The Crystal Cage Read online

  ‘I don’t want to live in Hampstead. I’ve already done that.’

  ‘How does that affect anything? It’s a nice area. You must have liked it well enough to stay all those years.’

  ‘I did, but I don’t want to go back.’

  ‘Because of Oliver? The flat is nowhere near Lyndhurst Villas and I doubt you’d ever bump into him.’

  ‘Oliver’s not the problem—I’ve already bumped into him.’

  ‘You never told me.’ It was his turn to be distracted.

  ‘It wasn’t important.’

  ‘It might be.’ His face was flushed with suspicion. ‘Is that what it is? You’ve started up with Oliver again and you don’t want to be living too close.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Nick. If that were the case, living round the corner from him would be ideal.’

  I walked across the room and put my arms around him. ‘Oliver means nothing to me any longer. It was a friendly meeting, that’s all. I just don’t want to go to Hampstead. It would be like travelling backwards. I know it wouldn’t be right for me, for us.’ He looked unconvinced.

  ‘In any case,’ I added with what I hoped would be a clincher, ‘Hampstead is far too expensive.’

  He pulled away from me quite roughly. ‘It’s perfectly manageable with two incomes,’ he said tersely. ‘If you get a job—I don’t mean the freelance frippery, but a proper job—we could easily afford a decent place there.’

  I was now the one to feel nettled. ‘Freelancing was good enough for you up to a few months ago.’

  ‘But it isn’t now. And it shouldn’t be for you either. You’re worth a great deal more. We could make a real success, Grace.’

  I suppose I could have done the clichéd thing and asked him to define success, but he had my hands clasped firmly in his, and his blue eyes were wistful. He must have felt that he was losing me as surely as I was losing him.

  ‘I simply don’t want to live in Hampstead,’ I said wearily.

  ‘You’re making a mistake. It’s a great flat.’

  ‘Only according to Hughie.’

  ‘But he’s right. It is a great flat, I’ve seen it.’

  I gaped. ‘You’ve been to see it?’

  ‘Tonight, that’s why I’m back late.’

  I felt betrayed that he hadn’t talked it over with me first. At the very least he could have rung and let me know his plans. I dug my heels in ever deeper.

  ‘Great little flat or not, I’m not moving there.’

  ‘I’ve taken it.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘I’ve signed a year’s lease and given notice on this flat. So unless you want to find a place of your own, you better think about moving with me—to Hampstead,’ he added unnecessarily.

  It was Oliver all over again: my life governed by someone else’s decisions. I felt the glass wall sliding back into place. Over the last few months I’d watched Nick change, or rather revert to an older self. I’d been hoping that something of the man I’d first met might survive, but I could see now that I’d been naïve. The job at Art Matters had brought with it a huge injection of confidence and encouraged his deepest roots to flourish. He was once more a Heysham, warm and amiable, but needing to be in full control, to order life exactly as he directed. What would happen if I told him about the baby? Not if, when, I scolded myself. He had to know, but I was certain it would provoke trouble. I guessed he would insist we did what he’d term the right thing. Except that it would be the wrong thing—for both of us.

  There was a tense silence and then he said brightly, ‘Well, what’s your news?’

  ‘Nothing much,’ I said. ‘It’s nothing much.’

  I heard my voice, dull as a December dusk. I felt numb, washed out. I had no desire to confide my discoveries, no heart left to tell him. I didn’t want the feet of an unbeliever trampling over Alessia’s death. I didn’t want anyone’s feet. This discovery could make my name in Victorian research, but I decided that it wouldn’t. My name would have to be made in other ways. I needed to know what lay buried deep beneath those bald, official statistics, and I would go on digging. But whatever my findings, they would remain mine alone. I wouldn’t publish, wouldn’t broadcast my news to the world. It would feel too much like a betrayal. Alessia and her tragedy must remain my secret.

  Chapter Fifteen

  London, mid-April 1851

  A loud scratching on his door roused Lucas from a fitful sleep. It was barely light and the noise reverberated through the otherwise silent building. He wondered blearily if it was one of his fellow lodgers in need of help, but that seemed unlikely. It must be his landlady, although why she should have mounted three flights of stairs to wake him so early, he had no idea. Quickly he pulled on trousers and shirt and stumbled to the door.

  A slight figure, shivering in agitation, stood on the threshold. Her voice when she spoke barely made a whisper. ‘You must help me, Lucas. He has said we are to move.’

  Lucas was shocked into full wakefulness. Alessia stood in the doorway, her usually neat curls in disarray and her dress half covered by a shawl falling from her shoulders and trailing untidily along the ground. But the shawl did nothing to disguise the richness of her gown nor the glitter of her jewellery. What had his landlady thought when she opened the front door to this visitor? Here he was, a single man entertaining a woman alone in his private chamber when the rest of the world was barely awake. And not just any woman, but one who was evidently wealthy, a well-nurtured woman, a married woman in fact. He would be lucky not to be thrown out on the street instantly.

  ‘Help me, Lucas,’ she repeated, her voice choking on a sob, and her hands twisting and turning as though they had a life of their own.

  He reached out and grasped her by the arm, pulling her into the room and shutting the door with an emphatic click. If Mrs Stonehouse was listening below, and he was sure she was, he had probably sealed his fate, but he could not leave Alessia to stand in the open doorway. In her distress she was likely to blurt out sentiments that would serve only to incriminate them further.

  He went to the window and pulled back the fading curtain. In the bleak light of early day, he saw that her beautiful face was ravaged. In a few steps he was across the room and had enfolded her in his arms, one hand stroking her cheek, his lips brushing lightly against her hair.

  ‘Alessia, my darling, calm yourself.’

  The gentle words and his slow, rhythmic caresses had their effect. Her breathing slowed and she gained control over her trembling limbs. He led her to the one chair he possessed and kneeled beside her. He had no time to feel ashamed of his meagre dwelling.

  ‘Now tell me—slowly,’ he commanded, his arms still wrapped around her, ‘just what has occurred to bring you here.’

  ‘Edward has said we are to move,’ she stuttered, and he felt her body once more begin to shake.

  ‘You are to move? But where?’

  ‘He has not said, but I know in my heart that it will be to a place far distant.’

  ‘And you are all to go, the whole family?’

  ‘My daughters and I are to leave Prospect Place first. I think that Edward plans to join us later.’

  ‘Had you no idea what was towards?’ That was foolish. If she had suspected anything amiss, he would have been the first to know.

  ‘He has been very cold towards me, colder than usual. But I had no inkling of what he intended. Last night he came home from the office very late and summoned me from my bed to tell me.’

  ‘Why would he do this?’ Lucas was still trying to grapple with the enormity of the news. ‘Why would he suddenly wish to remove from Prospect Place? It is a most convenient location. Surely he cannot mean to go far, his business is in London.’

  ‘I think he intends to stay most of the week in the City and join us when he is not working.’

  Lucas rose from his knees and strode up and down the small room. ‘It makes no sense, Alessia.’

  ‘It does if he wishes to live at a distance from me
.’

  ‘Have you quarrelled?’

  ‘We never quarrel. But I am accused of becoming too independent, too opinionated, he says. He blames it on the Renville pavilion and says that it was a mistake to involve me and that now I need to renew my role as wife and mother.’

  ‘You could do that as easily at Prospect Place. It hardly explains his sudden desire for you to leave town.’

  He stopped walking and stood close to her, looking down at her bent head. There was something she hadn’t said, he was sure. Then it came.

  ‘I fear he suspects.’

  Lucas’s expression was grim. ‘But how could he possibly suspect? We have been very careful—for the most part,’ he added a little weakly, remembering the risks his passion had pushed them to on occasions.

  She looked up at him, her dark eyes misty with tears. ‘I am almost sure that I was seen at Vauxhall. Do you remember that when we met each other there, I felt someone was watching me enter the Gardens? Maybe that someone has talked.’

  ‘But you can’t be certain there was anyone.’ He was desperate for her assumption not to be true. ‘Your husband has not confronted you with it?’

  ‘No. He has not mentioned the matter directly.’

  Lucas seized on this scrap and began again to pace the room. ‘So he may not suspect you of anything other than neglecting your wifely duties.’

  ‘Why else would he want me to go away? His complaint that I have too independent a mind is just pretence. What Edward really means is that he suspects I have a lover.’

  She got up from the chair and moved towards him, stopping him from his constant pacing. She took hold of one of the wide sleeves of the loose white shirt he wore and gripped it hard. ‘I know that is so, Lucas.’

  Then she turned away, and her voice was once again breaking. ‘How am I to face him, knowing that he believes I have been unfaithful? I have been a bad wife, a disloyal wife, when he has been as good a husband as he is able.’

  ‘He has not loved you and you should feel no guilt for the past,’ he said firmly. ‘Instead you must think of the future and that looks bright, my darling.’

  She let go of his hands. ‘How can that be?’

  ‘We will be together. Whatever Renville’s suspicions, they do not involve me. For the past three days I have been working at de Vere’s and not one word has been spoken.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘That if your husband suspected I was your lover, I would have been instantly dismissed. But I am still there and devising a golden future for us both.’

  ‘I do not say that he suspects you. But I am sure that he guesses there is someone in my life very precious to me.’

  ‘You have not disguised your feelings?’

  She looked a little shocked as though for a moment they were talking different languages. ‘When you are in love, Lucas, it is difficult to pretend otherwise. Edward and I have not a close relationship, you know that, but perhaps he has sensed that I have moved even further from him. Then whoever spied on me has reported their news and Edward has added things together and decided that even if there is no truth in the story, I am better away from the city.’

  ‘And when are you to go?’

  ‘He has not told me, but very early this morning I heard him give Martha instructions to begin packing for the girls and have all ready by the end of the week. Our departure is imminent.’

  His mood plummeted. The shock of losing her so soon left him aghast, and her face told the same story. ‘Lucas, my darling, what is to become of us?

  His arms were round her again, soothing, comforting. ‘We will survive this. You must go now, but wherever you travel, you must get a message to me. After the Exhibition is launched, I will come for you as soon as I can. But now you must go.’

  ‘The first of May is still two weeks away. I cannot bear to be separated from you for so long. If we are finally to be together, why not now, at this very moment?’

  When he said nothing, she renewed her plea with greater urgency. ‘Can I not stay here with you, Lucas? I have thought much on it and know a way of bringing my daughters. I can steal them from the house when Martha is looking away.’

  His face paled. ‘That is not possible, my dear.’

  ‘We will not crowd you too badly, I promise. And very shortly you will be in a position to rent more spacious lodgings.’

  He relinquished his hold on her and his voice held an unusual severity. ‘That day cannot come soon enough, but you must never come here again. The opening day of the Exhibition must come and go before we see each other.’

  ‘But why?’ It was a cry drawn from the depths and filled with pain, and he winced.

  ‘My darling, the Renville commission can make me or break me. Just think what would happen if even a hint of our story escaped! The architect who stole his sponsor’s wife! It doesn’t bear thinking of. I would never win another commission, for every potential client would look at me and wonder if I was about to seduce his spouse. I would be forced to leave de Vere’s and the Earl of Carlyon would dismiss me from his project. And he is our great hope, Alessia. We must be patient.’

  ‘Forgive me, but I cannot understand how waiting will make a difference. You will still be the architect who stole his sponsor’s wife.’

  ‘But don’t you see, once the fuss over the Exhibition has died down I will no longer be the focus of attention and Renville will no longer be my sponsor. I can fade into the background, in fact fade into the Norfolk countryside. I am likely to be working there for months and you will come with me. We can live quietly together as husband and wife and no one need know the truth. But if your husband learns of our love before the Exhibition opens, he will be intent on making an example of me. His anger will subvert discretion, and he will ensure that everyone knows of our infidelity. And he will have a very large audience.’

  ‘So what am I to do?’ She sounded tired and frail.

  ‘You are to go home and pretend that you are content with your husband’s arrangements. Go willingly wherever he decides to send you and wait for me there. In the meantime you must not visit me—it is too dangerous. The woman who opened the door to you is my landlady and she cannot see you here again. For now I will try to placate her with some story of a sick relative.’

  ‘I cannot bear to say goodbye.’

  Her face wore such a distraught expression that he was almost ready to throw caution out of the window and beg her to stay. Almost, but not quite. That way lay the squandering of all his talents and a penurious life for them both.

  ‘As soon as you are able, send me news,’ he said urgently.

  He was ushering her to the door when an uncomfortable thought struck him. ‘Will your absence this morning be noticed?’

  ‘Edward had already left for the docks when I slipped out. He has a large shipment coming into the Port of London today. But Martha will know I have been from home and she will probably report it. I am convinced that she spies on me.’

  ‘I’m sure your fears are unfounded.’ He hoped that his voice held conviction, for Martha had seemed to him just the kind of servant who would spy. ‘But you will have to think of a reason why you were from home so unseasonably early.’

  ‘I will say that I went to the pharmacist for linctus. Georgina is suffering from a cough.’

  ‘Would you not have sent Martha?’

  ‘No. She was busy tending the fires. It is important that Georgina has warmth.’

  He smiled at her, his blue eyes intense and loving. ‘Make sure then that you return with a bottle of medicine.’

  She turned to clasp his arm for the last time. ‘How will I survive without you?’

  ‘You are a strong woman, Alessia, you will survive!’

  ‘But love has made me weak.’

  He fervently hoped these last words had not reached the ears of a hovering Mrs Stonehouse and made to escort Alessia down the stairs to the front door, saying in a deliberately loud voice how grateful he was that his cousin
had called and how sorry to learn of their uncle’s illness.

  When he returned to his room, he washed and dressed for work, hardly aware of what he was doing. The news Alessia had brought was devastating. He was not to see her for weeks, not to know the delights of loving her. The future was hazy. He had no idea what Edward Renville suspected and for all the reassurances he had given, he knew that it would not be easy to arrange Alessia’s departure from the family home. Then there was the Exhibition itself. It was imperative that he appear every inch the successful and promising young architect. The Renville pavilion would display his talents to the widest audience and he had to live up to the occasion. But could he trust Alessia to do as he had asked, to pretend compliance and await his arrival? She was in a highly nervous state. What else would have brought her to his rooms at daybreak, and unescorted? And a highly nervous woman was liable to do something stupid.

  Alessia’s news was the last thing he’d wanted to hear at a time when he should be striding towards glory. His design for Renville was certain to be accorded praise, and he believed that offers of work would follow. He was near to winning a private commission with the Earl of Carlyon and through his lordship other aristocratic patrons might beat a pathway to his door. It was all there for the taking. And yet, right at the eleventh hour, after years of study and toil, it was trembling on the brink of dissolution. If Renville’s suspicions became certain, if he cast around for a likely culprit and remembered all the time his wife had spent with the young architect he’d employed, his eyes would fix on him, Lucas. And that would be disaster. He had to get this Exhibition over, lie low for a while and then contact Alessia secretly once he knew her direction. That was the only way out of this mess.

  On the brisk walk to Great Russell Street, his mind continued troubled by the early morning interview. The image of his lover, forlorn and broken, gave him no peace, but alongside the pain was a fear that in her distressed state she would say or do something that would ruin all his plans. He could only hope that she would master her emotions by the time she returned to Prospect Place. Anxiety suffused him and might have spiralled beyond control but for an urgent message that arrived within half an hour of sitting down at his desk.