Wordsworth wrote that, Mr Wexford. Wordsworth, as you now know, also loved his own sister, but being a disciple of duty (stern daughter of the voice of God), he left her. You will no longer need to ask what attracted me to Wordsworth, in what particular our affinity lay. For, although Dorothy appears in my book as the merest interlude between Annette and Mary, you will have noted the parallel; you will have realised what, when I was a young man, seeking a subject to which I might devote my life, drew me to this poet. That among other things, of course. I consider Wordsworth second only to Milton and can say with Coleridge, ‘Wordsworth is a very great man, the only man to whom at all times and in all modes of excellence I feel myself inferior.’
I might, of course, have chosen Lord Byron. The obviousness of the choice repelled me. Besides, I did not want to waste my muse on one whom I consider superficial and grandiloquent, a swashbuckling pop star, simply because he had committed incest (very probably) with Augusta Leigh. But Byron, because he is better known now for his incest than his verse, affects me strangely, the very mention of his name, the quotation of his lines, sets my nerves on edge. You could say that I am allergic to him.
But I am forgetting my promise to be brief.
When we were children I did not love my sister. We were always quarrelling and our separation caused us no distress. We were glad to get shot of each other. I did not see her again until I was in my last year at Oxford.
Our meeting was at the twenty-first birthday party of a university acquaintance of mine. This man’s father introduced me to his secretary, a girl called Elizabeth Langham. We went out together and soon we became lovers.
I told you I was a good liar but I am not lying now when I say that I had no idea who she really was or that I had ever seen her before the night of this party. Nine years had passed and we had altered. I asked her to marry me and then she had to tell me. For two months I had been my own sister’s lover.
For years she had followed my fortunes, from envy and a sense of the unfairness of the arrangement that had been made for us. Having run away to London with a man called Langharn who had paid for her to take a secretarial course, she took a job with my friend’s father, knowing that his son and I were at Oxford together. She went to the party, curious to see me; she came out with me with som , e unformed plan of revenge in her mind. But then the situation passed out of her control. In spite of what she knew, she had fallen in love with me. Did it trouble her?
I don’t think so. Long before this she had passed far beyond the confines of accepted morality, so that she saw this step only as something especially daring and defiant of society.
We parted, she to America with her employer, I to Oxford. I will not dwell on my feelings at this time. You are a sensitive man and perhaps you can imagine them for yourself.
I married as soon as I had my degree; not for love-I have never in my life been in love with anyone but Elizabeth-but for safety, for normality. The allowance my uncle had made me ceased when I was twenty-one, so, knowing that I could never make a living from writing poetry or from writing about it, I applied for a teaching job at the King’s School.
Was I taking a risk in returning to Kingsmarkham? Elizabeth had told me she hated the place. I thought I had found the one town in the world my sister would be sure W avoid.
It was that egregious busyboy, Lionel Marriott, who told me Elizabeth was here. I dreaded meeting her; I longed to see her. We met. She introduced me to her husband, the son of a millionaire who had been on holiday in America while she was working there. He had bought the Manor as a surprise for her, believing she would like to live near her childhood home.
We sat at table together with her husband and my wife. We made small talk.
As soon as our chance came we saw each other alone, and that, Mr Wexford, was the second beginning.
Our love would have been impossible without the innocent acquiescence of Quentin Nightingale. If he had disliked me it would have been difficult for Elizabeth and me to have met and, since I could not have borne to live near her but separated from her, I should have been forced to change my job and move away. I wish with all my heart now that this had happened.
Women are tougher than we are, less scrupulous, less a prey to guilt. I suppose Elizabeth had been in love with Quentin when she married him and had meant to be an honest faithful wife. Immediately I re-entered her life she put all this behind her and began to use him as a tool. Her aim was to have me as her lover and at the same time to keep her position, her money and her reputation. She wanted the best of both worlds and she got them.
Still, to shift the blame like this is useless. I was as guilty as she. The difference between us was that I had a conscience and she had none.
She worked on Quentin in devious and subtle ways. She told him, pretending that June was her source, that I was a difficult man with a disturbed personality. It would be a kindness on his part to befriend me.
Characteristically, he reacted by offering me a room in the Old House for my exclusive use.
It was to seern as if all my invitations to the Manor came from Quentin, for Elizabeth and I must appear to dislike each other. Why? She said that if we showed even normal fraternal affection in public we should soon be betrayed into showing a deeper love than is permitted to brother and sister. I do not believe this was her true reason. Rather, I think, she loved intrigue for its own sake and our public indifference lent for her a spice to our private love.
And if I say that I loved Quentin too will you call this the vilest hypocrisy? Or has your experience taught you that it is often those whom we have betrayed and deceived and dishonoured that we love the best? For, in preventing them from discovering our betrayal, we learn how to protect them from other harm as well as this one, and the kind words we use initially to blind them become habitual and ultimately sincere. Yes, Mr Wexford, I loved Quentin, and Elizabeth, who discouraged all my friendships lest I should be driven to confide in a friend, allowed me this one, never understanding that of all mankind he was the man I longed to confess to, his the only forgiveness I should have valued.
I shall now come to Twohey.
He had been watching Elizabeth visit me at the Old House, and one day he saw me walk down the stairs with her and embrace her in the apple room.
It was not a brother’s embrace and rwohey, from outside the window, took a photograph. I paid him blackmail. When he had bled me white Elizabeth began selling her jewellery and having copies made.
You have not found Twohey yet, have you? Let me help you. Apart from saving Georgina as much suffering as I can, I have only one wish left and that is to see Twohey as wretched as he made Elizabeth and me. You will find his address on the dressmaker’s bills in the writing desk in her bedroom. Tanya Tye is the name (more probably the alias) of the woman with whom he lives in a luxury flat over the shop in Bruton Street. It was all quite simple and very clever.
Whenever Twohey wanted money he would send Elizabeth a bill from Tanya Tye and the money she was to pay was the sum on the bill plus one nought added to the figure. For example: if the bill was for a hundred and fifty pounds, Elizabeth was to send him fifteen hundred. She sent the money in brown paper parcels. The last one was posted by Katje the day before Elizabeth died. To show her he had received the money he sent her receipted bills.
Good hunting, Mr Wexford.
I suppose Marriott has enlightened you as to all the details of my surface life. You will know that the NightingaIes and I always took our holidays together and that two years ago, because of Quentin’s illness, Elizabeth and I went away alone. Marriott said we looked ill and careworn when we came home from Dubrovnik, but it never occurred to him that we were sick at heart, not because we had quarrelled but because we had been happy.