Tennyson's Gift (32 page)

‘Must?' Alfred began.

‘Yes, must,' she barked, and then sank to her pillow, all energies disbursed.

Ellen sat alone again. Mary Ann – or Shakespeare's Olivia, it was all melting together in her mind – had left her. It was no fun reducing a beautiful woman to tears, Ellen thought; why did Watts admire his own handiwork so much? She wiped her eyes and stood up.

‘Mrs Watts?'

She looked around.

‘Mrs Watts?'

It was Lorenzo. Oh heavens, how thrilling. Whenever she saw this man, she felt acutely self-aware, as though her body were swelled by electricity, and moreover outlined by sparks of blue fire.

‘I thought I saw you from upstairs,' he explained. ‘We are leaving tomorrow.'

Ellen felt a mortal pang, although she knew she was not entitled to it.

‘As are we,' she admitted.

‘Were the tableaux a success? Was Mr Watts cured of his problem?'

‘Not entirely. He has forgotten Westminster, but unfortunately remembered something else.'

She smiled at him. She wanted very much to touch his arm, but she held back. She was half afraid the contact might kill him. She lowered her eyes instead.

‘I think my husband and I will soon conclude – oh, that all good things must come to an end.'

‘Ah. I hope there were other reasons to enjoy your stay?'

Ellen's body sang so loudly she was amazed he couldn't hear it. Or perhaps he could.

‘Mr Fowler, I would not have missed it. It's the sea, you know. The sea throws up all manner of things.' She raised her eyes. ‘Mrs Fowler, for example.'

Lorenzo did not comment. There was no call for an apology. His wife was a fact. He sniffed his fingers in the dark.

‘You seem unhappy,' he said at last, tenderly.

‘Not unhappy at all, thank you. I just need courage.'

They looked at the black waves together.

‘You have great courage, Mrs Watts.'

‘Do I?'

Oh dear, they were getting personal again. Why did every conversation with Lorenzo Fowler have to scream with the sub-text,
Please, please, for pity's sake, touch my head?

He looked at her. She looked at him.

‘Will you take your hat off this time, Mrs Watts?'

‘I think I will, Mr Fowler.'

And as the moon broke through cloud above the ink-black bay, Ellen shook the hair out of her hat, pouring it like gold into his hands.

Next morning, Alfred was just reading mad Uncle Orson's startling description of sexual frenzy when Emily was wheeled in by Wilson. In her black, pram-like invalid carriage, she looked like a squeezed doll, an image of weakness quite belying either her authority in the household or her influence over the big strapping man who stood myopically before her, his back to the fireplace in authentic baronial manner, while a grey shaggy deer-hound lay at his feet. It was quite true, she reflected, what they said about people and their dogs.

‘Reading your excellent review again, my dear?'

Tennyson took a quick look at the brown cover of the Orson pamphlet. Actually, in appearance it was not unlike the
Westminster,
a coincidence which might later come in handy – if he wanted, say, to read it again in bed.

‘I am indeed, Emily. Fine words, fine words, and correct in every particular.'

‘May I see it now, Alfred?'

‘Mm?'

‘Will you hand it to me? I think I have strength enough.'

Tennyson hesitated. He doubted his wife would ever have strength enough for the contents of the matter he was reading – which was a shame, but there you go. Thinking quickly, he reached into his coat pocket and withdrew the true
Westminster.

‘Another copy,' he announced ingeniously, and continued to read feverishly about the abomination of women who don't want to take part.

How had Orson Fowler's curious document found its way into his home? Alfred had no idea that Wilson had brought it. All he knew was that, ambling vaguely down the main stairs this morning, he had discovered it hanging by a thread, exactly placed so that it bumped into his forehead as he made his way to breakfast. What with the apple pie yesterday, and today the contraption with string, people were finally finding ways of drawing things to his attention.

‘This appears to be a periodical called
The Train,'
pronounced Emily at last, ‘And it contains Mr Dodgson's scandalous version of “The Two Voices”.'

Tennyson snatched it back, searched his pocket again, and found the
Westminster.
These papers all looked too similar. He wondered how librarians managed things at all. Impatiently he took all three pamphlets into one bundle, and cast them on the piano.

‘Do you think we should all go out at once, Emily?' He wanted to walk alone this morning. He had lots of things on his mind.

‘Why ever should we not?'

Alfred thought for a reason. He grasped at straws.

‘What if the Queen came, for example?'

‘Alfred!'

‘Well, must Wilson accompany us, then?' he demanded. ‘She is not pleasant company, you must confess. I firmly believe she did not deserve the wages you did not pay her.'

There was an awkward silence, broken by Wilson humming ‘Rock of Ages', just behind his ear.

Emily cleared her throat.

‘She is standing in the room, Alfred.'

‘Is she?' he whispered.

‘Three yards to your left, before the window.'

‘Oh good.' He thought quickly again. ‘I thought you were a sideboard, my dear!'

He waved an arm of explanation. ‘You admit yourself that you are thick set? Broad of beam? Hm? Shall we be off?'

And so it was that half an hour later three small black figures could be seen on the down – approaching the high point of the seven-hundred foot cliffs – when Julia set out uphill from Dimbola Lodge with her wretched roll of wallpaper. Cameron had refused to let her spoil the Tennysons' breakfast with the news of Ada, but she broke out of the house as early as she could.

There was an air of finality about the day, for Mr Watts had announced his imminent departure, as had Mr Dodgson, who pored over a piece of paper at breakfast while mysteriously holding a yellow cushion to the side of his head. She had also received a note from Mr Fowler saying that his family must return to London, so bang went the science-meets-art Absence of Hope enterprise as well. Julia hated endings, yet also loved them. She doted on the high-minded melancholy they produced. ‘He is gone, he is gone!' was the sort of picture she loved above all to produce – a long face in profile, bereft of love. Luckily, Mary Ann had been looking positively hangdog recently. A period of excellent droopy-servant Art was therefore on the cards.

Dodgson spent his morning trading in safety pins and pictures, and bits of ornament, and writing a tortured letter to Ellen. It was conceived in kindness, as a present, but luckily Mrs Watts had become accustomed to presents of a cheap, disappointing nature. For here was yet another.

(Here followed a highly complicated system of ‘him' for ‘her' in lines of even number, and so on. It was obvious to anybody that this was not a system at all, but an excuse for an insulting and empty gift.)

Ellen had no idea what Mr Dodgson's instructions meant. She also had no idea why he would write her a poem about safety pins. He seemed to be telling her, in certain terms, that Alice was not written for her, but at least this poem was. So she tossed the instructions aside and read the attached.

(‘Well, that last bit is true at least,' thought Ellen. ‘Come, this is not too difficult.')

(‘What indeed?' she commented.)

(Ellen's heart began to sink. She re-read the stanza twice, and pushed on.)

Ellen stopped reading. She had reached the bottom of the sheet. She turned over. There was more.

Ellen put it down. She felt her age had doubled since last night, and with the new-found authority of sadness (which suited her), she tore Mr Dodgson's poem in pieces.
‘A secret kept from all the rest between yourself and me,'
she recited. ‘It will certainly be that, Mr Dodgson. It will certainly be that.'

Watts opened the door. ‘Are you ready?' he asked, coolly.

‘I am,' said his little wife, in a grown-up voice. As she looked at him now, she could never imagine being in awe of him again.

He walked away, but she recalled him.

‘Come back!' she cried, using a professional diaphragm technique which would soon come in handy again. ‘Come back, I have something important to say.'

This sounded promising; Watts turned.

‘What is it?'

She smiled and raised her eyebrows. It was lucky she knew Mr Dodgson's book by heart.

‘Keep your temper,' she said.

It was a fine day; the effect of last night's storm had been to break the hot weather, and today small clouds scudded inland over the Needles and across the chalk. At the bay, seaweed in ugly heaps had appeared on the sand, stirred up by last night's waves, and was now stinking like sulphur, making little girls run squealing, holding their noses. Julia loved the seaweed smell, for it was similar to her photographic chemicals, which betokened freedom and happiness, and a chance to do something beautiful in an otherwise humdrum life. In the confusions of the last few days she had taken few photographs; when her guests had all departed she would again have the leisure but not the subjects. It was annoying how things always worked out that way.