Instantly, I resolve that I will surprise her. My Bradshaw lies on the table. The eleven-thirty departs in just under an hour. I have plenty of time.
At Evenwood, the leaves are falling. They flutter forlornly across paths and terraces, and scuttle about the courtyards, almost like living things, in the suddenly cold wind that scythes up from the river. In the kitchen garden, they accumulate in sodden heaps amongst tangles of decaying mint and drooping borage, and beneath the plum- trees at the north end of the orchard, they lie in thick, goldenblack swathes, soft underfoot, beneath which the grass is already turning a sickly yellow.
Rain begins to sweep in dark funereal sheets across the formal gardens and pleasure-grounds. When I had last seen them, the rose-beds at the end of the Long Walk had been ablaze with colour; now their early-summer glories have been cut down; and the bare earth of Lady Hester’s former Clock Garden – a pointless conceit, which she had planted up with purslane, crane’s bill, and other flowers that supposedly opened or closed at successive hours of the day – now seems a mute and terrible witness to human folly, and to what time will do to us all.
I push open the little white-painted door, and climb up the winding stairs to the first floor, to the apartments above the Library where my mother died, and where I hope to find my dearest girl. I have missed her so very dreadfully, and my heart is afire to see her again and to kiss her sweet face. I bound up the last few stairs, feeling my spirit surge with joy at the thought that we need never be parted again.
Her door is shut, the corridor deserted. I knock twice.
‘Enter!’
She is sitting by the fire, beneath the portrait of Master Anthony Duport, reading (as I soon discover) a volume of Mrs Browning’s poems.* A travelling cloak lies on the sofa.
‘Emily, my dearest, what is the matter? Why have you not written?’
‘Edward!’ she exclaims, suddenly looking up with an expression of surprise. ‘I was not expecting you.’
Her face had taken on that terrible frozen look, which had struck me so forcibly when I had first seen her standing in the vestibule of the Dower House. She did not smile, and made no attempt to rise from her chair. There was no trace now, in either her demeanour or her voice, of the warmth and tender partiality that she had formerly shown me. In their place was a nervous coolness that instantly put me on my guard.
‘Do you know Mrs Browning’s Portuguese sonnets?’ she asked. The tone was flat and false, and I put my question again.
‘My love, tell me what is the matter? You have not written, and you said you would.’
She closed the book and gave a short impatient sigh.
‘You may as well know. I am leaving Evenwood this afternoon for London. I have a great deal to do. Phoebus and I are to be married.’
*[‘The materials of war’.
*[A resort on south coast of the Isle of Wight known for its mild climate.
*[A link was a torch made of tow and pitch used for lighting people along the streets; thus link- boys – boys who provided this service.
*[As the subsequent reference to ‘Mrs Browning’s Portuguese sonnets’ (i.e. the ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’) makes clear, this is the edition of
43
Dies irae*
The world seemed to contract and then fall away, leaving me sundered from what had once been, and from what I had known and believed before.
I stood in that dreadful room rooted to the spot in disbelief, feeling hope and happiness drain out of me like blood from a severed vein. I must have closed my eyes momentarily, for I distinctly remember opening them again, and finding that Miss Carteret had got up from her chair, and was now standing by the sofa putting on her cloak. Perhaps she had been in jest – one of those little games that women sometimes like to play with those who adore them. Perhaps …
‘You cannot stay here, you know. You must leave immediately.’
Cold, cold! Hard and cold! Where was my dear girl, my sweet and loving Emily? Beautiful still – so wonderfully beautiful! But it was not her. This furious simulacrum was animated by a wholly different being, unrecognizable and dreadful.
‘Edward – Mr Glapthorn! Why do you not answer? Did you hear what I said?’
At last I found my tongue.
‘I heard, but I did not, and do not, understand.’
‘Then I shall tell you again. You must go now, or I shall call for assistance.’
Now her eyes were flashing fire, and her beautiful lips, those lips I had kissed so often, had pursed to a tight little pout. As she stood there, rigid and menacing, enveloped in her long black hooded cloak, she seemed like some sorceress of legend newly risen from the infernal depths; and for a moment I was afraid – yes, afraid. The change in her was so great, and so complete, that I could not conceive how it had come about. Like a photographic negative, what should have been light was now dark – dark as hell. Was she possessed? Had she gone suddenly mad? Perhaps it was I who should have called for assistance?
In a swirl of angry black, she headed for the door; and then it was as if I had woken suddenly from a dream. Sorceress? Humbug! This was plain villainy. I smelled it, and knew it for what it was.
Her hand was almost on the door-handle when I seized it and wrenched her towards me. We were face to face now, eye to eye, will to will.
‘Let me go, sir! You are hurting me!’ She struggled, but I had her fast.
