We Think the World of You

by J. R. Ackerley

  But peace for my poor cousin there was none. As my confidence increased, so did her resentment. Unable to corrupt the animal with love, she pitted herself once more against her, trying her strength by provoking the very situation she could neither brook nor ignore. She was always calling out to me through the closed door, or rapping upon it, or even opening it and entering the forbidden chamber. The arc upon the ceiling would widen and, with the ferocity of a tigress, Evie would launch herself off the bed. It was pandemonium. It was worse, it was murder. But my cousin was not to be baulked. She was determined to enter the room. She was prepared, if necessary, to die in the attempt. With an expression of disdain on her pale stony face she would stand there in the doorway, while Evie’s shrieking jaws snapped at her dangling, motionless hands. Resignedly awaiting the opportunity to make herself heard and without so much as a glance at the maddened dog, she would stand there, or even move further forward, pushing against the animal’s snarling mouth, in her own eyes a martyr, in mine an avenging fury. For I knew she had nothing to say, nothing that could not wait; she had another end in view; she desired me to punish my dog. To force this issue she was gambling now with her highest card, her very life; I fancy she never guessed how thoughtfully I considered it. But tremendous courage and resolution are required to watch someone actually torn to pieces before one’s eyes without intervening. As will already have been perceived from these confessions, I do not possess such courage and resolution. Upon this, no doubt, my cousin banked. She knew that I would intervene and the form the intervention would take; between seeing her destroyed and striking my dog I had no other alternative. Words were ineffectual, if heard; I would have to drive Evie off with blows. That was what my cousin willed and that was what I did. Yes, I often struck my faithful dog for her inestimable faithfulness, for performing the duty of guarding my solitude which I wished her to perform, while the cold figure of my cousin stood silently by willing this revenge and viewing my corrections with a jealous inquisitorial eye to see that they were met. And every curse that I gave the sweet creature, every blow that I laid upon her body, was a lie—and from any educative point of view happily a useless one, for Evie’s jealousy was as indestructible as my cousin’s, and the whole scene would be re-enacted, in precisely the same way, the next time my cousin tried it on, even if it were only a few minutes later.

  I hardly remember for how long these two formidable females, the hairy and the hairless one, struggled for my possession. It was certainly more than a year. Naturally it was rather distracting; it was also extremely instructive. I perceived that the intolerable situation from which I had escaped in Johnny’s house was being reproduced in my own, though with a difference. The difference, of course, and it was an undeniable improvement, was that I was now the subject instead of the object of jealousy. Poor Margaret was the latter, and it did not fail to secure for her both my sympathy for her sufferings and my respect for her valor to note that she occupied the odious position I had occupied before. Nor did I omit to pay the final tribute: I saw Megan’s point of view. The treacherous little Welsh runt of a couple of years ago, how could I help now but regard her as a female of heroic stature, as ruthless, uncompromising and incorruptible as Evie? Both were prepared to fight tooth and nail and to the finish to secure to themselves, and to themselves alone, the love of their chosen male. And both of them won. After a time my cousin retired, broken in health, crushed in spirit, leaving Evie in undisputed possession of my life.

  Since then she has set herself to keep everyone else out of it. None of the succession of visiting helps I engaged to supply my cousin’s place stayed longer than a few days; even the sparrows and pigeons that try to perch on my verandah are instantly put to flight; no fly enters and survives; she would know if I stroked another animal on my way home for she smells me all over directly I return and I should suffer from remorse if I hurt her feelings; she cannot actually read my correspondence, but she seizes it all as it falls through the letter-box and tears it to shreds. Advancing age has only intensified her jealousy. I have lost all my old friends, they fear her and look at me with pity or contempt. We live entirely alone. Unless with her I can never go away. I can scarcely call my soul my own. Not that I am complaining, oh no; yet sometimes as we sit and my mind wanders back to the past, to my youthful ambitions and the freedom and independence I used to enjoy, I wonder what in the world has happened to me and how it all came about. . . . But that leads me into deep waters, too deep for fathoming; it leads me into the darkness of my own mind.