Consolation

by James Wilson

  ‘Bear says you’re to stay inside!’ she called. ‘You’ll catch cold!’

  ‘Good to get a breath of air!’ I hunched my shoulders against the spitting drizzle, and charged unsteadily towards her like an ailing bull. She responded by starting to walk faster herself; and we met, finally, red-faced and breathless, under the big spreading cedar in the middle of the lawn.

  ‘Bear thinks you’re very bad, don’t you, Bear?’ she said, nodding its head in reply. ‘He’s a good mind, now, not to give you your letter.’

  ‘What letter?’

  ‘Shall we, Bear? Oh, all right, then.’ She slipped a letter from her sleeve and handed it to me. ‘Here. This came for you this morning.’

  My first thought was: why is she giving this to me in person, rather than letting Chieveley bring it with my other post? The envelope was dimpled with raindrops, which had left the ink badly smeared; but enough was left for me to see that the hand-writing was large and expansive, the ‘o’s and ‘a’s formed with big looping curves, and the ‘p’s and ‘y’s with luxuriant curly tails. No man, I was certain, would write like that – but how would a strange woman have come by my address, since the occasional letters I received from enthusiastic readers were always sent via my publisher?

  She craned forward, watching me. ‘Bear says aren’t you going to open it?’

  ‘I will in a minute.’

  ‘Why not now?’

  And suddenly I thought I understood: she suspected – perhaps even hoped – that it had been sent by my supposed inamorata.

  Which set, as it were, a parallel hare wildly running in my own head: what if it was from Mary Wilson? The writing did not immediately remind me of the Mary Stone, Southsea on the fly-leaf of She, but it was too smudged for me to be sure – and, in any case, that inscription had been written more than ten years ago, when she was still little more than a child.

  I peered up through the dense spines of the tree. ‘It’s raining.’

  ‘We’re dry here.’

  ‘But then it’ll get wet on my way back.’

  She lunged forward, as if to snatch it from me again. But at that moment, the garden door to the house opened, and a man came out on to the terrace. He was perhaps forty, with black hair and the waxy complexion of an undertaker, and wore a sober dark suit that would have looked more appropriate in the city than in a country garden. He did not speak; but cleared his throat so noisily that Violet stopped abruptly, and spun round to look at him. I could not see her face, of course; but there was a kind of trembling anticipation in the way she held herself that made me think of a sheep-dog awaiting orders.

  ‘Is that Mr. Dolgelly?’ I said.

  She did not reply. Still saying nothing, the man slowly lifted his hands, and pressed the palms and fingertips together to form a crude circle. I couldn’t imagine what this sign meant, but it must have had some significance for Violet, for without so much as another glance in my direction, she lowered her head submissively, and started towards the house again.

  I stood and watched until they were inside, then turned and began making my way back to the cabin, carefully tucking the letter under my coat to protect it from the rain. Despite my curiosity, I was in no great hurry to open it. Reason told me it could not really be from Mary Wilson – and yet, until I knew for certain, there was always a dim hope that reason might be wrong. The thing was not, after all, impossible: perhaps she had seen my name in a bookshop – recognized it – employed a detective to track me down …

  I shut the door, riddled the coals in the stove, and sank into my chair. Then, slowly, I slit open the envelope.

  Inside was a single sheet. I forced myself not to cheat by going to the end and looking at the signature. Instead I read:

  As from: Fleming’s Hotel, Half Moon Street, London W.

  February 26, 1910

  Dear Mr. Roper,

  Let me begin by saying just what a warm admirer I am of your work. As a little girl, my favorite playmates were the children in ‘The Mists of Time’; and then, years later (when I was older than I care to admit), I discovered Alcuin Hare and his friends, and they, in their turn, became my boon companions. And all the while, my dearest hope was one day to meet the creator of these wonderful characters, and to see for myself the woods and streams where their adventures took place. For a young woman growing up in Albany, New York, this was not – as I am sure you can imagine – an easy ambition to fulfil!

  And yet here – thanks to a large dose of good old Yankee grit and resourcefulness – I am! For weeks I besieged Bailey’s Magazine, asking them to commission a series of articles on modern European authors; and when it finally penetrated their poor heads that I had no intention of going away until they said ‘yes’, they relented. And top of my list, needless to say, was Mr. Corley Roper.

  Mr. Charles Derrington of Derrington and Mayes was good enough to give me your address, so I do hope you will forgive my taking the liberty of writing to you direct …

  I stopped reading, screwed the thing into a ball, and wrenched open the door of the stove. Only as I was about to drop it on to the flames did it strike me how unreasonable I was being. Sheepishly, I smoothed the pages out again, and slid them into my desk drawer.

  But the damage was done. Feelings do not lie, and the violence of my reaction had brutally demonstrated, beyond any doubt, the truth of what mine had been telling me for days, and I had been steadfastly trying to keep from myself: I simply could not write any more.

  And it had shown me something else, too: just how deeply Mary Wilson had penetrated my soul. The faintest possibility that the letter had been from her had been enough to lift me, in an instant, from torpor to giddy exhilaration; and the discovery that it wasn’t had as quickly plummeted me into despair. Just why she had had this effect on me I was at a loss to understand: the most obvious explanation, of course, was that I somehow imagined I had fallen in love with her, but – try as I might – I could not quite make that idea fit the case. The nearest I could come to it was to say that I felt as if I were imprisoned in a small smoky room, and knew that if I could only get to her I should be able to fill my lungs with fresh air – oxygenating, perhaps for the first time in my life, not merely those few muscles required to get me through my day-to-day existence, but every corner of my being. In any event, it was pointless, now, to pretend that she was simply one problem among many: she had unsettled my very foundations, and nothing else could be put right until – one way or another – I had made them strong again.

  From that moment on, I could not keep her from my thoughts. During the day, thinking it might bring me closer to her, by offering me an insight into her character, I would sit reading her copy of She – until the story of a man in thrall to a mysterious woman disturbed me so much that I had to set it down again. At night, I would lie hot and twitching in my bunk, trying to devise some means of finding her, and wondering how, if I succeeded, I could conceivably explain myself to her. When I did manage to sleep, she haunted my dreams – usually as I remembered her, but sometimes, unaccountably, in the guise of an enormous giant, who held me helpless in her hands.

  I started taking longer and longer walks – ostensibly to wear myself out, but also in the half-acknowledged hope that destiny would somehow lead me to her again. One evening, after a long ramble over the hills, I found myself sitting in the porch of our village church, muttering into the darkness – as if I imagined that some kind of sympathetic magic must have brought her there, too, and at any moment I should hear her answering. I heard nothing, of course, except the sound of my own voice, and the whistle of the wind. But the eccentricity of my behaviour had seriously alarmed me. Before I was half-way home I had persuaded myself that I was in danger of losing my mind, and must seek help and advice without delay.

  To whom, though, could I turn? Not Violet, obviously; nor the doctor, who would be bound to attribute my condition to some digestive disorder, and prescribe a strict regimen of liver pills and water. Flicking mentally thr
ough my address book, I found only one name that might be of some use: Cyril Jessop. And even the thought of confiding my predicament to him filled me with a certain heaviness. As I trudged the last few hundred yards through the village, I could not help imploring Fate, even at this late hour, to spare me the necessity, by hey-prestoing Mary Wilson out of thin air, and setting her down before me.

  The instant I turned in to the drive, I thought Fate must have heard my plea. There, in front of the house, was a motor-car. Aside from my wretched publisher (and it was inconceivable that he would call on me unannounced) I knew of only one person who owned a car: Mary Wilson’s friend, Miss Shaw. So great is the power of wishful thinking that, by the time I had reached the front door, I was three-quarters convinced that this gleaming blue monster must be hers, and that Mary Wilson had borrowed it, in order to come and see me.

  I took off my coat and hat, and – like a victorious soldier planting his flag to mark the retaking of some lost possession – hung them next to Violet’s in the lobby.

  ‘There’s a lady to see you, sir,’ said Chieveley, emerging from the shadows as I went into the hall. ‘I showed her into the drawing-room.’

  ‘Anyone we know?’

  ‘No one I know, sir. I should remember if I’d seen her before.’

  Ah, I thought. Better and better. ‘Thank you, Chieveley. Could we manage some tea, do you think?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  She was standing in front of the fireplace, looking at the portrait of my father-in-law above the mantelshelf. I hesitated for a moment in the doorway, struggling to reconcile the trimness of the figure and the modishness of the high-waisted cowrie-pink dress with the woman I remembered. I turned her round in my head and tried to fit the long nose and the straight eyebrows and delicate forehead beneath the brim of her flamboyant hat. Difficult, but just possible, surely …

  But at that moment she heard me and twirled round herself, and I knew it was a lost cause. She was, if anything, younger than Mary Wilson, with the unlined skin and fresh-from-the-chrysalis lustre of a girl who has still not yet quite completed the transition into womanhood. And her face, though equally pale, was broader and more rounded, with a dusting of freckles, and a tiny mole like half an apple pip on the upper lip.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ she said. There was something unusual about her voice, but I couldn’t immediately identify it.

  ‘Good afternoon.’

  For a few seconds, we stood staring at each other. Her large, unnervingly direct grey eyes seemed to be looking for something they couldn’t find. Her mouth was a tight pink bud, ready to blossom into a smile as soon as I recognized her.

  But I didn’t recognize her. I knew, in fact – as certainly as Chieveley had done – that I had never seen her before in my life.

  ‘I’m sorry …’ I said.

  She started to blush. ‘You weren’t expecting me?’

  ‘No, I don’t think …’

  ‘I’m Alice Dangerfield.’

  ‘Ah.’ I was so overcome with disappointment and confusion that I couldn’t think of anything more to say. I did just manage a half-hearted grin, but I knew it was useless. A child would have been able to see that her name meant as little to me as her face had.

  Her blush deepened. ‘Oh, my Lord. I did write you. And at home you can always count on the mail, so I guess I just kind of assumed …’ She grimaced. ‘Oh, dear, this is so embarrassing.’

  Write you. Home. Mail.

  ‘Ah,’ I stammered. ‘You’re a … you’re the young American lady?’

  She nodded.

  I ran my hands over my cheeks, trying to draw the heat from them into my fingertips. ‘In that case,’ I said, ‘I’m afraid I have a dreadful confession to make. Please – won’t you sit down?’

  She settled herself on one end of the sofa. To avoid having to look her in the eye, I perched on the other, and addressed myself to the window.

  ‘I did get your letter,’ I said. ‘But I didn’t know it was from you, because – well, this sounds awful, I know, but I didn’t read it to the end. I hadn’t been very well, you see, and I put it in a drawer, meaning to deal with it later, when I was better. I really can’t tell you how dreadful I feel –’

  ‘No, please, there’s no need for you to apologize. It was my fault, I’m sure, for blithely saying I’ll be calling on you on such-and-such a day, unless I hear from you that that isn’t convenient. I dare say that’s seen as a very forward and improper way to behave on this side of the ocean.’

  ‘Not at all –’

  She laughed. It was not an unpleasant sound, but it had an uncomfortably penetrating quality, like a stab of sunshine finding its way through the blinds into a cobwebby room.

  ‘Now you’re just being polite,’ she said. ‘My aunt came to Europe in the eighties, and she told me you do things differently here, so I can’t say I wasn’t warned.’ She laughed again. ‘Will you forgive me?’

  ‘Really, there’s nothing to forgive.’

  ‘No, but there is. Please, Mr. Roper, don’t keep me at bay with good manners. If I’ve been rude, I’m truly sorry. And I should truly like to be forgiven.’

  For a moment I was quite nonplussed. There was an odd mixture of contrition and assurance in her tone – as if she really did feel in need of my forgiveness, and yet was so used to getting what she wanted that she imagined all she had to do to be certain of receiving it was merely to draw my attention to the fact, just as one would give a shopping-list to a grocer. And yet, for all my irritation, I couldn’t help recognizing that I was more to blame for the awkwardness of the situation than she was.

  I didn’t want to do it, but there was no alternative.

  ‘Really,’ I said, ‘you’ve nothing to reproach yourself for. It was inexcusably negligent of me. All I can plead in extenuation is my … personal circumstances. My daughter, you see … You know, Elspeth?’

  She nodded: she had read my dedication to The Little Mouse.

  ‘Well, she died. Last month. Of scarlet fever.’

  Miss Dangerfield let out a strangled whimper. I turned towards her. Her face was as white and frozen as if she had toothache. For a moment she couldn’t speak. Then she whimpered again.

  ‘Oh, how terrible!’ she said.

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry. Not quite what you were expecting, I know.’

  She gave a quick shake of the head that said: don’t worry about me. ‘But why didn’t Mr. Derrington tell me?’

  ‘Oh, I think that’s easily enough explained. He’s been pressing me for my next book, and I’ve been putting him off. Since … since Elspeth … I find I simply can’t write. In fact, to be perfectly honest with you, I’ve more or less come to the conclusion that it’s a permanent condition, and I shall never be able to do an animal story again. But Derrington doesn’t know that yet. And he probably thought: perhaps a charming young American woman will succeed where I failed. But I’d better not let her know about the loss he’s suffered, or she’ll be too delicate to go.’

  She flushed. ‘Oh, I hope that’s not true!’

  ‘I’ll bet you it is.’

  ‘No’ – colouring even more – ‘I mean about your never doing an animal story again.’

  ‘I’m afraid that is, too.’

  ‘But –’

  But before she could say anything more, Chieveley came in with the tea things, and began laying them out on the table. I could tell from the way she watched – bright-eyed, her fingers in a constant fidget – that she was frustrated at being interrupted, and impatient for him to be gone again. But she smiled graciously enough, and managed to hold her tongue until he’d closed the door behind him. Then she hunched forward quickly and asked:

  ‘Would you like me to pour?’

  ‘Thank you, yes, if you wouldn’t mind.’

  She laughed. ‘I am an expert pourer, Mr. Roper. I’ve been playing mother since I was ten. That’s what comes from being the eldest of four girls and two boys.’ She leaned over to hand me my cup, b
ringing her face to within a foot of mine. ‘All of whom have grown up enchanted by the adventures of the Coneys and Alcuin Hare and Mr. Largo Frog. You have no idea how desolate they would be to learn that the spell has finally been broken. And I can vouch for it that there are tens of thousands of American readers who would feel the same.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry to hear it, Miss Dangerfield. But everything must come to an end.’

  ‘Yes, but such an end. It’s too sad!’

  I felt a surge of heat in my neck. ‘It was not of my choosing.’

  She blushed. ‘No, of course not. But …’ She paused, and studied me with a curious abstracted gaze, like a sapper looking for a weak point in the enemy’s defences. To forestall her I said:

  ‘Rotten luck for you, of course, to find it’s been a wasted journey, but there it is. You’ll fare much better elsewhere, I’m sure. What other authors are you going to see?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Didn’t you mention, in your letter, that you were hoping to talk to some –?’

  ‘Oh, yes, yes.’ And in the lacklustre voice of a schoolboy declining Latin nouns, she recited a list of names – of which the only one I recognized was H. G. Wells. Then, without giving me time to reply, she returned to the attack:

  ‘So, anyway, am I really to tell your American admirers that you have nothing to say to them?’

  ‘You may tell them I am sensible of the great honour they have done me.’

  She gave another dismissive little shake of the head. ‘All they will want to know is when they may expect another book.’

  ‘Miss Dangerfield, I have tried to explain …’