Chapter 4a: The Ending where Lydia takes things far too seriously
Round about lunchtime, Gerald staggered back to his home. Not only were his feet now distinctly painful after two long walks, but he had had experiences strange and unpleasant enough to make any man stagger. First there had been the strange visitors, then he had been forced to tolerate the society of that dreadful nouveau riche Hardcastle, and then, then, to make things worse, there was his visitors’ strange disappearance, taking that flighty Bertram girl with them. And that had only exposed him to the wrath of David Barton who, rather unfairly Gerald thought, had put the blame for his fiancée’s disappearance squarely on Gerald’s shoulders. It was not surprising that Gerald was feeling rather battered and in considerable need of female sympathy as he let himself into the house (having had to remind himself, to fresh shudders of reminiscence, that he no longer had a maid) and called out “Lydia, where are you?”
There was no reply; in fact the house seemed to Gerald as he made his way to the drawing room, to be empty. For the absence of the ‘Admiral’ Gerald was nothing but grateful, for he wasn’t sure he could survive any more of the random mix of eccentricity and violence that seemed to characterise her and her men, and he was grateful that she had obviously lost interest in keeping Lydia company and left. However, that was not to say that Lydia should have gone out too. What were things coming to when a County Husband, coming home unexpectedly in search of uxorial solicitude, discovered that his wife was elsewhere? Why, if his feet hadn’t hurt so badly and the car hadn’t been blasted into nothingness, Gerald would have had a good mind to go down to The Dog And Duck to see if he could persuade Flossie to take a break from her duties at the bar for half an hour or so: whether the womanly solicitude he sought was sincere or financially induced mattered not, after all.
But his feet did hurt, and the car had been blasted into nothingness, so Gerald was forced to wait for Lydia to return from wherever she had gone (being a true County Husband, Gerald, of course, had no interest in or knowledge of his wife’s interests and habits, so he had no way of telling where she might be or how long it might take). Looking round the drawing room he saw clear evidence of violence of some kind: fragments of a former occasional table lying against the wall and, more menacing by far, a small pile of greyish dust on the floor near by where it had stood. This brought true fear to Gerald: did it mean that the mad woman had done it again? And if so, who had she done it to? Was this Lydia, he asked himself, with a rush of emotion that almost might make one feel some sympathy for the man, until it was realised that rather than consisting of feeling for her, the emotion was entirely related to how Gerald would manage without a wife to do tedious things like hire domestics and bear heirs and the like. But, the ‘Admiral’ had seemed to like Lydia, so, that meant that she had done something far worse than to murder the wife of his bosom, his one true love: she had killed somebody else, and he didn’t know who, and what would the County think if people got murdered when visiting his house?
Gerald needed more information and, in the absence of Lydia or the maid, there was only one way he could think of to get it: Doctor Dixon should have visited earlier in the morning. Perhaps he could fill Gerald in on whether the mad woman was still there when he visited, and whether he had noticed anybody disappearing to be replaced by a small heap of grey dust. Gerald rushed to the phone and, hands shaking in anxiety, dialled the Doctor’s number. After a few rings, the Doctor’s housekeeper rang and Gerald said, trying to keep his voice calm, “Oh hello there, this is Captain Marsden; I was wondering if I could have a word with Doctor Dixon.” “I’m sorry, but you can’t,” said the housekeeper, “I haven’t seen him all morning, and he’s missed any number of appointments, which isn’t like him at all. In fact, I believe he was going out to visit your wife when I last saw him.” Gerald thanked the receptionist and then put down the phone, his face ashen. He now had a pretty good idea who the heap of grey dust in the living room must have been, and the thought of having to explain to the County that one of its more popular medical practitioners had met his end in Gerald’s house at the hands of one of his guests was not a pleasant one. He realised that there was only one thing to do: he had to search the house, in case there were even more of the sad little grey piles, over and above those which represented the last Earthly remains of the maid and Doctor Dixon.
After a quick drink, to steady his nerves, Gerald started his grim search. The drawing room and breakfast rooms revealed only the two piles he already knew about, though he was shocked to see that clearly Lydia had made no effort to clear away the debris from breakfast. She may be a County Wife, and so used to having domestics to do stuff for her, but there was no excuse for leaving a congealed kipper on the breakfast table for all to see. Clearly she needed another reminder of the duties that were entailed on her as a result of her holding the privileged position of Mrs Captain Marsden. However, before he could do that, Gerald must complete his search. Moving upstairs he became aware of a strange odour, almost of burning, which he was sure he ought to recognise, but could not, for now quite trace. No fresh signs of random murder found, he eventually came to Lydia’s bedroom and, to his great disgust, found her lying, apparently asleep, curled up on her bed. This was really too bad; maybe she couldn’t be expected to control the mad ‘Admiral’, but that was no excuse for Lydia to, having got rid of the woman, go upstairs for a nap, making no effort to tidy up, or indulge in a spot of crisis management. To think, here was he, her lord and master, terrified out of his wits by the discovery that his residence had apparently become a kind of charnel house, and she was up here, calmly snoozing. “Lydia” he said, not gently. She showed no response, so he tried again, even less gently: “Lydia.” Still there was no response, so Gerald cast restraint aside and shook her by the shoulder. Lydia flopped onto her back, revealing why there had been no response: Gerald’s revolver was in her mouth and she had one hand on the trigger; the smell was cordite, and the pillow, which had been wrapped round her head, was caked with blood. She was dead.
Gerald’s immediate reaction did not show him at his best, that is to say, he felt that, though perhaps she had over-reacted in killing herself, at least Lydia had finally shown some understanding of County Society in choosing to kill herself rather than face the opprobrium natural to one who had (however unwittingly) unleashed those madmen on the world. His next reaction did not show him at his best, either: outrage that she had left him alone to deal with the mess. However, having calmed down from his symphony of self-righteousness, he noticed that the other hand held a piece of paper covered with Lydia’s writing: a suicide note. He took it, and started to read.
“Dear Gerald,” the note read, “When you read this, I will be dead. Knowing you, you will be worrying about what Miss Sparrow will say when she hears about it, and upsetting yourself about what the County will think about you that your wife killed herself. There was a time when I might actually have cared about those things myself. In fact, I did care about them right up to a few minutes ago, and caring about them led me to take the most stupid action of my life: yes, even more stupid than agreeing to marry you and then spending all those miserable years alone, unloved and uncared for while you had your fun with that tart at The Dog and Duck, and never for a moment thinking that I could aspire to anything better. For you see, Gerald, I didn’t. I tried, oh so hard, to be a proper County Wife for you, but I did so very much want to be loved, and it was so hard to realise that you had ceased to love me the moment I said ‘I do’. Oh, I am sure you think you loved me, but when did you last feel any real concern for me, as opposed to about me?
“Enough of that. I realise now that you are too stupid and self-absorbed to even begin to understand why I was so miserable in our marriage; and even if you did, you would probably say that was my fault for having ridiculous romantic notions of love and passion. The terrible thing is that until today I had more or less convinced myself that you were right, and that I had no right to expect more, an
d that the misery was my own fault for not crushing my childish romantic yearnings. And then I discovered that you were wrong, that I could experience loving and being loved, that I could enjoy the raptures of passion, not as the tool for somebody else’s pleasure, but as part of a shared felicity. I found that it was possible for somebody to care for me, and to want me, and to want me to be happy, and even though I found many of her ways incomprehensible, I so longed to be with her, and to do as she suggested, to go away with her, leaving you to rot in the festering hell you call the County. But I didn’t; I was a fool and I thought of you, and Miss Sparrow, and the County, and I rejected her offer. I decided that my joy, my pleasure were insignificant compared to the desires of the County; that I must stick with you, for what would the County think if I ran off with another woman, how would you suffer? That’s what I thought, and now, when I contemplate what I have given up, and I realise just how foolish I was, I see that there is nothing left for me. I have thrown away the happy future that I glimpsed, and that glimpse means I cannot bear to spend the rest of my years with you in our empty so-called marriage. And I realise that I no longer care that people will talk about you behind your back, saying ‘there must be something funny about him, his wife killed herself’. Maybe if you had ever cared for me, I might. Goodbye. Your Lydia.”
Gerald was naturally incensed at the sheer self-centredness that Lydia showed in this letter. How dare she expose him to calumny just because she was a bit upset about something or other? What was her happiness, compared to his position in the County? Really, he thought to himself, as he walked downstairs, if she was capable of such selfishness then he was glad she was dead. Now, all he needed was to go and see Flossie for a pick-me-up, and he was sure he would be able to sort things out so nobody talked. He immediately made for the door and strode out, intent on making it to The Dog and Duck in double-quick time; as he walked, he happened to look up at the sky. The new star was gone.
Chapter 4b: The Ending where Lydia loses her mind
Round about lunchtime, Gerald staggered back to his home. Not only were his feet now distinctly painful after two long walks, but he had had experiences strange and unpleasant enough to make any man stagger. First there had been the strange visitors, then he had been forced to tolerate the society of that dreadful nouveau riche Hardcastle, and then, then, to make things worse, there was his visitors’ strange disappearance, taking that flighty Bertram girl with them. And that had only exposed him to the wrath of David Barton who, rather unfairly Gerald thought, had put the blame for his fiancée’s disappearance squarely on Gerald’s shoulders. It was not surprising that Gerald was feeling rather battered and in considerable need of female sympathy as he let himself into the house (having had to remind himself, to fresh shudders of reminiscence, that he no longer had a maid) and called out “Lydia, where are you?”
“Here I am, my d-d-darling” she fluted from somewhere inside the house, sounding, Gerald thought, more cheerful and more like what a wife ought to sound like than she had for some time. He was used to being greeted with a kind of muted despair, coupled with a definite suggestion that he was doing something terribly, terribly wrong, so this came as a pleasant surprise. The pleasant surprise was increased only when Lydia emerged from the drawing room dressed not in her indecently seductive evening gown but, as a proper County Wife should be, in a decent modest blouse and skirt, with sensible shoes and a scarf knotted around her neck. And things just kept on getting better for Gerald, when, on taking a look at her husband, Lydia said, “But you poor thing; whatever happened to make you so sad and muddy?” Gerald appreciated the concern (for the old Lydia would have been more likely to respond to complaints about having sore feet by saying something like “My life is a dark void and you expect me to care about feet?”), but he didn’t appreciate being reminded of the events of the last few hours, so he just said “I had to walk all the way to Hardcastle’ house and back, and I fell in a ditch, and my feet hurt” and, lo, Lydia did not say “My life is a dark void and you expect me to care about feet?” instead she said, “Oh, my l-l-l-love; you poor thing. Come on into the drawing room and sit down and take your shoes off and soon you’ll be right as rain,” leading Gerald into the drawing room as she spoke.
Gerald was grateful for a chance to sit down and have a nice grouch in comfort, but he could not help but notice, on entering the drawing room, that the curtains which had, only that morning, graced its windows, were now distributed around the room, cut into small squares. He turned to Lydia, hoping for some explanation of this mysterious transformation, only to see that not only was she smiling in a slightly unhinged way, but she was wielding a sizeable pair of scissors in one hand. Now, Gerald was not intelligent (for intelligence was not required of an English Gentleman) but even he was aware that it was not wise to be too forceful when upbraiding a slightly unhinged person who has access to sharp implements, so, stepping gingerly through the mosaic of curtain squares to his chair, and putting it between himself and Lydia, he said, with utmost caution, “Er, Lydia, why did you cut up the curtains?” She smiled brightly and said, “Well, they were talking about me. They were saying that I didn’t really l-l-l-l-love you. And I couldn’t have that. I know I l-l-love you, my d-d-d-darling. So I stopped them. I stopped them talking about me for good.” Gerald wasn’t quite sure what to say. He had doubted Lydia’s sanity many times, but this was not her usual moaning about how her life was dark and empty, and yearning for death and complaining because when he made love to her it never lasted longer than two minutes and forty-five seconds. This was more, well, frightening, so a delicate approach was required. “I see,” he said, “and why did the curtains think you didn’t love me?” Lydia responded immediately, saying in a strange, rather toneless voice, “Because of what I did this morning. When you had gone, that woman did the strangest things with me; things I had never imagined possible. Of course, it was nothing like when you and I make l-l-l-l-love,” she continued, which please Gerald considerably, for he was glad to hear his quarterly two minutes and forty-five seconds subject to such high praise, “It was very different. And she asked me to go away with her, and I said no, because I l-l-l-love you, my d-dear. I must do; after all, you’re my husband. And when she had left, the curtains started saying that I l-l-loved her, not you, and I should have gone away with her. So I killed them.”
Now none of this made much sense to Gerald, largely because, as has been noted before, the concept of one woman loving another was not one he was mentally equipped to handle. He could tell, however, that the strange ‘Admiral’ had obviously upset his wife a great deal, given that she was having delusions about the curtains questioning her marital loyalties, so he blustered “That woman was a devil! What did she do to you?” and wasn’t reassured when Lydia said, rather distantly, “Oh wonderful, wonderful things.” “Well, anyway,” said Gerald, “We need to get Doctor Dixon to see you as soon as possible, to deal with this delusion; I’ll go and call him.” And he was about to sally forth into the hall when Lydia, coming back to a more normal form of speech said, “Don’t be silly, d-d-darling, you can’t call Doctor Dixon; he’s already here.” “What? Already here? Where?” said Gerald, looking around him wildly for the Doctor. “There, silly” said Lydia, pointing at a small pile of grey dust in one corner of the room. Gerald gulped, for he knew all too well what a small pile of grey dust signified. “Do you mean,” he said, “that Doctor Dixon came here?” Lydia smiled happily and nodded, “And then that woman turned him into, er, that?” pointing at the pile of dust. Lydia smiled even more happily and said, “That’s right, d-d-darling. He’s dead too. Isn’t it wonderful?” This was not how Gerald would have described things, for he was a conventional man, and thus averse to finding a dead doctor, not to mention dead curtains, in his drawing room. But Lydia continued, “Just think; we can sweep Doctor Dixon up and put him in the bin, and tell everybody he never arrived. Then we can get some new curtains, which aren’t so chatty, and then we can carry on living tog
ether, just you and I, my d-d-darling, h-happy like we used to be before I got all miserable. And just think, it took those funny people, and that woman wanting to take me away with her to make me realise how much I l-l-l-love you. Ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha.”
Any normally intelligent person would have felt their blood freeze at this curiously mechanical laughter, but Gerald was not a normally intelligent person. Instead he was rather taken by this speech. They could indeed deny all knowledge of the doctor, for what with their maid having been similarly transformed, there was no witness to his presence here save Lydia. And certainly Lydia seemed to have abruptly cast off the pall of depression that she had worn for the past few years. She was referring to him as ‘darling’ and ‘dear’ as if she meant it, which hadn’t happened for ages, and behaving like a proper County Wife, which hadn’t happened at all, to the best of his knowledge. He just had to hope that this sudden improvement in Lydia’s behaviour lasted. To test the water, Gerald asked, “So does this mean we won’t get any more of you doing things like wearing that negligee?” Lydia blushed and said, “Oh dear no, I can’t imagine that I would do anything so immodest. No, my l-l-love, from now on it’s proper modest flannel for me, and that stays inside the bedroom.” Gerald was delighted; it seemed as if magically, Lydia was cured of all her little eccentricities after all, as she further proved when she continued “I’m so embarrassed, my d-dear, at the harm I might have done your reputation by acting in that way. I should have known better. In future, my l-l-love, I won’t make any demands of you in that way: I’ll be there if you want me, and if you don’t want me, I’ll not make a fuss. And to think I used to be frustrated. Ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha.”
The New Star Page 6
