by Black Silk
Three days later, Graham was again at odds with Tate, only this time it was to his advantage to say nothing. He was not the object: Tate preached to the courtroom-mother on the subjects of conscience and sin.
“You should be less ashamed,” he told her, “of the babies born out of wedlock than to be involving an innocent third party.” Graham’s advocate to the end, he pressed her to tears to release Graham from the “reprehensible responsibilities” that she, as an “unjust opportunist of his past difficulties,” was thrusting on his shoulders.
Graham watched her. Her lip-biting brevity. Her determination. Little was known of this young laundress, but Graham saw enough on her face to doubt she knew the meaning of the word “reprehensible.” Her teary silences said she knew only that she was wrong, and that she knew—lived—circumstances that made her determined to stay wrong. Anyone could have told Tate to save his breath.
But he didn’t. He picked at her, deliberately and over a protracted stretch of time, until her solicitor finally put a halt to it. Graham wished then that he had said something. He sympathized with her mortification at being lectured on what had become a moot point. The matter was settled. Still, Tate went on and on in that closed room, trying to make an “honest” woman of her by making her feel guilty.
Listening to all this, so reminiscent of Tate’s lectures to him, Graham began to feel a kinship with the girl. In their disparate silences, he recognized himself a week ago—the sliding sense, the deep, unnameable discontent, the signs of heavy burden and the incapacity to communicate to anyone its particular weight. If Graham had been struggling to keep his head above water a week ago, he was staring now at a face that looked half-drowned. She was deathly white and as thin as a cadaver. He remembered someone saying she had hemorrhaged during the delivery of her babies, and she looked it: She was less the feisty, table-climbing girl at the beginning of all this, and by many more pounds than just the weight of twin boys—she had borne two sons.
Sitting in that office, Graham began to feel a peculiar ambivalence toward her that had to do with pity, though not necessarily the generous sort. He felt instead the kind of pity that celebrates a little: There but for the grace of God…. At one point, she looked at him directly. Or so he thought. Her eyes became flat and vacant, even as they were flooding over with tears—as if she cried for something far off, far removed from either herself or her present situation. It was an eerie look. In that instant, she seemed as mad as a hatter. And Graham’s animosity toward her all but disappeared. He felt a sadness, a sorrow that was for her alone.
At last. He rather weltered in this feeling for her. He sat there, flexing it, turning it over and over in his mind, like the rediscovery of sensation in a numb limb. He wasn’t going to analyze it for its quality or, God knew, try and use it. He was only glad it was there, that he might feel something for someone besides himself.
With the signing of the last legal documents, her humiliation seemed complete. She had gone from starring role to backstage haggling, and she clearly wasn’t happy about it. But she signed. She wrote a small, round signature. At one point, Graham’s solicitor tried to hurry her, but she snapped that she would write at her own speed and convenience. It occurred to Graham that, though he knew little of her, she had known a great deal about him. His club, his history, his life. Not that any of this was too difficult to find out. But it made him wonder if she did know the word “reprehensible” after all. Surely not. Yet she could put pen to paper, and he wouldn’t have expected that of a laundress. Perhaps she could write more than her signature. Perhaps she could string together enough words, for instance, to write a half-baked parody of his life, filled with accusations and overreactive emotions. Could a laundress put together a magazine serial? he wondered. Could she be behind The Rake of Ronmoor?
She passed the papers to Graham. He signed, then passed them to the witnesses to validate. It was over.
Almost. As she rose, Graham touched her arm. “Why?” he asked. “How do you know me?”
She wasn’t going to answer, he thought. Then she looked him in the eye. “Me father. ’E was yer dresser when you was on the stage.” After a pause, she added, as if this should explain everything, “Name o’ ’Arry. ’E didn’t mind so much when I told ’im they was yours.”
Graham had no memory of a costume dresser named Harry, but he understood the suit had had something to do with a lie to a possibly irate father. He said, “Well then, I expect he’ll be happy now.”
She shook her head. “Dead. Died las’ week. Been sick a long time.” She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”
Still out of his depth, he said, “I’m sorry.”
“Just as well. ’E wun’t a been ’appy ’bout the money anyway. ’E thought you should marry me.” Her gaze drifted a moment. “’E was a good man. Sacrificin’, ya’ know?”
“Well, I’m—ah—sorry you lost him.”
Again he had the sense that she was slightly deranged. Her look hardened, then focused in a way that made no sense. “You kin do better ’ an be sorry. Just remember that.” These words had no meaning for him, except that they sounded like an obscure threat.
Graham frowned after her, speaking to Tate behind him. “Is there anything more she can do to me legally?”
“No,” Tate replied. “She has the first payment of her annuity. We’ll set the police on her if she causes any more trouble. The worst she can do to you is live a very long time.”
A day later Graham wrote:
26 June 1858
Dear Rosalyn,
I think I have blamed everyone, including you. My humble apologies. Of the episodes, number six was not so bad. Or perhaps I can at last view it in a less moody, selfish light. The twit is settled; no more laundress, no more twins. I am a free man and can afford to be less piqued. I spoke to the publisher, incidentally, a William Task Pease, trying to glean a hint about the author of his fiction. He was as uncooperative as possible in discussing the pseudonymous (at least that was confirmed) M. DuJauc. But he willingly discussed the serial. He plans, of all things, to bring it out in about a year’s time as a novel. I told him I would sue him. Unfortunately, I think he is not as averse to a legal tangle as he maintains, though perhaps I am suspicious of him because I am so hypocritical myself—I am not nearly as willing to embark on another lawsuit as I would have him believe. He says, “Please no,” but his eyes twinkle at the publicity. He has won for the moment.
Another idea consoles me, though. I keep thinking of the twit as YDJ. The idea had something to do with watching her sign yesterday. I keep considering the bold and conscienceless imagination it took to get us to that point. Granted, it would be a stretch for her hand to actually write the episodes, but I don’t doubt she could do it. (It’s not all that well done anyway, is it?) Looking at her, one has the eerie impression of all things possible, of a clear and focused insanity—she has already proved herself capable, the way Bedlam inmates are reported to lift breakfronts and sideboards to heave at people. At any rate, I shall not be the least surprised if a laundrymaid in Ronmoor gives birth to twins. I am rather counting on it, in fact.
So at present I am planning on a wonderful policy of inaction. How much damage, after all, can a girl and a pen do to me? I can’t ignore a courtroom and the legitimate power it has, but I damn well can ignore a self-appointed chronicler hiding behind a mask of fiction, especially fiction of such a transitory type: a fiction that replaces itself weekly and promises, by its very existence, to be replaced by another of its own kind in the near future.
I am lagging on a bit here in London, since you cannot be in Netham until the twenty-eighth or so, but also to break the feeling of being rushed and pushed everywhere. I was invited carousing tonight (with Tilney, as a matter of fact, no doubt wanting some new horror to report to you), but have declined. If I’m going to get smashed, I intend to do it thoroughly and quietly on my own.
Today I went riding, after some trouble over finding a horse—I seem to have s
ent all mine to Nethamshire. I’ll explain later. I find myself, by my own doing, in London without a speck of convenience. Not a horse, not a carriage, not a manservant, not even a spare watch. Henry’s widow was right. I am a little absurd. But I am content. I wandered outside the city today, much on my own. Tomorrow I shall start for Netham by horseback, having enjoyed that solitary—salutary—means of transportation. The weather is quite nice.
I look forward to seeing you.
G
Chapter 13
Graham’s ride outside the city that next day was not quite as uneventful as it sounded in his letter to Rosalyn. He had ridden out to the posting house at Morrow Fields.
By horseback, the inn was just a bit more than an hour’s ride from London. The countryside opened up rapidly to the north of the city, and with this, as he rode into it, a sense of anticipation opened in Graham. The signed papers behind him, he took the day for himself. He was going to cast about for the widow once more, he told himself, though this was more an excuse; it gave him a destination. Mostly he liked the ideas of riding, eating a pleasant packed lunch, and enjoying a new landscape. He had never gone in this particular direction from London, and there was something discoverable—like childhood exploring—about a lone ride into unfamiliar terrain.
The sky was cloudless, a dazzling parrot blue. The land, as he left the city behind, began to roll, shifting back and forth between sparse woods and pasturelands. As he traveled through this, somehow the muddle of his life dissolved. He began to feel almost transparent; as if, from the dome of the sky to the roots of the trees, the countryside were traveling through him, not he through it. His thoughts only flickered through him, no more seizable than the shadow and sun that filtered through leaves overhead. He moved along in the diffuse exhilaration of having a perfect, untold, unaccountable day—and of being about his own mildly obsessive project, only for the private fancy of it.
Of course, today’s first and final obsession was not the countryside but Submit Channing-Downes—or rather the pursuit of her. Graham didn’t actually suppose he’d find her, but he wanted the play of pretending he might. He had recalled the general whereabouts of the inn from his conversation with the widow at Rosalyn’s party. This memory was enough to make him ride joyously along now, imagining one moment he would find her there, then consoling himself the next over his long ride for nothing.
As the only posting house at Morrow Fields came into view, it didn’t look too promising. It was an old structure, built of arched stones and wood beams. Like most stopovers that catered to a coaching trade, it was more coach house than inn. Graham dismounted and entered a dilapidated door. He expected anything but the proprietor’s immediate answer.
“Yea, but she’s no’ in.”
“The lady is staying here?”
This was almost an alarming consideration. Inside, the posting house was a dull, spare place. Bare walls. Worn wood floors. It had the sad aura of something that had once looked nice but was now abandoned. A century ago, when north was still not such a gauche direction in which to travel, it had probably seen its share of wealthy visitors. But now, being in the wrong direction from town and thus prosperity, it was decidedly run-down, though in a clean, make-do sort of fashion.
From the entry room, Graham looked in on a common room filled with tables. An otherwise bare side counter displayed a vase of wildflowers at one end. Some directives on the wall caught his attention, as they were meant to. They were handlettered signs reading off warnings and admonitions: “Meals and bath will be added to the final bill.” “Carriages are not to be left at the front entrance for any other purpose than loading and unloading.” “Meals will not be served in the common room after ten p.m.” Graham wondered if the management wasn’t a little responsible for the lack of business. The entire place was empty of people, save the man who, with an air of ownership, swept the floor.
Still not quite believing it, Graham asked again, “She’s here?”
“Tha’ been told onct and tha’ askt again? Don’t tha’ huv ears?”
“Where is she?”
The proprietor continued his distracted maneuvers with the broom, raising only an elbow to indicate a set of doors. French doors with one cracked lower pane stood at the far end of the eating common. “Oot,” he replied, like a reticent owl.
“Thank you.”
Graham walked between the tables, around the leftover fashionableness of their linen tops. Each table was set lovingly with silver, as if someone were expected. He touched a chair back here and there just to feel its solidness. There was a feeling of anticipation in the room that felt strange, more than simply impractical—a sense of a great banquet about to begin with no guests, all indefinitely delayed. He moved quickly through the maze of furniture, exiting through the French doors, then found himself squinting into the sun.
What he saw was breathtaking. It diminished the afternoon’s ride to the most ordinary of sights. Graham stood under a partial overhang on something of a terrace: stones set together to make a flooring with a few stones missing, grass growing between. A few more weathered tables sat on this, the whole bounded by a low wall. But beyond the dirt terrace was more beauty than any run-down inn had a right to possess. All grass and sky for as far as the eye could see. Deep, vivid green. The blue of the sky was made brilliant in contrast. A breeze combed the field in waves, parting it into deeper shades like a nap. Occasional trees cast shade. Hardwoods, varieties of beech, he would guess. These dotted the green as if casually landscaped into it. Far off, perhaps miles away, poplars towered into the air. Thicker, in running clusters, they put a line between sky and land; a serrate finish as perfect and definitive as a scalloped edge. Graham took in the view. It was a terrific amount of land in any direction, miles and miles. There was, however, no woman in any of it, not a human, an animal, or a house in sight.
Graham went back to question the proprietor further. Inside, the man had begun to get out a service of tea. It was silver, like one that a more southerly posting house might sport. The owner fondled the set unhurriedly.
“She’s not out there.”
As if in direct contradiction, the man answered, “I be gettin’ her tea now.”
“But she’s not outside.”
The proprietor looked up. He had a thin, browned face. His lower jaw folded over his upper in a downcast line, giving the impression of inveterate scorn. “Walking,” he said with particular distinction. “I put th’ tea oot a’ two precise. For th’ guests.”
“She comes back for tea?” Graham asked.
“Or it gets cool’d.”
“Could I take it and wait for her on the terrace?”
“Gentlemen guests set a’ ther own tables unless married to or invited by th’ lady guests.”
“Where will you put her tea?”
“On the terrace.”
“Then may I have my own, at my own table, beside hers?”
“Tha’s not a guest.” The man didn’t look up but wrapped the silver teapot, now full, in several turns of muslin towel.
“How much is it to become a guest?”
The man stopped, turned, and considered Graham from his boots to his face. “No bags, twelve shillin’s. Thu’s a decent place.”
Graham was about to protest this customized price, then thought better of it. He produced the required money.
“Wait a’ the table. I’ll bring it.”
The owner brought a wrapped teapot, a cup and saucer, sugar and cream, and a few small biscuits to each of the two tables. These had come and been left standing, with the man serving the empty table with all the aplomb and appurtenances as his own, before Graham caught sight of her.
Punctual. Punctuational, he was reminded. Today, a small dot, the final period at the end of his ride; conclusive, definite. She grew from the poplars, a speck, a black motion separating itself from its surroundings. He waited. Surprisingly, she became not quite the same widow he had last seen. She was wearing a straw hat the color o
f the day, the color of her hair. And he could see, as she got closer, that the hat was banded by a deep, more striking anomaly: a ruby ribbon that fluttered and shone in the sun.
As she was coming across the field, Submit saw she had company. Another guest sat at a table near her own. It was only when she stood in the opening of the low terrace wall, however, that she realized who the man was. She halted, resting her fingers lightly on the walltop. Her hands had been in her pockets. The stones felt suddenly, keenly cold. Her fingers clenched.
For ten or twenty seconds, Submit couldn’t move. Her palms grew clammy. It was one thing to see Graham Wessit at Rosalyn Schild’s house; it was quite another to see him turn up in her own private domain. From beneath her broad-brimmed hat, she stared at him. Then she put her hands back into the pockets of her dress.
“What do you want?” she asked.
The question caught Graham half risen from his chair. There was an awkward, too-long pause as he stared at a face overhung with shadows. He glanced at the lifted, folded layers of her skirt. He had forgotten how oddly attractive she could be in a black dress. She was all shadow and shade, all but the glorious hat. Its ribbon fluttered, beautiful, brilliant ruby red.
“The case,” he said finally. “You still have it?” He could think of nothing else to say, and he instantly regretted this entry. But perhaps she no longer had the case or would give it up without a word. That was what he counted on, her polite lack of comment.