Nina In Utopia

by Miranda Miller

  I shall not bring Tommy home for the funeral. It is better that he remains at school and settles down there. I must not look backwards but ahead to the time when my wild colt becomes a sleek racehorse: Master Thomas Sanderson, the accomplished son of a gentlemanly widowed doctor with no burking in his pedigree. Not Skeleton Sanderson, for he died when I qualified as a doctor. And what is it that Tommy will accomplish? My pa loved me dearly, but he could not advise me in the ways of a world he did not know. When I read Lord Chesterfield’s letters to his son I felt a twinge of envy.

  I decided to reply to Tommy’s crude epistle. I turned away from the fire and rummaged on my desk for his letter. But it was not there. I rang for Lucy, who came looking flustered.

  ‘What is the matter, girl?’

  ‘It’s Emmie, sir. She came to the door when you was upstairs with Dr Porter and said I was to pack her things. When I come down again I found her in here - in your study - I know I didn’t ought to let her only I couldn’t stop her, sir.’

  Lucy looked frightened, and I believed her story. I searched the drawer in my desk where I keep my cash and found five pounds missing, Emma’s unpaid wages and a couple of pounds more. She has been in this household so long that she knows all our secrets. I could report her to the police, but I do not know where she is and do not want to draw attention to my domestic upheavals. As for Tommy’s letter, the old baggage must have stolen it out of mawkishness. I am well rid of her.

  ‘Never mind, Lucy. If she comes to the door again, do not let her in. Go to bed now. I am not angry with you.’ She looked relieved and left the room.

  I sat at my desk and composed a letter to Tommy, the kind of letter I would have been happy to receive from my father. I flatter myself it is a wise letter, one that he will cherish in years to come:

  My Dear Boy,

  I hope that you are settling down well at your new school. How proud I am that you are taking your first plunge into the stream of Life. I offer these lines of fatherly advice in the hope that you will find them useful some day.

  You will not see your dear mama any more. Your Aunt Henrietta has also left us. And so, my poor Tommy, you no longer have a mother, aunt or sister to love and guide you. You and I must be everything to one another, and so I hope that in future your letters will be addressed to your papa. I trust that your future communications will be better penned and spelled than your last.

  Truth, Purity and Courage are the virtues I would place above all others. Choose your friends well, never utter an untruth and never applaud or utter a word you would be ashamed for your mother or sister (were they alive) to hear. You must be pure (you know what I mean). I am not myself a total abstainer from alcoholic liquors, but temperance is a noble thing, and I urge you to eat and drink only in moderation.

  I am not a wealthy man, and after I have paid for your education there will be very little money. Marriage is an ennobling and purifying condition, and while I would not have you be a fortune hunter I would advise you to ‘go where money is’. When the time comes for you to choose a profession, Medicine seems to me to be the noblest calling, elevating to its followers and beneficial to mankind.

  Well, Tommy, I must return to my duties. You will be the architect of your own fortunes. You must please your dear mama, who is watching you always, and I hope you will also please

  Yr affectionate Papa

  THE MARCH OF

  PROGRESS

  HOW DELIGHTFUL TO see Emmie here! Like finding a lost toy. I gave her a bedtime bathtime hug and smelled her dear old coal-tar soap and lavender water as I rubbed my nose against the grey tweed coat she has worn for as long as I can remember.

  She hugged me back. Nobody has ever hugged me like Emmie, ‘Oh, Miss Nina, I’ve been so worried about you. I thought it was some kind of prison he’d sent you off to, but it’s more like a bang-up palace. I never expected to see such homishness here. Pictures and books and birds in cages …’

  ‘It is a palace, Emmie. You’re not to worry about me here. They’re kind to me. I feel like a princess, and you’re my fairy godmother come to visit.’

  ‘Well, here’s your wishes.’

  She handed me a brown paper parcel containing my best black silk dress. An envelope fell out - a letter from Tommy.

  I read it twice and burst into tears, for I longed to see him and felt very bad that I had not loved him as much as I loved Bella and that he had known it all the time. I could see Tommy so vividly, sitting at his desk with tears and ink smudged all over his face, chewing his pen and wondering what to write to me.

  So I fetched paints and crayons and sat down at once to reply. Not with words but with pictures, for I knew they would fly straight to his heart and he would understand them and the nasty school people would not, so they could not censor my letter. I ruled big squares all around the edges of the paper and inside them I drew the elephant we fed buns to in the zoological gardens and a child with long dark curls in a white nightgown and the towers and cliff-like buildings of Jonathan’s London. I drew horseless carriages and people in strange clothes and a little boy sitting on the knee of a lady in a white dress. The last was a picture of myself with Tommy, of course, although it seemed as remote as a drawing of Good Queen Bess. In the centre I wrote, ‘For my dearest Tommy from his mama who will love him always’, followed by even more kisses and hugs than he had sent me and watered by tears - for who knows when I shall see him again.

  Then I looked around and was quite surprised to find that an hour had passed and Emmie was over on the other side of the ward helping Mrs Dunn and Marian and Amelia to fold sheets. I was quite flustered and apologized for my rudeness, but they all laughed and said they were used to my disappearances when I was lost in a drawing. So it was all very jolly until I turned to Emmie and asked for news of home.

  ‘Oh, Miss Nina, I know I didn’t ought to say this -’

  ‘But you will, Emmie. You know you will. Mama used to call you the bocca della verità

  ‘I don’t like to upset you, Miss Nina. For I know how tenderhearted you are, even if you are dicked in the nob.’

  ‘Tell me, Emmie. I’ll find somewhere private where we can go.’

  I asked Mrs Dunn if we could go to the keeper’s room where there is a fireplace so that we could be comfortable and talk in confidence.

  Then Emmie told me what happened to Henrietta. I was so shocked that I could not cry. I stared at Emmie and hoped she would tell me it was a bedtime story, a horrid one. I have hated Henrietta all my life, and she most certainly hated me, yet how dreadful it is that she is no longer in this world. I would have liked for us to be enemies for ever.

  ‘How did she die?’

  ‘She took laudanum, ducks. Too much to sleep, enough to send her to paradise. I should imagine it would be paradise what with her being on such intimate terms with the Almighty.’

  ‘Was it an accident, do you think?’

  Emmie looked at me with a lugubrious face, and I knew she would not tell me what she really thought.

  ‘But Henrietta was so contented with herself. So busy being good and better than other people. Better than me, as she always told me. Why should she be unhappy?’

  Emmie would not be provoked into gossiping. I thought of Henrietta in my house that she had made her own. I wondered what passed between Charles and her after I left and realized that I will never know.

  ‘I’m sorry to bring bad news, little Miss Nina, but I had to tell you.’

  Then I hugged her again, and a few dry sobs came but no tears. ‘Emmie you must tell my husband -’ ‘I shan’t see your husband again.’

  Then it all came out, how she and Charles had some kind of quarrel and Emmie left. ‘I won’t repeat the language he used to me, miss, for I should hope you’ve never heard such filth.’

  Henrietta dead and Charles swearing like a fishwife and Emmie given in her notice. I could not imagine our family without Emmie. It was as if a hairbrush had jumped out of my hand and walked out the door. Then
I remembered that I do not have any family, not any longer, and must stay here always.

  ‘Wherever will you go now, Emmie? You must ring the bell at the workhouse and ask to be taken in.’

  ‘No, miss. I have some savings, and I have my pride.’

  ‘I shall give you an excellent character, although your organ of combativeness is rather large.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about me, miss. If you really want to know, I’ve had enough of being in service. Time to be of service to myself for a change. My sister has a boozing ken at Peckham Rye. She’ll give me a room if I help out at the bar.’

  ‘A boozing ken?’

  ‘A public house, miss. Well, I must be off. Mrs Dunn says visiting time finishes at four.’

  ‘Dearest Emmie! Will you make sure Tommy receives my letter?’

  ‘I will that, Miss Nina. And I’ll come to see you again soon.’

  One last hug, and I did not know if I was embracing my old nurse or a new friend. People change so fast nowadays.

  All the ladies here surrounded me when Emmie had gone and wanted to know more about my life. I had never told them that Charles and I lived in Harley Street, and now they imagine that we are exceedingly rich.

  ‘Did you spend your life in ruby velvet and diamonds?’ Lavinia asked wistfully. She has a supply of penny dreadfuls she hides from Mrs Dunn in her work-basket and is much given to romantic flourishes on account of being Jenny Lind in her imagination. ‘Do you not long to return to your luxurious abode?’

  ‘No,’ I replied sharply. But I could not escape their curiosity.

  Susan grew jealous of my supposed wealth and said crossly, ‘When I was at boarding-school in Chichester I learned all the extras. Did you go to boarding-school, Eliza?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well then!’ she tossed her elderly head as if she thought she still had pigtails and resumed her work. Mrs Dunn says Susan is too disruptive to help in the kitchen or the laundry, so she sets her a task that reminds me of Penelope’s weaving: sorting coloured beads into different heaps. Each night they are dumped together again, and each morning Susan must begin again. I would not insult Tommy with such a mindless task, but Susan thinks that because she is the only one who does this work it must be a privilege.

  Betty will no longer talk to the rest of us. She is grown very proud because her husband is about to transfer her to a private lunatic asylum where she says she will eat off gold plates and have ten attendants all to herself. She beckoned to me imperiously and summoned me to her chair beside the window.

  ‘And will you remain here, Mrs Sanderson?’

  ‘I hope so. I am happier here.’

  ‘But this is a public asylum, and we must mingle with coarse people.’ She spoke very loud, Marian and Susan and Lavinia heard her, and I was mortified for they are my friends. ‘However, conditions here are much improved.’

  ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘For five years. I am the senior resident of this ward,’ she said with melancholy pride as if it were a title conferred by the Queen. ‘When I first arrived here we were caged like animals and slept like beasts on straw that was hardly ever changed, and keepers thrust our food through bars at us. If we complained about our treatment or offered the least resistance we were bound with manacles, chains and leg locks.’ Betty spoke in her usual monotone, but her sad, dark eyes glittered with tears. ‘And now we are to have coconut matting and pictures given by Mr Graves, the well-known print seller of Pall Mall. Dr Hood is a great man.’

  ‘Yet you are leaving us? When do you go?’

  ‘After Christmas.’

  All our talk is of Christmas now. There is the ball to look forward to, and Mrs Dunn says the steward, Hayden, who is very jolly, has prepared a magic lantern for us and we are to have apples, oranges, plain plum cake and negus. Some of the ladies are going back to their families at Christmas, but I do not want to return if I am not to be allowed to see Tommy. It is very painful to think I may not see my darling boy again until he is grown. Emmie will help me to write to him, and I must hope he does not forget me.

  Marian saw that I was upset and came over to talk to me. We have both lost our little boys, whether to death or to boarding-school does not seem to make any difference. She is kind although a little peculiar.

  ‘They are hiding from me again,’ she said.

  ‘Albert and his little friends?’ I asked wearily.

  ‘No, silly. Dr Hood and Hayden.’

  ‘I am sure they would not play tricks upon you, Marian, for they are the kindest men alive.’

  ‘But they do hide. I cannot see their mouths or the expression on their faces for the great bushes sprouting there.’

  ‘Bushes? Oh you mean their beards and moustaches. They are the fashion, my dear. I expect all the men grow them now. Not that we ever see any other men.’

  ‘My husband has not visited me for two months. And yours never comes. I wish we could leave this place for a day. Shall I ask Dr Hood for a day’s pleasure? We could go to see the new concrete dinosaurs and the monstrous greenhouse at Crystal Palace. Do let’s! We would have one of the assistants with us, but it would be almost like real life.’

  Her ruddy cheeks glowed with an excitement I could not share. I did not like to disappoint her, so I looked away from her. I thought of those vast creatures that once roamed our earth and felt very like them. Old and lonely and out of my time. Tears came to my eyes.

  ‘Nina, you must leave this place sometimes. It is not healthy to be always here, for they are all quite cracked, you know.’ I thought this was rich coming from Marian who talks to her dead child day and night, but still I said nothing. ‘Have you heard what happened to Georgina? She attempted to strangle herself with her handkerchief and the braid from her dress, and now she is in solitary confinement in the basement. And she will not be allowed back on our ward but must go to a bad one.’

  We looked at each other in horror. We do not know exactly what happens on the bad wards, but there are many stories of screams and violence and howls in the night.

  I saw that Lavinia was hovering near by and had been listening to us, the sly, sneaking little thing. She began to ask impertinent questions. ‘Why don’t you want to go home for Christmas if you have such a grand house? I’m sure I should even if I had Blue Beard for a husband. Better than no husband at all. Will you not miss your little boy if you stay here?’

  I know Lavinia is a great tattlemonger, so I pretended not to hear and remained as secret as an oyster, although I was furious and would like to have her arrested under the Public Nuisances Act. What a puss she is.

  Fortunately Mrs Dunn came in just then and said that if we had nothing better to do than gossip we could help in the laundry, and so we spent the time until supper up to our chins in soap suds.

  It is as well that I have my little world within, for the world outside is shrinking fast. I do not want to leave, not even for a day’s excursion. I feel safe here. Before my adventures I think I was not the same person. My mind then was like my work-box; it was divided into neat compartments with no shadows. Now there is such a jumble of threads and buttons and hooks and thimbles all hugger-mugger in the dark interior that I cannot find anything, not even myself.

  At night when I lie alone in my tiny cubicle I feel that Jonathan is near me. I cannot see him through the wall as I did in my bedroom at home, but when I shut my eyes I do see his beloved face smiling at me.

  Behind him I see the magnificent procession of the future when all our weaknesses and sins will be tales in history books and such places as this will seem as barbarous as the old Bedlam Betty told me of seems now. For the men and women of the future will be happy and good and will have no need of mad doctors. Their England will be so clean and safe and prosperous that the prisons will empty and violence and crime will be mere shadows on their teavees. The shimmering towers will rise to the skies, and the shops will offer cornucopias where all may help themselves to splendiferous banquets.

/>   I confess I am a little jealous of these unborn people. I wonder how Henrietta and I would fare in such a place? A girl like my sister, who was clever but plain, will surely be appreciated there and flourish. I expect she will become a doctress or even a prime ministress and an even greater bossyboots. The thought of Henrietta fulfilled and contented brings tears to my eyes here in the dark where nobody can see them.

  And I? In my imagination I see that future Nina. She is lightly clad in tea shirt and pettiloons instead of a corset and a long, heavy dress that sweeps the streets when it’s dirty and gets draggled when it rains and trips me up when I walk and entangles me when I run. If she discovers that her husband has about as much warmth as an eel she will be free to leave him and make her own way in the world with Tommy. For she will have enough education to work and earn hard cash. Perhaps she will meet another gentleman and be free to marry him, and if she does nobody will call her a brazen hussy or a fallen woman, for she will be able to hold up her head and rise through her own efforts.

  I lie very still and silent in the dark, but the March of Progress resounds in my ears, and I am there marching in step with those other felicitous ones, and Jonathan marches beside me.

  JONATHAN

  WHERE DID IT come from? Just when I thought I was beginning to make sense of my life.

  Supper with Annabel last night went off rather well. For a few hours I believed I had got over Nina and was about to embark on a new relationship with an actual woman: alive, here, now, available. We’ve been eyeing each other up for weeks in the gym as we performed on our various boring treadmills and torture racks. Annabel is about thirty, attractively energetic, with short reddish hair and green eyes. She works for a hedge fund, mysteriously serving some temple of money and being paid through the nose for it. Every evening she seems to be in the gym, pumping away masochistically and flaunting her long legs and beautifully toned bum. At first I thought she must have some immensely rich lover or husband, but her nightly appearances suggested she was as lonely as me, so after a few smiles and flirtatious chats we had a drink in the bar last week and arranged to have supper together last night at the new Turkish restaurant in Marylebone High Street.