She did not, then, know what an erection was, Constance told her husband; all she knew was that when Boy played this game, when he pressed her down across his lap, she would feel something stir, then thrust against her rib cage. This seemed to make Boy ashamed; after the spankings he would never look at her.
Some while after this, Boy invented a new game, a form of hide-and-seek—an odd form, since they both hid and there were no seekers. In his bedroom at Winterscombe, Boy had a very large wardrobe, a huge mahogany affair. Inside, it was lined with fragrant cedar wood. It was like a small room—even Boy could stand upright inside it. In the game they both climbed into this wardrobe; then Boy pulled the doors closed. It was one of the rules that they must both be absolutely silent.
Inside, Constance would be as quiet as a mouse. She would be pressed up against evening cloaks, tweed jackets, the fine khaki of Boy’s officer uniforms. Boy, a poor performer at this game, always breathed heavily. There was no light. Constance, stealing her hand out, found she could not see it. She would start to count, and tell herself that when she reached fifty, Boy would end the game. She would pray to be let out; she could not breathe in there.
One day, or one night, perhaps the third or fourth time they played this game, Boy whispered: He said they might hold hands in the dark, because he knew she was frightened. He held her hand for some while; then he made a strange noise, which was somewhat like a sigh and somewhat like a groan. He guided her hand so it touched him.
There was that strange thing again, as stiff and hard as before; it made a bulge beneath his trousers, and Boy made her hand into a cup shape, so it fitted over him snugly. He moved about, twisting a little from side to side so that he rubbed against her hand. His movements became urgent; he rubbed faster, in a surreptitious and frantic way, never speaking—until suddenly he gave another groan, and a tremor ran through his body. He released her hand at once. When he lifted her out of the wardrobe, he gave her a little kiss on the corner of her mouth. He said this was their secret; they could play this game because Boy was her papa and her brother and he loved her.
They played it in this way for several weeks, never speaking once they were inside the wardrobe. Then Boy began to introduce variations. One day he unbuttoned her dress; another day he knelt and stroked her ankles. A third day, inside the wardrobe, there were shuffling and fumbling noises; then, when he guided Constance’s hand, she found the bulge thing had been unbuttoned. She could feel it, standing up in the dark like a big stick. It felt warm and damp, and Boy told her to stroke it, but the instant her hand closed around it, Boy shuddered convulsively.
Constance was afraid of this thing, but she was also fascinated by it. She was not sure whether Boy produced it out of love, as he said he did, or whether it was an instrument of punishment.
As the weeks passed, Boy grew bolder. Now, they did not always go into the wardrobe, and into the dark. Sometimes Boy would produce this thing when he took her photograph. He liked to pose her, load the film, set up the camera, and then—before he took the photograph—sit opposite her with this thing in his hands.
He never looked at her face when he did this. He liked to stare at the small slit between her thighs. Constance hated this part of her body, her own secret place, but Boy would stare at it and stare at it while he stroked. Then he would close his eyes. Sometimes he would groan in a way Constance hated. Afterward, he would wash. He always washed next. The soap he used smelled of carnations.
Finally, a long time after this first began, Boy introduced his final variation. One last game: it was called “caving.”
This game was always played in the same way and in the same position. Boy would sit down; Constance would sit astride his lap. Once, Boy kissed her on the mouth, but he never did that again. He did not like mouth kisses. Boy would put his hands around her waist, and he would raise her and lower her.
When he reached the cave—he always called it reaching the cave—Boy’s face would contort. This game hurt Constance, and she thought it must hurt Boy, too, because whenever he reached the cave, he looked like a wounded man. She could not understand why he liked this game so much, when it hurt them both, but Boy would never explain.
When it was over, he would help her dress. He was always very kind and gentle. He might give her a kiss or a small present. Once he gave her a ring with a blue stone; another time he showed her a box in the corner of the room, and there, fast asleep under a rug, was a tiny tricolored spaniel, a puppy. After the present giving she would leave his room. She would have to be very careful never to be seen—and for a long time she was not. Then, one day in that long hot summer when war was first declared, and Boy was on leave from his regiment, she was caught.
It was a Sunday morning, and just as she crept out onto the landing, there was Acland at the top of the stairs.
He stopped. He looked at her. Constance knew he could see into her. He never said one word to her, but he went into Boy’s room, and from the far end of the landing she heard the sound of voices raised in anger. Something must have happened; no one explained, but the visits ended then. No more photographs; no more hide-and-seek; no more caving.
Acland had rescued her, and Constance was grateful for this. She was no longer a child by then; she knew the games were wrong. She did not exactly blame Boy—she thought he really had loved her—but all the same, it was a sin, and sometimes she hoped Acland had punished him.
This was her secret, Constance said, turning back to her husband and winding the bright scarf tight about her hand. It made her ashamed. She felt sullied.
“Do you see?” she said. She was trembling. “That is what was done to me. I cannot always forget. It has made me into a circle of air, a nothing. I cannot be like other women. Boy locked me up in that wardrobe of his, and I am trapped in there, with no air to breathe. It killed Boy, and now it is killing me. Even now. You are the only one who can release me.” Constance began to weep as she said this: one of her sudden and violent storms of emotion. She covered her face with her hands.
Stern, who had been sitting silent all this while, rose to his feet. He did not go to his wife at once, but walked back and forth in the room. When Constance looked at him, she saw his face was white with anger.
“It’s as well for him that he killed himself,” Stern said. “Had he failed, I would have done the job for him.”
Constance, looking at her husband, did not doubt for one second the truth of what he said. There was no bluster in his voice; he spoke coldly, with decision. As she had before, once or twice in Scotland, she glimpsed some extremity in her husband, an ability, a willingness to step over the edge. As before, it excited her: Constance was drawn to people who allowed violent emotion to take them beyond the boundaries of civilized behavior. She liked it out there, in bandit country—and perhaps she liked it even more when she knew the crossing of the frontier had been provoked by herself. Stern, her avenger: more deadly than any such fictive creature in a novel or a play, more satisfying, too, for this drama was real and her life was the plot. Her tears stopped. She gave a shiver. Stern, who had turned away from her, turned back.
“Boy gave me his word. That day in the club. He said he never once touched you.”
“What would you expect him to say?” Constance cried. “He was scarcely likely to confess then—and to you, of all people—”
“But the way he said it. I thought I understood—”
“Believe him then!” Constance began to cry again. “That is always men’s way. They will always trust another man’s word against a woman.”
“No. No. It is not that. Constance, don’t cry. Of course I do not doubt you. No one would say such a thing unless … Come here.” Stern put his arms around her. He drew her close, tight against his heart. He began to stroke her hair. He kissed her brow. “Constance,” he went on, in a different voice, a gentler voice. “I wish you had told me this before—I would have behaved very differently. I blame myself now. If I had known, I would have … Constance, when did this begin?”
“The night my father died.” Constance clung to her husband. He stopped stroking her hair. Constance wound her arms tight about him. “That makes me even more guilty—do you see? My father was outside, and he was dying, and I never even knew. I was inside. I was with Boy—I was with Boy all night. From the end of the comet party until almost five o’clock in the morning. I sat in his room with him and we talked. That’s all it was then, just talking. But that was the night it began. And that was what I told Steenie tonight. Not the other things, the later things. Just that we talked. I wanted Steenie to understand that all those things Boy had said to him were lies. It wasn’t Boy who killed my father.”
Constance stopped. Stern’s hand rested against her shoulder. She could feel a new tension in his body and, when she looked up, saw a new alertness in his face.
That was when he drew back from her, all signs of anger gone. He held her hands. He looked down into her face. A clock in the room ticked. Several minutes of silence went by.
“It was not Boy?” He frowned.
He drew her toward a sofa. They both sat down. Then Stern said to her: “Constance, explain.”
Explaining anything to her husband, Constance was later to write, could be difficult. It was like explaining a sequence of events to a barrister, under cross-examination. As she spoke, Stern would from time to time interject questions. It was then Constance began to sense that all these details he requested—time, place, circumstances—were being cross-checked against other information already stored away.
“You see,” Constance said, “Boy had already taken my photograph that day—the first picture he ever took of me alone. It was in the King’s bedroom, that morning. I had never paid much attention to Boy before then, but that day—I could see—he was trying to be kind to me. Then, later that night, Steenie and I were allowed to stay up. We watched the comet. Nanny put me to bed, but I knew I wouldn’t sleep—I was far too excited. I used to pry in those days—I’ve told you that—but that night I just wanted to watch the party. I wanted to look at all the beautiful dresses. I crept downstairs in my nightdress, and I hid in a place where Steenie and I used to hide from Nanny Temple. It was in the conservatory, behind a high bank of camellias. You could see into the drawing room from there.”
“That was how you witnessed the famous proposal?”
“Yes. Jane was playing the piano, and the music made me a little sleepy. I was just going to creep back out to the hall and go to bed, when the music stopped and Jane and Boy came in. He proposed—well, you know that part of the story. He did it very badly, and I used to make fun of him for that. Steenie and I even made it into a play once, and acted it for Freddie. I wish we hadn’t now. It was unkind. You see”—she turned to look at her husband—“I don’t hate Boy, Montague, no matter what he did. I do … pity him. He was his father’s victim. He knew he would never be the man his father wanted him to be. It made him very unhappy.”
“It made him into a child molester—is that what you’re saying?”
“Don’t be harsh.” Constance looked away. “Boy was afraid to grow up. He was afraid of adult women. When he was a child he was sure of his father’s love, but the older he became, the more he felt he failed him. I could understand that—wanting to remain a child. Wanting to remain the same age you were when you were happy.”
“Could you?”
“Oh, yes. And Boy knew that. It was why he felt safe with me. I
was
a child, for one thing, and I was a horrid, unattractive, sullen child as well—
no one
could feel himself a failure next to me, not even Boy. He was always being pitied—and he hated it. I could understand that too. So, there was an alliance between us. We were friends.”
“Very well. I understand.”
“Do you?” Constance gave him a sad glance. “I would like you to, but I can see it is difficult. You don’t know how hateful it is to be pitied. No one would dare to pity you.”
“I am not as invulnerable as you think.” Stern took her hand. “But never mind that. Go on.”
“Very well. After Boy and Jane left, I was more excited than ever. A proposal! I wanted to wake Steenie at once and tell him the news, but when I went back to the nursery, Steenie was fast asleep. I thought I had better not wake him. It must have been about midnight by then, perhaps a little later. Anyway, I could hear the guests beginning to leave. You know where the nurseries are at Winterscombe? They’re on the second floor. Just along from the day nursery, there’s a landing, then a corridor where Boy and Acland and Freddie had their rooms. The landing overlooks the hall below—so I went to sit there. I had a bird’s-eye view. The hall, the main staircase, everything. I peeped through the banisters. I watched the guests leaving. Then I watched the houseguests go up to their rooms. I saw Maud go up.” She gave a small smile. “I even saw you go up, Montague. I saw Boy escort Jane to her room. Jenna went in to her; then Boy went upstairs to bed. He looked so very miserable! After that, the house became very quiet. I was just about to go back to the nursery when Boy’s door opened and he came out.” She paused. “I think he was looking for Acland, because he called his name in a low voice, then opened the door of Acland’s room—but he can’t have been there, because Boy came out again almost immediately.”
“He was looking for Acland?” Stern’s question was sharp. “What time was this?”
“I’m not sure. Late. I had no watch. Everyone else was in bed, even the servants. It must have been about one, perhaps a little later.”
“One o’clock—and Acland wasn’t there?”
“No.”
“Do you know where Acland was?”
“I asked him once.” Constance turned away. “He said he was with a woman. All night.”
“A woman?”
“Yes. All night.”
“Did you believe him?”
“Yes. I think I did. Anyway, Acland is beside the point. The point is, Boy came out onto the landing and he saw me. He asked me what I was doing, staying up so late, and I explained about the comet. He smiled. He said he used to watch the grown-up parties when he was my age, from just that place. He asked if I still felt wide-awake, and when I said I did, he said I could come and sit in his room. We’d have a talk.”