There was none of the breathlessness. No painful gasps for breath. The horror of it was quite excised. At his desk, less than forty-eight hours after it had happened, he had made his account: the letters arranged themselves into words, regularly aligned, to make sentences and then paragraphs, in which the loss of his daughter was contained. In two informative pages it was done.
When Anthony Vaughan finished the letter, he read it through. Did it say everything that needed to be said? It said everything that could be said. When he was satisfied that it could say no more, he sealed it and rang for the maid, who took it for the post.
That brief and dry account, which he had reused countless times for the benefit of his business associates and other semi-strangers, was the one he brought out now. Though he had not used it for months, he found that he still had it word for word. It took less than a minute to lay the matter before the woman with the grey eyes.
He came to the end of the story and took a mouthful of water from the glass beside him. It had the unexpected and very refreshing taste of cucumber.
Mrs Constantine looked at him with her unwavering, kind look. Something seemed suddenly wrong to him. There was usually stunned shock, a clumsy attempt to console, to say the right thing, or else embarrassed silence that he filled with some remark to redirect the conversation. None of this happened.
‘I see,’ she said. And then – nodding, as if she really did see, but what was there to see? Nothing, surely – ‘Yes. And what about your wife?’
‘My wife?’
‘When you first arrived you told me you had come to seek my help about your wife.’
‘Ah. So I did.’
He felt that he needed to trace a long path back to arriving at the house, that first exchange of words with Mrs Constantine, though it could not have been much more than a quarter of an hour ago. He worked backwards through various obstacles of time and memory, rubbing his eyes, and found what it was he was here for.
‘It’s like this, you see. My wife is – quite naturally – inconsolable. Understandable in the circumstances. She thinks of nothing except our daughter’s return. Her state of mind is lamentable. She will see no one. She permits no diversion from her distress. Her appetite is poor and in her sleep she is pursued by the most appalling nightmares, so she prefers to stay awake. Her behaviour has grown more and more strange, to the point where she is now a danger to herself. To give you just one example: she has taken to going out on the river in a rowing boat, quite alone and without any thought to her comfort and safety. She stays out for hours, in all weathers, in garments that offer her no protection. She cannot say why she does it, and it can do no good at all. It can only harm her. I have suggested taking her away, thinking that travel might restore her. I am even ready to sell up, lock, stock and barrel, and start again in some entirely new place, untainted by our sorrow.’
‘And her response?’
‘She says it is a very good idea and when our daughter comes home that is exactly what we will do. Do you see? If nothing changes, I foresee that she will only go from bad to worse. It is not grief that afflicts her, you must realize, but something far worse. I fear for her. I fear that with no change, her life will end in some awful accident or else in an asylum, and I would do anything – anything at all – to prevent that.’
The grey eyes remained upon him, and he was aware of all the observation going on behind the kindness. This time he made clear that he was not going to say any more and that it was her turn to speak (had he ever met a woman who said so little?), and she opened her mouth at last. ‘That must be very lonely for you,’ she said.
Anthony Vaughan could barely conceal his disappointment. ‘That is beside the point. What I want you to do is to talk to her.’
‘To what end?’
‘Tell her that the child is dead. I believe it is what she needs.’
Mrs Constantine blinked twice. In another person this would be almost nothing, but in a woman of her unperturbability this counted as surprise.
‘Let me explain.’
‘I think you had better.’
‘I want you to tell my wife that our daughter is dead. Tell her that the child is happy. Tell her she is with angels. Do messages, voices. Do the thing with the smoke and mirrors, if you are set up for it.’ He glanced around the room again as he said this. It seemed unlikely that this decorous drawing room could double for service with the contraptions and curtains that he supposed were necessary for such performances, but perhaps it was another room she used for all that. ‘Look, I’m not presuming to tell you your own business. You know what works. I can tell you things that will make Helena believe you. Things only she and I know. And then …’
‘Then?’
‘Then we can be sad and sorry and weep and say our prayers, and then—’
‘And then, when your wife has mourned, she will find her way back to life – to you – again?’
‘Exactly!’ Anthony Vaughan was full of gratitude at having been so perfectly understood.
Mrs Constantine tipped her head very slightly to one side. She smiled at him. Kindly. With understanding. ‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible,’ she said.
Anthony Vaughan started. ‘Why ever not?’
She shook her head. ‘For one thing, you have misunderstood – or been misled, perhaps, about what it is that happens here. It is an understandable mistake. Furthermore, what you suggest would do no good.’
‘I will pay you the going rate. I will pay you double if you ask it.’
‘It is not a question of money.’
‘I don’t understand! It is a simple enough transaction! Tell me how much you want and I will pay it!’
‘I am profoundly sorry for your suffering, Mr Vaughan. To lose a child is one of the hardest burdens a human being can bear.’ She frowned faintly. ‘But what about you, Mr Vaughan? Do you believe your daughter to be dead?’
‘She must be,’ he said.
The grey eyes looked at him. He had the sudden impression that she could see right into his soul, that she could see aspects of his being that were in darkness even to him. He felt his heart start to beat uncomfortably.
‘You didn’t tell me her name.’
‘Helena.’
‘Not your wife’s name. Your daughter’s.’
Amelia. The name rose in him and he choked it down. There was a spasm in Vaughan’s chest. He coughed, gasped, reached for the water again and drank half the glass of it. He took an experimental breath to see if his chest was free.
‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Why won’t you help me?’
‘I would like to help you. You are in need of help. You cannot go on much longer like this. But what you have asked me today, besides being impossible, would do no good.’
He got to his feet, made an exasperated gesture with his arm. For a ridiculous moment he wondered whether he was about to raise his palms to his eyes and weep. He shook his head.
‘I’ll go, then.’
She rose too. ‘If you ever wish to come back, please do. You will be welcome.’
‘Why should I come back? You can do nothing for me. You have made that perfectly plain.’
‘That’s not quite what I said. Do refresh yourself, if you would like to. There is water and a clean towel on the side there.’