Iain Pears - Stone's Fall

No; I didn't. I never did. Any more than she ever loved me. She never knew the meaning of the word and, until I met Elizabeth, neither did I. We deserved each other, I have no doubt, but neither your father nor Macintyre deserved either of us. They were better men than that.

She was too addled in her brain to know what I was asking; could not put the pieces together. All she wanted was money; she could have had it all, if she had given me a different answer. She got the money, much good would it do her. Oh, her lovely little child, so cruelly snatched from her mother's arms. But a mother's love is insatiable, she tracked it down, almost, had found the woman who had taken it away, persuaded her to say. Such a long way they had sent it, so she would never suspect. She outwitted them, she was clever. But fate was cruel, she was defeated again. It had gone by the time she got there, walked out. It was working nearby, she went to see. The child had fled. Oh, she looked, certainly she looked, a child in trouble needs a mother's love. But not a sign nor a trace was there ever again.

And there were only a few more questions left to ask. I didn't expect the answers to be anything but banal, uninteresting, a tidying up. I was perfectly calm, almost relaxed. Just a bit of unfinished business before I could leave. I almost didn't bother to ask at all.

Was it a boy or a girl?

A girl.

Where was this?

Lausanne.

What was the name of the family?

Stauffer.

And her name?

Elizabeth.

I was wrong. I thought that I had left Venice behind me when I travelled back to England with Macintyre's machinery, but it has been with me all my life. I have now made my preparations; swiftly and inadequately no doubt, but they will serve. I must carry out my plans before I weaken, and I have a change of heart. I am a coward physically, I know myself well. It will not be easy to take the necessary steps, all too easy to find some reason for changing my mind. But I must not weaken. This is the only entirely satisfactory end. Many people will be inconvenienced because of what I am about to do, but I do not care. Elizabeth would suffer if I acted differently, and that I could not bear.

I cannot remain with her. I cannot ever see her again, for fear that I would confess the terrible truth that I learned this afternoon. I cannot even say goodbye, nothing must suggest anything other than an accident. She would work to find out the truth. She is a very intelligent, determined woman, as you know. Despite my efforts to protect her, she might succeed.

You must know this, Cort. You owe me nothing; had I acted differently, your father might, perhaps, have held on to his frail health long enough to be a proper parent. I do not apologise for using you in the matter of Barings in Paris and I imagine you do not expect such an apology. These things happen in politics and in business. My only mistake there was assuming you were sufficiently worldly wise to expect it. Equally, I do not think that watching you over the years pays off my debt to you in any way. Had things been otherwise, you would not have needed me.

But you do owe a debt to Elizabeth. You took it on in Paris when you were willing to sacrifice her for the sake of some gold. You were her friend, she trusted you, and you betrayed her to vent your anger at me. I did not understand it at the time, but I fear the cruelty of your mother lives on in you. You enjoyed what you did that night too much; I saw it in your eyes, and I know that you have tried to justify yourself since by thinking that I, too, was prepared to do the same, if necessary. That I had Drennan acquire her diaries that I might use them myself. You were wrong. Even then I would have allowed the entire Empire to crumble to protect her. And you killed the man who saved you from the flames.

The bill you incurred then is outstanding, and I am calling it in. It is your only chance of throwing off for ever that terrible inheritance which lies within you. You must hide or destroy this memoir of mine, ensure Louise Cort never grasps the truth, and watch over your half-sister for the rest of your life, enduring her hatred of you, never saying a word. Your father is part of you as well; you will comply with my wishes.

I love Elizabeth more than anything else in my life. I would gladly and willingly have given up every last penny I possessed for her. She could have asked anything, and I would have done it. She is my love. To see her sleep, to see her smile, to see the way she rests her head on her hand as she sits reading on the settee. That is all I have ever needed. This is my wife, and for every moment of the past twenty years I have loved her as a wife. She is the best person I have ever known; how that is I do not understand. Perhaps the cruelty and malice of her parents cancelled each other out, and by some miracle produced a woman who has neither. I do not know. All I know is that I would have laid down my life for her. Now I will.

My sins, the sins of Venice, have defiled the one person I have loved, the woman I should have protected and nurtured. I am married to my own daughter, the child I should have held in my arms and loved as a father. Whom I should have brought up, cherished, seen married, seen holding children in her arms. Instead, I consigned her to a cruel childhood, and then a terrible fate. I saw with my own eyes what I had done when I was confronted with the hideous product of our union, but I did not recognise as such until now. It is too great to bear. I can no longer live with her, and I cannot live without her.

As long as she knows nothing, she will miss me and regret my passing, and will be able to build a new life, a happy one. Her husband, who was getting on in years, tripped on a carpet and fell from a window. Sad; he was a loving husband, but he never liked heights. She will mourn and, I hope, forget. She is young enough to remarry, and will be wealthy beyond care. I had wished to grow old with her – older, I should say – and that is no longer possible. She will instead carry a fond memory of me, rather than the repelled loathing that she must feel if she knew the truth.

She has done nothing wrong in her entire life, except love me. You thought I did not know of her past. I knew nearly everything; but I could find out nothing about her origins. Her story began at that orphanage in Lausanne. There was no trace of the identity of her mother, or her father, no notion where she had been born or even when. I looked, but came up with nothing. She was an orphan and what did it matter who or what her parents were? I loved her too much to be bothered by her way of life, so why should matters so far beyond her control be of any importance? Why should I have connected her with the ravings of a monster in Venice years before, cajoling a man with a tale to bend him to her will?

In a few moments I will open the window that has been waiting for me for near half a century. I do not fear it. That old Venetian has been patient, and will wait a few moments longer. All those things of which I was so proud, which gave me such satisfaction, have fled from my mind as if they had never happened. All those businesses, those tangled connections of money, will unravel when I am dead. I leave it to you to salvage what you can, if you wish. In a few short years, everything I have done will fade and be forgotten, as I will be and deserve to be.

Very well. Let it be so.

Charlotte Bannister-Parker, Felicity Bryan, Véronique Cardi, Dan Franklin, Julie Grau, Kalypso Nikolaides, Lyndal Roper, Nick Stargardt, Karina Stern, Lucinda Stevens, Françoise Triffaux and, more than anyone and as usual, Ruth Harris.