Another Heartbeat in the House (13 page)

She purchased a book of stamps in the post office on the main street, and would have ventured into O'Regan's bar to try a glass of Guinness if a glance through the window hadn't told her that there were no other women in there. As she walked back down the main street to where she had left her bicycle, she passed a grocer's shop boasting a sign that read: T
OM
S
HEEHAN
: P
URVEYOR OF
H
IGH
C
LASS
V
IANDS
. There in the window a hamper was displayed that contained, among other luxury items, Bath Olivers, Earl Grey tea and Patum Peperium.

That evening, sitting at the writing desk in the library, Edie addressed the postcard of the Presentation Convent to Ian in his flat in Ebury Street, and wrote on the back:
Eat your heart out
. On an impulse, to make him feel guilty for having written such a frivolous message on his postcard from sunny Deauville, she added:
PS: This place is haunted.

Then she turned her attention to the next tranche of Eliza Drury's story.

I CALLED UPON
the address that Mr Thackeray had given me, only to find that he and his family were lodged elsewhere. Isabella's sister directed me to a nearby boarding house, a once-grand residence kept by an impoverished widow. On being told of my arrival, Mr Thackeray helped himself to his coat and hat and quit the place at once, leaving Brodie in charge.

As we descended Grattan Hill, making for the river, I told him of the O'Dowds, and of the misery that lay behind the façade of their neo-Palladian mansion. On the opposite bank of the Lee stood the villas, the terraces and parks of the prosperous merchant class of Cork whence I had come, pulling behind me my baggage loaded on a child's wooden truck. A wooden truck! Had I not suffered indignity and degradation enough in that infernal dump? Every time he came to mind I cursed O'Dowd to hell, and wished on him the worst agonies a sclerotic liver could inflict upon any man. But the experience had taught me that never again would I submit to such abuse by pretending to be dead. That very morning I had purchased in a general store a perfectly serviceable horn-handled hunting knife in a leather sheath.

Our walk had taken us by old Mardyke Avenue, through lush green pastures where contented cattle fed beneath a cloudless sky. How beautiful the scene was, how rich and how happy! Our thoughts, however, in dark contrast to the serene landscape, were fragmented and tumultuous. Both of us were frail-minded and dizzy from want of sleep.

The previous day Mr Thackeray had summoned a doctor for Isabella. Quite demented, she had tried to kill herself again.

‘What was his diagnosis?' I asked.

‘Melancholy. Mania. Hysteria. The deuce take the man – I could have come to that conclusion myself. Her nerves are raw, her fancy vivid; she suffers dreadful delusions.'

‘Such as she endured on the voyage here?'

‘Yes. She laughs and laughs uncontrollably, and that frightens poor Annie so. And then she weeps and refuses to be parted from her babes, saying that they will never be returned to her if she lets them out of her sight. And when I try to console her, she maintains that she cares nothing for me, she cares nothing for our children, she cares nothing for herself. The doctor says it is almost certain she will make another attempt on her own life.' He looked quite desolate, a man with little hope for the future.

‘What will you do?'

‘I have paid a visit to the asylum here –'

‘You cannot consign her to a madhouse! That would be unconscionable.'

‘It is not what you think!' He hastened to reassure me. ‘Everything is conducted with exemplary neatness and cleanliness and kindness. It is so spacious and comfortable that one could only pray to see every citizen in the country as well lodged.'

I gave him a sideways look.

‘It is an admirable institution – quite admirable. All the inmates are healthy, well fed and well clad …'

My oblique look turned to one of open scorn.

‘But still I emerged from the place quite sick,' he confessed.

‘I do not doubt it.'

I had heard of women committed to madhouses on what seemed to me the smallest pretexts: domestic troubles, the grief undergone after the death of a loved one, insanity through travail of childbirth. Many of these unfortunates, I suspected, were admitted by their husbands, to teach them obedience. However, I could not believe Mr Thackeray guilty of such subterfuge.

‘Perhaps the birth of Minnie so close to the death of your middle child unhinged poor Isabella?' I hazarded.

‘Perhaps,' he conceded. ‘Perhaps it is my fault.'

‘How so?'

‘I have had to go about my own concerns so much in recent months that she may feel I neglect her. The truth is that we are in desperate need of money.'

I had deduced as much from what Isabella had told me on board the
Jupiter
.

‘The devil is the wear and tear of it!' continued Mr Thackeray. ‘I have been in such a ceaseless whirl with writing pieces for
The Times
and
Fraser's
and with the book –'

‘What book?'

‘My novel,
Catherine
.' He gave a wry smile. ‘It was not well received. And then I told her – I should not have told her! – I told Isabella about the hanging.'

‘Hanging?'

‘I witnessed it at Newgate Prison in July. A valet was hanged for the murder of his master. It was the most wholly sickening, ghastly, wicked scene I have ever had the misfortune to view.'

‘Why ever did you attend such an event?'

‘I needed material for an article, for
Fraser's
. Dear God – to think that I compromised my integrity for a magazine article!'

‘It was a public execution?'

‘Yes. It took place before a mob of thousands beneath a burning sun. I had to look away – I could not watch him hanged – but before they put the hood over the man's face he had about him such a helpless, wild, imploring look as I could not endure. I have had his expression continually before my eyes since.'

‘And you told your wife of it? Poor Isabella, who had just been delivered of a child! No wonder she is deranged – barely out of confinement and obliged to listen to such horrors!'

Mr Thackeray looked stricken, but I would not let the matter go.

‘They had bound him, I presume?'

‘Of course.'

‘And not two months later you bind your wife to you with ribbon and plot her incarceration?' He had the decency to look shamefaced. ‘Your wife is not your puppet, Mr Thackeray, to do with as you please. Look before you! There, there is the free sky and liberty, and sunshine and birdsong and the wind in the trees, and all sorts of life and motion that it is your prerogative to enjoy! How can you deprive Isabella of such things? Are you surprised that you felt sick when you left the asylum? Those places are no better than Newgate!'

He looked at me with enormous self-loathing. ‘I cannot – I
cannot
manage her by myself, Miss Drury.'

‘You have Brodie.'

‘Brodie is kept busy with the children.'

‘Then you must ask Isabella's mother and her sister Jane to help.'

He gave a helpless shrug. ‘I had hoped initially to leave her in their care while I busied myself with my guidebook.'

‘What guidebook?'

‘I have been paid an advance by Chapman & Hall – Mr Dickens's publishing house – to write a guidebook to Ireland. But Mrs Shawe flatly refuses to take in her own daughter. That is why we are lodged in that dingy tenement.'

‘You must take her home, then, to London.'

‘Oh, God.'

‘You must. There, you can resume work and earn the means to employ some person to look after Isabella.'

He was about to make some rejoinder, but then changed his mind. Instead, he took out his handkerchief and pretended to blow his nose.

We continued on our promenade, chatting of the river view and the weather and sundry other inconsequential things, when suddenly he turned to me and blurted out, ‘Miss Drury – might you consider the position, if I found the means to pay you?'

‘Mr Thackeray, I am not a nurse.'

‘But Isabella is fond of you! She is calm and malleable in your presence. And Annie adores you, and I – I have the greatest respect and admiration for you.'

This was not a development that I had anticipated. Happily, two little dogs scuttling across our path provided an opportunity for diversion, during which time I thought strategically. Finally I said, ‘Mr Thackeray, will you allow me to be blunt with you?'

‘Of course.'

‘Consider this. If I were a man, I could make my way in the world in the army or the navy, or by joining some business enterprise. But I am a female without funds or connections, and that is as precarious a state as anyone could wish to abjure. I am fortunate to have had an education, for without that I should be obliged to earn a paltry living by painting porcelain or trimming bonnets or sewing chemisettes for ladies who can afford such fripperies. As it is, I must rely on my wits, which I am glad to say are in plentiful supply.'

I had indeed relied upon my wits until now. As it happened, the situation as governess to the O'Dowd family had been made available to me upon my illuminating Miss Pinkerton on the state of her account books, which had come under my scrutiny one day when she had neglected to lock her bureau. I had expressed such dismay at the discrepancies contained therein, and such concern that the details might reach the fathers who were paying for the privilege of their daughters' education in that lady's establishment, that she had at once volunteered to write any number of eulogies for the edification of my future employers.

Mr Thackeray was regarding me with considerable warmth. ‘I have never met a woman as quick-witted and resourceful as you, my dear Miss Drury.'

‘Acuity notwithstanding, you will see that I am in need of a husband, or, at the very least, a protector,' I interposed. ‘I must put myself in the way of a gentleman with five thousand pounds a year–'

‘Five thousand a year?'

‘Or more, Mr Thackeray.'

He fell silent.

‘Five thousand a year?' he repeated. ‘Then I fear I shall have to sharpen my nib.'

I gave him a look, but when I saw how utterly downcast was his demeanour, I refrained from reminding Mr Thackeray that he already had a wife.

How many resplendent town houses in Cork city had been – like the one where I was now lodged – converted to tenement boarding houses? How many elegant abodes degenerated into disreputable slums, their gracious reception rooms divided and subdivided into living quarters that now accommodated the offscourings of society?

The widow Fagan had fallen on hard times since the death of her husband from crapulence. His portrait hung above the chipped marble chimneypiece in the drawing room, where she and her children now slept. The house was in a sorry state of repair, with few traces of its former genteel character: the stucco work had decayed so that the ceiling roses resembled worm casts, there was no paper to the walls, no locks to the doors, the windows were broken and much of the furniture had been sold or requisitioned for firewood. Now the mistress of the establishment went bare-legged, who had once worn clocked stockings; she mended her clothes herself, who had been attended by a lady's maid.

The house was inhabited by a queer assortment of lodgers. There were whole families confined to a single chamber, while rooms in the upper regions of the house – hardly bigger than cupboards – were home to sundry rascals and draggletails.

Mr Thackeray had taken one of the more salubrious apartments on the first floor. It had separate accommodation for the children and Brodie, who kindly allowed me to share her bed. We slept perforce with Annie – all bony angles and flailing limbs – and were further disturbed by Minnie's plaintive wailing every time she needed to be fed, whereupon Brodie would rouse, lift the babe from the crib and take her next door to her mother.