What Lies Beneath

Chapter 17

London, 1912

Serena had relived the night when Julius attacked her over and over again. The dreadful thing was that it was not Julius’s madness or his brutality she kept remembering: it was the way he had crouched sobbing in a corner of the room afterwards.

She sought for an emotion that would drive this memory out and that would also drive out the fear of the approaching birth, and after a while was aware of resentment – not towards Julius, but towards the child. She tried to quench this shameful emotion, but it stayed on her mind like a bruise. Julius might be dead by the time the child was born, but Serena knew that every time she looked at his son or daughter the painful memory of its father would taunt her. She did not think she could ever love this child. She did not think she could even like it.

Each morning she had violent spasms of sickness, so severe her insides felt as if they were being wrenched out. Her ankles and wrists swelled painfully and so grotesquely that in places her skin cracked and split. Serena hated this almost more than the sickness. She took to wearing loose teagowns with long, wide sleeves and trailing hems. The gowns were mostly sent from Bond Street and Knightsbridge stores; Harrods and Debenham and Freebody were always so obliging. The dresses covered the swellings and sores quite well but, to make sure no one caught sight of them by accident, Serena told Dora and Hetty to keep all the curtains three-quarters closed. Yes, she said snappishly, she did mean all day long – she had a constant headache and the light hurt her eyes. She left her own rooms less and less. Dora and Hetty were young and spry, and quite able to scamper up and down the stairs with trays.

Guests to the house were discouraged, except for Dr Martlet, although when he suggested performing another of the embarrassing intimate examinations – ‘to make sure the child is in the proper position’ – Serena discouraged him. She hated that kind of examination, with its fearsome instruments, but she was more afraid of what he would say if he saw the rash and the sores under her flowing gowns. So she said she was not feeling quite up to an examination today. They would consider it on his next visit.

Crispian had written to her twice, and Dr Martlet said he had had an untidy scribble from Gil. Julius had not written, but Serena had not expected that because Julius seldom wrote to anybody. Crispian’s second letter was sent from Nice, although he said by the time it reached England they would probably be halfway round Italy. They were all very well and hoped to see a little of Nice while they were here. They had all suffered brief bouts of seasickness but Gil Martlet said cold champagne was helpful so they were taking a few bottles of Veuve Clicquot on board.

After reading this Serena told Mrs Flagg to serve a glass of chilled champagne at dinner each evening. It did not, in the event, help her own sickness a great deal, but she enjoyed drinking it so much she took to drinking a glass with her lunch as well. And since one glass made her feel better able to face what was ahead, she increased it to two glasses with lunch and three with dinner.

Dora and Hetty said having the curtains closed all day made the housework a fair trial. You could not see a hand in front of your face. Hetty had left a broom on the stairs the other day while answering the door to Dr Martlet, and Mr Flagg had missed seeing it and tumbled over it. His language had been shocking and Mrs Flagg had to rub his shoulder with arnica, which stank out the kitchen for an entire day.

Dora said it was becoming a nightmare to wait on the mistress, what with her trailing silks and chiffons. Dora was partial to a bit of silk, but not when the hems were dragged over the floor like a weeping willow, making a deal of washing and ironing because the mistress could not be doing with anything grubby.

‘And silk scarves round her neck,’ said Dora, over a midday dinner of Mrs Flagg’s roast mutton.

‘Ladies in the desert fold scarves over their faces,’ said Hetty. ‘I read about it in a novel. P’raps she’s trying to start a new fashion.’

‘Some hopes of that with madam never setting foot out of doors,’ said Mrs Flagg, passing the potatoes to Flagg, because people had to eat, even if the mistress had taken to a diet of champagne, nasty windy French muck.

Dora, who liked to live in an atmosphere of friendliness, asked Mr Flagg to tell about the journey the master and Mr Crispian were on. Where would they be about now? Mr Flagg had a book of maps that showed where other countries were with little coloured pictures; Dora thought it was ever so interesting although you couldn’t pronounce half the names.

‘No, nor want to,’ said Mrs Flagg, who could not be doing with Abroad ever since she and Flagg had taken a day trip to Ostend and she had been sick on the ferry crossing.

Flagg was pleased to be appealed to and he looked out the atlas there and then, spreading it on the table so as to trace the route for the two girls.

‘All those places,’ said Dora, as she and Hetty pored over the map of Italy and the Adriatic Sea. ‘Romantic, I call it.’

‘I don’t know about it being romantic, it’ll be a long time before they get home,’ said Mrs Flagg, setting down a rhubarb tart and reaching for the pudding dishes, while Flagg removed the atlas in case somebody spilled custard on it.

Dr Martlet called most days, generally just after lunch, which Serena considered a very suitable time. He could be offered coffee, which Flagg generally brought upstairs, and then poured out. Today, however, it was Flagg’s half-day and it was Hetty who carried in the tray and set it down. Serena did not trust Hetty to pour coffee, so she dismissed her and poured it out herself.

It was unfortunate that as she handed Dr Martlet the cup, the long sleeve of her gown fell back, showing her forearm. The rash was particularly bad that day, crusted and bleeding, and although Serena pulled the sleeve down at once Dr Martlet had seen it.

He stared at her arm and, in a voice of unmistakable horror, said, ‘Lady Cadence, how long have you had those sores?’

‘Not very long. A few weeks. My wrists and ankles tend to swell – I told you that.’

‘Yes, but… May I look at your arm more closely?’

He did not touch her at all, but he looked carefully at the sores and asked if there were any others. ‘On your body? Between your legs?’

‘Oh, no,’ said Serena quickly. ‘This is only where the skin has cracked and become dry from the swelling. That’s all it is,’ she said, a bit desperately. ‘I usually put hand lotion on, but I forgot it this morning.’

‘Don’t put lotion of any kind on,’ he said. ‘It won’t help and it might make it worse.’ He sat back, looking at her, and incredibly there were tears in his eyes. ‘Oh, my dear Serena,’ he said. ‘I’ve prayed this wouldn’t happen.’

He had always addressed her as Lady Cadence before, but now, it was as if a mask, diligently kept in place all these years, had slipped. Serena was not offended because of his evident distress and concern. She said, ‘But they’re just patches of dry skin, aren’t they?’ Fool, she was saying to herself. You know what it is; you knew almost from the first appearance of the marks.

Dr Martlet sat very still for a moment, then he said, ‘I’m afraid it’s something far more serious than that.’

Serena heard herself say, ‘I’ve got the same disease as Julius, haven’t I?’

She willed him to say of course she had not; that it was just dry skin, or some condition resulting from the pregnancy. She was even hearing the comforting words in her mind.

Gillespie Martlet said, ‘Yes, I’m afraid you have.’

Serena sat very still for several minutes. Then she said, ‘Once, you told me that the disease my husband has can eventually affect the brain. Will that happen to me?’

‘In your husband’s case,’ he said, ‘the disease went untreated for far too long. He hid it from us all. For years, perhaps. In your case, though, we know about it early enough to try a number of treatments.’

‘How effective are the treatments, though?’

‘Some can be very good,’ he said, but Serena heard the note of evasion.

She said, ‘But if they aren’t effective – it could encroach on my brain?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, it could.’

1912

Before they left England, Dr Martlet had told Crispian the syphilis was encroaching on Julius Cadence’s brain. ‘I’ve been measuring the progress of it as far as one can measure such a thing,’ he said, ‘and it seems to me that there’s been quite a rapid deterioration in the last three months. It’s by no means a constant process, though, so it might slow down.’

‘But not reverse?’

‘I’m afraid not,’ said Martlet. ‘Crispian, you need to know that now it’s reached this stage – now the disease has a firmer hold of him – there will probably be episodes of violence and also extreme personality changes. Those episodes will become more pronounced and more frequent. And – I’m sorry, Crispian – but in the end you may find that not only does he not know you, you won’t know him. He’ll turn into a stranger.’

But as the ship left Italy and began the long haul around the coast of Greece, Julius seemed almost normal. They docked briefly at Patras, where Jamie went ashore to explore the ancient cathedrals and pursue the tradition of Byzantine music in the city. Crispian went with him, interested to see something of the place, leaving Julius with the ship’s doctor, who did not want to come, on the grounds that once you had seen one port you had seen most of them. He would spend his afternoon quietly on the ship, Dr Brank said, although he would be very grateful if one of them could bring back a bottle of the local wine. Perhaps a couple of bottles, in fact, or maybe best make it the round half-dozen while they were about it. He was by way of making a collection of wines of the world.

‘It’d be ungenerous to refuse that request,’ said Gil, and accompanied Crispian and Jamie for the first half-hour of the exploration, then proceeded to vanish.

By half-past four, Jamie and Crispian, meeting by arrangement in one of Patras’ squares, began to worry that something had happened to him. They set off to scour the city, finally running him to earth in a dim subterranean room where he was involved in a card game with six sinister-looking men of uncertain nationality and dubious probity.

Told they might miss the ship’s departure, he said, ‘Balls, dear boy. The ship would never sail without its wealthiest passengers.’

Pressed for an account of his activities, he said he had gone into the wine shop in quest of the doctor’s wine, had there been recognized as English, considered as a result to be lavishly rich and forcibly enlisted in the game that was in progress below the shop. Crispian and Jamie knew how it was with card games, he said; once you started playing, time ceased to exist.

‘But it’s been nearly five hours,’ said Crispian, furious.

‘That proves my point.’

He was unrepentant and amiable, and on the way back to the ship counted his winnings with satisfaction. After this, he listened with apparent interest to Jamie’s description of how he had managed to find a conservatoire devoted exclusively to Byzantine music and had been able to hear a little of one of the classes.

Crispian, who for the last couple of weeks had been deciding that Gil was not nearly as wild as gossip painted him, realized angrily he had been wrong. Gil was every bit as wild, and he was untrustworthy and reckless as well. Those strange and disturbing moments of closeness – intimacy, if you wanted to call it that – that had passed between them could be ascribed to nothing more than Gil’s mischievous streak. Crispian would put them very firmly from his mind and he would certainly not allow them to happen again.

They were several days out into the Aegean Sea when the last shreds of sanity fell away from Julius Cadence.

He and Crispian had been having breakfast together; Julius had been calm and lucid for several days and that morning had started to talk to Crispian about Cadences. Crispian, drinking his coffee, even wondered if it was possible the doctors might have been wrong about his father’s condition. He appeared pleased to be with Crispian, and he was wearing one of the linen jackets purchased for the trip with a silk scarf. His hair was brushed neatly and there was a faint scent of the expensive soap he always liked to use.

‘When I think what’s ahead, Crispian,’ he said, drinking his coffee, ‘I’m worried for the bank. There’re storm clouds gathering in Europe – you know that, of course?’

‘Yes, certainly.’

‘If there’s war it’ll affect the financial institutions. War always does.’

‘Will there be a war, d’you think?’ Please let this conversation go on, thought Crispian. Please let him stay like this – lucid and intelligent.

Julius said, ‘Yes, I think there’s going to be a war. And, other considerations apart, Cadences may have to ride out what’s called hyperinflation after it – that’s something that frequently follows wars. Your grandfather saw it happen after Crimea and the Transvaal, and to a lesser extent I saw it happen after the Second Boer War. Prices increase so rapidly that currency loses its value, you see. Coinage becomes debased. Cadences has never yet suffered an actual bank run, but if this war that’s brewing ravages its way across Europe, as the politicians say, then it might do so in the aftermath.’ He frowned, then said, ‘Not all wars are fought on battlefields.’

Crispian thought: this is the man whose brain, according to old Martlet, is being slowly eroded by disease. How sad it is that my father should talk so lucidly and with such concern about a run on Cadences, when I have brought him out of England to avoid that very possibility.

Suddenly Julius said, ‘I do know what’s ahead, Crispian.’

‘You mean if there’s a war?’

‘I don’t mean the war. I mean me. I’m ill, aren’t I? No pretence, now.’ For a moment the familiar imperious impatience showed.

Crispian said carefully, ‘You were working too hard. That’s why we’ve come on this sea trip. Dr Martlet thought it would do you good.’

‘Ah. Ah, yes, sea trip. But you can’t always trust the sea.’ He looked uneasily about the small dining room, and an expression came into his eyes Crispian had never seen before. He felt a lurch of apprehension.

‘I don’t like travelling,’ said Julius suddenly, and hunched over, wrapping his arms around his body as if hugging a pain. ‘I don’t feel safe.’

Crispian searched for something soothing and ordinary to say, but before he could speak Julius straightened up. The sunlight fell more strongly across his face and with a deep stirring horror, Crispian understood properly what Martlet had meant about his father turning into a stranger. I don’t know you, he thought. Someone else is waking behind your eyes.

Julius stood up, pushing the chair away and the silk scarf round his neck fell slightly open. For the first time Crispian saw the lesions in full, livid on the skin of his father’s throat. Like open sores, he thought, and although he tried not to flinch, his father saw the revulsion.

But he said, ‘So now you’ve seen what I am. Dear God, if you knew how I scheme and struggle to stop everyone from knowing and seeing—’

‘It doesn’t matter—’ began Crispian, reaching out a hand, but Julius was already pushing his chair back. ‘I can’t bear you to see it,’ he said, and with a gesture that was infinitely pitiable, he scrabbled at the scarf to cover his throat again. ‘I can’t bear anyone to see it. I know what it is, even though that old fool Martlet tried to pretend. But you see, Crispian, it might be better not to give it a name.’ The sly darting look showed again. ‘Once you give something a name,’ said Julius, ‘it makes it real. Did you know that? The priests will tell you that to exorcize a demon you first have to name it… But I’ve never named my demon, Crispian, I’ve never dared…’

He tailed off and Crispian, moving slowly, got up and began to edge his way to the door, intending to call Gil or Jamie, or the ship’s doctor. He had reached the door when the sly look vanished and wild glaring madness took its place. Julius was making flailing, uncoordinated gestures with his arms as if fighting off an invisible assailant. The cups and plates were swept to the floor, most of them smashing, and Julius sank into a tight huddle in the corner, wrapping his arms about him, his head hunched over. In a sobbing whisper, as if talking to himself, he said, ‘I never name it, that demon… I won’t call it by its name, no matter what it does to me, because if I do it will destroy me completely…’

Pity closed round Crispian’s throat, but he managed to get into the corridor and to shout for Dr Brank, who came almost at once, Gil at his heels.

They took in the situation at a glance, and Gil went straight to the corner where Julius crouched, and took his arm. ‘Let’s get you back to your cabin, sir,’ he said, and through the dizzy horror Crispian was aware of thinking it was a pity Gil seemed to have abandoned his medical training because there was a gentle kindness in his voice he had never heard before.

But when the three of them tried to move Julius he fought them savagely, emitting cries that were half sobs, half roars of rage. After a few moments, the doctor said, ‘Can you two hold him while I get something from my surgery?’

‘Yes, but what—’

‘Only one thing to do in this situation,’ he said tersely, and without waiting for them to answer, sped from the dining room.

Crispian assumed he would bring a bromide, but when he returned he was carrying an oddly shaped jacket made of canvas. Crispian did not immediately understand, and it was Gil who said, ‘Oh Jesus, you’re going to put him in a straitjacket!’

‘I’m afraid it’s the only course of action,’ said Dr Brank grimly. ‘And you’ll have to help me.’

In his corner, Julius gave a cry of rage, and tried to twist out of Gil’s hands.

‘He knows what it is,’ said the doctor. ‘Sir Julius, I think you’ve had this on before, haven’t you? But it’ll only be for a short time – just until you’re calmer.’

Julius was gripping the doctor’s hands, and Crispian saw the man wince. Julius said, ‘Don’t name it, will you? Don’t say aloud what I am.’

The doctor was busy with the straps, and it was Gil who said, ‘We won’t name it, sir. There’s no need to do so anyway.’ He looked at the doctor. ‘For pity’s sake, can’t you give him a shot of something? Laudanum, if you haven’t anything else.’

‘The condition prohibits laudanum,’ said the doctor in a low voice. ‘Now then, Sir Julius…’

The terrible garment was fashioned a little like a narrow jacket, but the sleeves were almost twice as long as normal sleeves. Crispian held his father while the doctor and Gil managed to pull the jacket over Julius Cadence’s head and forced his arms into the sleeves. He fought them for all he was worth, lashing out, and once his fingernails raked a scratch down Gil’s cheek. Gil swore, but held on, and between them they wound the lengthy sleeves round his body, and then – to Crispian, worst of all – looped a thick crotch strap under his legs and secured it at the back.

‘We’ll have to carry him,’ said Dr Brank. ‘You take his legs, Martlet. Cadence and I will carry his shoulders.’

‘His cabin?’ said Crispian.

‘No, bring him to my surgery. I can keep a better watch on him there.’

Julius was still fighting when they finally laid him on the narrow bunk in the doctor’s rather sparse surgery.

‘He’ll wear himself out quite soon,’ said the doctor. ‘Then we can take the straitjacket off. You two go and have something to eat. I’ll stay with him.’

‘That’s rubbish about laudanum,’ said Gil to Crispian as they went out. ‘I’ve seen it used on syphilis patients at Guy’s perfectly effectively and safely. Anyway, if it’ll calm that poor wretch down, I’ll pour vinegar down him. I tell you what, dear boy, the minute that drunken old sawbones comes out, I’m back in there with the laudanum.’

‘How will you get the laudanum?’ said Crispian suspiciously. He would not be surprised if Gil said he intended to steal it from the dispensary.

‘Private supply,’ said Gil. ‘And don’t put on your prudish look, Crispian. I suffer from insomnia at times. Laudanum allows me to sleep and get some rest.’

Entries From an Undated Journal

There was precious little rest for anyone on that ship as it began to crawl its way along the Turkish coast.

I had looked forward to that part of the expedition – I thought it would be interesting and rewarding to see a little of those exotic lands. The sultans and caliphs and viziers. The covered squares and onion domes, wreathed in their ancient legends. And the people of the old stories – Tamerlaine and Suleiman the Magnificent. There’s magic in the very words, isn’t there? You, who read this, must agree with me, even though you know, by now, that I’m a self-confessed murderer. But murderers can have souls and appreciate the finer things of life. We aren’t all Jack the Ripper characters, walking around with dripping knives in case a likely victim presents him or herself. I always thought him rather an exhibitionist, that man, whoever he was, although the popular press must take some of the (dis)credit, because they seized on the whole thing with the glee of ghouls and sensationalized the killings. ‘Subtle’ is not a word one could ever apply to those newspapers, not then and not now. Still, one can’t really blame them, because scandal was ever popular, and the ordinary people have always loved a juicy murder. Charles Dickens knew that when he gave his Fat Boy that marvellous line: ‘I wants to make your flesh creep.’

But as for that part of the voyage that took us to the Turkish coast – I must confess I felt somewhat cheated that I couldn’t enjoy it as I had hoped. Actually, my memories of those weeks are somewhat blurred. I do know the darkness descended on me quite heavily around then, but I also know I was very cunning and I firmly believe I fooled them all. I’ve said earlier in these pages that I was a consummate actor, but when I look back on those days – on the stifling nights in that stuffy cramped cabin – on the hot smell of tar from the decks and the oakum in the huge coils of rope – I do believe I gave a remarkable performance.

Later

After I finished the above entry, I made a search of this place where I’m spending my last days. Quite why I did that, I can’t explain, because I surely know every last inch. The search didn’t take very long, of course, but the curious thing is that I found something, and as God – or the Devil – is my witness, I don’t believe it was there earlier.

There’s a cupboard opening out of this room. A cupboard so almost-seamless and so flush with the wall I never suspected it was there. But an hour ago I laid the flat of my hands on every inch of the walls and moved slowly around them. And halfway along the long wall near my bed I felt a difference in the surface. Seams, joins, lines making up a definite shape. The shape of a door? No, too small. Even so, I explored along the seams until I realized it was a large, deep cupboard.

Believe me, I have examined this room so minutely I wouldn’t have thought so much as a cobweb could have escaped my attention. But this cupboard had escaped it.

It’s roughly four feet high and perhaps two feet wide. Inside it goes back for about two feet, and then there’s just a blank wall. There’s nothing stored inside it, which is slightly surprising. So what is it? And what’s on the other side of that wall at the back? I sat for a long time trying to work this out.

The thought of escaping is so tremblingly fragile an idea I dare not let it take shape in my mind – I certainly dare not commit it to these pages. Not yet… But, oh God, oh God, let there be a way out of here.

There are three and a half days left to me – eighty-four hours – and I’ve decided to fill them by dividing the rest of my story into segments and allotting one or two segments to each day. It’s unbearable to contemplate the prospect of reaching the end of my story with hours – perhaps as much as a day – of life left, and nothing with which to fill the time.