by Zen Cho
Poor worm! You have not got anybody else, so I must try to be better company for you. I didn't have any foolish passions when I was a girl, that is the problem. In fact I was a remarkably cold fish and could not see why my friends were forever swooning over some boy or other.
I am making up for lost time now, but never mind—it will soon wear itself out. I must be sure to arrange an unwise infatuation for the worm in its youth. It is absurd to be in the mid-twenties and behaving like the Lady of Shalott.
I can't recall if Tennyson ever said how old the Lady of Shalott was. I should be surprised if she was a day over sixteen.
Monday, 14th March 1921
I have made a friend! Those of us who loved not wisely but too well are quarantined from the decent women, so there has not been much opportunity for conversation with the other half. But I was struck down by a vile cold this past week, and have only been able to creep out of my room today. I was too late for lunch, but one of the Misses took pity on me and persuaded the cook to whip something up for me.
I was gnawing doggedly on a potato, alone in the dining room, when a girl came in and sat down across the table from me. She asked if I wouldn't mind her horning in on my bread rolls.
"Please do," I said.
I liked the look of her at once: she had untidy brown hair, and bright dark eyes that darted as a bird's eyes do, taking in everything about her. She looked like a nice squirrel. "Are you sure you don't want a sardine?"
"No—the plainest possible bread. A crust would be even better, in fact," she said, extracting one from a roll. "I have been fed on milk and fat for days. Bread and water is my idea of heaven. What is your name? I am Margery."
"My name is Jade," I said. I don't tell people my real name, after the way everyone at university mangled it. It's fortunate that my name can be translated into a name that sounds sensible in English. Imagine if I had been named Swallow, or Plum.
"That is a pretty name," said Margery.
"So is yours," I said courteously. "What are you in for?"
Margery cast a look around to check that none of the Misses were hovering, and swallowed a crust.
"I'm mad," she confided. "And you?"
"I'm bad," I said.
Margery nodded sympathetically.
"I thought you seemed to have all your marbles lined up in a row," she said. "And of course they've allowed you civilian rations. I expect they don't drown you in milk, as they do us."
"Why do they drown you in milk?" I said, interested.
Margery turned the palms of her hands up in a gesture of despair.
"Why do they do any of the things they do?" she said. "I am made to eat and eat and eat, and sleep the rest of the day."
"As if you were a dormouse," I said.
"Indeed, as if I were a dormouse," said Margery. "They have only let me out of bed today. I suspect the purpose of these torments was to force me to recover out of pure indignation."
"I was going to observe that you seem to have quite a good hold on your marbles yourself," I said.
"Oh yes, most of the time," said Margery. "But sometimes, you know, they get away from one. Then a black thing with horns and wings comes and sits at the foot of the bed and stares at one with evil yellow eyes—and one can't get out of bed, but lies there and wishes one was dead, until one's relations come to pack one off to the nearest nursing home. Do you know the feeling?"
"No," I said.
"Good," said Margery. "I hope you never do."
We were quiet for a while. I broke the silence to ask:
"Did your relations send you here, then?"
"My brother-in-law, I should say," said Margery. "He tried the seaside first, thinking the sea breeze would blow away my humours. But my humours clung obstinately to me, so he sent me here instead.
"My sister would have kept trying with the seaside," she added.
"I hope you shan't be here much longer," I said. "Since you dislike it so."
"Why, don't you?" said Margery.
"Well, I chose to come here, which puts a different complexion on things," I said. "Besides, they let me eat all sorts. I would leave if they tried to restrict my diet to milk."
"You chose to come?" cried Margery. "But what about the—" She clamped her mouth shut and went pink.
"Oh, the father?" I said. "He is paying, but he didn't force me to come here. I chose the institution."
"I retract what I said about your looking sane," said Margery. "Fancy choosing to come to a dreadful place like this! Do you not find it fearfully dull?"
I have, rather. It is not so much not having anything to do, because I spend my days reading and writing, as I always did. I don't cook here, but save for that and for the fresh air and better view from my window, I might as well be in London.
No, what I miss is not the giddy whirl of life in the metropolis, but having people to see and talk to. The Misses are kind, but they don't talk; they issue platitudes.
"It does get lonely," I admitted. "But where else could I have gone? If I had stayed where I was it might have got rather awkward in a few months. My landlady lives in mortal fear of what her neighbours might think, and they would have had awful thoughts about me."
Margery looked somber.
"That is true," she said. "If I were you, I suppose I would have relied on my sister."
"If you don't like it here," I said, "can you not write to your sister to say that you are feeling better and please will she take you away?"
"There is Reginald, you see," said Margery. "That is my brother-in-law. He is not unkind, but he has a scientific mind. He hates to see me lolling about at home in a funk when I could be here, lolling about in a funk under the supervision of trained nurses. If I insist on coming home now he will say, but the doctor said you must lie in bed for two months at the very least, and not an inch will he budge, no matter what I tell him.
"But," said Margery—I could tell she had a mind that got stuck on ideas, and would not let go of them easily—"do you not have anyone you could rely on? You haven't got a Reginald barring your escape."
"No," I said. "But I don't have a sister either. I haven't got any family here." I sent a silent apology to Aunt Iris, but in this sort of eventuality she doesn't really count—and wouldn't want to, either.
"Oh," said Margery.
The corners of her mouth turned down. Then she brightened.
"But you must have friends. Do you not have friends?"
I haven't got many friends in England. Everyone I was close to at university has returned to their respective countries since, and after university I was mostly too busy to make new friends. Ravi, of course—and Hardie and Diana qualify, I suppose.
"I have three friends here," I said, "but it would be rather awkward for me to ask them for help."
Margery did not seem to like this answer. She frowned.
"Well, that's wrong," she said. "Because you have four. I am your friend. I'll help you."
"That is kind, thank you," I said. "How do you mean to start?"
Margery reflected. "I shall comfort your cheerless hours with my prattle. Cordelia—that's my sister—she always liked to hear me talk. And I shall help you select a name for the baby. Have you chosen one already?"
We spent the rest of the afternoon making great plans. Margery is not allowed to read books because the words are too taxing for her intellects, so we are to see if we can arrange for me to come into her room to read to her. The doctor might not mind that. And Margery is to pretend to be wholly oblivious of my being pregnant, for fear that the Misses might ban contact to prevent my polluting her virginal mind.
I wonder what Ravi is doing right now. Perhaps I shall explain everything to him some day, when the tadpole is a frog and both Ravi and I are too old to be troubled by the past. Then we will sit on a porch in the twilight drinking good tea and laugh about how silly I was, and he will reach out and touch his beautiful wife's greying but still lovely hair, and feel serene and happy about how everyth
ing turned out ....
But now I am wallowing again!
Thursday, 24th March 1921
Today we finished Pride and Prejudice. I have been reading it to Margery for the past week, though we both know it almost by heart. When I had read the last word Margery rolled over on the ottoman and sighed.
"That is my favourite love story," she said. "Jade, what is it like to be in love?"
"What makes you think I would know?" I said.
"Why, of course you do," Margery said. "Why else would you be having Claude?"
Margery is convinced that the baby is going to be a boy, and not only that, but that he will be a Claude. I am not persuaded on either count, but there's no harm in letting her suppose. At any rate Claude is better than Aloysius, which was her last guess.
"Pure wantonness," I suggested.
Margery considered this, but she shook her head.
"No, no," she said. "You've been in love. I think you're in love even now. You have the look. I've never been in love myself, but I know it."
"What's the look like?" I said.
"It's as if you were hugging a secret to yourself," said Margery promptly. "When you are happy in love it's a delightful secret, but when you are sad it's a distressing one. Cordelia had that look when she first met Reginald. It took me ages to recognise it, because Reginald is such a—but there, he's a good husband by his lights. Anyway, you have the look—but I suppose," here she drooped—"it is an unhappy love, and I ought not to have brought it up."
"I don't mind," I said.
"What is it like? Do tell," said Margery. "With this disordered mind of mine I don't think I shall ever fall in love. I am such a bother to everyone when I have one of my episodes. I should feel sorry for anyone who married me."
"I shouldn't," I said. "Think of all the insufferable creatures in the world who fall in love, and are loved back. And you one of the nicest people I have ever met! You have every right to fall in love, if you would like to, and anyone you married would be lucky."
Margery pursed her lips, but she only said,
"You are trying to distract me. Won't you tell me how it was for you? Is your beloved like Mr. Darcy?"
"Nothing like," I said. "I wouldn't like to marry Mr. Darcy, would you? Fancy calling your husband Fitzwilliam for all eternity. It would be so awkward in the bedroom."
"Oh Jade," said Margery: she is rather easily shocked. "Well, but what is he like, then?"
I felt the real story was rather implausible. Would anyone believe I'd had an affair with Hardie out of simple curiosity? Margery certainly wouldn't: she is convinced I was cruelly deceived. And I am still feeling too tender about Ravi to tell anyone about him, so I told her a somewhat embroidered tale about Hardie and me, in which Hardie's charm and the giddy romance of Paris swept me off my feet, and Hardie's Bohemian ideals blinded him to the sordid realities of love outside the bounds of sanctioned matrimony.
I finished with the magnificent forgiveness of Diana and my self-denying retirement to Mrs. Crowther's. Margery's eyes were dewy.
"Oh Jade, how sad," she said. "How terribly, terribly sad—but beautiful, too. You lived a whole lifetime in the space of a few months. So Hardie and Diana are two of the friends you spoke of. Oh, it is so poetic, it is like something out of a story. But it must make you terribly distressed to think of them, though they have been so noble."
I was beginning to enjoy my role. I tried to look damp and ethereal.
"Yes," I murmured.
"But you had three friends, you said," said Margery. I think she must have some bulldog in her ancestry: she has the most tenacious memory. "Who is the third?"
"Ah," I said. "That is just the editor of the Oriental Literary Review. I used to write pieces for him, and we became friends through that. Nice man."
"I must ask Cordelia to look that journal up," said Margery.
She's already requested old issues of Woman's Weekly from her sister, since I told her I'd had articles published in it. She took down the name and address of the ORL so that Cordelia could order the issues I'd been in. The address will have changed, I suppose, but I expect they'll forward any post.
I barely felt a twinge when I talked about Ravi. Perhaps I am recovering! Soon I shall be as footloose and fancy-free as any maiden (though I suppose I do not quite count as a maiden anymore). That will be good for the worm. Poor old worm! It can't be doing it good to have so many feelings sloshing about on top of it.
When the wormlet has come into the world I must become the sagest of matriarchs. I shall put on wisdom like a mantle, and read a chapter of the classics every day, and only eat cake once every half a year. I will avoid telling fibs to my friends, and if I can't avoid it, I will certainly not enjoy it. Oh dear, I'm afraid I'm very far from perfection yet.
Sunday, 3rd April 1921
I dreamt of my father last night. Ma comes to me in dreams sometimes, usually to say something pointed about money or the state of my clothes, but Pa never. He wasn't there to give advice; it was a remembering sort of dream.
Pa had just had an argument with my grandfather, and I was upset. I don't remember what the argument was about, but I remember Pa sitting by me and explaining, as he always did whenever anything frightened me. And as always he was making everything all right again.
"You have a better brain than your old father," he said. "Even a better brain than your brothers. What have I worked all these years for if not so I can bring up my children the way I want to?
"My girl, remember this. Your father will never begrudge how much he is spending on your education. Don't believe those who will say because you are a girl it is useless. Learning is never useless. You will make something of yourself because you are my daughter.
"But don't prove them right. Don't let your freedom make you disobedient. Don't go wild like those European women. Remember your family. Then it will all be worth it."
I woke up half-believing I was still there, in the kitchen with the sun shining on the table, with my father next to me. I had to go around my room, touching everything in it, before the cold worked its way into my fingers and toes and drove me back to bed. Then I believed I was here.
It was only when I laid my head on my pillow again that I felt the wetness on it, and realised I was still crying. The tears oozed out of my eyes as if they weren't my eyes, or my tears. It wasn't me who was crying, but someone long ago and far away. Someone who still trusted everything her family told her.
I wish Ravi were here.
Friday, 8th April 1921
Bad news today. At breakfast Margery was looking like a squirrel that had discovered the existence of peanut butter. She leant over to me and said:
"I am rescued!"
Her sister is coming next week to take her away. Her letters have been so sprightly even Reginald has been persuaded that science cannot justify Mrs. Crowther's keeping her.
"And besides, Cordelia misses me," she said happily.
I smiled, but I was soggy with self-pity inside. We have been such chums—reading books together and gossiping about the Misses behind her back. I had missed having girl friends. I haven't known a woman I could talk to, really talk to, since I left home. One cannot really talk to Diana, the way she floats through the clouds hand-in-hand with Hardie.
Margery, on the other hand, is thoroughly sensible—gets dirt in her toenails, and pens caught in her hair—so we understand each other. I do need people to be rooted in the earth. It must be a legacy of my sensible upbringing. I like artists but feel rather suspicious of them, and do not know what to make of it when they go spinning off into the higher reaches of the atmosphere.
When I said, trying to sound as if it were a joke, "But what shall I do without you?" Margery's eyes went round and moist like a spaniel's.
"Oh but Jade, you said you liked this place," she protested. "You chose it yourself."
"You have been far too convincing," I said. "You have persuaded me that it is a hole. And now you are going away—t
o the seaside, I suppose!"
"Cordelia did say we might go to the seaside," said Margery.
"You will sit on the pebbles in a woollen bathing suit and a cap and gaze at the sea through a telescope and eat chips," I said. "And never a thought for your abandoned friend! I will shut myself up in my room and go in for becoming an immortal. With you gone I shall have so much time to kill that I'll be forced to grow a beard and discern the secrets of the Tao to entertain myself, and you'll be sorry that you did not stick around to hear it."
"I hope you grow a very long beard indeed," said Margery unrepentantly. "I shall send you a postcard from Brighton."
But just now there was a knock on my door and Margery came in, looking soft and curly and sad. She said,
"Jade, you will not really miss me too dreadfully? After all I have been such a bother to you. I will write—I'll write every week—and I'll send you starfish for your room if I can find them."
I felt so guilty! I hugged her and told her I didn't mean it really.
"I was just being beastly because of my overweening envy. I hope you do eat lots of chips, and wear a fetching bathing suit, and lie on the beach for as long as you can without getting pneumonia."
But she still looked wistful.
"You will not really be lonely?" she said. "Could you not write to your friend? The nice editor you told me about."
That gave me more than a twinge around the heart, so I think I have overestimated the rate of my recovery. But I tried to look cheerful.
"Oh, I shan't need to," I said. "I have lots to divert me. You aren't to worry about me at all. I should hate to think of you dripping tears into your kippers on my account."
Then she was satisfied and went away, saying she would not interrupt the workings of genius. I'll admit it: I sat down and cried. But I didn't do it for more than half an hour, and I think it did me good. I wish I were out of love—past caring. When Margery asked me what love was like I ought to have told her the truth: it's just the most damnable thing.
