Secrets and Lies - 3. Damian Greene (A Life’s Tragedy)

Damian Greene

(A Life’s Tragedy)

Dear Charlotte,

I thank you for your kind letter. I received the sad news today. I remember Sir Graham Livingston well. His death does truly touch me. As to your question, yes, I remember the man. However, I can tell you only little about him.

What most confused me about him was his predilection for secrecy combined with his attitude of provoking people whenever he saw a chance to do so. This combination of traits disturbed a lot. I remember many dinners when embarrassing silence fell after he had made one of his sarcastic remarks. True, they were always to the point. He uncovered the truth with a single remark that he dropped almost casually. Not that he had planned it. I don’t think he had. He just had the wits to see through people and he had the guts to confront them with what he saw.

He confronted others with naked truth and it always seemed to me that he enjoyed it. He compromised others, uncovered the truth in front of others. This, I think, was his biggest pleasure. I remember that he looked from one to the other, while those compromised looked at the table. He studied their faces, measured their reaction, their response to his pointed affront. Was he just curious? Or did he feel satisfied when he had others made feel uncomfortable? I cannot really say, dear Charlotte, and yet I do not think that he was malicious.

He did not stick to the rules that society had set. He hated the establishment and what the establishment had establishment and thought was good. Their rules meant nothing to him. They were to him limitations and borders that he felt the need to cross. It was compulsory, I think. Had he not been the favorite of Sir Graham Livingston, society would have dropped him, would have dumped him, and would have driven him out of their circle long ago.

He was considered a nuisance, a bother that one had to endure. While his sarcastic and pointed remarks drew attention to him in the beginning, nobody would listen to him in the later years. He was ignored, avoided, overlooked. He was disregarded once and for all. Only the brief silence that fell after one of his remarks showed that his words were still heard and received. But people stopped reacting, responding to him, and that was, I think, when he started to feeling bored. This, I think, annoyed him the most. He had to acknowledge that the others had won. Slowly, but efficiently, they had made him an outcast, someone who was ignored in whatever company. Even Sir Graham Livingston became more reserved. He treated him less kindly in public, although it is no secret and never was that Sir Graham Livingston had entirely fallen for him. It was no secret, never had been, although Damian Greene wanted keep their affair secret, private.

Like I said, he had a predilection for secrecy. He did not reveal much of his past. Actually, Up to these days, no one knows where he had originally come from. He hid himself, yet compromised others. This combination of traits was what made others dislike him as well his ability to see through people while no one was able to see through him. I think that these traits of his made him a loner in the end. However, I can only speculate, dear Charlotte. Like others, I was not able to see through him.

In the later years, he was largely disregarded by others. I would not have believed, however, that it bothered him that much. We rather though he enjoyed himself in the role of being an outcast, a lone wolf striding on forbidden land. We were mistaken, apparently. No one would have imagined that he was prone to commit suicide. No one would have believed that he would ever be at desperate ends. He took his life. He shot himself at dawn on a rainy November morning, not even leaving a farewell latter to Sir Graham Livingston; at least this was what was said back then. His death was unspectacular. I lack of a better word, dear Charlotte. Personally, I don’t think he planned it. I don’t think he brooded on it. I think that he got up that morning, took the decision, and then acted on it.

The news of his death was received, registered, but nobody commented on it or discussed it much. Damian Greene had left the circle. He had left for good, and no one bothered, no one cared. Nobody really gave it a thought, dear Charlotte. He was forgotten in the blink of an eye. Life moved on as it always had. I myself have never thought of him in the twenty-five years that followed his death. I’m deeply ashamed to admit, that I recalled him only when I received your letter any you informed me on Sir Graham Livingston’s death. I can see Damian Green’s face now that I think of him, albeit his face is blurred and vague.

I know where his grave is. All suicides are buried in the same section of the graveyard. I may go there on Sunday afternoon as I always go for a walk on Sundays, provided the weather is good. I cannot go out on rainy days due to my chronic rheumatism.

Dear Charlotte, I thank you again for your kind letter. I would greatly enjoy if we met again in person. Let me know if you like the idea.

My sincerest wishes, dear Charlotte

Emma Thompson, Countess of Witherly