by Sarah Waters
There are spirit-friends about us always, she said.
‘Always?’ I think I smiled. ‘Even now? Even here?’
Even now. Even there. They only ‘did not choose to show themselves,’ she said; or perhaps ‘had not the power . . .’
I looked about me. I remembered the suicide—Jane Samson—on Mrs Pretty’s ward, her air turned thick with swirling motes of coir. Is that how Dawes believes her cell to be—teeming, like that, with spirits? I said, ‘But your friends find the power, when they wish to?’—She said they draw it from her. ‘And then you see them, quite plainly?’ She said sometimes they only speak. ‘Sometimes I only hear the words, here.’ Again she placed a hand upon her brow.
I said, ‘They visit you, perhaps, when you are working?’—She shook her head. She said they come when the wards are quiet and she is at rest.
‘And they are kind to you?’
She nodded: ‘Very kind. They bring me gifts.’
‘Really.’ Now I certainly smiled. I said, ‘They bring you gifts. Spirit-gifts?’
Spirit-gifts—she shrugged. Earth-gifts . . .
Earth gifts! Such as . . .?
‘Such as, flowers,’ she said. ‘Sometimes a rose. Sometimes, a violet—’
She said that, and a gate slammed somewhere on the ward, and I jumped, though she stayed steady. She had watched me smile, and only gazed levelly at me; and she had spoken simply, almost carelessly, as if it was nothing to her what I thought of her claims. Now, with that one word, she might have put a pin to me—I blinked, and felt my face grow stiff. How could I say that I had stood and studied her, all secretly, and seen her hold a flower to her mouth? I had tried to account for that flower then, and could not; I believe I quite forgot it between last week and to-day. I looked away from her, saying, ‘Well—’, and then, again, ‘Well—’, and finally, with a ghastly kind of sham jollity, ‘Well, let us hope Miss Haxby does not hear about your visitors! She will think it hardly a punishment, if you are here, receiving guests—’
Not a punishment? she answered quietly then. Did I think that anything could make her punishment less? Did I think that, who had a lady’s life, and had seen how they must live there, how they must work, what they must wear, and eat? ‘To have the matron’s eye,’ she said, ‘forever on you—closer, closer than wax! To be forever in need of water and of soap. To forget words, common words, because your habits are so narrow you need only know a hundred hard phrases—stone, soup, comb, Bible, needle, dark, prisoner, walk, stand still, look sharp, look sharp! To lie sleepless—not as I should say you lie sleepless, in your bed with a fire by it, with your family and your—your servants, close about you. But to lie aching with cold—to hear a woman shrieking in a cell two floors below, because she has the nightmares, or the drunkard’s horrors, or is new, and screams because—because she cannot believe that they have taken her hair off and put her in a room, and locked the door on her!’ Did I think there was anything that could make her bear that better? Did I think it not a punishment, because a spirit sometimes came to her—came and put its lips to hers, then melted away before the kiss was done, and left her, with the very darkness darker than before?
The words seem still very vivid to me; and I seem still to hear her own voice, hissing them, and stumbling over them—for of course, she would not shout or shriek, for fear of the matron, but smothered her passion so that only I might catch it. I did not smile now. I could not answer her. I believe I turned my shoulder to her and gazed out, through the iron gate, at the smooth, blank, limewashed wall.
Then I heard her step. She had risen from her chair and was beside me and—I think—had raised her hand to touch me.
But when I moved away, nearer to the gate, her hand fell.
I said I had not meant my visit to upset her. I said that the other women I had spoken with were perhaps less thoughtful than her, or had been hardened by their lives outside.
She said: ‘I am sorry.’
‘You must not be sorry.’ How grotesque it would be, if she were really sorry! ‘But if you would prefer for me to leave—?’ She said nothing, and I must have continued to gaze into the darkening passage-way, until at last I knew she would not speak again. Then I gripped the bars and called out for the matron.
It was Mrs Jelf who came. She gazed at me, then past me; I heard Dawes sit, and when I looked at her she had taken up her ball of yarn again and was pulling at it. I said, ‘Good-bye.’ She did not answer. Only as the matron locked the gate did she raise her head, and I saw her slim throat working. She called, ‘Miss Prior,’ and looked once at Mrs Jelf. Then: ‘We none of us sleep soundly here,’ she murmured. ‘Think of us, will you, the next time you are wakeful?’
And her cheek, which had been pale as alabaster all this time, flushed pink. I said, ‘I will, Dawes. I will.’
Beside me, the matron put her hand upon my arm. ‘Will you come down the ward, miss?’ she said. ‘Can I show you Nash, or Hamer—or Chaplin, our poisoner?’
But I did not visit any more women then. I left the wards, and let myself be taken to the men’s gaol.
There, by chance, I met Mr Shillitoe. ‘How do you find us?’ he asked.
I said that the matrons had been kind to me; and that one or two of the prisoners had seemed glad to have me go to them.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘And they received you well? What did they talk of?’
I said, of their own thoughts and feelings.
He nodded. ‘That is good! For you must, of course, secure their confidence. You must let them see that you respect them in their station, in order to encourage them to respect you, in yours.’
I gazed at him. I still felt unnerved, from my interview with Selina Dawes. I said I was not sure. I said, ‘Perhaps, after all, I have not the knowledge or the temperament that a Visitor should . . .?’
Knowledge? he said then. I had a knowledge of human nature; and that was all the knowledge that was required of me there! Did I think his officers more knowledgeable than myself? Did I think their temperaments more sympathetic, than mine?
I thought of rough Miss Craven, and how Dawes had had to hide her passion for fear of her scolds. I said, ‘But there are some women, I think—some troubled women—’
There were always those, he said, at Millbank! But, did I know, it was often the most troublesome prisoners who responded best, at the last, to ladies’ interest; because the troublesome prisoners were frequently the most susceptible. If I encounter a difficult woman, he said, I must ‘make her my special object’. It will be she, in all the gaol, who will require a lady’s attentions most . . .
He had misunderstood me; but I could not talk further with him then, for as he spoke a warder came, to call him away. There was a party of ladies and gentlemen just arrived, that he must guide across the prison. I saw them gathered on the slip of gravelled earth beyond the gate. The men had stepped to one of the pentagon walls and were studying its yellow bricks and mortar.
The day, after the closeness of the women’s wards, seemed pure to me, as it seemed pure last week. The sun had slipped beyond the windows of the women’s block, but was still high enough to make the afternoon a fine one. When the porter made to step into the road beyond the outer gate and whistle me a cab, I stopped him, and I crossed to the embankment wall. I had heard that there is still the pier there from which the prison ships took convicts to the colonies, and I went to look at it. It is a wooden jetty, with a dark, barred arch at the back of it: the arch leads to an underground passage, which connects the pier to the prison. I stood a while and imagined those ships, and how it must have been for the women who were confined in them; then, still thinking of them—and thinking again of Dawes, and Power and Cook—then I began to walk. I walked the length of the embankment, and only paused again before the house, where there was a man fishing in the water with a hook and line. He had two slim fish strung from a buckle at his waist, and their scales were silver in the sunlight, their mouths very pink.
I wa
lked, because I guessed that Mother would still be busy with Pris. When I went home, however, I found that she was not out as I had supposed, but had been back for an hour, and had been watching me. How long was it, she wanted to know, that I had been going about the city on foot? She had been about to send Ellis over for me.
I had been a little moodish with her, earlier; I was determined not to be moodish now. I said, ‘I’m sorry, Mother.’ Then, as penance, I sat and let Priscilla tell me about her hours with Mr Cornwallis. She showed me again her blue gown, and how she is posed for the sake of the portrait—she sits as a young girl awaiting her lover, clasping flowers and with her face turned to the light. She said that Mr Cornwallis gives her paintbrushes to hold; but they will be lilies, in the final picture—I thought of Dawes then, and those peculiar violets. ‘The lilies and the background are to be done,’ she said, ‘while we are abroad . . .’
Then she told me where they are going. To Italy. She said it without a hint of self-consciousness; it’s nothing to her, I suppose, what Italy might once have been to me. But when I heard it, I thought my penance was certainly complete. I left her, and only went down again when Ellis struck the supper-bell.
Cook, however, had sent up mutton. It arrived at table rather chill, and with a film of grease upon it; I looked at it, and remembered the sour-smelling soup at Millbank, and how the women were suspicious of the unclean hands through which it had passed, and I had no appetite for it. I left the table early, and spent an hour looking through the books and prints in Pa’s room, and then another hour here, watching the traffic on the Walk. I saw Mr Barclay come for Pris, swinging his cane. He paused for a moment at the steps and put his fingers to a leaf to make them damp, then smoothed his moustache. He didn’t know I stood at my high window, gazing at him. After that I read a little, and then I wrote in here.
Now my room is very dark, my reading-lamp the only light in it; but the glow of the wick is taken up by a dozen gleaming surfaces, and if I was to turn my head I would see my own face, lean and yellow, in the glass upon the chimney-breast. I do not turn. I look instead at the wall here, where to-night, beside the plan of Millbank, I pinned a print. I found it in Pa’s study, in an album from the Uffizi: it is the Crivelli picture I thought of when I first saw Selina Dawes—except, it is not an angel, as I seemed to remember it, but his late Veritas. A stern and melancholy girl she is—she carries the sun in the form of a blazing disk, and a looking-glass. I brought it up, and shall keep it here. Why shouldn’t I? It is handsome.
30 September 1872
Miss Gordon, for a queer pain. Mother to spirit May ’71, heart. 2/-
Mrs Caine, for her child Patricia - Pixie - lived 9 weeks, to spirit Feb ’70. 3/-
Mrs Bruce & Miss Alexandra Bruce. Father to spirit Jan, stomach. Is there a later will? 2/-
Mrs Lewis (not Mrs Jane Lewis, crippled son, Clerkenwell) - This lady did not come for me, but Mr Vincy brought her up, saying he had gone a little way with her but modesty forbade he should go further, besides he had another lady waiting. When she saw me she said ‘O! How young she is!’ - ‘But quite a star,’ said Mr Vincy at once, ‘quite a rising star in our profession, I assure you.’ We sat for half an hour, her sorrow being -
That at every night at 3 o’clock she is woken by a spirit who comes & puts his hand upon the flesh above her heart. She never sees the spirit’s face, only feels the cold ends of his fingers. He has come so often she said the fingers have left marks on her, it was these she had not liked to show to Mr Vincy. I said ‘But you may show them to me’, & she put her gown back & there they were, plain as day, 5 marks red as boils but flat, not raised or weeping. I looked at them for a long time, then I said ‘Well it is perfectly clear, isn’t it, that it is your heart he wants? Can you think of any reason why a spirit would come for your heart?’ She said ‘I cannot think of any reason, I only want it to go away. My husband sleeps beside me in the bed & I am afraid when the spirit comes that it will wake him’, she has been married only 4 months. I looked hard at her & said ‘Take my hand & tell me truly now, you know very well who this spirit is & why he comes.’
Of course, she did know him, it was a boy she said she would marry once, & when she threw him over for another he went to India & died there. She told me this, weeping. She said ‘But do you really think it can be he?’ I said she ought only to find out the hour he died at. I said ‘I will lay my life that it will prove to be 3 in the morning by an English clock.’ I said sometimes a spirit might have all the freedoms of the other world, yet still be a prisoner of the passing of the hour it died by.
Then I put my hand over the marks above her heart. I said ‘He had a name for you, what was it?’ She said it was Dolly. I said ‘Yes, now I see him, he is a gentle-looking boy & he is weeping. He is showing me his hand & your heart is in it, I can see Dolly written on it quite plain, but the letters are black as tar. He is kept in a very dark place by his yearning for you. He wishes to move on, but your heart is like a piece of lead holding him down.’ She said ‘What must I do, Miss Dawes, what must I do?’ I said ‘Well, you gave your heart to him, you shouldn’t weep now because he wants to keep it. But we must persuade him to let go. Until we can do that however, I think that every time your husband kisses you the spirit of this boy will come between your mouths. He will be trying to steal your kisses for himself.’ I said I will work to see if I can’t loosen his hold a little. She is to come back Weds. She said ‘What can I pay you for this?’ & I told her that if she cared to leave a coin she ought to leave it for Mr Vincy, since she was more properly his lady than mine. I said ‘In this sort of establishment, where there is more than one medium practising, we must you know be very honest.’
When she had gone however, Mr, Vincy came to the door & gave me the money she had left. He said ‘Well, Miss Dawes, you must have impressed her. Look what she has paid, a whole shiner.’ He put the money in my hand. It was very warm from his own hand, & as he gave it to me he laughed, saying it was a hot one. I said he ought not to give me the money, since Mrs Lewis had really been his. He said ‘But you, Miss Dawes, being up here all alone & having no-one, you make a man remember his gentlemanly responsibilities.’ He still held my hand, that had the coin in it. When I tried to take it from him he held it tighter, saying ‘Did she show you the marks?’ I said then that I thought I heard Mrs Vincy in the passage.
When he went I put the coin into my box, & the day passed very dull.
4 October 1872
To a house at Farringdon, for a lady Miss Wilson - brother to spirit ’58, fell in a fit & choked. 3/-
Here, Mrs Partridge - 5 infants to spirit, namely Amy, Elsie, Patrick, John, James, none of which lived in this world longer than a day. This lady came wearing a black lace veil, which I made her put back. I said ‘I see your babies’ faces close to your throat. You are wearing their shining faces like a necklace, & don’t know it.’ The necklace had a space in it however, there was room on the thread for 2 more jewels. When I saw that, I dropped the veil about her again, saying ‘You must be very brave’ -
I grew sad, working with that lady. After her, I told them downstairs to say I was too tired for any more, & I have kept to my own room. It is 10 o’clock. Mrs Vincy has gone to bed. Mr Cutler, who has the room below this, is exercising with a weight, & Miss Sibree is singing. Mr Vincy came once, I heard his feet upon the landing & the sound of his breaths outside my door. He stood breathing there for 5 minutes. When I called ‘Mr Vincy, what do you want?’ he said that he had come to look at the carpet on the stairs, since he was afraid it was loose & might catch my toe & trip me. He said a landlord must do that sort of work, even at 10 o’clock at night.
When he went I put a stocking in my key-hole.
Then I sat & thought of Aunty, who tomorrow will be dead 4 months.
2 October 1874
We have had rain for three days—a cold, miserable rain, that turns the surface of the river rough and dark, like crocodile-skin, and makes the barges roll and
bob so restlessly upon it, it tires me to watch them. I am sitting with a rug about me, and wear an old silk bonnet of Pa’s. From somewhere in the house comes Mother’s voice, raised, scolding Ellis—I should say Ellis has dropped a cup or spilled water. Now there is the banging of a door, and the whistles of the parrot.
The parrot is Priscilla’s, and was got for her by Mr Barclay. It sits in the drawing-room on a bamboo perch. Mr Barclay is training it to say Priscilla’s name; so far, however, it will only whistle.
We are a discontented house to-day. The rain has made the kitchen flood, and there are leaks in the attics; worst of all, our girl, Boyd, has given us her week’s warning, and Mother is raging at the prospect of having to engage another maid, so close to Prissy’s wedding-day. It is a curious thing. We all supposed Boyd content enough, she has been with us for three years; but yesterday she went to Mother and said she had found out another situation and would be leaving in a week. She wouldn’t look at Mother as she spoke—told her some story, though Mother saw through it—and when she was pressed, she broke out in a passion of weeping. She said then that the truth was, the house when she is alone in it has begun to frighten her. She said it has ‘turned peculiar’ since Pa died, and his empty study, that she must clean, gives her the horrors. She said she cannot sleep at night, for hearing creaks and other sounds she cannot account for—once, she said, she heard a whispering voice, saying her name! She says there have been many times when she has lain awake, frightened to death, too frightened even to creep from her own room to Ellis’s; and the result of it is, she is sorry to be leaving us but her nerves are shattered, she has found out a new place in a house at Maida Vale.
Mother said she never heard such nonsense in her life.