Kept (32 page)

All evening as the twilight faded into darkness & the wind buffeted the eaves, I had been thinking of the roses & how they must be placed in my chamber while I slept in the other room, struck all the while by a presentiment that this morning I should find another, mocking me on its silver dish, burning into my skin. Finally, as the clock came near to midnight I could bear this apprehension no longer & resolved to combat it as best I could. In the corner of my bedchamber there was a ball of twine, which I fancy had once secured the cover of my trunk. Taking this, & greatly surprised by my own ingenuity, I seized a chair
& placed it to one side of my door, took up the fire irons & placed them to the other side, connecting the two by means of a piece of twine stretched across the doorway at a height of six inches. Anyone crossing the threshold, I assured myself, would perforce tumble over it, or at the very least greatly inconvenience himself. This done, & making sure that a candle & a box of lucifers (these are kept in the recess of my desk next to the japanned box) were to hand near my pillow, I retired to bed.

Naturally, being plunged into a state of nervous exhaustion, I was scarce able to sleep. Half a dozen times in that first hour of slumber I was awakened by what I conceived to be some stirring in the other room, only to find that it was the merest phantom of my imagination. Once indeed, so definite did the noise appear, that I rose up in my nightgown & went in my bare feet into the other chamber, but there was nothing there, only the tap of some branch against the window & the rush of cold air beneath the door, together with those creakings & groanings of timber in which the house customarily abounds. I confess that I felt more than a little foolish that these imaginings had crumbled into dust, but not I think frightened, for the passion was still upon me & an ogre from a fairy book lumbering into the room would merely have excited my scorn. Still there was no ogre, only the wind & the tap-tapping of the twigs, & so I retired to my bed, pulled the covers around me & once more lay down to rest.

How long I lay there I do not know, but the hour cannot have been much before three or four. Half-wakeful & half-asleep, I was yet conscious of being able to
see
very wonderfully (this I supposed a further consequence of my nervous state) & that I fancied Papa was there in the room making little remarks & observations that I strained to hear, that several other persons known to me were present but just a little way out of reach. It was then, again with a presentiment that it was
about to happen
, my senses all stimulated by the novelty of the situation, that I heard with utter distinctness the creak of a footstep & the turning of a key in the lock. Scarce daring to breathe, I lay still as a third & more prolonged sound—the noise of the door being drawn open—broke the silence. It occurred to me that still I must make no sound myself. Accordingly, I lay silent in the darkness, only reaching
out my hand so that I should be able to grasp candle & matches at the first opportunity. On the instant there came a mighty crash, as of a person tumbling over, accompanied by the noise of other objects falling to the floor, sharp intakes of breath, &c. Jumping to my feet & crying “Who is there?” my heart all the while beating like a drum, I hastily struck a match—my shadow, rearing up against the arc of the flame, I confess, did alarm me—lit the candle & moved to confront the intruder.

I was too late, for whoever it was had vanished in an instant. Footsteps echoed in the corridor, causing me to marvel at the resourcefulness of such a one who could gather his wits & make good his escape in the few seconds granted to him. The door was wide-open. The key hung from the lock. Before it lay proof of the excellence of my stratagems: a silver dish rolled against the chair & a single white rose fallen nearly as far as the fireplace. The fire irons, much to my satisfaction, were strewn everywhere about. For a moment I considered the advantages of stepping out into the corridor. Yet it seemed to me that my point had been proved, & no good would come of any nocturnal ramblings. Instead I busied myself in rectifying the damage that I had caused: restoring fire irons & chair to their rightful places, gathering up the twine into a ball, casting the abandoned rose into the grate. It occurred to me that anyone who glanced into the room—some witch passing on her broomstick, perhaps—would have seen the most curious sight: a woman in her nightgown, candlestick on the desk before her, tidying the disorder around her yet laughing as she did so.

It was then that I remarked that there was something else in the chamber with me. Not something that I could see, but something that I could hear: squeaking & scuffling & making fierce, evil little movements in the shadow beneath my desk. At this my anger grew to a pitch, for I knew that this was Sir Charles Lyell, which my guardian had carried upon his shoulder or in the pocket of his coat & left behind in his haste to depart, & I resolved to have my revenge, if not on my guardian then on the creature that he had brought with him, for a mouse that runs across the floor when I stand there in the dark is a thing that I dislike very much. He was, as I say, running this way & that beneath the desk, but I am the equal of a MOUSE, & seizing
the poker from the stand to which I had returned it, I stood all silently until such time as he should show himself. Presently, lulled by the silence & (as I now think) having no terror of human beings, even those that stand barefoot in their nightgowns, he poked his head out into the circle of soft light & in a trice I had brought the poker down upon him.

Nasty scuffling thing! A dozen times I belaboured him. When I had convinced myself he was quite dead, I picked him up with the fire tongs & cast him out into the corridor, where whoever searches may find him.

There shall be no more mice scampering in
my
chamber.

Afterwards, when the passion left me, I was properly remorseful, shed tears even at the thought of poor Sir Charles lying dead in the corridor where I had thrown him, for it was not his fault, poor thing, only that of the PERSON who brought him.

Papa always said that it was a sin to take a life, however humble. And yet I know that Papa liked to shoot a pheasant, which he said was there to be eaten & served no other purpose.

When all this had passed & I had arranged the room to my satisfaction, the door still hanging open on its hinge, I returned to my bedchamber, much alarmed now at what I had done, yet so exhausted that I fell almost instantly asleep. He will come in the morning, I told myself, though what I am to say to him & he to me I cannot tell.

He did not come. When I awoke it was exceedingly late. Bright sunshine streamed through the window of my chamber, the door had been locked & a breakfast tray left on my table (the tea altogether cold & insipid). Presently I fancied that I could hear voices far below, that the maids—Esther, & Margaret whom she thinks a goose—were out in the gardens & I was filled with an inexpressible longing to be with them, to run over cut grass & walk wherever I choose.

All the rest of the morning I sat at my desk thinking that he would come, but he did not.

After some time there was a twisting of the key into the lock &
I sprang to my feet, my heart pounding. And yet it was only Esther bringing in my luncheon & some foxgloves that she had picked in the wood next to the gardens & placed in water, which I was very glad to have.

Esther.

Who gave me a very mischievous, sidelong look as if to say that she knew all about me, indeed more perhaps than I knew myself.

Who seemed disposed to talk.

“Has William written lately?” I enquired, knowing that this is a question she likes to be asked.

It appears that William is working in some capacity for an associate of my guardian’s in the City. Of his duties & the manner of their execution, Esther knows little, but it is clear that she is impressed. “For he is making a mint of money, ma’am, truly. And, as his letter says, is stopping in rooms”—there is pride in Esther’s voice as she pronounces the word—“at Seven Dials. Do you know of it, ma’am?”

“A very respectable locality,” I told her.

“And he says again that soon he shall write to me, and I am to go to him.”

“And shall you go?”

“Certainly, ma’am, I shall go.”

And who shall I talk with, I wonder, when Esther goes? Not Mr. Randall, assuredly, with his tracts (he brought another one, a week ago, on the West African Mission) or Mrs. Finnie, to whom I have not spoken ten words in the past fortnight. But it occurs to me that if I take every care it may yet redound to my advantage.

I must be cunning.

He does not come & he does not come.

I took out the verses that Richard—Mr. Farrier—wrote me, which I had not done for half a dozen years & read them & was so very sad.

To Miss Isabel Brotherton

Last night I wasted hateful hours

Uncalmed by the peace of a college bed

I thirsted for brooks, and for tender showers

Instead of the policeman’s patient tread

On the pavement yonder, beyond the gate

And the fruits of a life lived all sedate

Away from the river in foaming spate

There are distant sights that I would see

Untouched by the light of an English sun

I yearn for the roar of an ancient sea

And the ancient race that I would run

Yet the rose from the gardens in the south

I crush on my breast, and upon my mouth

Ripe to appease my burning drout.

RF FECIT, JULY
1856

 

A week passes & he does not come. And then, all unexpected, one afternoon as I lie on my sofa—for I have been greatly fatigued in these last days—there comes the sound of footsteps in the corridor beyond the twist of a key in the lock.

I mark some great change in my guardian. His eyes seem more set in his head, his hair more grey, his face more lined, though only a week has passed since I last saw him & I did not then observe these things.

He says nothing of our last encounter, nor anything of Sir Charles Lyell. I, too, am silent. After regarding me in his customary way, he proposes—greatly to my surprise—that we walk in the garden.

“The servants are all away,” he says, as if a gentleman can only walk out with his ward in the absence of domestics, “or I should not have suggested it.”

And so we walk down the great staircase, through rooms that I
glimpsed before only at night, & into the back of the house, emerging from it onto that lawn at which I have stared so long from my window.

My guardian’s attentiveness is a wonder to behold. He takes my arm as we come to the gravel path, as if such an accumulation of tiny stones might cause me to fall, slashes with his stick at a nettle bush that threatens to impede my progress, draws my attention to the natural wonders in which the place apparently abounds. Thus I am bidden to admire a jay, a crossbill & a most curious, comical bird named a hoopoe, orange-plumaged & very bright-eyed, that trips across the grass to examine me as if he never saw my like before.

My guardian, it occurs to me, is a black crow, hopping over the grass in his rusty black vestments, cawing his pleasantries in my ear.

It is a day of bright sunshine, very pleasant in the shadow of the trees, & yet it seems to me very desolate & melancholy. Nothing blooms inside the great glasshouses; the cats run in & out of the dairy door. Yet my guardian is more eloquent than I have known him before. He says, “I have lived here nearly half my life. My uncle, from whom I inherited the estate, died when I was thirty. Though I travelled when I was a younger man, since I have grown old I have rarely left it.”

And yet soon you may have to leave it
, I tell myself,
with the timber rotting in the woods & the bailiffs coming from Lynn
.

“Where did you travel, sir?” I ask.

“In Europe a little. Beyond the Danube & as far east as Kiev. And then in Araby.”

As we turn about the side of the house, in sight of the gravel drive—which is full of great ruts & puddles left by the spring rain—& the circles of uncut grass & an old fountain rising out of a mermaid’s head, very cracked & worn, something of the melancholy of the place seems to strike him, for he says, “My uncle used to give great parties here in his time.
Fêtes champêtres
with a quintain for the gentlemen to tilt at & archery for the ladies & a line of carriages stretching all the way to the gate & a marquee for dancing. But all that was forty years ago.

“I have no taste for parties,” my guardian says.

What does my guardian have a taste for? Why, for little white eggs that
lie in his cabinets & will never hatch, & for birds that will never move because they are stuffed & dead, & for staring at me as if I were one of his specimens preserved under glass.

We are standing before the front of the house now, where the sun slants low over the gardens & the frontage is gathered up in shadow.

“Sir,” I say, “I very much wish to write that letter.”

“You shall write it,” he says. “For there is much that can be said in it.”

And then, not greatly to my surprise, for some instinct had been at work within me before our excursion commenced, he takes my hand.

He wishes to marry me.

He says that during the course of our association he has formed a great affection for me, extending beyond that which a guardian naturally feels for his ward.

He would make me mistress of Easton Hall.

He is a stooped old man in a black suit, cawing at me like one of the rooks in his field.