Мэтью Перл: The Dante Chamber

But the young constable who met them at Scotland Yard was reticent as a clam as he took down their information. He was only intermittently attentive. Meanwhile, a wide-shouldered, tall man, whom the other officers called Inspector Williamson, burst into and out of the room a few times, chewing on the stem of a flower and complaining to his inferiors about a newspaper that published new details, before permission had been given, about the shocking murder of Jasper Morton.

The constable slowly printed in careful hand in his notebook: Dante Gabriel Rossetti .

“Listen to us, young man,” Browning said, his irritation pushing out as he seemed on the verge of exploding across at the indifferent official. “We are talking about a missing man here. Aren’t you going to initiate an inquiry? Are you going to do something, anything ?”

“Mr. Rossetti is a grown man,” the constable said in a soft, frictionless voice with a hint of an Irish upbringing, as Christina’s voice preserved a trace of Italy. “He is fully competent. I believe they are rather prone to wandering. Painters, artists, and men of letters, I mean. I appreciate that you’re both concerned. However, without evidence that he is in some kind of jeopardy... I suppose you can see for yourselves how busy our men are these days.”

In the background, Dolly Williamson was now calling out to some unseen companion: “I want that reporter in irons! That’s right! His name is Walker!”

“I didn’t want to unduly emphasize this, but do you know who we are, Constable?” Browning asked, leaning over the desk so that his face was almost against the constable’s.

“Mr. Browning, please,” said Christina, mortified to her core.

Constable Branagan nodded. “I do, Mr. Browning. You’re the poet of many popular volumes, The Ring and the Book , of course, but ‘My Last Duchess’ being my favorite. And Miss Rossetti, poetess of the remarkable ‘Goblin Market.’ Practically everyone I knew took a fancy to that when it was printed. A new volume coming soon, Miss Rossetti?”

“No,” she said quietly.

“I wasn’t much of a reader before serving as one of Mr. Dickens’s porters at Gad’s Hill,” explained Branagan, “but I’ve tried to keep up with books since leaving that position.”

“I daresay nothing could impress a man after lugging around Dickens’s valise,” Browning muttered.

Christina already blushed deeply at Browning’s attempt to use their renown, then felt another wave of stomach-twisting embarrassment at the constable’s mention of her most lauded poem.

“Miss Rossetti, has your brother ever before left his home without telling anyone where he went?” asked the constable.

He had.

“In those previous occasions, has he stayed away for days? Weeks, sometimes?”

At that moment she knew all their other arguments were lost.

“Gabriel is not all gloom and eccentricity, Constable,” she said. “He does things that are at once beautiful and absurd, and his tender heart feels stabs from all sides. When he chooses to, he becomes the sunshine of the family.”

The young man nodded with sincere reflection, but closed his notebook and the case.

Speechless, helpless, she exited the building in a hurry. Her legs felt weak, as if they had been detached, as the cold wind whipped around her. The relentless noises of London rumbled around them, an obnoxious taunt, it seemed, emphasizing the indifference that met their pleas. The walls of nearby buildings were covered in advertisements, something her father always hated, saying London had written all over itself like a badly abused book. Flowers, milk, hot pies, all offered for sale from one direction or another, over the cries from bootblacks and street sweeps.

Browning broke their silence. “If I ever cross that constable’s path, I shall probably be silly enough to soil my shoe by kicking him. I suppose there is nothing better to do at this point except wait until—”

Christina held up a single finger, silencing him. “Did you hear it?” she whispered, so as not to drown out the noises.

It started again. It was a faint cry.

A phrase.

Repeating itself.

Christina walked as though in a dream state down the street, turning the corner until she traced the cry to a newsboy, who was shouting to the point of hoarseness.

The boy called again: “‘Behold the handmaiden of the Lord’! Extrey Ledger! Cheap as dirt. Full account by crack reporter Steven Walker — what was found written upon the dead MP in Wapping. ‘Behold the handmaiden of the Lord’!”

She was gripped by a double realization: that a terrible danger had come to London, and that she knew what had happened to her brother.

My dear brother,

I want to tell you something lest you hear it from anyone else first. It is that I am going to recover my old book of poems. Only lately I made up my mind to it. I hope you will think none the worse of my feeling for one I held the dearest.

The truth is, William, no one so much as herself would approve of my doing this. Art was the only thing for which Lizzie felt very seriously. Were it possible for her to do, I believe Guggums would open her grave, and before you knew it I would find the manuscript on my pillow at night.

The matter is of a less dreadful nature than might seem possible, dear brother. I have received medical assurance that all in the coffin will be perfect, otherwise I would not have the courage to make the attempt. As I write, I wonder if it is hardly worth all this, but the conflicting states of mind one passes through about life are among the things which most call for making allowances.

I am very anxious to know your view of this, and to remind you beforehand that no mistrust or unbrotherly feeling could possibly have caused my silence till now regarding this undertaking. Difficulties continue to be raised by the cemetery’s authorities as to whether we are attempting theft — theft of my wife’s body, and my own verses!

I have begged those helping me with this to hold their tongues, but I suppose this will all ooze out to a wider circle in time. What would Christina think? She seemed to know my burying the thing was a mistake, but her religious strictures and unnaturally pure morals would surely forbid this attempt at recovery. With Christina, once a mistake is made, there is no undoing it. It is very desirable, as you will think with me, that Christina and the rest of our family should not know of this.

Yours in affection,

Browning did not disrupt Christina’s concentration on the ride back to Tudor House. While she sat, he studied her strong profile, the slightly curved tip of her nose, her firmly set lips, her shoulders in a forward shrug, her mystical eyes directed straight ahead.

The only thing she said to him on the way was: “Mr. Browning, I am truly sorry for my ebullition of temper toward you at the police office.”

“What? Your... ebullition of temper?” Browning searched his memory before realizing she referred to her almost imperceptible change of tone after he alluded to her poetry to the constable.

He didn’t mind the quiet the rest of the drive, as he was busy pinning down his own thoughts after reading the late edition of the newspaper Christina had hunted down from the newsboy. The article, by the reporter named Walker whom they had overheard Inspector Williamson excoriating, unleashed a chain of unanswered and disturbing questions.

When they arrived back in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s disorderly drawing room, Christina smoothed her glossy brown hair and then, in a breathless flow of words, began sharing her thoughts from the armchair in front of the fireplace. She sat, perfectly composed and collected as usual, suggesting the slight but strong figure of the queen dowager who was said to have once dwelled there. “Mr. Morton, the representative of Bristol in the House of Commons, was discovered in the gardens with a backbreaking stone fastened to his neck. I suppose you have heard all about his horrifying murder, Mr. Browning.”