Title: Disclosure
Summary: [fanfiction for Donna Tartt's novel The Secret History Set about a year before the novel's beginning, this fic explores the background to Francis's remarks to Richard about the Macaulay twins' relationship, and considers their friends' reactions.
Author's Notes: The quotations preceding each chapter are from the novel itself. The characters and plot belong to Donna Tartt; I am only expanding on her work, for no financial gain and with no disrespect intended. If you have not yet read The Secret History, you won't want to read this fic. If you have, you know what you're getting into.
1. A Secondhand Story
"He told Henry, not me. I'm afraid I don't know the details. Apparently he had the key and you remember how he used to barge in without knocking – Come now ... You must have had some idea."
– Francis Abernathy, to Richard Papen
"Bunny told me the most extraordinary story yesterday," said Henry, with no preamble, and with no particular feeling in his voice. Ice cubes clinked in his glass as he set it down.
Francis, dealing the cards, gave a noncommittal "Oh?" and nothing more. He expected some Bunnyism or other, the typical thing. A run-in with the hippies on the lawn, maybe. It'd deserve the qualifier extraordinary as a sarcastic commentary.
But Henry meant it sincerely, as would soon be shown. He continued after a long draw on his cigarette. "You know, of course, he has a key to the twins' apartment."
"So do I," said Francis. "So do you, don't you?" Unremarkable thus far. God, Henry was the most boring storyteller. "What did he do, lose it somewhere stupid? Leave the door open and let some raccoons in?"
"Oh, he let himself in, all right," said Henry dryly. With neat precision he tapped the cards Francis had dealt him into a tidy stack. The hand formed an effortless fan, then, when he raised it and gave it a deft little twist. "He says he saw something odd. Do you think the twins ever go to bed together?"
Francis's jaw dropped slightly. Henry had delivered this unthinkable question in the most neutral tone imaginable. He might have been asking any mundane thing. "What?" Francis finally managed, in a voice stretched abnormally high.
"I said, do you think the twins ever go to bed together," Henry repeated, unblinking, and tapped ash into the ashtray. "That's what Bunny said he saw. Walked in on."
"Well, of course they've always been close," said Francis, stalling a little. In truth he'd wondered, himself. "Maybe Bunny saw something different than what he thought he saw. I mean, what would Bunny be doing in their bedroom?"
"He might simply be lying," said Henry. Casually he studied his cards. "He might think it would be something funny to say."
Then why are you asking me? But Francis thought he knew why. Little things that wouldn't stand out individually were to Francis's sharp eye a noticeable pattern: the rare smiles Henry granted Camilla more often than anyone else; the little tokens of solicitude that could so easily be chalked up to courtesy or chivalry, except that they lingered a second too long. Francis could almost feel sorry for Henry. However, he felt a good deal sorrier for himself. He wondered whether Henry had any idea why Francis might take a particular interest in this question. He'd been very discreet with Charles, he liked to think.
"It certainly is an extraordinary story," Francis said, finally, and laid his cards face-down in front of him. He couldn't possibly keep playing. He needed a drink, if they were going to talk about this – about Charles, for God's sake – and his glass was empty. Shoving his chair back with a hasty screech of wood against linoleum, he got up and went to the kitchen. He brought back the whole bottle.
"No more for me just now, thanks," Henry said without being asked, as Francis poured himself a good glassful of Famous Grouse, no ice, no water, nothing. Serenely he smoked his cigarette; but he watched Francis steadily all the while. He was waiting for a real answer, Francis knew. He wouldn't be put off. He wanted to know what Francis thought. Francis thought he could feel his own hand shake a little, putting the bottle down.
"I think it's possible," said Francis, choosing his words carefully, "that Bunny did see something."
Henry nodded. No expression, only that matter-of-fact nod. If Francis's assessment, vague as it was, had disappointed Henry at all or given him cause for upset, he wasn't showing it.
"We always did say it'd be nice to have a sister." Francis tried for levity. Actually, he wouldn't have found a sister appealing in that regard, and incest taboos had nothing to do with it. Henry might even know that. It was hard to tell what Henry noticed. If it had been anyone else, Francis would have been clamoring for details – what did Bunny see? what were the twins doing? what were they wearing? had they been drinking, did Bunny suppose? – but this was Henry, whose weird reserve seemed practically designed to stave off awkward questions. So Francis polished his pince-nez, unnecessarily, with his handkerchief, and held his tongue. Holding his tongue was not his forte.
Henry snorted. "We did say that. I don't think that's what we had in mind when we said it. Certainly I didn't." Abruptly he changed gears. "I think I will have some more of that, after all," and he poured himself more scotch.
It was too much for Francis, suddenly, to sense this conversational door closing without having really found out anything. The words rushed out before he could think better of them. "Did Bunny say what it was he thought he saw? I mean, were they really, you know, in flagrante delicto?" Francis's treacherous imagination conjured the scene, down to the little gasps Charles made and the scent of linden-water in the air. In this scene Camilla was a prop, albeit a beautiful one since she looked so like Charles.
Oh, yes, he could picture it all too well. Charles sliding his hands greedily under Camilla's blouse, the way he'd only ever touch Francis when he was very drunk. Camilla laughing low with that funny little catch in her throat, pretending to bat him away. It wouldn't deter him because he wanted her, really wanted her, lucky girl that she was, and he'd win her over with kisses. Kissing Charles was like drowning in honey. You knew it was going to kill you but it was so sweet you didn't care. They'd shuck off one another's clothes, right there in the living room, and that's how Bunny would find them. Careless, the pair of them, too caught up in one another to notice anyone else. And Bunny's jaw gaping in that stupid way Bunny had: clumsy Bunny, standing in the doorway, too much the philistine to appreciate what it was he'd been privileged to witness, and too much the plebeian to feel any pain at his own exclusion, or at his inferiority to so much beauty. Too pedestrian to see anything in it but a base joke.
Henry cleared his throat delicately. "Bunny certainly made it sound as though they were." Infuriatingly devoid of detail, and Henry sounded almost reluctant to have said even that much. Francis suspected if pressed Henry would plead the impropriety of the subject. He also suspected the impropriety of the subject had nothing to do with why Henry preferred not to go into detail. Is it that you don't want to imagine her with him? Or is it that you can't imagine it at all, any of it, and that just drives home why it'll never be you with her?
Henry had always seemed aloof from such matters, as chaste as a marble statue and as cold. Francis had never once tried to proposition him, even at the height of boredom. If Henry had given any indication of liking men – even in the ultimately unsatisfactory way Charles could be persuaded to do – Francis was sure Julian would have been much happier for it. As for women, he'd never seen Henry with one, or heard him breathe a word about one, except Camilla; and she was on a pedestal as far as Henry was concerned. How many chances had Henry been given, how many never taken because he didn't know what to do with them? Francis had wondered idly before. Goodness, Francis had gone farther with Camilla than Henry probably ever would, and Francis didn't even like girls that way.
Damn Henry, anyway. As upsetting as the news might be, Francis desperately wanted to know all about it. Between his general penchant for gossip and his personal interest in all things pertaining to Charles, he couldn't help but be fascinated by Henry's secondhand story, all the more so in its utter failure to satisfy. Who knew what Bunny might have told Henry? Francis of all people knew how much Bunny loved to draw out the finer points of anything the slightest bit salacious. It would have to be prim Henry who heard the news, wouldn't it? Francis obviously couldn't ask Bunny about it himself, and even more obviously couldn't ask the twins. Now the minutiae were locked behind Henry's expressionless face, laid away in tissue paper, to be taken out later and examined privately, Francis was sure. Hoarded, though Henry wouldn't think of it that way. It was maddening to have all the rich sick splendor of Charles's secret life so close yet inaccessible.
A quick spark of sudden malice made Francis's genuine curiosity flare all the brighter. Whether to goad Henry into revealing more or to punish him for his reticence, even Francis couldn't be sure, but he went on, with an affected detachment. "Imagine, it's been going on right under our noses this whole time, hasn't it? Ever since we met them. I can't think that it's a recent development, can you? They're a matched pair in some ways, like a set of bookends. There's something almost quaint about it. Like something out of Faulkner."
Henry made an indistinct noise that could have been disgust or distress. Francis leaned forward, eyes keen for a sign he'd hit the mark, but Henry only said, "Just because they're from the South doesn't mean we need to bring Faulkner into this."
Disappointed, Francis sat back. "Well, I guess it's not hurting anyone, what they're doing. If they are doing that. Above the age of consent and all that."
"It was good enough for the pharaohs," Henry said, tight-lipped, and picked up the cards he'd patiently laid aside. "Are we going to play out this hand or not?"
"I don't see how I can," Francis said, too edgy to pretend coolness. I don't see how you can, either, he thought but would never say.