When I wasn’t drawing I devoured novels. I made friends with the Dombeys and Jane and Rochester and Becky Sharp and Rawdon and admired Diana Vernon in Rob Roy because (like her) I never could sew a tucker nor work cross-stitch nor make a pudding. The only novel my sister approved of was Coelebs in Search of a Wife, which I read - and cordially loathed that monstrous prig of a Lucilla.
My parents would take me to Shakespeare at Sadler’s Wells and to the Drury Lane pantomimes. The theatre was my greatest joy, and Henrietta said that was the final proof if proof were needed that I was worldly and frivolous. By the time I was sixteen and started to wear stays Henrietta seemed older and certainly more solemn than Mama, and there were very few matters we could agree on. When we were at school she was Mount Olympus and I was a muddy foothill, but now we were both young ladies living at home she seemed less formidable.
Papa used to take us to visit patients because he said girls should see life and death as well as drawing-rooms, and if Henrietta must be so good she could at least be useful. I adored babies and loved to be in a house where a new little miracle had just arrived. Most visits were not so exciting - to the homes of what my father called languishing females with too much time on their hands. C. and I used to laugh at the beastly invalids later and imitate their voices. Henrietta took great pleasure in visiting the dying. Like Henry V rousing his troops before Agincourt she prepared them for the spiritual battle ahead. Once I said I wouldn’t want her at my deathbed, and C. laughed and Henrietta sulked for days. She seemed to like C. even less than she liked me and often refused to look at him. When I opened my eyes the other day to see C. and Tommy and all the servants gathered around me waiting for a beautiful deathbed scene I was very glad indeed of my sister’s absence and even gladder to disappoint the assembled handkerchiefs.
C. was very jolly in those days, and he and I were great friends. His father was my father’s apothecary, and I can hardly remember a time when C. was not at our house. Later he lived with us as Papa’s assistant, and my gentle giant was always full of larks. We were playmates long before he became spoony, and when he did it seemed the most natural progression in the world.
For just as he noticed I was no longer a little girl I began to feel my pulse and heart dance a fandango whenever C. was in the room. I could not tear my eyes away from his face, from the way his skin glowed as if the sun rose behind it and his blue eyes full of humour and tenderness. Henrietta said it was improper to gaze at him like a slave girl at a sultan.
That was more than ten years ago. Now I can hear him coming upstairs, and I’m afraid he will prose again. When I first returned he was most affectionate, but since he read my letter he has grown cold. Yet what was I to do but tell the truth as I have always done?
Before C. came in I hid my journal in my work-basket and rearranged myself to look as delicate as possible. When he opened the door of my darkened room daylight from the landing fell on him, and I saw what ten years have done to that face I have just been remembering. It is shrivelled now and stretched and sprinkled with flour, and his eyes are cold and grey as the sea at Ramsgate.
He did not smile at me or caress my hair. I might have been a patient as he asked me how I was feeling. He sounded like an animated corpse, which reminded me of Bella and brought tears to my eyes.
‘More hysterics,’ he muttered impatiently. ‘Now sit up.’ The cold spoon hit my teeth and Mother Bailey’s Quieting Syrup flowed down my throat in a sugary torrent. ‘I am giving you a stronger dose to help you sleep. Lie back again, Nina, for you must rest. You have been through - a great ordeal.’
‘You have read my letter?’ I sat up again, and he pushed me back down ungently as if I were a cork and he a chilly wave. ‘We must talk about it.’
His face was still and pale as marble in my dark room as he stared down at me. I have known him all my life, yet I could not tell what he was thinking or feeling. ‘Charles? Are you angry with your little Nina?’
He winced. ‘Little no longer.’
‘But always your Nina? Dearest?’
‘You are my wife. Marriage is for always,’ he said joylessly. ‘We will discuss your letter another day. First you must recover your strength and not upset yourself in any way. No reading or writing or drawing …’ He followed my guilty gaze to my work-basket. He has always known when I was fibbing, and, in fact, I have hardly ever deceived him in anything, great or small. But I was relieved when he continued, ‘And no sewing either. I did not know you were so keen a needlewoman.’
My lack of prowess as a domestic goddess has always been one of our jokes. But there was no laughter in his voice as he said, ‘Let Mother Bailey do her work. As soon as you are stronger you must see Tommy who is becoming a little monster. The sooner he goes away to school the better. He cries for you night and day and screams that he has murdered you.’
‘He has always been melodramatic. I will see him as soon as I am better.’ The thought of Tommy’s tricks and tantrums wearied me, and I was glad to postpone his visit. Tommy in a sickroom is like a baboon at a tea table.
‘We must also discuss the dinner.’
‘But you said you had cancelled it.’ There are advantages in being ill.
‘I have only postponed it. Somehow the story of your disappearance has leaked out. I suspect Emma, but she protests her devotion and discretion. Naturally I have told everybody that you have been visiting friends for a few days.’
‘And who is everybody?’
‘The servants. My patients. Henrietta. It is most unfortunate how swiftly bad news spreads. So, of course, we must give a dinner as soon as possible to establish that all is as it should be. I have sent out invitations for the 18th.’
I did not ask the 18th of what. I had no wish to re-enter time. ‘What did you tell my sister? Has she been here?’
‘Now, you must not upset yourself.’
‘You know Henrietta always upsets me. It’s her vocation.’
‘No, her vocation is sainthood. A calling she follows with too much zeal as we have always agreed. But on this occasion she has behaved well. She called on Monday while you were - away - and I told her you were visiting friends.’
‘What friends? She knows all my friends.’
‘She did not interrogate me. She sent a note yesterday to ask after you, and I replied that you had returned exhausted and were resting. She only enquired out of kindness.’
‘Henrietta? Kind? She hates me and has always hated me -’
‘Now you sound like Tommy. I do not like to hear that passion in your voice. You must be calm.’
He had his wish, for at that moment Mother Bailey pulled me down into her cauldron of opium dreams.
When I awoke Tommy was sitting on my bed. He looked so much like Bella naughtily dressed in boy’s clothes (my little angel was never naughty) that I could not bear to look at him. He stared at me out of those deep-blue eyes with dark lashes reflected in them like reeds. Charles’s eyes are grey and smooth as pebbles, but Tommy’s were like whirlpools as he clutched me and smothered me with kisses and sobs and hot tears until my mouth was full of his hair and I had to push him away.
‘I’m so glad I didn’t kill you.’
‘What morbid nonsense is this?’
‘I thought I had. I thought it was all my fault. Where did you go?’
‘If you will sit quietly on that chair I will tell you.’ Suddenly I wanted to talk about the wonderful civilization I had seen, and goodness knows Tommy needs civilizing. ‘Your mama has been to another London.’
‘Is it in Australia? Did you see kangaroos?’
‘It is not in any atlas. I did not travel by sea or land. I saw many wonderful things and heard invisible music and walked in beautiful gardens. But there were no kangaroos.’
‘Oh, you mean boring old Heaven that Aunt Henrietta’s always talking about. But you have to die to get there.’
‘As you see I am very much alive.’
‘Not so very much. You look pale and dro
opy and lie in this dark smelly room all the time.’
‘I am ill. Little gentlemen are considerate to ladies’ indispositions.’
‘Now you’re cross and won’t tell about the wonderfulness.’
‘How am I to tell you anything when you constantly interrupt me?’
Tommy sat with Sunday stillness and covered his mouth with his hand to keep the words in.
My words had to be forced out. It was the first time I had spoken of my experience, and I told it all in a rush of elephants and pantaloons and kaas and flying staircases. I told him solemnly that these things will happen as surely as Julius Caesar once happened. ‘And you, Tommy, are a bridge between our world and that other one. Perhaps your grandchildren will see this wonderful city and will live there without sickness or poverty. Instead of fighting or killing, those people of the future will watch moving pictures of war.’
He got down from his chair and came to sit beside me on the bed where he stared at me. ‘Really truly, Mama? I hate it in the storybooks when the little girl wakes up and it was all a dream. There isn’t a beastly moral?’
‘If there is I don’t know what it is.’ I hugged him and took comfort from his warm little body. For once he didn’t wriggle or flee but lay peacefully in my arms.
Then Charles came back and said Tommy was tiring me, and I said he wasn’t, and Tommy said, ‘Go away! I want to stay here for ever and ever. We were talking about the wonderful things Mama has seen -’
‘Why is a talkative young man like a great pig, Tommy?’
‘Don’t know and don’t care.’
‘Because if he lives he is likely to become a great bore.’
Then Tommy yelled and screamed, and Charles had to take him out. Where he had lain in my arms there was a child-shaped hole that filled with Bella. I still see her in every corner of these rooms. Her dark curls fall over the shoulders of her white nightgown, and she clutches her dolly that fell sick with her. Seeing her in the alcove above C.’s surgery that morning was not so much a haunting as a note I had heard many times before which was suddenly played with unbearable intensity. Bella will not and cannot go away.
If only we had not been a medical family we would not have realized so swiftly what her symptoms meant and there would have been a few days when we could hope. I ran to Charles in panic as soon as Bella complained of her aching head and sore throat and her nausea at the smell of food. She was standing on the stairs that April morning dressed in her little blue velvet coat and hat to go out to the Regent’s Park with Tommy and Emmie. Charles and I ignored the waiting patients and desperately questioned Bella. Then she crumpled and would have fallen downstairs if Charles had not caught her as she fainted.
He carried her to the night nursery to examine her and sadly confirmed her scarlet rash. I sponged her forehead and tried to sing her favourite lullaby, but she was too ill to speak or move, and her silent paralysis spread to me. Words died in my throat, and I could not leave her bedside.
Charles came back into the room and said gently, ‘You must not stay here, Nina. Scarlet fever is like a plague and carries off whole families.’
I could not answer him or leave my child. Wherever she was carried off to I wanted to be carried with her. They spread straw outside to muffle the sound of traffic, and Charles shaved her beautiful head to prevent infection. I think that was when time began to play tricks on me, for I have no idea how many days and nights I sat beside her bed. My little bald angel could not speak coherently but cried out in terror.
‘Mama! Stop them! It hurts! They are boiling me! Make them go away!’
But I could not stop her torments.
Henrietta sniffed the opportunity for martyrdom and knocked on the door. I tried to ignore her bossy voice, but she bustled into the room. ‘Nina, you must rest. If you stay here you will catch the fever.’
It was not a fever but a frozen silence that consumed me as I sat holding my darling child’s hand.
‘Nina, I will nurse Bella. I have no husband or children, and if I die I shall not be missed.’ I did not give her the pleasure of contradiction. ‘Nina, you must go to your own bed now. Charles is frantic with worry, and Tommy needs you. Your first duty is to them. You must wash your hands and change your clothes.’
I would not move. I had learned to be deaf to Henrietta’s talk of duty long ago. She gripped my shoulders and tried to pull me away from my child. I turned to her and whispered my rage for fear that shouting would add to Bella’s suffering. ‘Leave us alone! I am the only one who can nurse her.’
‘But the quarantine -’
‘Take Tommy. If you must interfere, take him to your house and keep him safe. I will not leave Bella.’
Henrietta left and Charles came. They were like shadows passing behind the fire of Bella’s destruction. Days and nights turned upside down as I slept in the chair in the night nursery or fell asleep on Bella’s pillow beside her tossing head. Charles sat beside me, and we kept our sad watch until her pure soul parted from her sweet form.
I would have liked to grieve in silence, but the world does not stop for the broken-hearted. The servants laid out her body, and the night nursery had to be cleaned and whitewashed before Tommy could be allowed in. He returned from Henrietta’s house more obstreperous and demanding than ever but very glad to be home.
As she entered the room my sister said with an air of triumph, ‘Our bright little Bella is now most certainly among those blessed ones that surround the throne of Our Saviour.’
My eyes filled with tears. I bit my lips and stared at Charles, who said nothing.
‘When is she coming back?’ practical Tommy asked.
Henrietta patted his head with a radiant smile. ‘You must rejoice, for your sister will stay for ever in that wonderful place.’
Although Tommy had done nothing but quarrel with his sister this good news reduced him to sobs and wails, and I joined with him. Charles detests emotional outbursts, so he left the room, and Henrietta enveloped me in a scratchy hug.
‘I will stay with you, Nina, and you will find the greatest balm to your sorrowing heart in the bosom of your affectionate family.’
Stay she did and forgave my outbursts of temper most infuriatingly. Charles would not allow me to attend Bella’s funeral, as I could not control my feelings. I begged to be allowed to go to the cemetery with the men to say goodbye to my little darling, but he was firm.
‘The service would be too long for you, Nina. I’m afraid you are unequal to it in mind and body.’
I tried to be very good and brave as I sat in the drawing-room with Henrietta and Tommy and waited for the men to return. My heart sank in sadness and despondency as Henrietta sat at the piano playing hymns and the lullaby our mother used to sing to us. That lilting ninna-nanna I used to sing to my own children reminded me of happiness gone for ever.
Last month I visited Bella’s grave in Kensal Green Cemetery. I took a hackney cab when Charles was working and Tommy was in the Regent’s Park with his nurse. All alone in my weeds I stood beside her grave and let my tears flow behind my veil. It was some relief to see that the cemetery in midsummer bloomed and blossomed, and Bella lay in a pretty spot where we may grow flowers over her bed. One day there will be space for Charles and Tommy and I to sleep by her side.
Charles says I must not exert myself. He found me writing this just now and was very cross. This morning I tried to get up but could hear Tommy screaming in the nursery, so I sank back into my delicious bed. I am so well looked after here by Emmie, whose solicitude is quite marvellous. When I was Tommy’s age she was a second mother to me, and now I am a matron she still looks after me as if I were the child she never had. She and Lucy bustle about the room tirelessly and rush between Tommy and myself. How fortunate women of that class are not to have any nerves. Meals appear on trays and baths are drawn for me. I heard the doorbell ring just now, but I can ignore the callers. For the time being I am freed from the tyranny of the fifteen-minute visit and the obligatory
prittle-prattle over the teacups.
I am reminded of those periods of retirement before the little strangers came when I was too unsightly to pay visits. Now only Tommy remains, and I do not think there will be any more. This morning when I sat on the commode I was relieved to see scarlet proof - the spinster’s curse and the married woman’s friend. I luxuriate in being alone in the dreamy quiet of my room.
After Bella died I could not bear to be alone even for a moment, but as my thoughts grow darker I need to hide them beneath the cloak of solitude. When I am well I have not a half-hour in the day I can call my own, but now I am quite helpless and need not be fretted I hope I shall not be thought selfish, for I am truly indisposed. I thank Heaven that dear Charles is a doctor and can …
Before I could finish writing that sentence he burst into my room. I had no time to hide this journal - my friend, my only friend now - before he started to shout at me in a most terrifying way.
‘What is this arrant nonsense you have been filling Tommy’s head with?’
‘Why, Charles! My heart -’
‘I am no longer to be ruled by your heart. A very fickle and untrustworthy organ. If I catch you writing against my wishes again I will confiscate that document. I realize now that I have married a woman with no regard for truth or decency. Whatever corruption you have learned in your days of debauchery I will not have our son contaminated.’
Charles had never spoken to me like that before, and I could only weep with shock.
‘More tears! No, Nina, you shall not escape into hysteria. I will have rational discourse even if I cannot have an honest wife. Tommy has been blabbing to the servants. Ridiculous tales of talking boxes and horseless transport and a city where women wear pantaloons and sickness and poverty have been abolished. The servants are laughing at him - at us - at me. How long do you think it will be before their tittle-tattle reaches my patients? Who will want to be cured by a doctor with a mad wife and son? Do you think I have struggled all these years to build up my practice just to have it destroyed by your ravings?’
Nina In Utopia Page 5