Painting The Darkness (61 page)

‘Let me reassure you. I’m not here at Sir James’s bidding. I’m not here to cause you any trouble at all.’

‘Then … why?’

Davenall leaned forward in his chair. ‘To point you in the right direction.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘You’re still using Lewis and Lewis?’

‘I can’t possibly …’ Then the look in Davenall’s eyes overcame his reservations. ‘Yes.’

‘Tell Mr Lewis this. A former agent for the Carntrassna estate, Andrew Lennox, emigrated to Canada in the winter or spring of 1859 to 1860. Sir Gervase paid Lennox ten thousand pounds shortly before they left. Mr Lewis’s investigator will be looking for the real James Norton. Suggest he look for the Lennoxes instead. Especially their son Stephen. Born 1843, about the time Sir Gervase spent a year or so living at Carntrassna. Able and well educated. Strikingly similar in appearance to my cousin James.’

Baverstock did not know how to react. More remarkable than what Davenall was saying was the fact that he was saying it at all.

‘I’ve been unable to establish exactly when they left or where they arrived. Probably Quebec. I have no idea whether they remained in Canada or went on into the United States. But Lennox would have had more than enough money to set himself up in some style and to send his son to a good school to finish his education. Perhaps to a university. It should be possible to trace them.’

Still Baverstock said nothing. Certainly he would pass the information to Lewis, even though he did not fully understand its implications, but why should Richard Davenall choose to aid enquiries which previously he had resolutely denounced? Before he had a chance to ask, Davenall rose from his chair.

‘We’ll leave it there. I’ll bid you good day, Baverstock.’

‘One moment …’

‘Yes?’

‘Are you suggesting that the boy, Stephen Lennox, might be James Norton?’

‘I’m not sure.’ He looked away. ‘It’s possible. Just possible.’

‘If anything comes of it, do you want Lady Davenall to know of your part in it?’

Davenall smiled grimly. ‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Tell her what you please. But don’t mention me.’

VII

Lake Geneva was at its most urbanely placid, stretching away before the boat towards the mountains of Savoy. So late in the season, with the snow-line edging down from the peaks, this hour of early-afternoon perfection could prove deceptive, but Plon-Plon, a morose and muffled figure in the stern of the vessel, was armoured against its charms. He watched the irksome shroud of the Swiss national flag billow and deflate in the weak and fitful breeze behind him, squinted back towards Nyon and the mansards of his home, then cast a cigar butt into the frothing wake and turned to face the shores of France.

In a few minutes, the boat would stop at Yvoire to pick up and set down passengers, then set off back across the lake towards Switzerland. All who came and went would do so with perfect freedom; all, that is, save Plon-Plon, who knew he had only to disembark at Yvoire to provoke a diplomatic incident. Since leaving England in June, he had confined himself in fretful ease at Prangins, the Swiss villa he had bought more than twenty years before as a refuge in troubled times. He had paced its lawns and glanced all too often, these past months, at the tantalizing proximity of France. But now his long forbearance seemed
about
to reap its reward. There was every reason to hope he would soon be allowed to end his exile.

This fact he had chosen to suppress upon hearing from his discarded but persistent mistress, Cora Pearl, that she wished to see him; nothing daunted, Cora had announced her determination to visit him in his retreat. ‘The madame’, as she had tastelessly put it, ‘must come to the mountain.’ To receive her at Prangins was unthinkable, his latest consolation of the flesh, the marquise de Canisy, being blowzily and none too benignly in residence. Accordingly, under severe protest, he had consented to a lacustrine rendezvous. He would not, in truth, have gone even this far had it not been for a tone in Cora’s letters which implied some form of threat; he felt curious to know what it might portend.

The boat tied up at the Yvoire jetty, and Plon-Plon craned his neck to observe the boarding passengers. At once, he saw that Cora was among them. He could not help feeling, indeed, that she would be obvious to anyone in her strawberry-striped dress and extravagant millinery, swaying up the gangway in what she clearly believed to be the style of Queen Elizabeth joining a royal barge on the Thames. Only a gratuitous display of fishnet-stockinged calf to the goggle-eyed sailor who helped her aboard marred the regal effect.

‘I see that you are well,’ Plon-Plon remarked, as Cora settled herself beside him in a flurry of petticoats.

‘Not at all,’ Cora replied, projecting a sparkling smile towards a distant purser. ‘I am merely keeping up appearances. Perhaps you should devote more effort to doing so yourself.’

‘Appearances count for little in politics.’

‘Really? That was not my impression. But a man with your record of glittering successes would know better than I.’

Plon-Plon took a deep breath, reflecting that one of the few benefits of old age was that it made sarcasm easier to
bear
. ‘Will you forgive me, Cora, if I urge you to explain the purpose of our meeting?’

‘Possibly. What I will not forgive is your heartless neglect of me. It is more than a year since we last … came together, shall we say?’

Plon-Plon found Cora’s bedroom badinage strangely unpalatable in the opalescent air of Lake Geneva. He turned towards her with the weakest of smiles. ‘How can one be heartless to somebody who has no heart? Come to the point, Cora, please.’

She pouted and flounced her dress. ‘For shame, Plon-Plon. There was a time when you enjoyed the prelude as well as the climax.’

‘Cora—’

‘I am short of money.’ She raised her plucked eyebrows and stared at him. ‘Beneath the frills and powders, I am growing old. Not for a politician, perhaps, but old for one of my calling. I need capital to sustain my …’ She glanced down, with the hint of a blush. ‘My declining years.’

Plon-Plon’s first instinct was to be flattered that she had come so far on a begging mission; she could just as well have importuned him by letter. Either way, he was not likely to begrudge her a modest contribution. Then suspicion tainted his generosity. Why
had
she come so far? ‘I sympathize with your plight, Cora. For that matter, it is one I share.’

She looked at him sharply. ‘You expect me to believe that?’

‘Alas, it is true.’

‘Madame de Canisy stays with you out of a sense of charity, I suppose.’

Plon-Plon began to feel angry; they were both too old for shows of jealousy. ‘Let us not quarrel, Cora. You know I am not a mean man. I will see if I cannot spare you a little something.’

She tossed her chin sulkily. ‘There was a time when you paid me twelve thousand francs a month.’

‘And there was a time when the State paid me a million francs a year. But such times are past.’

‘You could re-create them for me.’

He frowned. What could have deluded her into thinking he could, or would, do any such thing? ‘What do you want of me, Cora?’ he asked, with sudden impatience.

‘I want,’ she replied in measured tones, ‘fifty thousand francs.’

‘Hah!’ He slapped his thigh and stared at her in amazement. ‘Your wits must be fading with your charms. I have neither the desire nor the ability to give you such a sum.’

‘It would not be a gift. It would be a payment for a service.’

‘What service?’

‘The omission of all that I know about you from my forthcoming memoirs.’

‘Memoirs? You?’

‘Monsieur Lévy has commissioned me to—’

‘Lévy the publisher?
Ce crapaud juif
. He would never dare.’

‘He would and he will.’

It was intolerable. She had come here to blackmail him. He rose to his feet and looked down at her indignantly. ‘I will not pay you a penny. Is that clear?’

‘Be reasonable, Plon-Plon.’ She gazed up at him through fluttering eyelashes. ‘You will regret it if you reject my offer.’

‘A fig for your offer.’

‘I have been jotting down various recollections of what we did together over the years. The public will find it all very entertaining, I feel sure.’

‘A Bonaparte cannot be threatened in this way.’

‘Except by what he has actually done. What he did the night his daughter was born. How he wore a gag when making love, so as not to disturb his wife in the next room. The use he made of a horse-whip on afternoons when it was too wet to go riding. Oh, I remember it all – in loving detail.’

‘You go too far!’

‘We both went too far, Plon-Plon, as my readers will learn. I fear they will have to learn of your other dalliances as well. Rachel, for instance. The Emperor told me all about what you and she did in that train when you thought he was asleep.’

‘The devil he did!’

‘Your fling with the Empress. You boasted of it often enough.’

‘
Mon Dieu
—’

‘And let us not forget Vivien Strang.’

‘Vivien Strang?’ Suddenly, he had stooped and seized her by the chin, the better to see whatever meaning her expression might reveal. ‘Who told you,
ma perle émoussée
, about Vivien Strang?’

‘She told me herself.’

‘What?’

‘We met, Plon-Plon. We found we had a great deal in common. Ill-treatment at your hands, for one thing. Did you think she was your little secret? I’m afraid not. I know all about her. Why, I’d even considered asking her to contribute a chapter to my book.’

He released her. His hand moved slowly to his watch-chain and began winding its links in his fingers. Slowly, he stood upright and gazed out across the lake. His eyes had narrowed, his lips compressed, in a sudden potent concentration divorced from the moment. To think of all the time and effort he had wasted in looking for Vivien Strang. It was absurd, it was laughable. Cora knew her all along. Cora, who had come to blackmail him, could lead him to his quarry.

VIII

Richard Davenall’s arrival in Salisbury,
en route
from Ireland to London, was as surprising to Canon Sumner and his daughters as it was welcome. He was urged to
remain
for the weekend and did so, but the pleasure Constance and Emily took in his company seemed strangely one-sided. Richard’s efforts to express interest in their accounts of European travel were unconvincing and his enquiries after James’s health half-hearted. The origins of his distracted downcast mood did not become apparent to Constance until she found herself alone with him in the drawing-room on Saturday afternoon.

‘Did you find all in good order at Carntrassna?’ she asked conversationally. ‘I know James will wish to take an active interest in his Irish property.’

‘You think so?’ Richard looked inexplicably doubtful.

‘Of course,’ Constance replied, dismayed to find herself nettled by his tone. ‘As will I.’

‘Has he spoken of taking you there?’

‘Not in so many words, but I presume—’

‘I wouldn’t, if I were you. I doubt very much if James will ever visit Carntrassna.’ Abruptly, as if regretting the harshness of his words, Richard left the sofa and walked to the window, where he gazed out into the close.

Constance felt bemused and not a little upset. Why was Richard, James’s staunchest ally for the past difficult year, talking in such unsympathetic terms? In a hasty effort at conciliation, she smiled and said: ‘Well, it’s no great matter, after all.’

But Richard did not respond. Only a pressing of his hand to his forehead revealed that he knew what pain he was causing her.

‘Is something wrong?’ she asked in mounting alarm.

His reply was barely audible. ‘No. Nothing is wrong.’

Suddenly, she thought what it might be. ‘Is there some difficulty over the divorce?’

Richard spun round. ‘The divorce?’ The expression on his face was a confusion of doubt and pity. ‘No. No difficulty. It will go through straightforwardly – if you wish it.’

‘Of course I wish it. James and I hope to be married by Christmas.’

Richard seemed about to say something, then regretted it. His jaw set in a grim determined line.

‘Is anything likely to prevent us doing so?’

‘No.’

‘Then, shall we have your blessing?’

His gaze fell to the carpet. His lips shaped themselves to trial words. But he did not speak.

‘Richard?’

‘Had you … considered postponing the wedding … until the New Year?’

‘No. Why should we?’

Again, he seemed at a loss for an answer. There was an interval of strained silence, then he said: ‘You must excuse me, Constance.’ He walked quickly towards the door.

‘Richard!’ It would have been easier to let him go, but Constance’s strength of character deterred her from such a course. He stopped in his tracks and turned to face her. ‘Shall we have your blessing?’

In the turmoil of his expression and the furtive darting of his eyes to avoid her gaze, she had an answer. It was the exact opposite of what he said, in the hoarse voice of one ashamed by his own words. ‘Yes. Of course you will.’

IX

Plon-Plon glanced up from the desk in his study at Prangins to confront the plaster-cast likeness of his famous uncle. What would the first and greatest Napoleon have done in his shoes? Much the same, he suspected. After all, sexual propriety had never been his strong suit, either.

‘Pay Miss Cora Pearl the sum of twenty thousand francs.’ It was more than he would have wanted to pay and less than she had hoped to receive. Still, compromise was the essence of diplomacy. He raised his pen to sign, nodding his head in silent affirmation as he did so. On balance, he thought it a fair price to pay for suppressing some of her
more
lurid reminiscences, among them the one story she had to tell which he had never heard before.

France’s defeat by Prussia in the war of 1870, and the consequent disintegration of the Second Empire, had forced Plon-Plon and Cora to decamp to England. Following a humiliating expulsion from the Grosvenor Hotel, London, when the manager discovered who the ‘Countess of Moncalieri’ really was, they embarked on a tour of the West Country, passing Cora off as Marie Clotilde – so successfully, in fact, that they were handsomely entertained wherever they went.