lost to me and I thought her mad and would not smile at her.

I tried not to think of her body, years after, hanging from the ceiling of her cell; I tried not to think of how I had failed to mourn her then.

Slowly I got up; and in the dark I walked towards the crack of light under Sarah’s door. She was reading when I opened it; or at least sitting with a book on her lap, calm and unseeing. She did not say anything; did not seem even to notice me. She was lost in her own thoughts and did not look as I opened the bureau drawer and put on the gloves and picked up the gun. It was only as I crossed the room towards her that I saw the signs of fear on her face; the signs of fear and surprise; of shock. It was only at the last that she lost her sense of mastery; her certainty in her own success. And she had no time to struggle.

I shot her above her right ear, at something close to point-blank range.

Very deliberately, calm almost, I stepped over her body and clasped the gun in her limp right hand. Then I left the room and returned to my own, where I washed and dressed with slow deliberation; taking my time, doing things carefully. Sarah had taught me the value of detail.

The house was dark as I let myself out; only the light in my wife’s window burned. And guided by its glow I took the bag which held my clothes and gloves to the edge of the cliff; to the spot—for I am sentimental, even now—where Sarah had told me of Ella’s death on that blustery afternoon years ago.