The Steady Running of the Hour

by Justin Go

  For Eleanor it was different. She had consolations for her hardships. There was the merit she found in her own sacrifice, for Eleanor was a generous person and it pleased her to sacrifice for the sister she had always protected. And when all of Europe was suffering so conspicuously, Eleanor wished to take her small share of the burden: six months sequestered in the social wilderness of a Scandinavian winter, then the charge of a child that was not her own.

  To Eleanor the child seemed equal parts burden and gift. For though she had long wanted a child of her own, the likelihood of that had grown dimmer with each passing season, the physicians’ advice more grasping and feeble. With his instinctive practicality Charles had accepted at once the idea of Imogen’s child, dashing off a series of letters from Palestine with long and reasoned arguments, sensing in the plan the nearest resolution to two years of frustration. But perhaps he had accepted it too easily, for Eleanor remained unconvinced. She knew it was unnatural and she could not forget that. There was a sense of wrong that went beyond Imogen’s reluctance, beyond the pageantry of lies they had fed to Charles’s family about the pregnancy.

  Eleanor had lost something she would never get back—her own child, the formless presence that had seemed real so often that she had never been able to give up on it, no matter what the doctors said. Only now had she released that presence. And though Eleanor’s intellect understood it had not been a trade, to her heart it seemed an unholy bargain, a sin she felt in a thousand nerves, in a hundred subtle instances every day. She felt it as she watched and tried not to watch Imogen’s body changing and swelling; she felt it as she imagined and fought against imagining the forming child that would look like Imogen or like Ashley, perhaps even a bit like her, but never Charles. At times this uneasiness was more than she could bear and she prayed the taint would not survive the child’s birth, not stay with it over the years. But she could not be sure.

  All this drove Eleanor to her final consolation—her work. She had always longed to take a creative retreat in the country, but like her sister she tended to distraction, toward the metropolis with its constant diversions of luncheons and exhibitions and lectures. There were no distractions here. The sisters shared the society only of Mrs. Hasslo, the housekeeper, and Dr. Lindberg, the village physician. The nurse would not arrive from England until the end of January. Occasionally Eleanor saw the grocer, but he was a taciturn man and Eleanor was too embarrassed by her crude Swedish to make much conversation. Eleanor had visited relatives in Stockholm exactly once since they had come to Sweden, and she had done this only to preempt any of them coming up to Leksand and discovering Imogen’s condition. Not that anyone wished to come.

  So chiefly Eleanor painted, working all morning in the old barn she had turned into a studio. Before the sisters’ arrival, a wood-burning stove had been installed in the barn under Mrs. Hasslo’s direction, and a large easel ordered up from Stockholm had awaited Eleanor in its packing case. Every day now she painted through the frigid morning with two shawls wrapped around her and a thick blanket spotted with varicolored oil paint. Even with the stove burning continuously it was impossible to warm the entire barn.

  Eleanor had brought from London a few canvases that had been troubling her, but so far she had not worked on these, for she was flush with fresh subjects. Since arriving in Leksand, Eleanor had painted two views of the cottage whose blood-red hue so intrigued her; an ironic portrait of Mrs. Hasslo as a peasant woman; a series of sketches detailing Imogen’s transformation into motherhood, a subject that captivated Eleanor, who had never been able to imagine her sister with child. For weeks Imogen had refused to pose nude, until one afternoon she had come into the studio and begun undressing without a word. Eleanor must have fed fifty logs into the stove that day, until the rafters above were thick with curling smoke, but still Imogen shivered in her sitting pose, balling her fingers, her skin seeming to acquire a faint bluish pallor that crescendoed in her verglas eyes. In hours of posing Imogen never complained. The resulting drawings were mesmerizing, magnetic in their peculiar charms: a pregnant girl with arms and legs crossed tightly, uneasy in her own skin, her guarded face awaiting this descending miracle or catastrophe. Eleanor prized these as she had never prized any sketches, if only because she knew she must destroy them one day. But she had not destroyed them yet.

  On this morning Eleanor lingers in Imogen’s room a moment longer, noticing the tiny drifts of dust collected in the porous woodgrain along the floor. She drags an inquiring finger into a crevice. It comes up gray. She will clean it this afternoon.

  Eleanor pours a glass of water from a pitcher and sets it on Imogen’s nightstand; they have ordered a bed table from Stockholm, but it has not come yet. Imogen stirs in bed.

  —Why on earth, Imogen murmurs, must you rise so early?

  —I don’t know. I suppose we’re bred to live up here.

  —Half-bred.

  —And you’ve the wrong half, Eleanor teases. Are you feeling poorly?

  Imogen turns her head, but she does not answer. Eleanor kisses her sister’s forehead and descends the stairs with heavy steps, her tactful method of waking Mrs. Hasslo, who otherwise might drowse on until nine. Imogen stuffs another pillow beneath her head. Under the sheets she rests her hands upon her stomach, as she often does now, sizing with cupped fingers the swelling that always feels larger than its appearance to the naked eye.

  She should never have come to Sweden, Imogen reflects. She should have done anything but this. She might have married Ashley and kept the child for herself; she might have followed him rather than her family. It would have meant sacrificing her pride and having a different life than she had imagined, but in doing so she would have kept the two things that mattered most, Ashley and her child, at least as long as Ashley lived.

  But Imogen could not have stood this. The days and weeks of waiting had grown intolerable even before Ashley was wounded, and the news of his death had ground her nerves to nothing. By the time she boarded the ferry to France, Imogen was in a state of constant dread even though she knew he was safely in a hospital. And soon Ashley would go back to the front. Imogen could not bear the thought of it, not one more week of that boundless terror, let alone months or years. The child would only make things worse, for Imogen remained convinced that it would grow up without a father. She had given Ashley a choice and he had chosen the war.

  But had they truly made choices, or had they only given in to forces they felt too weak to resist? Imogen remembers the night at the YWCA, walking back to Cavendish Square and telling her mother she would go to Sweden. In doing this she had chosen, or believed she had chosen, the child’s happiness above her own. She had done the right thing. And yet it did not feel right at all. For it was at that moment, Imogen now recognizes, that she had surrendered control of her life and left others to pilot the vessel, or let it be guided entirely by the chance swelling of the waves.

  Imogen sits up in bed and sips from the glass of water on the nightstand. She senses the letters within the drawer, the newest of them only ten days old. Imogen had conspired with the parlormaid to forward the letters in packets with her other correspondence. If Eleanor suspects anything, she never speaks of it.

  Imogen finds the letters dreadful. Ashley had written to her from the convalescent hospital at Étaples, then from his billet at La Calotterie. He spares nothing in recounting every sinew of his devotion to her. Occasionally he talks of his responsibility to his men, but he never mentions their quarrel. Even now he writes every few days, though he has had no word from her since they parted in the Somme five weeks ago.

  For God’s sake answer me, darling, he writes. Send me a sign of rejection, even, that I shall know you are well and have decided against me.

  Ashley inquires not only of her, but of the growth of their child; he claims he will be the most loving of fathers, that he will do everything he can for Imogen and for their family. He asks nothing of her save a second chance.

  You ask so much, she thi
nks. You haven’t any idea what you ask for.

  It begins to snow in the night. Mrs. Hasslo cooks pea soup for dinner, but there is no pork in it, for there was no meat of any kind when she went to the grocer yesterday, only the same canned herring that both sisters now flatly refuse. The three women eat in silence. Suddenly Mrs. Hasslo remarks that the lake seems frozen hard. Imogen spoons more mustard into her soup, looking up at Eleanor.

  —What are skridskor?

  —Ice skates. She means we could ice-skate soon—

  —Not I.

  Imogen takes a bite of a hard rye cracker. Mrs. Hasslo asks if they want pancakes for dessert, for she has plenty of flour and Imogen must eat more for the child’s sake, even if she isn’t feeling well. Imogen smiles apologetically and says perhaps they should have pancakes tomorrow.

  Mrs. Hasslo clears the table and goes to bed. Imogen fetches her crochet hook and the blue afghan she has been working on for weeks. Twice already she has sent Mrs. Hasslo into town to order more yarn, but rationing in Sweden is growing stricter every day and when the yarn arrived yesterday its color was different from the original, more navy than indigo, and not quite as thick. Imogen went on using it anyway.

  Eleanor picks up a broom and begins to sweep. She glances at the afghan and smiles.

  —It’s coming along quite nicely. One doesn’t mind the color difference. In fact I rather like it. It’s treble-stitched?

  Imogen does not look up from her crochet hook.

  —Double treble.

  —By the time you finish, it’ll keep an elephant or two warm. Or possibly a dreadnought. Imagine all those gallant Swedish merchant captains dodging U-boats to bring you indigo yarn.

  —Better cargo than bombs.

  Eleanor yawns.—Indeed. Darling, I’m off to bed, I’m simply exhausted. Perhaps you ought to come upstairs as well. You could use the rest—

  Imogen looks at Eleanor. The bone crochet hook is fixed motionless in her hand.

  —You mean the baby could use it.

  —You need it too.

  —But it’s not me you’re concerned about. You only care about the child.

  —Of course I care about you. Only sometimes you’re so cross with me, I don’t know what to do—

  —It’s simple. Let me out of here.

  Eleanor stops sweeping. She swallows, looking at the floor.

  —Imogen, you can’t change your mind now. It’s too late.

  They begin to bicker, the arguments running along circular tracks. Imogen tries to keep crocheting as they talk, but she grows more agitated and soon Eleanor puts away the broom and sits at the table, resigned to the quarrel. For on this night Imogen seems unusually animated, more angry and more wistful and more desperate than before. Around midnight she throws the afghan on the floor, swearing that she cannot stand the confinement of the house any longer.

  —You can’t keep me here. Nothing can keep me here.

  —Darling—

  —This isn’t my life. And I’d rather die than live someone else’s life. Is that what you want?

  —Imogen—

  —Did you know I haven’t written to him? Of course you know. And do you know why I haven’t?

  —Please, Imogen. Calm down.

  —Because I’m not going to lie to him. If you want a child, have your own damned child, it’s not my fault if you can’t. I’m leaving here. I’ll go back to him and you shan’t ever see me again. And you’ll never see the baby.

  Eleanor turns away and begins wiping the table with a cloth. Suddenly she swivels back toward Imogen.

  —So you wish to change your mind now, and you blame me for your troubles. But what put you in this position? You imagine it was me?

  —It wasn’t my idea.

  —But it was your decisions that brought you here. Imogen, what’s become of your life? After all, you’re supposed to be the gifted one. Papa used to brag about it to Mr. Wallenberg and the other fellows, Imogen who learnt Greek so well in nine months that the tutor returned his check and said she needed a more advanced teacher. Imogen who had only to read a poem or hear a sonata to know it by heart—

  —Stop it.

  —It’s true enough. But what I want to know is, if you’re the gifted one, why am I painting all day in that bloody barn while you do nothing but stare at the ceiling or knit a bloody afghan? Is that your great dream for your life—to be twice as clever as everyone, then throw it all away to be melancholy, and raise a melancholy child? As if you could manage even that. Imogen, it isn’t my fault if you walk out of your exams and spend a useless year in London. It isn’t my fault if we’re having a row at one in the morning. And it isn’t my fault if we’re in Sweden because you couldn’t stand to wait for Ashley—

  —Don’t you dare.

  —Am I wrong? Two months ago you told me Ashley wished to marry. It seemed to amuse you as rather quaint. But now that you’re expecting, you tell Papa he won’t marry. And yet he seems to send whole mailbags of letters.

  Imogen gasps. —You read them?

  —I don’t need to. It’s already clear enough to me why we’re here. Because you couldn’t stand to do what every grown woman in England does every day, and simply support the man she loves.

  —Support him to certain death?

  —He’s a soldier, Imogen. He was a soldier when you met him, you simply ignored that as long as you could. When you finally realized what that meant, you decided you’d scorn everyone and raise a child on your own. Only when Papa tells you it’s impossible and proposes Sweden instead, you’ll go along with it for so long. You’ll sit quietly while we tell the Graftons and half of London that I’m expecting. You’ll say nothing while Charles and I move heaven and earth to prepare for a child, to prepare this house, and you’ll come all the way here without so much as a word. But once we get to Sweden—once you know it’s too late for us to turn back—now you say you can’t do it, for if someone expects something from you, you can’t bear to give it to them—

  —I never chose this. Papa forced it on me.

  —Because you’d turned away from ordinary choices. You wanted only the impossible. Can’t you see that? If all the world wants one thing, you shall have to have the other, if only for that reason. If Ashley loves you, that’s fine with you, because he’s only in England for a week, and after that you’ll write every day and say all kinds of things to him, so that he thinks of you the whole time he’s in France. You’ll sleep with him right away—

  —Stop it.

  —You did, didn’t you? But you couldn’t stand beside him, because it was too hard.

  —You don’t understand. I only wanted to save him, for the two of us to make our own way.

  Eleanor scoffs. —I understand more than you know. Didn’t I read the same books as you, years before you took them from my shelf? Do you imagine that Charles wished to be in the army, or that I wanted him away in Palestine? I didn’t. But part of growing older is caring about other people enough to accept their responsibilities. Even when things are not quite perfect. Especially then. It’s fine to have high ideas about the world, but Imogen, you find fault with everything. Ashley couldn’t satisfy you, and Papa drives you mad, and now I can’t please you. And I don’t deny this has become a trap for us both, but hating each other won’t bring us out of it. You think it’s no good if you can’t do it all yourself, but there are limits—

  —It’s my life. I can’t give it over to other people.

  —You can. You must, to some degree. A woman can’t live only for herself. They may say she can, but she can’t. Not even a man can do it and have much of a happy life, but a woman even less.

  —How do you know? How long did you live for yourself, before giving in to the first decent man who proposed?

  Eleanor narrows her eyes at Imogen.

  —You’re a child. An utter child about to have a child of her own, and it makes me fearful. You haven’t a clue what you speak of, or I couldn’t forgive you for it. You imagine you’re cl
everer than all of us, and perhaps so, but I think you’re only more stubborn.

  Imogen shakes her head.

  —Then tell me what to do. If you’re so clever, tell me what I can do, what will fix it all and make everyone happy.

  —For God’s sake, that’s exactly the point. You’ll have to give up something. You can’t please everyone, but you want to please no one. Choose your family, or choose Ashley, or even choose your own bloody self over everyone, as you wanted all along. But don’t change your mind every hour. And don’t blame your troubles on me.

  Imogen looks into the door of the stove. They have not put a fresh log on for hours and they sit in the cold with their arms crossed. Suddenly Imogen stands.

  —Then I’ve made my choice. I’m leaving.

  She goes upstairs and packs the large Gladstone, tossing in skirts and tunics at random. Eleanor comes into the bedroom, pleading for her to stop, saying Imogen will wake Mrs. Hasslo and if this goes much longer the housekeeper is certain to give notice.

  —Let her give notice, Imogen says. You won’t need her when I’m gone.

  Imogen pulls on her overcoat, tugging fur-topped boots onto her feet with difficulty, Eleanor watching and wishing to help yet feeling that she must not help. Imogen dashes down the steps and out the front door, hatless with her coat buttoned halfway to her neck.

  It is frighteningly cold. In the darkness Imogen stumbles down the twisting path to the pier, trying to follow a faint set of footprints covered with fresh snow. Eleanor shuffles a few paces behind, buttoning her own coat, a candle in her hand.

  —Come inside, we’ll freeze out here. Think of the baby, you might be damaging—

  —All you care for is the bloody baby.

  —You’re hysterical. We must go back—

  —I’ll never go back in there. Never.