So I gave up my dream of becoming a professional actress. I became a housewife. Well: what’s the use of an unfulfilled dream? I didn’t do any more in the way of amateur acting, either. The Hardy Players disbanded after ‘Tess’. My sister also blames Mrs. Hardy for that, but in all fairness I don’t think it was entirely her fault. Any play after ‘Tess’ would have been a let-down. ‘“Tess” was our swansong,’ as Mr. Tilley said – God bless him. ‘And it wouldn’t be the same without the old boy watching, would it?’
Dear Mr. Hardy. I still have the silver vase that he gave me, and the books and the letters, and my scrapbooks; and occasionally, when I’m by myself, I have a little peek and think about what might have been, as I did after that talk at the W.I.
Ernest wasn’t able to fulfil his dream of becoming a farmer, either, and we stayed in Beaminster. He never came to terms with being a butcher, just as he never quite got over what happened in the War. It came back to him when he was dying; he talked a lot about it then. As I say, the past stays alive, however much you would rather it didn’t.
More than forty years have passed since the events that I have described, but last week I suddenly knew that if I ever wanted to bring my thoughts into a proper order, I needed to see the Hardys’ house again. So on Friday I went back. I went by myself and I didn’t tell anyone else. I caught the bus to Dorchester and walked up the hill. The weather was ordinary, nothing to speak of for the time of year, a plain grey sky, cool, light air. Autumn. An ordinary autumn day in England.
Well, dear me. It’s not like it was. The town has grown and grown, and the house, which used to be out in the fields, in clear countryside, now feels quite suburban. The new bypass is a hundred yards away in a cutting, and where the allotments used to be a housing estate is being built. The noise is really what struck me. When I visited in the old days, it always felt quiet and secluded, but now you hear the racket of traffic all the time, and aeroplanes go over, and there’s the crash and bang of building work. Mr. Hardy would be horrified, without a doubt.
I stood for a while by the gate, thinking to myself. The white paint was peeling off the gate, there was moss on the drive, and leaves were falling from the trees. I did feel sorry for the house, inasmuch as one can feel sorry for a house. Whether anyone lives there permanently I am not entirely sure. Probably there is a caretaker or someone who calls by once a week, but the gardens are in something of a mess; not a total ruin, but slipping that way, neglected, a little forlorn. The gate wasn’t locked, and I could easily have walked up the drive for a closer look, which was what I had originally intended to do, and I nearly did; I opened the gate, and took a few steps, and then I stopped myself. I was frightened, in a way, that I might see something I’d prefer not to see, that I might damage the memories I have. So I went back to the gate and thought how honoured and lucky I was to have known him, and how odd luck was, because I so easily might not have known him. I tried to remember the various occasions when I’d been to the house, and the one that stuck in my mind, more sharply than any other, was the last time, that foggy afternoon when he walked me down the drive to the very same spot where I now was and told me to think of him as my friend. He had stood there, on that patch of ground, and I had stood here, on this patch of ground, beneath the same trees; both of us alive, breathing. The memory was so very concrete that I felt quite dizzy; my mind seemed to turn in on itself, and take me back to the moment itself. I could see him clearly, looking at me over his moustache with a doubtful, yearning expression, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he truly was as infatuated with me as Mrs. Hardy said, or if she had made that up. Did those poems that she mentioned ever exist? Did he really write a poem about eloping with me? I would love to know, but I never shall.
After Mrs. Hardy’s visit to the cottage, that winter’s night, Diana woke in the small hours with this piercing scream. I jumped at once – I always slept lightly – and she was lying in her cot, stiff as a board, with her eyes wide open. She had kicked off her bedding and she was freezing. I picked her up and for a moment she stayed stiff, and then she came to and began sobbing. I nearly brought her back to bed but I thought that would disturb Ernest, and so I gave her a big cuddle, and told her that there was nothing to cry about and that everything was all right and that I loved her – over and over again. It took a long while, but eventually she calmed down. However, as soon as I tried to put her back in her cot, she cried out and clung to me. This happened I don’t know how many times. She had a tight grip on some of my hair, and she had no intention of letting go. It was such a cold night and I needed to get her back to bed, but she wanted to be with me.
Of course, I may not be remembering it exactly as it was. She wasn’t a very good sleeper, and I had a lot of broken nights. But I do remember that night well, and how light it was. When I took her to the window and we looked out, it wasn’t dark; not at all. There was a moon high in the sky, and everything was very bright and very still; the road was glistening with ice, and all the shadows were a sort of smoky grey. Diana’s eyes were wide open, shining in the light of the moon. She still clung to me. And although I was longing for bed, I don’t know if I wanted that moment to end. I didn’t want her to grow up, ever. There were various emotions in my heart that night, among them sadness at the thought that I would never play Tess at the Haymarket with Mr. Hardy in the audience, but I was happy too. I have had many happy moments in my life, but I think that was one of the happiest, with Diana safe in my arms, looking at that still moon and the empty, icy road.
She fell asleep soon after that. I lowered her into her cot, tucked the blankets tightly round her, and went back to Ernest. As I climbed into bed – letting the cold air in, I suppose – he gave a little groan of protest. ‘What’s going on?’ He was too drowsy to wait for my reply. I was chilled right through, but his body was giving out plenty of heat, and I pressed myself against him and warmed up, and fell asleep at last.
About the Author
Christopher Nicholson is the author of The Elephant Keeper, which was shortlisted for the Costa Best Novel award. He has been a community development worker in Cornwall and a radio scriptwriter and producer for the BBC World Service in London. He lives in Dorset. Winter is his third novel.
By the Same Author
The Fattest Man in America
The Elephant Keeper
About the Publisher
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