The Sealed Letter

by Emma Donoghue

  That being noted—the petition for divorce of Vice-Admiral Henry Codrington, on the grounds of his wife's misconduct with Colonel David Anderson, arguably represents an exception to the rule. The Petitioner, son of the late lamented Admiral Edward Codrington, hero of Trafalgar, and younger brother of General William Codrington, Governor of Gibraltar, has won considerable distinction in his own right, most recently as Admiral-Superintendent of the Docklands at Malta, the principal scene of much of the alleged criminality. The Respondent, née Helen Jane Webb Smith, is the sole progeny of Christopher Webb Smith of Florence, late of the East India Company and author of those modestly invaluable works Oriental Ornithology and The Feathered Life of Hindostan. As is so shamefully often the case, especially in cases that originate in the lax circles of colonial outposts, the Co-Respondent, Colonel Anderson (for whose recent marriage, interested readers should turn to page 9, below) is an officer in Her Majesty's Army.

  The Admiral's petition has appended to it a strikingly diverse list of locations in which Mrs. Codrington is accused of having committed the offence in question with either Anderson or another paramour (Lieutenant Herbert Alexander St. John Mildmay): Admiralty House in Valetta, the Admiralty gondola, Mildmay's lodgings in Valetta, the resort of Cormayeur, the Grosvenor Hotel (London), and, perhaps most intriguingly, the Bloomsbury residence of Miss Emily Faithfull, the petticoat philanthropist whose founding of the Victoria Press has made our readers familiar with her name.

  The questions raised when this petition comes to trial will involve the most momentous interests of the parties concerned: the honour of two gentlemen who have served their Sovereign with honour, and the fair fame of two well nurtured and educated ladies. The Codrington trial, in addition, will, according to our sources at the Bar, offer legal novelty in the form of a particularly shocking counterclaim against her husband by the Respondent, and may be considered a test case of the Matrimonial Causes Act's procedural workings.

  If the Divorce Court is a necessary evil, then, on such occasions as these, to report on it seems a necessary evil too. When large questions are involved, or the character of those who have achieved celebrity, the organs of opinion are bound to speak, or the public will be left to form their views without guidance. With these high purposes, then, this newspaper will from the first day of the trial embark on the most minute diurnal reportage of the case of Codrington v. Codrington & Anderson.

  ***

  There's a wet, autumnal quality in the air already. Helen shivers in the growler as it brings her back to Taviton Street, and forces herself to read the article through one more time.

  Instead of hot tea and buttered muffins, there's an envelope waiting for her on a silver tray, with Fido's familiar red seal on it.

  October 1, 1864

  Helen,

  I have asked Johnson to give you this in my absence, as I feel unable to speak to you with any self-possession. This morning all peace of mind was robbed from me by two things I read.

  The first was the piece in the Times, which named my house as one of the places in which you and A. had your trysts. I can't imagine how your husband's solicitor found this out—by means of a spy, perhaps?— and I'm filled with horror to find myself named in print as some kind of knowing procuress, when the truth is so much more complicated. When I think of my parents catching sight of the family name in the paper this morning, a name on which through untold generations no shadow has been cast—well, you can imagine how I blanch.

  The second shock was Mr. Few's note, explaining that the document he signed in my presence, describing the incident of 1856, irrevocably commits me to testify against your husband. In the teashop, I remember, you said that you'd never ask that of me, not even if your whole future were to depend on it; I can still hear you saying those words. I can't bear to think that you have misled me yet again, Helen, after all your assurances. I can only tell myself that in your present state of distress, you didn't make yourself quite understood to Mr. Few when you were telling him of the incident, and that he must bear some responsibility for having failed to spell out what would follow from committing it to paper in the form of an affidavit. But the fact remains that I find myself faced with the prospect of standing up to describe, in a public courtroom, an obscene and violent attack of which, as you know, I have no clear recollection.

  Shame, then; anger at the confusion and passivity I have displayed over the course of the past month; guilt at the part I have (partly unwittingly) played in the dissolution of a family; terror of the consequences both personal and professional, and of the damage perhaps already done to my most beloved Cause ... I am wracked with all these feelings. And also, I hardly need say, an overwhelming sympathy for your plight; a wish to stand by you in burning affection to the end, like the knights of old; a longing for something I was just beginning to glimpse, a future together. As I write this, these forces are pulling me a dozen different ways, like wild dogs.

  I don't know what to do. Truth is the principle I hold most dear, but I seem to have wandered far from its shining beacon. I owe it to myself, I believe, to take stock before going one more step.

  Under the present circumstances you'll understand, I hope, that you can't stay at Taviton Street just now. I live in the public eye, and you (as of this morning) have had notoriety thrust upon you; for us to be known to live under the same roof would do nothing but harm to both. Please believe that through these and all trials I remain

  Your friend,

  Fido

  When Helen looks up from the page, the maid's wearing an insolent expression. Can she have read it? No, the red seal was unbroken. "I've packed your things, Mrs. Codrington." Holding up a small valise.

  Helen ignores that. "Where's your mistress? Is she in her room?"

  "Not at home," comes the answer, a beat too late to be persuasive.

  Helen heads for the stairs to the second floor.

  Johnson scuttles after her. "She's gone out, I tell you." On the landing she puts a reddened hand on Helen's arm.

  Helen regards it as if it were a spider. "I'd advise you not to touch me." The hand withdraws. "Fido?" She rattles the knob of the bedroom door. "Open up this minute."

  Not a sound from within.

  "She's at the press," says the maid belatedly.

  "Fido, how can you abandon me so?" cries Helen, mouth to the wood. "Such a cold, analytical note, like something a man would write!" She waits for an answer. "Haven't you anything useful to do, Johnson?" she snarls out of the corner of her mouth, but the maid doesn't move. Helen turns back to the door. "Fido! You accuse me of exposing you to the winds of scandal, but none of it's been my doing. And what about me? I'm losing everything I treasure. I'm stripped bare to those winds."

  A listening sort of silence, from behind the door; Helen just knows Fido is in there, blinking at the window or hunched on her bed, making her little irritating wheeze. (If she didn't devote so much morbid attention to her lungs, Helen believes they might work better.)

  "You call this friendship?" she demands. "A door slammed in my face? Well, if you twit me with my words, I can do the same: As long as I have a home, so do you—that's what you told me, two days ago!" She slams her fist on the smooth oak. Rage fills her like a gas; she parts her lips and hisses. "You're all for truth, are you? You canting hypocrite! You dare to sit in judgement, when for all your starched manner, you're made of the same stuff as me and the rest of our misbegotten sex." Out of the corner of her eye Helen can see the maid; she wonders how much to let out. "Can you look into your own heart, Fido," she demands in a ragged whisper, "into its shrouded crevices, the secrets you've managed to mislay in the darkness, with your trick offorgetting—can you do that, and then condemn me?"

  A stiff, high voice comes from inside the room. "Johnson, show the lady out at once."

  The maid's skinny fingers close around Helen's arm.

  ***

  October 2, 1864

  Dear Few,

  I write from Eccleston Squ
are, where I have taken up my solitary residence again in obedience to your insistence that it would sound bad in court if I'd moved to a hotel. I attach the list of particulars you asked for, which runs to some dozen pages. I have tried to be as precise as possible, eschewing what you're pleased to call "feminine vagueness." At the distance of (in some cases) many years I can hardly be expected to recall chapter and verse, especially considering that many of the alleged incidents never took place and that others, though now given a sinister prominence by my husband's counsel, seemed to me too harmless to be committed to memory.

  I include also, at your request, my suggestions as to witnesses who may be willing to contradict those of my husband, or speak in more general detraction of his character. NB: To summon my father from Italy would do no good, as he is old and frail (and, I must add in con. dence, rather more a supporter of his distinguished sonin-law than of his own unfortunate daughter).

  I would appreciate it if you could advance me a sum of five pounds on the maintenance that my husband's solicitor has so far failed to furnish.

  Yours sincerely,

  Helen Codrington

  ***

  October 2, 1864

  Eccleston Square

  My still dear Fido—or Madre, as I used to be allowed to call you, in happier times. May I begin with a fervent apology for the abuse I heaped upon you at your house yesterday? It was my rage at a harsh world that spoke, not I, your Little One.

  From the address above, you'll see that—having not a soul in the world to harbour me, and caring not at all where I lay my splitting head—I've returned to the empty mausoleum. As Mrs. Nichols is dead set against taking on any of the duties of a lady's maid, I'm reduced to doing everything for myself, to the best of my ability. In any other year, at this turn in the season, I would be seeing to the girls' winter clothes—but no, I must not think of them or I will break down entirely. It strikes me that I resemble some female Crusoe, picking through the detritus of my former life.

  Your letter implied that you need time to examine your conscience. It's at this address that you'll find me, then, should that conscience incline you to reach out to one who's always been proud to call herself

  Your carina,

  Helen

  ***

  October 3

  From their mother, for the eyes of Miss Nan Codrington and Miss Nell Codrington only.

  Nellikins, Nanling, my sweetest and bestest girls, I write to you every day but I've had no reply. I can't believe that you sweet girls would fail to write back to your poor frantic Mama, who though she might sometimes have been a little snappish, will always love you above all else in the world. So I must conclude that the woman in whose house you're presently confined is playing the censor. (And if you've dared to read thus far, Emily Watson, then know this: God will not let such a trespass on the holy soil of motherhood go unpunished.)

  I drive past the house of your imprisonment very often in a growler, girls, hoping for a glimpse of you. If you come to the front and look out the window you might see me waving.

  I hope you're bearing up valiantly. You must cling to each other like the pair in "Goblin Market" who saved eachother from the goblin men. Remember, "there is no friend like a sister."

  Does your Papa visit often? Why don't you ask him, very prettily, if he might let you see your Mama for half an hour, at a place of his choosing? Five minutes, even, would be of immeasurable comfort to one who went through so many hours (rather days) of agony to bring you both into the world. Do beg him, letting him see how distressed you both are, but without mentioning that the request came from me.

  Don't fear for the future, my precious girlies, Mama will be with you very soon. Close your eyes now and feel me wrapping you up in my arms, squeezing so tight that you squeal!

  ***

  Anderson—

  I've torn the scales from my eyes. In refusing to so much as acknowledgemy communications, you show not the slightest compunction. What a poor specimen of manhood you are!

  Sometimes these nights I fear I'm going mad, but perhaps it's the other way round, and only now am I waking from delusion. Evidently you never cared for me; it was all my invention. I was nothing but an object of your carnal whims, to while away the convenient hour.

  My curse on you, and on your line. First cousins ought not to marry, it's said; the crop often goes wrong. Perhaps the new Mrs. Anderson will look elsewhere, the first time you're posted away from her. It would seem only fitting if you ended up wearing the horns yourself. I wish you all the pain I can imagine: disgrace, the terror of poverty, the agony of losing children. When misfortune crushes you, perhaps then you will remember

  Helen

  ***

  Fido, where are you? Why won't you answer my letter?

  Nobody does. My words seem to evaporate from the page. I've become quite insubstantial, a woman of glass. An untouchable, like those creatures we walked past on street corners in Calcutta. (I read today that a cyclone there has killed seventy thousand; it's a measure of my state that I can feel nothing but a numb blankness.) Sanity seems to give way under my feet like a frayed rope.

  This will be my last attempt. If ever you loved me—

  Counterclaim

  (a claim made by a respondent

  to offset a petitioner's claim)

  The Pope he leads a happy life,

  He has no care nor wedded strife ...

  Yet, his is not a family house,

  He has no cheery, loving spouse.

  Anonymous

  "The Pope"

  He wakes in his rooms at the Rag Club, his head throbbing like a wound. It reminds him of something. Harry hasn't had too much to drink since he was a very young man, but he still recalls that sensation of his veins being clogged with poison. Not that he took anything last night except half a glass of claret with some arid chops. His brother William tried to drag him off to the Haymarket for Orpheus in the Underworld—"take your mind off things for a few hours"—but Harry went to bed instead.

  On the bedside table sits a red leather case containing his medals. Apart from clothing, this was all he thought to put in his valise when he left Eccleston Square. Harry opens the case now and examines their worn sheen: the Cross of St. Vladimir, the Legion d'Honneur, the Order of the Redeemer of Greece. And it occurs to him, with a surge of pain in his jaw, that the Allied sovereigns didn't really mean to decorate Midshipman Codrington for his gallantry against the Turks, or for the injuries he suffered at Navarino three days after his nineteenth birthday, but merely as a compliment to Sir Edward. So the most glorious laurels of Harry's career are nothing but his father's leavings.

  Perhaps I'll never get another posting.

  Enough of that. He snaps the case shut and gets out of bed. In the mirror he considers his beard-shrouded face. Perhaps a trim today, so he won't frighten the girls. But was alarmed by the resistance of the said Miss Faithfull. Just one of many phrases from Helen's so-called counterclaim that keep ringing in his head, making him stiff with outrage.

  The last eight days have rained down on him like blows from a club. Mrs. Watson's turning up at Eccleston Square, eyes glittering, to present Crocker. The spy's meticulous account of following Helen and the male party to the Grosvenor Hotel. The prizing open of Helen's cherry-wood desk; oddly enough, that's the part that still fills Harry with shame to remember, despite all the evidence that spilled from the shattered marquetry: the drafted letter to Anderson, the appointment book. His brief, mortified interview with the girls; their eyes, as stunned as those of rabbits the moment the gun goes off. (Mama isn't well, that's the only euphemism that came to mind. You remember dear Mrs. Watson, he kept repeating inanely; you'll be quite comfortable at her house until matters are settled.) How rapidly he'd packed his case, scuttling out of the house like a cockroach before Helen came home from shopping; he was almost afraid to face the woman who's blighted his life. Then the endless interviews with Bird; the debating of strategy (like some obscure Mediterranean w
ar). Visits to the girls every few days, to play Spillikins or the Ball of Wool. (They've stopped asking whether Mama is better yet.) The shock of reading Helen's counterclaim: neglect, cruelty, attempted to have connection with the said Miss Faithfull.

  A rap at his door. "Nothing just now, thank you," says Harry.

  But it opens anyway and his brother puts his face in. William's salt-and-pepper beard is glossy white now; Harry still isn't used to it. "Aren't you dressed yet?"

  "Give me ten minutes." He's grateful, of course, he's immensely grateful to William for dropping his duties in Gibraltar the moment he got the telegram to catch a fast packet and stand shoulder to shoulder with Harry through this ghastly business, as William keeps calling it—but he finds his brother's company exhausting all the same.

  "Thought we'd take the girls to the zoo, what do you say?"

  William has the boundless energy of a tourist. They've already brought Nan and Nell to the Museum of Practical Geology and the East India Company Museum (where the Hindu idols in silver and gold reminded Harry of Helen, somehow) and they heard the thousand-strong choir of the Foundling Hospital.

  All Harry manages now is a shrug. Each day must be passed, somehow, until the trial finally comes to court. It's not as if any of his former pursuits have the least appeal: reading, taking notes on innovations in warship design, attending lectures on military hygiene, going for long tramps on Hampstead Heath ... These days Harry watches busy people with dyspeptic envy. The silliest bride leaving cards all over town has a momentum to her hours for which he'd pay any money.