She got to her feet and drifted helplessly to the large window, which was edged with grimy lace curtains. She stood silently looking at the square. The dusty leaves of the trees were beginning to turn; there was a light scattering of crispy leaves on the ground. Dorothy found herself longing for the serenity of autumn, for the softness of morning mists and leaves in varying hues of gold and brown, for damp dull grass and the smell of smoke from a bonfire … She yearned for the first astringent breath of cold in the air, diluting the sensuality of late summer, soothing her troubled heart.
Bertie’s despair frightened her. In the stale air of the room, it felt heavy and palpable. It closed in on her, making her nauseous. She no longer had the resilience to manage; she was tired and spent. She found herself almost wishing that Jane was present. With her tart humor and admirable tact, Jane would know how to handle him.
“I disgust myself,” he went on. “I’m vain and feeble; my ambitions are no more than extravagant, futile pretensions. I’ve lost my grip on life.”
Dorothy reluctantly turned away from the window to face him. “Why don’t you start writing a new book?” she suggested. “In the past, you’ve been able to get the better of these unhappy feelings by working.”
“I’m too drained to write. I have nothing to sustain me, no incentive to action. I am so fed up with everything, I can hardly bear it.”
The room was close with gas. He stood up and began to pace around it; he was incapable of sitting still.
As the long evening wore on, his restlessness drove him into a near panic. He couldn’t eat the dinner Dorothy had prepared, and he couldn’t sleep. He was like a prisoner in the small space.
In the early hours, he started to talk about a trip abroad. “It’s my damned fugitive impulse. I thought that meeting you had conquered it, but it seems nothing and no one can. It’s an inescapable part of me, I fear.”
“Perhaps you need a holiday.”
“You’re right, I’d like to get away from England. Time’s running to waste. Life is passing me by and I’m not writing the books I should be. I’m afraid I’ll never get the things I want to say properly said.”
“You have an unequaled gift for expression.”
“Bless you, Dora, for believing in me. But this time, it’s not enough to stop me falling. I have to get away and rethink my life. I feel suffocated, trapped in a morass of dulled response. I must have the distraction of new places and experiences, or I shall wither away.”
Dorothy got out of bed.
“What is it?” he asked impatiently.
She was searching for something in the cupboard. She brought out a large enamel bowl, her hands were trembling. She placed it hurriedly on the floor, knelt over it and began to retch.
Twelve
Bertie wanted his opinions to reach as many people as possible, and he was chronically short of funds: as well as maintaining his home with Jane, he supported his parents and supplied Isabel with a small income. As a result, he accepted too much newspaper and magazine work.
The strain was immense. Neither his personal life nor his work had a stable core. Both his articles and his novels were deteriorating in quality, as he began rehashing old arguments in them. This was unsurprising considering the amount of work he took on, and his unsettled lifestyle, shuttling between two women. He moved restlessly from his house to Russell Square and back again, torn between the contrary imperatives of conscience and desire. A spell of unusually cold and rainy weather brought on another chest infection, and it took him a long time to recover. He was run down and often heart-rendingly overworked and exhausted. It was destroying his writing, and it made him short-tempered with everyone around him.
One evening, he appeared at Mrs. Baker’s boardinghouse with a small suitcase. Dorothy and Veronica were having tea in Dorothy’s room.
“I see I’m interrupting,” Bertie said peevishly. He stood by the door, passing the case from one hand to the other.
“Why didn’t you warn me you were coming?” Dorothy answered ungraciously. “I could have met you somewhere else; it’s too risky coming here. Mrs. Baker must have been horrified.”
“I can leave now, if you’d prefer.”
“No, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. You had better come in. Bertie Wells, meet Veronica Leslie Jones.”
Veronica held out her hand, poised and elegant; she was not in the least perturbed by the unannounced arrival of a Great Man. Bertie put the suitcase down and moved across the room to take her hand in both of his. “So this is your Veronica,” he said. “I’ve heard a great deal about you, my dear.”
Veronica answered with pleasant little phrases about how glad she was to meet him. She was at once vivacious and engaging, in the way of someone doing their best to cover up a faux pas. Or perhaps, by hoisting a discreet flag above it, she was pointing to where it stood.
While Bertie settled himself in the most comfortable chair, Dorothy went downstairs to fetch more milk for their tea. By the time she returned, she saw he was restored to buoyant sociability.
“I agree with you!” Veronica was saying. She was sitting on a stool at his feet; she appeared to have capitulated delightedly to his charm.
Bertie’s eyes, which for the moment were entirely blue, roved around the room, taking in every detail. In the soft light, it looked less threadbare than usual, and Dorothy hoped its appeal wasn’t lost on him. His eyes came back to rest on Veronica’s face.
“So many young women,” he said reflectively, “marching in a long ardent line, bringing London to its knees. Wonderful.”
So they were talking about the suffrage. Dorothy wondered how much Veronica had told him about her passion for the campaign. Had she described going to suffrage meetings, being won over to militancy by Mrs. Despard, whose refined Victorian exterior, all muslin and old lace, concealed a will of steel? Perhaps she had told him her father was so enraged by her becoming a suffragette that he had cut off her allowance. She’d been forced to work as Mrs. Baker’s skivvy from six in the morning to late at night, until her doting older brother stepped in and rescued her once more. She now existed, in the faded grandeur of her room, on almost nothing but bread and tea. It was a brave step for an indulged girl, who had never wanted for anything, and the experience was improving her; she had begun to drop some of her affectations.
“They won’t all be young,” Dorothy broke in. “There’ll be middle-aged women and even grandmothers, like Mrs. Despard, marching and singing and waving flags together.”
Bertie started to say something, but Dorothy cut across him. “Tell him about Mrs. Despard, Veronica.”
Veronica described Mrs. Despard with reverent admiration, making them see her smooth white hair, frail spare figure and stately bearing, and the peculiar impression she conveyed of being more spirit than body. It was this spirit that drove her, in old age, to smash through the conventions of a lifetime and fight—violently if necessary—for the right to vote.
“I suppose the essence of suffragism was in me before I met Mrs. Despard,” Veronica said thoughtfully. “She only crystallized ideas and feelings I’d had for as long as I could remember.”
“Such as?”
Veronica paused, turning clear eyes on Bertie before answering: “When I was young, I used to stand at my bedroom window, watching my brothers playing in the grounds of our house. I was desperately jealous of their freedom. I burned to be like them; to romp and climb trees, unfettered by the constant deadening pressure to be ladylike. They were allowed to take hold of life in a way I couldn’t. ‘She should have been born a lad,’ my father used to say, watching me sadly.
“As I got older, I became more and more aware of how differently boys and girls are educated. My parents thought about my brothers’ schooling far more seriously than mine; I remember them discussing it for hours. But my education was scarcely considered. They seemed to feel the main purpose of sending me to school at all was so I’d learn how to make a pleasant and comfortable home for th
e men … I felt choked by the unfairness of it. I adored my father and brothers, but nobody ever suggested they make the house nice for me. I couldn’t understand why there was one set of rules for boys and another for girls. When I asked my mother about it, I was instantly sent to bed for insolence. I never got a satisfactory answer.”
The lamplight danced in Veronica’s eyes while she spoke; it accentuated the liquid sheen of her hair. She cupped the flowerlike curve of her cheek in a slender hand. Bertie encouraged her with thoughtful comments and questions, and she answered him with patient smiling veneration.
Dorothy wondered, with a pang, if Bertie was as acutely conscious of Veronica’s beauty as Dorothy was. How could he fail to be moved by it? A memory of the lunch with Anne entered her mind: Anne with sunlight streaming through her hair; Bertie transfixed, staring wordlessly. She had heard no more about the girl. But would she ever feel sure of Bertie? Could she, for that matter, feel sure of Veronica?
When Veronica fell silent, Bertie turned to Dorothy. “You haven’t been persuaded to join the campaign?”
Dorothy shook her head. “I can see how important it is for women to have a political voice, because they have such utterly different views and needs to men. It’s outrageous we are denied the vote, but I don’t want one myself. No, I want to have a vote and not use it. Taking sides simply wipes me out.”
Bertie clicked his tongue gently at this continuing evidence of her inability to take a stand. “Women are good reformers,” he said. “They are admirably suited to keeping the peace and making the world a decent place. And it’s better for men if their mates are equal. Being yoked to an inferior is like dragging a lame leg after you.”
He yawned and looked at his watch; his amiability was flagging. “You ladies may have the energy to sit around talking until all hours, but I need my rest. And it would be good for you, too, Dorothy, to sleep, whether you want to admit it or not. Are you coming with me?”
Dorothy said yes, reluctantly, for she’d discovered that the desire to stay behind and discuss him with Veronica was stronger than the desire for his company. Veronica at once rose to her feet and excused herself gracefully.
“Your Veronica is quite a beauty,” Bertie said, when the door had closed behind her. “You never told me how pretty she is. I like her reforming zeal, too.”
* * *
THE FOLLOWING DAY, Veronica was waiting in Dorothy’s room when she got back from work. She held Dorothy’s small wooden chest in both hands. Looking remorseful, she explained in a rushing torrent of words that did not allow Dorothy space to interject, that she had dropped and broken it.
Dorothy took it from her without saying anything, wondering how the accident had happened. What if Veronica had come into her room last night while she was with Bertie, or today during work? Perhaps, overwhelmed by curiosity, she had taken the chest from where it stood on top of her cupboard. But how could she have been clumsy enough to drop it? It was old and solid; it could hardly have slipped through her fingers. Dorothy had inherited it from her grandmother; she used it to keep Bertie’s letters in.
Dorothy looked at the break. It was a smooth clean line. A suspicion was kindling in her mind. Since the contents were so light, a straight fall would not have caused any damage. Had it been hurled to the ground from a height? Had it been determinedly and violently smashed down?
She put the chest on her bed, trying to forget about it.
“I’m sorry,” Veronica said again. “I’ll buy you another one.”
Dorothy shook her head. “It can be fixed,” she said. “The break won’t even show.”
A new thought was emerging. Had Veronica read Bertie’s letters? Knowing what the chest contained, had she deliberately set out to plunder it? Dorothy didn’t know if Veronica’s urge to demolish barriers and taboos was valiant or delinquent. But the chest itself reproached her, displaying its damage from where it sat on the bed. It had been in her family for as long as she could remember.
It wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. A few weeks before, Veronica had begged to borrow Dorothy’s seed pearl bracelet, luminous and delicate: Benjamin’s first gift. She’d returned it with the clasp half ripped off. Veronica seemed to have an unerring instinct for destroying only treasured things. She was like a hurricane, sweeping into Dorothy’s life, tearing her possessions from their places.
“Let’s make some tea and forget about the casket. I’m longing to hear what you thought of Bertie,” Dorothy said.
Veronica sighed. “He was exactly as I suspected. Charming and articulate, yes. But he is just like his preachy books, he tries to take you over.” She mimicked: “It would be good for you to sleep, Dorothy, whether you like it or not.” She captured the high husky voice perfectly. Her petulance surprised Dorothy.
* * *
THE TURBULENCE IN Dorothy’s life was making it impossible for her to concentrate on a new and compelling activity. She had begun to write, and was amassing a growing pile of penciled half-sheets. She worked in the evenings, at a rickety wicker table pulled up close to the window of her room.
Her theme was herself, her early life, for she felt this was the only subject she could hope to know or express. Also, her story seemed representative. There must be countless other strong-minded women out there, born to a world that was discouraging if not flatly antagonistic to their sex, who were struggling for independence and identity, like she was. It was a struggle worth setting down on paper; she hoped it might succor all the women whose experience paralleled hers.
So far, she had produced a collection of formless jottings; experiments really, nothing that approximated a narrative. She was more engaged with the process than the result. It was like mining, tunneling down through layers of self to a region far inside, to where the unsullied precious ore lay. It was a painful and unpredictable unfolding; her ability to tap into it was intermittent. But when she was successful, her pen flew across the page as though of its own accord, propelled by some mysterious essence from within. Writing made her feel deeply and serenely alive; anchored to a profound sense of self that was definite and constant.
Once words started flowing, the rest of the world fell away and she only wanted to keep going. The paper-strewn lamplit circle became her world; even Bertie’s hold loosened. The whole of life was there, inside her mind, a boundless fount of experience. She could summon any part of it and hold it up for examination. It amazed her how much space was within her. Writing brought an energy her work at the dental practice had never awakened, from the depths of her being. Hours were consumed without her noticing; she wrote through much of the night.
How should she put it down, the soft exclamation the little girl made as she carefully carried the heavy dish of fruit? Knowing she was entrusted with an important task, walking with such attention, her whole being concentrated on the hands that carried the dish.
How could she catch that moment; how to make the words come alive on paper, exactly as they were lived, directly from the center of consciousness? How to record the very process of consciousness as it experienced life at firsthand; life’s minute to minute quality.
None of the writers she knew had done it to her satisfaction, not even Bertie. Especially not Bertie. There was always some narrator barging in, getting in the way, describing events from the outside and silting up the arteries of the story with an inert mass of detail. Yet leaving out something essential at the same time, so that life was distorted. One couldn’t get away from the author in the background—a master puppeteer yanking strings—and either admiring, or hating, his orchestration.
She would have to smash the old way of writing and make something new. The part of her nature that flailed out and destroyed things would have no problem smashing the novel. But could she successfully remake it? Did she have the courage and the talent?
She hadn’t told Bertie about her writing. He would want to see it, or at the very least have it described to him, and she was afraid that his forceful
reaction would destroy it. Her work was like a frail young seed germinating deep within the earth; it would disintegrate if it was exposed to daylight too early.
She was struck by the contrast between her writing, snatched in nooks and gaps of the day, and Bertie’s. He had a whole household attending to his comfort and well-being; everything in it geared toward catering to his needs and nurturing his talent. Dorothy envied and half-resented the single-minded concentration this allowed him.
The reason women didn’t produce much “art” was because they were pulled in different directions; torn and scattered by the unending multiplicity of their preoccupations and tasks; unable to do any one thing properly. It was a state of being unknown to men. Art demands what present-day society won’t give to women, she decided.
* * *
THERE WAS STILL a feeling of peace and freedom that came every time she was out in London. The evenings were growing shorter; it was already dark when Dorothy left work. She strolled home slowly, feeling the tedium and fatigue of her day at work coiling up and vanishing into the familiar dearly loved city atmosphere.
Could one girl’s consciousness be the subject matter of an entire book, she wondered. Was it enough?
The opening words of the novel she wanted to write were fixed in her head: Miriam left the gaslit hall and went slowly upstairs. But what then? It was impossible to go on “telling” about her. To let reality filter through, she had to keep her own voice out of it—no explaining, summing up, depicting characters and incidents in hard immutable lines. There had to be another way of writing convincingly—what was it? She didn’t want to instruct her reader what to think and feel. Reading should be a process of collaboration between reader and author, a path of discovery. It should be an adventure.
It had rained recently, and lamplight glistened on puddles and spread a bright sheen over the moist pavements. Traffic slurred through wet roads. The air still smelt of rain: washed and earthy. It was a relief to stride through benevolent streets that seemed both intimate and spacious, lined by quiet grey stone buildings. There was hardly anyone else out walking, and the few people she passed did not know what she was really like.
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