by James Wilson
‘Why couldn’t she ask me herself?’ I said.
‘Um …Well, the fact is, old man, she won’t come back while you’re still here.’
‘What, not even to the house now, you mean?’
He shook his head. Something burned my throat like bile, making it impossible for me to speak.
‘I know, I know,’ he said softly. ‘And, of course, it makes me feel an absolute worm. Because I’m sure you must think it’s all my fault, for advising you to let her have her way the last time. I can only say I honestly believed that, if you did, the whole thing would blow over in a few weeks. But there: I’ve never understood women, and I never shall.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘you can tell her I shall be out in a month. If she can’t bear to be here with me, she’ll just have to stay with you till then.’
He did not reply at once, but stared at the cabin wall, as if it might suggest some other solution that we could all agree on. Then he shook his head again, and laughed.
‘She’s obviously never forgiven me,’ he said. ‘For the time when I was seven that I shut her in a trunk and said I’d have her shipped to Timbuktu. This must be her way of punishing me for it.’ He cleared his throat, and gave me an apologetic grin. ‘She wants you to leave now, I’m afraid.’
‘What, permanently, you mean?’
He nodded. ‘I’m not to return home until I can tell her you’ve gone.’
‘Well, I’m sorry, but that’s just not –’
He held up a hand to stop me. ‘I know, I know,’ he said again, wearily. ‘It’s utterly unreasonable. But the woman’s hysterical. She won’t eat. We couldn’t even persuade her to go to bed last night. She said there’d be no point, because just knowing you’re here would make it impossible for her to sleep.’
‘Why? What on earth does she think I’m going to do?’
He lifted his eyebrows and shook his head.
‘Nature knows her job, Corley. And just as well she does, I suppose, else we should all still just be bobbing around in the aboriginal soup, shouldn’t we? But she’s not very particular about how she goes about it. That’s what I learned in Africa. Chap I met there once, a settler, told me – as matter-of-factly as if he’d been admitting a fondness for bridge – that he’d used to hunt bushmen for sport. I gave the fellow the eye, and said – a trifle stiffly, you can imagine – well, that doesn’t sound very good sport to me. And he said: Why? You hunt the fox, don’t you? And I said: Yes. Well, he said, your bushman’ll give you a better run for your money than a fox. He’s a wily little brute, and will lead you the devil of a dance if he puts his mind to it.’
I stared at him, so flabbergasted I could not even find the words to ask him why he was subjecting me to this story. But he must have seen the question in my face, because he ducked his head and lifted a finger, urging me to be patient.
‘Well,’ he went on, ‘I said to the chap – Beauvais his name was, came from an old Huguenot family – But don’t you think there’s a bit of a difference between a bushman and a fox? Besides, I mean, the difficulty of killing them? And he laughed, and said: Oh, bosh! That’s all sentimental humbug! Just look around you. Do you think Nature cares a straw for the feelings of the zebra mare as a lioness disembowels her young? Or the lion when the Zulu spears it? Or the Zulu when a bullet rips through his shield and tears his throat out? Of course she doesn’t. She only cares that the fast get faster and the strong get stronger, and devil take the hindmost. So when we’re clearing bushmen to make way for farms where blacks can grow tea and oranges and grapes for us, we’re just doing her work for her.’
‘Well,’ I said, not daring to raise my voice above a stage-whisper in case it betrayed me, ‘he sounds like an admirable fellow. And a fine advertisement for civilization. Evidently, no one seeking proof of its practical benefits and moral superiority could do better than apply to him.’
Hubert smiled, and attempted a laugh. ‘It’s hard to accept, I know,’ he said. ‘For a chap who’s spent the best years of his life spinning yarns about talking animals who live in cosy holes and conduct themselves like maiden aunts. But the truth is, he’s right, isn’t he? It’s just that most of the time we don’t get our noses rubbed in it, because we’re at the top of the tree. Only now Violet has had her nose rubbed in it. Because all of a sudden, for the first time in her life, she’s the zebra, not the lioness. And the long and the short of it is, it’s driven her mad. Ably assisted, I’m afraid, by that scoundrel Dolgelly.’
‘Ah, Dolgelly. He’s behind this, is he?’
‘He put the notion in her head.’
I settled back in my chair, bolstering myself for the next blow.
Hubert swallowed uncomfortably. ‘I’m sorry, old man. There … I mean, this is bound to sound awful, however I put it … He’s persuaded my poor foolish sister that he’s made contact with Elspeth on … on the other side. But that little E. won’t come back and appear to her while you’re here. And that if you stay, there’s a danger she’ll never come back at all.’
I felt as if I were – at the same time – turning to ice and melting away to nothing. I was stunned, not only by the cruelty of the idea, but by the brilliance of its conception: having succeeded in estranging me from my wife and turning me out of my house, the devious little charlatan would seal his victory by posthumously taking my daughter from me as well. Not only, on its own terms, did it make perfect logical sense, but it was also completely unanswerable: the more I tugged at the hook, by arguing that it was simply a callous lie, the deeper it would embed itself in Violet’s flesh.
And yet, even if it were no better than a lie, I could not help seeing – with a shocking, inescapable clarity – that there was a kind of poetic truth to it, too. I had closed myself to Elspeth after her death, because to keep myself open to her would have been unbearable. I had abandoned the one place in which we might have continued to meet: the world that I had created for her and shared with her. I had turned my back on my own grief, to occupy myself obsessively – madly – with Mary Wilson’s instead. The dead child that had found a refuge in my head was not mine, but hers.
‘Well, old man?’ said Hubert, his eyes boggling anxiously as he studied my face for a reaction.
I looked away.
‘It’s hard, I know. Damned hard,’ he went on. ‘I’m sure you feel you’ve already been a good deal more accommodating than she had any right to expect. And, brother or no brother, I’d agree with you. Absolutely. Any sane man would.’ He hunched forward, clasped his hands over his knees, and began to massage them nervously. ‘So if the question should arise … Well, it’s bound to, isn’t it?’
‘Of what? A divorce?’
He gulped and nodded. ‘You’d need to talk to a lawyer, of course. But I don’t imagine … Given the circumstances …’
He stopped and shook his head. To my astonishment I saw his eyes were bright with tears.
‘It’s the most damnable thing,’ he went on, after a few seconds. ‘First poor little E., and now this.’ He levered himself up suddenly and held out his hand. ‘But we can still be pals, can’t we?’
‘Yes, of course.’
He could not speak, but, pressing his lips together, nodded his thanks.
‘Give me three days,’ I said, ‘and I’ll be gone.’
*
That night, I walked through the house, deciding what things I should take. I had expected it to be a maudlin experience; but all I felt, in the event, was a kind of wonderment that my life had ever been large enough to fill the place. Even a single room appeared too much, now, for what I had become. I could not find the tiniest trinket or keepsake that seemed to have the least connection with me any more. I was on the point of leaving again when I remembered something of Elspeth’s: the battered rag toy with uneven ears and a pearl-buttoned waistcoat that had evolved, over the course of a dozen bed-time stories, into the character of Alcuin Hare. I retrieved it from the nursery, and then fled back to the cabin, hobbled by the unnerving se
nse that I had undergone some Alice-in-Wonderland transformation, and that if I did not stop the process by removing myself to a world that fitted my new doll’s-house scale, I should shrivel away altogether.
In the morning, I telegraphed Jessop: May I, once again? A week, at most, I promise; and was reassured, three hours later, to receive the answer: As long as you like. C.J. But still, as I bustled about over the next couple of days, packing and writing letters, I could not escape the feeling that I was failing to cast off the ropes attaching me to my old self quickly enough, and that my existence, as a result, was continuing relentlessly to shrink. I found myself incapable of giving orders for meals, or deciding what clothes I should wear.
One morning, as I was flipping through the paper over breakfast, my eye was caught by a book review: The Serpent and the Dove, by Mr. Davey Riddick. I knew perfectly well I should feel something: surprise; curiosity; perhaps even a stab of envy. But it seemed like intelligence from Brobdingnag, that had no significance for a Lilliputian like myself, and I turned the page without so much as glancing at the thing.
And when Chieveley appeared the next day to announce that the king had died at Buckingham Palace, I struggled to make anything of the news at all.
‘Who did you say?’
‘The king, sir.’
I was conscious of the concern in his eyes, but could not think how to allay it.
‘Ah, poor old chap, eh?’ I said.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And poor old queen, too.’
As if to compensate for the numbness of my waking life, at night I was visited by a series of harrowingly intense dreams. In one, I was standing with Violet under the shade of a tree, looking out at a sun-yellowed savannah wavery with heat. Some way off, next to a dried-up pool, a lioness was devouring a zebra foal. As the little creature writhed and flailed piteously, Violet started to pummel me, shrieking Save her! Save her! I ran forward, shouting and waving a stick; and the lioness backed away, snarling. Throwing myself down, I scooped the zebra up in my arms, thanking God that I could still feel her pulse. But then she turned her black-striped face towards me, and I saw that the tongue was hanging half torn from the mouth, and the throat had been torn out, leaving only a jagged crater in her neck. She gazed wonderingly at me for a moment, as if she were trying to understand how I could have let this happen to her; and then her eyes filmed over, and I knew she was dead.
I woke feeling half-suffocated. For a moment I lay there, steadying my breathing, telling myself: it was only a dream, it was only a dream. And then, to my horror, I was aware of a familiar sound in my head, as sickeningly intrusive as a too-intimate touch from someone you scarcely know: the childish sobbing I had heard in the middle of the night in Cabourg.
And I knew instantly that he had dreamed the same dream I had, and finally understood that, when life has made her decision, however cruel it may seem, there is no appeal against it.
Ahunh-ahunh-ahunh.
‘Listen –’ I began.
What is going to happen to me?
‘I’ve no idea. But you can’t stay here.’
Ahunh-ahunh-ahunh.
‘Look, I’m at my wits’ end. I –’
Where can I go? You must find a place for me.
‘How can I?’
Ahunh-ahunh-ahunh.
I could not stand it any more. It was no longer in my power to try to console him. I clenched my jaw, and muttered:
‘I’m sorry, I’ve done what I can, but the game’s up. Now be quiet, so I can sleep.’
And immediately he was. For half an hour or so I lay there, listening to the echo of my own words in the silence, and wondering if I had been too harsh. And then, at last, I drifted off again, and dreamed I was on a tiny boat, and about to set sail for America.
*
On the fourth day, as good as my word, I was ready to leave. The operatic show of emotion required to bid a permanent farewell to the Chieveleys was far beyond me by that point; so I merely told them I did not know when I should be returning, and would write as soon as my plans were clearer. Then I got into the trap, and – without looking back – set off for the station.
By seven that evening, I was sitting in Jessop’s study, drinking whisky from a scuffed old tumbler, while he crouched by the grate, trying to coax a recalcitrant fire into life.
‘So,’ he murmured, ‘you’re quite over it, are you?’
‘What?’
‘Whatever it was that led to your precipitate departure from Derbyshire?’
‘Oh, yes, yes, thanks.’
‘That’s good.’ He began weighing an ash-log in each hand, trying to decide which would burn better. ‘And so now, what, you’re just having a bit of a holiday to recuperate, is that it?’
‘Not exactly. Violet and I, we’re …Well, we’ve separated.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.’ He chose the slenderer log and craned forward to put it on the fire, taking as much care to place it in exactly the right position as if he were playing spillikins. ‘Mary. Mary Wilson, was that her name? Been in touch with her at all, have you?’
‘Not since then.’
‘Ah.’
He went on tinkering with the fire. But I felt no desire to unburden myself, this time; so I ignored his unspoken invitation to elaborate, and merely said:
‘I’m hoping to take rooms somewhere by the sea. I was thinking of Lyme, perhaps.’
I knew he must have noticed my evasiveness, and interpreted it as a tacit admission that my marital difficulties were something to do with Mary Wilson. But I hadn’t the energy to disabuse him; and he was too tactful to press me. Instead, he sat back on his heels and said:
‘Well, in that case Mrs. Batty in Thrift Street’s your woman. It’s a queer old house, where you half expect to find a brandy-smuggler hiding from the Excisemen under the stairs. But quite comfortable, I believe, and pretty reasonable.’
Then he bent forward, and – thrusting his hand so far into the flames I thought he must burn his fingers – set about finessing the arrangement of the logs.
The next morning I took his advice, and went to see Mrs. Batty. Her house was not quite as romantic as Jessop had suggested; but it was quiet and clean, and when I told her what I wanted, she showed me up to a pleasant room on the first floor, with a big bay window overlooking the harbour, and a small bedroom behind. Its good-hearted simplicity seemed perfectly adapted to my reduced state: after days of flight, I could imagine finally taking my ground here. In the mornings, I should go to the library, and divert myself with some modest project or other; in the afternoons I should walk along the beach, picking my way through the fossilized remains of all those countless creatures that had lived and died to make the fast faster and the strong stronger, consoled by the sound of the sea; in the evenings, I should sit at home, reading; or find a cosy fishermen’s inn where I could drink by the fire, feeling the winter gradually thawing from my cheeks.
I quickly agreed terms, and told Mrs. Batty I would return that evening with my luggage. Then I hurried back to Jessop’s house to tell him the news.
He was in the barn, touching up the paintwork on the shafts of the caravan. As I came in, he picked up a package lying on the step and held it out to me.
‘Post,’ he said.
‘For me?’
He nodded. I took it. It had been redirected, first from my publishers to Oxfordshire, and then from Oxfordshire to Dorset. The original name and address had been written in a tight, strong hand-writing I did not recognize.
I opened the envelope, and found a sheaf of twenty or more pages, torn from an exercise book, and held together with a loop of black ribbon. I drew it out, and started to read.
XIX
109, Gipsy Hill, Lambeth
May 15, 1910
Dear Mr. Roper,
You will be surprised, I am sure, to receive this from me. I am surprised myself, to be writing it. I do not owe you – or anyone else – an explanation for my past actions, still les
s an apology; and it was quite inexcusable of you to ferret me out in that underhand way and try to hold me to account for them. Nonetheless, I have to admit that our encounter in French’s Meadow last week left me feeling strangely uneasy. I find myself constantly wondering how you found me, and what impression the search has given you of my character. A poor one, probably, since I have many enemies and few friends, and it must have been the enemies who led you to me. I know only too well the kinds of words they use to describe me: stiff-necked; obstinate; heartless; wicked; cruel.
I am quite indifferent to the opinion of the world in general, but the thought that you should believe those things of me is hard to bear. Reading your stories to my girls when they were young made me a girl again, too, admitting me, for the first time, to a world that is the birthright of more fortunate children. To know you think ill of me would poison it for me, cheating me – as I have been cheated of so much in my life – of the most truly innocent delight I have ever known. And that is something I am not prepared to allow to happen, if it is in my power to prevent it.
So I have decided to do what I have never done before, and
shall never do again: lay out a brief account of my early years, and the horror that overtook me when I was a young woman. Because I have no idea how much or how little you may know already, I shall tell you everything. When I have finished, you will see, I am certain, that – far from being the monster you imagine – I was the unwitting victim of a catastrophe that most women would not have survived.
I was born in 1852, at Tirhoot, in India, where my father had an indigo plantation. Three years later, life delivered the first of the many blows it had in store for me, by robbing me of my mother. I remember the suffocating silence, and everything in the house turning black, and my three-year-old self crying ‘Mama! Mama!’ and being told she had gone to heaven, and saying ‘then I want to go to heaven, too, to be with her.’
Soon afterwards, we returned to England, and the following year my father re-married. My step-mother was a hard, sour unsmiling woman with big bulging eyes that seemed to find fault with everything. From the very beginning she showed nothing but coldness and indifference to me and my sister and our two brothers. I thought she was a witch, who had put a spell on our mother, and – as soon as my father’s back was turned – would try to magic us all into animals. Once I found a toad on the doorstep, and thought it was my brother Edward, who had gone out riding for the day.