by A. S. Byatt
“Perhaps. I have an interest in Maud. I want her to be happy.”
“Perhaps she’s happy with Roland.”
“Not possible. He’s not her sort at all. No bite, don’t you agree?”
“I don’t know. I don’t make him happy.”
“Nor he you, by the looks of it. Come out to supper and forget him.”
“Why not?”
“Why not?”
“Hello, Bailey here.”
“Bailey?”
“Is that Dr Heath?”
“No, it’s not. I’m a friend of Roland Michell’s. He was working … in the winter … I wondered if you knew where he …”
“Not the slightest idea.”
“Is he coming back?”
“I shouldn’t think so. No. No, he’s not. Do you think you could get off the line? I’m expecting the doctor.”
“I’m so sorry to have troubled you. Have you seen Dr Bailey? Dr Maud Bailey?”
“No. I haven’t. I don’t plan to. We just want leaving in peace. Goodbye.”
“But their work went well?”
“The fairy poet. I should think it did. They seemed pleased. I haven’t thought about it. I don’t want to be disturbed. I’m a busy man. My wife’s unwell. Really very unwell. Please get off the line.”
“That would be Christabel LaMotte, the fairy poet?”
“I don’t know what you want to know, but I want you off my line, now. If you don’t go I’ll—I’ll—look here, my wife is ill, I’m trying to call the doctor, you sodding fool. Goodbye.”
“May I ring again?”
“No point. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.”
Mortimer Cropper had lunched at L’Escargot with Hildebrand Ash, the eldest son of Thomas, Baron Ash, who was a direct descendant of that cousin of Randolph Ash who had been ennobled under Gladstone. Lord Ash, the Methodist, was now very old and frail. He had been civil enough to Cropper, but that was as far as it went. He preferred Blackadder, whose gloomy temperament and Scottish dryness pleased him. Also he was a nationalist, and had deposited the Ash manuscripts he owned in the British Library. Hildebrand was in his forties, balding, gingery, cheerful and somewhat vacant. He had taken a fourth at Oxford, in English, and had since worked in an undistinguished way in travel firms, garden publishing and various Heritage trusts. Cropper invited him out from time to time, and had discovered he had buried histrionic ambitions. They had formed a half-project, half-daydream of a high-powered tour of American universities, where Hildebrand would put on a display of Ash memorabilia, slides and readings, and lecture on the background of English society in the time of Ash. On this occasion Hildebrand said he was short of money and would really like to have a new source. Cropper asked about the health of Lord Ash and was told that he was very frail. They discussed possible venues and fees. They ate magret de canard, turbot and earthy new little turnips. Cropper grew paler and Hildebrand grew pinker as the meal proceeded. Hildebrand had visions of a rapt and respectful American audience, and Cropper had visions of new glass cases containing treasures he’d only been allowed to look at reverently: the Poet’s Letter from the Queen, the Portable Writing-Desk, the ink-stained notebook of drafts of Ask to Embla, which the family had not parted with and displayed in the dining-room of their house at Ledbury.
After seeing Hildebrand Ash into a taxi, Cropper walked the streets of Soho, looking casually in at windows and illuminated stairmouths. Peepshow. Model. Young girls wanted. Live Sex Non-Stop. Come Up and Have Fun. Serious Instruction. His own tastes were precise, narrow, and somewhat specialist. He drifted, a fine black figure, from window to window, tasting the ghosts of good food and wine. He stopped momentarily, to observe an obscured glimpse of white twisted flesh placed to suggest to him that what he wanted might be within, after all—not much of a picture, mostly obscured by a quite different, bouncy, busty one, but he lived in a world of hints and flickering indications, it was enough. All the same, he thought, he would not go in, he would go home.…
“Professor Cropper”—a voice said behind him.
“Ah,” said Cropper.
“Fergus Wolff. Do you remember me? I came up to you after your paper on the identity of the narrator in Ash’s Chidiock Tichbourne. A brilliant piece of deduction. Of course it was the executioner. You do remember?”
“I do indeed. With great pleasure. I have just been lunching with the son of the present Lord Ash, who will hopefully speak in Robert Dale Owen University on his family’s holdings of Ash manuscripts. Chidiock Tichbourne is in the British Library, of course.”
“Of course. Are you going there? May I walk with you?”
“I shall be most happy.”
“I was interested to learn of Ash’s connection with Christabel LaMotte.”
“LaMotte? Oh, yes. Melusina. There was a feminist sit-in, in the Fall of ’79, demanding that the poem be taught in my nineteenth-century poetry course, instead of the Idylls of the King, or Ragnarök. As I remember, it was conceded. But then Women’s Studies took it on, so I was released and we were able to restore Ragnarök. But that’s hardly a connection. I don’t believe I know of a real connection.
“I thought some letters were discovered.”
“I should doubt that. I’ve never heard of any connection. Now, what do I know about Christabel LaMotte? There is something.”
“Roland Michell discovered something.”
Cropper stopped on the Greek Street pavement and caused two Chinese people to stop equally suddenly.
“Something?”
“I don’t really know what. Yet. He thinks it’s important.”
“And James Blackadder?”
“He doesn’t seem to know.”
“You interest me, Dr Wolff.”
“I hope to, Professor.”
“Would you care for a cup of coffee?”
18
Gloves lie together
Limp and calm
Finger to finger
Palm to palm
With whitest tissue
To embalm
In these quiet cases
White hands creep
With supple stretchings
Out of sleep
Fingers clasp fingers
Troth to keep
—C. LAMOTTE
Maud sat in the Women’s Studies Resource Centre, on an apple-green chair, at an orange table. She was going through the box-file that contained what little they possessed on the suicide of Blanche Glover. A newspaper report, a transcript of the inquest, a copy of the note that had been found, weighed down by a granite stone, on the table at Bethany in Mount Ararat Road. There were also a few letters to an old pupil, daughter of an MP not unsympathetic to the cause of women. Maud inspected these meagre remains in the hope of finding some clue as to how Christabel LaMotte had spent the time between the Yorkshire journey and the inquest. So little remained of Blanche.
To whom it may concern:
What I do, I do in sound mind, whatever may be decided upon me, and after long and careful reflection. My reasons are simple and can be simply stated. First, poverty. I can afford no more paint and have sold so little work in the last months. I have left four truly pretty flower-pieces, wrapped, in the drawing room, of just the kind that Mr Cressy, upon Richmond Hill, has liked in the past, and hope he may offer enough for them to pay for my funeral, should that turn out to be practicable. I particularly wish that this matter be not put to MISS LAMOTTE’s charge, and so hope that Mr Cressy may oblige, otherwise I am at my wits’ end.
Second, and maybe more reprehensibly, pride. I cannot again demean myself to enter anyone’s home as a governess. Such a life is hell on earth, even when families are kind, and I would rather not live than be a slave. Nor will I throw myself upon the Charity of MISS LAMOTTE, who has her own obligations.
Third, failure of ideals. I have tried, initially with MISS LAMOTTE, and also alone in this little house, to live according to certain beliefs about the possibility, for independent si
ngle women, of living useful and fully human lives, in each other’s company, and without recourse to help from the outside world, or men. We believed it was possible to live frugally, charitably, philosophically, artistically, and in harmony with each other and Nature. Regrettably, it was not. Either the world was too fiercely inimical to our experiment (which I believe it was) or we ourselves were insufficiently resourceful and strong-minded (which I believe was also so, in both cases, and from time to time). It is to be hoped that our first heady days of economic independence, and the work we leave behind us, may induce other stronger spirits to take up the task and try the experiment and not fail. Independent women must expect more of themselves, since neither men nor other more conventionally domesticated women will hope for anything, or expect any result other than utter failure.
I have little to leave, and would like my few possessions to be disposed of as follows. This is not, because of the circumstances, a legally enforceable document, but I would hope that its reader or readers will treat it with as much respect as though it was.
My wardrobe I leave to our servant, Jane Summers, to take whatever she will and distribute the rest as she sees fit. I take this opportunity of asking her to forgive me a little deception. I could only prevail upon her to leave me—despite my complete inability to pay her—by assuming a dissatisfaction I was very far from feeling. I had already taken the resolution I now carry out, and wanted her to have no direct responsibility for its consequences. That was my only reason for acting as I did. I am not skilled at dissimulation.
The house is not in effect mine. It belongs to MISS LAMOTTE. These chattels and furnishings inside it which we bought together with our savings belong more to her than to me, as the richer partner, and I wish her to do with them what she will.
I should like my Shakespeare, my Poems of Keats, and Poetical Works of Lord Tennyson to go to Miss Eliza Daunton, if she has a use for such battered and well-read volumes. We often read them together.
I have little jewellery, and that of no value, excepting my cross with the seed-pearls, which I shall wear tonight. My other trinkets may go to Jane, if she likes any of them, excepting the jet brooch of two hands clasped in Friendship, which was given to me by MISS LAMOTTE and which I wish her to take back again.
That is all I have of my own, except my work, which I firmly believe has value, though it is not at present wanted by many. There are twenty-seven paintings in the house at the present time, which are finished work, besides many sketches and drawings. Of these large works, two are the property of MISS LAMOTTE. These are “Christabel before Sir Leoline” and “Merlin and Vivien.” I should like her to keep these works and hope she may wish to hang them in the room where she works, as she has done in the past, and that they may recall to her happy times. If she finds this too painful, I charge her not to dispose of these paintings, either by gift or by sale, during her lifetime, and to make such provision for them in after time as I myself would have made. They are the best of me, as she well knows. Nothing endures for certain, but good art endures for a time, and I have wanted to be understood by those not yet born. By whom else, after all? The fate of my other works I leave equally in the hands of MISS LAMOTTE who has an artistic conscience. I should like them to stay together, if possible, until a taste may be created and a spirit of judgment may prevail where their true worth may be assessed. But I shall, in a little time, have forfeited my right to watch over them, and they must make their own dumb and fragile way.
In a very little time I shall have left this house, where we have been so happy, never to return. I intend to emulate the author of the Vindication of the Rights of Women, but, profiting by her example, I shall have sewn into the pockets of my mantle those large volcanic stones which MISS LAMOTTE had ranged upon her writing desk, hoping by that means to ensure that it is quick and certain.
I do not believe that Death is the end. We have heard many marvels at the spiritual meetings of Mrs Lees and had ocular testimony of the painless survival of the departed, in a fairer world, on the other side. Because of this faith, I feel strong in the trust that my Maker will see and forgive all, and will make better use hereafter of my capacities—great and here unwanted and unused—for love and for creative Work. It has indeed been borne in upon me that here I am a superfluous creature. There I shall know and be known. In these later days where we peer in a darkling light through the dim Veil that divides us from those departed and gone before, I trust perhaps to speak, to forgive and be forgiven. Now may the Lord have mercy upon my poor soul and upon all our souls.
Blanche Glover, spinster.
Maud shivered, as she always shivered, on reading this document. What had Christabel thought, when she read it? Where had Christabel been, and why had she gone, and where had Randolph Ash been, between July 1859 and the summer of 1860? There was no record, Roland said, of Ash not being at home. He had published nothing during 1860 and had written few letters—those there were, were dated from Bloomsbury, as usual. LaMotte scholars had never found any satisfactory explanation for Christabel’s apparent absence at the time of Blanche’s death, and had worked on the supposition of a quarrel between the two women. This quarrel now looked quite different, Maud thought, without becoming clearer. She took up the newspaper cutting.
On the night of June 26th, in driving wind and rain, another unfortunate young woman plunged to a terrible death in the swollen waters of the Thames. The body was not recovered until June 28th, cast up a little below Putney Bridge at low tide, upon a gravel bank. Foul play is not suspected. Several large round stones were carefully sewn into the pockets of the unfortunate creature’s clothing, which was genteel but not opulent. The deceased has been identified as a Miss Blanche Glover. She lived alone, in a house once shared with the Poetess Miss Christabel LaMotte, whose whereabouts are not at present known, and have not been known for some time, according to the recently dismissed house-parlourmaid, Jane Summers. Police are seeking to find out Miss LaMotte’s current place of residence. A message was left in Mount Ararat Road, sufficiently establishing the unfortunate Miss Glover’s intention of doing away with herself.
The police had found Christabel for the inquest. Where? Steps sounded in a rush behind the partitions. A voice boomed. “Surprise, surprise.” Maud, half risen from her chair, was enveloped in large warm arms, in musky perfume, in soft spreading breasts.
“Darling, darling Maud. I thought, where will she be, and told myself, she’ll be at work, when is she ever anywhere else for God’s sake, so I came right in and here you are, just as I pictured you. Are you surprised? Are you real surprised?”
“Leonora, put me down, I can’t breathe. Of course I’m surprised. I sort of felt you coming, across the Atlantic, like a warm front—”
“What a figure of speech. I love the way you talk.”
“But I didn’t think you’d have swept in here. Not today, anyway. I’m so happy.”
“Can you put me up for a night or two? Can I have a carrell in your archives? I always forget how pitifully tiny your space is here. It indicates a disrespect for Women’s Studies, I guess, or is it just English university meanness? Can you read French, my darling? I’ve got things to show you.”
Maud, who was always afraid of the arrival of Leonora, was then always extraordinarily pleased, at least at first, to see her. Her friend’s expansive presence more than filled the small Resource Centre. Leonora was a majestically large woman, in all directions. She dressed up to her size, and was clothed in a full skirt and long shirt-like loose jacket, all covered with orange and gold sunbursts or flowers. She had an olive skin, with a polished sheen on it, an imposing nose, a full mouth, with a hint of Africa in the lips, and a mass of thick black, waving hair, worn shoulder-length and alive with natural oils—the sort of hair that would clump and gather in the hands, not fly apart. She wore several barbaric, but obviously costly, necklaces of amber lumps and varied egg-shapes. Round her head was a yellow silk bandeau, a half-tribute to the Indian bands of her h
ippy days at the end of the Sixties. She originated in Baton Rouge and claimed both Creole and native Indian ancestry. Her maiden name had been Champion, which she said was French Creole. Stern was the name of her first husband, Nathaniel Stern, who was an assistant professor at Princeton who had been a happily meticulous New Critic, and had totally failed to survive Leonora and the cut-throat ideological battles of structuralism, post-structuralism, Marxism, deconstruction and feminism. His little book on harmony and discord in The Bostonians had come at just the wrong time. Leonora had joined in the feminist attack on its approval of James’s anxiety about the “sentiment of sex” in Boston in 1860, and had gone off with a hippy poet, Saul Drucker, to live in a commune in New Mexico. Nathaniel Stern, an anxious, white, pointed little man, whom Maud had met at a conference in Ottawa, had tried to placate the feminists by embarking on a biography of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. Twenty years later he was still working on it, disapproved of by everyone, particularly the feminists. Leonora always referred to Nathaniel as the “poor sap” but had kept his name, as it appeared on the cover of her first major opus, No Place Like Home, a study of the imagery of home-making in nineteenth-century women’s fiction, written before Leonora’s militant middle and later Lacanian phases. Saul Drucker was the father of Leonora’s son, Danny, now seventeen. He had, Leonora said, a curly ginger beard and a positive pelt of ginger fur all over his torso and right down below his belly button to his pubes. This was all Maud knew about the appearance of Saul Drucker, whose poetry was full of fuck and crap and shit and come, and who had apparently been big enough to beat up Leonora from time to time, which could not have been easy. His most famous poem, Millenarial Crawling, described a kind of resurrection of men and serpents in Death Valley, with debts to Blake, Whitman and Ezekiel, and, Leonora said, far too much bad acid. “Shouldn’t it be ‘millennial’?” Maud had enquired, and Leonora had said, “Not if it could be drawn out any longer, you do miss the point in a delightful way, you precise creature.” She referred to Drucker as “meaty-man.” She had left him for an Indian woman professor of anthropology, who had taught her yoga, vegetarianism, how to make multiple orgasms to the point of swooning, literally, and had filled her with sympathetic rage about suttee and the worship of the lingam. Saul Drucker now worked on a ranch in Montana—“he doesn’t beat up horses,” said Leonora—and had Danny with him. He had married again and his new wife was, Leonora said, devoted to Danny. After the professor there had been Marge, Brigitta, Pocahontas and Martina. “I love ’em dearly,” Leonora would say, moving on, “but I’m paranoid about home-making, I can’t bear the feeling of sinking into cushions and sticking there, the world’s too full of other marvellous creatures.…”