Far Above Rubies (17 page)

1855  

Carter Lane, Ludgate Hill  

I sat in the morning room, leafing through bills and trying to audit the housekeeping books. Numbers, letters, symbols jumped around before my eyes, switching places no matter how I tried to pinpoint them with a stab of the pen. Georgie and I had had a heated exchange of words in the kitchen that morning and poor Cook had not known which way to pass the books.

‘Am I not mistress in this house, Georgie?’

‘Yes, of course, dear, but Charles has said—’

‘
Charles
has a wife! And as long as that fact remains then I will oversee such household duties as I have always done.’  

Why didn’t that woman leave my husband out of matters and go and find a husband of her own?  

The morning-room door flew open, ‘Kate! Am I to understand that you are in possession of the housekeeping books?’ Charles’s voice was full of irritation.  

His eyes fell upon the green-bound records and I instinctively put my hands over the pages, covering the blots and crossings out that I had inevitably made.

‘How many times must I tell you to leave such matters to Georgie? The last time you meddled with those books it took me hours to sort it out, and I really don’t have the time for such things.’

‘Meddle? I’m not meddling, Charles, but how am I supposed to run this house if I am not even permitted—?’

‘Kate, if I ever catch you—’ He thumped his fist upon the table. ‘Just leave well alone, before you drive me insane with frustration.’

In his display of anger he had dropped the morning post which he had held in his hand, and he crouched down and picked up the letters one by one, until he came to the last one, which he looked at with uncertainty. He stood up and turned it over before speaking.

‘Kate,’ he sighed, ‘I think that I had better tell you that I have been corresponding with Maria Beadnell for some little while.’

I stiffened at the mention of her name, even now it stirred up strong emotions.

‘Now, I do not consider myself obliged to inform you’ – he had begun to pace the room, his hands behind his back – ‘but in view of your past feelings in connection with Maria, I think it best to tell you. It appears that life has not been kind to her recently and although she has not revealed the full nature of her misfortune, I would like to offer a listening ear to an old family friend.’

A look of displeasure crossed my face. ‘
An old family friend! That she has never been
.’

Charles did not notice; engrossed in his own saintliness he continued to chide me. ‘So, should you see a letter arrive for me written in her hand, you will not come looking for me with accusations, will you?’

I was not too old to blush at the reminder of an embarrassing episode in my life and I felt belittled by his condescending words. My husband had a marvellous way of manoeuvring matters so that his own weaknesses were obscured by highlighting the failings of others.

‘Very well,’ I demurred, smoothing down my skirts. ‘I am grateful that you have told me.’

‘Then it’s all agreed, we will call upon Mrs Winter tomorrow.’

‘Call on her? Charles…!’ But before I could object to his ridiculous suggestion, he had left the room and I found that I
was quivering with anger and astonishment. How did he expect me to endure such an insufferable introduction?’

Maria Beadnell had long since become Mrs Henry Winter. Her husband was a handsome, well-educated businessman, but his fortune had long since dwindled and he now found himself in the employ of a gambling house. He enticed the players to raise the stakes, cheered with those who won and encouraged those who lost that their luck was guaranteed to change with the next game. Well-dressed gentleman played roulette alongside tradesmen, money-lenders or lawyers. There was no prejudice about where a man’s money came from, all that mattered was that he had sufficient funds to play. From time to time there would be a sharp whistle from outside, followed by an impromptu police raid, but more often than not all that would be found were the well-rehearsed moves of gentlemen eating from a cold buffet, smoking cigars and drinking sherry. By day, Henry Winter continued the charade of a profession in the City and thus his wife remained oblivious to his nocturnal occupation, or so he had thought.

The following morning I awoke with the hazy sensation that something unpleasant had happened the day before and then I remembered Charles’s words: ‘
We will call upon Mrs Winter tomorrow
.’

Charles was already dressed and had made his daily circuit of Camden before breakfast. Upon meeting on the landing he did not attempt to engage me in conversation and I was glad of it, for I had not the heart for a pretence at cordiality. The journey by carriage to Ludgate Hill was similarly wordless, until we arrived at Carter Lane. Without making eye contact Charles instructed, ‘Now I expect you to be polite to Maria, Kate, and you must under no circumstances, embarrass me, is that understood?’ He then set about adjusting his cravat, smoothing down his hair and buttoning up his jacket.

Maria occupied a town house that was distinguished from its
neighbours by its neglected exterior and faded grandeur. The paint on the door was peeling, thick layers of soot blackened the windows, and the steps were spattered with the mud thrown up by the passing carts. Charles, who was a martinet for order, did not say one word about it and I wondered what we were about to discover inside. We were shown in by a butler whose suit appeared to have belonged to a long-serving predecessor, and one who had been a good deal shorter at that. Occasionally giving each of his cuffs a self-conscious tug, he escorted us to the sparsely furnished sitting room where an odd assortment of chairs formed a semi-circular arrangement around an aged piano; and we gave them a necessary flick with a handkerchief before sitting down. What a strange reception!

Above the fireplace hung a portrait of the young Maria. I could see that Charles was mesmerized by it as he took in each long-remembered feature; and when he caught my eye, he blushed like an awkward youth. As a whole the portrait was one of youthful innocence and beauty, but upon closer examination there was an air of caprice in the eyes, a haughtiness about the nose and a look of beguile in her sweet smile. Perhaps Charles imagined that the years had made no impression on those girlish features, or the mane of dark hair – he certainly did not see his own receding hair line or frown lines. I am sure that he saw himself as the curly haired boy who had once been completely smitten by Miss Maria Beadnell, so he was not at all prepared for the portly, middle-aged woman who entered the room with a slight sway in her step.

‘My dearest Charles,’ she gushed, fluttering her eyelashes, ‘you have not changed at all.’

Charles opened his mouth and closed it again realizing that he could not return the compliment.

‘And you look … well too, my dear Mrs Winter.’ His eyes took in her over-rouged cheeks and ill-fitting wig; he dared not look at her smile lest she be missing any teeth.

‘Please, call me Maria, let us not be formal with each other. After all, do you not remember the letters you wrote me? Twice
a day sometimes, I recall.’ She leaned forward and fluttered her eyelashes again and giggled. The sight of this middle-aged woman making love to him was too much for Charles and he pulled at his collar, and took out his handkerchief to mop his top lip.

This was making the journey entirely worthwhile and I was greatly enjoying myself, but I came to his rescue anyway. ‘How long are you in London, Mrs Winter?’

‘Until my husband has run up debts and enemies enough to warrant our hasty departure,’ Maria brayed, without a trace of embarrassment. ‘He thinks that I do not know where he goes at night. He thinks that I am a fool.’ She turned to Charles. ‘Do you think me a fool, Charles?’

He opened his mouth but no words came out and I came to his rescue again, this time with a change of topic.

‘And have you children, ma’am?’

At this her expression changed to one of sadness. ‘Alas, Mr Winter and I were not blessed in that way, ’tis a pity, but there it is,’ she sighed. ‘P’raps it’s as well in light of our financial circumstances,’ and her eyes fell upon Charles.

I could almost hear my husband’s thoughts of alarm as I witnessed the horror creeping across his face:
She has mentioned money again! Is that why she has brought me here, to ask for my assistance?

Maria stood up, gave her wig a self-conscious pat and, after glancing with disappointment at an empty decanter, she secured her uncertain gait by holding on to the back of each chair she passed until she arrived at the piano and sat down at it. She began to sing in a very shrill soprano and I was unsure as to whether to laugh or cry with pity. Charles held his handkerchief to his mouth and winced at each piercing note, and as she at last came to a piercing finale, he stood up rapidly and shook her hand with great haste, saying that he had pressing business in the City and must really bid her goodbye.

‘So soon? But we had so much more to talk about. Shall I see you again?’

But Charles did not answer, only slammed the carriage door behind him. Maria stood in the doorway waving her lace handkerchief and calling, ‘Do come again, won’t you, Charles? I have so many friends who would relish an introduction.’

I never thought that I would have cause to pity one of whom I had once been so jealous, but I wished that providence would look upon Maria with greater kindness in the future.

July 1857

Brompton Asylum, London

Isabella sat looking out at the terraced gardens of the asylum. Her white hair, which at one time she would allow no one to touch, was now neatly tied up in a pleat. Dressed in a brown woollen day-dress with a clean white apron over the top, I was glad to see that the stained dress that she had been clothed in since her arrival and the eyeless doll that she had clung to, were thankfully no more. Despite Isabella’s long absence, William had been a wonderful father to his two daughters. He had employed a governess for them and they had recently been introduced into society as accomplished young ladies, who were well travelled, fluent in both French and Italian and knowledgeable about all of the arts.  

William, I suspected, was not looking after himself at all though. His curly hair had greyed, and his face had taken on an air of permanent dejection. Plagued by a recurring kidney infection, he had made matters worse by over-eating and
heavy-drinking
, and I thought how sad it was that Isabella was completely unaware of her husband’s success as an author, for the height of his fame had come during her absence. Now William worried repeatedly that he was losing his ability to write, and had been so lonely without Isabella at his side, that he had found solace in an innocent correspondence with the wife of
an old friend from his days at Cambridge; but when her husband had found the letters, he was enraged with misplaced jealousy and forbade any future contact between the two.

In spite of his loneliness, William continued to be a loyal and faithful husband and visited Isabella regularly, and I admired him greatly. He had done all that he could to secure her comfort; she had been moved some time ago to the east wing of the asylum where the screams and shouts of the west wing could only be heard when the wind changed direction. A set of French windows opened out from her room, and led out onto a paved terrace that sloped down gently to well-tended gardens. Sitting at her side, I quietly observed three of the patients assisting the gardener, hoeing out weeds and pulling up vegetables from the vegetable patch. I felt strangely at ease here looking out at the view and in Isabella’s silent company, somehow feeling that I could be entirely myself with her. She had no expectations, no demands; she accepted my presence on whatever terms it came, and I found it a comfort to bask in that acceptance.

It was never easy to speak on the subject I had in my mind, but I felt the need to unburden my soul to someone and I steeled myself to say the words.

‘I don’t know if William has ever felt able to share my sadness with you, and I have not mentioned it on my previous visits, Izzy, but now you seem a little better, I feel that I can tell you, for I feel that you of all people will understand. I lost my little Dora, my little girl. She was just an infant, not much younger than your Jane was when she….’

Isabella did not flinch at the sound of the name of her own lost child, but continued to gaze in peaceful contemplation at the garden.

‘It has been six years now, but it is all as fresh in my mind as if it were only yesterday. Even now, I cannot help but think that if only I’d been at home, then perhaps there would have been a different outcome. I feel so guilty that I wasn’t there to nurse her and that maybe I could have done something. And no matter how much I go over it in my mind, I can’t believe that she has
gone, Izzy, and I wonder if I ever will.’

Isabella did not avert her eyes from the view but very slowly lifted her hand from her lap, and her fingers crept out and intertwined with my own. My throat tightened with sadness.

‘I try to talk to Charles about her, but he won’t entertain the subject. It’s as if a part of him has closed off to it, as if it never happened. But I feel that if I don’t talk about her then I shall go—That is, my heart will break.’

I looked down at my wedding ring and sighed. My heart was so full of unspoken hopelessness.

‘It’s not just that Charles shuts me out when I try to talk about Dora, but when I try to reach him on any subject other than the trivialities of life, he appears uninterested. Oh yes, he will talk about Forster, Mr Collins, Miss Burdett-Coutts and his work at the home for fallen women. He will talk about the menu for dinner on Sunday, or whom we should invite to join us for an evening at the theatre. But mostly he just looks right through me when he talks as if I was not a person whose name he knows, but simply a figure who needs to be addressed out of necessity from time to time.’

Isabella’s fingers tightened around my own.

‘I can sense that I irritate him with unbearable frustration, but he always stops short of voicing it. Sometimes he can be kind, mostly when he has been impatient with me and feels some sense of guilt, but yesterday he did the strangest thing, he unexpectedly gave me a posy of flowers. I confess that I was completely wrong-footed, and didn’t know what to say at all. He even noticed what I was wearing and complimented me on it. But although he was looking right at me, it was as if he was imposing someone else in my place, as if it wasn’t me he was courting at all. I can’t explain it, Izzy, it was quite perplexing.’

A nurse passed us by, acknowledging Isabella with a kindly nod and entered the infirmary through the French windows.

‘I know now that whatever show of happiness Charles presents to others, that deep down he is truly unhappy. When we came home from Europe last month he argued furiously with
my parents over the state in which they had left the house, and Mama has vowed never to set foot in the house again. Then, last month, we held a party at home to celebrate the success of Charles’s latest theatrical performance with Mr Collins. As usual he was the life and soul once the guests arrived, and made great jokes with Mr Collins that he should under no circumstances smoke his cigars in the study lest he set it on fire, but an hour before he was as morose as I’ve ever seen him. He sat on the end of the bed, sulking, and when I asked what was wrong, he said,
“Tell me, Kate, what have I done with my life that has any meaning?”

‘I told him that he had his work to be proud of and that people worshipped him wherever he went; but he shrugged it off, saying, “It’s just words, Kate, that is all I am known for, words.”

‘“But they are very clever words, my love”.’ I reassured him, “I could not write as you do”.’

‘Then young Charley tapped on the door to wish his Papa congratulations, but instead of receiving his son’s good wishes, he lectured the poor young man on how he should be applying himself better to his career and berated him for having no ambition, no drive, no enthusiasm; and then he turned to me with a look as if to say that I was somehow to blame!’

One of the male patients who had been assisting the gardener, came to the foot of the terraced steps and began to lay out in a most precise manner, each of the vegetables he had pulled up. He began with an exact row of carrots, then below that a row of potatoes. He continued with the lettuces and radishes until finally he set out a row of onions, before turning and running back to his employment at the gardener’s side.

‘Looking at this beautiful garden here, reminds me of the new house that Charles has purchased at Gad’s Hill,’ I went on. ‘It is in such a tranquil setting, Izzy, you would love it there. He says that he plans to use it as a country retreat, but I have only seen it once as for some reason he seems reluctant to take me there again. It’s as if I do not have a place there at all. You know what, Izzy, I somehow feel that I never will.’

Isabella gently lifted her fingers from mine, slowly stood up
and began to walk down the terraced steps towards the lawns, humming to herself, and I followed her, realizing that I had been ceaseless in the outpouring of my troubles.

‘I’m so sorry, dear,’ I sighed, ‘I have been entirely selfish in talking only of my own concerns. Forgive me – is there anything that I can do for you?’

‘Yes.’ She spoke unexpectedly and turned to me with the greatest recognition that I had seen in her eyes for a long while. ‘Yes, there is.’

There was a measured deliberateness in her voice. ‘I … want … to go back home.’

His cuffs were still worn and threadbare, his sleeves still turned back, a sign of his enduring readiness to employ himself to the needs of his patients. The lines on his brow had deepened, and the eyes behind his spectacles dimmed. Doctor Hargreaves had been here long before Isabella’s arrival and he was here still.

‘But she is so much better, Doctor, you must have seen it yourself? I cannot understand why you won’t consider allowing her to return home.’

Doctor Hargreaves looked out of his study window across to the gardens where Isabella walked in apparent contentment.

‘She has no other home now, she has been here so long that she knows nothing else, despite what you might think. Outside these walls is a world that will be so strange and terrifying to her that the recovery that has taken so long to effect, could be undone in a moment. Nothing could prepare her for such a sudden change of circumstances. Believe me, madam, we would be doing her no kindness whatsoever if we exposed her to such a fate.’

‘But she has asked to go home; you cannot be so hard-hearted as to ignore that, sir? Surely she must remember something of her home in order to make such a request?’

Doctor Hargreaves smiled at my over-simplification of matters – matters that he knew to be far more complex.

‘Think back, madam; perhaps you were talking of something
that triggered a familiar memory in Mrs Thackeray’s mind. Something that would take her back to her life before. It would only take something of that nature to prompt her to thoughts of home.’

‘I see, and there could be no other possible explanation?’ I asked, hope now fading.

‘No, I’m afraid not, madam.’

Seeing my disappointment he attempted to reassure me. ‘Mrs Dickens, here at the asylum people are given that rare opportunity to live entirely for themselves, and themselves alone. Space to distance themselves from anything that causes pain or distress. As long as passion overturns reason, then the state of insanity will exist. If we all gave rein to every wild and unruly thought that passed through our mind and acted on it then we would all be in a state of insanity, it is our self-control and discipline that enables us to keep such things in their proper place. Life here has enabled Mrs Thackeray to quiet her mind, to shut out her pain and distress and regain some self-control. If anything were to intrude unlicensed into that space then her equanimity could be broken once again. I could not in all conscience permit her to risk that.’

‘Then I shall have to trust you, Doctor, and try to believe that my friend can know no other happiness, beyond what she has found here.’

I left that dark study, saddened that I could do no more.

Later, lying in bed that night, the doctor’s words came back to my mind,
‘As long as passion overturns reason then a state of insanity exists.’
How often had my own passion overturned reason? How many times had I been suspicious of my husband’s integrity and questioned the motives that lay behind his thoughtless words and actions? How often had I held myself back from exploding with rage over Georgie’s unwanted intrusion in my life? So, if I was on the edge of reason, who was to blame? I, for not disciplining my boisterous thoughts, or others, for pushing me beyond what any woman should have to bear?