Emily Hudson

by Melissa Jones

  Caroline laughed. “Hardly.”

  The rosy translucent quality of Caroline’s skin, the way her hair fell against a bare neck—loosened, yet still pinned up as it was, the ineffable generosity of unclothed arms encircling the cushion, provided a transcendent beauty that had been absent before. The pose imbued warmth and depth of feeling to the scene that otherwise could not have existed.

  “I am for ever in your debt,” said Emily. “But I shall have to try to remember the color of your skin.”

  “If you would like to fetch your paints I could be patient a little while longer.”

  Emily laughed, but a low, satisfied laugh, not one of merriment or wild delight, and as they looked at one another the sound of carriage wheels came upon them and then the sight of the conveyance coming around the corner and stopping at the gate.

  Emily saw Thomas jump down and help Mrs. Phelps while William almost ran ahead, glancing at them through the long windows but unaware of what he saw.

  “Emily!” he called. “Emily, I must—” She did not think she had ever heard him sound so excited. In an instant he was in the room and Caroline, having got to her feet, was fumbling with her dress, blushing deeply, Emily attempting to help her.

  “Please, ladies. Forgive me,” he said, and immediately withdrew.

  In silence Emily helped Caroline dress as she heard her cousin say, “Let us go into the parlor. The ladies are absorbed in their work in the drawing room.”

  Caroline gave Emily a look of pure shame and terror, then she passed her by, leaving her alone and running up the stairs.

  In another instant William returned, remaining in the doorway as if too close a proximity to his cousin might endanger him. “What in Heaven’s name did I just witness?”

  His anger was so intense that there was no opportunity for her own. Emily tried to summon her courage but the tears were in her eyes.

  “Caroline was modeling for me—for my study of the—”

  “Please, do not go on. Madonnas, of course, have to be in a state of dishabille.”

  “The Renaissance masters often showed—”

  “You are a little American girl. You are a poor, sick orphan! Who are you to stand in the house that I have provided for you in your skimpy grass-stained dress and talk to me of Renaissance masters? Perhaps my father was right. You are a bad apple. Poor Miss Caroline—how will she look at me now without knowing I have seen her in so shameless a state of undress—”

  “She was beautiful.”

  Emily thought he might lose control of himself with rage. “I think you had better go to your room,” he said.

  Upstairs it was like her uncle’s house at Newport once more: the confinement. Nothing was changed, she thought, in the strangled sensation in her throat and the pain in her eyes that presaged a waterfall of tears. How arrogant she had been, how pitifully arrogant, to believe that her appetite for feeling, truth and beauty could influence William’s outlook, his character and—But she could not think. He was as cruel as his father, as his mother, as them all. She could hear their voices downstairs: William, Thomas and Mrs. Phelps taking their tea in the parlor and exchanging commonplace observations about the events of the day.

  She could hear Caroline weeping quietly in her room through the wall, and for the first time she hated William, purely, cleanly and simply, as if she were watching a bird flying upward in the sky. The interior voice, the undercurrent of shame, her habitual fear of ungratefulness was extinguished in this passion, or rather united into one cry. She sat still on her bed looking at the garden in the evening, the red and green of the apples on the tree, and felt a great anguish and heat. Going to the window and opening it there came not a breath of air. The golden day had become something altogether different, almost sinister in its stillness. She must get to the sea.

  Without so much as changing her shoes or finding a bonnet she stole down the staircase, but without fear: she knew no person would emerge from any room to block her. She left by the front door—she had only the garden path to cross and a few paces to the bend in the lane and she was concealed from view. The church bells chimed six. The light around her seemed almost lurid—a warmth bathed her, held her almost buoyant as if she were in water, and she glanced at the sky. There were no usual white fluffy clouds that often resembled skeins of white silk, but a general darkening as if a watercolor blue had been smudged with charcoal—contaminated by a dirty hand. There was still no air.

  She walked at her fastest pace. She had never gone to the sea on foot before, but she knew the way. She would follow the lane until it met the coast road: she could either follow that until she found a track to the ocean’s edge, or strike off by instinct across the country toward the water. She felt very light, almost as if she had no body at all—the road made no impression on her feet in their kid slippers, the airless air nonetheless giving her the oxygen she required. She did not know how long she could continue at that pace—it was sufficiently unreal, her speed, for her to know it would not last. But she did not think they would follow her. Even if they noticed she was gone, there was no means of transportation at their disposal. And after all, it was only an evening walk. They would not understand she had to reach the sea.

  No vehicle passed her on the open road and she experienced the strange sensation of seeing herself as others might see her—a lone girl, respectably if untidily dressed, exposed and vulnerable to any passing stranger. But she was not afraid: this was not London where beggars might accost her in the twilight, hawkers and sellers and thieves of every description play their game. Here there was no one. If somebody passed by with a cart of straw she would be an oddity. But what about in darkness, what about in cold? The thousands of nameless destitute wanderers she had seen in the city, on the high roads, began to press themselves into her mind and she did not know if it were pity or fear she felt. It was only speed that mattered.

  She had a pain in her side and an ache in her chest and her vision began to blur with the tears she let fall unchecked. She must get to the sea. It was Camber Sands she wanted—that glorious expanse—but it was too far. She felt a little sick, but not faint, never faint, never that. Ladies who faint are merely domestic animals, she thought: she did not know why. The sky was darkening, the high road brighter. A storm was coming and she had known and she was glad.

  Turning off the road she began to hurry across the fields. Sheep lifted their heads in brief inquiry; the bumps in her path made her stumble for she could not discipline herself to pick up her feet. It was difficult to find the gate. The next field had a ditch between her and the one after; she waded it without thinking, clambering up the bank on her hands and knees. And then she saw the sea—pewter-colored close to her, with gleams of sunshine on it near to the horizon. Out to sea the sky was blue and the storm had already passed. The air was thickening and she clambered on, over marsh grass that grew through the sweet grass and then replaced it until she was on the dunes and below her lay the beach. She sat down until she had finished crying, then lowered herself into a hollow in the sand to wait out the storm.

  It was not long until the rain began in almost stately slow and heavy drops that became more rapid and urgent. There was little wind. At first the rain eased and cooled her, then it insisted itself through her pretty blue dress, streaking and darkening it, penetrating her hair, splashing her neck and hands and face and she could see very little. Then the wind began. She was protected from its worst by the curve of where she sat. It did not hurt her when it blew but made her cold. This is what you wanted, she thought.

  When the rain stopped the sky was only briefly sullen, a sullen evening sky. She stood up and, taking off her shoes and petticoats, rolled them into a bundle on the sand. Walking down to the beach was laborious, the sand was so heavy and wet. She walked into the water without hesitating. It was surprisingly warm after the rain. She had never let the water reach more than her knees before, but this time she waded to her waist. Her skirts billowing about her made progress ha
rd. A wave could knock her off her feet. She could not swim. But the sea was lazy. The sky ahead looked secret and ungiving and she was crying again, but no longer with rage, with longing. She looked at the sky for a long time; then she turned her back on the sea, wading to the shore, stumbling across the great beach in her heavy choking clothes, climbing the first bank she came upon. She was very tired and entirely wet—the cold stung. Falling to her knees, she curled up like a cat and fell asleep.

  A face was leaning over her and a dog sniffing at her neck. “I do not want to be found,” she said. But he did not appear to hear her. He was old, a countryman, weathered, stupid, kind. She closed her eyes. He was shaking her. “Miss. Where are your friends? What is your name?” Then he lifted her and she was drowsy and she slept. She dreamed she was in her bed at home with her mother bending over her, turning down the light.

  The doctor had a cold stethoscope and a cold eye but she was very hot. “Young lady, you have a fever. I am, however, more concerned for your chest. Does it hurt?” It hurt. It rattled when she breathed. It did not want her to breathe—thick as if bandages were inside her lungs. He held her hands. “Will you not speak to me? There is only myself here. Your cousin and your friends are deeply concerned for you. We all are.”

  She began to cry but without sobs. “Mother,” she said.

  “Why did you walk into the sea?” It was William’s voice. The room was dark and she could not see him. “Why did you want to leave us?”

  She did not want him there. She tried to sit up and breathe but she was coughing again. She shook with it and the soreness in her lungs. He lit the lamp and placed it beside her. He looked ghostly. She could not stop coughing and he pressed a handkerchief into her hand that she held over her lips. And then it came and she knew there was blood on her handkerchief before she could even look. It was dark and bright. All the color in the room. He saw it too and he said, “Is this the first time?”

  “Yes.” She shook, recognizing it, crushing the handkerchief into a warm ball in her fingers.

  “You are so beautiful,” he said. Taking the handkerchief into his own hand he tenderly wiped her mouth. They looked at one another; in his eyes were pity and a kind of triumph. “Lie back on your pillows, Cousin. There.”

  She struggled to breathe, cold with terror, and he waited.

  “I have things to tell you. I am going to go away for a little while—Thomas will accompany me. Mrs. Phelps and Caroline—so long as they wish—will remain with you here until you are stronger. Then we shall see what is to be done.”

  She could not speak to him, looking at the handkerchief clutched in his fingers.

  Presently she said, “Open the window?”

  “I do not think that would be wise, my dear.” And he was gone.

  It had come to her at last: Emily saw with her whole self that she had merely been waiting for it to happen. She shuddered, her body heaved, her muscles cold and without strength. How much more of life would it give her? Weeks? Months? A year? She did not want to die. She was not ready to die. She was afraid to die. She wished that William had not left her alone and yet partly she was relieved to be free of the scrutiny. She could not help it, imagining the moment of her death—then nothing. She could not contemplate a life beyond. She must not think of it, the vision of her coffin going into the aching empty ground. Where would she be buried? Now that she had sent Captain Lindsay away, who would truly mourn her? Why had she lived at all? And yet she would not bring him back to her now. She would not force him to be the one who had promised to keep her, always keep hold of her hand.

  “Mother, help me to be less afraid,” she prayed.

  The doctor sat by her bed. It was evening. She could tell from the light outside her window that made the curtains glow. When she was hot she put her wrists against the cold brass of the bedhead as if running them under a tap.

  “And this was your first hemorrhage?”

  “Yes.”

  “And when did it take place?”

  “I do not know—yesterday, before my cousin went away. Miss Trelawney will tell you.”

  “Have you had another, since?”

  “Yes, in the night.” It had been very dark and she had had to light the candle to see it and try to clean it up.

  “And what happened after it passed?”

  “After it passed I slept.”

  “Good.” He sat up very straight next to her. “May I listen to your chest again? From beneath your shoulder blades?”

  “Of course.” She was more prepared this time and shut her eyes. He was merely carrying out his vocation, like playing the piano or plowing a field.

  He paused a long time when he had finished listening. “Miss Hudson, I think it is only one lung that is affected. But I am not a specialist. I would strongly advise Mr. Cornford to find one and I shall write to him to that effect.”

  “Is there medicine?” She knew the answer to that question and wondered why she should exert herself to ask it.

  “There is none. Only rest. I can give laudanum for the pain—if it is acute.”

  “No, thank you. I would rather not.” Thoughts of her mother beginning her last illness came over her. “I do not need the drug.”

  He began to pack his case.

  “What shall I do?”

  “My dear young lady, these lungs will not heal themselves. You must do nothing. They need rest and fresh air, preferably warm, dry air, but in moderation. No exerting yourself on walks. I am surprised that a young lady with your disposition and constitution should have counted walking and sitting on damp ground among her pursuits, let alone wandering out of doors in a storm.”

  She could have said, I must be outside for my work, for my sketching and drawing. I must be by the sea for my soul. I must sit upon the grass because I am young and alive. But she did not. “I am not fond of parlors and still lifes.”

  “You are an obstinate girl. This is a serious condition.”

  A flash of anger. “Do you think I am not sensible of that?”

  His eyes remained cold. “I scarcely know you at all, Miss Hudson.” And there were her tears rising again. “If you are to recover it is with plenty of rest—no excitement—and I shall see that your cousin calls in a specialist. Good day.”

  “Good day, Sir.”

  After then she cried: weak and useless feminine tears. It seemed she was at fault, at fault for her own condition as well as her desires.

  There was a knock at the door. “Emily? It is Caroline.”

  “Come in.” Before she even had sight of her friend, Emily said, “I am so sorry, Caroline—please forgive me for the embarrassment I caused you—”

  Caroline sat on the bed and held her hands. “You are very pale.”

  “I am sorry, I—”

  “I do not want to talk about the storm. You were distressed.”

  “I don’t mean that, I mean putting you in such a position—because of my work—”

  “I do not care about that. I care only for my friend. In any case, it was my idea; I share the blame. We must get you better, with plenty of warm milk and bread and honey. Plenty of soothing, clean, pure food. Don’t cry, my dearest.”

  “It is because you are so kind.”

  “Thomas has gone. He has taken the dogs so we will have quiet. Now that this is just a house of women we shall be gentle with one another and get along nicely. We shall mend you.”

  Caroline’s hand was still closed over Emily’s.

  “When it comes, it is—”

  “Try not to be frightened. Call me and we shall manage it together. The basin and jug are just a few steps to the other side of the room. There will always be clean towels.”

  “Yes.”

  “I shall come to you by and by and see if you will take a little gruel.”

  Caroline kissed her on the forehead. Emily watched her straighten up in the dim light. There were so many images she must commit to memory because she did not have the means to sketch them now.
/>   FOURTEEN

  MISS EMILY HUDSON

  MARSH HOUSE, KENT

  THE PHEASANT INN

  YORK

  ———August, 1862

  My dearest Cousin,

  I send this by the hand of a highly respected physician. He knows everything in modern medicine about your condition, having even visited the first sanatorium in———that has been operating for three years past.

  You must tell him everything and hold nothing back if he is to help you.

  You are in my thoughts.

  Thomas and I are occupying ourselves with looking at horses; he has a mind to buy another hunter for the season and a riding horse for his sister. There are many journeys and sojourns in uncomfortable inns but I console myself with the notion that I am gaining insight into the life of the English gentleman: it is so dominated by such pursuits I cannot be ignorant of them. Considering I have no interest whatever in chronicling the lives of the poor—I will leave that to the vulgar taste and Mr. Dickens—I must take every opportunity to observe the friends I have in this adopted country of mine. More and more I lack the desire to return to our New World.

  I have always found August a difficult month, however, as one is not expected to work and I do so loathe any form of idleness. I must admit that I am missing more literary society and the conversation at my club not a little, but London is deserted and my acquaintance are all abroad or shooting.

  You must be brave.

  You are brave; I do not presume to instruct you on that.

  My dear girl, write to me soonest.

  Your unquenchable spirit will always be an example to me.

  Affectionately,