The Widow's Fire

by Paul Butler

  To acquaintances in Bath, I always introduce Rooke as my nurse, and it is not entirely without truth. More than twenty years ago, before I was sent off to school, and before I met Anne Elliot, Mrs. Rooke had indeed been both nurse and governess in my family home. There is no need to lie, I have found, when a slight variation upon actual events will do just as well. One’s creativity comes into play in the choice of which details to omit.

  People hear her title and see my complexion — naturally pale. They observe my slender frame and they reach entirely reasonable conclusions. “Impoverished Mrs. Smith,” who lives so modestly in Westgate Buildings becomes “impoverished, sickly Mrs. Smith,” and it suits my purposes well enough. I have recently added and embellished this part of my story, having Nurse Rooke convey me daily to the hot baths, weaving the easily-swallowed fiction that the curative waters are the reason for my sojourn in this town. A “general indisposition” has given way in recent months to “rheumatic fever” which has settled on my legs, and this is the version of my malady that dear Anne has heard. In truth, I am in excellent health.

  Nurse Rooke’s employ in my family ended badly. She was caught taking money from my father’s study. This, as I am half-ashamed to admit, had been done at my urging. But how much, dear reader, will you wish to know about the sad history of Nurse Rooke? You will find it depressing enough. I should give perhaps sufficient overview for you to understand the relationship between us.

  Yes, the theft had been at my urging — or perhaps I should say insistence — as I was to be the beneficiary of the crime. It was a repayment of sorts. You see, Nurse Rooke had developed a weakness for one of my parents’ house guests. The said Mr. Forster was a young man of no consequence to this story other than the accident of getting me started properly in my life’s work, though I hardly would have guessed it at the time.

  One night, upon entering Nurse Rooke’s bedchamber during a thunderstorm (as I had done so often before), I discovered that decorum was not being observed as one might hope between my parents’ paid employee and their friend.

  I had been having a fearful night before the storm broke. The growing breeze had caused autumn leaves to whisper more and more urgently against my window. I was already in a mood for dark fancies, aware of an intense silence from the corridor beyond my room. A short while before, I had heard the softest of creaks there. Although only nine years old, I knew stealth was one of the most worrying and mysterious forces in my world; a deliberate hush always signalled something wrong. The breeze outside continued to strengthen and soon the first growl of thunder seemed to rise up from deep inside the earth. The foliage hissed in increasing circles against my windowpanes. Suddenly, lightning flashed and the leaves appeared pressed up to the glass. In them I saw a multitude of faces — faces of old men contorted in agony.

  I jumped from my bed and ran down the windy corridor feeling my way through the pitch dark. The doorknob squeaked a protest as I opened it. Once I was within, it was a double — not a single — gasp which arose from the strange, knotty range of valleys and peaks under the blankets. The puzzle brought me forward a pace or two and a sudden movement spoke of more than four limbs. The hues of the dying fire danced like a sunset over those mountain peaks. The landscape heaved once more and then sank as though falling into an ocean. Then I was sure.

  Do I shock you? Perhaps not. Sensibilities likely have changed and a mere dalliance will not shake even the most delicate of readers. But worry not, dear reader, I have spice enough for you in time. You are more unsettled perhaps by the way in which I myself, at such a tender age, would take such advantage of the situation.

  I did not tarry at the door, but went silently back to my room, the faint, faint whisper of “Adeline” from Nurse Rooke an unwelcome halo around my ears. I climbed upon my bed, got under the sheets and drew my knees up to my chin. And I thought. Nurse Rooke’s “Adeline” sounded over and over in my brain. Although the tone of that voice remained that of my governess, the word itself altered with each repetition, losing its “d” and fusing two syllables into one. Soon the word was not “Adeline” or any other name. Soon the sound that now followed each outward breath was “Alone.” Father had mother. My elder sisters had each other and soon they would have husbands, provided they could find matches who would be prepared to take them dowerless. Even Nurse Rooke, that most faithful and loving of creatures, even she had Mr. Forster. But I had nothing but myself, and you see, dear reader, you must be patient and understanding with me. You have already forgiven Mrs. Rooke her weakness, have you not? Well now you must do me justice too.

  The pall of worry and debt under which I had lived for so long had made me into a creature apart from all others. Over and over, I had experienced the sudden disappearance of beloved family furniture, the putting up for sale of my father’s best horses. I had learned the knock of the bailiff and had come also to recognize through blurring window panes the way his men would stand at the door, crunching their shoes against the gravel while the bailiff prepared himself, paper at the ready, chin out and stoic; all these things had created in me a longing for independence, the kind of independence money could bring. I desired not only to possess the sleek and well-appointed carriage, the shining pianoforte fresh from France, but to know I would possess them in perpetuity. It wasn’t so much material things for which I craved, as the power of money to ensure that whatever comforts one gained could never be snatched away. Already I understood the rustle of papery banknotes and the clink of gold. I knew that, if accumulated and saved in sufficient quantities, these things held a permanent remedy for every strife, and an eternal answer to every anxiety.

  It is curious indeed how one can be embarrassed at behaviours one had indulged in at nine years old, yet entirely brazen when the same tendencies mushroom into more sophisticated and delicately structured versions of the same. I blush when I think of my younger self even though the voice from the pulpit would surely condemn my recent actions much more fiercely. Perhaps we forgive our adult selves because we have developed a philosophy to explain our daily plans and practices; when we are young we merely measure ourselves by the words of parent, priest, and magistrate. We must first pierce the fabric of their judgements before we can feel comfortable in our own.

  After the incident with Mrs. Rooke and Mr. Forster, I told my governess I would keep silent only if she could procure for me three pounds in notes or in coin. The amount was quite arbitrary; I had fixed the price of my silence merely on what, in my childish brain, I imagined would be within her means of acquiring. A loose floorboard under my bed was the place I intended for the money that would become my growing fortune.

  All these plans were brought to a crashing standstill, however, the very day after the deal was struck. I was helping my mother to ball wool when there came from my father’s study the most awful sound of bellowing. Immediately, I knew what had happened. The strands of wool trembled between my fingers as my mother, equally distracted, laid her needles aside. “What can that be?” she whispered.

  She waited a moment while my father yelled once more. Then I heard the soft, pleading tones of Nurse Rooke. Sensing she had a role to play in what now appeared to be a domestic fracas, my mother now flew towards the study.

  I remained, the wool sagging from my fingers. At first I was listening to the silence but then I heard hushed questions from my mother, further pleading from Nurse Rooke, some dismissive growling from my father. Doors closed softly and finally there came the unmistakable sound of packing — wardrobe doors in motion, a trunk scraping along the floor — from upstairs in Nurse Rooke’s room. Eventually, I began to unpick the wool from my fingers. It seemed my mother had likely forgotten where she was in the task.

  I didn’t see Nurse Rooke again until the next morning. I caught her eyes through the window while the wagon trundled her down the front path towards the road, crows wheeling around her progress. I imagine you wonder at the expression I must have seen
there — anger, perhaps? Accusation or contempt at the young girl who had destroyed her livelihood?

  No, it was none of these. What I saw was sorrow and something else besides — an emotion that combines embarrassment and regret. It took a while to be sure, and I squinted through the glass until I could be certain. Finally, I knew. It was penitence. As her eyes were directed at me, we must allow also that this was not penitence for her indiscretion with Mr. Forster, nor for her betrayal of her employer in trying to steal his money, but rather sorrow for having failed in the task I myself had set before her — namely to steal for me and not be caught.

  As you might have already guessed, Nurse Rooke had not given me away. At no time — neither at the point of detection, during the accusations that followed, nor on her ejection without reference from the house — had she mentioned anything about my role in the crime. While you might be right in supposing that implicating me would have opened her to the accusation of an even greater crime than theft — as she would have had to give a reason for her compliance — I knew at the time this was not the main cause of her silence.

  Asked to commit a crime, Nurse Rooke had fallen at the very first hurdle. But she had tried, poor dear. And here is the touching part of the story: Nurse Rooke didn’t begrudge the one who had caused her downfall. Competence is a learned quality, but loyalty is surely more innate, more a matter of character and therefore more precious and rare. Even my nine-year-old self gazing through the window glass had cause to reflect: what a perfect companion Nurse Rooke would make for me one day.

  My first foray into the business the world calls “blackmail” had failed, and quite badly, but I became all the more committed to the theory of this most subtle of endeavours. If executed properly, it could be so clean and so bloodless, so delicately balanced with enticements and deterrents. Already, in this one instance, though the project itself had fallen flat, the perpetrator had escaped entirely.

  And something else, which I scarcely could have articulated then, was becoming clear about the world. The church walls within which humanity cowers were steadily crumbling, day by day. The finger that pointed from the pulpit with such confidence was wearing to the bone. Life does not unfold as we are told it should. We are told of punishments and rewards, yet in truth the wrong people suffer, and even if the right person suffers, it is for the wrong reason. They try to explain away the illogical patterns around us, do they not, our priest and our betters? Yes, the world gets these things wrong, they insist, but in heaven, yes once in heaven, everything reverts to the way it should be. The sinner is punished and the saint is raised on high.

  Yet are we not supposed to be God’s creatures? Are not our laws and our customs and our ways intended to copy those of heaven? It made no sense that our earthly reproduction should be so far from the mark. I no longer believed any of it. You can forget your commandments, I thought, as I watched Mrs. Rooke fade into the mists rising at the end of our driveway; Moses can have them. You can overturn the altar and feed your sacred bread to the dogs. The only currency heaven and earth allows is the currency I had tried to procure though the help of my nurse. The only thing that matters is gold.

  3. NURSE ROOKE

  HALF-ASHAMED THOUGH IT MAKES ME, dear reader, I find I am obliged to interject my own inadequate narrative into this tale. It is fitting indeed that an infinitely greater mind than mine — my dear Mrs. Smith — should deserve the greater part of your company while I enter and exit and perform various fleeting tasks. But Mrs. Smith was ever, by necessity of vocation, confined as an invalid; I must provide ears and eyes for you when her enterprises leave her rooms.

  Miss Austen herself was kind enough to mention me by name, though of course I remained an elusive shadow, albeit a kindly one. My only hope, my dear companion, is that I do not do or say anything to shake the general sense of benevolence that Miss Austen’s manuscript conveys. But I blush at the commencement of my part in the story; I know a woman out alone at night is always likely to raise suspicions.

  It was past midnight and the concert-goers were long gone. Westgate Street had been quiet and dark without the clop and grind of carriages. It is a curious feature of Bath. London, the part of London known to me, came to life at this time. After Miss Adeline’s family sent me away all those years ago, I had leisure enough to see how the revellers and brawlers, entertainers and hawkers fill the air with clamour and life, welcoming darkness as flowers welcome the sun. Here carriages spill their human contents into Bath’s fashionable homes, the murmur of conversation dies away, and the fluttering fans desist, leaving just cold, wet limestone.

  Yet tonight, as I climbed up Gay Street towards the Upper Assembly Rooms, something remained. Under an overhanging moon and a sprinkle of stars, the cool air tingled with a barely perceptible sizzle of awakening life. I would well imagine the stirring of tiny insects among the cobbles and straw. This mild February night awaited spring like courtiers preparing for the appearance of their monarch. Carrion birds hunched over Gay Street’s eavestroughs, twitching their wings, swooping down to find grubs and wheel-crushed mice between the cobbles. Despite my aching legs, despite the sense of fatigue that accompanied my failure, something stirred in my chest, that flower of hope that was so familiar to me that I would not disappoint my Mrs. Smith.

  I knew Plato would not be asleep yet and I circled the Assembly Rooms south entrance towards the stables at the rear. To the scrape of restless hooves and the slap of tethers, I approached and tried to make out the line of Plato’s hut beside the main stables. Only the faintest bronze haze from within this close-slatted abode compromised the blackness, but a movement drew my focus — a human figure crouching by a trough and pump. The figure became still and the sound ceased, save for the high sonorous echo of a droplet.

  “Who is the little mouse who approaches so silently?” he whispered.

  I couldn’t see his features but could tell from the tone, one of general humour and deprecation, that there would have been a scornful smile on his face. I came a little closer.

  He stood up straight from the trough and flicked his fingers free of water.

  “Always washing, Plato.” I watched the contours of his shoulders forming in silhouette against the aura of flame escaping from the hut beside him.

  “Somebody has to, Miss Rooke.” He pulled the shirt up from around his waist and with slow, meticulous deliberation fastened the first of his shirt’s buttons. He somehow looked nobler, more upright, in these plain clothes than in his livery. “Even in this town,” he said working on his second button, “even here where the Romans spent their days scrubbing and sweating the dirt from their pores, most of the English run a mile from the sight of water.”

  I drew my shawl tighter around my shoulders. “Yet we are here and the Romans are gone. So perhaps we know more than they about the true qualities of water, both its benefits and its dangers.”

  He drew a slow sigh as one of the horses snorted. “Dangers, Nurse Rooke, dangers of water…” He gave a soft chuckle. “Crocodiles and fish, seafowl and toads … who will tell these poor creatures of the terrible perils they are in? And are you saying the Romans were defeated not by the barbarian hordes that now dwell on this island, but by a too fastidious desire for cleanliness?”

  My hair bristled under my bonnet as it often did when I spoke with Plato. “I am saying, dear sir, that the English understand that unhealthy humours lurk in the rising mists and steams, that seafowls and toads may have natural protections … but, more importantly sir, I am saying that the customs of the victors are scarcely more in question than those of the defeated. We are both of us privileged to live in the very city where the first king of all England was crowned nine hundred years ago. We still have our monarch. All that remains of the Roman Empire are a few ruins.”

  He laughed with a confidence I found insufferable and fastened the last of his buttons. “Well said, Nurse Rooke, well said.”

  A s
tirring came from within the hut.

  “How is your little niece?” I asked, happy for the distraction.

  “Well and healthy, Miss Rooke. I keep her clean so she remains so.”

  A soft voice called, but it seemed like the babble of sleep. Plato listened for a moment, then he returned his attention to me.

  “You didn’t come here at this hour, Nurse Rooke, I take it, to advise me against the dangers of washing?”

  “No, indeed, Plato. I come because we have fallen far short in our search for answers as to Anne Elliot’s suitor.”

  He waited in the darkness, smoothing down his rough sleeve as though it were made of the finest silk.

  “It seems we were wrong about the gentleman she is destined to marry.”

  “We?” he sighed. “You asked me for information. I gave it.”

  “But it was wrong, Plato.”

  A night creature scurried close to the ground. I still couldn’t see much but the movement reminded me that straw and last season’s leaves were around my ankles.

  “You paid me to provide confirmation that Mr. Elliot’s attentions were directed at his cousin. I did so.” He fixed a final button on his sleeve. “There was no question about it. You never asked me to comment on whether this interest was reciprocated.”

  There was a silence as I took this in. Plato was outlined darkly against the halo of bronze from his dwelling. My fingers felt into my purse as my lips tried to find a response. “So, Plato,” I let my foot sweep aside some dried leaves, “I take it another sovereign is required for information revealing the identity of the man Anne Elliot loves?”

  “You have it exactly, Nurse Rooke, as always.”

  “And do you know this? May I know you are confident about this information before I spend more of Mrs. Smith’s money?” The coin was already in my hand, but I had to at least pretend to hesitate.