“Who?” the new gentleman asked, cupping one hand against his ear.
“Mary-Lou Jones. A typist; she rents a room down the road…” Carrie seemed unable to go on.
“What happened?” Dr. Weber prompted gently.
Carrie turned her large watery blue eyes on him. “She threw herself out the bedroom window because she owes her landlady thirty shillings, and the landlady asked her for it outright.”
A buzz of consternation rose from the shocked table. Something had entered the room—a naked despair—and many were only too familiar with it.
“That is terrible,” Dr. Weber exclaimed. “Is she still alive?”
“I don’t know; I don’t think so. She fell from the top floor. There’s a policeman with her and a crowd of people … I saw grey stuff coming out of her head. Oh, it was horrible.”
“I’ll go and see if I can help.” Dr. Weber picked up his hat and went out hurriedly.
Dorothy couldn’t face the roomful of people and their excited revulsion. Asking Mrs. Baker to excuse her as well, she went upstairs to her bedroom. She sat down on the greyish-white counterpane and hugged her knees, feeling rattled and queasy.
She tried to imagine Mary-Lou Jones opening her bedroom window and clambering onto the sill; she would have been hampered by her skirt. She saw her balancing precariously on the edge like a voluminous bird; looking vertiginously down at the ground.
What did the moment of unalterably pushing herself off feel like; had her skirt billowed out around her as she plummeted through the unresisting air, like a sail or a parachute? What could have been in her mind? Did she, even then, wish it undone; did she wish herself safely back in her room, with the window fastened? Or was life so bad, she couldn’t wait to die and put an end to her pain. Had she welcomed the hard pavement as it rushed up to meet her?
Dorothy shivered as she contemplated the richness of a consciousness being snuffed out in an instant on a grimy London street, to the uncaring accompaniment of cab whistles and hansom cabs rattling and jingling past.
St. Pancras clock struck ten. Mary-Lou was part of a growing army of outwardly confident young female office workers in the city. But their independence came at a price. Dorothy understood very well the precipice edge the girl had walked, the constant pressure of keeping everything going.
At least I’ve got my freedom—I’m managing—I’m not dependent on anyone, Dorothy thought, gazing into the empty grate, torn between fear and exhilaration.
Five
Dorothy began to store up her impressions of London for Bertie: little sketches and anecdotes that she hoped would ignite his interested attention and bring that precious creak of appreciation into his voice. “You’re a good raconteur, Dorothy,” he would say, with a glint of amusement in his eyes. “You have a certain style, you really do. You’re coming on no end.”
She described her life to him, making him laugh with her descriptions of the endless procession of boarders and their eccentricities.
“There’s an alcoholic Portuguese waiter sharing my top floor at the moment. Has the room next door to mine. He comes bumbling up the stairs in the early hours.”
“Watch yourself, Dorothy. I hope you lock your door at night.”
“Actually, I don’t. He staggers about and swears a bit. He has difficulty getting into his room, and sometimes, poor thing, he is sick on the landing.”
“It appears to be a most colorful establishment. But I do think you should lock your door. You’ve no idea how desirable a girl like you is to an old reprobate. You’re a golden girl. You’re like … like a ripe juicy peach.”
“Am I?… Funnily enough, I feel perfectly safe with Mr. Abella. Mind you, he owes weeks of rent…”
“Another one of your disreputables, Dorothy. Your Mrs. Baker houses an extraordinary gallery of them. Seems to attract ’em.”
“I suppose she does … the exception, of course, being Dr. Weber. They don’t come any more respectable than him. Did I tell you he’s been rather attentive to me lately?”
Bertie’s eyes darkened. “No, you didn’t.”
“He’s taken to intercepting me in the hall in the mornings, on my way to work. Helps me on with my coat, tries to keep me talking until I’m almost late. He says his day hasn’t started well unless he sees me first thing.”
She wanted Bertie to know what it felt like being inside her skin. Waking up to the clear bright chiming of St. Pancras bells, in her first room of her own. Resting in bed, watching the grey morning light lying in pools on the faded carpet, falling onto the dark yellow grainy wallpaper, the battered yellow chest of drawers and tiny wardrobe. She knew this room intimately, better than any place she had known in her wanderings.
She wanted him to live her excitement as she left work, the long monotonous day scrolling shut behind her. Stepping out into the dusky light and the clamor and spectacle of London hurtling past. Feeling the pavement under her feet, the lamplit evening expanding around her. Watching the endless file of hansoms and horse omnibuses rattling along, bearing hordes of unknown people to unknown destinations. Being shoved and elbowed by home-going workers, as she took in the profusion of colorfully decorated shop fronts and posters that seemed to promise immeasurable delights. The thickening darkness mingled with the gold of city lights. The sound of a barrel organ was all but drowned out by evening-paper boys shouting their headlines stridently, reminding her that the great capital was but the foreground of a worldwide drama …
She wanted him to experience with her the adventure of simply taking a bus across town without being accountable to anyone. The sense of being easefully carried along, drawn by the momentum of the traffic. Watching the city unfurl from the bus windows, the glory of the silhouettes of buildings outlined against the sky. Joyously in love with life and with her freedom, giddy with the feeling. Thinking, Until you’ve been alone in London, you aren’t entirely alive.
* * *
BERTIE SAID, “I see London has taken hold of you, as it took hold of me.” His eyes gleamed as he looked at Dorothy standing in front of the mantelpiece. Summer light poured through the wide open windows of the drawing room. They were waiting for Jane to come downstairs for lunch.
He began to pace up and down. “You should write up your impressions. You have a gift for words. You’ve had enough experience to provide material; you’ve won your independence in the face of staggering difficulties. You ought to set it all down.” He stopped walking. “Hang on a minute, perhaps I should write a book about you…”
Dorothy laughed.
Bertie sat down in an armchair, motioning her to join him. “Seriously though, it’s only by drawing on his or her own life and emotions that a writer animates fiction. In a small way it’s like being God: you create characters in your own image, and you breathe energy and warmth into them as best you can.”
His words reverberated inside Dorothy, reinforcing something in herself; scarcely articulated, but there. She had always wanted to write; probably, everyone secretly wanted to write.
“A few years ago, I went to a garden party where they had a palmist telling fortunes,” she said. “An extraordinary dark wrinkled creature, like an elderly monkey in a head scarf and earrings. She looked at my hands and asked if I’d done any writing. I said no. She said, ‘Start straight away, you were born to write. Don’t let anything put you off. Start writing, and make sure you keep going’ … She also told me I’d marry late in life…”
“So, have you written anything?”
“I can’t. I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
“Sit down with an empty sheet of paper and a pen. I find that if you take almost any idea as an opener and let your mind run with it, there comes out of blankness, in a way I find impossible to explain, some small embryo of a story. If I could turn myself into a writer, you can, too … Why don’t you write something and send it to me.”
* * *
SHE NEVER TOLD Bertie that London held a dark side, too. At times, she was afra
id that the strain of keeping everything together on her meager salary would break her. By the time the rent was paid, there was hardly enough for food, and no chance of saving for old age. She was chronically hungry and cold during the winter months as well (by no means the least attraction of staying with the Wellses was their well-stocked pantry). Work was increasingly monotonous and the hours were gruelingly long. She was plagued by terrible tiredness, which seemed to gather force inside her, like a malignant and threatening tumor. She was losing weight. The cheap black dresses she wore for work were hanging off her, making her look like a shabby malnourished crow. What if she fell ill and was unable to earn a living? She couldn’t be a dentist’s secretary for ever.
Sometimes, there seemed nothing ahead but a bleakness that would deepen as the years crawled by. A future utterly lacking in prospects … thinking about it was so frightening, it made her want to curl up and cease to exist. At least that way, there would be no more struggle. It was easy to see how the young typist down the street had lost her reason and thrown herself from the top floor …
In this mood, the city seemed uncaring, indifferent. Bertie was right when he said London had got her. London was taking her health and devouring her youth. It was London that killed you, in the end.
There was a particular narrow and gaslit lane off Regent Street. Dorothy always seemed to drift into it unknowingly … the rusted sign hanging above the cramped shop for Browns Teas reminded her of a visit with her mother, just before she became ill. She’d sat opposite Dorothy, not saying much, small hard lines of tension about her mouth. Refusing to eat, despite Dorothy’s best efforts to persuade her …
Dorothy couldn’t stay the flood of memory and guilt. Why did she keep forgetting the tea shop was here? What drew her so irresistibly to it?… Some malevolent force brought her here … it would tear her mind apart … it was nudging her into madness because she was herself and nothing could change the shattering event that had wrenched her world in two and plunged her into a darkness that still threatened to destroy sanity and life.
* * *
“I LIKE HAVING you around,” Bertie admitted.
Lunch was finished, and Jane had gone outside to speak to the gardener. Dorothy and Bertie were alone in his study; the rest of the house suddenly seemed far away.
“I like the way you use your hands when you talk,” he continued, “it’s very musical. And the way your hair falls in pale gold curtains, your laugh … you don’t know how attractive you are.”
His words brought pleasure, yet a jagged fork of alarm pushed through Dorothy’s stomach, like lightning. For some time, Bertie had been hovering near an invisible line—now, he had crossed it irrevocably. The boundaries had shifted: perhaps, they no longer existed.
She stammered, “Most of the time, I feel like a hopeless misfit. I’m so awkward with people…”
“You’re not awkward with me. But you never build me up or flatter me. You only argue with me.”
“You want flattery? Listen to this then—ever since I met you, you’ve blotted out everyone else. Other people are colorless in comparison; no one quite matches up … it’s most annoying and uncomfortable.”
He turned sharply to look at her. “Is that true…?”
Dorothy flushed deeply. “Yes, it is. From the first moment I saw you coming toward me on the station platform. Though I can’t stand your ideas…”
“Forget my ideas, Dorothy, I shan’t have any more of ’em. Take back anything I ever said. Let’s spend as much time together as we can. We’ll talk, voraciously. I don’t want there to be any inhibitions between us.”
For a long moment, his blue eyes held hers. He put his hand on her knee. She could feel the warmth of it tingling through her thin summer dress. When she was with him, her body spoke a language of its own—or rather, it sang.
The feeling rising inside her was the sweetest thing she’d known, yet it made her a terrible person. It was so strong, it swept everything else away: all the anchoring principles, like honesty and loyalty and not hurting other people. The principles underpinning her idea of herself as a fundamentally decent person.
It was nearly impossible to draw back, yet she had to. Gathering her strength, she dropped her eyes and moved her leg away from his hand.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She looked at him steadily. “Amy Catherine … she’s practically my oldest friend.”
Bertie sighed. “I knew this was coming. I have something to tell you about Jane and I, and I’m not sure how to explain it to you.” He hesitated, looking out toward the garden. “My whole adult life, I’ve been searching for something in a relationship with a woman, something rare and beautiful, not fully understood … something that would satisfy all my needs, from the most cerebral and artistic to the purely physical, and give my life meaning. You see, my heart craves a perfection of mental understanding and bodily response. I want tenderness and intellect and passion all wrapped up in one dear mate for life. And I want to return those gifts in abundance.
“When I met Jane, I thought I had found my ideal. Sadly, it became clear early on in our marriage that this was not the case. Jane more than satisfied my need for companionship, but there were certain physical incompatibilities. How shall I put this? She and I have completely different temperaments, and … well, different bodily demands. Jane has never been a particularly sensual person … she doesn’t see our relationship as being preeminently sexual. She regards my, uh … my appetites as a sort of sickness. In this respect, we are vastly mismatched.” He paused again, glancing at Dorothy. “I don’t want to shock you.”
Dorothy kept her face carefully expressionless. “I’ve never been shocked in my life. Go on.”
“The realization of our incompatibilities was dreadfully painful. Perhaps I expect too much from one person but—oh God!—I could not reconcile myself to what I had. I was riven by intolerable longing; I couldn’t rid myself of its raw ache. At the same time, I didn’t want to betray Jane. She was so dear and good; she’d never given me any reasonable cause for discontent. I was torn between my desire not to hurt her and my desire for completion. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t work. I was divided against myself.” He stopped and raked his hands through his hair, visibly upset.
“What happened?”
“Well, with time, we reached a recognition of our differences. Jane’s the most loyal and understanding wife I could ask for, but it hasn’t been easy for either of us … We’ve come to an agreement, whereby each of us has the freedom to satisfy our physical desires with other people.”
“You mean you have that freedom,” Dorothy pointed out, drily.
“In theory, both of us have it. In practice, yes, I am the one who makes use of it,” Bertie acknowledged. “But without it, our marriage would surely have collapsed, and neither of us wants that … We’re allies now, rather than lovers. Such passion as there was between us expired a long time ago, leaving a great deal of affection and mutual support. Jane’s only conditions are that I don’t keep my friendships secret from her, and I don’t have them with women she dislikes. She and I continue to love and respect each other, and everything goes on as before.”
“Surely it’s not that simple,” Dorothy protested. She was disturbed, despite her efforts not to be, by their arrangement. The thought flashed in her mind that she wasn’t the first, and she probably wouldn’t be the last. She remembered that Bertie had left his first wife for Jane, which caused something of a scandal at the time.
“You make it sound so … so clear-cut,” she went on, struggling to find the right words. “What if the other person wants more? Love naturally brings jealousy and possessiveness. You can’t go putting limits on it…”
He picked up a tendril of her hair that had escaped from its heavy bun, and smoothed it lightly between his thumb and fingers, spreading sensations through her body that were like pinpricks of colored light. She half closed her eyes.
“I think you could be the incarnation
of all my dreams and desires,” Bertie murmured. “I’m greedy for you … for all of you—flesh and bones, innermost thoughts and secret fantasies…”
Through the open French windows, they could hear Jane approaching with the gardener. “And those evergreens need a good pruning … oh yes, and next summer, I’d like an absolutely enormous bed of azaleas along that wall, a great blaze of color…”
Dorothy pulled away from Bertie. His skin was flushed; his eyes densely blue. Sighing, he got to his feet and walked over to his desk.
Six
The morning stretched blissfully ahead of Dorothy. The room was very warm with sunlight and a blazing fire. Jane was wearing a delicate gauzy little dress; she glanced up affectionately as Dorothy came in.
“How are you, my sweet?” she asked. “I hope you were comfortable in your room. Did you sleep well?”
“Yes, thank you. Like a top.”
Jane motioned her toward the wide chintz sofa and Dorothy sank into it gratefully, enjoying the maternal fussing.
“Tell me, really, how you are. You look much rosier this morning. You were utterly washed out when you got here.”
“I was tired to death,” Dorothy said, from the depths of the sofa. “I’m nearly always tired to death nowadays.”
“You shall do absolutely nothing while you’re here; I insist on it. You’ll lounge around in your room, and only come out to eat and play when you feel like it.”
“Yes, please. It sounds utterly blissful.”
A maid entered the room briskly and hovered just inside the door. Dorothy let the quiet murmur of their conversation flow over her “—and open all the windows once you’ve finished washing up the breakfast things, and put flowers in the bedrooms. Oh, and don’t forget to leave the letters in the box when the postman comes…”
“How are your sisters?” Jane asked, when the servant had gone.
“Oh—doing splendidly, I think. I haven’t been to visit them for a while.”
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