The Sealed Letter (15 page)

Mrs. Watson throws up her hands. "If any man ever deserved to be happy..."

"Ah, but divorce has nothing to do with happiness," says Bird, wagging his finger almost humorously. "Lay persons often make the mistake of believing it a legal remedy for the purpose of relieving miserable couples. In fact, divorce frees a good spouse from a wicked one."

The Watsons nod in perfect unison.

"It's not only requisite for one of you to be guilty, you see," Bird tells his client, "but for the other to be guiltless."

"Of adultery, you mean?" asks Harry, frowning. "I assure you—"

"Of all wrongdoing and negligence," the solicitor clarifies, steepling his fingers on the desk. "I very much fear it will be alleged, in this case, that you've been guilty of allowing Mrs. Codrington improper freedoms."

"Are you married, Mr. Bird?" Harry demands.

"I am not, Admiral; I've seen that craft founder in too many storms to ever trust myself to its timbers," says Bird, obviously pleased with his nautical metaphor.

"For fifteen years I've done my best to maintain the domestic peace," Harry growls, "and that meant keeping my wife on rather a long leash. If it's true that she's been ... that she's formed a, a
criminal connection,
then I can only say that I knew nothing about it."

"Nothing at all?"

"Do you doubt the admiral's word, Mr. Bird?"

"Not at all, madam—"

Acid burns in Harry's oesophagus.
What a double-dyed buffoon I've been.
"I was preoccupied with work."

"It's just that there's a danger they'll argue
remissio injuriae.
Meaning that you must have guessed and forgiven her years ago, you see," explains Bird. "In which case the jury will probably consider you to have made your bed, et cetera."

"Forgiveness—" begins the reverend.

"Oh, it's considered very estimable at the bar of Heaven," Bird interrupts with a grin, "but down here, in court, quite the contrary, I'm afraid. It's not so inexcusable if a wife forgives—especially if she has children, and nowhere else to go—but a husband..." He shakes his head.

"I assure you, Mr. Bird, I was unaware that there was anything to forgive," says Harry, his voice tight as a rope. "I believed my wife to be flawed, yes, but not ... I was labouring under the misapprehension that she wasn't a passionate person." They're all staring at him now. Of course Helen's a passionate person, given to whimsical notions and impetuous demands. But how, especially in mixed company, can he explain his long-held view that, after two babies, all her yearnings were ... north of the equator?

Bird nods kindly. "And our counsel will portray you as a loving husband who, though noticing certain signs of lightness in his wife, refused to believe the worst until the occasion of the unanswered telegram."

The Unanswered Telegram:
it sounds like a ghost story from one of the popular magazines. "If you knew her..." Harry's head is in his hands. "She's still such a girl; always striking some arch pose from one of her yellow-jacketed French novels. Once, after a chance meeting at a party, she talked a lot of rodomontade about the Prince of Wales being infatuated with her, do you remember, Mrs. Watson?"

She nods, her face puckered.

"Early on, I formed a policy of discounting at least half of what Helen said. We've led such separate lives..."

"Ah, but that smacks of negligence," says Bird, holding up one finger in warning.

"Would it help if the admiral now began laying down the law in earnest, at home?" asks Mrs. Watson. "Enquiring into or forbidding her excursions?"

Bird smiles. "Paradoxically, that would make it impossible for—what's the agent's name?"

"Crocker," she supplies.

"Crocker, yes, to collect any evidence. No, your dilemma," turning to Harry, "is that of a policeman who notices a dubious character loitering in an alley. Should you chase him off, thus preventing a crime, or linger silently till the ruffian breaks a window, which allows you to make an arrest?"

Harry's head is beginning to thump dully.

"No, you must act a subtle role, Admiral," says Bird. "By all means, throw out the odd animadversion on her neglect of you and the children, but do nothing to thwart her meeting her paramour."

None of this sounds real to him:
her paramour,
a faceless bogey, a slavering silhouette on a magic lantern.

"Restrain your feelings, and remember that in all likelihood there's no virtue in her left to save."

Harry swallows. "How long will all this drag on?"

"That depends on what Crocker can gather here, and what my own agents can dig up in Malta," says Bird.

"Strike not till thy sword be sharpened," Mrs. Watson puts in, in biblical tones.

***

His faith is little comfort to Harry, these days. He sends up brief thanksgivings for Nell's recovery, that's about all. With regard to Helen, he doesn't know what to ask.

Since the family's return, he's taken the girls to the church in Eccleston Square on several Sundays; he recognizes only a couple of neighbours' faces, and the sermons are dry investigations of certain controversies in church reform. Today, he leaves Nan at home to amuse her convalescent sister. (Yesterday, he caught them noisily practising
chassée-croisée
up and down the schoolroom: thank God for the blindness of children.) He sets out on foot to his childhood parish in Eaton Square, "for a change," he remarks to Helen on his way out, in an unconvincingly festive tone, but the fact is that he has to get away from this house before he begins to roar and kick little tables over. He's spent months on end on sloops that never felt so cramped.

At fifty-six, he still walks like a sportsman. (People often look up in astonishment as Harry marches by; he's too tall to blend into a crowd.) Today he reaches Eaton Square far too early for the service. He kills some time strolling among the graves, visiting the tomb that his parents share with his eldest brother and William's eldest son. Both boys drowned; it strikes Harry now as a toll the sea takes of the Codringtons, once per generation.

Harry was just fifteen, writing poetry in the dorm at Harrow, when the message came: his handsome brother Edward's boat had capsized off Hydra. When the mourning was over (nobody said, but everybody was aware),there'd be a vacancy as a midshipman in their father's gift: Sir Edward's nominee to replace his lost son would be accepted without question. Though fifteen was late to start, and Harry knew little Euclid or trig—the twin poles of a Naval Academy education—he immediately decided to seize this chance. He knew a life at sea would be a dangerous one, but active and absorbing.

Only now, leaning on the Codrington tomb around the corner from his childhood home, does it strike Harry as disturbing that he stepped into a dead boy's shoes. On what arbitrary pivots our lives turn.

The bells, calling the congregation: Harry goes into the narrow church and finds a verger to pay for a pew. The hangings are more faded and dustier than he remembers. The liturgy's familiar, and mildly comforting; he can shut his eyes and pretend he's a boy again. But the sermon text, by some perverse chance, is from Proverbs:

Strength and honour are her clothing ... She looketh well to the ways of her household; and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.

Harry tries not to listen, but the vicar's insipid pieties on the subject of marriage creep into his head. He finds himself picturing the wide-eyed, petrified face of his drowning brother. All at once Harry fears he's going to vomit, here and now in the pew.

He pushes his way out, making his excuses in a strained whisper. How coldly the parishioners of Eaton Square stare.

On the street, he's shivering; the late September breeze infiltrates his summer coat at the neck and wrists. Sweat going clammy on his forehead, and under his black beard.
What have I become?
A creeping, plotting, spy-hiring man. A skeletal puppet of a husband. And what if he's wrong, after all, it occurs to Harry like a knife between the ribs: what if Helen really did get that telegram the other night, but decided out of misguided politeness to stay for dessert? What if all her crimes are his diseased inventions? What if she's never been any worse than an artless, restless young woman who likes a little flattery? What kind of monster would set a deadly trap for the mother of his children?

He keeps on walking. His stomach is feeling somewhat settled by the time he turns the corner onto Eccleston Square; the pain in his head has eased.

But there's a hansom parked outside his house. The driver's leaning down to the little hatch in the roof, collecting his coins. And then the door folds back, and a blond head emerges. Unmistakable. A man who should be in Malta but somehow is here instead, on the path outside Harry's house, tucking his watch back into his pocket with easy grace. Colonel David Anderson.

I have her.

Or rather,
I've lost her.

Harry's knees give; his cane scrapes across the stone.
Pull yourself together, Codrington.
A quick glance across the road: no Crocker painting the glossy green railings.
Damn the man.
Of course, it's Sunday; the painting alibi would look very suspicious, and scandalize Mrs. Hartley's neighbours. Harry's shaking so much he has to lean against the garden wall of the corner house.

As the horse moves off, Anderson stands looking up at the Codringtons' house. Harry mustn't take a single step forward. Bird's warnings ring in his ears: his only chance of doing anything useful is to do nothing. He edges back around the wall, but it only comes up to his chest. He crouches down, then realizes that makes him look like a housebreaker, so he straightens up again.
Let Anderson not look my way.
It's a sort of terror.

In Sir Edward Codrington's day, a gentleman in this predicament knew exactly what to do: call the cur out. It was the age of heroes, and what did it matter if a little more blood got spilled? But nowadays a duel brings the parties nothing but reproach and ridicule. Harry was born too late: this is the age of correct form and due process. This is what comes of the long peace Harry's toiled to preserve.

He'll have to stand here like some tailor's dummy while Anderson goes into the house—then wait till he comes out again, some time later. The thought of this man with Helen chokes Harry. Behind closed doors, no witnesses.
Crocker, where in the devil's name have you got to?
Could the spy possibly be watching from some other nook? Or has he gone off for a bag of shrimp? It occurs to Harry to grab the nearest pedestrian and demand, "Will you testify on oath that you saw that person there going into and coming out of my house?"
Calm yourself, man, the servants can do that much.

A dreadful plan occurs to Harry. He'll give Anderson five minutes. Ten, let's say. How long do these things take? (Harry has never had an intrigue. His few premarital experiences were strictly commercial.) Then he'll let himself into the hall with his key, very softly, and find a maid. No, the footman; a man will be more credible in court. "Be so good as to come with me to my wife's room," he'll say, "as quietly as possible."

All this shoots through his mind like a train, in the few moments Anderson is looking up at the house. But then the golden silhouette turns, and the handsome mouth opens in a very wide smile. Or a rictus of shock?

A hearty roar: "Codrington, the very man!"

Harry jerks as if he's been shot. Anderson's walking towards the corner with his hand out; Harry lurches towards him. "Good morning to you," he manages. "I was just about to ring your bell."

"Oh yes?" Like a ventriloquist's doll. "What are you doing on these shores?"

"Ah, well, that's the nub of it. I got some leave for a rather particular purpose. This is a farewell call, I'm afraid."

Harry sucks the soft inside of his lip. "But you've only just arrived."

"Farewell to single life, I meant," says Anderson with a gulping sort of laugh.

Harry's mouth goes slack.

"Yes, I'm just down from Scotland, and dropping cards all round town to announce that my cousin Gwen's consented to make an honest man of me at last."

Could Harry have misread the whole story? Has he been so bored and dull, in the purgatory of half-pay, that he's made up nightmares to scare himself? "Well! Congratulations, old fellow," he says in a strangled voice.

"Thanks, thanks. My ship's come in, that's a fact," beams Anderson. "She's a very dear girl, and quite a beauty. She's heard all my tales, over the years; she'll be thrilled to meet you, when we come to town."

"I very much look forward to it." Harry struggles to find some harmless truism. "Marriage..." he begins.

"Nothing like it, so all the chaps tell me," supplies Anderson after a second.

"Quite so."

"Well," with a stretch and a grin, "mustn't dally. I've still got most of Belgravia to cover, and all of Mayfair."

Harry's heart starts pounding, worse than ever it did during a bombardment at sea.
Liars always say too much.
What gave it away was the cab: Anderson sent the cab away before walking up to the house on Eccleston Square. Who ever heard of delivering a sheaf of cards on foot, all over Belgravia and Mayfair? And on a Sunday morning too? Now Harry knows for sure. It may not count as
hard proof,
but it's enough to still the nagging doubts in his mind. "Oh," he says mechanically, "won't you come up for a moment?"

"No, no, I don't think so. Time's winged chariot, and all. Give my respects to Mrs. C.?" The colonel pronounces this without a quaver.

"Indeed. Dine with us this week, won't you?"

"Ah, a shame, I'll be back in Scotland."

"Of course." Harry starts up the steps to his front door. Then an idea shoots through his head like an electric shock. He turns, fumbling in one of his pockets. "I say, have a copy of my latest photograph."

"Awfully kind of you, Codrington. Now I can prepare the future Mrs. A. for your fearsome beard!"