by Sarah Waters
‘We shall need tickets,’ she whispered, ‘for the train and for the boat. We shall need passport papers.’ I said I could get those, for I remember Arthur speaking of them. I know everything that one must do, indeed, for travelling to Italy, from listening to my sister tell the details of her wedding-trip, over and over.
Then she said, ‘You must be ready when I come to you’—and because she had not spoken yet of how that would be, I found myself shaking. I said, ‘I am afraid of it! Is it to be something odd? Am I to sit in darkness, or say magic words?’
She smiled. ‘Do you think it works like that? It works through—love; and through wanting. You need only want me, and I will come.’
She said I must only do the things that she has told me.
To-night, when Mother asked me to read to her, I took her Aurora Leigh. I should never have done such a thing, a month ago. She saw the book and said, ‘Read me the part where Romney returns—poor man—so scarred and blinded’—but I wouldn’t read that. I think I shall never read that part again. I read her Book Seven, that has Aurora’s speeches to Marian Erle. I read for an hour, and when I had finished Mother smiled and said, ‘How sweet your voice sounds to-night, Margaret!’
I did not take Selina’s hand to-day. She will not let me take her hand now, in case a matron passes and sees. But I sat as we talked, and she stood very near me, and I placed my foot against her own—my own stern shoe against her sterner prison boot. And our skirts of linsey and of silk we raised a little then—just a little, just enough so that the leather might kiss.
23 December 1874
We received a package to-day from Pris and Arthur, with a letter containing definite news of their return upon the 6th of January, and an invitation, to all of us—to Mother, myself, Stephen, Helen and Georgy—to holiday with them at Marishes until the Spring. There has been talk of such a thing for months; I didn’t know, however, that Mother meant for us to go so soon. She speaks of leaving in the second week of the New Year, on the 9th—less than three weeks from now. The news threw me into a panic. I asked her, would they really want us with them, so soon after their return? I said Pris would be mistress now of a great house and a staff. Oughtn’t we to leave her to grow used to her new duties? She said that it is at just such a time as this that a new wife requires her mother’s advice. She said, ‘We cannot rely on Arthur’s sisters to be kind.’ Then she said she hoped that I would be a little kinder to Priscilla than I was upon her wedding-day.
She thinks she sees into all my weaknesses. She does not, of course, see the greatest one. The truth is, I haven’t thought of Pris and her ordinary triumphs for a month and more. I have left them quite behind me. I am separating myself, indeed, from all the things in my old life, and all the people—Mother, Stephen, Georgy . . .
Even from Helen I feel distant now. She was here last night. She said, ‘Is it true what your mother tells me, that you are calmer in yourself and growing stronger?’ She said she couldn’t help but think that I was only quieter—that I only kept my troubles to myself, more than ever.
I gazed at her, at her kind, regular face. I thought, Shall I tell you? What would you think? And for a moment I thought I would tell her, that it would be the easiest and the slightest thing imaginable—that after all, if anyone would understand it, she would. That I need only say, ‘I am in love, Helen! I am in love! There is a girl so rare and marvellous and strange, and—Helen, she has all my life in her!’
I imagined saying it—so vividly, the passion of the words stirred me, almost to tears; and then I thought I had said it. But I had not—Helen still gazed at me, anxious and kind, waiting for me to speak. So then I turned and nodded to the Crivelli print that is pinned above my desk, and passed my fingers over it. I said—to test her—‘Do you think this handsome?’
She blinked. She said she thought it handsome in its way. Then she leaned closer to it. She said, ‘But, I can hardly make out the features of the girl in it. Her face, poor thing, seems to have been rubbed quite from the paper.’
And then I knew that I should never tell her about Selina. That if I did, she wouldn’t hear me. That if I brought Selina to her now, she would not see her—just as she could not see the sharp, dark lines upon the Veritas. They are too subtle for her.
I, also, am growing subtle, insubstantial. I am evolving. They do not notice it. They look at me and see me flushed and smiling—Mother says that I am thickening at the waist! They do not know that, when I sit with them, I keep myself amongst them through the sheer force of my will. It is very tiring. When I am alone, as I am now, it is quite different. Then—now—I gaze at my own flesh and see the bones show pale beneath it. They grow paler each day.
My flesh is streaming from me. I am becoming my own ghost!
I think I will haunt this room, when I have started my new life.
I must remain a little longer in the old one, however. This afternoon, at Garden Court, while Mother and Helen sat laughing with Georgy, I went to Stephen and said that there was something I should like to ask of him. I said, ‘I should like you to explain to me the business of Mother’s money, and of mine. It’s something of which I know nothing.’ He answered—as he has answered me before—that it was something of which I need know nothing, since he is there to act as my trustee; but this time I pressed him. I said that he had been generous, to take on all the burdens of our affairs after Pa’s death, but that I should like to know a little, too. I said, ‘I think that Mother worries, about the security of our home—about the income I should have, were she to die.’ I said that if I were to know these things, I might discuss them with her.
He hesitated for a second, then placed his hand upon my wrist. He said quietly, that he guessed that I might be a little anxious, too. He said he hoped I knew that there would always be a place for me—whatever should happen with Mother—with Helen and him, at their home.
The kindest man I ever knew, Helen called him once. Now his kindness seemed ghastly to me. I thought suddenly, How will it hurt him—how will it hurt him, as a barrister—when I have done what I am planning? For when we have gone they will think, of course, that it was I, not the spirits, that helped Selina from the gaol. They might discover about the tickets, and the passports . . .
Then I remembered how the barristers had hurt her; and I thanked him and said nothing. He went on: ‘As for the security of Mother’s house, you needn’t waste your hours worrying over that!’ He said that Pa was very thoughtful. He wished half the fathers whose affairs he must argue over were as thoughtful as ours! He said that Mother is a wealthy woman, and will remain so. He said, ‘You too, Margaret, are wealthy, quite in your own right.’
I have known this, of course; but it has always been, for me, an empty kind of knowledge—a useless knowledge, so long as my wealth has had no purpose. I looked at Mother. She had a little black doll upon a wire that she was making dance for Georgy, and its china feet were clattering upon the table-top. I leaned closer to Stephen. I said I should like to know how wealthy I was. I should like to know how my wealth was made up, and how it might be realised.
‘It is only the theory of the thing that I want,’ I added quickly, and he laughed. He said he knew it. I wanted the theory, he said, of everything, and always had.
But he could not help me to the figures at once, since most of the papers he would need are here, in Pa’s study. We have arranged to spend an hour together, tomorrow night. He said, ‘You won’t mind it, on Christmas Eve?’ I had forgotten for the moment that it was Christmas, and that made him smile again.
Then Mother called, that we must come and see how Georgy giggled at the doll. And when she saw how thoughtful I had grown she said, ‘Stephen, what have you been saying to your sister? You mustn’t encourage her to be so grave! You know there shall be none of this, in a month or two?’
She says she has many great schemes in mind for filling up my days, in the new year.
24 December 1874
Well, I have just come from m
y lesson with Stephen. He set the figures down for me upon a sheet, and when I looked at them I trembled. ‘You are surprised,’ he said; but it was not that. I trembled because it seemed curious to me, that Pa took care to secure my wealth. It is as if he saw, through the veil of his own illness, all the plans that I should make at the close of mine, and sought to help me with them. Selina says she sees him gazing at me even now, and smiling; but I am not sure. How could he gaze at all my quickenings and queer longings—and my desperate scheme, and my falseness—and only smile? She says he sees with spirit-eyes, and the world is changed through them.
Now I sat at the desk in his study and Stephen said, ‘You are surprised. You hadn’t guessed the measure of your affairs.’ Much of my wealth is of course of a rather notional kind—tied up in property and in stock. But it forms an income, together with the money which Pa left me, independently, that is securely mine.—‘Unless, of course,’ said Stephen, ‘you marry.’
Here we smiled at one another—though I think that privately we smiled at different things. I asked, could my income be drawn upon, wherever I lived? He said it is not bound to be received at Cheyne Walk.—But that is not what I meant. I said, How would it be if I were to go abroad? He stared at me. I said he must not be surprised—that I had begun to think, if Mother could be brought to countenance it, that I might make a tour, ‘with some companion’.
Perhaps he thinks I have made some earnest spinster friend, at Millbank or at the British Museum. He said he thought it an excellent plan. As to the income—it is my own, he says, I may spend it how I please, receive it anywhere. It cannot be tampered with.
Could it not be tampered with, I asked him—and here I trembled again—if I were to displease our mother, in some serious way?
He said again, the money was my own, not hers; and, so long as he had the trusteeship of it, quite secure from interference.
‘And if I were to displease you, Stephen?’
He gazed at me. From some room in the house there came the sound of Helen, calling Georgy’s name. We had left them both with Mother: I had told them we were discussing some aspect of Pa’s estate, some literary thing—Mother had grumbled at it, though Helen had smiled. Now Stephen touched the papers before him and said that, as far as the income was concerned, he stood with it in relation to me as Pa had. He said: ‘While you are sound in mind, and unless you fall foul of curious influences—unless you are persuaded to apply your income to the pursuit of some scheme harmful to yourself!—well, then your receipt of it, I promise you, shall never be contested by me.’
Those were his words; and as he said them, he gave a laugh—so that I wondered for a moment if all his kindness was not a form of show, and he had guessed my secret and spoke cruelly. I could not be sure. So what I next asked him was, If I should need money now, in London—that is, more money than I am given by Mother—how should I get it?
He said that I need only go to my bank and withdraw it, by presenting them with an order that has been countersigned by him. He took such an order from amongst his papers as he spoke, then unscrewed his pen and wrote on it. I must only place my name beside his own, and complete the details.
I studied his signature, and wondered if it was his true one—I think it was. He watched me. He said, ‘You might ask me for such an order, you know, at any time.’
I held the paper before me. There was a place upon it—blank—where I must write the figure, and I sat and gazed at that space while Stephen folded his documents away, until the space seemed to grow large—as large as my hand. Perhaps he saw how strangely I looked at it, for at last he placed the tips of his own fingers upon it and lowered his voice. ‘I needn’t say, of course,’ he said, ‘how careful you must be with this. It’s not something, for example, that the maids should see. And you won’t—’ he smiled ‘—you won’t carry it to Millbank, will you?’
I feared then that he might try and take the paper back. I folded it, and tucked it behind the belt of my gown, and we rose. I said, ‘You know my visits to Millbank have ended.’—Now we stepped into the hall, and closed Pa’s study door. I said it was because of that, that I had grown well again.
He said, of course, he had forgotten it. Helen had told him many times, how well I had become . . . Again he studied me, and when I smiled and made to move away, he placed his hand upon my arm. He said, quite quickly, ‘Don’t think me interfering, Margaret. Of course, Mother and Dr Ashe know best how to care for you. But Helen tells me they have you swallowing laudanum now, and I cannot help but think that, after chloral—well, I am not certain about the effect of medicines like that, combined in such a way.’ I looked at him. He had coloured, and I felt my own cheeks flush. He said, ‘You’ve had no symptoms? No—waking dreams, or fears, or fancies?’
Then I thought, He does not want to take the money. It is the medicine he wants! He means to stop Selina coming! He means to take the drug himself and have her come to him!
His hand still lay upon my arm, the green veins with black hairs upon them; but now there were footsteps on the stairs, and then one of the girls was there—it was Vigers, with a pail of coals. When Stephen saw her he lifted his hand and I turned from him. I said I was perfectly well, he might ask anyone that knew me. ‘You might ask Vigers. Vigers, will you tell Mr Prior how well I am?’
Vigers blinked at me, then moved the pail so that we would not have to see the coals in it. Her cheeks had reddened—now we were all three of us blushing! She said, ‘I’m sure you are well, miss.’ Then she looked once at Stephen, and I also looked at him. He had grown awkward. He said only, ‘Well, I’m very glad of it.’ He knew, after all, that he could not take her. He nodded to me, then went up to the drawing-room. I heard the door drawn open, and then pulled shut.
I waited for that sound, then crept up all the stairs and came in here; and I sat and drew the money order out, and gazed at it until that white space where the figure must be put again seemed to expand. At last it might have been a pane of glass with frost upon it, and as I watched, the frost began to melt and thin. Then I knew that what I could make out, faintly, beyond the ice, were the crisping lines and the deepening colours of my own future.
Then there were sounds from the rooms below me, and when I heard them I opened my drawer and took out this book, and turned back the pages so that I might slip the order between them. But the book seemed to bulge a little; and when I tilted it, something slithered from it—something slim and black, it fell upon my skirt and then was still. When I touched it, it seemed warm.
I had never seen it before, yet I knew it at once. It was a velvet collar, with a lock of brass. It was the collar Selina used to wear, and she had sent it to me—it was my reward, I think, for all my cleverness with Stephen!
I stood at the glass and fastened it about my throat. It fits, but tightly: I feel it grip, as my heart pulses, as if she holds the thread to which it is fastened and sometimes pulls it, to remind me she is near.
6 January 1875
It is five days since I was last at Millbank; but it is marvellously easy not to go there, now that I know Selina visits me—now that I know she will soon come, and never leave! I am content to stay at home, to talk with guests, even to talk alone with Mother. For Mother keeps to the house, too, more than is usual. She spends her hours sorting her gowns for Marishes, and sending the maids into the attics to fetch trunks and boxes, and sheets to place over the furniture and rugs when we are gone.
When we are gone, I have written—for there is one advance, at least. I have found a way to make her plans a shelter for my own.
We sat together one night, a week ago—she with a piece of paper and a pen, drawing up lists; I with a book upon my lap, and a knife. I was cutting the pages, but had my eyes upon the fire, and suppose I sat very still. I didn’t know it however, until Mother raised her head and gave a tut. She said, How could I sit there, so idle and so calm? We were to leave for Marishes in ten days’ time, and there were a hundred things that must be done before we w
ent. Had I even spoken to Ellis, about my gowns?
I did not draw my gaze from the fire, nor slow the gentle tearing of the knife. I said, ‘Well, here is progress Mother. A month ago you were reproaching me for restlessness. It does seem rather hard of you, however, to be scolding me now for excess of calm.’
It was the tone I keep for this book, not for her. Hearing it, she put her list aside, saying, She knew nothing of calmness, it was my impertinence that she ought to be scolding!
Now I did look at her. Now I did not feel idle. I felt—well, perhaps it was Selina, speaking for me!—but I felt gilded with a lustre not my own, no, not at all my own. I said, ‘I’m not a serving-girl, to be reprimanded and dismissed. I’m not any kind of girl, you have said it yourself. You still treat me like one, however.’
‘That’s enough!’ she said quickly. ‘I won’t have such talk, in my own house, from my own daughter. And I shan’t have it at Marishes—’
No, I said. No, she would not. For she wouldn’t have me at Marishes, either—at least, not for a month or so. I told her I had decided to stay on here, alone, while she goes down with Stephen and Helen.
Stay here, alone? What nonsense was this?—I said it wasn’t nonsense. I said that, on the contrary, it was perfectly sensible.
‘It is more of your old wilfulness, that is what it is! Margaret, we have had arguments like this a score of times—’
‘All the more reason, then, for us not to have another now.’ Really, there was nothing to be said. I should be happy to be solitary, for a week or two. And I was sure that everyone at Marishes would be more content, with me at Chelsea!