Birdcage Walk

by Helen Dunmore

  ‘Did they not think it strange that a man who had paid his fare to York should get off the mail so soon?’

  ‘He said he was ill with a putrid sore throat. He was muffled to the eyes and spoke hoarsely, so I dare say they were glad to get rid of him.’

  ‘But what can it have cost? Mail to York, and then to Bristol? He must be a rich man.’ Such extravagance was a rare thing in our company. If we had to travel farther than we could walk, we chose the slowest and cheapest conveyance.

  ‘He has many friends, amongst whom I am proud to count myself,’ said Augustus in his best style. I smiled to myself: there was no one in the room besides myself to admire his phrases.

  ‘I have never heard you speak his name before today. I have never heard you read from his poems.’

  ‘Lizzie,’ he said, with the air of one who has long ago uncovered a secret, ‘you are not fond of poetry.’

  It was true that I was not fond of poetry when Augustus read it aloud to us.

  ‘So tell me, Augustus. Why was I to be kept in the dark? Do you think I would blab?’

  Augustus gazed at me. He did not resemble a sheep at that moment: it was a long, truthful, penetrating gaze. ‘You mock me, Lizzie,’ he said at last. ‘How am I to know what you truly believe? You are married to a man who thinks of little but money, property and advancement. You cannot help it. You are part of him. You become like him.’

  ‘I am myself, Augustus. I am not a thing to be passed from hand to hand. Have you forgotten that I am my mother’s daughter?’

  Augustus stared at me. ‘Why, Lizzie—’

  ‘And besides, Diner does more than think. He acts. He makes his mark. He wants to build rather than to destroy. Is that so very wrong?’

  Augustus looked at his knuckles. ‘Julia always insisted that you were the same as you had ever been, and nothing would change you.’ He paused, as if unwilling to continue; then he looked at me and said: ‘But I see changes.’

  It pierced me, to think of Mammie and Augustus discussing me. She had defended me as if I needed defending. I wanted to slam Augustus’s argument back in his teeth but I could not. Diner was no friend to radicalism. He feared and detested it. It might be part of my history but he only humoured it as a quirk of my upbringing which would be smoothed out now that I was married to him and knew better. He was sure, he said, that I was no true radical. I was like an English child who had grown up speaking German because she lived in Germany. But as soon as she came home the language would fall away from her like the shell from a ripe chestnut.

  Diner always treated Mammie with respect, was polite but reticent with Hannah and Augustus, and never wished to meet any of their friends. Only when he was alone with me did he blaze out against the ruin he believed that radicalism would bring. And where was I? Caught somewhere between them all, perhaps … And I was lazy. I knew it. I rarely wanted to think my thoughts to their conclusions.

  Augustus was right: I did mock him, and I never mocked Diner.

  ‘I am bound to change,’ I said. ‘I am not the child I was when you came to live with us.’

  ‘He builds houses,’ said Augustus. ‘But we wish to build a society free from oppression, want and misery.’

  I could not bring myself to argue any more. A deep weariness had overtaken me. It seemed as if every word we spoke was like mud, clodding our boots, sucking us deep into the mire.

  ‘I believe in the truth of your intentions, Augustus,’ I said.

  ‘Thank you, Lizzie,’ he said quietly, and then was silent for a while. I longed to leave. I wanted to go back to the house, scoop Thomas out of his cradle and walk with the soft damp weight of him in my arms, up and down the room until all my thoughts had dissolved. But I would go back to Diner, and he would ask where I had been. What would I say if he asked how I came by the mark on my face?

  Augustus had not yet finished. He stood with bowed head and hands clasped behind his back, in the way that had brought out in Mammie a certain smile I could not remember without pain, it was so humorous, so tender. She had loved him and I had never wanted her to love him. My heart was always swollen with jealousy. I was so used to this condition that I did not believe anything else was possible.

  ‘Your mother was a very remarkable woman,’ he said at last.

  I could not reply. He angered me too much. I could not bear it that he spoke of her in the past tense, as if her life were something finished and agreed upon. It was not finished. She had been torn out of her life. She had wanted to live. If she had not become pregnant—

  But then there would be no Thomas, and it was his existence that held me now. The bubbles of milk at his mouth. The way he would smile, open-mouthed, and his head would wobble as his eyes followed me around the room. I was a miser and Thomas was my treasure; mine, although Augustus had a right to him. I would never give Thomas up.

  Augustus did not seem troubled by my silence. He went on: ‘You cannot imagine, Lizzie, what it must have been for your mother to leave everything behind and live as she did. What a fire burned through her!’

  ‘It is you who cannot imagine,’ I answered him. ‘You talk about fire. You stand at the blaze and marvel as you warm your hands. But that fire was my hearth, Augustus, from the day I was born. I knew nothing else. I was not introduced to any other way of thinking, until I met Diner. You say that he thinks of little but property, money and advancement. You are mistaken. You and he are a pair, although you will never see it. Diner dismisses you. He says you are impractical in your ideas and ineffectual in your acts. You reduce him. You claim his only motive is a pocketful of gold. You are both convinced, and you are both mistaken. I am so tired of conviction, Augustus. I wish that you would allow yourself a little uncertainty.’

  ‘Why, Lizzie,’ he exclaimed. ‘Lizzie!’ I could not tell if he was reproving me, or was again surprised that I should speak to him so directly. For once I had said what I meant. And when he continued it was not what I expected. ‘I have never heard you say so much to me before,’ he said, almost as if it pleased him.

  ‘There is too much talking. You are all forever talking. When you are not writing, that is.’

  ‘Where would the world be, if we did not communicate?’

  He looked as if he would like to settle to an argument, so I said quickly, ‘It is not my business. I am not talking about the world. But all these words! All these reams of paper! What does it achieve?’

  ‘I hope you will never scorn your mother’s writing.’

  ‘I will never read it,’ I said. I had flown beyond myself now, and was talking to him as if we were naked before the angels. ‘I will never read it, because I cannot bear to hear her voice trapped in those pamphlets when her body is coffined six feet deep.’

  ‘You must not think like that, Lizzie,’ said Augustus, and he made a movement towards me, quick and warm. He almost took my hand and then we both collected ourselves. ‘You must never think of her in such a way.’

  I had never heard him speak in that tone to me before. It was possible – I knew nothing about it – but it was possible that this was how a father might speak to his child.

  ‘She is alive in you,’ said Augustus, and I thought he looked at me fixedly, as if he almost saw my mother there. ‘She is alive in all of us. Her memory—’

  Memory. What was that to set against the worms? I sighed. I had not meant to sigh so deep, but my body betrayed me.

  ‘You may be sure that I shall say nothing of Mr Forrest,’ I said as I left the room.

  It was full daylight as I walked home and the streets were busy. Diner would be up and out. He would have missed me and been angry at my absence, but I would have until evening to think what to say to him.

  Or so I thought, until I rounded a corner and almost collided with him. He took me by the upper arms. If I had pulled away I think it would have hurt me, but I did not move. I said, ‘I am glad to see you. Hannah sent for me because she was unwell, and I am just on my way back to the house.’

&n
bsp; ‘Why do you say “to the house”?’ he asked me, frowning. ‘Why do you not say: I am on my way home?’

  ‘It was only a matter of words,’ I said. ‘It has no significance.’

  ‘Words always have significance. You should know that. Hannah is old and her ailments will increase. You cannot go running to her whenever she calls on you.’

  ‘She has done so much for me.’

  ‘And what have I done for you, Lizzie?’

  ‘You are holding me too tight,’ I said.

  He stared at his hands as if he had not realised that they were gripping my arms, and we were standing in a public street. He released me. I wanted to rub the place where his fingers had bruised me, but I would not do so. I thought of Thomas in his cradle in the attic.

  ‘Everything,’ I said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You have done everything for me.’

  ‘And yet it is not enough for you. You go running to Hannah as if—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No matter,’ he said, and I saw how angry he was. He was jealous of Hannah, a sick old woman, because she held a small part of my affections. He had not seen Will Forrest crawl out from under my mother’s bed and smile as if we were two conspirators. If he knew of that – but he never would—

  ‘Let us go home then,’ I said.

  He shook his head. ‘I have business in Corn Street.’ Even I knew what that meant. He needed to raise more money. The backing that he had was not enough unless the houses sold quickly. ‘You understand me, Lizzie?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘It is this damned uncertainty!’ he burst out. ‘There is no reason in it. It is uncertainty which is killing the market. If there is war with France – no one knows, and so no one will act. Forsyth withdrew his interest this morning.’

  Mr Forsyth’s interest had not been very welcome at first. He wanted to buy a pair of houses at the price of one and a half. It was speculation and it would rob Diner of almost all his profit. But it would cover costs. I had rarely seen Diner so angry as he was the evening he decided that he must accept the terms. And now even that fish had slipped out of the net.

  ‘I am sorry,’ I said.

  He looked at me closely. ‘Yes, I believe you are,’ he said. ‘You have dirt on your face, Lizzie.’ He rubbed my cheek with his finger. ‘What’s this? It will not come off.’

  ‘I bumped into the chest in the dark.’

  ‘Poor Lizzie.’ He fingered the bruise. ‘Let us go home.’

  A woman who was hurrying past stopped suddenly, looked at Diner and then looked again. She hesitated. Diner could not see her, for she was behind him. She reached out and plucked at his sleeve.

  ‘Mr Tredevant, sir.’

  He felt her touch and swung round. ‘What is it?’

  ‘You don’t know me, sir, but I’m a dressmaker at Jacob’s Well. Everyone around there knows me: Mrs Iles is my name. I made a dress for your wife.’

  He looked at me. ‘What is all this, Lizzie?’

  ‘I mean, for Mrs Tredevant. The grey silk.’

  My stomach clenched. Lucie, she meant. Lucie had ordered the dress.

  ‘And then she died, sir, and she never had it.’

  I felt rather than saw the shock go through Diner as he grasped her meaning. He drew in his breath sharply but when he spoke he was perfectly rational: ‘Do you want money?’

  ‘No, sir, she brought the silk to me and when the dress was made I sent her a bill for my work and she paid that too. A girl came with the money but she wouldn’t take the bill back again although I signed it. Your wife never had the dress. I had no direction for her, you see, sir, or I would have sent it. You may ask anyone for my character. And then I heard that she was dead in France and you had moved. I put the dress away.’

  ‘You could have found my direction. I am well enough known in the city,’ said Diner. There was no expression in his voice.

  ‘I kept the dress very safe, sir. It has been more and more on my mind that you ought to have it. I made enquiries and got a description of you, and I have been looking out ever since.’

  I believed what she said. Mrs Iles was a small creature, fastidious in her dress but pale and blinking with overwork. She must be honest. She could easily have sold the dress and said nothing. ‘You must take it, sir. I live at Jacob’s Well. You may come for it now if you choose.’

  Diner had turned away and was already striding down the street. His feelings must have overpowered him. Mrs Iles looked after him, and then at me. I should go. I should leave this, but I could not. It was Lucie’s dress and I must see it.

  ‘I will come,’ I said quickly. ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘Beside the surgeon’s. I have a room on the top floor.’

  I nodded and hurried after Diner.

  15

  I did not go for the dress that day, nor for many days after although the thought of it possessed me. Diner never spoke of the conversation with Mrs Iles, and I was busy with Thomas, who had developed a fever and would not take his food.

  ‘It’s his teeth,’ Philo kept saying, but I did not believe her. I asked Mr Orchard for his advice, and he gave me a draught which put Thomas to sleep for eight hours. He lay still and hot and flushed and it frightened me because he was so unlike himself. I never gave him laudanum again. I thought he would be safer awake and crying. Instead I bathed his arms and temples with tepid water, as Hannah used to do for me when I had a fever, and walked him up and down to soothe him. He was not so very ill, but it was enough to alarm me. His head flopped on to my shoulder and he cried whenever I put him down. That night I did not go to bed.

  ‘Augustus can have his child back now, if he is going to cause you so much trouble,’ said Diner.

  ‘It’s no trouble. He will be better in the morning.’

  I sat with the baby in the kitchen, by a low fire, and thought of the grey dress and the woman who had never worn it. It would have been shaped to her body and would fit no other. It was of no use to anyone now. Still, I wanted to have it. To spread it out, and see what her shape had been. If Diner found out, I would say that silk was valuable and I did not want to waste it.

  The dressmaker was the first person I had met who had known Lucie, apart from Diner himself. I longed to talk to her. It was unjustifiable, of course. Mammie would have been ashamed to see me spy on my own husband. She would never have stooped to such a thing.

  I had two secrets now: the dress, and Will Forrest. Thomas stirred and mewed in his sleep. ‘Hush,’ I said, shifting his weight, feeling his forehead and the back of his neck. I thought he was a little cooler. ‘Hush, hush, my darling.’

  He was all mine in the sleeping house. A baby might die so easily, between one day and the next. Thomas must be watched closely. He must not think of escaping us.

  Yes, he was a little cooler. He was sucking in his sleep. He must be thirsty, I thought, and I dipped my finger into the pitcher of water at my side and held it to his lips. He sucked, and I gave him more. There was one candle burning, and by its light I saw his eyes open a little and search for me. There I was. His face blossomed; he smiled.

  ‘Here I am,’ I said to him. ‘Go back to sleep now. You’re getting better, Thomas. Soon you’ll be quite well again. Hush now, hush, go to sleep.’

  One day, I thought, Diner and I will have a child. Diner might say what he liked now about wanting me alone, but the time would come. The thought of it disturbed me. It seemed disloyal to Thomas and I did not want him to guess that I had any idea of another child. I could not imagine what this other baby might be like. I could see only Thomas.

  Five days later the baby was perfectly well and eating more strongly than ever. Philo complained that he had scarcely finished one feed before he was screaming for another. He was making up for what he’d missed, and neither of us minded the work. Philo ran for extra milk: the goat was kept in a shed now that it was winter.

  ‘I shall take Thomas out tomorrow,’ I said. ‘The air
will do him good. It has turned so much milder. You wouldn’t believe it was close to Christmas.’

  ‘A green Christmas means a full churchyard,’ said Philo, and then caught herself. ‘What am I saying?’

  ‘He’ll be perfectly warm wrapped in my shawl.’

  It was one of those days when December is like spring. There was no breath of wind and the sun was soft. There was even a babble of birdsong as I went down the footpath past the Lower Crescent and eastward to Jacob’s Well through the green fields. Smoke hung over the city. The tide was out and boats lay keeled on the mud. Beyond, the hills shone. They looked like a land of magic, although I knew that if I walked that far they would dissolve into ordinary plough and pasture.

  I had borrowed Philo’s shawl and tied Thomas into it. Diner would not like me going out in shawl and pattens like a servant girl, but I would be home long before he returned. No one took notice of me, dressed as I was. I might cross the city from end to end, as long as I looked out for myself. Diner had gone to Corn Street again and after that he had work to do at Grace’s Buildings.

  I might sell the silk and give him the money without saying where I’d got it. Or else I could use it to buy things for Thomas. Lucie would not mind that.

  I walked along the footpaths, fast and free, and no one troubled me.

  I had to ask for the surgeon’s house. It was a mean place, and the house beside it was meaner still. The windows were so narrow that I wondered how she could see to sew in there. But I lifted the knocker and let it fall.

  ‘You’ll need to knock louder than that, my lover,’ said a young man carrying a ladder, ‘if it’s Mrs Iles you want. She’s right up top.’

  I banged the knocker down, stepped back and saw a face come to the window. It was the dressmaker.

  She had her chair arranged so that every drop of light from the window would fall on her work.

  ‘I suppose you spend a great deal on candles,’ I said.

  ‘They are expensive.’

  Her work was laid on the table before her: dark green woollen stuff – for a child’s dress, I thought. I drew back the shawl from Thomas’s head and she came close and peeped at him.