The Children's Book

by A. S. Byatt

  Philip looked at Dorothy’s sharp, practical, interested face. “She came to say she is dead,” he said.

  Dorothy said she was sorry, and was. She imagined Philip receiving this news, and thought he must feel bad not to have been there. “You couldn’t know,” she said. “I could’ve sent an address. I didn’t.”

  “She probably understood, you know.”

  Dorothy was not sure how much mothers understood, in fact, but a bleak look had come into Philip’s face, and she wanted to change it.

  “I don’t know as she did. Elsie’s mad at me. She’s brought me my mother’s brushes. My mother said to give them to me.”

  “You see, she understood.” That was a good thing to say, whether or not it was true. She said

  “Of course, Elsie’s mad at you. But she’s there to make it up to.”

  Philip looked gloomy. Dorothy remembered how much she had liked him, before. She said

  “Those tiles. They’re very good, you know that. The way you make patterns out of real things. So that you see the flies and fennel, you can really see them.”

  “I did want to make pots—”

  “And just see what luck you’ve had. It feels as though it’s a kind of fate, you know. You must go on making pots, that’s for certain.”

  14

  The winter that followed St. Martin’s Summer was sodden and severe. The end of golden 1895 was struck with gloom. On Monday December 23rd the whole Tartarinov family rushed uphill to Todefright, brandishing a telegram. The Wellwoods gathered in their hall already decorated for Christmas with green boughs, holly and mistletoe. Stepniak was dead, said Vasily Tartarinov. Humphry had visions of bombs, or furtive stabbing. Tartarinov was in tears. Stepniak had indeed died violently, possibly accidentally, possibly not. He had walked onto a railway line, near his home in Bedford Park, and had been cut down by a train, and killed, more or less instantly. It was a local train, on a single track. The driver had whistled and braked, whistled and braked, in vain. It was hard to understand, said Tartarinov, waving expressive hands, mopping his face, how Stepniak could have failed to get out of the way. Maybe his foot was caught. Maybe he had been overwhelmed by personal sorrows and the sorrows of the world, and had decided to end his life. We shall not see his like again, said Vasily Tartarinov, whilst the Wellwood family ordered tea to be brewed, and tried to help him compose himself. No, we shall not see his like again, Humphry agreed, wishing the Tartarinov children would stop howling, and Mrs. Tartarinov would cease to look as though she might choke with emotion.

  Olive held on to the back of a chair—it seemed rude to sit down, but her muscles ached all over. She kneaded her distended flanks, surreptitiously, with her fingers. Tartarinov’s vivid imaginings of Stepniak’s torn body reminded her that soon, soon she would herself face pain, and possible death, of one, or two people.

  Tom had been about to walk down to the Tartarinovs’, to read Virgil with Vasily. He was clutching his Aeneid, and his exercise book. He tried to take his mind away from Stepniak’s fate before he had really imagined it, and failed. He saw the shining rail, stretching before and after, and the black, thundering weight, in its shroud of steam, bearing down, a final dark rushing. It would have been quick, it must have been quick. A moving wall of black, a solid tunnel opening. Facilis descensus Averno.

  • • •

  Stepniak’s funeral was on the 28th. Christmas came between, and the Wellwoods put up a tree, hung with baubles, bright with candles, and sang together, “The First Nowell,” “Silent Night.” They carved two geese and ate Christmas pudding, spherical in eerily flaming blue sheets, like a captive will o’ the wisp, Olive thought, inventing a story about a flame-imp set to work in a suburban kitchen, causing chaos. After Christmas, before the imminent birth, the larger children were sent to spend New Year with the Basil Wellwoods, in Portman Square. Humphry took them to London, delivered them, and went on to join Stepniak’s funeral cortège, which processed slowly from Bedford Park to Waterloo Station, from where the coffin would travel by train to the crematorium at Woking.

  It was a day of steady, smutty London drizzle. The coffin was covered with a blanket of brilliant flowers, tied with red ribbons. Radicals and revolutionaries from all Europe marched behind it. Hundreds of people gathered at Waterloo. Speeches were made in German, Italian, Yiddish, French and Polish. The crowd stood for over an hour and listened to the socialist and anarchist leaders, Keir Hardie, Eduard Bernstein, Malatesta, Prince Kropotkin, and John Burns, the workingman, unionist, Fabian and Radical MP for Battersea, who had organised the proceedings. Eleanor Marx spoke as she always did, passionately, lucidly; she said Stepniak had loved women, and women would grieve for him. William Morris, hugely fat and breathing badly, spoke for English socialists and condemned Russian oppression. This was Morris’s last speech at an open-air gathering. Humphry Wellwood went by train to Woking Crematorium with the mourners, sitting discreetly at the back, watching with almost technical curiosity as the coffin passed through folding doors into the flames. Later he wrote a moving description of the event for a magazine, describing international grief and solidarity, confusion and a baffled sense of loss in the soaked, patient crowds on the railway platform, and the heartstruck weeping mourners before the furnace.

  The next day, December 29th, was the Feast of St. Thomas à Becket, the turbulent priest and wilful politician, bloodily cut down before his own altar. Another proud and wilful politician, Joseph Chamberlain, was Colonial Secretary in the new Conservative Government. He secretly encouraged Cecil Rhodes, Prime Minister of the Cape Colony in South Africa, to send his friend, Dr. Starr Jameson, with 500 men to invade the Boer republic of the Transvaal. President Kruger, of the Transvaal, was resolutely refusing voting rights to the inflooding speculators and miners, the uitlander in search of Kaffir gold. Humphry, on his way back to Todefright, heard the rumours that were coming in by telegraph, and would dearly have liked to stay in London, to follow events, and to write something wry and witty about the jingoistic mood, so different from the international grief for Stepniak, that was overtaking much of English public life. The Fabians were divided about questions of empire—some, including socialists like Ramsay MacDonald, hated the whole idea. Some believed in planning for the greater good of the many, which included the farflung inhabitants of the colonies. Beatrice Webb, one of the moving spirits of Fabian socialism, had been in love with Joseph Chamberlain as a young woman, and wrote in her diary at the beginning of 1896 that the whole mind of the country was absorbed in foreign politics, that the occasion had found the man, and Joe Chamberlain was today the National Hero. “In these troubled times, with every nation secretly disliking us,” she wrote, “it is a comfortable thought that we have a government of strong resolute men, not given to either bluster or vacillation, but prompt in taking every measure to keep us out of a war and to make us successful should we be forced into it.” Little England, Great Empire. In 1896 Humphry Wellwood was interested in the relations of armies and gold mines, diamond merchants and Stock Exchange dealers. The dead Nihilist jostled the piratical Starr Jameson in his busy mind. But Olive had made him promise to go home, immediately, so he went.

  When he opened his front door he was greeted by a full-throated howl of pain, followed by wild sobbing, from upstairs. It had begun. Violet appeared on the stairs, took his coat, patted his shoulder, said “She’s having a hard time. The child is fast in the passage, and cannot come out. And they are both weak, I think.”

  “Shall I go to her?” Humphry asked. Olive liked to be left alone at these times. Violet kissed him and said she would tell her he was back, that would settle her a little. She would talk to the midwife, and then she would make Humphry a cup of tea, or a bowl of broth, after his journey. All the little children had been taken to the Tartarinovs’ by Nurse. She was looking after the Tartarinov children too, as the couple were away at the funeral.

  Violet went back to her sister’s bedside, and returned to say that Olive could perhaps see
Humphry later, the doctor and the midwife were busy. Another scream echoed across the landing: Humphry and Violet crept downstairs. There was frantic, agitated moaning, and smooth hushings and calming noises from the attendant medical people.

  Olive thought she had forgotten what pain could be. She was a railway tunnel in which a battering train had come to a fiery halt. She was a burrow in which a creature had wedged itself and could go neither forwards nor back. She was arch after arch of electric pain and the imagination of geometry could not create an issue—the immovable object and the irresistible force were one thing, and could neither advance nor retreat, so that bursting seemed the only way out, like the eruption of a volcano. Something would drown in there, something would be engulfed by flame. The doctor begged her not to fling her head from side to side, not to waste her breath on shrieking and wailing, but to make an effort, for the sake of the child who could not come out, and expel it.

  She arched herself, howled and bore down.

  Red and angry, black-lipped and uttering a desperate whimper, the child shot into the world. He was a boy. They cleaned his face, and cut his cord, and he wailed again, and again—“He has a good voice,” said the doctor. “And strong limbs,” said the midwife, circling a puny thigh with one hand, wiping the crimson male organ. Blood and water were everywhere. Olive felt it well out. And the afterbirth, so all was well. The midwife bundled up the bloody sheets, and mopped the floor, and washed the mother, and arranged her under a pretty counterpane, tugging a comb through her sweat-tangled hair. She tickled the swathed child under his chin. “Now we’ll fetch Daddy, now you’re fit to see.” She put him in the cot—not new, but prettily decorated with starched sheets and ribbons. She went to look for Humphry who was consuming his bowl of broth, watched intently by Violet, to whom he was describing the funeral, the weather, the music, the flowers.

  Humphry tiptoed into the bedroom, in the traditional manner. Olive looked at him from far away, her hands inert on the counterpane. The midwife showed him the boy, who had reddish hair, not very much, and strong features, a brow, a big mouth. What shall we call him, Humphry asked Olive. She shifted the bleeding sack of her body. You choose, she said. Humphry was thinking of Shakespeare, for the article he would write about the Transvaal. He was thinking about England. He hesitated between Harry and George. “Cry God for Harry, England and St. George.” Harry was more dashing. Harry was a good no-nonsense English name. “Harry,” he said, and Olive smiled, and said Harry was a good choice, she too had been considering Harry. Harry Basil, she suggested, thinking of Basil’s forthcoming generosity with Tom’s school fees.

  15

  In the New Year of 1896, Humphry went to Portman Square to take home his two eldest children. Phyllis, Hedda, Florian and Robin had been taken by Cathy the maid to visit her family on a farm near Rottingdean. Phyllis had looked plaintive, and sulked a little. She preferred being the youngest of the big children to being the eldest of the small children. Violet tried to suggest that the Basil Wellwoods might find room for her, it would do her good to be more independent, but nothing came of that. Dorothy was grim and tense during these discussions. She wanted to be with Griselda, and having Phyllis around was quite exactly not being with Griselda. Tom would rather have stayed at home; he did not have interests in common with Charles, who was a year older than him, but they did not quarrel, either.

  It was decided that Humphry should approach his friend Leslie Skinner, who worked with Karl Pearson in the Department of Applied Mathematics at UCL, to find a good tutor to take both Charles and Tom, and coach them for the entrance exams of Eton and Marlowe. Toby Youlgreave had agreed to help them with history and literature. Tartarinov was doing well with Tom’s Latin, and Humphry was happy to suggest that he reciprocate his brother’s hospitality by offering space to Charles in which he could come and polish his classics. Basil and Katharina felt that what young women needed was accomplishments—music, manners, painting and drawing. They offered to invite Dorothy to share Griselda’s art lessons. Griselda had been reading The Mill on the Floss and had persuaded Dorothy to read it too. They sat in Griselda’s bedroom, indignant Maggie Tullivers, for whom maths and Latin and literature were not considered.

  They all went to tea with Leslie and Etta Skinner, in their narrow parlour in Tavistock Square, to meet the maths tutor Leslie Skinner thought might do the job. They all went, because Humphry combined the tea with a visit to the British Museum, and he enjoyed Dorothy’s company on such outings. He took them to see Viking gold and the Elgin Marbles, and made them all shudder in front of the Egyptian coffins with dead men and women bandaged inside them.

  The parlour had dark green Morris & Co. wallpaper, spangled with scarlet berries, and a Morris set of spindly Sussex settle and chairs, with rush seats. There were woven rugs on a dark floor, and high shelves of orderly books. The possible tutor was already present, a young German, from Munich, Dr. Joachim Susskind, in a threadbare suit, and wearing a red tie. Dr. Susskind had flowing, hay-coloured, dry hair, and a fine, waving moustache to go with it. His eyes were blue and mournful, not clear, glassy sky-blue like Dr. Skinner’s but a clouded, faded blue, the diluted blue of an almost-white Small Blue butterfly, Tom thought. He looked mild and harmless. Leslie Skinner presented him by saying that he was not only a first-class mathematician, but also a first-class teacher, which many mathematicians were not. Dr. Susskind smiled mildly. He said he should like to know whether Tom and Charles enjoyed mathematics? Yes, said Tom. No, said Charles. Dr. Susskind asked both of them, why? Tom said it wasn’t arithmetic he liked, he often got that wrong, it was the way things fitted together in geometry, the sense of finding it out. Charles said he didn’t like feeling a fool, which was the effect maths had on him. Leslie Skinner asked which subjects Charles did like, and Charles said, none, really, they didn’t tell him what he wanted to know.

  “And what do you want to know?” asked Skinner, Socratic.

  “Things about life. Why are the poor poor? What is wrong with us?”

  Humphry laughed, and said he was afraid Charles would not get much information about poverty at Eton. Charles said he didn’t want to go there, but nobody cared what he thought. Skinner said it was always useful to be taught how to think, and Dr. Susskind said, almost inaudibly, looking at no one, that that was a good question to ask, a good question.

  The two girls sat side by side, one dark, one pale gold, their long hair brushed out over their shoulders. Etta Skinner turned to them briskly and asked in a principled and slightly combative tone where they were to get their education. Leslie Skinner turned his blue look on Dorothy and gave her his complete attention.

  “You are the young lady who is to be a doctor.”

  Dorothy said she was.

  “Then it is high time you were seriously studying science.”

  “I know,” said Dorothy, incurring a sharp look of reproach from her father.

  “Well, I do know,” she said, answering the look. It turned out that Etta had an answer to propose. She herself did some teaching at Queen’s College, in Harley Street, which gave classes to females of any age over twelve years, either to prepare them for a teaching career, or to improve their skills and knowledge if they were already teaching. Dorothy and Griselda might attend—part-time even—together. Griselda said she would go to science classes with Dorothy if Dorothy would go with her to classes in German and French. And Latin, said Leslie. They would need Latin if they were to think of university, as he hoped they would. UCL made provision for women to study science. Skinner told Humphry that a good Fabian should consider his daughters’ education as seriously as his sons’. Humphry said that Dorothy—and Griselda—were still only little girls. Hardly, said Skinner, smiling at the two serious young faces. Hardly. They would be young women any moment, he could see. His look made Dorothy feel unexpectedly heated, on her skin, and also inside her. She wriggled a little and sat straighter. Griselda said she didn’t think her parents saw any need for her to be educated. Skinner
said, it should be enough that she wanted to be educated. Etta took Humphry’s arm, and said surely he could explain to his family how much it might mean, how much it should be a right… Griselda said Dorothy could stay with her, and they could go to the lessons together, if only the families agreed. Humphry said he would miss his girl, and Dorothy said he might not notice, he was so much away, now, himself.

  Tom and Charles began immediately to go to University College to do maths with Dr. Susskind, who shared a poky little office in a mews behind the main building, with another statistician, who was collecting data on human heights, weights and ages. They went on Monday and Tuesday afternoons, and were given work to take home. They were measured themselves, as a statistic. Then, some weekends, they travelled to Todefright to work with Vasily Tartarinov, and to read with Toby Youlgreave in his cottage.

  Tom liked the maths well enough, and tried not to think of the consequences of getting the Marlowe scholarship. He felt unreal in London, as though his flesh and blood were in abeyance, as though he was a simulacrum of a boy, floating along Gower Street with its prim houses, dodging cabs in Torrington Street. The maths, especially the geometry, intensified his sense of abstraction. He waited to be back in Todefright. He thought continuously of the woods and the Tree House. He read William Morris’s new book, The Well at the World’s End, and also The Wood Beyond the World, and News from Nowhere. Charles read these books, too, but they did not discuss them much, except to make a joke, when their homework was hard, of the fact that William Morris appeared to believe that boys could educate themselves as and when they chose, with no more chalky effort than they had put into learning language as babies. Joachim Susskind delighted in teaching Tom, for he was indeed quick, and instinctive, and did not need lengthy explanations.