Possession

by A. S. Byatt

  “Well,” said Sir George, “why not? Since it’s all in the family. Follow me.”

  He gathered up a powerful modern storm-lantern and turned to his wife. “We’ll bring you back any treasure we find, dear. If you wait.”

  They walked and walked, at first along tiled and bleakly lit corridors under electric lighting, and then along dusty carpets in dark shuttered places, and up a stone staircase and then further up a winding wooden stair, cloudy with dark dust. Maud and Roland neither looked nor spoke to each other. The little door was heavily panelled and had a heavy latch. They went in behind Sir George, who waved his huge cone of light around the dark, cramped, circular space, illuminating a semi-circular bay window, a roof carved with veined arches and mock-mediaeval ivy-leaves, felt-textured with dust, a box-bed with curtains still hanging, showing a dull red under their pall of particles, a fantastically carved black wooden desk, covered with beading and scrolls, and bunches of grapes and pomegranates and lilies, something that might have been either a low chair or a prie-dieu, heaps of cloth, an old trunk, two band boxes, a sudden row of staring tiny white faces, one, two, three, propped against a pillow. Roland drew his breath in minor shock; Maud said, “Oh, the dolls”—and Sir George brought his light back from a blank mirror entwined with gilded roses and focussed it on the three rigid figures, semi-recumbent under a dusty counterpane, in a substantial if miniature fourposter bed.

  They had china faces, and little kid-leather arms. One had fine gold silken hair, faded and grey with the dust. One had a kind of bunched white nightcap, in white dimity edged with lace. One had black hair, pulled back in a circular bun. They all stared with blue glassy eyes, filled with dust, but still glittering.

  “She wrote a series of poems about the dolls,” said Maud, in a kind of dreadful whisper. “They were ostensibly for children, like the Tales for Innocents. But not really.”

  Roland turned his eyes back to the shadowy desk. He did not feel the presence of the dead poet in the room, but he did have a vague excited sense that any of these containers—the desk, the trunks, the hat-boxes—might contain some treasure like the faded letters in his own breast-pocket. Some clue, some scribbled note, some words of response. Only that was nonsense, they would not be here, they would be wherever Randolph Henry Ash had put them, if they had ever been written.

  “Do you know,” Roland said, turning to Sir George, “whether there were papers? Is there anything left in that desk? Anything of hers?”

  “That was cleared, I suppose, at her death,” said Sir George.

  “May we at least look?” said Roland, imagining perhaps a hidden drawer, and at the same time uncomfortably aware of the laundry lists in Northanger Abbey. Sir George obligingly moved the light across to the desk, restoring the little faces to the dark in which they had lain. Roland lifted the lid on a bare casket. There were empty arched pigeonholes at the back, fretted and carved, and two empty little drawers. He felt unable to tap and tug at the framework. He felt unable to urge the unbuckling of the trunk. He felt as though he was prying, and as though he was being uselessly urged on by some violent emotion of curiosity—not greed, curiosity, more fundamental even than sex, the desire for knowledge. He felt suddenly angry with Maud, who was standing stock still, in the dark, not moving a finger to help him, not urging, as she with her emotional advantage might well have done, further exploration of hidden treasures or pathetic dead caskets. Sir George said, “And what in particular might you expect to find?” Roland did not know the answer. Then, behind him, chill and clear, Maud spoke a kind of incantation.

  “Dolly keeps a Secret

  Safer than a Friend

  Dolly’s Silent Sympathy

  Lasts without end.

  “Friends may betray us

  Love may Decay

  Dolly’s Discretion

  Outlasts our Day.

  “Could Dolly tell of us?

  Her wax lips are sealed.

  Much has she meditated

  Much—ah—concealed.

  “Dolly ever sleepless

  Watches above

  The shreds and relics

  Of our lost Love

  Which her small fingers

  Never may move.

  “Dolly is harmless.

  We who did harm

  Shall become chill as she

  Who now are warm

  she mocks Eternity

  With her sly charm.”

  Sir George swung the light back onto the dolls’ cot.

  “Very good,” he said. “Fantastic memory you’ve got. Never could learn anything by heart myself. Barring Kipling and the Lincolnshire bits that amuse me, that is. What is it all about, though?”

  “It sounds, in here, like a treasure-hunt clue,” said Maud, still with a strained clarity. “As though Dolly is hiding something.”

  “What might she be hiding?” said Sir George.

  “Almost anything,” said Roland, suddenly wanting to put him off the trail. “Keepsakes.” He could feel Maud calculating.

  “Somebody’s children must have had those dolls out,” said their owner plausibly, “since 1890.”

  Maud knelt down in the dust. “May I?” He turned the light down on her; there she was, her face bending into shadow, as though Latour had painted its waxiness. She reached into the cot and plucked out the blonde doll by the waist; her gown was pink silk, with little rosebuds round its neckline and tiny pearl buttons. She handed this creature to Roland, who took it as he might have done a kitten, cradling it in the crook of his elbow, and adding to it, in turn, the nightcapped one, in tiny white pleats and broderie anglaise, and the dark-headed one, severe in dark peacock. They lay along his arm, their tiny heads heavy, their tiny limbs trailing, rather horrid, a little deathly. Maud took out the pillow, untucked the counterpane, folded away three fine woollen blankets and a crocheted shawl, and then lifted out one feather mattress and another, and a straw palliasse. She reached in under this, into the wooden box beneath it, prised up a hinged board and brought out a package, wrapped in fine white linen, tied with tape, about and about and about, like a mummy.

  There was a silence. Maud stood there, holding on. Roland took a step forward. He knew, he knew, what was wrapped away there.

  “Probably dolls’ clothes,” said Maud.

  “Have a look,” said Sir George. “You seemed to know where to find it. I bet you’ve got a shrewd guess what’s in it. Open up.”

  Maud plucked with pale neat lamplit fingers at the old knots, which were, she discovered, faintly covered with sealing wax.

  “Do you want a penknife?” said Sir George.

  “We shouldn’t—cut—” said Maud. Roland itched to help. She worked. The tapes fell away and the linen, many-layered, was turned back. Inside were two parcels, wrapped in oiled silk, and tied with black ribbon. Maud pulled at the ribbon too. The old silk squeaked and slipped. There they were, open letters, two bundles, neat as folded handkerchiefs. Roland did step forward. Maud picked up the top letter on each pile. Miss Christabel LaMotte, Bethany, Mount Ararat Road, Richmond, Surrey. Brown, spidery decisive, known, the hand. And, much smaller, more violet, Randolph Henry Ash Esqre, 29, Russell Square, London. Roland said, “So he did send it.”

  Maud said, “It’s both sides. It’s everything. It was always there.…”

  Sir George said, “And what exactly have you got there? And how did you know to go for the dolls’ bed?”

  Maud said, her voice high-edged and clear, “I didn’t know. I just thought of the poem, standing there, and then it seemed clear. It was sheer luck.”

  Roland said, “We thought there might have been a correspondence. I found—a bit of a letter—in London. So I came to see Dr Bailey. That’s all there is to it. This could be”—he was about to say “terribly” and held back—“quite important.” It could change the face of scholarship, he nearly said, and held back again, driven by some instinct of cunning reserve. “It makes a great difference to our research work, to both our proj
ects. It wasn’t known they knew each other.”

  “Hm,” said Sir George, “give those parcels to me. Thanks. I think we should go back down now and show these to Joan. And see if they’re anything or nothing. Unless you want to stay and open everything else?” He circled the round walls with his spotlight, revealing a skewed print of Lord Leighton’s Proserpina, and a cross-stitched sampler, impossible to read under the dust.

  “Not now,” said Maud.

  “Not immediately,” said Roland.

  “You may never come back,” said Sir George, more threatening than joking apparently, from behind his lance of light, turning through the door. So they progressed back again, Sir George clutching the letters, Maud the opened cocoon of linen and silk, and Roland the three dolls, out of some vague fancy that it was cruel to leave them in the dark.

  Lady Bailey was quite excited. They all sat round the fireplace. Sir George put the letters into his wife’s lap, and she turned them over and over, under the greedy eyes of the two scholars. Roland told his half-truth about his bit of a letter, not saying when or where he had come across it. “Was it a love letter, then?” Lady Bailey asked, innocent and direct, and Roland said, “Oh no” and then added, “but excited, you know, as though it was important. It was a draft of a first letter. It was important enough to make me come up here to ask Dr Bailey about Christabel LaMotte.” He wanted to ask and ask. The date, for God’s sake, on the top letter from Ash, was it the same, why were they all together, how long does it go on—how did she answer, what about Blanche and the Prowler.…

  “Now, what would be the right way to proceed?” said Sir George slowly, and deliberately pompously. “In your view, young man? In yours, Miss Bailey?”

  “Someone should read them—” said Maud. “Oh—”

  “And you naturally think you should read them,” said Sir George.

  “I—we—should like to, very much. Of course.”

  “So would that American, no doubt.”

  “Of course she would. If she knew they were there.”

  “Shall you tell her?”

  He watched Maud hesitate, his fierce blue eyes shrewd in the firelight.

  “Probably not. Not yet, anyway.”

  “You’d like the first crack?”

  Maud’s face flamed, “Of course. Anyone would. In my—in our position …”

  “Why shouldn’t they read them, George?” Joan Bailey enquired, drawing the first letter out of its envelope, looking casually down at it, not avid, barely curious.

  “For one thing, I believe in letting dead bones lie still. Why stir up scandals about our silly fairy poetess? Poor old thing, let her sleep decently.”

  “We aren’t looking for scandals,” said Roland. “I don’t suppose there is any scandal. I just hope—he told her what he was thinking about poetry—and history—and things like that. It was one of his most fertile periods—he wasn’t a great letter-writer—too polite—he said she understood him in the letter I—I—saw—he said—”

  “For another thing, Joanie, what do we really know about these two? How do we know they’re the proper people to have sight of these—documents? There’s two days’ reading in that heap, easy. I’m not letting them out of my hands, am I?”

  “They could come here,” said Lady Bailey.

  “It’s a bit more than two days,” said Maud.

  “You see,” said Sir George.

  “Lady Bailey,” said Roland. “What I saw was the first draft of the first letter. Is that it? What does it say?”

  She put on reading glasses, round in her pleasant large face. She read out:

  “Dear Miss LaMotte,

  It was a great pleasure to talk to you at dear Crabb’s breakfast party. Your perception and wisdom stood out through the babble of undergraduate wit, and even surpassed our host’s account of the finding of Wieland’s bust. May I hope that you too enjoyed our talk—and may I have the pleasure of calling on you? I know you live very quietly, but I would be very quiet—I only want to discuss Dante and Shakespeare and Wordsworth and Coleridge and Goethe and Schiller and Webster and Ford and Sir Thomas Browne et hoc genus omne, not forgetting, of course, Christabel LaMotte and the ambitious Fairy Project. Do answer this. You know, I think, how much a positive answer would give pleasure to

  Yours very sincerely

  Randolph Henry Ash”

  “And the answer?” said Roland. “The answer? I’m sorry—I’m so curious—I’ve been wondering if she answered, and if so, what she said.”

  Lady Bailey drew out the top letter of the other sheaf, almost teasingly, like an actress announcing on television the award for the Best Actress of the Year.

  “Dear Mr Ash,

  No truly—I do not Tease—how should I demean you or myself so—or you demean Yourself to think it. I live circumscribed and self-communing—’tis best so—not like a Princess in a thicket, by no means, but more like a very fat and self-satisfied Spider in the centre of her shining Web, if you will forgive me the slightly disagreeable Analogy. Arachne is a lady I am greatly sympathetic to, an honest craftswoman, who makes perfect patterns, but is a little inclined to take unorthodox snaps at visiting or trespassing strangers, not perceiving the distinction between the two, it may be, often until too late. Truly I make but a stammering companion, I have no graces, and as for the wit you may have perceived in me when we met, you saw, you must have seen, only the glimmerings and glister of your own brilliance refracted from the lumpen surface of a dead Moon. I am a creature of my Pen, Mr Ash, my Pen is the best of me, and I enclose a Poem, in earnest of my great goodwill towards you. Now would you not rather have a Poem, however imperfect, than a plate of cucumber sandwiches, however even, however delicately salted, however exquisitely fine-cut? You know you would, and so would I. The Spider in the poem, however, is not my Silken Self, but an altogether more Savage and businesslike sister. You cannot but admire their facile diligence? Would Poems came as naturally as Silk Thread. I write Nonsense, but if you care to write again, you shall have a sober essay on the Everlasting Nay, or Schleiermacher’s Veil of Illusion, or the Milk of Paradise, or What you Will.

  Yours to command in some things

  Christabel LaMotte”

  Lady Bailey’s reading was slow and halting; words were miscast; she stumbled over hoc genus omne and Arachne. It was like frosted glass between them, Roland and Maud, and the true lineaments of the prose and the feelings of Ash and LaMotte. Sir George appeared to find the reading more than satisfactory. He looked at his watch.

  “We’ve just time to do what I always do with Dick Francis: spoil the suspense by peeking at the end. Then I think we’ll put these away until I’ve had time to consider my position. Take advice. Yes. Ask around a little. You’d have to be getting back, anyway, wouldn’t you?”

  He was not asking. He looked indulgently at his wife.

  “Go on, Joanie. Give us the end of it.”

  She peered at the texts. She said, “She appears to have asked for her letters back. His is an answer to that.

  “Dear Randolph,

  All is indeed at an end. And I am glad, yes, glad with all my heart. And you too, you are very sure, are you not? One last thing—I should like my letters to be returned—all my letters without fail—not because I do not trust your honour, but because they are mine, now, because they are no longer yours. You understand me, in this at least, I know.

  Christabel”

  “My dear,

  Here are your letters, as you requested. They are all accounted for. Two I have burned and there may be—indeed there are—others which should immediately meet the same fate. But, as long as they are in my hands, I cannot bring myself to destroy any more, or anything written by you. These letters are the letters of a wonderful poet and that truth shines steady through the very shifting and alternating feelings with which I look at them in so far as they concern me, that is in so far as they are mine. Which within half an hour they will not be, for I have them packaged and ready to b
e delivered into your hands to do with as you shall see fit. You should burn them, I think, and yet, if Abelard had destroyed Eloisa’s marvellous constant words, if the Portuguese Nun had kept silent, how much the poorer should we not be, how much less wise? I think you will destroy them; you are a ruthless woman; how ruthless I am yet to know and am just beginning to discern. Nevertheless if there is anything I can do for you in the way of friendship, now or in the future, I hope you will not hesitate to call upon me.

  I shall forget nothing of what has passed. I have not a forgetting nature. (Forgiving is no longer the question, between us, is it?) You may rest assured I shall retain every least word, written or spoken, and all other things too, in the hard wax of my stubborn memory. Every little thing, do you mark, everything. If you burn these, they shall have an afterlife in my memory, as long as I shall live, like the after-trace of a spent rocket on the gazing retina. I cannot believe that you will burn them. I cannot believe that you will not. I know you will not tell me what you have decided, and I must cease scribbling on, anticipating, despite myself, your never-to-be anticipated answer, always in the past, a shock, a change, most frequently a delight.

  I had hoped we could be friends. My good sense knows you are right in your stark decision, and yet I regret my good friend. If you are ever in trouble—but I have said that once already, and you know it. Go in peace. Write well.

  Yours to command in some things