by John Harwood
I shall begin by describing this room, or rather two, for Clara sleeps in a small chamber, once a box room or closet, I suppose, opening off this one. We are on the first floor, about halfway down a passage which twists and turns so often that you cannot tell where you are. I had to go back and count three times to establish that there are fourteen rooms on this corridor. The servants' stairs are at the back of the house, with a door leading to the main part of the Hall at the front.
The panelling has been scrubbed, and new carpets laid, which would be reassuring if I did not suspect it had been done for Mrs. Bryant's sake, rather than my own. Since I am to preside at her séance, appearances must be kept up—not that she is likely to set foot in here. The floor creaks wherever I move, no matter how softly I tread. The bed is an ancient four-poster, with the canopy removed—doubtless it had decayed to shreds—the bedding, at least, is fresh and dry. There is a chest, a washstand, a dressing table, all in very old, dark wood. The writing desk at which I sit ... again, I do not know whether to find its presence reassuring or sinister. Was it here already, or did Magnus order that a desk be brought in?—as if to say: "I know, my dear, exactly what you intend to write, so do not imagine you can keep me from reading it"?
The writing desk stands beneath the window, which by day looks down—a long way down—upon a ragged expanse of grass, so recently scythed, as I saw this afternoon, that the stalks are pale yellowish-white. The trees crowding upon it are so tall they blot out half the sky. But now there is nothing but my candle flame reflected beneath a blurred image of my face; beyond that, the darkness is absolute.
I have asked myself endlessly whether, on the one occasion Magnus succeeded in mesmerising me, he subdued my will, or shrouded my perception, for long enough to obtain my promise. But if he did, the memory is lost beyond recall, and I am still to blame for marrying him. I knew I did not love him, and should have told him I had changed my mind, as Ada pleaded with me to do. I remember her white, stricken face at the wedding; I have not seen her since. I say in my letters that I am perfectly happy, and she pretends to believe it; and so our letters have grown less and less frequent. But I will not confide in her; she has sorrows enough of her own.
How could I have imagined that I would come to desire him as he plainly desired me? It seems to me now that even before we were married, I shrank from his touch, but it cannot have been so, unless desire makes men altogether blind—even a man as subtle and discerning as Magnus. On the night of our wedding—I shall write it—I found the act immensely painful (would it have been thus with Edward? I cannot believe it) but my distress seemed to excite him further. The assault was renewed the next night, and the next (of the intervening days I have scarcely any memory at all) and I tried to pretend, to persuade myself I would grow used to it, but though the physical pain diminished somewhat, the sense of violation only increased. Because I had refused a wedding tour, we had gone straight to his house in Munster Square. My bedchamber was on the second floor; his was on the first, but for those first days—or was it weeks?—he regarded my room as his own, until the morning when all was changed irrevocably.
I must have come down to breakfast first, though I do not recall dressing, or pinning up my hair, only—just as if I had been sleepwalking, and found myself suddenly wide awake at the breakfast table—seeing the maid at the sideboard, just as Magnus appeared in the doorway. The maid's name was Sophie, like my sister, a girl of about sixteen, small and shy and fair. Magnus came up beside me and laid his hand upon the nape of my neck, and—I could not help it—I shuddered violently at his touch. Sophie saw, and blushed, and scurried from the room.
The hand on my neck seemed to turn to stone. There was a moment of absolute stillness; then the hand was removed, and I looked up fearfully. Magnus's face was utterly expressionless. For another small eternity, we remained thus; he nodded slowly, confirming something to himself, and then—as if a blind had been swiftly and silently drawn—reverted to his usual manner, and said, as though nothing whatever had happened, "I trust you slept well, my dear."
He went out soon after and did not return until late in the day. All evening he kept up the pretence that nothing had occurred; and when it came time to retire, he did not touch me, but bowed and said good night and withdrew to his own room. I lay awake half the night, dreading the sound of his tread upon the stair, but next morning it was the same; I would not have known that anything was wrong, except that again he did not touch me. Sophie gave in her notice soon afterward, but if she had been forced to do so, she did not admit it to me. Day after day he went on playing the devoted husband, in company and before the servants, and I felt compelled to follow his lead, not knowing what else to do. The mask never slipped, even when we were alone together, though that was never for long. He was out most days seeing patients—or so he told me—and in the evenings, if we had dined at home, he would excuse himself with the utmost courtesy as soon as the plates had been cleared, and I would not see him again until he appeared at the breakfast table.
If he had shown any emotion—even fury—I think I should have felt for him. Perhaps I should have abased myself, and pleaded for his forgiveness, but the mere prospect set my flesh crawling, for I was now afraid of whatever waited behind that smiling facade. And a few weeks later, I discovered that I was with child.
I thought that the news was bound to change our situation, but when at last I gathered the courage to tell him—one morning at breakfast whilst the maid was out of the room—all he said was, "So I am to have a son. I congratulate you, my dear. You will need to look after your health, which has been a little uncertain, of late." I dared not question his certainty that the child would be male.
I was ill for much of my confinement, which passed in a sort of limbo state, days and weeks blurring together. Magnus was often away for days at a time; he did not, to my relief, insist on treating me himself, but engaged an elderly physician much like Dr. Stevenson. I had little to do but rest as I was bid, and read, and try for the child's sake to subdue the dread that clung like ice about my heart. When I felt well enough, I would walk with my maid Lucy—the one servant I was allowed to engage myself—in Regent's Park, a few hundred yards from the house in Munster Square.
Lucy is—though I may never see her again—a quiet, soft-spoken girl; she had the nursemaid's room along the landing from mine. She was keen to improve her reading, and became quite fluent by the time Clara was born; I thought of her more as a friend than a servant, though I strove to conceal this from the others. The household is run by Magnus's manservant Bolton and Mrs. Ryecott, the cook; every so often they make a pretence of consulting me, and I tell them to do as they think best. I think of Bolton as Magnus's familiar: a dark, fleshless, thin-faced man in a suit of black. We disliked each other on sight, and I am always aware of his mistrust. Mrs. Ryecott is a gaunt woman in middle age, equally devoted to Magnus; she, too, regards me as an interloper. For the rest, there is Alfred the groom and footman, a boy of seventeen or so, and the two maids, Carrie and Bertha, who live in fear of Mrs. Ryecott's wrath. They are all here, now, at the Hall—all except Lucy, who has gone to Hereford to nurse her mother, who is very ill. She stayed with me until the very last—I wanted her to go straight to Paddington this morning, but she insisted upon coming all the way to Shoreditch to help with Clara, and making the long journey back alone.
***
Without Lucy's company, I think the loneliness of my confinement would have been unbearable. I had hoped to find new friends in Magnus's circle, but our estrangement, and the sickness of those first months, put paid to that. I knew nothing of where he went, or whom he saw, or what, if anything, he said of me, beyond what he chose to tell me, and no way of knowing whether any of it was true; whereas I had all too much time to brood upon his intentions. Was he only waiting for his son—as he always referred to the child—to be born before he had me locked away in an asylum?—which he could do easily enough, knowing my history. Or if the child should be a girl, would he force himself
upon me? There were days, too, when I doubted—as part of me still doubts—my own perception: perhaps he was leaving me alone out of delicacy, and my apprehension was entirely misplaced. But why had he married me? He had desired me, certainly—but there were many young women more beautiful than myself, women of family and fortune who would have been far more compliant. I feared, even then, that my gift, as he calls it, had been the deciding factor.
Yet there was one certainty to which I clung: that the birth of my child would precipitate whatever action he intended to take. On the freezing January morning when I first held Clara in my arms, I vowed to protect her, even at the cost of Magnus's renewed embraces. The doctor and the midwife had gone; I had suckled Clara for the first time, and slept a little myself, and thought I had better send Lucy to ask if Magnus wished to see her. But it seemed that Magnus had left the house soon after the doctor, and I heard nothing more until the following morning, when Lucy returned with a message from Bolton: "The master sends his compliments to Mrs. Wraxford, and regrets that he is obliged to leave immediately for Paris on urgent business."
He was gone a fortnight, leaving me prey to forebodings made all the more fearful by my delight in Clara. The one thing I did not imagine was that he would continue exactly as before. On the day of his return, he stood for a little beside Clara's cradle, regarding her with a sort of mild interest, rather as a man might absently contemplate the child of a distant relative for politeness' sake; thereafter he referred to her as "your daughter," and would ask after her at breakfast with his usual courteous detachment. A month passed; two, and then three; often at night, when I was awake with Clara, I expected to hear his footsteps approaching, but he did not appear. Many times I braced myself to ask him, "What do you intend to do with me?" But the question always died upon my lips; the perfection of his manner compelled assent. And yet the sense of impending crisis was as palpable as the ticking of a clock.
My thought has just been broken by Clara stirring in her sleep. She looks so utterly peaceful. Knowing I must be brave for her sake is all that keeps the fear from overwhelming me. If the worst happens, everyone will say that I should have left her in London, but I could not bear to, with Lucy gone. And since this last visitation I dare not be parted from her.
If anyone—other than Magnus, who will surely destroy it on sight—if anyone should read this, they may wonder why I did not simply take Clara and flee. I am not a prisoner—or was not, before I came here. But I have no money of my own, and nowhere to go. I am so utterly estranged from my mother and sister that I do not even know their address. (I assume that Mama has gone to live with Sophie and her husband.) And even if Ada and I were still close, she and George could not take us in: Clara and I are Magnus's lawful possessions, and he would reclaim us soon enough. Even without the visitations, my flight would be taken as proof of madness, for I have absolutely nothing to complain of: Magnus has never struck me, or ill-treated me in any way; he has never so much as raised his voice to me. True, he cares nothing for Clara, but I have heard that many men respond thus when their hopes of an heir are dashed. He is in every respect a model husband, except that his mere presence fills me with dread.
I must not assume that I am to be a prisoner here. There is no infant carriage, of course, and Clara has grown so that I cannot carry her for more than half an hour without my back aching badly. But if Magnus took no precautions against my escape in London, why should he care if I were to summon Alfred and demand to be driven to Aldeburgh? The only person I know there is Mr. Montague, who admires Magnus above all other men; even if I were to trust him, which I do not, he would tell me that my suspicions were groundless, and advise me to return at once.
Yet there are limits to my freedom. The library and the old gallery from which Cornelius Wraxford vanished are locked, for reasons of safety, according to Bolton—he says that Magnus holds all of the keys. And all of the rooms above this floor are closed, the stairs roped off and all the landing doors locked—or so again says Bolton; of course I have not tried them. Some of the boards are rotten, he explained. All perfectly reasonable; except for that very slight air of insolence, of his being my keeper in waiting. The rooms Mrs. Bryant will occupy are directly across the landing from the library—a vast bedchamber, with its own drawing and dining rooms. She says she finds ruins romantic, but what a woman who travels with her personal physician will make of this desolate place, I cannot imagine.
I did not even know of her existence until the morning a few weeks ago when Magnus informed me that "Mrs. Diana Bryant, a patient of mine" had invited us to tea at her house in Grosvenor Street in three days' time. Except for my walks in Regent's Park with Lucy, I had scarcely left the house since the beginning of my confinement, and Magnus had accepted all invitations on his own behalf: "I am sure that in your delicate state of health, my dear, you would prefer to remain at home" had been his standard refrain.
"May I ask—why you wish me to know her?" I said, trying to keep my voice from quavering.
"Well, my dear," he replied, affecting surprise, "it is surely time you began to go out in Society. Mrs. Bryant—she was widowed some years ago—is a woman of considerable wealth. She suffers from weakness of the heart; my treatment has succeeded where others have failed, and she has become a great advocate of my methods. I am sure you will find much to talk about."
His tone was as courteous as ever, but there was a glint in his eye which discouraged any further questions.
The weather that week had been stiflingly hot—Lucy was obliged to sprinkle chloride of lime on the sills, and pack the nursery casements with brown paper to keep out the stench—and continued so until the morning of the visit to Mrs. Bryant, when the heat was dispelled with a great clap of thunder and a deluge. In any other circumstances, I should have enjoyed a drive through streets washed clean by the rain, but as Magnus followed me into the carriage, I felt only deepening apprehension.
I had pictured Mrs. Bryant as an elderly widow, but she proved to be a handsome woman of perhaps forty-five; tall and statuesque, I imagine men would call her; elaborately and expensively dressed, with a great mass of coiffed auburn hair, not all of which was her own. Her complexion was very pale, with a bluish tinge to it. I had deliberately chosen a plain grey high-necked gown which would not have embarrassed a Quaker, and she looked me up and down with ostentatious pity. She had a loud contralto voice, coquettish when she was speaking to Magnus, condescending when she addressed herself to me.
The only other guest was her physician, Dr. Godwin Rhys, a Welshman, small and slightly built, with very large, prominent blue eyes—almost turquoise, indeed—giving him a permanently startled expression. He looked no more than twenty-five, but was already married with a son and an infant daughter. It seemed to me that he was a little ashamed of his role as a sort of medical lapdog, but he was plainly in thrall to Magnus. Mrs. Bryant launched into an account of her trials at the hands of the medical profession: Magnus, it seemed, had been mesmerising her for some time, with Dr. Rhys's entire approbation. Despite Mrs. Bryant's studied disdain, I did not feel as uncomfortable as I had expected, until I became aware that Dr. Rhys was studying me with professional curiosity, glancing every so often toward Magnus, who was seated beside and a little behind me. Magnus has told him of my visitations, I thought, and then, two doctors must sign a certificate of insanity.
My cup and saucer rattled in my hand; Mrs. Bryant paused in mid-sentence and asked me, with a look of displeasure, whether I was unwell.
"No," I replied, "only a little—that is to say, no, not at all."
"I am glad to hear it. You are most fortunate," she said pointedly, "to be the wife of such a gifted practitioner, and be able to call upon his services at any hour of the day."
I forced myself to smile and murmur something appropriate. On the excuse of setting down my cup, I moved my chair a little so as to bring Magnus within my field of vision. Behind the affable mask, I thought I detected a gleam of amusement. I must be calm, I though
t, I will not play into his hands; but her next remark unsettled me further.
"Your husband tells me, Mrs. Wraxford, that he is now master of Wraxford Hall. After all this unnecessary delay, you must be delighted."
When I agreed to marry Magnus, I had told him I wished never to see or hear of the Hall again; and I had sometimes wondered, since our estrangement, why he kept silent on the subject when it had power to hurt. Now it struck me, with a sudden freezing sensation, that they were all acting in concert, seeking to goad me into an hysterical outburst that would justify my incarceration. The walls of Mrs. Bryant's opulent, overdecorated drawing room seemed to close around me. I inclined my head, not trusting myself to speak.
"The Hall, of course, is in a very run-down state," said Magnus smoothly. "But I am sure that rooms can be made habitable for our—experiment. Mrs. Wraxford has heard nothing of this," he continued. "I did not like to trouble her with it until the estate was settled."
I waited for him to continue, but he did not. All eyes turned to me, as if I were an actress who had missed her cue.
"Experiment?" I said, hating the tremor in my voice.
"Yes, my dear," said Magnus. "You will recall, I am sure, the evening of our first meeting, when I remarked that the Hall would be the ideal setting for a séance—to be conducted on strictly scientific principles—which might settle, once and for all, the question of survival after death. Mrs. Bryant takes a great interest in spiritualism, and is very keen to participate, as is Dr. Rhys."
"Indeed I am." Dr. Rhys glanced at Mrs. Bryant, made a show of consulting his watch, and rose to his feet. "And now, if you will excuse me, I am afraid I must leave you—an urgent appointment, you know. Delighted to have met you, Mrs. Wraxford; I look forward to renewing our acquaintance very soon."
His departure was too obviously contrived for me to take any comfort in the fact that there were no longer two physicians in the room. I expected Magnus to continue, but instead Mrs. Bryant addressed herself to me.