The Beautiful Visit (23 page)

‘A little weight wouldn’t do you any harm,’ observed Mrs Border, and I had the uneasy feeling of my body being appraised by someone I barely knew.

When she had finished her milk, she rose from her chair announcing bed for both of us. She stood for some time, holding on to the tall arm of the chair, and biting her lips as though in pain. I
offered to help, but she refused, saying that she was only stiff and needed a few minutes to recover.

Eventually we journeyed slowly out of the room, the door of which was to be left open to afford us light. I stood at the foot of the stairs.

‘Up you go,’ she said. ‘I don’t like people behind me on the stairs.’ I went, and stood interminably at the top, while she hoisted herself up, step by step.

‘Breakfast will be at eight-thirty for you. I have it in my room. When you have finished, I shall require you to come and see me. I think that is all. Good night.’ She passed to her
room and shut the door.

The windows in my room were tightly closed. I was hot and exhausted from the hours of confined and unfamiliar surroundings. I opened them and leaned out on to the gravel sweep before the house,
hemmed in with dark motionless trees. It was still, with no colour or sound; almost secretly quiet with perhaps thunder high in the sky above, which, even now, might be descending, crushing the
clouds into rain. I don’t know why it should have seemed important but I remember well the certainty in my mind that it would rain, and I was so strung up with the oppressive atmosphere
inside the house, that I slept with this notion as a relief.

I woke very suddenly later in the night. It is well known how some grief or fear at the end of a dream can start one into instant wakefulness: the dream is forgotten, and one is left only with
the shock of sudden consciousness, and the feeling that something is about to happen, that the shock is only a prelude. I woke like that; every nerve expectant and tense.

All was silent: and then I distinctly heard the most dreadful paroxysm of laughter. It started very high up, dying into a low strangled chuckle, as though whatever was laughing had not breath to
subside. It seemed to come from downstairs in the house.

There ensued the most complete and utter silence, during which I heard the blood beating on each side of my forehead, as I lay, frozen and motionless. Whoever had laughed like that could not be
sane. Seconds passed while I sought frantically for some solution, however terrible, that could explain it. I dared not move. The sound had come from downstairs; it had been muffled, although
distinct; there were walls and stairs between me and it . . . Mrs Border . . . No, it could not be she . . . One of the servants was mad, had laughed in her sleep. In a flash
Jane Eyre
leaped to my mind. The laugh of die first Mrs Rochester wandering about at night, in the dark house. I felt the sweat down my backbone; and still there was no further sound, no sound at all. With trembling fingers I lit my candle, sinking back on my pillow as the faint misty light filled the room, and I saw my own suitcase, my hairbrush; practical everyday objects lying there to
comfort me.

Then I noticed with a return of fear that my door was not shut. Surely it had been shut. It was only just open, just ajar; as though the lock had not been secured and it had sprung back of its
own accord. It frightened me, and I could not get up to shut it. I lay and watched it, the long dark slim edge of the door; until the dawn broke or crept into the room, and the candle fluttered,
paling in the gentle light. After which I must have slept.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Spalding woke me with the apparently noiseless efficiency of the trained housemaid. She drew the curtains, placed a can of hot water in my basin, covered it with the towel, and
retired. The moment she had left the room I jumped out of bed and tried the door. I opened and shut it. It shut quite naturally. I found this oddly comforting; and dressed with a slight feeling of
shame at my fears, and relief that nobody had witnessed them. Perhaps Mrs Border would mention that one of the servants slept badly – had nightmares. At any rate, I would say nothing about
it.

I breakfasted alone in the red dining-room which, relieved of its heavy drawn curtains, appeared dank and gloomy. There was a small rectangular conservatory at one end of it, which had been
concealed at night by the curtains, and which now added a dense grey light to the room. It appeared to be filled with ferns. All the glass was edged with a narrow rim of alternate red and blue.

Immediately after breakfast, I was told by Spalding that Mrs Border wished me to see her in her bedroom. The door opposite mine on the landing, I was told.

She was seated in a high-backed armchair drawn dose to a blazing fire that looked so established I could hardly believe it had only been lighted that morning. She wore a lace cap with ribbons
tied under her chin, a wrapper, a number of shawls and at least seven rings on her hands. Her hands were very noticeable, as they were both held out to the fire, the light of which reflected the
jewels as her fingers trembled. A breakfast tray in a state of abject confusion lay at her feet. The walls of the room were, of course, encrusted with water-colours, but water-colours possessed of
one different characteristic from the many others I had seen in the house. They were all paintings of ruins: not always the same ruin, although there was a marked similarity. They were not
precisely pleasant or unpleasant, but were very much more compelling than the other paintings; they, forced one to look at them when one was in the room, and to remember them when one was not. Mrs
Border never alluded to the ruins once, but I was always certain that it was she who had painted them, and surprised that she never attempted to command my appreciation of them as she so frequently
did for the rest of her pictures.

I cannot always remember the exact order in which I noticed the many curious aspects of that house. On first entering Mrs Border’s room, I was chiefly aware of the intense heat, and my
dislike of other people’s bedrooms. I stood in front of Mrs Border with my hands behind my back, in the attitude of one awaiting orders.

‘Have you had enough to eat?’ she asked.

‘Yes, thank you.’

‘Well now, what am I going to do with you all day?’ She regarded me a moment, during which I felt exceedingly uncomfortable. Really her manner was very embarrassing.

‘I shall shortly get up. I’m partially dressed as it is. But there are one or two little things . . .’ Her voice trailed off into an unexpected silence which was broken by a
coal falling out of the grate. ‘Pick it up, pick it up!’ she cried. ‘Not above that sort of thing, are your?’

‘No.’

I tried to pick up the coal, but it was red hot, and while I was fumbling for the tongs, she bent down out of her chair and picking it up in her fingers threw it back into the fire all in a
moment. I looked at her in astonishment but she merely said, ‘I hardly notice heat.’

There was a slight pause.

‘Now, I think I’d better tell you what
I
do, and then you can fit yourself in. I shall require you here a little longer, and then, while I am finishing myself, you are to
water the pots in the conservatory. I paint all the morning but I like someone in the room when I am working, provided they occupy themselves. There are usually things for you to do. In any case it
is not considered good for me to be too much alone. After lunch, I rest, and you may do as you please. Then I like my tea and a little conversation. Is that quite clear?’

‘Quite,’ I said.

‘So you see, you will not have a very strenuous time of it.’

‘Oh no.’

‘I expect you are fond of walking. There is beautiful country here. What sort of day is it?’

‘I am afraid I have not noticed.’

‘Go and see.’

I walked to the window. I observed that a little watery sunshine mottled the lawn in the garden, lay on the window sill, the top of the mirror, the dressing-table . . . and then I received a
very unpleasant shock. On the corner of this dressing-table stood a black wig. It was dull, yet exceedingly greasy, and elaborately arranged in curls and puffs. The parting was unnaturally white; I
could see a few grains of dust lying on the coarse sleek hair stretched away from it. I must have stared at it for only a second but Mrs Border interrupted me.

‘I wear a wig,’ she said softly. ‘I have almost no hair, and so I wear a wig.’

I stammered something, and was about to leave the window, but, rising to her feet, she moved towards some curtained recess, loosening the ribbons under her chin and saying, ‘Will you lift
it very gently and bring it to me? But carefully; we mustn’t have it disarranged.’

I lifted the wig off its stand, carried it to her, waited until she stretched out her hands for it, then left the room as I was immediately told to do; and all the time I was filled with the
most unreasonable distaste, almost horror. It was no good telling myself that it was ridiculous, even unkind, to be so repelled by something which, after all, the poor woman could not help. I was
repelled, and my shame at having been so horrified induced a kind of irritation at Mrs Border herself. There was no need for me to have seen it at all. She was quite active enough to have fetched
it herself. Then, as I settled down to the peaceful task of watering innumerable damp green ferns, I began to feel calmer and more ashamed of being so easily startled. Poor Mrs Border. I had read
of people enduring some terrible shock or hardship which robbed them of their hair; quite suddenly it went white, or fell out. Perhaps this had happened to her and I should feel only sorry that it
was so. But at the back of my mind lingered an unpleasant feeling that she had meant me to be startled, had even, perhaps, arranged it. She had never asked again about the weather.

Mrs Border painted all the morning, or rather applied herself to the business of painting, for although, as I afterwards found, it was her regular habit to paint, it took Spalding and me an hour
to produce all the equipment she considered necessary. She sat in her chair while we fetched little tables, pots of water, sketch books, folios of paper, pencils that had to be sharpened to a point
where they invariably broke, palette boxes, paint boxes, a most fragile and intractable easel, bundles of brushes tied together with strands of darning wool; all these had to be arranged to her
eventual satisfaction. Spalding was dismissed, and I was given the task of unravelling an endless hand-knitted Shetland shawl. Mrs Border painted with great rapidity. One by one the sheets of
blistering wet paper were laid all over the floor. The fire was continually replenished, cups of beef tea were brought, and, at intervals, the parrot attacked his sunflower seeds with a kind of
weary but vicious dexterity.

Sitting in an overheated room, unravelling an apparently endless strand of fragile and sticky wool in a dead silence only punctuated by sudden alarming and inconsequent questions, was, I
discovered, one of the most unpleasant ways of spending a morning, and I was very glad when luncheon was announced. We had what Mrs Border described as a light meal, which consisted mainly of eggs,
fish and a very substantial pudding, after which she retired to rest until a quarter past four, telling me I might amuse myself.

‘If you think yourself capable of it. You don’t amuse me very much as yet. As yet,’ she repeated tapping her stick on the dining-room floor. ‘However, there’s the
whole winter before us and people age during the winter as you must have noticed. Run along.’

I repaired disconsolately to the drawing-room; listened until Mrs Border had thudded slowly up the stairs and shut her door; and then partly with the idea of going out, and partly as a prisoner
turns to the light, I walked to the windows and looked out. It was pouring with rain; a heavy silent shower, darkening the trees, battering the life out of the Michaelmas daisies and chrysanthemums
until they were sodden indistinguishable clumps, sharpening the green complexion of the lawn, and lighting on the odd pieces of slip-ware and bottle glass in the high garden wall until they winked
and glittered.

It was too wet to go out, and I was too oppressed to care. I was about to leave the window, when I heard a tiny click, and turning round, saw the parrot sidling quickly along his perch towards
me. He stopped the moment that I turned round; staring at me unblinking and motionless except for the ruffled feathers slowly settling on his neck. I moved quickly out of his reach to the fire,
wondering dully whether he had been going to attack me.

The prospect seemed so depressing, I was so divided in my mind between disliking my position and fearing that I should prove unsatisfactory and lose it, that I sank on to a footstool and wept,
to the accompaniment of a huge clock on the mantelpiece with a heavy metallic tick. This, not unnaturally, did not last until a quarter past four, and after considering the possibility of procuring
a clean handkerchief from my bedroom and discarding it on the ground that I might wake Mrs Border, I searched for a book (there were very few in the room), chose one at random, and tried to read.
It was a long and very dull novel and had an inscription inside, ‘To Madgie from Dick. Christmas 1889’. Years ago.

I read for what seemed an eternity of ticks, when I heard a door shut and voices. A few seconds later Spalding announced the Reverend Mr Tyburn.

‘Don’t disturb Mrs Border,’ he said. ‘I am early, and can very well wait until a quarter past.’

Spalding looked at him disbelievingly, left the room, and was heard to mount the stairs.

Mr Tyburn introduced himself again. I told him my name, and we both stood for a moment before the fire while he warmed his hands. There was a short unavoidable silence; then he straightened
himself, and, rather nervously, I invited him to sit down.

‘You are paying us a visit,’ he said when we had seated ourselves.

I explained my position. He coughed a little, said ‘Ah yes’ two or three times; then plunging at the subject which he thought most likely to interest me (or, at least, in which he
felt I ought to be most interested) asked, ‘And how is Mrs Border?’ adding hopefully, ‘Well, I trust?’