Abigail (23 page)

Then one day, walking through the Bond Street Arcade, she saw a shopkeeper sticking pins through dead butterflies and impaling them on silk panels. He seemed to be smiling as he worked; in fact, it was only his concentration, but the smile was Pepe’s smile. At last she had an image to contain her raw feeling—something she could point to and say, “
That
is what it was like!”

To the world she was a confirmed and contented spinster, a wise virgin, a regrettable, slightly-to-be-pitied, but in no way reprehensible thing to be. She was still far too nubile to be allowed an independent social status; she could not, for instance, entertain anyone in Society—or anyone anxious to get in. And that was irksome, since most writers and painters were in one of those two categories. They could meet at others’ entertainments, and she could accept their hospitality, but she could never return it as her own hostess.

Laon frequently stressed these disadvantages to her until she stopped him by threatening to marry the first derelict whom a doctor could guarantee to be on his deathbed—for, as a widow, she would enjoy all the independence and advantages of a married woman.

“But never mind,” she said. “In ten years or so I could put about a not-too-ridiculous claim to be forty, and the conventions will quietly relax their grip.”

Laon could see this as nothing but cruelty. “You will not release me,” he said. “Indeed, you cannot. I am bound to you by ties that neither you nor I nor any earthly power can undo. You say you love me, but you will let nothing come of it. Only miseries.”

“So it is misery, meeting me here?”

“No, it is misery
not
meeting you here. Every moment we are apart is misery.”

“But Pepe, we see far more of each other than most husbands and wives. We enjoy far more of each other—at work and in love. Why must you want what you can never have?”

For all the determination of her words, there were many times when his misery touched her so deeply that she was on the point of yielding to him. Then Annie’s vehemence came to stay her resolution and reprieve her from that sacrifice.

But Annie was often away these days, visiting her sister. And The Old Fountain was showing signs of neglect. Oldale was worse than useless.

When he was not dead drunk he was entertaining his betting companions in the private rooms, kicking up a shindy, driving away custom, and eating into the pub’s dwindling profits. Annie was often in tears at him—not soft, feminine tears but tears of bitter hatred. “If there was a legal day for murders, gel,” she would say, “how many men would be left, I wonder!”

Abigail could understand Annie’s desire to be away from the place as long and as often as possible, but it was no real answer, for it could lead only to bankruptcy. Even now, she noticed, all the fine ornaments and nice furniture Annie had started out with were gone from the private apartments, to be replaced by plain deal of the cheapest make.

“When your home goes, everything goes,” Annie said.

And so her absences grew longer and more frequent.

During one of them, when Abigail was almost desperate for the spinster courage Annie was so good at furnishing, she got help from a quite unexpected—indeed, almost unremembered—quarter. Late one night, Mary brought her a letter that had just been pushed through the door. It read:

Dear Lady Abigail,

I presume upon an acquaintance that, even at its warmest, was too slender for the weight I yet hope it may bear. In truth, I know no one else to whom I may turn, and if you cannot help me, then I shall know I am truly friendless and must bear my situation alone. I mean, you are my last hope. It is years since I first conceived the idea of enlisting your aid; I do so now only in an extremity.

I know you must receive many begging letters, so let me at once say I need no money. It is probably the only form of assistance I do not need. All I ask is a little counsel, and from one whose words to me (almost ten years ago now!) and whose public writings since have proved her to be among the most sagacious and understanding of people.

You may remember you cautioned me against a hasty marriage? It was a warning I was too impetuous to heed. I married directly from your sister’s schoolroom. What indignities, what monstrous miseries, I have since endured, I cannot set upon paper. Now I can endure no more, but I know so little of the world that I am utterly at a loss how to proceed next.

I have followed your astonishing career from the moment the true identity of your various
noms de plume
became common knowledge. Even when my miseries first began, which was the first night of my marriage, it was to you that I was impelled to turn. But you seemed to move farther and farther from my small ambit until you were impossibly beyond my reach. Now, only my desperation furnishes me with sufficient boldness to attempt the bridging of that impossible gulf you must see between us.

I shall, if I may, call upon you tomorrow morning at eleven o’clock. If I find you “not at home,” please take this as my heartfelt gratitude for having read thus far. Be assured I shall not (for all my despair) do anything rash, nothing you might fear to reproach yourself with should you find it impossible to receive me. I shall return to my ordinary life and endure it as best I may, thinking none the less warmly of you.

I sign myself as you may remember me and as I wish, ten thousand times a day, I still were,

Celia Addison.

***

She looked awful. She was dressed well enough, even richly, but she was as drawn as a waif. Abigail divined that, since delivering that letter last night, she had been wandering the streets.

She had seen Celia Addison coming up from the direction of the Embankment and had herself gone to the door to greet her. Celia, expecting the maidservant, was thrown into confusion.

“I cannot furnish you with a card, nor give you my married name,” she said. “In view of what I must tell you, it would be treachery to my husband.”

This breaking of convention seemed so great a worry to her that it drove out all other fears.

“I will call you Celia, and you shall call me Abbie—as of old. Why should the passage of mere years change all that,” Abigail said.

The woman was not as relieved as she might have been; Abigail guessed that she had wanted the distraction of the social solecism to draw attention from whatever she was now going to have to confess. Certainly once they were seated she was in no hurry to begin. She prattled a lot—about the weather, about the most recent of Abigail’s articles, about the charm of Abigail’s apartments, about how well she was looking…

All the time she smiled, nervous smiles that flashed and faded like sparks and did not distract Abigail one moment from the gray lines of her face, her bloodless cheeks, her hollow eyes—eyes that had long ago shed every tear they possessed. Never would Abigail have recognized her as the plump, rosy, frivolous Celia Addison of the Highgate Girls’ College.

“You must be famished,” she said, stemming the flow of inanities. “You look as if you had no breakfast.”

Celia began to protest but Abigail took command, making her go into the bedroom and have a good wash and tidy-up. She sent Mary in to help her and meanwhile ordered a hearty breakfast from Mrs. Stone. It was a somewhat restored Celia who sat with her an hour later, with no further excuse for prevarication.

It was then that a thought struck Celia—apparently for the first time. “Dear me,” she said. “You are so prominent a person, Abbie…you write so…wisely, that I had quite overlooked the fact that you are not married!”

You did no such thing!
Abigail thought, seeing for the first time a hint of ruthlessness beneath that browbeaten exterior. “Well, I don’t intend to get married,” she said. “Not even for you, my dear.”

Celia laughed but was quickly serious again. “Oh, I would not wish it on my deepest-dyed enemy.”

Still she volunteered no information. Abigail waited.

“Even to ask you to listen is to pollute your thoughts,” Celia spoke half to herself.

“I doubt it,” Abigail said.

Celia looked at her wide-eyed.

“Let me remind you that I write regularly for at least four ladies’ magazines. I frequently have to deal with letters from distraught readers who—believe me—are far from reticent in what they commit to writing. I doubt if you can tell me anything more ‘polluting,’ as you call it, than I see a dozen times a week.”

The remark stung Celia—the idea that she could rank somewhere lower than first in a league of that sort. “More polluting than
this
?” she asked, pulling a sheet of paper from her bag and thrusting it into Abigail’s hand.

At once she regretted the impulse and half drew it away; but Abigail clenched it tightly and read, with a bewilderment that turned to horror:

Frolic of August 16th, 1874

The title was written and underlined in differently coloured inks. The text ran:

She will come to my bedroom at ten of the evening, bathed, perfumed, and dressed as in the Frolic of December 14th, 1867. She will stand before me and I will walk around her and touch her where I will. She will permit me to lift her robes and see her Jewel. I will stand above her and peer down on her Beauteous Orbs. She will kneel before me and with loving caresses divest me of my Inexpressibles. She will stand and lift her robe that I may kiss her Twin Pillars.

On and on it went—a whole page of coy, multicoloured directions for lechery.

“Your husband’s handwriting?” Abigail guessed.

Celia, relieved that Abigail was not shocked beyond speech, nodded.

“And you found this by accident, I suppose?”

Celia looked away. “No. He sent it to me.”

“
Sent
it!”

“I mean, they are there beside my plate every Sunday at breakfast. And every Wednesday. He puts them there.”

“They?” The sofa and the chair seemed to have become insubstantial.

“That’s only the first page. They run to four or five pages usually.”

“Your—let me hear now—your husband writes…things like this and leaves them for you to read, twice a week?”

“Yes, he…”

“Does it occur to you that this other woman may not exist? This is surely some mental aberration. He writes these pages to consume his sick fantasy—but that is all.”

Celia began to laugh—a wild laugh that soon turned hysterical. Abigail let the storm pass. When Celia was able to speak again she said, “The ‘other woman’ is
me
! These are not letters, Abbie. They are instructions. I must learn them by rote, though they are all mere minute variations in the same most loathsome, disgusting ritual. I must learn them and…” She lowered her eyes. “And perform them.”

Abigail could not move. The implications of this terrible confession pinned her mind to a repetition of those dreadful last words—“and perform them.”

Perform them!

“Why?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I think he’s mad. He’s driving me mad.”

“I mean, why do you consent to do it?”

Celia looked at her pityingly.

“Have you told anyone else?” Abigail asked.

“I told my parents. In the beginning. I ran away, you see. I ran back home. But it wasn’t like this then. He didn’t write it all down like this.”

“But?”

“He just told me what to do. Or pushed me into different—poses. Like clay or something. On our wedding night I had to sit on a sort of throne and he undressed me and”—she swallowed—“and hung jewels and flowers all over me. I was petrified. He looked…he was…he looked so
odd
.”

“Did you know what to expect at all?”

Celia shrugged. “My mother told me to drink plenty of champagne and not to be surprised at anything Henry did.” Her hand flew to her mouth. “There! I meant never to tell you his name!”

“Oh, Celia—after all this you can still be loyal to him?”

“He is my husband.”

“He is your torturer.”

“He has never hurt me.”

“He has degraded you. Anyway, what did your parents say when you told them these disgusting things?”

Celia closed her eyes, unwilling to relive the memory. “I wanted so much to go back home. I wanted everything to be as it was before.”

“But what did they say?”

“They said I couldn’t come back. They said I belonged to him. Of course, they were unhappy—my mother was miserable—but they said he had the right to do whatever he was doing. And I must endure it.”

“And for ten years you…Was there no one else you could confide in?”

Celia shrugged at the impossibility of it. “I hinted I was unhappy to the vicar. I think he suspected that Henry was not as…as
nice
as he seems. He lent me books on fortitude and resignation. He reminded me I married for better
or
for worse—that was my vow. He is a marvellous man. A great comforter to me.”

“What of your children? Do you have any children?”

“How could God bless so wicked a union!”

“Is that why you are now desperate enough to…well, to write to me as you did? You feel the wickedness?”

Her heavy eyelids fell as she nodded; to open her eyes again seemed a labour in itself. “Also, it gets worse. Last time it began at ten and finished at four next morning. I cannot go without sleep as he can. I am worn to a frazzle by it.”

“So I can see.” Abigail thought it odd that in all this recitation, which must have cost her every bit of courage she had, Celia had not once seemed close to tears—not even when she had laughed so hysterically.

“For better or for worse does not mean for impossible. If God is asking the impossible of me…I have tried it for long enough, and I can try no more.”

A silence fell between them.

“Does it not sometimes make you cry, Celia dear?” Abigail ventured.

“I used to cry, but he liked that.”

The silence returned. In a while Abigail spoke again: “What do you want to do? If I may help, in any way, even with money—despite what you said—you have only to ask. Whatever is in my power I will do.”

Celia drew a deep breath and smiled so radiantly that Abigail suddenly understood that she had been waiting to hear this offer; without it she would have asked nothing. “I want to leave Henry. I want to live alone. I don’t know how a woman of my education may earn a living.” She laughed. “Lady Winifred was so right! And we used to think her so…” She shook her head. “I don’t even know if the law will permit it. Can he force me to return to him? I thought you would know all these things.”