Cards of Identity (8 page)

‘The
principle
remains the same, Jellicoe.’

*

Mrs Paradise slowly descended the back stairs, grasping on each step to intensify her feeling of self-sacrifice. She had just reached a corner and given vent to a loud ‘A-a-ah!’ when Beaufort sprang out on her with a loud ‘Boo!’ Seeing her scream and stagger, he caught her lightly round the waist, gave her a wet kiss, and said: ‘Got you that time Florrie!’

‘Don’t you ever do that again!’ she gasped.

‘Why, Florrie, from the way you talk one would think I’d never done it to you before!’

‘You’re a man now, not a little boy.’

‘But you still think I’m a little boy, don’t you, Florrie? You still look at my ears and knees as if they needed washing, just as you always did. Where are you going now? Come and talk to me. Tell me stories
about when I was a child. Or are you going to flirt with wicked old Jellicoe?’

‘That’s quite enough, Master Beau. I’m going to work, and it would much improve you to do the same.’

‘D’you know there are secrets in Jellicoe’s past, Florrie? I know all about them. Before he came here he used to seduce women under a fake name and embezzle their money. I’m still trying to find out his alias. But one of the women ran away with all his savings, so he decided to reform.’

‘What a terrible way to talk! I would be ashamed to let such an accusation pass my lips.’

‘Why are you always so
good,
Florrie?’ he asked, escorting her down the stairs in gigantic jumps. ‘Do naughty memories suddenly come into your head and make you say: “Surely that was never
me
?” I’m watching you, too, you know. I pick up all sorts of things. For instance, when Mrs Finch, or Miss Chirk, or whatever her name is, came yesterday to apply for housemaid, she said you used to look a treat long ago, walking the fields with ribbons in your hair, singing: “There’s nae luck aboot the hoose wi’ Jellicoe awa’.”’

‘I remember no such rubbish,’ said Mrs Paradise, seizing the brilliant memory and tucking it away. ‘Nor do I remember any Mrs Chinch.’

‘Chirk
or
Finch,
Florrie, I said.’

‘Not them either.’

‘Well, you’ll have to interview one or both of them, whichever they are, this morning, because I’m going to fetch her in the car.’

‘There’s a car coming now, I hear.’

‘That’s the doctor’s measured tread.’

‘What doctor?’

‘How do I know, Florrie? You know I never bother with names. He’s coming to see Mama. Papa’s agog.’

‘What’s the matter with your poor stepmother?’

‘Only a mushroom growth at the base of the spine. We hope it’s not malignant. If it’s benign, Mama’s going to have a little green collar made for it and take it with her everywhere.’

‘Oh, dear, what rubbish you do talk! And to jest even about a stepmother’s health! And to a widow! What’s that roaring noise?’

‘Only the doctor mounting the front stairs like the wind on the heath. I say, what a bonzer car he’s got! Look, you can see through the
loop-hole. I wish
we
had one like that. How we’d show off at the big June house-party! Oh, do you know we’re getting a brand-new gardener? They’ve just come off the ration. The old one wore out. When we took him to pieces we felt it was a miracle he’d stayed together at all – his shins were down to the thinness of pencil leads and the whole pelvic basin was crumbled to bone-meal. It’s pretty good, you know; we bought him at twenty-two and six a week in 1889. The new one has a beard, but no one has dared to lift it yet and see what Nature meant. He’s bringing a Land Girl with him. His name’s Towzer, hers is Tray. They’re going to sleep together on mats in the west greenhouse. She’s
so
pretty, Florrie, such lovely red cheeks and she does give herself airs.’

‘She’d better not round me. Now you go away and fetch that other Chirk woman or I’ll never get this house to rights.’

‘All I really wanted to say, Florrie, was that it’s heavenly to have you up again.’

‘Well, you’re a sweet boy underneath, and I’ve always known it, if no one else has.’

‘Do you think I’ve got charm, Florrie?’

‘You know quite well you have. But it’s not charm that takes a man through life.’

‘No, you have to have some money, too.’

‘And it’s not money either I mean. It’s faith.’

‘But isn’t charm a kind of faith, Florrie?’

‘Now, we’re downstairs, so stop your prattling and go away. I must speak to Mr Jellicoe.’

Beaufort vanished, and Mrs Paradise entered the huge kitchen. The very sight of its incredible filth and disorder stopped her heart, but she marched bravely through to one of the back passages where she heard a rumbling noise and saw a huge Indian cabinet edging towards her. ‘Mr Jellicoe!’ she cried.

His head appeared over the back of the cabinet. ‘Thank God you’re back, Mrs Paradise,’ he said. ‘I’m at the end of my tether.’

‘I didn’t expect to find furniture being pushed through my kitchen,’ she replied, looking distastefully at his dirty face. ‘Nor did I expect to see my kitchen like a pigsty.’

‘I’ve done my best, Mrs Paradise. No one has heard me complain.’

‘I should hope not.’

‘All this furniture down from the town-house. They want it for the house-party. I’ve moved every ton of it with these two hands. It’s nearly broken my constitution.’

‘Well, Mr Jellicoe, if I may say so, the past always revenges itself We dissipate in youth what we should be glad to draw on in middle-age.’

He blushed. ‘You have not come back in a very friendly mood, Mr Paradise,’ he said. ‘Only the thought of the loss you have sustained keeps me from retorting with the rough side of my tongue.’

‘I hope we are not going to resume relations with bitterness, quarrelling, and personal remarks,’ replied Mrs Paradise. ‘I am really still too ill to be about, and only poor Mrs Mallet’s illness has brought me down at all.’

‘Is her condition grave?’

‘That is for the doctors to decide, Mr Jellicoe. It is for us to stick to our lasts.’

‘I have had to couple my duties with yours, Mrs Paradise. It is not surprising if I have fallen between two stools. I trust some new staff will be arriving shortly. Two months alone is a long time.’

‘Surely it has not been as long as that?’

‘I believe it has. But I have not been in much state to judge. There have been moments when I have quite lost my head.’

‘Talking won’t find it again, Mr Jellicoe. At least you have got the stove going for me, I see. Now, will you kindly get that heavy thing of yours through my kitchen so I can start work?’

‘Gladly,’ he said, bending out of sight behind the cabinet, and pushing. The little castors began to chatter over the stone floor and as Jellicoe passed by, doubled up like a bow, a light shone in his bloodshot eye. ‘You could say any words you liked to me, Mrs Paradise,’ he panted; ‘and still just the sight of you would put me in heaven. I have dreamt of your return for nights on end, and from this moment I am a new man, starting a new life.’

‘Thank you, Mr Jellicoe,’ she answered coldly, and began slowly and grimly to roll up her sleeves.

*

‘This
passage, doctor,’ said the captain. ‘No, no, turn round, down here, another turn – that’s better; now, pray, follow me.’

‘Which
door,
which
door?
’
cried Dr Towzer, racing down the long corridor. His bag was in his left hand, his right winked eager fingers at every passing knob. He was in a sweat; his eyes were ready to fly from their sockets like marbles from a cupped fist.

‘Patience, my dear sir,’ begged the captain: ‘The room is not in this passage at all. I brought you this way because the carpet has not yet been laid on the shorter route.’

Dr Towzer gave a loud neigh. ‘Do you think I notice dust or carpets, sir, in this day and age?’ he cried. ‘I have twelve more patients to see before midday. The whole nation, sir, is on its last legs. Or rather, on its doctors’!’ He gave a shriek of laughter.

‘Left here and up these little stairs,’ said the captain.

‘Are we nearly there?’

‘We are getting warm.’

‘Surely this is where we began?’

‘Quite another place. Doctor, if I may say so, you need a holiday.’

‘Where is the door?’ begged the doctor, giving a dreadful groan.

‘My dear sir, we are in sight of it. It is the last on the left.’

The doctor broke into a canter, storming down the corridor like a mad race-horse. ‘You would not first like a glass of Madeira and a slice of dry cake?’ cried the captain, keeping to a trot.

‘No, no, no! Here?’

‘Permit me,’ said the captain. Tapping softly on the door he opened it a crack and murmured: ‘Milly, Milly. I have a little surprise. You’ll never guess. Don’t be cross. I felt I really ought to.’

A faint scream came from inside. ‘A doctor! Let me put on my shawl!’

‘We will give her just a
moment
,’
said the captain, giving Dr Towzer a man-to-man look. ‘Tell us when you are ready, darling.’

‘Sir, you seem to come from another planet!’ panted the doctor, stamping his feet. ‘These winsome approaches are not made nowadays. Little delicacies are become monstrous obstacles. The
looks
of patients are not so much as noticed. Why, sir, I shall come away from here scarcely knowing to what sex your wife belongs.’

‘In this little backwater …’ began the captain apologetically. But he was interrupted by a musical cry from within: ‘You may come in now!’

Mrs Mallet’s bed was large and lavish. A pink eiderdown two feet thick foamed over it with herself rising from one end.

‘Dr Towzer, dearest,’ said the captain. ‘Like yourself, a lover of roses.’

‘So, doctor?’ she piped, giving him a fragrant smile.

‘I used to be. Good morning.’ He made for the bed like a horse at a manger.

‘
Used
to be, doctor? But how can that be? I think you never loved them if you no longer do.’

‘No
time
now, madam, I mean,’ he barked. ‘What is the trouble?’

‘But you must
make
time, naughty man,’ she said, wagging a cross finger. ‘Or your life will become quite empty.’

He gave a prolonged, hysterical cackle, ending by chewing savagely at his lips. Dropping his bag with a clash of instruments he held out his hands so that his ten fingers quivered like antennae. In a panting voice, he said: ‘Chair-chair-chair?’

‘Why bless my soul,’ said the captain, smiling ruefully. ‘Where are my wits? Of course you must have a chair. Which sort shall it be? stiff, low, high, easy?’

‘Any chair; just chair-chair.’

‘From here one hears the trains,’ said Mrs Mallet. ‘But few of them stop.’

Dr Towzer gave another neigh and suddenly exclaimed: ‘Life quite empty – he-he-he!’

‘Here is a promising chair, Towzer,’ said the captain, re-entering from the passage. ‘Or is it, in your estimation, too hard?’

‘No. It will do,’ said the doctor, his voice suddenly slow and faint. ‘All chairs are now as one to me.’

‘When you have examined me, Doctor Brewster,’ said Mrs Mallet, ‘you must tell me what varieties you particularly loved, and we will compare notes.’

‘Then you think this one will be all right?’ said the captain, pushing the chair slowly across the room.

‘I think it will be excellent,’ answered the doctor, his voice becoming absolutely level.

‘I hope soon to be among my beloved standards again,’ said Mrs Mallet. ‘They become obstreperous without me.’

‘What she really needs is a good nurse,’ said the captain.

‘For God’s sake, madam!’ cried the doctor, abruptly recovering both his high tone and his hysteria: ‘tell me what is the matter with you.’

‘On that point, doctor,’ said the captain, ‘I think I should have a word with you in private. We could withdraw to the dressing-room.’

‘Ignore him, doctor,’ said Mrs Mallet. ‘He always looks on the dark side, and would only pour poison into your ear. To me, even sickness can be a part of happiness if we know how to make it so.’

‘Now, do seat yourself, Dr Benson,’ said the captain, pressing the chair seat against the back of the doctor’s knees. ‘I see you are under stress.’

‘If the lady will kindly begin …’

‘From the very beginning, doctor?’ she asked. ‘Or merely the present symptoms?’

‘What you call the present symptoms will do, madam,’ he answered, suddenly hanging his head again. He went on, in the dull tones of an old man recalling some text learnt in youth: ‘Though it is not for us to cure symptoms. We merely appraise them. It is their origin we pursue.’

‘By Jove, that’s well put!’ said the captain. ‘It shows medicine in quite another light.’

‘Begin, madam,’ said the doctor, raising a pair of dog-like eyes to hers.

She responded by fixing on him the intense, horrified gaze of a revelationist. Her breast rose and fell rapidly. The words began to tumble from her mouth:

‘A sort of trembling, doctor, every morning when I wake up – as though I was somehow anticipating the
worst.
At first, snug in my warm bed, I am puzzled – why, I ask myself dreamily, should I feel afraid? Suddenly it dawns on me – oh, heavens! this is morning and I am
me
! I am
myself,
and nothing I can do will mitigate the horror of this fact. This realization – which is too agonizing to describe – is followed by a “Hah-hah-hah-hah” sort of panting, like that of a sheep caught by its horns in a thicket.’

‘Omit sheep and thickets, madam, for God’s sake!’ cried the doctor, turning white. ‘We are not a Bible class.’

‘… Then everything abruptly becomes denser and more tangled; my every limb gets wrapped in strands of millions of encircling
tendrils – horrid, tough tendrils that quickly rise and pinion my head. And at this moment, as if at a signal, everything in the room begins to revolve, at first quite slowly, so that I am able to tell myself that if I can stop it now I will escape the
worst.
For a second, indeed, I do succeed in rendering the scene static once more – at which, as if enraged by my interference, it instantly starts to whirl again, and this time at lunatic speed – crockery, furniture, walls, doors, husband, night-light – all whizzing round like checkered lightning – and even this I could bear were it not that gradually I feel myself
pulled
into
the circular tow. I scream, scream, but I am caught in the heart of it, suffocated, dumb, the pillow now-over-now-under what once was my head. I have no
option,
doctor, no
option
at all, nor any sense of direction other than circular; all I feel by then is the horror of realizing that the bed, too, my very foundation and root, has been dragged up from under me and that, even while spinning madly, we are also rising higher every second to meet the wheeling, intangible ceiling. Now I am turned on my side, my toes chilled to frangible ice, my gorge rising, my hair streaming out behind me so far that it is caught in my pursuing open mouth – a decisive moment, because at once my taut head begins to strain at its trunk and, failing to break away there, splits brusquely in half with a ripping noise, and the two halves, cloven, chase each other at a distance like mad half-moons, I trying my utmost to recapture and reassemble them. But how can one grasp anything when one has no foothold? “Is this hysteria?” I ask myself – and though my voice is inaudible it is nonetheless the only solid object within reach, so I attempt to clutch it, but cannot place its whereabouts. I strive to
imagine
its sound, so that I may track it down and thus find some clue to myself, but all I hear is the note of a trip-hammer ringing on my ear-drums as on an anvil – thus, what with speed reducing everything to a blur, and sound and vision endeavouring to split this blur into a thousand slivers, I am simultaneously beaten and smothered into the likeness of a jelly and yet fired through the centre of myself like hard machine-gun bullets. I am far beyond screaming by now; and yet questions, hard as rocks and written in black, appear like print across the centre of my cloven mind:
Who
am
I?
Who
are
you
?
At which there is a chuckling, dancing mixture of sound and movement inside me, and a burst of words such as: Only rend, tear, compress, slaughter, dismember, and yet hammer eternally compact!’