“You’ve been marvellous about it all. I know Giles would be terribly grateful.”
“It would be for the first time, then.”
Monica said nothing.
“Have I shocked you? De mortuis nil nisi bunkum — is that the line? Well, I’m sorry. I don’t want to be bitter, but I knew Giles, and gratitude wasn’t one of his characteristics.”
“I knew him, too.”
“Yes. You loved him. And tonight I’m in just a sufficiently nasty mood to ask you this: did he ever show any understanding or appreciation of your love?”
Again Monica said nothing.
“You slaved over his music. Did he ever say anything about that? Did he ever thank you for the way you sang his stuff?”
“Why should he? I was lucky to have the chance. And I must say, Sir Benedict, that I haven’t been trained to expect thanks or praise for the way I sing. Neither you nor Mr Molloy has ever told me I sing well. Not directly, anyhow. There have been times when a good word would have been very helpful, but I learned not to look for it. I assumed it was the custom between teacher and pupil. If I have any opinion of my own voice, or the way I sing, I’ve learned it from the critics, not from my teachers. Giles was like you and Murtagh in that.”
“Twaddle! We were demanding, as was entirely proper; but I’ve seen him treat you like dirt. Perhaps humiliating you in public was his way of showing affection. Maybe you’re the kind of woman who gets her satisfaction from being kicked. I never saw Giles treat you other than badly.”
I should never have spoken to him like that, thought Monica. No wonder he’s cross with me. And didn’t he call me a fellow-artist? How could I be so forgetful, so ungrateful? And Murtagh was so good to me tonight. Am I becoming one of those people who never get enough praise?
Apparently Domdaniel regretted what he had said, for he continued: “Don’t suppose I wasn’t fond of Giles myself. I was. Too fond of him, I’ve often thought. I did all that I could to bring him forward. I never grudged anything that I could do to advance him, or help him. I even sent you to him for teaching when I knew he was desperately hard up. I’ve regretted that often enough, if you want to know. I’m a perfect fool about people; I thought somebody like you might humanize Giles; that’s why I went through all that cloak-and-dagger business to get you to his family for Christmas, a couple of years ago. I meddled in Giles’ affairs, and in yours. And don’t suppose I don’t realize now that I meddled disastrously.”
Monica spoke now. “No, I don’t think that. Not disastrously.”
“Yes, disastrously. I committed one of the great follies. I tried to mould somebody elge’s fate. And you’ve seen how it ended. Don’t think I don’t know that I killed Giles.”
Sir Benedict had expected this to produce an effect, and he was ready for incredulity, for tears, for hysteria, for anger. But when Monica burst into peals of laughter he sat bolt upright on his sofa, glaring.
“What’s the trouble? Are you all right? Would you like a drink? Some water? For God’s sake stop that laughing! What ails you?”
“It’s just that you are the fourth person who has insisted to me that he killed Giles Revelstoke.” And she told him about Bun Eccles, about Stanhope Aspinwall, about Mrs Hopkin-Griffiths.
“But that’s rubbish,” said Sir Benedict, angrily. “Fiddling with a gas-meter: half London does it. Aspinwall’s article — he flatters himself; ever since somebody suggested that cruel criticism killed John Keats every lint-picker hopes to get his man. I simply don’t believe it about his mother; the world is full of perfectly healthy men who had silly, selfish mothers. I’m talking about something quite different — something serious. Giles was jealous of me, of my reputation, in spite of the twenty years between us. Incredibly stupid of him, because he was something I wasn’t — a composer, and I cherished and loved that part of him. But I was a conductor, very much in the limelight, and he wanted to be that, as well as what he was. Utterly senseless. But it was an obsession. This suicide — I can only think that it was a way of getting back at me. When I made it plain at La Fenice — and got Petri to back it up — that he was no conductor and probably never would be, it killed him. But this is the terrible thing: I was so angry with him, so resentful of his nonsense, that I genuinely wanted to do him down. I got a mean pleasure from it. Of course he committed suicide, but that’s by the way; he died of mortification and thwarted ambition, and I suppose I’m responsible. Morally, I killed him.”
Should she speak? Yes — whatever might come of it — yes!
“Morally, you may have had something to do with it. But in cold fact I killed him; first I broke his heart, and then I deserted him when he was dying.” And Monica told him her story at length.
For some time Sir Benedict said nothing. Then he rose and prepared himself a large brandy-and-soda. Returning to his sofa he sat, in shirt-sleeves and stocking feet, leaning forward toward her.
“You’re convinced you killed him?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Feel dreadful about it?”
“Every morning I wonder how I’ll live till night without telling somebody. And now I’ve done it.”
“You mustn’t tell anyone else. Understand? I’m not talking idly. What you did would probably be considered — not murder, most certainly not that — but manslaughter, or criminal neglect, or something of that order. Because, after all, you did turn the gas back on. Nothing can change that. And it’s vital that you should clarify your thought on this matter. Whatever deception you may have to practise on other people, you must not, under any circumstances, deceive yourself. Now swear to me that you will never tell anyone. Come along. This is very serious.”
“What should I say?”
“Oh — let’s not bother with operatic oaths. But I command you never to tell anyone. Will you obey?”
“Yes. I promise.”
“Right. I’m your sin-eater. Now, quite apart from legal nonsense, let’s consider this matter. You found him, and thought he was dead.”
“Yes, and my first thought was to save my own skin.”
“Because he held your letter in his hand — your letter in one hand and Aspinwall’s hard words about his conducting in the other.”
“Yes.”
“He laid himself down to die with those two papers, in order to make it plain to the world what had killed him.”
“I suppose so.”
“He knew you were coming back to London that night. Do you think he counted on you going to the flat?”
“He may have done.”
“He knew you. He was much cleverer than you. He knew there was a good chance that you would find him. Indeed, you had the only key.”
“I’ve thought of all that.”
“Well, what shall we call it? A self-pitying act, or the act of a scoundrel? Or was he out of his mind?”
“Considering the way I behaved myself, I have no right to make a judgement.”
“Not on him. You are perfectly right. But you must — you absolutely must — make a judgement on your own behaviour. Suppose that letter had been found? Do you think anyone would have seriously believed that you drove him to suicide? Nobody thought Aspinwall had done so — except himself, and it may teach him to mind his Ps and Qs in future — because his notice was about ten lines of blame, and nearly a column of high praise. This letter of yours was a love-letter, wasn’t it?”
“I told you. It was breaking off with him forever. It was a cruel letter, and –” She could not finish.
“Have you it still? Could I see it?”
She had it with her always, for she could not destroy it, and yet she dared not leave it where it might be found. She gave it to him from her evening bag.
Sir Benedict read and .re-read it. “That’s what you call breaking off forever, is it?” said he. But Monica, who was weeping as she had not wept since Giles’ death, said nothing. He threw the letter into the fire, and in an instant it had gone forever.
“I believe that makes me what is called an accessory,” he said.
[ELEVEN]
Sea-sickness has never been recommended for its tonic effect on the spirits, yet as Monica made her return voyage across the North Atlantic her distress of body was paralleled by a marked improvement in her state of mind. She could not account for it, and it was not like her to try. Confession to Domdaniel had been very helpful. She had wanted to tell someone of her guilt, and the only other possible person was Eccles, who would never have done. Not only was he convinced that he had killed Giles himself — though with the best of intentions — but he had gone on the booze, and could not be trusted to keep her secret. Still, he was a dear friend. He had given her the best of his sketches of Giles. It was the one which had appeared on the cover of the programme at the Commemorative Concert; Tuke had wanted it for his book, but Bun was determined that Tuke should not get it. This, and the fact that Aspinwall rather than himself had been asked to write the appreciation of Giles which appeared in that same programme, had made Tuke very waspish, and he had threatened to sue Monica for seizing the physical assets (a cardboard box of subscribers’ cards, five muddled files of dog-eared correspondence, a complete run of the magazine, and three cartons of assorted trash) of Lantern. But nothing would come of that. Nobody cared about Lantern any longer, save Raikes Brothers, who were trying to collect their bill from Mrs Hopkin-Griffiths. All that was behind her. And, to her surprise and shame, Giles seemed to be behind her, too. She grieved for him, but her guilt was retreating from her; he no longer appeared in her dreams. The numbness of her spirit was vanishing, and to her astonishment it left regret and bereavement, but little pain, behind it. When she stepped off the boat in Canada it was with the sensations of a widow, but not of a murderess. She was still sure that she had killed Giles, and that it was through grievous faults in her character that she had done so. But, somehow, she had accepted the fact. To that extent, at least, she had clarified her thinking.