Consolation

by James Wilson

  Albert had promised faithfully to write to me at least twice a week; but at the end of a month or so the stream of letters from him dwindled to a trickle, and eventually dried up altogether. Not long afterwards, I received a furious broadside from my sister, to whom he must have treacherously given my address. In the course of five venomous pages, she called me a string of names I would blush to repeat, even now, and accused me of betraying her, and cold-heartedly ruining her family. I wrote back, reminding her of everything she had said to me, and protesting that all I had done – against my own inclinations – had been to please her. I had a four-line reply, which I can still remember, word for word: ‘You cannot have imagined that I meant such dreadful things, or that any wife who was not either mad or depraved could have viewed them with anything but utter abhorrence. I never wish to see or hear from you again.’

  I cannot deny that sometimes, in the middle of the night, as I heard the senseless noises of the animals next door, and felt the child growing remorselessly within me, bending and twisting my body to its blind will, I considered doing what so many poor women in that predicament have done before. It would not have been difficult; half a day’s walk would have taken me to the coast, and then it would simply have been a matter of weighing myself down with stones, struggling a few yards out into the sea, and letting the waves take me. But always, in the morning, the determination to fight on came flooding back to me. Whatever others might have done, I was not going to allow myself to be destroyed. Some day soon, the horror would be behind me; and then – though I still had no idea where I should go, or what I should do – I would recover every fragment I could from the wreck of my old life, and exert myself tirelessly to make a new one.

  One hot afternoon in June, when I was already so swollen that it was agony to move, Mme. Lamarthe told me I had a visitor. She led me in to the squalid little room that served as both kitchen and parlour, where, to my astonishment, I found my brother Henry standing in front of the fireplace. He seemed dreadfully ill at ease, and winced when he saw the all-too-evident change in me. But then he recovered himself, and said:

  ‘I can’t stay long. And we’ve a good deal to talk about.’

  ‘How on earth did you find me?’ I said.

  ‘Henrietta,’ he muttered, not looking me in the eye.

  ‘Dear God!’ I began. ‘I hope you didn’t believe what she told you –’

  ‘Don’t trouble to explain,’ he said, raising a hand to stop me. ‘The whole story’s come out. Crane’s a scoundrel, and there’s an end of it.’

  ‘Come out?’ I cried. ‘How?’

  ‘In court. She’s divorced him.’

  ‘What! Was I named?’

  He nodded. ‘Of course.’

  I toppled on to a chair, and was only stopped from slumping to the floor by Mme. Lamarthe, who, if she could not grasp the sense of what we were saying, clearly understood the tone.

  ‘At any rate, that’s all finished now,’ said Henry. ‘All that’s left is to try to mend matters as well as we’re able to.’

  I merely shook my head in despair. He reached out, and – gingerly, as if it were a duty he had to steel himself to perform – touched my shoulder.

  ‘Since the divorce case,’ he went on, ‘Crane has refused to accept any responsibility either for you or for the baby. The Studds have conspired to ruin him, he says, and the Studds can pay the price for it. So I’ve come back to see what I can do.’

  And he quickly sketched out the plan that he and Edward had devised between them to rescue me, and – as far as was still possible – save the honour of the family. When the child was born, it would be sent back to England, where a home would be found for it in some remote part of the country, either with a distant relative of my mother’s, or with a respectable farmer and his wife, who would be glad of a little extra money, and – in due course – another pair of hands. I, meanwhile, would return with Henry to London, where he would take lodgings for me, and then, when the moment was right, introduce me to a friend of his from India, a widower called Mr. Cooper, who had shown a lively and sympathetic interest in my case. Cooper was not a young man, nor a particularly wealthy one: after years in the Uncovenanted Civil Service, he had worked his way up to the rank Deputy Opium Agent, and was not expected to climb any higher. But he was kindness itself; and – while of course my brothers could not presume to speak for him – they thought it very probable, if we liked one another, that he would be prepared to marry me, and take me back to India with him. If he were, and I refused, then they would be forced to wash their hands of me altogether.

  I asked for twenty-four hours to consider his proposal. The next day, when he returned, I told him I would accept it, provided he would make one change: instead of coming back to England with us, the child must remain here in France.

  ‘Why?’ he said. ‘What difference does it make – especially when you are going to be in India?’

  ‘We don’t know that I shall be in India,’ I said. ‘We don’t know that Mr. Cooper will ask me to marry him. And I cannot bear the thought that it might come looking for me. Or that I could happen upon it by chance in the street.’

  ‘But if we leave it here, it will grow up French,’ he protested.

  ‘It may grow up a Chinaman, for all I care,’ I said. ‘Or not grow up at all.’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ he said. ‘The poor little thing will still be a member of the family, however disreputable, and it deserves some recognition of the fact. It’s not its fault, after all, that you –’

  ‘It’s not my fault, either!’ I screamed.

  He continued to argue; but when he realized how adamant I was, he began to relent, and eventually we reached a compromise: the child would stay with Mme. Lamarthe until it was three or four, and then an establishment would be provided for it in Paris, where it might receive an education more appropriate to its parents’ position in society. And, as a token, to preserve some thread of a connection to the family, he insisted on giving Adèle Lamarthe his prayer-book, instructing her to keep it until the infant was old enough to have it himself.

  A few weeks later, I finally went into labour. The pain was indescribable – and, to a man, I am sure, unimaginable; but it was tempered by great, gushing waves of relief that I should finally be rid of the monster that had invaded and all but destroyed me. When the doctor, whose French, mercifully, I could understand, told me it was a girl and asked if I wanted to see her, I rammed my fingers into my eyes. To see that, the bawling, stinking incarnation of heartlessness, of deceit and bad faith, would, I knew, have killed me.

  My subsequent life, as you will have deduced, has more or less followed the path laid out for it by my brothers: Mr. Cooper did take pity on me, and I did go to India with him; and since his retirement we have lived modestly and quietly in Gipsy Hill. It is a testimony to his goodness that, soon after we were married, at his own suggestion, he became the child’s guardian; and when we returned to England, he prevailed on me to allow her to be moved from Paris to a school on the South Coast, on condition that he never revealed my identity or our address to the old spinsters who owned the place, so that she should not be able to find me. But I have never deviated from the belief that to see her or speak to her would be a sentence of death to me. That is why I told you, in French’s Meadow, that what you wanted me to do was impossible.

  I am not her mother, for a mother gives life freely, and she took it from me by force. But I will, nonetheless, end by offering her one piece of advice, if you care to pass it on to her: that she should stop snivelling at the injustices she has suffered, and make the best of what she has, as I have. I was robbed of almost everything; but that did not stop my being a dutiful wife, and a respectable member of society, and bearing four children of my own, and giving them the love I never knew as a child myself.

  Yours sincerely,

  Emily Cooper

  XX

  On a hot afternoon at the end of May, I arrived back in Derbyshire. For nearly a w
eek – sitting at breakfast in the window of my room in Mrs. Batty’s house, or walking along the undercliff, desultorily looking for fossils – I had been debating whether or not I should come, and on more than one occasion I had almost persuaded myself that I shouldn’t. I had already decided, after all, not to tell Mary Wilson that her mother still refused to see her, and the letter – for all the additional information it gave – did not alter that essential fact. Indeed, it re-iterated it so brutally that it could only leave her feeling more utterly rejected than ever.

  And yet, and yet … It was her history; and to keep it from her – try as I might to put a different gloss on it – seemed like a kind of theft. She had the right at least to know that it existed, and to choose for herself whether or not she should read it. I tried composing a covering letter, explaining how I had come by it and warning her of what it contained; but after half an hour or so I gave up, realizing that I did not have her address – and that, in any case, however carefully I attempted to soften the blow, it would be a horrible shock for her to receive the thing in the post. The only humane course, I saw, would be to take it to her in person.

  Though the idea of it filled me with dread, once I had finally taken the decision I felt curiously liberated. On the way there, I kept drifting off to sleep, and finding myself in the world of my half-formed caravan story – as if, in facing up to doing my duty, I had somehow licensed my imagination to begin working again. So powerful was this dream-reality that, even when I was awake, a ghostly image of woods and animals and streams seemed to remain at the edge of my consciousness, tempting me to return to it and make it concrete. By the time we reached Derby, there was a kind of tremulous, electric lightness in my limbs that I had despaired of ever feeling again. I did not want to examine it too closely, for fear it would simply evaporate. But I promised myself that – whatever the upshot of my meeting with Mary Wilson – when I got back to Lyme Regis I would take out my notes, and see whether, after all, something might be done with them.

  As we drew in to Langley Mill, I saw a little local train standing at the next platform, and heard the guard shouting that it was for Heanor and all stations to Butterly. To spare myself labouring up the hill on foot and arriving in a sweat, on an impulse I scrambled on board, and spent most of the six-minute journey with my head out of the window, enjoying the cool bluster of smoky air against my face. When I ducked inside again to gather up my things, the pleasant-looking woman sitting opposite gave me a droll smile, and dabbed her cheek with her finger.

  ‘You might want to know’, she said, ‘that you’ve got a big smudge of soot here.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I rubbed it with my handkerchief. ‘Is that better?’

  Her smile deepened, half-closing her eyes. ‘Much better.’

  ‘Glad to hear it. It’d be no good calling on a Sunday School teacher looking like a minstrel, would it?’

  She laughed. ‘Which Sunday School teacher is that?’

  ‘Mrs. Wilson.’

  ‘The new curate’s wife?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Why, then looking like a minstrel would be just the thing. Her husband’s mad keen on amateur theatricals. Never happier than when he’s wearing some silly costume, or decked out in a false beard and a wig.’

  She laughed again. Her expression was so friendly and free of guile that I decided to press my advantage.

  ‘Well, that’s good,’ I said, patting my breast pocket, and then pulling my face into a dumb-show of dismay.

  ‘Have you lost something?’

  ‘The address.’ I frowned into the empty pocket and shook my head. ‘I could have sworn I had it here. But it seems to have slipped out somehow.’

  ‘Oh, that’s easy,’ she said, getting up, and retrieving her hat from the rack. ‘They’re just round the corner from where I live. Come on, I’ll show you.’

  I was worried that on the way she might try to prise from me how I knew Mary Wilson, or what my business with her was; but she merely chattered happily about nothing very much at all until we reached the entrance to a street of nondescript little semi-detached villas.

  ‘There,’ she said. ‘That’s their house. Number three.’

  There was a strong chance, I knew, that the curate would be at home; and for a few minutes I lingered on the corner, hoping that if I waited long enough Mary Wilson would eventually emerge on her own, saving me from the need to explain my presence there to her husband. But when I heard the church clock striking three I suddenly decided I had spent too much time lurking outside other people’s houses. I should go to the door, and ask for Mrs. Wilson. If Mr. Wilson was there, then so be it. I would simply tell him the truth: that I had something of importance to discuss with his wife.

  I walked up the short path and rang the bell. It was answered by a flustered, red-faced girl who held the door open with her foot while she hastily finished taking off her apron.

  ‘Is your mistress in?’ I asked.

  She glanced down the hall behind her. ‘I’ll just go and see, sir. What name shall I say?’

  ‘Corley Roper.’

  While she was gone, I stood fidgeting in the stuffy hall, half expecting the curate to appear at any second, and rehearsing what I should say to him if he did. But then I heard a woman’s footsteps approaching, and a moment later a door opened at the back of the house, and Mary Wilson hurried into the hall. I feared that she might be angry with me for calling on her at home, and so – as she would almost certainly see it, if she were in a suspicious mood – compromising her reputation. But as soon as she caught sight of me she stopped, and gave a little shiver of excitement.

  ‘I hope you will forgive my intruding like this,’ I said.

  She dismissed my apology with a shake of the head, then suddenly darted towards me. For one giddy instant I thought she might be going to embrace me; but instead she rushed past, opened the front door, and peered up and down the street.

  ‘Where is it?’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The caravan.’

  ‘Oh, I took the train this time.’

  ‘Ah.’ Her shoulders drooped, and she gazed sadly across the rooftops on the other side of the road. But then she recovered herself, and – turning towards me – said:

  ‘I knew you’d come back, anyway.’

  ‘Did you? How?’

  She shrugged. ‘Because I’ve discovered your secret. And I know now I was right. You really were an angel sent to help me.’

  Somehow, she must have caught wind of what I had been doing. But who could have betrayed me to her? Any one of a number of people, now I came to think about it: Miss Robinson; C. T. Studd; even old Mr. Cooper, if his wife had confided in him.

  ‘Not a very effective angel, unfortunately,’ I said.

  She shook her head, smiling, then reached out impulsively and touched my lapel. The awful thought struck me that perhaps Miss Robinson had been right, and the poor woman had been dazzled by my quixotic efforts on her behalf into imagining I was in love with her, and she with me.

  ‘Please,’ I said, taking a step back. ‘You mustn’t turn me into something I’m not. I won’t deny I meant well, in my clumsy way. But the truth is that the whole thing’s been a ghastly failure, I’m afraid.’

  ‘No, it hasn’t. I can vouch for that.’ There was a brightness in her eyes I had not seen before, and her heart-shaped face was tinged with colour. ‘Look, why don’t we go outside? That’s where I’ve been. It’s lovely.’

  ‘I really don’t want to disturb you. Or your husband. But –’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about him,’ she said, starting back along the hall. ‘He isn’t here. He’s gone to see a parishioner.’

  I followed her into a little dining-room still fuggy with the smell of lunch, and out through french windows into the garden. Two chairs and a table were arranged at the edge of the narrow lawn, in the dappled shade of a cherry tree.

  ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Sit down.’

  I settled myself
opposite her. Between us lay the remains of her siesta: an empty coffee-cup and an open book, the pages pinioned by a huge shell. I leaned down and took Emily Cooper’s letter from my bag. I meant merely to slip it surreptitiously on to my knee, so it would be to hand when the moment seemed right to produce it; but I was not deft enough, and – like a child spotting her present on Christmas Eve – Mary Wilson saw it, and cried out:

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Oh, just something I thought you might be interested in.’

  ‘A story?’

  ‘Well, in a manner of speaking, I suppose.’

  She smiled. ‘In a manner of speaking? Surely, either it is or it isn’t?’

  I hesitated, not sure how to reply. Finally, I muttered: ‘Very well, then, it is. But not in the usual sense. Let’s say it’s your story.’

  She flushed. ‘You mean you wrote it for me?’

  I was completely nonplussed now. I opened my mouth, then shut it again. She laughed.

  ‘You can’t imagine how I found out, can you?’ she said. ‘Well, I have to say, it was an accident, really. Over the Easter holidays, my brother-in-law, Jimmy, came to see us. He’s just started working at a prep school in Surrey, and one evening at dinner he told us an anecdote about one of the boys in his form, who’d been reading under his desk when he should have been paying attention to the Norman Conquest. Jimmy confiscated the book, but then didn’t have the heart to keep it – because, as he said, it turned out it was one of my favourites, too, when I was a kid, and I knew how much the poor little fellow would miss it. And Chris – my husband – said: Why, what was it? And Jimmy said: The Mists of Time. And Chris said, What, by Corley Roper? And Jimmy nodded, and said: That’s right. My, what I wouldn’t give to be able to write a yarn like that one day! He’s an author himself, you see. Or means to be – he’s only twenty-two. But he’s had a few poems and stories published already.’

  I felt the heat climbing my neck, and a pool starting to form in the small of my back.