Awakening

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Awakening Page 17

by Stevie Davies


  A wing of smoke-grey cloud stretches above the dawning sun; Anna watches the wing catch fire and burn in a rapture of light. Crepuscular rays beam into the blue, fingers of a bodiless hand. The crust creaks beneath her boots. Nothing can either ripen or decay in such cold. Chill comes sneaking into coat cuffs and collars; intrudes beneath petticoats. Anna feels exposed to insult and abuse. Anyone may open her door now. Any professional gentleman is free to rifle round her intimate spaces. Beatrice has taken away with her all the locks and all the keys.

  Where to turn for safety? The vast machine of the world goes throbbing on according to its own laws, darkly obscure, godforsaken.

  Which leaves what? No pieties, Anna thinks, only the decencies: to live as kindly as one is able, in the expectation that there’s no life beyond this life. No divine plan. No heaven or hell. No safety because we are reliant on madmen and liars for protection. Women, she has heard, can be picked up in the streets near army garrisons and inspected for venereal disease: anyone so arrested is deemed a common prostitute and kept in a Lock Hospital until cured. In case we infect our masters with our pollution and our hysteria. Who will cure our keepers? A woman had better disguise her sanity and keep her own truth hidden in her breast. Better be cunning as a serpent.

  A plan begins to suggest itself. The only way out.

  Anna’s saturated skirt’s a dead weight in her hands; her muscles burn as she wrings it out and drapes it on the fender. Outside dense snow begins again; Anna will stay close to the fire for the rest of the day. And sew; yes, she will sew. And be seasonally merry in a composed, sensible way. The skirt steams. The luscious scent of roasting goose fat percolates through the house and mingles with strong coffee.

  Anna dips a cinnamon biscuit in coffee and sucks the liquid warmth into her mouth. It can be done. It’s the choice of the least of evils.

  *

  Locked in her bedroom, Anna has excused herself from entertaining company by dedicating her energies to the construction of fancy presents for her nearest and dearest. A treat-factory: no peeking! In this way she can be secure against ambush. But Quarles is ill, Amy says as she delivers a breakfast tray: a hacking cough keeps him from his rounds and his cook reckons he’s a right old gawpus of a patient, thinks he’s dying and gives Mrs Quarles no end of fuss with his complaints. Oh, what a shame, Anna says, thinking: for Mrs Quarles. As Christmas Day nears, Anna allows herself to emerge. Keeping close to her brother, she visits the chapel poor with gifts of food and money.

  Yet again there’s no room at the inn. Mary undergoes her annual birth pangs and readies herself to deliver the usual promising boy. Ox and ass admire. Carol singers of five denominations tramp the slushy streets of Chauntsey and are rewarded with figs, dates and farthings. Despite herself, Anna is moved; her own trustful childhood visits her, lightly tapping on the heart’s door.

  Anna greets her guests on Christmas Day dressed in her grey silk gown, with a brilliant red sash around the waist; her hair, gathered into a clasp at the crown of her head, falls in a shine of dark curls down her back. Transformed from Miss Anna into Miss Pentecost, acting head of household, Anna holds herself composed and erect. On her guard. The word hysteria will never again occur to any observer. The table groans with good things. Anna has manufactured winter logs for the dinner table: logs containing sugared almond bonbons wrapped in twists of bright paper, on which she has drawn individual Christmas pictures. For Joss a hearty Saint Nicholas sucking a Meerschaum pipe. For Mr Elias an angel with a trumpet. For Jack and Tom Elias, a jolly Santa with the head of a plum pudding. In each log there’s a fragment of verse of Anna’s own composition, together with a motto and a riddle.

  Grace is said. Joss carves the goose. The fire roars. Candles flicker on the mantelpiece, hung with nuts, sweets and tiny bags of fruit. Mistletoe hangs over the door. There’s a hubbub of conversation. Everything is as it should be.

  ‘To absent friends!’ Glasses clink. ‘Merry Christmas to Herr and Frau Ritter! Fröhliche Weihnachten to them!’

  There’s a lull before the plum pudding. Anna gives permission for all to open their Christmas logs.

  ‘Oh how charming! Anna, you have been a busy bee! What clever fingers you have!’

  Anna smiles round cordially. ‘I enjoyed making them for you.’

  Mr Anwyl’s sermon this morning was rather fine. For one thing, it was short. His words were suffused with a searching sadness as he reflected upon the loneliness of the Christ child in his cold crib, under the shadow, even in his innocence, of the tragic Cross to come. Only thirty-three years would be granted God’s son on this earth. Our joy must always be shot through with pain and loss. This is what it is to be human.

  ‘Whatever’s this?’ Will holds between finger and thumb a miniature scroll tied with a thread of yellow embroidery silk. Anna has painted the page with a margin of gold leaf.

  ‘Well, it’s a riddle,’ Anna smiles with her eyes. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be rather good at riddles, Will? Anyway it’s specially for you. Can you guess it? There’s a prize for guessing.’

  Sliding off the thread, he unrolls the message and reads the words, ‘I. WILL.’ He studies them with a frowning smile; glances sidelong at Anna. Reaching for the carafe of wine, she brings the neck of the bottle to the lip of his glass, then hers.

  ‘Now then, what do you call a collection of Baptist ministers?’ Mr Elias wonders. He’s shaking his log to see if it holds any further treats. ‘A convocation of eagles. An exaltation of larks. So – a … what?… fraternity of Baptists?’

  ‘An unction? A squabble? A derision? A cackle? ’

  ‘A glory of Baptists, surely,’ says Mr Elias.

  The plum pudding advances, burning blue and green. Amy’s face, behind the platter, is visited by a fugitive blue light. Joss bounds to help her, inclines towards her and whispers. Jack Elias, pounding a spoon on the table, hurrahs. The eaters, having previously assured one another they couldn’t manage one more thing, fetch deep breaths. There might just be room for a morsel. In the candlelight, Will’s eyes are bright with charmed surprise. He gazes at Anna, who neither blushes nor drops her gaze. It’s her only real chance of safety. Her silk gown spills liquid light in its folds as she breathes.

  ‘Yes, Anna, I will. I will. Truly I will. But – cariad – will you?’ whispers her neighbour, head bowed close to hers, lifting her hand from her lap, turning it over between both of his, lacing his fingers with hers but gently, ready to disentangle them if he senses a rebuff. ‘Can you be serious? It’s not a joke or a game?’

  ‘The most serious and solemn thing in the whole world. I will, Will, if you will. After all, what else is left to us? And we suit one another down to the ground for we both have feet of clay.’

  Chapter 13

  Why, Beatrice wonders, does the memory of a stuck pig arise in her mind? Old Bertha as a piglet was a pet to the Pentecosts, trotting round behind them – so droll – like a puppy. And she farrowed year by year, rows of blind mouths rooting at her teats. Never squeamish, Beatrice had always unsentimentally trusted the pig-sticker to despatch his duties with merciful effectiveness. Bertha was different, screaming like a baby as the blood pooled into a bowl, betrayal in her eyes.

  Defloration is a performance Beatrice seems to observe from above, hovering somewhere near the ceiling. How can this coupling be thought of as creating one flesh? The prodding of her husband’s member against the hymen; the scramble of slick fingers that come to aid penetration and thrill her with a moment’s surprising pleasure, before they force a passage and the pleasure dies. The rubbing to and fro; the rasp of the bridegroom’s breathing; a stifled grunt; his uncoupling from her, letting in a chill to her hurt tissues; the trickling moisture between her legs.

  She has never felt as single.

  And ashamed: Christian waited all those years for this?

  But her husband is not insensitive to her wincing shock. When the work is done, Christian fends off sleep, clasping her head against his chest, lu
llabying her with fond words. By and by, warmth engulfs Beatrice; she dips into dreams of that other man with whom she might have shared a marriage bed, save that Herr Ritter caught her on his knee and claimed her.

  When Beatrice awakens, her husband is gone. The first day of their honeymoon – a working honeymoon, beginning here in Leominster – has begun. His nightshirt’s folded on his pillow; his comb bisects his brush on the dressing table. Sitting up carefully, Beatrice pushes off the heavy covers, twisting round to see that blood soils nightgown and sheet. What to do about such shameful stains, in a strange house? The place between her legs is raw; her lips and cheeks are chafed by Christian’s bristles. A stuck pig. Her breasts tingle, not pleasantly. Beatrice rises, washes and dresses. Brushing her hair and tying it up with a violet ribbon, she strips the bed, folding the sheets so as to hide the stains.

  ‘It will get better,’ he promised. ‘It will hurt less and less. Soon our relations will give you pleasure, darling, I hope. For now, yours is the sacrifice to our love.’

  Beatrice hesitates on the stairs, hearing the murmur of conversation. The married ones will be knowing; the unmarried curious. Pondering the bloodied sheet, the maid will smirk. But I am Mrs Beatrice Ritter, she thinks, bracing herself. Miss Pentecost is extinct. I’ve put on the new woman and put off the old. For years Beatrice has been an ageing maiden in quest of a playfellow, flirting with suitors, enjoying an increasingly sterile sense of mastery, conscious of slow blight spreading through her being. Smiling with teeth that are growing discoloured.

  Godly and familial love embraces Mrs Ritter as she enters the warm kitchen where her hosts sit informally round a deal table with a splendid fire. Her husband gives Beatrice his seat, brushing her hand tenderly in passing. Martha and Tabitha Jones, the servants of the house, staunch Baptists, are treated as near-equals by their employers and take their places at table with the rest. Talk is all of Awakening. Sparks are kindling the villages and market towns of mid-Wales and the Marches. Liverpool is on fire. Christian is spoken of as a leading light. Beatrice, breakfasting on kedgeree and hot spiced rolls, listens as Christian speaks of his time in Jamaica as a very young man with the great anti-slavery pastor, Mr Knibb; the present war in America; his hero and, he likes to feel, his friend, Henry Ward Beecher.

  How could she not choose such a towering spirit over the jester?

  I shall learn to love you, Christian, Beatrice thinks as the train rides through the snowy countryside towards the mediaeval town of Shrewsbury, with its centuries of Baptist witness. I don’t love you yet. But I’m learning. A plume of smoke rides beside the train; the coach’s rhythm lulls her tension. She’s impressed by Christian’s ministry. Her husband often speaks three times a day, without notes, for an hour together. He can make each auditor feel that the message is just for himself or herself, especially, apparently, herself, for ladies and young girls cluster round him effusively after a service. It’s a novelty for Beatrice to have nothing to do but attend on her husband, hear him preach, fondly brush his coat and cede responsibilities.

  They have the carriage to themselves and sit either side of the window. Christian’s eyes are closed; his lips move soundlessly. She knows he’s praying. She closes hers; prays too, that they may be one. God comes close to Beatrice in the green Marches as the train throbs its gentle way between the hills. She welcomes Him as a guest long absent. How can He bear to take up residence in such a filthy tabernacle as her heart?

  Sitting with bowed head, Beatrice asks pardon for the cold formality of her worship in the past months; the vanity of her witness. For bringing the image of Will Anwyl into the sanctuary of her marriage. He is still here. The Spirit cleaves to her in forgiveness. It reminds her that the woman taken in adultery was freely and fully pardoned. But Beatrice and her husband are one. And that one should be Mr Ritter. To attain her womanly fulfilment, Beatrice must allow herself to dissolve into him and nestle there in the region of his heart.

  God’s responses to Beatrice’s prayers are not always comfortable or welcome. Opening her eyes, she looks out to where – over in the west – the Black Mountains, flanks white with snow, conceal the deeper Wales of Mr Anwyl’s childhood.

  The train passes the Long Mynd and the rolling Shropshire Hills. With a sigh, Christian opens his eyes. Reaching out a book, he flicks through the pages; glances over at his wife with a loving smile. Sometimes she thinks he overhears her thoughts. Last night he read aloud from the Song of Solomon. Longingly. A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse. A spring shut up, a fountain sealed. She flinched from the intuition that Christian was expressing a sense that she holds something back. But what is it? How do you know how to yield the surrender a man craves? The crude animality of their coupling still dismays her. The intimacies of marriage are a subject about which she has never spoken to a soul, not even to her sister.

  Poor Anna – all that pain and sickness and hysteria. Thank goodness Dr Quarles has promised to keep an eye on her. For Anna would never voluntarily call him in, despite or because of the fact that he has intimate and long-standing experience of her quirks and maladies. When Anna lost her reason and attacked herself after Lore’s death, he sewed up her arm. Beatrice has said to Dr Quarles: even if Anna resists, please persevere. Well, she thinks, I’ll soon be home and Anna and I can start afresh.

  A bearded, rough-looking fellow with drink on his breath embarks at Ludlow. He looks from one to the other, assessing the relationship; winks at Beatrice. She removes her left glove and lays her hand, with the wedding ring, on her knee. By the time they reach Shrewsbury, Christian has initiated the conversion of this bibulous cobbler from Wem.

  *

  At last! She scampers across the road. Sarum House – back at last – oh, thank heaven. Beatrice slides on slush, clutches at the gate to save herself and is in the garden, on her own land, where everything is precisely as it should be. Islands of grey slush persist in a sea of dank greenery. She relishes the long perspective of lawn, labyrinth, vegetable plot, chestnut tree, stable and outbuildings, the wilderness. Windows are bright rectangles of yellow light in the dim afternoon. Beatrice peeps into the drawing room, where figures encircle the hearth, as if they’d not moved since the moment the Ritters left. My family, my home, my world. She’s through the door: a scent of nutmeg hits her. Boots kicked off, she’s haring on stockinged feet through the house into the parlour.

  ‘It’s me! I’m home!’

  Mr Elias moves seamlessly from a Scottish song into the wedding march.

  ‘Oh! Beatrice! You never said. Why didn’t you tell us you were coming? Where’s Christian?’

  ‘My husband – is just sorting out the luggage. Go out and help your brother-in-law, Joss, would you?’ She’s in her sister’s arms, laughing, weeping. What a relief to have the honeymoon behind her! ‘How are you? Did you miss me? Oh, Anna, let me look at you – you look, goodness, you do look so well.’

  Christian arrives, to clapping and handshakes. How are you? What is your news? There’s a huge fuss. Amy brings Beatrice’s red velvet slippers, worn to the shape of her feet; her hands are chafed. Anna goes for mulled wine; the fire’s banked up. Are you warm, are you cosy? The queen is back in her court and the court adjusts to receive her.

  A commotion at the door. And here he is. Oh, at last. Mr Anwyl, pausing briefly, comes forward with his hand held out; no, his arms.

  Beatrice leaps to her feet, elated, taken by surprise. Her husband’s head swivels in mid-phrase. He sees all. Christian will always see all. Even so, Beatrice cannot be daunted by proprieties. The heart has its impulses and doubtless she’ll repent afterwards and can obtain forgiveness – which is thinking like a Papist but … oh, my darling Will. His hand reaches out.

  To Anna. Who takes it in both of hers, her eyes brilliant. We have something to tell you. Our secret. We waited until you came home. It wouldn’t have been right to make an announcement without Mr and Mrs Ritter. And now that they are home, not one more minute can we wait. We’re engaged
to be married! Yes, really. Thank you, we’re so happy.

  And there’s a ring! Would you like to see, everybody? They show the ring. It belonged to Will’s mother. A cheap circle of tin alloy, scored and worn. A metal of mortal softness.

  And perfect.

  ‘Anna would not hear of a gold ring, would you, cariad?’

  ‘No, categorically not. This remembers the person Will loved most in the world. I’m in the best company on earth, the very best.’

  ‘And I bless you for saying that, dearest Anna. Dw i’n dy garu di, ti’n werth y byd.’

  ‘And I’m learning Welsh, to speak to my husband in his mother tongue. Dw i eisiau siarad Cymraeg.’

  Christian comes forward with hearty congratulations; the rest follow. How Anna shines. Everything about her seems to catch the ebbing light as afternoon turns to evening. Beatrice is awed by her dark eyes, with beads of candle flame at the centre; her glorious hair, parted in the middle, sleek to the head and pinned at her nape so that it no longer appears cropped. Anna’s cameo brooch glows at the collar of a charcoal grey silk dress Beatrice has never seen before. The cheap ring that belonged to Will’s mother winks on her finger: the ring promised to Beatrice, had she deigned to receive it. But Will never showed it to her. And, being invisible, the ring accrued a legendary aura. This cheap thing was the most precious token Will owned in a life that began in pauperdom. This was what Beatrice had been challenged to earn. She failed.

  Not once does Will meet her eyes. Even when he accepts her handshake and congratulations, the exchange is brief and correct. The room spins. Pain twists in Beatrice’s side like the stitch that used to hobble her when she tried to race the village children down Primrose Lane. The rabble galloped past, jeering. She sinks into a chair. It will pass in a minute, this illegitimate pang. For I have no right to it, she thinks. It’s adulterous. Her husband is cordially telling his brother-in-law-to-be, ‘I cannot say how pleased I am. Congratulations to you both.’ Nobody seems to notice Beatrice’s qualm. Thank goodness. Give me a moment to command myself. And after all, this arrangement is what I ordained.

 

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