'But—' Mary lay still.
Did she think Anne was lying? For all their talk of candour and sincerity, the two of them had tangled themselves up in lies, it occurred to Anne now: the unsaid, the veiled, the unnameable. Six years, thousands of letters, murmured conversations, professions of faith and attestations of virtue, and what did it all amount to? She lay in the darkness, she and Mary breathing the same inch of fragrant air. It occurred to her that whenever Mary had said I have full confidence in your frankness, what she'd meant was more like Don't tell me. Now, after all these years, Anne was trying to tell the truth, but perhaps Mary thought she was lying. Was it impossible to say anything that wasn't some kind of lie?
Mary kissed her on the mouth.
Shock kept Anne where she was for a moment, then she kissed back, and slid her arm under Mary's waist and kissed her again, as if sealing a pact, though she couldn't have named the terms.
THE MORNING was grey, but shimmered when the light pushed at the gauzy cloud from behind. At breakfast they were alone in the small dining room; the other lodgers had gone out already. Anne put down her piece of toast, thinking she should be the first to speak, and Mary flinched slightly. After a moment, Anne started eating again.
It was remarkable how life went on. It was as if nothing had happened, except that they were baggy-eyed from lack of sleep and kept hiding yawns behind their fans. They wrote letters and showed them to each other, as if by some silent agreement: The weather has been fine on the whole, Mary told her sister, and My dear Walpole, we both continue to improve in health, wrote Anne. The hours went by as they always had. They talked about the merits of Richardson versus those of Rousseau and debated whether Palladio's influence on English architecture had been entirely beneficial. For a minute at a time Anne forgot, then remembered, which was like falling over a cliff. They walked to the shop at the hotel in the afternoon, so Mary could buy a new comb, because her old one had some broken teeth. For dinner there was jugged hare.
All the time Anne was talking to herself. Is this evil, then? Was this the thing she'd feared and loathed all her life, shrinking from its touch? She found herself thinking of her sceptical tutor Hume: Put it to the test. How did one know the sun would rise tomorrow? Was it just a habitual assumption? Assume nothing. Empirically speaking, was last night evil? In what aspect did the evil lie? In the irrationality of this passion? But many things were irrational; Anne sometimes longed for an orange even when she wasn't hungry. In its turning against nature? Well, she and Mary were past all that, surely; nature, in her wisdom, had not made wives and mothers of them, had in fact turned them loose. In its excess? True, this was a strange and overwhelming feeling, a sort of whirlwind, but where was the real harm in that? Anne wasn't reasoning like Hume any more, she was pleading like a child. Why mayn't I have this? It was a sin, she knew that much. But what exactly was a sin? Who was damaged by this? There are no universally agreed crimes, Hume had told her once, only things of which various people disapprove.
'Mrs Damer?'
She jumped. 'I beg your pardon,' she said.
'The gentleman asked you to pass the salt,' murmured Mary.
She gave the cellar to him so fast that it thumped the table.
At the end of the day the two ladies were sitting on a stone bench on the pier, watching the sun go down, as it had the day before when they'd bathed, unknowing, in the cold sea. Anne felt older. No, that wasn't right, she felt younger. Tired, and confused, and triumphant, like a girl. She thought, I've become a girl again.
She remembered her wedding night, when she'd been just nineteen. It hadn't occurred to her to think of it until now; the two experiences had nothing in common. But she recalled her mother kissing her on the cheekbone the next day and murmuring something odd: You're a woman now. The bride had been struck by guilt that she was failing to feel the appropriate sentiments; she had no sense that she'd been changed by John Damer's brisk, muscular attentions. Whereas today ... the very thought of the night she and Mary had spent, now she let herself dwell on it, made her stomach twist and her temples sweat. Now it was—nearly three decades after her wedding—that she'd been truly changed.
'May we ... not speak of it?' Mary, beside her on the pier, spoke so quietly that Anne wasn't sure she'd heard the words.
'Of course we may,' she said at once, marshalling her nerve. 'I'm willing to speak of it, of anything.'
'No, but—I meant, may we, is it possible for us... not to speak of it for now? Please,' she said, after a pause.
Anne's heart had clenched.
'It's only that to speak of things changes them,' said Mary, watching Anne like a cat. 'All day I've been waiting as if for a storm—'
'What kind of storm?'
'Guilt, I suppose. Shame. Self-loathing. All that wretchedness.'
Anne's mouth tightened over each word.
'But the storm hasn't come,' Mary assured her. 'Only, I fear it may if we speak.'
And were they not speaking now, Anne wondered, speaking of the very thing? Were they not reliving in their mind's eye every silken line and curve, hearing again each whispered word, feeling again every wild, appalling touch? Was she the only one wondering what would happen this evening after the sun had sunk, after supper, after the candle was snuffed in their little room? 'Certainly,' she said, looking away. 'Let's just sit here and admire the view.'
They stared out to sea.
NOTHING STOPPED them. They got little sleep. On Wednesday Anne banged her bad leg against a lamp-post because she wasn't looking where she was going. After church on Sunday Mary shut herself up in their bedroom for half an hour before she emerged for dinner, red-eyed but witty. They bathed in the sea four times that week. They never spoke of what they did at night, but it was as if they were speaking of it all the time; in every Good morning, every Such heat, for September!
How little she'd known, thought Anne—and how little she'd known herself. It seemed she wasn't naturally ascetic or born to solitude. She was no good at renunciation after all. It was as if her virgin heart had been fasting all her life, building up an endless appetite, and now she couldn't have enough of pleasure. She was glutting herself on love. She was unshockable; there was nothing she didn't like, nothing she could do without. Under her fichu the soft skin of her neck was purple with kisses.
She looked back over the years and saw that she'd always wanted this but hadn't seen it for what it was. She'd been confused, terrorised by the grotesqueries of the pamphleteers, the obscene silhouettes on black sofas. This was a private, pure astonishment. I am this way, she thought, as simply as a stream flows down a hill. It has always been women. How many years of my life have I spent chiselling their beautiful cheeks? This wasn't evil, this wasn't debauchery. It was love made flesh.
At dinner with two watercolourists and a curate, Anne found herself considering Mary's wrist, resting beside her plate, as a tender fruit; her mouth ached to close round it. That night as Mary reached over her to snuff the candle, Anne found herself saying, 'Don't.'
Mary didn't.
This is ridiculous, Anne thought. I'm nearly fifty years old. It had taken her all this time to weave and stumble into understanding. It might be ridiculous—but it wasn't too late.
She'd begun to wonder about other women she knew. Had the Devonshire House ladies, for instance, ever known this bliss? It was not something she could ever imagine asking Georgiana. She could well believe that Georgiana and Bess had shared this secret for ten years—or had never thought of such a thing. Who could tell? Every love had its own peculiar story.
Three in the morning, by the tall clock that stood in the corner of their room, and Mary lay awake, pillowed on Anne's arm, and stared at the dragon wallpaper. 'Hideous,' she murmured.
'Isn't it?'
'I'd never stand for it in any home of mine.'
'Nor I.'
The word home seemed to linger. The clock ticked loudly for a moment, then faded away again. Five days before they were due to go home,
or rather, each to her own, Anne to Grosvenor Square and Mary to join her father and sister in North Audley Street. Five minutes apart, but an unendurable distance, especially in the night.
Mary was about to say something, Anne could tell, though no words had been spoken; it was a matter of a slight tensing, flesh against flesh, an intake of breath. 'What is it?' she asked.
'I was just wondering,' murmured Mary. 'Were you glad when my match was broken off?'
'No.' Anne pulled away. Her heart was noisy in her chest. She'd almost managed to forget all that. 'Mary, I swear I did everything I could to help you and O'Hara. I wanted you to be happy.'
'I know.' Mary nestled back against her, wrapping Anne's arms round her more tightly. 'But you're glad now.'
Anne didn't know what to say.
'You wouldn't want me to be married,' said Mary, looking over her shoulder.
'No,' said Anne, letting out her breath.
'No,' murmured Mary.
The church bell belatedly rang out the hour. Anne looked down at Mary, who was fast asleep, curled into the crook of Anne's elbow. Now how could she move in order to put out the light? Well, it was burnt down to a stub already; it would die in an hour or so. They'd have to ask their landlady for another candle, not three days after the last; it would sound odd. We read till all hours, Anne imagined announcing; we're vastly devoted to the life of the mind. She watched Mary, though her own eyes were fluttering with fatigue. She thought of a saying that Plutarch ascribed to Heraclitus: that everyone while awake was in the same world, but that all of them, while asleep, were in worlds of their own.
NOVEMBER 1796
Eliza sat in the dressing room with Mrs Siddons, discussing the recent rash of resignations, the most serious of which was Kemble's. 'I'm very sorry for his departure to Ireland, but hardly surprised.'
Mrs Siddons nodded tragically. 'Sheridan had made my brother's position as manager a constant torment.'
'Pop Kemble's retired, too,' said Eliza, counting on her fingers. 'Well, she's not much of a loss, if you don't mind my saying so of your sister-in-law—but her mother Mrs Hopkins and Mrs Powell, too—and Moody, Dodd and Roaring Bob Bensley!'
'The unfortunate young Mr Benson,' Mrs Siddons added, 'if death can be counted as a kind of retirement that makes eight.'
Benson had died of brain fever, which was a tactful way of saying he'd climbed naked out his garret window and split his head open on the stones of Bridges Street. There'd been a Ben for his widow and orphans, but rumour had it that Sheridan hadn't passed on a penny to them yet. 'The Drury Lane Theatrical Fund will be drained, with so many needing pensions at once,' Eliza pointed out.
'Even more worryingly,' said Mrs Siddons, 'we've no one left to play an old man but Mr King and what play has ever been written without two or three hoar sages in the cast?'
'Or a brace of doddering old fools!' Mrs Siddons always brought out cheekiness in Eliza. 'Well, there's nothing else for it: Jack Palmer will have to tie on a ^eard.'
The other actress smiled wanly at the image.
'I believe Jack's nearly as old as Dodd and Bensley, anyway—well past fifty, though you'd never know it from his swagger. But what I don't understand is,' Eliza went on more bitterly, 'how can there be no money for our wages when hundreds of pounds are taken in every night?'
'Nor did my poor brother understand, but then Kemble's a child in business,' Mrs Siddons told her. 'Out of the purest love of the theatre he signed personal guarantees to workmen who didn't trust that Treasurer Westley would pay them—and ended up being arrested for debt in the street!'
The more fool he, thought Eliza.
Mrs Siddons cocked one ear. 'Do I hear a bustle?'
'It seems early, for Sheridan—'
The women hurried along the corridor. By the time they reached the Treasurer's office they were pushing through a crowd. Most of the actors, singers and dancers were there, together with the carpenters and scene shifters, and the dressers; it was like a meeting of the whole company. Voices rose as the proprietor walked smartly along the corridor. 'Mr Sheridan!'
'Sir—'
'Our salaries—'
'Please consider—'
'Certainly, certainly!' Sheridan broadcast his smile. He was arm in arm with Richard Wroughton, the bland, diplomatic actor who'd been suddenly raised to the status of manager on Kemble's departure.
'Look us in the eye, sir, if you dare,' intoned Mrs Siddons, 'and tell us our time of waiting is at an end.'
Jack Palmer spoke from the back wall, effortlessly enlarging his voice: 'For God's sake, man, pay up.'
'My good people, you shall be attended to directly,' said Sheridan. 'You must understand, the affairs of the nation have been preoccupying me and all my fellow Members. Can you believe this monster Pitt? After shedding oceans of blood and breaking thousands of widows' hearts, he's now suddenly suing for peace with France, which our Party has been urging for the past four years!' This news caused some distraction and a hum of conversation rose from the crowd. The Treasurer's door suddenly opened and let Sheridan and Wroughton in.
There was a rush of bodies. A painter banged on the wood. 'Leave the door open,' he roared.
There was no answer.
'Westley's sweeping the treasury clean of the whole week's receipts,' Eliza murmured to Mrs Siddons, 'then the three of them will hop out through the window.'
'But he promised me,' said the tragedienne confusedly. 'When I threatened to resign with my brother, Sheridan soothed me and gave me his word to pay me in full this very week.'
Eliza smiled at her colleague's naïveté. 'He promises everyone—he's uncertainty personified. My mother heard that Dora Jordan's refusing to do any new roles till he stumps up. And has poor Storace's widow seen any of the £500 we raised for her, I wonder?'
'It really is astonishing how we all go on, how much we can bear for love of our art.'
'I shall write Sheridan a nasty note,' said Eliza, turning away; 'it seems more dignified than banging on the door.'
A FEW DAYS after their return from Bognor Mary met Anne at the door of the library at Strawberry Hill. 'He's in a mood,' she whispered.
Anne steeled herself as they went in. She greeted Walpole very pleasantly. 'I'm sorry I'm late, but Mother's only just arrived from Goodwood.'
His pouched eyes were on the fantastically painted ceiling. After a long moment he said, 'So Bognor was all it promised, then.'
'Yes,' she said, gulping a little on the word. 'Very healthful.' This was going to be more difficult than she thought.
'Our Elderberry seems raised from the dead, if I may put it so blasphemously.' His tone was not cheerful. 'What do you say, Miss Mary, have you undergone some sea change, into something rich and strange?'
Mary went the colour of a plum. It happened all at once; there was no gradual pinking, but a startling rush of blood from her throat to her hairline. Anne, staring at her, willed her to say something, give some credible explanation. 'Excuse me,' said Mary and ran from the room.
In the silence Anne thought, He knows. She sat down by the fire as calmly as she could manage. Somehow he can do the impossible, see right into our hearts. 'I'm afraid she's still not quite herself.'
'Evidently.'
Walpole was looking at her so piercingly, so knowledgeably, with those weasel's eyes. He knows, damn him. Anne didn't dare say a word; if she spoke of Mary, or if she avoided speaking of her, either would give her away. And how have you yourself been? Since your last letter, I mean.'
That of the third?'
She could never remember the dates of letters. 'I think so. You mentioned in it—something about the builders having finished the New Offices.' Her eyes were straying towards the window.
'That was my letter of the twenty-ninth,' Walpole told her. 'Didn't you receive my next, of the third?'
'I'm sure we did, I'm sure I did,' she corrected herself.
'Do check, wont you, and let me know; you really must keep better track of your cor
respondence. I hate it when letters go missing,' he snapped. 'There's no excuse for it in this day and age, unless shipping routes are in question.'
'No,' said Anne guiltily. 'So ... now the Offices are complete, what will you build next?'
'I'm finished,' he said, looking into the fire.
'What—couldn't Strawberry Hill benefit from another tower or two, or a hermitage in the garden?'
He shook his head. 'My labours are accomplished.'
The phrase chilled her. 'Have you been well?' she said. She'd already asked that.
He gave one slow shrug, like a crow adjusting its wings. 'What does that mean, well, to a man of seventy-nine?'
Anne was about to correct him, then she remembered. 'Your birthday! Your seventy-ninth. How could we have let it slip by without sending congratulations?'
'It hardly matters.'
'Mary will be so distressed.'
Walpole gave her a sharp look. 'You speak for her, now?'
'I know what she feels on many matters, that's all,' she said as firmly as she could.
'I'm sure you do, since the two of you have spent the summer entirely secluded from society, writing to me barely once a week. I'm all too aware who holds the first place in her affections these days. Of course, your company has so much to offer her that mine lacks.'
Anne stared at him.
'Health and energy, to name but two,' Walpole said violently, 'all the sensibility and sweetness of your own sex, combined with the strength and vigour of. the other.'
She rose to her feet. 'I seem to have come at a bad time.'
Silence.
'I'll put up with much,' said Anne, 'because you're my godfather, my cousin and my dear friend. But you're overstepping the mark. Now, have you finished with your jealous insinuations, or do you want to accuse me of something?' The question hung in the air and she was terribly afraid. 'Should I leave?'
How Walpole must have been tempted to say, As you wish. She watched his lips. They formed, at last, into a No.
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