A Dark Dividing, page 9
Am writing this in the train (not in the least bumpy except when we go over the points, so a good opportunity to bring diary up-to-date). Maisie has never been in a railway train before, and is sitting bolt upright, clutching the edges of the seat, and staring wide-eyed and fearful through the window. She wanted to bolt for home when we got to Paddington Station, and had to be sat down and talked to calmly. I explained about power of steam (not sure I got that absolutely right), but in the daisie’s defence, have to admit that place a seething hive of people and machines and huge sudden spurts of steam from trains, and all a bit daunting. Floy would have seen all kinds of images in the sight: he would have talked glowingly about iron and steel engines, breathing fire like modern-day dragons, and drawn analogies with some kind of Dante-like inferno, and then gone away to incorporate it all into a book. But I only saw the trains and the people and smelt the hot iron, and God alone knows what Maisie saw, poor little creature.
Mrs Tigg made us take a luncheon basket—‘Because you can’t go all that way without proper sustenance, madam,’ as if the Welsh Marches were the end of all civilization—and Edward has arranged for a first-class compartment, since not fitting that his wife travel any other way.
Later
The lunch basket contains cold chicken and ham, brown bread and butter, egg-and-cress sandwiches, and some of Mrs Tigg’s plum cake. Also two small bottles of Mrs Tigg’s delicious lemonade, so we have had quite a feast.
The train is still jolting on its way through the countryside, and now we are skirting the ugly industrialist towns of the Midlands. There’s a teary rain sliding down the grimy windows of our carriage, but I can see all the grey-roofed manufactories and the clouds of vapour that hang over them, and occasionally there are glimpses of narrow streets with huddled-together houses, where the ant-workers live, scurrying from their houses to the manufactories, and then back again. In and out and to and fro and round and round, like lemmings, like creatures on treadmills, hardly ever seeing daylight, poor souls. Perhaps one day someone—someone with vision like Floy’s—will find a way to capture the greyness and the dreariness, and the rain-blurred figures.
Told Maisie how, as children, we used to make up little songs in the train to go with the constant clackety-clack of the wheels, but she doesn’t understand because she didn’t have that kind of childhood. I would have taught Viola and Sorrel those songs—or perhaps they would have made up their own—but that won’t ever happen now. (But I have that one tiny memory—the little warm fingers curling determinedly around mine. As long as I can keep that, I won’t have lost them completely.)
Keep telling myself there will be other children—doctors say no reason not to have other, perfectly normal babies—but somehow, cannot get enthusiastic about that. Edward says, heartily, we will look forward to sons, but have a dreadful suspicion that Edward’s sons might take after him, which is v. depressing prospect.
Question: How am I to find the resolve to return to Edward after this business with Maisie has been sorted out?
Answer: I have absolutely no idea. But I know it has to be done.
We’re almost there. It’s been a long train journey and there was a tedious delay on the line a while ago that held us up for almost an hour, but the train’s slowing down now, and ahead of us is the tiny halt just outside Weston Fferna. If I lean forward and wipe the damp mistiness from the window with my glove I can just see the light of the station-master’s lantern signalling to our engine-driver. We’re nearly home.
Home. So many memories go with that word. I remember, I remember, the house where I was born… Christmases and summers and springs. Roaring log fires and berries on trees, and buttercup-splashed meadows.
And the excitement of all the journeys—I love journeys. Going to London for shopping, for visits, for birthday parties in people’s houses, for grown-up parties and dances later on, but always coming back to Weston Fferna. The train always used to sing its own little song when we came back, the wheels chanting, Going-HOME, going-HOME…
I remember, I remember, the roses, red and white… And the winding lane with the stile and meadow-sweet and lilac in summer. I was kissed for the first time on that stile—Father would have had a fit, and Mother would have been aghast. I was fourteen when it happened, and the boy was—somebody local; I forget his name. What a slut I am not even to remember who gave me my first kiss.
And blackberries in autumn, and the scent of apples. And the sharp coldness of November, when the air is like spun glass so that your nose prickles with it, and cobwebs in the hedges are spangly white, like lace. I lost my virginity on an afternoon like that, beneath the trees in Beck’s Copse. It was a bit frightening and briefly painful and then it was marvellous, but I remember his name, and I remember that he was the son of one of our neighbours, and he was dreadfully upset afterwards because he said he had smirched my purity and committed a great sin against womankind, such nonsense, because I was as keen to do it as he was. (Although quite a revelation to discover later that not all men take three minutes flat from start to finish, and then sob with shame. Floy once told me that most men consider premature ejaculation something of a bêtise. And quite right, too.)
Still, that sharp cold afternoon under the beech trees—and one or two afternoons and nights afterwards (and let’s be honest, Charlotte, four or five other lovers after that, as well!)—all meant I had to pretend with Edward on the wedding night. Edward would have been scandalized to his toes to think he had married someone who was not pure.
We’re almost home, we’re in the little pony-trap now that they keep at the tiny station, and it’s jogging along the few miles to my parents’ house. We’re turning right at the crossroads—what the locals call the four crossways—and I can see the signpost pointing the way home. Across the fields I can see the church where Edward and I were married. It’s rather a gloomy church; I never liked it much.
And now it’s almost dark, but if I lean forward a bit, I can see the old trees on the hillside to the left.
I remember, I remember the fir trees dark and high… And the house that dwells behind those trees, and where Maisie and I must go very soon now.
Mortmain.
CHAPTER NINE
MEL THOUGHT IT was curious how a seemingly small event could be a catalyst, and how it could finally push you across a private and very personal Rubicon—a Rubicon with which you had been struggling for several months. Or did I cross that particular Rubicon a long time ago without noticing?
The twins were four months old when the Parliamentary seat that Joe had been hoping would fall vacant finally did fall vacant. His adoption as Party candidate for the by-election was officially announced, and he told Mel that they must give a party. There were a number of people who would be involved in the campaigning and it would be a way to thank them in advance for the work they were going to do to get him elected.
This was all perfectly reasonable; Mel had always known that if Joe really did make this bid for Westminster there would have to be entertaining and various semi-public functions, and on balance she thought she would quite enjoy it. But then Joe said, in a too-casual voice, that they might as well regard the evening as the twins’ debut as well. Mel could buy them new outfits for the occasion—the cost did not matter, well, not within reason—and Joe would get some publicity shots taken of them beforehand. Now that he thought about it, they ought to invite a few other small children as company for the twins. It would look well on photographs afterwards, what did Mel think?
What Mel thought would not actually matter, because Joe would do what he wanted, regardless of her opinion. It was becoming obvious that the party for his campaigners was already taking second place in his mind, and that he was treating the evening as a major PR exercise to bring the twins to the attention of potential voters.
This was appalling. Mel would hate it for the twins, and the twins, who were already noticing people and responding to them, would hate it as well. It was unbearable to think of them being made use of, and to imagine them cast abruptly into the midst of other children—normal children—who would not understand about them, and who might stare at them or point. And I’d stare at all those children myself and feel resentful, and wonder why I couldn’t have given birth to normal babies like those other women!
What was even worse was that this was probably only the start: Joe would thrust the twins more and more into the limelight if he thought it would further his cause. I can’t let it happen, thought Mel. I can’t.
Joe went on with his plans for the party, regretting several times that they had not yet struck out with the purchase of a larger house which would create a much better impression, although perhaps it was better not to appear ostentatious or nouveau-riche, there was nothing more calculated to put people’s backs up. What had Mel bought to wear for the evening—? Oh my word, very dashing. Rather a bright green though, wasn’t it? Still, if she thought she could carry it off—And doubtless she would find other occasions to wear the dress again so as to get the full value of the cost, would she? And what would the twins be wearing? Oh—pale green for Simone and pale blue for Sonia? Well, doubtless Mel knew best, but he had always thought that pink was the prettiest colour for little girls. Nonsense, their hair was not red at all, or only the merest hint; a nice sugar-pink would have been very suitable. You had to think how colours would come out in black-and-white press photographs. Was it too late to exchange the outfits at the shop?
Martin Brannan and the paediatrician had given the twins an almost-clean bill of health. Weight gain was on course; heart, lungs, kidneys were all working properly for both the babies. The twins’ responses to stimuli were excellent—it was already apparent that Simone liked bright colours and Sonia liked sounds—and they were taking bright-eyed notice of the world around them, enjoying being talked to or sung to.
‘Start giving them as normal a life as you can from now on,’ Martin said to Mel. ‘Take them out and about; let’s toughen them up a bit. Wrap them up so that they aren’t especially noticeable—we don’t want them stared at by voyeurs—but let them get used to people and noise and shops and traffic. They mustn’t live in a glass cage.’
Mel reported all this to Joe, and then, striving to keep her voice ordinary, said, ‘They’d like to start assembling the surgical team for the operation. It’ll take a little while to do that—to get the right people together all at the same time—but if they start the preparations now Martin Brannan thinks the separation can probably be done before Christmas.’
‘Not a very pleasant time for a hospital stay,’ said Joe. ‘Two babies spending their first Christmas in a hospital bed—’
‘They’d be home well in time for Christmas.’
‘Even so, I think we’ll leave things as they are. Certainly until after the by-election.’
His dismissive tone was so maddening that Mel had to beat down anger before replying. Then she said, ‘We can’t leave it much beyond six months. They’re being very clear about that. Joe, I know you’ve got qualms, but I was hoping you’d have come round to the idea by now.’ Pause. ‘You haven’t though, have you?’
‘No.’ This time there was no explanation, no it-is-God’s-will stuff.
‘That’s a pity,’ said Mel slowly. ‘I was hoping you would reconsider. It would be much better if you would.’
Martin Brannan had said the twins must not live inside a glass cage, but if Joe had his way they might be imprisoned in that cage for most of their lives.
Had any other mothers of conjoined twins faced such a dilemma? There had certainly been a number of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century parents who had sold their children to freak shows—and how akin to that was Joe’s behaviour now? It was rather disturbing to see parallels but Mel did see them. Still, most of the parents she had read about had seemed to be ordinary, more-or-less honourable men and women, who suffered agonies at their children’s condition and would do anything to ensure normal lives for them.
What about Charlotte Quinton, so briefly mentioned in just one of the books on conjoined twins? Charlotte’s twins had been born at the very end of the Victorian era, but the books did no more than list her name so there was no way of knowing whether her twins had survived, or, if they had, where or how they had lived. Mel kept wondering about Charlotte; probably because there had been just that brief, tantalizing reference to her and then nothing else. It made her a slightly mysterious, rather romantic figure.
It was actually quite odd that Charlotte’s twins did not seem to have been written about in any more detail—or was it? Perhaps they had died and there was no story to tell. Or perhaps there was a story but it had been kept from the public, or simply not been thought sufficiently interesting. Or, twisting things around the other way, perhaps the story had been so interesting that Charlotte had left the country. Changed her name, and disappeared—
Changed her name and disappeared…
Thank you, Charlotte, said Mel silently. Whatever happened to you and your twins, I think you’ve been instrumental in showing me what I’ve got to do.
Charlotte Quinton’s diaries:
31st January 1900
Breakfast with Mother and Father always a slightly peculiar event since marriage. Frequently feel relegated to maiden status again, and at times as if I have been summarily picked up and carried, willy-nilly, back into childhood.
But life here almost exactly as it always has been. Mother fussing over local politics—church fête, Lady Somebody’s musical evening, worried because Queen’s health giving concern—although what can you expect at her age, but such a pity if she dies in the summer with all the garden parties and people having to wear black, so unbecoming in hot weather…
Father tutting over world politics—Mafeking and Ladysmith in a fine old pickle although shouldn’t believe all you read, damned newspaper fellows will tell you anything… Anglo-German alliance doomed, mark his words, that man von Bulow no use to them as Chancellor…
My two young sisters, just starting to be emancipated from the schoolroom, are allowed down to dinner now except when guests are invited. They giggle together over fashion books, and secretly play ragtime jazz on the piano when Father is not around… Caroline has learnt the steps of the mazurka, and promises to teach me…
I found it all extraordinarily restful.
After breakfast told Mother that Maisie was thinking of taking post in a church orphanage in North London because she wanted to help children. Said I thought of going out to Mortmain to let her see the children there.
Felt dreadfully guilty because Mother, dear unsuspecting soul, thought this so thoughtful and responsible of me—dear Charlotte—and remarked that kitchen-maids were unfailingly ungrateful, always wanting to leave just when you had trained them to be properly useful, although one could hardly object to such a worthy ambition on Maisie’s part.
‘And although I believe there are certainly orphaned children in Mortmain, they say that a good many of the other inhabitants are a touch wanting, poor souls,’ she said lowering her voice, and then went on to remind me not to bother Edward with tittle-tattle about servants, since gentlemen never want to hear that kind of talk.
It’s a remarkable thing, but I only have to be back in this house for half a day before all of Mother’s precepts come flooding back. ‘Gentlemen like to talk about their own interests and to be listened to without interruption…’ ‘A lady never makes a scene…’ ‘Do not respond or react if someone is impolite enough to make a coarse remark in your hearing…’
I told Mother that Edward never takes any interest in servants anyway, and only interested in dinner being on time and house decently clean.
(Note: Not sure this is entirely true, since just before leaving London, caught Edward eyeing Maisie’s replacement, who’s a bit of a sauce-box, I suspect.)
Mother then asked after Edward, and dutifully inquired about his mother, whom she cannot bear although we have to pretend otherwise. So comforting to hear Mamma being teeth-grittingly polite about the old bat.
Have been offered the use of the trap for the expedition to Mortmain, with Griggs to drive it—‘Since you are bound to still feel in delicate health, Charlotte’—but I have said we do not need Griggs. Admittedly I have not driven pony-trap since marrying Edward, but do not think it’s something one forgets.
Hope Mortmain House, close to, is not as forbidding as it looks from the road.
Later
Mortmain House is more forbidding close to than it looks from the road, in fact think it is the ugliest, most evil-humoured house I have ever seen.
We had to leave the trap on the roadside, with the pony loosely tethered to a tree, and then walk up the steep track. So much for delicate health!
The closer we got to the house, the more I began to entertain serious doubts as to my plan for the daisie’s baby, because this did not look in the least like a place where a helpless child ought to be left, in fact it did not look like a place where anyone ought to be left. If Floy had been here he would have started to spin dark fantastical tales about the place and its occupants, and about the old trees with their knurled trunks that looked as if faces leered out from them, but I only saw the unsightliness of the black stones, and the smearily dirty windowpanes, and the unkempt bushes and unweeded paths.
But managed to assume cheerful manner for Maisie (who was looking more terrified by the minute), and said it was a great mistake to judge anything by its appearance: once inside, house most likely very cheerful and bright.
She did not believe me of course, and do not blame her. Bad enough to be facing prospect of giving birth to fatherless child, without prospect of leaving the poor mite in this gloomy place. Hope fishmonger’s assistant was worth all this, but seriously doubt it.
