Edith Holler, page 23
“The theatre’s daughter.”
“I know who you are.”
“I need to go home.”
“You’re here now, let us be comfortable.”
“The theatre will fall without me. And the woman must be arrested, my father . . .”
“Let’s be quiet, shall we?”
“You’re not listening!”
I was slapped on the cheek.
“Be silent, didn’t you hear? No words. You do not speak, no sound from you.”
The hurt on my face, the tears coming, and the outrage.
“Where am I?”
“No,” she said. “Any more noise and I’ll put the gag on you. Do you want that?”
I shook my head.
“Can you be sensible?”
I shook my head.
“Orderlies!”
“Don’t you dare!” I screamed. “I must go to the theatre. You must let me. Great danger. I am Edith Holler. Help! Help me!”
The orderlies came in and put something over my mouth and I went away again.
It was dark when I woke. The gaslight was off. It was the same room, but everything black now: black walls and black floor, black at the window, black my sheets.
I went to the door with the window. Small light there in the corridor, and beyond it just a dull grey landing, nothing save a candle burning low in a wall sconce.
When next I woke, all was brown. The same setting, but browned like a roast. “Hello,” I said. “Hello, anyone?” I went to the window in the door. “Hello? Hello.”
No one came.
Next time, all was white again. The nurse brought some porridge. I was hungry and I ate it all up.
“Norwich rhymes with porridge,” I said.
She didn’t say anything.
“I’m much better now,” I said. “I’ve had dreams,” I said. “But much better now.”
“Are you going to talk?”
“I shall be the pattern of all patience: I shall say nothing.”
“Good then.”
“Except?”
“Well?”
“My father died.”
“Poor lamb.”
I could bear the waiting no longer. “Does the theatre still stand?” I asked.
“Too much altogether!” she replied.
I raised my hands and put them to my mouth. I decided to be good.
A little later, the doctor at last.
“You took your time,” I said. There’s cheek for you.
“How are you, Edith?”
“I am very well, thank’ee.”
“I am glad to hear it. Edith, what is that about your neck? Under your dress there.”
“A present, it was given me.”
“No personal objects here. You should not have it.”
“I like to have it.”
“Not allowed, Edith. It is very wrong of them not to have taken it. Shall you give it to me or must I remove it myself?”
I untied the knot and gave it to him. He placed it on the chair before turning back to me, sitting on the side of the bed. “That was very good of you, Edith. I’m very pleased.”
“I’d like to go home now.”
“Not just yet I think, Edith.”
“And what about how I think?”
“That indeed is the question.”
“Does the theatre stand?”
“Last time I looked.”
“And when was that?”
“I have been very busy.”
“Please, please I do solemnly, humbly beg you, tell me!”
“Edith. Edith. We are here to be calm.”
“I am not calm.”
“No, you are not. You have got very muddled. Edith, we must help you make all a little clearer. You have been told many lies.”
“No.”
“Edith, a building doesn’t fall down if a person leaves it. Unless there is dynamite. The stories that you’ve heard, that you’ve seen upon the stage, they are not good for you. To most people it is clear that they are not true, but you, Edith, have become confused. Let us put all these monsters away.”
“There are witches.”
“No, there are not.”
“Then who was hanged in the castle moat?”
“Unhappy women.”
“Witches.”
“No.”
“And my father is murdered.”
“It is not true.”
“Oh! Have you seen him then?”
“I have not, but I am sure he is quite well.”
“Perhaps he will haunt you then for your ignorance.”
“Edith, I am sure he is well. But we must understand that when people die, the dreadful truth is that they are dead, and that is that.”
“They don’t come back?”
“No, they don’t. I am sorry but that is how it is.”
“My father might. Just like Hamlet’s father.”
“But that is just a story, Edith. And Hamlet in Hamlet never changes, he is only words, he is not a real person. Whenever you see Hamlet it is always the same.”
“He always dies.”
“Yes, he does.”
“It is such a sad story.”
“And that is it, Edith, it is only a story. Hamlet can only be the words he was given. He will always die in the end, by poison. Every night the play is performed he will die; his death is already decided before the curtain opens. There is no other outcome for him. The ghost shall always appear upon the battlements and it shall set in motion the play’s unhappy outcome.”
“I’ve seen a ghost.”
“No, Edith, no you haven’t.”
“I bloody have. He was right there before me!”
“Now, Edith, no more tales. We’re done with that. You are a real person. Unlike Hamlet, you may write your own life. You can go where you please.”
“No, I can’t!”
“Not now perhaps, but later.”
“You’ll keep me here, won’t you? And never let me out.”
“Edith, with rest you may be your own self again, and not let anyone else be the hero of your life.”
“What did you say?”
“It can happen, you see, that a person may become too obedient, too much in servitude of another’s thoughts—a father, say, or a mother. Or a person can be too much influenced by their surroundings. It may so hap—”
“Stop there. What is your name again, Doctor?”
“It is Chapman, Dr. Chapman.”
“No, no it isn’t.”
“Christopher Chapman.”
“No, I don’t think so. I know you.”
“We have met.”
“Mr. Collin is your name.”
“Dr. Chapman, Edith, no more tales please.”
“You’re Mr. Collin, the understudy. And you nearly had me!”
“Edith, I am Dr. Chapman. You must believe me.”
“You’re Mr. Collin in a wig and glasses, with eyebrows and sideburns. You’ve put cotton in your mouth to change your cheeks, you’re wearing makeup, No. 2 flesh I would say, but even so you’re Mr. Collin true enough, no matter what you wear.”
“I shall call the orderlies.”
“And you’ll still be Mr. Collin.”
“I’ll have you gagged.”
“And you were born in Broadstairs, Kent.”
“No!”
“Yes, yes you were.”
“Still so far gone, Edith. I should have been called earlier.”
“I can prove that you are Mr. Collin. Then all the world must be-lieve it.”
“And how may that be done?”
“By a tugging of the nose!”
I grabbed for his nose then, to pull the false one off. Gave it a yank, pulled and pulled, but it would not come. “Such strong glue!” I cried. And he shoved me back, hard and rude it was, my head against the frame. He stepped away and he held his nose, Mr. Collin did, and it was indeed most red after my tugging, though it was still most certainly affixed.
“I will not have my patients violent.”
“Stubborn nose. Off with it.”
“I shall have you strapped down now.”
“Oh, did I hurt you?” I said, of a sudden in genuine distress because of the man’s fury. “I never meant to.”
“You may not be violent.”
“I did not mean to.”
The orderlies came and I was strapped to the bed. I didn’t struggle too much then. (In truth I could not, as an orderly had his knee and weight upon my neck, so I let him at his business, even watched as if it were merely interesting.)
“We shall have those stories out of you, Edith. And then you shall be well again.”
Very busy they were, about me. Afterward I could not move, stiff as board. A gag clasped me around my mouth until it was sore and I thought I was certain to be marked by it. They did not bind my eyes, so—unlike Gloucester—I could still see. I’ll think nothing, I thought—nothing at all. That will save me. Here is my body, but my thinking can still slip away from it; you may catch a body but not the mind, I say. That will learn them. Calm and calm and white and still and no one indoors, just the quiet tides of my even breathing, so small, little little living.
Sssh, Edith has gone away.
It is summer and the theatre is closed up.
Be white now, in a white room. Nothing more.
But my mind wandered, and it worried.
Oh, Edith, you are forgot, and you shall never come out again.
Such a small play, three acts at most and then the curtain, even though it is still only morning. Well then, that is the story. They say this place is for curables, but that’s only to get you inside without making too much fuss. Once you are properly inside, they grow such fondness for you that they hold you hard, with straps mostly it seems, until the life has gone out of you. Do not scream at it, for they are stronger than you and they have straps, and they say, Here is Edith at this address, and they are most persuasive.
Just a plain room it was, with small furnishings. On the chair, I saw my beetle clacker on its red ribbon. He’d forgotten to take it, wrong of the doctor not to take it. I’ll pretend it isn’t there.
Still, still.
Then, in the corner, a little movement. Some small skipping and dancing, such wild running, such exploration. A beetle came under the door. It scurried forward, the little thing, toward the bed. I lost sight of it then, somewhere under the bed. Should I call out? I wanted to call out. I can’t call out, I’m all shut up. No sign of the beetle still, but I knew it was there, somewhere under me. And then there it was at last. At the foot of the bed where I lay. Then—yes—on my feet. And not stopping there. It’s coming on. All along the terrain of Edith. My body’s a country. Here it comes, the tin mines of my Cornwall, thence upon my Fenland, over my Yorkshire moors, north it tramples, to the Scotland of me. On my face now, upon my cheek.
I closed my eyes. Firm shut, Edith.
Now it was at my eye, hoping to open the curtain and out the vile jelly.
I cannot stop it, it bites there and wants in. I keep my eyes firm shut.
The door opened and someone stepped inside, approached my bed. I kept my eyes firm shut. A hand on my face, knocking the beetle away. Then the slam of a foot, moving from side to side. The beetle then, I presume, was deceased.
I hear a voice: “Watson’s matchless cleaner is the best soap for all purposes.”
I open my eyes. Aunty Bleachy there before me. I say nothing, I cannot.
“I oughtn’t to do it. But I can’t just stand there and let it happen,” she went on. “This here, Edith Holler, what is happening now, is called a crime, though others may term it an escape. And I find I can’t let it happen. They took my own father this way, Edith, and no one protested. Across the street he went, and only I wailed at it; the others just stood tall and sensible, and after there was no talk of my father. When I screamed and cried, they said I was unhappy in love. But I wasn’t, it was for Father I bellowed. They wouldn’t have that, my fuss about Father. They warned me that I would follow him if I wasn’t quieter, and then they gave me the mop. It was never unhappy love, not of their sort at least, it was because my father had gone across the road. I’ll not have that again. No, I won’t. I’m taking you out. It may be very wrong of me, yet in the inmost part of me I feel it’s right, and that’s the part that’s won me over, and so I’m doing it. I’m fetching you, my bucket, though I shall no doubt be in such trouble for it.”
This speech is called a monologue. And in addition I shall confirm that I am this woman’s bucket.
She took off the gag.
“Aunt Bleachy. You didn’t forget me.”
“None of that.”
“You came for me.”
“Now listen, Edith, and concentrate hard. There is something you must understand: You’re not in the hospital, bucket. You never left the theatre.”
I could not believe what I was hearing.
“Your uncles, my brothers, foolish thin men,” said Bleachy, “but they would not allow to have you taken out. So they hired on staff from over there, at Margaret’s expense, and they had this done over, like a stage set, see. Though the doctors and nurses are not actors, no, they come in and out, rushing across Theatre Street. But, even so, you’re not in hospital. No indeed, you’re in dressing room 12.” I made wide eyes at that. “It is a terrible deceit. But not for much longer, my brave Brasso girl. I’m going to hide you. I’m going to keep you a very deep secret. I hope it’s right, to do this. I cannot tell, I don’t want to harm you. But they are harming you already. Look at your face! They say the harming is right. But how can it be? So then, an escape.” She’d unbuckled me by then and I could move.
“I shall leave the theatre this day!” I cried. “You’ll take me and I’ll see the world?”
“Not quite, Edith. For I, too, fear the curse so badly—the theatre may fall without you in it—so we’ll keep you here. But hidden. Here’s the plot of it: I’m going to take you down, down beneath, in deep rooms that are forgotten. But Bleachy knows of them, because I know this building better than all. I know how deep it goes. The cleaners, you see, always know more than anyone else. Will you come with me, and not call out? I shall visit you and feed you, and after a while we’ll work out what is right to do next. Will you come with naughty, wicked Aunty Bleachy?”
I nodded.
“So then, we should do it quick and silent.”
She moved, and behind her, slumped against the wall, was the doll of me from front of house. I looked at it, most alarmed.
“I’m putting the doll in your place. It shall give us, perhaps, a little more time. Oh, why do all this, Belinda? Why take these chances? And yet I feel I must. More than anything I’ve done in my life. Oh, Edith, this is living. How you make old Belinda live again! Come now, let’s put dolly to bed.”
“Aunt Bleachy?”
“You must be silent, my little limp lint girl. Do only what Bleachy says, though she oughtn’t to do it. And quick now, basin mine, quick as we may.”
And so the dummy was put in my place, strapped down, and even gagged, its face turned away from the window, so all might assume there is a person there, though there never was. It was all very theatrical.
“Look, here’s your clacker,” said Bleachy, quickly knotting its ribbon around my neck. “Come along then, though I oughtn’t to do it.”
“Aunt Bleachy?”
“Only silence now, and I lock the door and we come along.”
She took my hand and led me on.
“Not a word, bucket.”
Steps into the dark. With each step trusting myself to the blackness and to Bleachy. Can’t see, can only feel. The wall broken in places, the air damp and thick, her hand strong and living. The stairs creaked so, and down we went, first to where the donkey died; then to a hatch, pulled open and more steps there, only they are stone now; in we went and closed the hatch behind. The air grew damper, I could smell the deep earth, down and down, into the darkness. Step after step. Feeling each one. Going round and down, ever darker, ever damper. A foul wind came past us and I reached for the wall. I slid sometimes, for the steps were damp and uneven, Bleachy, too, though not as much. Round and around, never an end to it, until there was. We’d built up such a rhythm then, cascading down in the dark, that when at last there were no more steps, I didn’t expect it and came plunging down, struck ground hard. This effect may be done upon a stage, I could not help but think it. You have a spiral staircase that is slowly pulled up from the stage floor into the fly tower, and the actor on the stairs runs down and down as the stairs are pulled up and up, until at last the actor gets to the final steps and drops down upon the stage floor. It is ever wonderful to see and gives an exact impression of going down and down, and the audience fully believes that what they are now watching is deep under the ground. And so the actor hits the stage—and so I, in actual truth, fell upon ungiving ground.
Bleachy helped me up.
“There then, they’ll not find you here.”
“Aunt Bleachy?”
“In the undercroft.”
“Aunt Bleachy?”
“Old cellars of the Swann Inn, what once stood in this place. We are in one of the deep rooms, a whole great series of chambers that have been forgotten. They covered it over when they made the theatre, but it’s still here. And here’s food and water. Here’s candle and match. But use sparingly, Edith, as I do not know when I can get back to you. I ought not to have done it, truly I am such a bad one. But I couldn’t leave you there, could I? So stay, bucket, and I’ll come back with more just as soon it’s safe. But I must leave you now before I’m missed.”
“Aunt Bleachy?”
“Needham’s polishing paste. Dazzling, mirror finish.”
And she was gone away. And that is how I came under.
21.
I come under, the company.
