Life Mask (76 page)

The library door was flung open. Mary, with a letter in her hand. 'What is it, dear?' asked Anne, on her feet.

But it was Walpole Mary addressed, with burning eyes. 'I'm sorry to have wounded you unnecessarily, sir,' she said. 'I don't expect I'll ever forgive myself. The engagement is broken.'

M
ARY LAY
face down on her bed in Little Strawberry, and Anne sat on the edge and stroked her friend's hair. She'd been sitting there so long already, at the same angle, that her shoulder was hurting her. She spoke in the soft tones one might use for a child or a dog. 'This is only a misunderstanding.'

'No,' said Mary, muffled, 'it's over.'

She should have married him in November and left on his ship.
Anne was shaken, confused, almost guilty. But she tried to rouse herself to say reassuring things. 'If O'Hara knew your character as I do he wouldn't suspect you; he wouldn't doubt that you're entirely serious in your plans to come to him this summer.'

'But he does doubt,' Mary gulped. 'He does suspect. Or else he's pretending to doubt and suspect to hide the fact that he no longer wants me to come; I can't tell! All I know is I've done with it.'

'Write to him, open your heart to him—'

Mary twisted her streaked face towards Anne. 'I've been writing every other day since November. If Charles were a reasonable being my letters would have relieved all his anxieties; instead, he's shuffled and quibbled away his own happiness and mine. In my last I told him that I'd no wish to be a drag and a shackle on his future, and I assured him I was ready to release him from the engagement.'

'Whyever did you say that?'

'To test his desire,' said Mary between her teeth. 'And in
this—
the letter was scrunched in her fist—'he writes that I'm to consider myself entirely free.'

'He's just trying to be honourable.'

'No.'

'He's a good man,' said Anne feebly into the silence. 'Once you're married you'll make him perfectly happy.'
And me,
she thought,
this is my future too, my salvation. Or was.
The cliffs, the sweeping gulls, the dazzling sun of Gibraltar.

The small dark head shook violently. 'I doubt we'll meet again.'

'Oh, Mary!' The sound came out of Anne's mouth like a wail.

IX. Relict Cast

A unique bronze cast, usually made some time
after the original statue, for the artist's own reference
and often recording the model in a damaged state.

T
HE
great goddess Fashion governs many aspects of daily life, from the depth of
decolletage
to the colour of hair, the slimness of a chair leg to the contour of a lake. It is not surprising, then, that Illness too shelters under her golden aegis. Shakespeare's heroes were dominated by their various Humours, whether sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric or melancholic, while two centuries later, judging by the letters of our Correspondents, we are convinced that much of our suffering has a Digestive origin and can be blamed on spiced meat or tea. In our Grandmothers' day nothing was more common than for fine ladies to suffer from the Spleen; our Mothers complained of an excess of Sensibility and our Wives today are laid prostrate by Nerves, or the Blue Devils. Are these distinct afflictions, one may ask, or merely varied names for the same gloomy emotions?

Though depression of spirits is as old as our race, it does seem that there is currently an epidemic sweeping across our country. Having endured for more than three years the cost (in limbs and lives as well as pounds and pence) of this European War, England as a whole could be said to be exhibiting melancholic symptoms. Despite the Government's success in bringing down the price of bread (the poor having impudently refused to switch to potato loaves), there is still widespread Discontent. We hear that Emigrants are now sailing voluntarily to that dread place Botany Bay, simply to get away from these shores.

To all those suffering from griefs and disappointments, may we recommend (on the advice of the best authorities) Sea Bathing. Whether its excellent effects can be credited to the salt in the water, the fresh air and exercise, or simply to a brief escape from one's usual routine is unknown. The other medicine known for its efficacy is a hearty dose of Hope. When Fortune spins her roulette wheel, who knows where the ball will land? All ills must eventually give way to good, as surely as Death is followed by Inheritance. No loyal Britons (and let us assure any prosecuting magistrates that the editors of this publication are such) can doubt that we will beat Bonaparte and his Spanish and Dutch allies in the end. Given the impossibility of knowing what lies ahead, in life's vale of Smiles and Tears, there is nothing to do but to step forward bravely.

—B
EAU
M
ONDE
I
NQUIRER,
September 1796

IN THE EARLY DAYS OF SUMMER ANNE HAD OFTEN TOLD
Mary 'I'm so sorry' or 'I share your grief'. Every time she said the words she felt a tightening in her lips. Was it true? She'd certainly worked to promote this marriage between Mary and O'Hara; she'd poured her plans for the future into it; she'd been devastated when the engagement fell apart in March. But wasn't she also somewhat ... relieved?

If she looked deep into her heart Anne could find resentment at the idea of Mary belonging to any man. It annoyed her when Walpole behaved possessively towards his Elderberry; how much worse it would have been with a husband. Yes, in some ways Anne had to admit that she was grateful that the match was off. Perhaps she'd been deluding herself about the possibility of a cordial, harmonious
ménage à trois.
O'Hara's letters to Anne had been gushily fond, but in his own house, on the Rock of Gibraltar, he might have been a stern master. After all, what could Anne ever have been but the outsider, the spare nail, the troublemaker?

No, all her pain came indirectly, from watching Mary. Anne had never seen anyone so sunken. It was worse than any of Lady Ailesbury's
nervous
periods (which seemed a thing of the past, oddly, now the Countess was ensconced in Grosvenor Square and the social round of Mayfair). This looked like someone drowning very slowly.

Mary seemed tinier than ever; she only ate if bullied into it. 'You've always overestimated me, Anne,' she murmured one day. 'My mind is frailer than yours. It was stifled early by my family's circumstances; its ambitions were checked, its hopes lost, its pleasures confined in a narrow space.'

'Friendship is the best medicine for it,' Anne insisted.

Mary didn't seem to hear. 'To be distinguished by nothing at all,' she continued in a faraway voice, 'to perish from the face of the earth without leaving a mark, to live on only in the memory of two or three loving bosoms, but never having done anything to justify their love...'

'Oh, Mary, stop, please stop saying such things!' When Anne watched her friend lie with her face to the wall, she felt sorrow rise up in her throat Uke a choking catarrh. It wasn't that she wished the marriage had come to pass; it was more Uke rage that General O'Hara, far away under blue silk skies, had been so careless in communication, so stupid as to break this woman's heart.

By September Anne was still neglecting her sculpture, her other friends and her mother, who complained that she was down in Little Strawberry from noon till night. Anne consulted in whispers with Doctor Fordyce, with timid, red-eyed Mr Berry and with Agnes, who seemed fond of her sister again now that there was no danger of Mary abandoning her. She brought armfuls of flowers and tempting books. 'I can't believe you've never read
The Monk,'
she told Mary, 'it's thrillingly wicked.'

The pale lids didn't stir.

'You didn't sleep well?' Anne asked.

The brown eyes cracked open. 'I haven't had an unbroken night since March.'

'Self-pity is like quicksand,' Anne told her suddenly. 'Believe me, I know what it is to sink into it. When I was at my worst—that dreadful time two years ago—it was you who saved me. You were so brave—'

'Not at first,' Mary objected.

Anne waved that away. 'You held on to our friendship, no matter what it cost you.'

A slow nod.

'You must be brave again now,' Anne told her. 'You mustn't let grief extinguish you.'

'I don't know that it's grief, exactly,' said Mary in a low voice. 'I don't feel anything as vivid as grief. I can't even see his face any more.'

Anne tried to believe that was a good sign. 'What do you feel, then?'

A long silence. 'Not much of anything except tired. And rather blank. Unequal to life's demands.'

One morning Anne marched into the bedroom and took Mary's hands in hers. 'My dearest, you must come away with me. Travel is the best cure for wounded spirits, Fordyce agrees. Change of air, change of scene, change of habits—everything's been arranged and Agnes has kindly packed your bags so all you have to do is get into my carriage.'

'Where are you taking me?' asked Mary when they had been on the road for half an hour.

'Bognor.' After a moment Anne added, 'It's hardly Florence—but since Bonaparte has overrun the Italian states—'

'That's the worst thing about war, it inconveniences one's travelling plans so.' Mary's face was deadpan and it took Anne several seconds to realise it was a joke, the first in half a year.

***

T
HE LITTLE
fishing village of Bognor, sixty miles from London on the south coast (and near enough to Goodwood for Anne to visit her family), was in danger of becoming fashionable. Last year the Devonshire House set had come down and told all their friends that it was the smallest, quietest, most charming of watering places. The air was mild, the sands were pure, there were exotic trees and interesting geological specimens. This summer there was another famous visitor, staying at the mansion known as the Dome. Lady Jersey, who'd come to be seen as a public enemy for her bad influence over the Prince of Wales and her cruelty towards his poor Princess, had been forced to retreat here after her resignation as lady-in-waiting, for fear of the mob that had stoned her town house. But a visitor came down to Bognor regularly, in an unmarked carriage; despite all his muffling layers, he had the distinctively swollen silhouette of the Prince.

On their second day in the lodgings on West Street Anne came back from paying a duty call on the Countess and her children. 'She's a fount of information. Apparently we must get our provisions in Chichester. She says Georgiana's in the hands of her torturers again, they've applied leeches to her eyeballs.'

Mary nodded, as if nothing could horrify her any more.

'Did you nap while I was out?' Anne asked.

'A little,' said Mary. 'I dreamed I was walking with you on some southern shore. I was married to O'Hara but he wasn't there, he was at sea; you and I were watching his ship on the horizon and waving our handkerchiefs. I was perfectly happy. Then I woke up and I wanted to die before the vision faded.'

'Oh, Mary.' Anne sat down beside her on the sofa. 'If I could do something—anything—to ease your sufferings—'

'But you do,' Mary assured her. 'How much heavier they'd be if I couldn't lay them on your sympathetic bosom every hour of the day.'

Anne stared at the ugly old chinoiserie wallpaper, with its little men and dragons. She made a decision. 'Lady Jersey said something else, something about O'Hara; she has her sources in every town in Europe. I don't know if it will hurt you or help you more to hear it.'

'Tell me,' said Mary.

'You remember you said the other day that what worried you most—what preyed on your heart—was that you felt you'd destroyed a good man's one chance of domestic happiness? That by your prevarications you'd doomed him to a lonely life in Gibraltar, misunderstood by his men and cut off from all congenial company?' 'Yes.'

'Well.' Anne chewed her lip. 'He's already formed a new connection.'

'With a lady,' Mary breathed. 'A woman, rather. She's bearing his child.' Mary's face contracted with such instinctive pain that Anne hated herself for having been the one to cause it. 'Oh, my darling girl,' she said, throwing her arms round her. 'I thought you should have the facts.'

'Yes.'

'It's not right that you should keep pining for a man who's not worthy of it.'

But Mary's face was unconsoled.

A
FTER A WEEK
of plain food, sleep and walks around Bognor, Mary seemed to be reviving slightly. She'd taken up sketching again, which was a good sign, though she complained her hands shook.

As the days remain so warm, we've taken to picnicking on the beach,
Anne wrote to Walpole,

from which there's a splendid view of the Isle of Wight. You'll be glad to know that the Bognor Rocks seem intimidating enough to keep the French at bay. We've collected several iron pyrites & a small stone we take to be one of the rarer Moss Agates. We've taken one boat trip & two drives on the Downs. Sometimes we visit the library at the Hotel; luckily there are no places of
amusement to tempt us to irregular habits of living! M. seems livelier already & I have hopes of bringing her home to you much improved.

She thought of the old man brooding in his treasure house. He had forgiven Mary for her secret engagement, or so he said, and seemed sympathetic when it had been broken off, but things had never been quite the same between them—or between him and Anne, either. To write to him felt like going through the motions. Between his stiff replies and Mary's torpor, sometimes Anne woke up with a lead weight on her chest.

Today it had rained all morning, so the ladies had missed their walk. The afternoon had been spent at their Greek. Now the early evening was darkening; wind battered the panes. Mary laboured to improve a view of the bridge that she'd taken from their bedroom window.

Anne looked up from a slim volume of Voltaire. 'It's getting dusky; how can you see?'

'I can't, really, I suppose.' Mary rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand.

'Shall I ring for the girl to draw the curtains?'

'No need,' said Mary, standing up to tug them shut herself.

It amused Anne that her friend never could get used to the World's habit of asking servants to do what one could very easily do oneself. Through the heavy curtains she could hear the wind begin to moan. Mary was still standing at the window, lost in thought. Anne rose with a great stretch above her head and joined her. She parted the curtains with her hand. The wind was whipping the Union Jack on the hotel. 'I'd bet the sea is rough this evening.'

'Oh, yes,' said Mary, 'it must be.'

Anne thought she heard a note of longing. 'Shall we go and see?'

Mary gave her a startled look.

'We could wrap up very warm indeed,' said Anne, 'in all our furs, with not a chink open to the damp.'

'Oh, my dear. Do you really think we ought, with our constitutions?'

'I never said ought. I said could.'

Afterwards, Anne couldn't remember what had impelled her to such a rash suggestion; it was something about the swiftly gathering darkness, the restlessness in her limbs after being cooped up all day. But ten minutes later, in riding boots and swaddled in shawls and cloaks over their muslin dresses, they were half running down to the harbour. 'Let's pray we meet no one we know, in this gear,' panted Anne, hot under her layerings.

The quay was deserted. The wind was tingling. Fishing boats at anchor bobbed uneasily and their halyards clinked against their masts like a warning. The sea was foaming round the harbour wall; small white waves sprang up out of the darkness and smacked the stones. 'How cold the water must be, yet it looks like hot milk,' said Mary in Anne's ear.

'What?' said Anne, unlacing and pulling back her hood so it fell loosely on her shoulders.