John Harwood: The Ghost Writer

Here, however, a difficulty presented itself. He had assumed that the address would be inscribed upon the receipt which he had folded, without a glance, into his pocket-book. But on inspection it proved to be a crudely printed docket, devoid of any particulars save "Received for: 'Seraphina'; The sum of: Twelve guineas"-to which was appended an entirely illegible signature. Lord Edmund's journey proved altogether fruitless, despite the expenditure of more gold than had been laid out upon the picture itself, the enlistment of, as it seemed to him, half the population of Lambeth in the search, and the cabman's express willingness to drive all night, and investigate every cul-de-sac in the district, if it would please his lordship. But as night wore on the futility of proceeding impressed itself more and more firmly upon his lordship until, thinking himself wearier than the long-suffering cab-horse, he instructed his driver to turn for home.

SOME TWO MONTHS LATER, AT A LITTLE BEFORE TWELVE on a mild midsummer's night, Lord Edmund might have been observed slipping quietly away from a palatial residence in Hyde Park, having made his excuses on the ground of headache and general indisposition. All too visibly true, but utterly inadequate to the haggard and ghastly countenance illuminated by the street lamp, the fixed, sunken glare of the eyes, the frame from which all flesh appeared to have been stripped. Seraphina still awaited him in his gallery, poised for the hundredth, or was it the thousandth time, to ravish his senses until he could not but believe she lived, could not but take the fatal forward step, like a man drawn by vertigo to the very brink of a precipice and over, betrayed once more by those indecipherable whorls and ripples of pigment. Again and again he would find himself drawn into this dance of torment, and yet no matter how often he was compelled to perform its steps, he remained wholly in thrall to the conviction that this time he would at last take possession of warm, breathing flesh, feel the pressure of those perfect lips upon his own; and so his senses were wrought to a pitch of raging deprivation that Tantalus himself could scarcely have endured.

Lord Edmund was not, of course, quite in the position of a man dying of thirst in a desert, but he might as well have been, for beside Seraphina, all other women had become hateful to him; at the mere recollection of some of his former conquests, he would shudder like a man racked by poison. And when at last he could tear his gaze from hers, and flee from his denuded gallery out into the Embankment, he would instantly be seized by the contrary conviction: that the radiant vision he had just quitted was a mere painted shadow of the flesh and blood Seraphina who was surely, certainly, to be found somewhere close by. Never again, in waking life, had he so much as glimpsed the sinuous figure with the flame-coloured hair whom he had so long ago-as it now seemed to him-pursued. Instead he had become a figure of ridicule, the butt of jests and the subject of wagers, on every thoroughfare in Lambeth. He could fairly claim to have quartered every inch of ground, questioned every stallholder, visited every pawnbroking establishment in the district and far beyond, in vain; as vainly he had scoured his memory in the effort to recall the route he had taken on that fatal afternoon. Only in dreams could he retrace his steps, and then always, at the very doorway in the dim and silent alley, he would sense her presence at his back, and turning as she vanished, resume the chase, until his cries of "Seraphina" called him back into the waking world-and to his gallery.

Even so, he could not hate her, for she was too entirely beautiful to hate; but the force of his desire was equalled only by his detestation of the crudely pigmented surface he had so often and so fruitlessly examined. It seemed to grow uglier and cruder by the day; to become ever more completely the antithesis of the radiant perfection it concealed. More than once, Lord Edmund had caught himself in the attitude of a beast coiling itself to spring, with fingers bowed like talons eager to rend and tear the canvas. Only the terror of losing her for ever restrained him, for all the extremity of his torment, but he knew that he must very soon go mad, or die.

ON THE MIDSUMMER'S NIGHT ON WHICH WE REJOIN him, some residual instinct of self-preservation had goaded him into fulfilling an engagement to dine, as he had not done for many weeks. In any ordinary sense, the evening had proved disastrous: he had felt himself to be the object of universal and horrified concern, even repulsion, and could scarce summon so much as a phrase on his own account; his head had begun to ache from the moment of his arrival, and by the end was pounding as if a band of steel had been clamped around it. Nevertheless, the occasion had so heightened his awareness of his plight as to spur him to a desperate resolution: he would go directly home, enter his darkened gallery and destroy the picture, for no matter what torments might follow, they could not, surely, be worse than those that now assailed him.

He had intended to take a cab, but the prospect of confinement proved intolerable to him, and so he set off on foot. The night was at first overcast, but as he turned into Royal Hospital Road the moon broke through the clouds, and by the time he reached the Embankment it was shining full upon the tranquil surface of the river. His headache had not so much diminished as changed character, as though the steel band clamped about his temples had been drawn into a red-hot wire, strung through a point just above his right eye and tautened until the inside of his head rang with a high, shrilling note. As he reached his front door, it rose to an intolerable pitch. Seizing an antique dagger from a rack in the entrance hall, he stumbled towards his gallery and, shielding his eyes with one upraised arm, pushed open the great double doors.

He had imagined that the gallery would be entirely dark, but beneath the shielding arm he could see moonlight gleaming on the marble floor. His knees trembled as he approached the dais set before the painting; knowing that one glimpse of Seraphina would be his undoing, yet more appalled with every step by the enormity of what he was about to do. No, he could not; one last glimpse he must have; he lowered his arm.

By moonlight, the conviction that he gazed upon a living woman was more instantly compelling than ever. He saw the slight rise and fall of her breast, the subtle change in her expression as she caught sight of him; he knew her outstretched arms were opening to embrace him. The waters parted at her waist; the dagger slid from his hand and clattered upon the marble floor; he stepped forward. As he did so the moon passed behind a cloud, or so it seemed to him; at any rate the light momentarily failed. Something caught his foot; he fell; scrambling on all fours, he threw himself, as he prayed, towards her. But yes, at last, he was through; the miracle had happened; there she was arising like Venus from the water, with no intervening frame between them, though further off than he could have imagined from the other side. Unable to take his eyes from her, he missed his footing and plunged down a rocky slope. No matter; she was still there, closer now; he could see moonlight rippling on the water all around her. The shrilling in his head had softened into a high, sweet note, like that of a violin perfectly sustained, exquisitely drawn out. Her smile had never been more entrancing. Ascending to the very peak of passion, he reached the edge of the pool and leapt, unhesitating, into her embrace. But what was this choking taste of mud, and why could he not breathe? He tried to ask her to release his arms, but cold black water filled his lungs, and drew him down into the waiting dark.

AT THE INQUEST, A CABMAN TOLD THE CORONER THAT he had seen a gentleman racing, hatless, across Battersea Bridge, from which, about half-way over, he had vaulted into the river. The tide was running strongly, and by the time the witness had reached the edge of the embankment, there w^s nothing to be seen. The body was washed ashore several hundred yards downstream, entangled in a piece of netting. In deference to Lord Edmund's high position in society, the jury, despite some contrary evidence, accepted the argument that his lordship might have been deceived by moonlight into thinking he had seen some person in need of rescue, and returned a verdict of accidental death.