Читать книгу Winter - Christopher Nicholson - Страница 8

Last night I asked him, not for the first time, for indeed I have asked him a number of times, if we could have a few of the branches taken down as the house is now in shadow for much of the day. The problem is most acute in the summer, when we are engulfed by foliage, but even now, with winter almost upon us, the trees are an oppression. They oppress me, they darken my life. This is a dark house. He would not discuss it. I tried again this morning.

‘Thomas,’ I said, ‘forgive me for mentioning it again but we must talk about the trees. I know you are very preoccupied, but this is the right time of year – this is the time for tree work. The birds are not nesting now.’

We were at the breakfast table, and he said nothing, not a word, he looked elsewhere as if he had not heard me. He looked at his toast. He studied his toast. I wondered if I had spoken or if I had merely imagined speaking. Had my senses deserted me? Had my words left my mouth or had they stuck in my throat?

I drew a breath. I pressed on. ‘You said in the summer we could not cut back then, because of the birds, and now it is nearly winter. The servants agree with me – they agree entirely. Mr. Caddy agrees too, I have spoken to him. The trees have to be cut back sometime. And the ivy, too,’ I added, aware that I was annoying him by my persistence, that he would prefer me not to mention the subject.

He looked at his toast as if it was burnt. He fiddled with the handle of his tea-cup.

He believes that the trees must not be touched for fear of wounding them. Can trees be wounded? Trees are not sentient creatures. He talks of mutilation and disfigurement. To care for the feelings of birds and animals is one thing, yet to believe that trees are capable of suffering as human beings suffer is quite another. What of my suffering? I am still not well, I know I am not well. The doctors say that on all accounts I must avoid straining my nerves. Can he not see how the trees are hampering my recovery? Can he not see how I suffer?

‘This is such a dark house,’ I said. ‘I feel everything would be different if there were more light.’

He raised his eyes to mine. ‘Later, Florence, later,’ he said, softly. ‘Not now. I am thinking.’

I fell silent. I could say no more, for the moment. He was thinking; that is, he was thinking about his work; a poem was possibly taking shape inside his head. How should I know what shapes form inside his head? All I know is that on account of the trees I am condemned to shadow. I wish he would understand how dark and gloomy they make the house, and how much the absence of sunlight oppresses my spirits during the winter months, but this it seems is of no consequence when set against the supposed feelings of the trees and the nesting birds.

This is how our breakfasts always are. I am not meant to speak and therefore I do not speak, although in the spaces that might be occupied by speech I often address him with silent questions. When were you ever happy? Were you happy when you were a boy? What could make you happy now? Should we not be happy? Is it not in our natures, is it not part of our beings, to strive for happiness? Has your writing made you happy? Would you not be happier if you were to say, I have written what I have written, enough is enough, and to put down your pen? What iron compulsion makes you continue? Thomas?

My life is full of these unanswered questions.

What irks me, more than anything, is that he is perfectly capable of gaiety. When guests arrive for tea it is as if an electric light were switched on (not that we have any electricity here!): suddenly he becomes a different human being. He chats and jokes and entertains, and reminisces about his childhood and tells confidential witty anecdotes. He performs. None of our visitors has any idea what he is truly like. They marvel at him! ‘What a marvel he is!’ they confide in me as they leave. (O that word, ‘marvel’!) ‘So sprightly! So spry! Such vigour!’ I nod in agreement. As soon as they are gone, the light switches off; he relapses to his former self.

The truth is, he cannot be bothered to make an effort for me, his wife. I who do nothing but make an effort for him, I whose whole life is devoted to him, I who tiptoe after him, lay out his clothes, help him dress, read to him for hours every evening and do all that is humanly possible to make him happy, I am not worthy of the performance.

He left, with Wessie at his heels. O Wessie, Wessie, stay with me, I beseeched him silently, do not leave me now – it was all I could do not to call him back – but they were both gone. I remained at the table with my feelings, my words which I may or may not have uttered. The door closed. My hand shook as I tried to drink my cup of coffee.

I am not suggesting that all the trees should be cut down, merely that those nearest to the house should be thinned. Is that so much to ask? To thin the trees so that light, blessed light, will once again shine freely into the rooms? Was this not his intention when he built the house, forty years ago? The house faces south; it should be filled with sunlight, and yet it is dark. But there is nothing to be done, until later; later, later, it is what he always says; and so the matter is forever postponed, and meanwhile the trees grow ever nearer. The branches are nearly scratching at the panes of the windows, and the gutters are blocked with autumn leaves, and the chimneys are covered in ivy. The air is damp. Even the lawns are affected: they are thick with moss and ugly worm-casts.

I cannot feel that trees are necessarily friendly creatures. In the right situation, I admit, they are pleasant enough. Here they are hostile. Left alone, they will overwhelm the house. This is how I choose to begin my account, which I tell to myself, since there is no one else to tell.

I am busy, too; I have my daily round of tasks. There are the hens to let out of their coop. They have a little field to the side of the garden, away from the trees, in sunshine. I bought this field with my own money, four years ago, since he would not buy it, although he has so much more money than I, although he may well be, according to Cockerell, the wealthiest writer in the entire country. Is that possible? How does Cockerell know? I waited to see if he would offer to buy the field for me, but it did not seem to occur to him. If it did occur to him, he gave no sign of it having occurred to him. I might have asked him directly, but I have my pride. Thus I had to raid my own small savings. That is how things are. That is the way of things.

I open the door of the coop and out they come; seven lovely hens. ‘My beauties, my darlings. How are you today?’ I love my hens and I talk to them in a particular voice which I persuade myself – with what truth I cannot say – they recognise. O, but I am sure that they do. I have names for them all. This is Betty; this is Jess; that is Hetty. Dear little Hetty! That one is Maud.

In the low sunshine they glow with light. Their feathers shimmer. ‘Patience, patience,’ I say to them, ‘patience, my dears.’ They fuss and cluck as I hold up the bag of grain, and then I dip in my hand and throw out the seed. They make a quick rush and begin to peck and stab, and as they do so wheedling sounds of gratitude come from their throats. Even when they are eating! How sweet and contented they are!

It does me good to see such contentment, I who feel so little contentment. It does me good to be in the sun, away from the long shadows of the trees.

I scatter four handfuls of grain. Some of the hens – Betty, and Alice, particularly, are bigger and more forceful than the others. Please, please, I beg you, be patient! I have enough for you all.

They are laying well at the moment. Yesterday, I collected three brown eggs; today, three more, which will do very well for this evening’s dinner. I admit that there are times when I think that I should be kind and allow them to keep their eggs, to sit on their eggs. Would that be kinder? But the eggs would not hatch, there would be no chicks, they would sit and sit and nothing would happen, which would be dreadful for them, they would be perpetually disappointed. I think it is better that I take the eggs, to spare them that disappointment. They are fond of me, they do not care whether I take the eggs.

The sun shines over the field, the birds sing – O, I admit, my ownership of the field does afford me a certain satisfaction, for almost everything else is his. The house and its contents belong to him; they were his long before I became his wife. I live in the shell of his ownership. The field is mine, however, and therefore perhaps, upon further consideration, I am glad that I bought it with my own money, that he did not buy it for me. Yes, I am glad, I think, although I would have liked him to have offered to buy it for me, as he might easily have done. I am not saying that he is miserly but, if I may draw the distinction, he is very careful; he does not realise how much money he has and does not believe it, even when he is told. He avoids conversations about money, just as he avoids conversations about the trees. These are not matters I am able to talk to him about, among so many other matters.

Obstinacy is ingrained into his very nature. It blinds him to common sense. It makes him deaf to all persuasion. Was he always like this, or has his obstinacy grown over the years? He cannot have been like this as a young man. But then, how do I know? I did not know him when he was young. Even though I have seen a number of paintings and photographs, to relate the young man there with the old man now defeats me. Inasmuch as I am able to imagine it, he was exactly the same then as he is now.

To give one instance of his obstinacy: the telephone. I could not understand the nature of his objection, although it seemed to be based on some irrational fear of the instrument. He murmured vaguely: ‘Human beings have succeeded in communicating for centuries without the use of a telephonic apparatus; I do not understand why it must suddenly become a necessity.’ – ‘Thomas,’ I said, somewhat exasperated, not least by the absurdity of the phrase ‘telephonic apparatus’ in this day and age, ‘of course, it is not a necessity; it is a convenience. It would be very convenient to have a telephone here. It would be convenient for ordering groceries, and coal, and for visitors.’

I went on to say that it was becoming odd for us, in a house this size, not to have a telephone.

‘There would be wires everywhere,’ he said. ‘They are very ugly.’

‘We will soon be used to them,’ I countered.

He became a trifle petulant. ‘Florence, I do not want to be used to them. Merely because the world happens to have moved in a certain direction, it does not follow that we have to move with it. Besides, there is the cost.’ (As if he would even notice the cost, when he is so wealthy! The wealthiest writer in the entire country!)

Later, he said that the press would discover the number and that the telephone would never stop ringing. The noise would be an intrusion and would prevent him from working. ‘And what if it rings in the night?’ he went on. ‘Imagine that; we shall be woken by it ringing and you will hurry out and fall down the stairs and break your neck.’ I did not know whether to laugh or cry. ‘Is that likely?’ I asked. ‘Who on earth is going to ring in the night?’ He gave me a particular look, a look that I have come to know well, intended to convey the message that he was impervious to all argument, however reasonable.

I enlisted the help of Cockerell, when he next came to stay. He always pays greater attention to Cockerell than to me, although I am his wife. I took Cockerell aside and asked him whether he had had a telephone installed at his home in Cambridge, and he said that he had had one for four years and that it had come in jolly handy as it was so much quicker than the post and capable of carrying so much more information than the telegraph. Exactly! ‘Well,’ said I, ‘if you would persuade Thomas, I should be very grateful.’ So he said he would – that is, he would try – ‘But, Florence,’ he said, ‘your husband is a very hard man to bring round, once he has set his mind against something.’ – ‘Sydney,’ said I, ‘he is an ox! He doesn’t like anything new; he would like the world to be as it was in eighteen fifty! The world has changed, like it or not. But, please, don’t tell him that I asked you to say anything; if you do, he will set himself against it on principle. He is so prickly nowadays.’

The argument that Cockerell employed was that, if my husband were to fall ill and to need a doctor, a telephone would be immensely valuable and might even save his life. I had told him that much myself, had advanced the self-same point; he had paid not a farthing of attention. Once the point was made by Cockerell, however, it carried more weight; he nodded.

‘Is it not the case that, sometimes, the apparatus remains alive when it should not?’

‘How do you mean, alive?’

‘It is still alive. It listens when it should not.’

‘Thomas –’ I broke in – ‘a telephone is not alive; it is a machine.’

‘What I mean,’ said he (to Cockerell, not to me; although I had spoken, it was as if I had not spoken), ‘is that the line remains open when it should not. The operators at the exchange have the ability to eavesdrop on one’s private conversations, without one’s knowledge.’

‘Where on earth did you hear that?’

‘I believe that it occurs very commonly.’

‘I doubt it very much,’ Cockerell told him. ‘I doubt it very much indeed! The operators are far too busy to spend their time eavesdropping on people’s conversations. Is that truly your main objection to the telephone?’

‘It is one of my objections. If something is possible, then, human nature being what it is, it is likely to happen. You don’t have newspaper reporters poking about all the time, trying to discover details of your private life. It is different for me.’

‘That may be true,’ Cockerell agreed. ‘But I hardly believe –’ he stopped. ‘You see, I never use the telephone for conversation. It is simply a very handy little thing to have, for contacting people, in emergencies. You don’t have to use it yourself.’

Eventually my husband gave way, which pleased me, although I admit that I was slightly aggrieved that Cockerell had succeeded where I had failed. The truth is, he trusts Cockerell’s judgement but does not trust mine; that is the truth.

On the day the telephone was installed, and for several days afterward, he was very irritable and claimed that he had been unable to write a word on account of it. ‘But, Thomas,’ I said, ‘no one has rung! We have not had a single call!’ – ‘No,’ said he, in a very melancholy voice, ‘but I am thinking of it waiting to ring. It will ring sooner or later. It is there, in my mind; waiting.’

Mr. Caddy is wheeling his barrow past the vegetable garden. Mr. Caddy has been gardener here at Max Gate for a long time. He is a man of about fifty, entirely bald, with wide ears, and a ruddy face which comes not only from working all his life out-of-doors but also, I suspect, I suspect strongly, from drink. At my approach he drops the handles in order to touch his forehead.

‘The gutters need unblocking,’ I tell him. – ‘Yes, ma’am.’ – ‘Could you do it soon, please?’ I ask. ‘Before the next storm, if possible. It is almost winter. Winter is almost upon us.’ – ‘Yes, ma’am.’ – ‘And if you could pick up some of these twigs and sticks, and rake the drive.’

He nods and yes ma’ams me for a third time, a little slowly, as if behind his respectful exterior he is laughing at me. Yes, for some unaccountable reason I feel sure he is laughing at me, and that my stole must have slipped. He is staring at my scar. A terror seizes me, it is all I can do not to break down on the spot and gibber like a mad-woman. What has become of me? Pull yourself together, Florence, I tell myself, remember who you are. You are mistress here.

I hold his eye and say: ‘I very much hope we shall be allowed to cut back some of the trees this winter.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

As I walk on I adjust the stole which, it turns out, has not slipped at all, but I am quite sure that he was thinking of it. Mr. Sherren, the surgeon who performed the operation, said that it was a very neat job and that the scar would fade in time but it has not faded at all; it is still red and ugly, even when I cover it with powder. I hate looking at it in the glass. But I can hardly speak too highly of Mr. Sherren, who is one of the best surgeons in London, if not the very best; of all the doctors I have ever met, he is the one in whom I feel most confidence. As soon as I saw him I felt more confident. He examined my neck with so much care and spoke to me so kindly. He has a very soft, warm voice and gentle hands. I noticed how long and delicate his fingers were, the fingers not of a surgeon but a pianist. His finger-nails were perfect. I said to him, ‘I always knew it was cancerous, but no one ever seemed to believe me,’ and he said, ‘Mrs. Hardy, you have come to the right place.’

When he visited me after the operation we had a long talk in which he told me that as a young man he had been to sea as a ship’s surgeon, which he had loved, and in return I mentioned the years I spent as a school-mistress, and how fulfilling that had been. I said to him (something I strongly believe) that there is nothing more important than education. ‘Sometimes,’ I said, ‘I think I might still be teaching now, but for my wretched health. Good health is such a blessing.’

He was very sympathetic. He said that good health was as important as good education, and that people who have a naturally strong constitution often find it so hard to understand what life is like for those who do not. In my experience that is true, very true.

Mr. Sherren then asked whether my husband was writing any more novels, and I said that he had given novels up completely and wrote nothing but poetry. I went on to mention that I too was a writer, and that I had written several books for children. He was interested and wanted to know more, and of course I had to admit that they had been published a long while ago and that I had written scarcely anything in the past few years except for one or two magazine articles. My days (I said) are so taken up with domestic duties that I have very little time for writing on my own account, and even when I do have time, no energy. I have not written on my own account for a long time, except in my head. Nonetheless, once I have recovered my health, once I have truly recovered, I shall be able to write again. That is what I constantly tell myself, and what I told Mr. Sherren, who said he would be very interested indeed to read anything I wrote. He was certain that I would be able to write again. ‘If there is one thing that I have learnt about life,’ he said, ‘it is that it is never too late.’ There was something about the confidence with which he uttered those words that I found quite inspiring.

I did not tell Mr. Sherren that my husband does not like me to write, although that also is true. When we first met he encouraged me, but soon after we were married this came to an end, or so it seems to me. Indeed I have come to suspect that he despises my writing. He has never said as much, not in so many words, but I have not forgotten what happened over my ‘Book of Baby Beasts’. It was a book for young children, describing the characteristics and behaviour of a large number of infant creatures found in the English countryside, and at the start of each chapter there was a little poem, for all children love the sound of a poem as I know so well from my days as a school-mistress. I always did my best to encourage a love of poetry in my pupils, and every morning after saying prayers and taking the roll I used to read them a few verses. Even now I remember the hush in the class-room and their eager faces, listening intently, drinking in the words.

Many of the poems in the book were written by my husband, but there were five that I had written myself, among them one poem in particular I was very proud of, of which I was very proud (grammar is so important). It was about a hedgehog, Master Prickleback.

My name is Master Prickleback,

And when alarmed I have a knack

Of rolling in a ball

Quite snug and tight, my spines without,

And so if I am pushed about

I suffer not at all.

As I say I was very proud of this poem, which I thought and still think is as good as any of his poems in the book, and I remember that he said that it was very good. However, a year or more after we were married there was a very strange incident when I awoke in the night and heard what I believed to be a baby crying in the garden beneath the window. When the cry came again, I instantly jumped to the conclusion that some servant girl must have left a baby that I should be able to take in and bring up as my own. I had never had this idea before, but now it grew upon me with tremendous force, and I ran through to Thomas, who was asleep, and he rose promptly and together we went to the window. The night was still and warm, with half a moon, but the ground around the trees was all in dark shadow. ‘It is a pleasant night,’ he said, after a time. – ‘I heard it clearly,’ I said, for I thought that he did not believe me; ‘I promise you; I know I heard it. We must search the garden. I am going down. Thomas, I beg you, let us search the garden. I am not imagining it, I assure you. I am sure that there is a baby.’ He hesitated for a moment, and then perceiving my state of anxiety he turned and put on his dressing gown and slippers. Together we went down the stairs. The bolts on the back door sounded very loud as he pulled them back, and Wessie began to bark. I was afraid that he would wake the maids who would think that the house was being burgled and I rushed to let him out. We proceeded into the garden. I was barefoot. The dew was very heavy and silvery blue in the moonlight, and Wessie who was very excited to be out at such an hour raced to and fro. Dogs can smell so well in the dark. I heard the cry again near the vegetable garden; it now had a piteous, mewing quality. ‘There!’ I said. We walked towards it, and found two hedgehogs in the act of congress. Their journey towards each other could be traced by the paths in the dew. Wessie sniffed at them, whereupon they recoiled and curled into their defensive postures. I felt very foolish to have mistaken the cry of a hedgehog for that of a baby, and apologised very much, but he very kindly said that it was an easy enough mistake to make, that the sounds were not that dissimilar and that he might well have made the same mistake himself. Even so, I was so very distressed that it took me hours to get to sleep.

In the morning when we were getting dressed I could see the funnier side of it, and I reminded him of my Master Prickleback poem. ‘We saw Master and Mistress Prickleback,’ I said. To my surprise he claimed not to remember the poem, so I recited it to him. ‘O, yes,’ he said, ‘very good,’ but in a tone that could not have been less complimentary.

‘Thomas,’ I said, ‘it is only a poem for children, you know. It is not pretending to be great literature. Do you think it so very bad? It was meant for children, you know. Children love it.’

He was bending over, tying the laces of one of his shoes. In those days he was still capable of tying his shoe-laces. He said nothing at all, not a word.

‘Please,’ I said, ‘tell me the truth! Do you think it is a bad poem? Is that what you think?’

‘I said that it was very good, if I remember correctly. Did I not?’

‘You did, but your tone seemed to me to indicate the opposite.’

He began to tie the laces of the other shoe. ‘You misinterpret my tone. My opinion is that it serves its purpose admirably.’

He added, as though to soften the blow, that he was sure that children appreciated it, although that was not what I had said, I had said that children love it. There is such a difference between loving something and appreciating it. All the difference in the world! It was clear that he despised the poem, and also that he despised me for writing it. When I say that my entire being felt crushed I am not exaggerating, not at all.

Thus I lost heart. Lacking encouragement, I wrote no more on my own account, and instead I act as his secretary, answering letters, making copies, filing. In addition, I labour (‘labour’ is the word; it is one of the labours of Hercules as I once said to Cockerell) on his biography, using his old notes to piece together the story of his life. I am glad to do so, I do not complain, it is a very sensible arrangement. Who else could do it? All the same, when, as usually happens, he takes my sentences – the sentences over which I have taken so much care – and writes them over in his own creaking style, it is a little galling. It galls me. It is as if he cannot bear to hear the sound of my true voice. After all, I am supposed to be the author of this biography! Is it so surprising that I am a little galled at the way he rewrites my sentences?

I do not complain. Nor do I point out his deficiencies of style. If I dared to do so, I know what would happen: he would not argue or seek to defend himself, but would withdraw into his own fortress. Yet I am not alone: others have commented on his antique vocabulary and his convoluted, Teutonic sentence constructions. Sometimes I think it is as if my husband was a great tree and I stunted from living in his shadow.

Of this much I am sure: that it is not possible for me to write well on my own account until I have recovered my health, and it is not possible for me truly to recover my health until the trees have been cut back. Once they are cut back, I shall feel such a weight lifted off me. But unless and until the trees are attended to I cannot begin to write for myself.

Here I should like to mention my strong belief that the growth on my neck may have been caused, at least in part, by the close proximity of the trees. I believe it is very probable, or if not very probable then at least highly possible, that the invisible spores shed by the trees, countless numbers of which I must inhale each day, play an as yet unknown but significant part in the formation of cancerous growths. Some time ago I asked Dr. Gowring for his opinion on the matter, but Dr. Gowring is next to useless, a country doctor with an inflated reputation, and all he would say, with a supercilious air, and in a decidedly offhand manner which made me feel that I, as a mere woman, should not have dared to give utterance to such a thought, was that there was no scientific evidence to support my thesis about spores. I could barely control my anger. ‘But Dr. Gowring,’ I said, ‘it is possible, is it not?’ With some reluctance, he agreed that it could not be discounted as a possibility.

I naturally put the same question to Mr. Sherren when he came to see me after my operation, and he said that it was a most interesting and original idea. Sensing that he was strongly sympathetic to my thesis, I said that I wished someone would investigate it thoroughly. ‘For,’ I said, ‘if it were true, it would be so valuable.’ He agreed, and said that he would certainly mention it to his colleagues in the medical profession. ‘If only,’ he said, with a sigh, ‘we knew the true causes of things.’ I said to him: ‘I dare say I should persuade my husband to have our trees cut back. We have so many trees crowding round the house, we live in a half-darkness, it is quite sepulchral.’ He smiled. ‘Some day,’ he said, ‘I am sure, we shall have a better understanding of these things.’

In a small way, therefore, I hope that I may have contributed something towards the saving of lives, even if my life in itself counts for so very little.

Unlike my husband, I have no study of my own; I use a corner of the drawing room, where I have a little walnut writing-desk. Entering the room now, with the day’s post – a clutch of letters, and a small parcel, wrapped in string and brown paper – I am frustrated to see wet soot covering not only the hearth but also part of the rug. This is not the first time. The chimneys have not been swept for three years, and the drawing room flue is probably blocked by a jackdaws’ nest, a mess of twigs and straw. One watches the jackdaws carrying twigs into it in the breeding season. The fire never seems to draw well. When I speak to my husband about getting in the sweep, he always prevaricates. ‘Later,’ he says – how often have I heard that word! ‘Later’ should be inscribed on my tombstone, I sometimes think! I have told him that, if we do not have the chimneys swept soon, it will be too late, there will be a fire, and we will all burn alive. I have told him this, but it makes no difference. It is another instance of his obstinacy.

Let me give another instance: the motor-car. Motor-cars exist, they have existed for a number of years, they are very convenient and useful machines, for that reason I have attempted to persuade him to buy one. A motor-car would be more than convenient, I say to him, it would be liberating; we could drive round the countryside and look at some scenery, or we could visit the sea. The sea is not that far away and on the spur of the moment we could visit the sea. Would that not be lovely? On a day like this, with a little sun, to walk along the beach and smell the sea-air? To breathe the sea-air? We could take Wessie, too! Would it be so hard to unchain yourself from your desk for one day, for a single day, to visit the sea? But it doesn’t have to be the sea; if you prefer, we could visit a church or some prehistoric earth-work, or we could even go to Stonehenge! How easy it would be, and how good for us both! We could easily afford a car, after all you are the wealthiest writer in the country according to Cockerell. And, I hurry on, for I have thought about this a great deal, I have waited my moment, I have the arguments at my finger-tips, we would not need to employ a driver because I should learn to drive. A motor-car is not like a horse and carriage; it is as easy for women to drive as men, or so people say, and it would make all the difference to me, it would give me such confidence, I who have always lacked confidence, it might even give me the sense that I was in control of my own destiny, whatever my destiny is. Of course I have never managed to say all this to him, most of it is merely what I imagine I might say. The truth is that we do not have our own motor-car and therefore whenever we wish to go anywhere we have to plan well in advance, employing Mr. Voss, who works for a taxi company in the town, and I have to sit in the back as women always do, and Thomas who insists on sitting in the front never hears a word when I speak, or if he does hear he does not reply, or if he does reply I cannot hear him. Conversation between the front and the back of a motor-car is all but impossible. I do not understand why we cannot have a motor-car. Is it that they did not exist in his youth, that he regards them as in some way contrary to nature, that they are too noisy? Or that he cannot bear the thought of being driven by me? Or that I might drive to the sea by myself, leaving him alone? My suspicion is that he does not want us to have a motor-car because, while he may not realise it, part of him wants to keep me here, looking after him, day after day, night after night.

Elsie and Nellie are both in the scullery, pretending to polish the silver. I know what goes on here. Every day they put out the silver as if they are about to polish it, and then they sit and gossip. This happens every single day!

They look at me in a resentful manner.

‘I am afraid there has been another fall of soot in the drawing room. Did neither of you see it when you drew the curtains?’

‘No, ma’am.’ It is Nellie who speaks; Elsie is a mouse of a girl.

‘Well; there it is. I don’t care which of you does it, but please get it done.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

They do not like me, I am convinced of it. I cannot tell why, but I have never known how to talk to servants. It is just the same with Mr. Caddy and Mrs. Simmons. I never manage to strike the right note, I always sound so severe. Did his first wife manage any better?

While they set to work I take Wessie outside and give him his usual brush. We both enjoy this. Dear little Wessie! I don’t know what I would do without Wessie, truly I don’t.

Five minutes later, I am back in the drawing room (which still smells of soot). Settled at my desk, I examine the post. More than half of the letters bear London post-marks, which is usual; the majority of my husband’s readers are city-dwellers who dream of living in the country. For them the country is a perpetual summer. O, what I could tell them of country life in the winter!

Carefully I slit the envelopes with my paper knife. First, a letter from the President of the Wimbledon Literary and Scientific Society, inviting Thomas to attend one of its monthly meetings. ‘I am confident that you will have a warm and appreciative audience, for many of our members are avid readers of your novels and will be gratified by your presence.’ The answer is no: honoured as he is by the invitation, his health is not good enough nowadays for him to travel up to London, but he wishes the Society well.

Secondly, a letter from a female journalist, who is preparing an article for a newly established women’s magazine, ‘The Modern Woman’. She claims to be a lifelong devotee of his work (as do most journalists), and asks whether she may call here in order to carry out an interview. The magazine is illustrated, and she hopes that it is acceptable for a photographer to accompany her. She suggests two dates in the middle of December or, failing those, one in early January (any later and she will miss what she calls her ‘dead-line’). She and the photographer will catch the London train and arrive about noon, if that is convenient. The answer, again, and emphatically, is no, it is not convenient: he is too busy to give interviews, but wishes her well with her article.

A letter from The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children asks for support. I reply to this on my own behalf, sending a cheque for five pounds. I can ill afford it, but the way that children are treated in the slums of the East End horrifies me.

What next? Two letters requesting his autograph. These autograph-hunters are so persistent. Many of them employ cunning ruses, pretending to be young children, writing in misshapen capitals; but I am not fooled.

Next, a letter from a Miss Eleanor Pope of Islington, who declares that she loves his novels more than those of any other writer, and praises his profound understanding of the female mind; even George Eliot, she writes, does not come close. O! Miss Pope! Sit down, let me tell you the truth –

Another letter: this one from a Mr. Edward Bowles of East Grinstead who has apparently expended much time and energy on the task of identifying the locations of the places mentioned (though with fictional names) in the novels. He attaches a list of such identifications which he is ‘pretty well certain’ are correct, but if there are any errors he would like to know of them. Several places, despite much research (last spring he undertook an extensive cycling tour of Wessex), he has been unable to identify. He lists them. Mr. Bowles appears to be entirely unaware that: a) a book has been written on this very subject and b) several prefaces to the novels make it clear that certain locations are impossible to identify because they do not correspond to real locations!

Now to the parcel, which turns out to hold a manuscript collection of poems by a gentleman of St. Albans, one Harold Blacker. Mr. Blacker has written before, it seems, for his accompanying letter, in a florid hand, begins thus:

My dear Sir,

Thank you for the exceptionally kind letter which you sent me last year about ‘The Rains of Paradise’. I am pleased to say that I have now completed another volume, ‘The Rowan Tree – An Odyssey in Twenty Poems’, which I enclose with great admiration for a man who as all acknowledge stands preeminent in the world of modern letters.

Why am I spending my life on this drudgery? Am I not worth more? I am a writer too! Jumping up, so suddenly that my chair topples to the floor, I rush up the stairs to his study. I fling open the door and brandish the paper knife which I find sprouting in my hand. Why do you never think of me, you who are supposed to know so much about the female mind? Why do you take me for granted? Why do you never write any poems about me? What has happened between us? What about the trees? Why O why will you not accede to this one, small request? Why are you so obstinate?

Of course I do nothing of the sort – just think of my reception! Instead, as his dutiful secretary, I pull up my typewriter, and answer each letter in turn, taking a carbon copy which I put in a file. Already I feel exhausted. Even as I sit here, my entire body seems to be aching and my nerves are strung to snapping point. I cannot breathe!

How ridiculous this is. All round the country there are women whose situations are incomparably worse than mine, women living in the slums, women too poor to eat properly, women married to ne’er-do-wells and drunkards who beat and abuse them. What do I have to complain of, of what do I have to complain? I live a more than comfortable life here, I am lucky to be alive, I have books and clothes and food and a husband who loves me even if it is not in his nature to show it; count your blessings, Florence. You are alive! Think of the hens, pecking and strutting; unconscious creatures, they live for each moment, they do not fret themselves with questions. Think of little Wessie as he scampers hither and thither, his black nose twitching as he investigates some new scent on a blade of grass. These are good thoughts, and yet how hard I find it to hold on to them, how easy to revert to the old way of thinking: the weight of the trees, the length of the silences, the passage of the years, the sense of my inner self slowly darkening and drying, the sense of myself dry as an old gourd, dark as a shadow, the sense of something having gone wrong without being able precisely to say what it is, the sense of not being as completely alive as I ought to be, the sense of not being alive at all. Perhaps that is it, the sense that life is passing me by, or has already passed me by without my noticing; or perhaps it is the sense that this house is hostile to me because I am not his first wife. Sometimes I convince myself that she lies at the heart of the problem, and that she still lives here, in the air, in the trees, in the empty rooms; she is the true mistress of the house, and this is why I have such difficulties with the servants. No doubt she ordered the servants about without the slightest qualm. Do this! Do that!

I am determined not to mention her name, I am determined not even to think her name, although one of the things I have learnt is that often in trying not to think about a particular individual one ends up thinking of nothing but that individual, and in exactly the same way the more I try not to think about my neck the more vividly it returns and with it the possibility that Mr. Sherren for all his skill failed to remove every last particle of the infected tissue which is consequently growing back at this very moment. My mind is not my own, that is the truth, I cannot control my thoughts.

But, the truth is, the house is like a shrine to her. The calendar on the desk in his study is permanently set to the date upon which they first met, the shawl he insists upon wearing around his shoulders as he writes, and without which, he claims (a ludicrous claim), it is impossible for him to write well, was made by her; and on her death day we have to stand in po-faced solemn ceremony over the grave at Stinsford in which she is buried and in which he himself eventually plans to be buried (an honour from which I am presumably excluded). Let me add that the shrubbery in the drive is in the shape of a heart to signify his love for her, a love which, if it ever existed, did not exist in the last years of their marriage, when they lived in a state of mutual hostility. He has forgotten all that. (Have I forgotten? I have not forgotten.)

He sits there in the gloom and writes I know not what: another melancholy poem, in all probability. If the trees were cut back, is it not possible that he would begin to write poems that were not so very dark and melancholy, but full of light and hope? This is what I often think, that things might be different, be better.

Lying on my bed after lunch I watch the light moving in the sky and the flicker of the pale green veiny undersides of the ivy leaves on the other side of the window. The house is as quiet and peaceful as it should be, and if I did not know the trees were there I might even be able to imagine that they were not. I drift into a lovely sleep and wake unexpectedly full of energy. Downstairs I catch Wessie lolling on the sofa, his eyes half closed. ‘Come on, Wessie,’ I say, ‘you lazy-bones, what are you dreaming about? Walkies! Walkies! Upsticks!’ He gives a shiver of anticipation, as if to say: ‘Yes, mistress!’ and out we go.

Since my operation I have walked very little, I have not felt well enough, but I am determined to force myself out for the sake of my health. There are several short walks from the house. We might walk down to the railway line, we might walk along the cinder path by the railway and come back through the sheep fields, which would make a nice triangular walk; or we might cross the railway line and walk in the meadows by the river. We take the easiest course, the path down the stubble field and up the rise to the new plantation. Rabbits (their scrapes are everywhere) start at our approach, listen with their pink ears and scurry to their burrows in the roots of the hedgerow. We also see a small fox, a very alarming sight to anyone like me who keeps hens. There are not that many foxes round here but they are so ruthless when it comes to hens, yet even foxes have to live, one cannot blame them. It trots along the edge of the field, its brush streaming. ‘Look, Wessie,’ I say, ‘a fox!’ but he is too preoccupied with smells to hear me. At the top of the rise he finds some clods of fresh horse-dung. ‘No!’ I shout at him, ‘Wessie, no, no!’ He lifts his head – ‘O but, mistress, it smells so delicious!’ and takes a quick bite. – ‘No!’ I shout. ‘No! No! You naughty dog!’ He bolts a second mouthful, I haul him away. ‘You naughty dog! Bad! Bad boy! I am very cross with you, do you hear? You must not eat horse-dung! You should be ashamed of yourself!’ In my heart I am not really cross, I could never be really cross with him. He puts back his ears and pretends to be very contrite but within a few seconds he has forgotten and is lifting his leg on a withered thistle.

Evening. He listens in silence, or does not listen, hands laced in his lap, dressing gown tied tight. Half of his face, on the far side of the oil lamp, is in shadow, but I can see enough; his eyes are closed, his breathing steady. He is asleep. At each inbreath the wings of his nose part slightly and at each outbreath his lips purse and open. I pause, and wait to see what happens. Nothing happens.

‘Thomas?’

His eyes jerk open.

‘You were asleep.’

‘I was listening.’

‘I promise you, you were asleep. Shall I go on?’ Since the operation I have been very conscious of the strain on my throat and I should be glad to stop.

‘If you would; thank you. I was awake, I was listening to every word.’

I permit myself a small, knowing smile (taking good care that he sees it), and continue to read Jane Austen’s elegant sentences. His eyelids soon droop, his eyes close again, his breathing resumes its regularity. No doubt someone watching this scene would find it comic, yet my life is not a comedy as I am well aware. To what or whom am I reading? To the empty air? To the silent furniture?

At the end of the chapter I wake him up. We wish each other good night and climb into our separate beds, in our separate rooms.

This is where nothing happens again, although what often used to happen, a long time ago, so long that I almost wonder if it ever happened at all, is that he would leave his bed and arrive by mine, breathing heavily in the darkness. I would lift the corner of the sheets and in he would climb, dragging at my night-dress, wrenching it upward, hauling it above my shoulders. To avoid being suffocated I would pull it off my face, at the same moment turning my body and steering my breast towards his mouth. His bristly moustache would scrape the skin. He would nuzzle and mumble while I stroked his head and caressed his ears, all the while asking myself whether I should do more, whether I should stroke his back or spread my legs or take one of his hands and guide it towards my sex, or reach under his night-shirt, or even utter sounds of pleasure in the hope that they would encourage him to push into me, but there I was far too shy. For (I would think to myself), is it not just as likely that sounds of pleasure will put him off? Is it not safer to stay quiet? What do women generally do? What are women supposed to touch? Are there certain acts that are appropriate for a wife to perform as opposed to certain other acts that are not appropriate for a wife to perform? Where do the boundaries lie? How does one find out? But then I would say to myself, what does it matter that he so rarely pushes into me, surely all that matters is that it makes him happy, although would it not make him even happier if he did push into me? As a wife it is one’s duty to make one’s husband happy. I firmly believe that.

Generally he would doze off with his arms around me and his head on my chest, and once he was sound asleep I would ease out and get into his bed with my body another one of these unanswered questions. The beds here are single beds, far too narrow for two people.

As before there is a certain comedy in all this, if one wants to hunt it out. Here and now, with the advantage of hindsight, I can see that. But how difficult it was at the time! How difficult and complicated! For all her wisdom Jane Austen is no help here, and so far as I know there are no books that begin to address these matters (if such books existed, I would be far too embarrassed to read them even in secret, even if I could be sure that no one knew that I was reading them). In other fields of human activity knowledge accumulates as it is passed from generation to generation, but when it comes to the subject of sexual relations women today are surely as ignorant as they must have been thousands of years ago. In some ways I am glad that he seems too old to bother with these nightly jousts (jousts? Jousts is not the word I want but it will have to do for the moment), very glad, in some ways, although less glad in other ways. I should not mind it if for old times’ sake he wanted to climb into my bed now, but probably he is already deep asleep. He always falls asleep in an instant. He sleeps like a baby.

Lying here I wonder what the first wife did. How active was she? Did she stay silent or utter sounds, either voluntary or involuntary? The vision of them rises before me in the darkness, she with her waxy uneven flesh, he with his scrawny legs, exchanging kisses and caresses on this very bed; they writhe (a horrible word) and her fat thighs widen as he pushes into her. A repulsive expression of greedy pleasure spreads over her face. What is this? I am not jealous, I refuse to be even slightly jealous of something that perhaps never happened, a lurid concoction of my imagination. Besides as I haste to remind myself it is perfectly possible that their physical relations were largely non-existent. I also haste to remind myself that love not sexual relations is the true foundation for a successful marriage and that they did not love each other, whereas my husband and I certainly do, do love each other, that there can be no doubt of, of that there can be no doubt.