A Rich Full Death

‘When can I come?’ I asked.

‘Tomorrow. At the same time. Ill be expecting you.’

She cocked her head slightly on one side. Far below I heard footsteps reverberating in the hallway.

‘Go now!’ breathed Beatrice. ‘I shall expect you tomorrow. Go quickly!’

The door closed, leaving me blinded by the darkness. The footsteps sounded much nearer now, leaping up the shallow steps three at a time towards the first floor. There was no escape that way. I backed into the nearest corner and flattened myself as best I could against the wall, trying to melt into the stone. I felt horribly visible, nevertheless.

The footsteps came up the final flight of steps, and a stocky figure appeared and walked over to the door which had just closed. There was a knock, and a moment later Beatrice opened the door once more. I realised now why I had not immediately recognised her the first time, for she was deliberately ‘got up’ to seem younger than she was, with a simple one-piece garment, loose hair and face innocent of any paint.

However, I had no difficulty in recognising the dark hair, silvery beard, broad shoulders and strident voice of the caller who stood on the threshold, even though he had his back to me-but then I had parted from him not fifteen minutes earlier.

‘Good evening, my dear,’ he said. ‘And how are you this evening?’

‘Very well, thank you,’ replied Beatrice sweetly. ‘And you?’

‘Very well indeed, thank you. May I come in?’

‘Of course.’

She moved aside to admit him-and then I saw her start as she caught sight of me crouching there against the wall, plainly exposed. Browning had only to catch her expression, and turn round, and all would have been lost. But the next instant he had walked in, and she had closed the door, leaving me in the darkness again.

There is much I could say-how many notions, fancies, questions and answers fill my teeming brain! But why spin idle words tonight, when tomorrow I will know?

Affect, yours

Booth

BOOK THREE

The Worst of It

17

Ash Wednesday

29th February

My dear Prescott,

This business grows more desperate with every day that passes. All may yet be well, however. True, the murderer has struck again; but the authorities are now involved, despite all Mr Browning’s efforts to keep them in ignorance-and I, at least, have managed to get myself clear of the whole foul entangling affair. Before telling you the how and the why of that, however, I must beg your indulgence to touch a more personal note for a moment or two.

You will remember with what keen anticipation I had looked forward to the Saturday evening when I was to call on Beatrice, Isabel’s maid, at the house where Browning was such a regular visitor. It was an oppressively warm evening. The day had been airless and overcast, as though the stone walls of Florence had grown upwards to form a grey dome sealing us off completely from the outside world. Night came as a welcome respite, the darkness falling like silence on the eyes. In marked contrast to the previous evening, I was now not in the slightest hurry, and savoured to the full the pleasure of walking slowly through the streets towards my goal.

These Florentine streets, at best narrow, are made to seem narrower still by the overhanging pent-roofs of the tall houses, to which extra storeys are continually being added as the population grows. Because of this, it is a keen pleasure to emerge into one of the great squares-like drawing a deep breath! One of the great joys of Florence is the manner in which one’s perception of the space about one is continually being modified by infinite imperceptible touches as the buildings press in or fall back, urge their attentions or gracefully withhold them; so that for richness and subtlety of impression there is really nothing quite like it in the world.

Nor was the human element missing. Indeed, the entire populace seemed to have quit the dim wretched rooms and dilapidated hovels which appear so quaint to a tourist’s eye, and had sallied out into the streets and squares and alleys and courtyards, where every man, woman and child was busily swanking and singing and flirting and talking. An ominous stillness, however, spoke of a storm crouched somewhere in the offing, and thus the gaiety was a little forced.

And so, for the third time, I entered the plain green-shuttered palazzo on Via Dante Aligheri. On the first occasion I had knocked at a door where no one was at home; on the second the door had opened, but I had not been admitted. But this time I was greeted, and ushered into a small parlour furnished in a fashion so classically Florentine in every detail that it proclaimed itself quite plainly to be the product of a foreign hand.

Beatrice was wearing a black skirt, a black shawl about her shoulders, and a severe starchy blouse fastened with a plain metalwork brooch; her hair was pinned tightly up. The contrast with her appearance the previous evening was so complete that it was clearly intentional, and I could only assume that in the twenty-four hours since our last meeting she had learned something, presumably from Browning, which had caused her to change her opinion of me.

On the other hand, there I was, visiting her alone in her house at night-surely, if my case had been as bad as all that, she would just have left me standing on the threshold. Instead of which I was invited to take a seat on the divan, while she chose a small and rather uncomfortable-looking stool opposite. On a low table near at hand stood a flask of vin santo and a plate of little dry biscuits, hard as rocks, to soak up the delicious honey-tasting wine. This was better, as was Beatrice’s manner and way of looking at me-the way I have had occasion to speak of before. I began to feel that I must have misread the portent of her severe appearance.

‘You have been lied to,’ she said at last, in a low voice, without looking at me. ‘I shall not lie to you. You may not believe me-that would be too much to ask, no doubt. Nevertheless, what I tell you will be the truth.’

‘Of course I shall believe you!’ I cried warmly.

She held up her hands.

‘You must not say that yet.’

‘Is it so very bad, then?’ I asked, half-humorously, for I was in a forgiving vein. Indeed, I rather hoped it was bad-I did not want my magnanimity to go to waste.

‘No, it is not!’ she replied defiantly. ‘It is not bad at all. But you won’t believe that. It is not your fault. No one could believe it.’

I said nothing. After a moment she went on-speaking very slowly, as though forming each phrase entire in her mind before uttering it. The first thing she said was a blow, although I had already guessed it: the apartment in which we were sitting was paid for by Robert Browning. It was he-the hypocrite! the whited sepulchre! — who had chosen the old books and pictures and hangings and pots and bric-a-brac. And it was he-the respectable and venerated Mr Robert Browning, who has made his marriage into one of the wonders of the world, a modern miracle to whose well-publicised shrine pilgrims flock from every corner of the civilised world-it was he who used to come thither every week, whenever the fancy took him, to visit his protegee.

And what, I enquired coldly, was the purpose of these visits? How exactly did the ageing man of letters and