This is where nothing happens again, although what often used to happen, a long time ago, so long that I almost wonder if it ever happened at all, is that he would leave his bed and arrive by mine, breathing heavily in the darkness. I would lift the corner of the sheets and in he would climb, dragging at my night-dress, wrenching it upward, hauling it above my shoulders. To avoid being suffocated I would pull it off my face, at the same moment turning my body and steering my breast towards his mouth. His bristly moustache would scrape the skin. He would nuzzle and mumble while I stroked his head and caressed his ears, all the while asking myself whether I should do more, whether I should stroke his back or spread my legs or take one of his hands and guide it towards my sex, or reach under his night-shirt, or even utter sounds of pleasure in the hope that they would encourage him to push into me, but there I was far too shy. For (I would think to myself), is it not just as likely that sounds of pleasure will put him off? Is it not safer to stay quiet? What do women generally do? What are women supposed to touch? Are there certain acts that are appropriate for a wife to perform as opposed to certain other acts that are not appropriate for a wife to perform? Where do the boundaries lie? How does one find out? But then I would say to myself, what does it matter that he so rarely pushes into me, surely all that matters is that it makes him happy, although would it not make him even happier if he did push into me? As a wife it is one’s duty to make one’s husband happy. I firmly believe that.
Generally he would doze off with his arms around me and his head on my chest, and once he was sound asleep I would ease out and get into his bed with my body another one of these unanswered questions. The beds here are single beds, far too narrow for two people.
As before there is a certain comedy in all this, if one wants to hunt it out. Here and now, with the advantage of hindsight, I can see that. But how difficult it was at the time! How difficult and complicated! For all her wisdom Jane Austen is no help here, and so far as I know there are no books that begin to address these matters (if such books existed, I would be far too embarrassed to read them even in secret, even if I could be sure that no one knew that I was reading them). In other fields of human activity knowledge accumulates as it is passed from generation to generation, but when it comes to the subject of sexual relations women today are surely as ignorant as they must have been thousands of years ago. In some ways I am glad that he seems too old to bother with these nightly jousts (jousts? Jousts is not the word I want but it will have to do for the moment), very glad, in some ways, although less glad in other ways. I should not mind it if for old times’ sake he wanted to climb into my bed now, but probably he is already deep asleep. He always falls asleep in an instant. He sleeps like a baby.
Lying here I wonder what the first wife did. How active was she? Did she stay silent or utter sounds, either voluntary or involuntary? The vision of them rises before me in the darkness, she with her waxy uneven flesh, he with his scrawny legs, exchanging kisses and caresses on this very bed; they writhe (a horrible word) and her fat thighs widen as he pushes into her. A repulsive expression of greedy pleasure spreads over her face. What is this? I am not jealous, I refuse to be even slightly jealous of something that perhaps never happened, a lurid concoction of my imagination. Besides as I haste to remind myself it is perfectly possible that their physical relations were largely non-existent. I also haste to remind myself that love not sexual relations is the true foundation for a successful marriage and that they did not love each other, whereas my husband and I certainly do, do love each other, that there can be no doubt of, of that there can be no doubt.
CHAPTER III
As November progressed, fears about the forthcoming dramatic production began to trouble the old man more than a little. Had he been entirely wise to have agreed to its performance? For years, he had carefully fended off requests from theatrical managers near and far to stage the novel. That he had at last given way was to some degree a reflection of his age, for if he was ever to see the play performed, now was the time; but also instrumental in his decision had been his fervent desire to see Gertie as Tess. He had stipulated that the production was possible only if she were involved. ‘I do not think anyone else capable of playing the part,’ he had told Tilley.
On the night before the first performance he woke and fretted to himself in the darkness. Gertie would be perfect, of that he had not the least doubt, but the acting talents of the other men and women in the cast were greatly inferior. Considering them one by one, his misgivings increased. He was particularly concerned about the part of Alec, who in the absence of anyone more suitable was to be played by a gawky young man called Norman Atkins, who worked behind the counter in one of the town’s banks.
Of course – he reminded himself – it was merely an amateur production, one which could not be fairly judged by professional standards. Yet interest in the play had been enormous, and leading newspaper reviewers from London had promised to be at the Corn Exchange.
The old man was not nearly as indifferent to the play’s reception as he pretended to be. More than forty years had passed since his first novels, and while he had forgotten all the good reviews the bad ones stuck in his memory like thorns. Ignorant, insensitive, malicious, they still pricked and festered. The very idea that ‘Tess’, his dearest creation, might be subject to any criticism, even of the mildest kind, kept him awake for hours.
At breakfast, with rain driving against the windows of the dining room, he was in a gloomy frame of mind. ‘I am afraid it may be a mistake.’
‘Why?’
He gave a shrug.
‘I’m sure it’ll be a great success. Where is the mistake? I’m sure it will be a success.’
‘I have no great expectations.’
‘I’m sure it’ll go well,’ she insisted. ‘I just wish Cockerell was coming.’
‘Cockerell is coming tomorrow.’
‘Who else will be there? Will Lawrence be there?’
‘Tonight? He may not be able to get away. But Cockerell is coming tomorrow, to both performances.’ He frowned. ‘Maybe no one’ll come.’
‘Thomas, of course they will. All the tickets have been sold. You do say some ridiculous things sometimes.’
There was a silence in which he wondered whether he might sit back-stage. He liked the thought of being out of sight, watching the actors shuffle on and off. Perhaps he would get a chance to talk alone to Gertie, though she would be on stage for almost the entire time.
‘All I hope,’ said his wife, ‘is that it doesn’t go on too long afterwards. Poor little Wessie. I hate leaving him alone.’
‘The maids’ll look after him.’
‘They don’t even try to understand.’
‘He’ll be all right,’ the old man said dismissively, though he agreed with her.
He departed the breakfast table in an altogether better mood than had been the case when he sat down. Yet, as the morning went on, his disquiet returned.
Although the town was not quite the provincial backwater that it had been half a century earlier, it remained a place somewhat removed from the main currents of thought that flowed through the big cities. Conservative habits of mind prevailed, particularly in relation to moral behaviour. This was where the problem lay with ‘Tess’. Conventional morality asserts that, in the conclusion to any work of art, the author should reward the good and punish the bad, and the novel signally failed to adhere to this long-established practice. And rightly so, in the old man’s opinion; when one surveyed human affairs there seemed to be no automatic presumption in favour of the triumph of the good. Lives did not always end well, and it seemed dishonest to pretend otherwise. The fate of Tess was to be hanged, despite her essential innocence. In an attempt to soften the blow – and with more than half an eye to the difficulties of staging the scene satisfactorily – he had removed the hanging from the play and made it end at Stonehenge. Still, the story remained a tragic one, and whether it would be to the taste of the town he could not sa
y.
Perhaps as difficult was the fact that the story implicitly criticised the hallowed institution of marriage, on which some authorities claim the stability of society to rest.
The dreariness of the meteorological conditions did nothing to raise his spirits. There are November days that begin with rain, but the wind hurries along the clouds and by noon the sun is shining from a blue sky; and then there are days when the rain sets in early and never lets up, much like a dog attached to a bone. This was one such. The wind stiffened and swung to the north, and the afternoon brought a succession of squally hailstorms, with white stones bombarding the house and bouncing on the green sward of the lawns. It was the first proper taste of winter, and altogether common sense might have said that it was a day to stay at home by the fire, not to venture abroad. Watching the barrage of hail the old man vaguely asked himself whether he might contrive to miss the performance at the Corn Exchange.
Here he was not in the least serious. If someone had come and forbade him from attending the play, he would have been deeply aggrieved. In truth, what he had begun to dread most was not the play itself, but the prospect of meeting so many people before and after the performance. He had always disliked large social gatherings, preferring those of a more intimate kind.
As the evening drew nigh, he went to his bedroom and began to change into the appropriate apparel. Dressing and undressing always took him some time nowadays, not least because his fingers were stiff, but now he found himself in a paroxysm of indecision with regard to the suit. He had three decent suits: one plain dark, the second a pin-stripe, the third a Norfolk tweed. Florence had laid them out on the bed. The tweed would possibly be too hot, the dark suit seemed too funereal, while the pin-stripe was a little worn. Why had he not thought of this before?
The old man had spent much of his life contemplating the great issues of the world, against which matters of dress were utterly trivial. Yet, as the originator of ‘Tess’, all eyes would be upon him, a prospect he disliked intensely. He stood and dithered in his shirt and socks.
Florence entered the room.
‘Voss is here,’ she announced.
‘Already? What time did you tell him?’
‘Six thirty. He’s half an hour early.’
‘Then he will have to wait. I’m not hurrying. We don’t want to get there early.’
‘I know, but we mustn’t be late.’
‘We won’t be late.’
She sighed. ‘I almost wish we weren’t going.’
She spoke in such a heartfelt tone that he turned to regard her. She wore a long evening dress, dark blue in colour; it hung off her like a voluminous curtain; and her face was full of anxiety. It struck him that this would be her first appearance in public since her operation.
‘Is something wrong?’ She put a hand to her neck. ‘What are you looking at?’
‘Nothing at all. But, you know,’ he said solicitously, ‘there is no need for you to come. If you want, you can stay.’
‘O, Thomas, I couldn’t possibly. What would people think? I have to come.’
‘It’s not worth exhausting yourself for. Merely a short play – why not stay and keep Wessex company? You can come to the matinée tomorrow with Cockerell,’ he added, knowing how well she and Cockerell got on together.
‘No, I have to come tonight,’ she said in an impassioned voice. ‘I have to. I must come.’
He nodded, understanding, and also relieved. Going alone he would have felt even more vulnerable.
He returned his attention to the matter of the suits.
‘You could wear the tweed,’ she suggested.
The old man chose the pin-stripe. He sat on the bed and pulled the trousers up his legs until the point came when he had to stand in order to pull them to his waist. He allowed Florence to button on the braces, but managed the tie by himself, although as he did so he regarded himself in the glass and was not much pleased by what he saw. He pressed his moustache with a fingertip, a sure sign of internal agitation. Next came the waistcoat, with Florence again doing the buttons.
‘Shoes?’
‘O yes.’
He stepped into his shoes and she knelt and did the laces.
‘I may sit backstage,’ he announced.
‘What? Why? Where am I to sit?’
‘No one will be looking at you,’ he said.
‘But I’ll be alone.’
‘O, there’ll be plenty of people.’
Down in the hall they put on their coats: his tweed, hers fur. Around her neck she wound her fox stole. Wessex watched them both, his ears flat, his spirits patently lowered at the idea of being left alone.
By ill chance, the weather had taken a sharp turn for the worse, and the rain was tumbling in sheets through the branches of the trees. With the assistance of Mr. Voss’s umbrella, the elderly couple hurried over the wet gravel to the taxi-cab.
The journey ahead was a short one, the distance being little above a mile, and after crossing the bridge over the railway line the road descended into the town. The rain beat loudly on the roof of the car, and the windscreen wipers thrashed to and fro in a furious attempt to clear the water pouring over the glass. The streets were all but empty, save for a few unfortunate pedestrians who had been caught in the downpour and who scuttled for cover. It was a miserable evening. Neither the old man nor his wife said a word, but both seemed equally unenthusiastic about what lay ahead.
The motor-car drew up by the steps of the Corn Exchange. With the rain driving almost at the horizontal, Mr. Voss jumped out and struggled to hold his umbrella at the ready.
The old man had been to events of this nature before, and he fastened on his face the expression he generally used, one in which natural wariness and distrust concealed themselves behind a front of alert attention. It was as well he did so, for no sooner had he entered the hall than a newspaper photographer stepped forward with his camera and tripod. Although he had a strong dislike of photographers, there was nothing for it. He bared his teeth, much like the fox round Florence’s neck. Florence herself hung heavily on his arm.
A small reception committee, consisting of the Mayor and several other Council officials, also lay in wait. The Mayor was dressed in full rig, including his fur robe and gold chain, and being somewhat corpulent looked remarkably like a provincial version of the elderly Henry the Eighth in the famous portrait by Holbein. Much shaking of hands and many warm words followed, somewhat to the old man’s embarrassment, although he also experienced a degree of pleasure. Even at the age of eighty-four, and even though he had received many awards, he was not immune to the power of flattery. However, he did not allow himself to be carried away, and despite the effusive tributes took care to recognise the event for what it undoubtedly was: an unimportant theatrical performance on a wet evening in a small and unimportant country town, and one that, in the scale of things, would be soon forgotten.
The Corn Exchange was situated in the very centre of the town. It was a building that dated back some seventy years, and from an architectural standpoint was of considerable interest and ingenuity, since it fulfilled a variety of purposes. Chief among these was to provide a roof under which farmers, millers and merchants might meet in relative comfort to conduct their business, and on market days the large hall became a bustling, noisy place as men with dark, weather-beaten faces and shrewd expressions bargained over the price of wheat and barley. Shafts of sunlight slanted through the dusty air while the occasional pigeon, ever alert to the possibility of a free meal, flew here and there, alighting on the floor whenever it spied a few spare husks or grains, and retreating to perch on the hall’s exposed beams. Such was the main and original reason for the existence of the Exchange, for corn and all matters pertaining to it had long been at the heart of the town’s life. Yet the Exchange had its other uses. The town’s Corporation had its offices in a set of rooms at the front of the building, and since the turn of the century the hall had frequently been employed for concerts and perfor
mances of a theatrical nature. To that end a stage had been erected at the far end of the hall and equipped with a pair of red curtains.
Commerce and art do not easily co-exist, and something of the market-day atmosphere lingered even when all outward traces had disappeared. The farmers had retired to their homesteads and the last pigeon had flown away, but the smell of grain still hung perceptibly in the air. An observer who had visited the famous London playhouses, with their plush seats and sparkling chandeliers, might have wondered whether the Exchange was ideally suited to dramatic activity. The height of the ceiling was such that words uttered on stage, especially by those with lighter voices, often failed to carry to the spectator seated at the back of the hall, and the floor of the hall being entirely flat, that same unfortunate spectator tended to find his view of proceedings impeded by a sea of heads. In short, the Corn Exchange was not all that a theatre would have been in a perfect world. That ideal state never having come into existence, it was the best building on offer. Nowhere else in the town was of sufficient size to accommodate an audience of several hundred.
A goodly number of those with tickets for tonight’s performance had already arrived, and were awaiting the right moment to go into the hall itself. Among them were dozens of familiar faces to reassure the old man, and that so many people had bothered to come here on a wet November evening, some travelling all the way from London, touched him a good deal. Yet there was a part of him which would have preferred them to have stayed away, lest the play turned out a failure. ‘I am afraid it is a very amateur affair,’ he told everyone he met. ‘One must not expect too much.’ In truth, he was trying to protect himself from the possibility of disaster.
A couple of minutes had elapsed when a young man in army uniform pushed through the crowd. Florence exclaimed at the sight of him: ‘O good!’
The old man’s heart also lifted. There was scarcely anyone for whom he felt greater affection and admiration. Lawrence was a hero, an explorer, an adventurer, who in his thirty-odd years had already done much more than most men manage in their entire lives.
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