Sleep, Pale Sister (9 page)
Fanny let me cry for a minute, then, very gently, she put her arm around my shoulders.
‘You love him, don’t you?’
‘I…’
‘
Don’t
you?’
‘I think so.’
She nodded. ‘You’d better go after him, my dear,’ she told me. ‘I know you’ll be back. Here…’ And, lifting up the tabby, who had returned to sit next to me as soon as Mose had left the room, she placed it in my arms. ‘Tizzy seems to like you. Take her with you—look after her and she’ll be a good friend to you. I can see in your eyes what a lonely thing it is to be married to Henry Chester.’
I nodded, holding the cat tightly against me.
‘Can I come and see you again?’
‘Of course. Come whenever you like. Goodbye, Marta.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I said, “Goodbye, my dear”.’
‘I thought you said…’
‘Shh,’ she interrupted. ‘You go now, and remember what I said. Be
careful
.’
I looked into her strange eyes and saw nothing there but reflections. But she was still smiling as she took me by the arm and pushed me gently out on to the street.
The bitch. The bitch!
Bitches, both of them. As I made my way back to my own lodgings seething with the injustice of her treatment of me, I nearly resolved to abandon the whole thing, to leave her to her Puritan husband and good riddance to them both. Or maybe a nice little anonymous letter, packed with intimate details…that might put a few pigeons in with the cat.
That
would teach her. But behind my anger there was unease. It was not simply a question of revenge, was it? No. It was the fact that I had been wrong about her, that the Ace of Wands had proved himself a Fool of the first water, that I had underestimated my little Eff, that I had been utterly, indubitably wrong in thinking that I had her under my thumb…And she had chosen to defy me in front of Fanny,
Fanny
, of all people!
Well, if she wanted Fanny, I’d give her Fanny. The right word in Henry’s ear and he’d divorce her like a shot. What? You don’t believe it? A few selected details and he’d not bear to look at her again. She’d be penniless, with no-one to turn to—don’t think her mother would have her back after the mess she made of the fine marriage she had arranged. Vulgar? Yes, let’s be vulgar. Alone and penniless, I said; and with no-one to turn to but friend Fanny. She’d be filling a room for her in a month, along with the other girls. And all I had to do…Well, maybe I’d do that when I tired of her. But for the moment I still wanted the chit. She was a stunner, after all, and besides, the news that she did have a bit of spirit was not altogether unwelcome. But
Fanny
!
That was what hurt.
Oh, she came back quickly enough. I knew she didn’t have the character to stand up to me for long, and I wasn’t surprised when she came running out of the house a couple of minutes after I had left it. It wasn’t her silly little hysterical outburst which bothered me, but the way she and Fanny had joined together against me, almost instinctively, like members of some secret sisterhood. We drove back to Cromwell Square in silence, she watching me warily from under the brim of her bonnet, I staring straight ahead, immersed in my bitter thoughts. By the time we reached Highgate she was sniffling furtively and I was feeling much better.
Never mind, I thought, Fanny wouldn’t be there to influence her for ever. Once Effie was mine again I’d frighten her a bit, make her cry and the whole episode would be forgotten. For a while, anyway.
For a day
or two I played a cool game. I missed our meetings in the graveyard and I let her hear me drive past the house as I returned from the studio. At the end of the week, Henry invited me over to dinner and I stayed aloof, talking a great deal about art and politics to Henry and almost ignoring poor little Eff. I noticed that she was rather pale and that she sometimes looked at me anxiously, but I ignored that and continued monstrously cheerful for the rest of the evening, drinking deep, laughing loud and yet allowing her to guess at my broken heart. Kean could not have acted the part with more virtuosity.
For some reason Henry seemed out of all temper with Effie. On the rare occasions she hazarded a comment on some subject at dinner he showed himself impatient and sarcastic, tolerating her simply because I was there. If I had not been present, I am certain that he could not have been in her company without starting a quarrel. I pretended to notice nothing, deliberately failing to catch her eye.
Over the meal Henry again voiced his desire to see Effie model for the figure of the woman. ‘But,’ he said, ‘I really wanted a dark model. I think a fair-haired model would lack
substance
in this type of canvas.’ He hesitated. ‘Of course, Effie could sit for the basic outline, the position and the face,’ he said. ‘And I could paint the hair from some other model.’ He seemed to consider this for a time. ‘I dare say that might be the answer. What do you think, Harper?’
I nodded, studying Effie appraisingly, to her obvious discomfort. ‘I noticed a fair down by the Islington Road,’ I said innocently. ‘Likely you could find some gypsy girl with the right kind of hair who could sit for you.’ Out of the corner of my eye I saw Effie wince at the reference to the fair, and grinned inwardly.
‘I want to make a start on the woman’s figure as soon as possible,’ continued Henry. ‘For the present the weather is cool enough but when the heat of high summer comes, Effie’s health suffers if she has to sit for hours in the studio.’
Effie stirred restlessly, picking up her fork, then laying it down without touching her food. ‘I thought…’ she said, almost in a whisper.
‘What is it?’ His impatience was palpable. ‘Speak up, girl.’
‘I thought you said that I didn’t have to go to the studio any more. My headaches…’
‘I said that you were not to go there when you were ill. You are
not
ill, and I don’t see why I should have the expense of a model to bear, along with all our other expenses, when I have you.’
Effie made a vague, aimless gesture with her hands, as if to ward off the suggestion.
‘And, as for your headaches, there’s nothing there that a little laudanum could not cure. Come now, Harper,’ he said, turning to me with renewed good cheer, ‘I’ve a damned fine claret in my cellar today. You shall have some and tell me what you think of it.’ And at that he turned and left us together. No sooner had the door closed than she was on her feet, her eyes swimming and her hands clapped to her mouth. I knew then that she was all mine again.
‘Meet me tonight, Effie,’ I whispered urgently. ‘By the Circle of Lebanon at midnight.’
Her eyes widened. ‘But, Mose…’
‘If you care for me, be there,’ I hissed, narrowing my eyes at her. ‘If you’re not there I’ll take it that you don’t—and believe me, I’ll live.’ Though I was still grinning inside I manufactured a sneer and looked away as Henry walked in again, just on cue. Effie turned her face away, white to the lips, and I wondered for a moment whether she really was ill. Then I caught her watching me, and realized that she was simply playing another of her games; oh, believe me, Effie wasn’t the simple little innocent you all thought she was; none of you saw through to the dark, hidden core of her heart. Effie made fools of us all in the end. Even me.
Before I met Mose
I never knew how bleak my life was; now that it seemed I might lose him, I felt I might go mad. My memory of what had provoked the quarrel at Fanny’s house was so vague that I felt as if it had happened to some other girl, someone assured and strong. I waited for Mose in vain in all our usual meeting-places and I spent hours at the windows watching the street—but he did not come. Even my poetry was no consolation to me then; I was restless, twitching like a cat, unable to spend more than a minute or two at any occupation so that Henry swore that I was driving him out of his mind with my constant fluttering.
I took laudanum, but instead of calming my nerves the drug seemed to induce a kind of dim paralysis of the senses, so that I wanted to move but could not, wanted to see, smell, speak, but could only sense the world through fantasies and waking dreams.
Tabby made chocolate and cakes for me which I would not touch; irritably I snapped at her to leave me alone and immediately regretted it. I put my arms around her and promised to drink her chocolate. I was only tired, I didn’t mean to snap; surely she knew that? She smelled of camphor and baking and, shyly, her hand crept up to stroke my hair. I could almost have imagined myself back at Cranbourn Alley again, with Mother and Tabby and Aunt May baking cakes in the kitchen. I clung to her sleeve, shaking with loneliness.
Henry believed that I was feigning illness to avoid modelling for him. My headaches were the result of idleness, he said; my embroidery was neglected; I had not been seen in church on a weekday for over a sennight; I was wilful and ill-tempered, stupid in my vague responses to his questions, ridiculously awkward with guests. He disapproved of Tizzy, too, saying that it was ridiculous that I should bring in a stray cat to the house without his permission, childish folly to let it lie on my bed at night or in my lap by day.
As if to prove to me that no concession would be made to my imaginary illness, Henry invited guests to dinner twice in a week—though this was an unusual occurrence as a rule—the first time a doctor named Russell, a friend from his club, a thin, clever-faced little man who looked at me with odd intensity from behind the wire frames of his spectacles and talked at length about manias and phobias; the second time Mose, his eyes hard and bright, his smile a razor’s edge.
By the time he set me that dreadful ultimatum my nerves were so ragged, my loneliness so intense that I would have done anything to win him back to me, whether he loved me or not.
Very likely you think me a feeble, contemptible creature. I do myself, I know. I was quite aware that I was being punished for my brief revolt against him at Fanny’s house; if he had wanted to see me he could easily have done so by day, or at least in his rooms; no doubt he thought that the cemetery at midnight, with its shadows, its prowlers, was the ideal setting for the scene of cruel reconciliation I was to share with him. Guessing this, I could not help hating him a little in some hidden part of my heart, but the rest of me loved and wanted him with such a bitter longing that I was prepared to walk into the fire if he asked me to.
Leaving the house was easy; Tabby and Em slept under the roof in the old servants’ quarters—Edwin had his own cottage down the High Street and stopped work when night fell—and Henry slept deeply as a rule, going to bed quite early. At half past eleven I crept out of my room, shielding the candlelight with my hand. I had taken care to wear only a dark flannel dress, with no petticoats, so that I would be silent in the passageway, and so it was in almost total quiet that I drifted down the stairs and into the kitchen. The keys were hanging by the door and, holding my breath, I took the heavy housekey, opened the door and slipped out into the night.
Tizzy was sitting by the door and wound her way around my ankles, purring. For a moment I hesitated, reluctant to leave, feeling oddly comforted by the cat’s presence and half inclined to bundle her in my cloak and take her along. Then, inwardly chiding myself, I pulled the hood of my cloak over my head, shivering, and began to run.
I saw few people as I made my way up Highgate to the cemetery; a child running from the public-house with a pint of ale in a pitcher, a beggar woman wrapped in a ragged shawl wandering listlessly from door to door. At the corner of the street a group of men passed me, smelling of ale, talking in loud voices and clinging to each other as they made their way home. One of them shouted something at me as I ran past them, but they did not follow me. As the streetlamps became wider spaced I tried to merge into the darkness, and after about ten minutes I found myself in front of the great black shape of the cemetery, sprawling against the glowing London sky like a sleeping dragon. It was very quiet, and I was conscious of a quickening of the heart as I moved towards the gates. There was no sign of the night-watchman, and no reason for me to delay, but I stayed fixed to the spot for some time, helplessly watching those gates with the same morbid fascination I had felt as I watched the flap of the red tent open, that day at the fair.
A fleeting memory awakened at the thought, and I imagined those thousands of dead sitting up at my approach, their heads poking out of the stony ground like clockwork toys. The image, there in that thick darkness, was almost too much for me to bear, but remembering that Mose was waiting for me barely a few hundred yards away gave me courage; Mose was not afraid of the dead, nor even the living—he positively revelled in stories of the grotesque and terrifying. He had told me the tale of the woman buried alive; of how she had been found suffocated, her stiff hands clawing the air, her face only a few inches away from the surface, her fingers worn down to the bone as she had tried to dig her way out. And in the year of the cholera epidemic the dead were so many that they had to be buried in mass graves, unmarked and covered with quicklime. The corpses were so numerous that the heat of their decomposition had driven some of them to the surface, where they had been discovered later by two lovers in the cemetery, four heads sticking up out of the ground like huge mushrooms, stinking of death. Mose knew how much I hated his stories; I think that was why he told them, to make fun of my weakness; and I had never before thought how much cruelty there was in his laughter.
The darkness here was almost complete; there were no gaslamps in the cemetery and the moon was a poor, shivering thing, casting a dim corpse-light on to the stones. The scent of earth and darkness was overwhelming; I could pick out the trees by their smell as I passed them: the cedars, laburnums, yews, rhododendrons. From time to time I stumbled against a broken stone or a stump, and the sound of my footsteps terrified me even more than the dense, threatening silence. Once I thought I heard footsteps somewhere behind me and I shrank behind a vault, my heart’s pounding shaking the whole of my body. The footsteps were heavy and, as I remained motionless in the black shadow, I thought I could hear the sound of someone breathing, a thick asthmatic sound like a bellows.
I was almost at the Circle of Lebanon now, with only the long alley of trees to navigate before I reached its safety, but I could not move, sick with terror. For an instant my sanity spiralled away into the night like a shower of confetti; I was left in a timeless wilderness, horribly far from the light. Then, as my power of thought returned, I felt the world stabilize a little. I slipped to my knees, feeling my way along the side of the vault with fingers which had suddenly become miraculous points of sensation. Silently I crawled. As the footsteps moved closer I froze again, straining my eyes in vain for any sign to identify the intruder. I felt mud and water seep through my skirts, but flattened myself against the ground regardless, pulling my hood over my hair so that its whiteness should not betray me. The footsteps came closer still; now they were almost upon me. I held my breath, tasting eternity. The footsteps had stopped. Glancing over my shoulder like Orpheus, in spite of myself, I saw a man’s shape against the dim sky, impossibly huge and menacing, his eyes two points of brightness in the eye of the night.
