The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo (8 page)

"That is a pretty name," said Margery.

"So is yours," I said courteously. "What are
you in for?"

Margery cast a look around to check that none
of the Misses were hovering, and swallowed a crust.

"I'm mad," she confided. "And you?"

"I'm bad," I said.

Margery nodded sympathetically.

"I thought you seemed to have all your
marbles lined up in a row," she said. "And of course they've
allowed you civilian rations. I expect they don't drown you in
milk, as they do us."

"Why do they drown you in milk?" I said,
interested.

Margery turned the palms of her hands up in a
gesture of despair.

"Why do they do any of the things they do?"
she said. "I am made to eat and eat and eat, and sleep the rest of
the day."

"As if you were a dormouse," I said.

"Indeed, as if I were a dormouse," said
Margery. "They have only let me out of bed today. I suspect the
purpose of these torments was to force me to recover out of pure
indignation."

"I was going to observe that you seem to have
quite a good hold on your marbles yourself," I said.

"Oh yes, most of the time," said Margery.
"But sometimes, you know, they get away from one. Then a black
thing with horns and wings comes and sits at the foot of the bed
and stares at one with evil yellow eyes—and one can't get out of
bed, but lies there and wishes one was dead, until one's relations
come to pack one off to the nearest nursing home. Do you know the
feeling?"

"No," I said.

"Good," said Margery. "I hope you never
do."

We were quiet for a while. I broke the
silence to ask:

"Did your relations send you here, then?"

"My brother-in-law, I should say," said
Margery. "He tried the seaside first, thinking the sea breeze would
blow away my humours. But my humours clung obstinately to me, so he
sent me here instead.

"My sister would have kept trying with the
seaside," she added.

"I hope you shan't be here much longer," I
said. "Since you dislike it so."

"Why, don't you?" said Margery.

"Well, I chose to come here, which puts a
different complexion on things," I said. "Besides, they let me eat
all sorts. I would leave if they tried to restrict my diet to
milk."

"You chose to come?" cried Margery. "But what
about the—" She clamped her mouth shut and went pink.

"Oh, the father?" I said. "He is paying, but
he didn't force me to come here. I chose the institution."

"I retract what I said about your looking
sane," said Margery. "Fancy choosing to come to a dreadful place
like this! Do you not find it fearfully dull?"

I have, rather. It is not so much not having
anything to do, because I spend my days reading and writing, as I
always did. I don't cook here, but save for that and for the fresh
air and better view from my window, I might as well be in
London.

No, what I miss is not the giddy whirl of
life in the metropolis, but having people to see and talk to. The
Misses are kind, but they don't talk; they issue platitudes.

"It does get lonely," I admitted. "But where
else could I have gone? If I had stayed where I was it might have
got rather awkward in a few months. My landlady lives in mortal
fear of what her neighbours might think, and they would have had
awful thoughts about me."

Margery looked somber.

"That is true," she said. "If I were you, I
suppose I would have relied on my sister."

"If you don't like it here," I said, "can you
not write to your sister to say that you are feeling better and
please will she take you away?"

"There is Reginald, you see," said Margery.
"That is my brother-in-law. He is not unkind, but he has a
scientific mind. He hates to see me lolling about at home in a funk
when I could be here, lolling about in a funk under the supervision
of trained nurses. If I insist on coming home now he will say, but
the doctor said you must lie in bed for two months at the very
least, and not an inch will he budge, no matter what I tell
him.

"But," said Margery—I could tell she had a
mind that got stuck on ideas, and would not let go of them
easily—"do
you
not have anyone you could rely on? You
haven't got a Reginald barring your escape."

"No," I said. "But I don't have a sister
either. I haven't got any family here." I sent a silent apology to
Aunt Iris, but in this sort of eventuality she doesn't really
count—and wouldn't want to, either.

"Oh," said Margery.

The corners of her mouth turned down. Then
she brightened.

"But you must have friends. Do you not have
friends?"

I haven't got many friends in England.
Everyone I was close to at university has returned to their
respective countries since, and after university I was mostly too
busy to make new friends. Ravi, of course—and Hardie and Diana
qualify, I suppose.

"I have three friends here," I said, "but it
would be rather awkward for me to ask them for help."

Margery did not seem to like this answer. She
frowned.

"Well, that's wrong," she said. "Because you
have four. I am your friend. I'll help you."

"That is kind, thank you," I said. "How do
you mean to start?"

Margery reflected. "I shall comfort your
cheerless hours with my prattle. Cordelia—that's my sister—she
always liked to hear me talk. And I shall help you select a name
for the baby. Have you chosen one already?"

We spent the rest of the afternoon making
great plans. Margery is not allowed to read books because the words
are too taxing for her intellects, so we are to see if we can
arrange for me to come into her room to read to her. The doctor
might not mind that. And Margery is to pretend to be wholly
oblivious of my being pregnant, for fear that the Misses might ban
contact to prevent my polluting her virginal mind.

I wonder what Ravi is doing right now.
Perhaps I shall explain everything to him some day, when the
tadpole is a frog and both Ravi and I are too old to be troubled by
the past. Then we will sit on a porch in the twilight drinking good
tea and laugh about how silly I was, and he will reach out and
touch his beautiful wife's greying but still lovely hair, and feel
serene and happy about how everything turned out ....

But now I am wallowing again!

Today we finished
Pride and Prejudice
.
I have been reading it to Margery for the past week, though we both
know it almost by heart. When I had read the last word Margery
rolled over on the ottoman and sighed.

"That is my favourite love story," she said.
"Jade, what is it like to be in love?"

"What makes you think I would know?" I
said.

"Why, of course you do," Margery said. "Why
else would you be having Claude?"

Margery is convinced that the baby is going
to be a boy, and not only that, but that he will be a Claude. I am
not persuaded on either count, but there's no harm in letting her
suppose. At any rate Claude is better than Aloysius, which was her
last guess.

"Pure wantonness," I suggested.

Margery considered this, but she shook her
head.

"No, no," she said. "You've been in love. I
think you're in love even now. You have the look. I've never been
in love myself, but I know it."

"What's the look like?" I said.

"It's as if you were hugging a secret to
yourself," said Margery promptly. "When you are happy in love it's
a delightful secret, but when you are sad it's a distressing one.
Cordelia had that look when she first met Reginald. It took me ages
to recognise it, because Reginald is such a—but there, he's a good
husband by his lights. Anyway, you have the look—but I suppose,"
here she drooped—"it is an unhappy love, and I ought not to have
brought it up."

"I don't mind," I said.

"What is it like? Do tell," said Margery.
"With this disordered mind of mine I don't think I shall ever fall
in love. I am such a bother to everyone when I have one of my
episodes. I should feel sorry for anyone who married me."

"I shouldn't," I said. "Think of all the
insufferable creatures in the world who fall in love, and are loved
back. And you one of the nicest people I have ever met! You have
every right to fall in love, if you would like to, and anyone you
married would be lucky."

Margery pursed her lips, but she only
said,

"You are trying to distract me. Won't you
tell me how it was for you? Is your beloved like Mr. Darcy?"

"Nothing like," I said. "I wouldn't like to
marry Mr. Darcy, would you? Fancy calling your husband Fitzwilliam
for all eternity. It would be so awkward in the bedroom."

"Oh Jade," said Margery: she is rather easily
shocked. "Well, but what is he like, then?"

I felt the real story was rather implausible.
Would anyone believe I'd had an affair with Hardie out of simple
curiosity? Margery certainly wouldn't: she is convinced I was
cruelly deceived. And I am still feeling too tender about Ravi to
tell anyone about him, so I told her a somewhat embroidered tale
about Hardie and me, in which Hardie's charm and the giddy romance
of Paris swept me off my feet, and Hardie's Bohemian ideals blinded
him to the sordid realities of love outside the bounds of
sanctioned matrimony.

I finished with the magnificent forgiveness
of Diana and my self-denying retirement to Mrs. Crowther's.
Margery's eyes were dewy.

"Oh Jade, how sad," she said. "How terribly,
terribly sad—but beautiful, too. You lived a whole lifetime in the
space of a few months. So Hardie and Diana are two of the friends
you spoke of. Oh, it is so poetic, it is like something out of a
story. But it must make you terribly distressed to think of them,
though they have been so noble."

I was beginning to enjoy my role. I tried to
look damp and ethereal.

"Yes," I murmured.

"But you had three friends, you said," said
Margery. I think she must have some bulldog in her ancestry: she
has the most tenacious memory. "Who is the third?"

"Ah," I said. "That is just the editor of the
Oriental Literary Review
. I used to write pieces for him,
and we became friends through that. Nice man."

"I must ask Cordelia to look that journal
up," said Margery.

She's already requested old issues of
Woman's Weekly
from her sister, since I told her I'd had
articles published in it. She took down the name and address of the
ORL so that Cordelia could order the issues I'd been in. The
address will have changed, I suppose, but I expect they'll forward
any post.

I barely felt a twinge when I talked about
Ravi. Perhaps I am recovering! Soon I shall be as footloose and
fancy-free as any maiden (though I suppose I do not quite count as
a maiden anymore). That will be good for the worm. Poor old worm!
It can't be doing it good to have so many feelings sloshing about
on top of it.

When the wormlet has come into the world I
must become the sagest of matriarchs. I shall put on wisdom like a
mantle, and read a chapter of the classics every day, and only eat
cake once every half a year. I will avoid telling fibs to my
friends, and if I can't avoid it, I will certainly not enjoy it. Oh
dear, I'm afraid I'm very far from perfection yet.

I dreamt of my father last night. Ma comes to
me in dreams sometimes, usually to say something pointed about
money or the state of my clothes, but Pa never. He wasn't there to
give advice; it was a remembering sort of dream.

Pa had just had an argument with my
grandfather, and I was upset. I don't remember what the argument
was about, but I remember Pa sitting by me and explaining, as he
always did whenever anything frightened me. And as always he was
making everything all right again.

"You have a better brain than your old
father," he said. "Even a better brain than your brothers. What
have I worked all these years for if not so I can bring up my
children the way I want to?

"My girl, remember this. Your father will
never begrudge how much he is spending on your education. Don't
believe those who will say because you are a girl it is useless.
Learning is never useless. You will make something of yourself
because you are my daughter.

"But don't prove them right. Don't let your
freedom make you disobedient. Don't go wild like those European
women. Remember your family. Then it will all be worth it."

I woke up half-believing I was still there,
in the kitchen with the sun shining on the table, with my father
next to me. I had to go around my room, touching everything in it,
before the cold worked its way into my fingers and toes and drove
me back to bed. Then I believed I was here.

It was only when I laid my head on my pillow
again that I felt the wetness on it, and realised I was still
crying. The tears oozed out of my eyes as if they weren't my eyes,
or my tears. It wasn't me who was crying, but someone long ago and
far away. Someone who still trusted everything her family told
her.

I wish Ravi were here.

Bad news today. At breakfast Margery was
looking like a squirrel that had discovered the existence of peanut
butter. She leant over to me and said:

"I am rescued!"

Her sister is coming next week to take her
away. Her letters have been so sprightly even Reginald has been
persuaded that science cannot justify Mrs. Crowther's keeping
her.

"And besides, Cordelia misses me," she said
happily.

I smiled, but I was soggy with self-pity
inside. We have been such chums—reading books together and
gossiping about the Misses behind her back. I had missed having
girl friends. I haven't known a woman I could talk to, really talk
to, since I left home. One cannot really talk to Diana, the way she
floats through the clouds hand-in-hand with Hardie.