Watson’s Apology

by Beryl Bainbridge

  She said, ‘I hope I am punctual, Mr Watson.’

  ‘It has been a long time,’ he replied.

  She withdrew her hand and began to pull off her gloves. Though he himself never wore anything but black – he believed it made him look thinner than he was – he thought it an unbecoming colour on a woman. When last he had seen her she had worn a bright dress of some shade of pink or lilac. He wondered if she was in mourning for someone. It would explain why she had taken so long to reply to his note.

  ‘It isn’t snowing yet,’ she said.

  ‘Such a very long time,’ he repeated.

  She had rehearsed how she would put him at his ease and draw him out in conversation. She would use Mrs Quin as a go-between, discussing people they might know in common and then proceed to more weighty topics, such as Mr Peel’s Commission of Enquiry into Land Tenure, and the lamentable fact that men of merit had to go to England to be appreciated. Her dialogue would be informed but lively. Somewhere she would bring in one of Dean Swift’s witty rejoinders. She would seem at first womanly, and then better than a woman. On no account would she fall back on the weather. However, there was no sign of Mrs Quin, or Mr Quin for that matter, and alone with J.S. Watson, who was so much older than expected – he was actually older than herself, or appeared so – it was she who felt awkward. He had not asked her to sit down and they remained standing in the middle of the room. ‘We are fortunate it isn’t snowing,’ she heard herself saying, as though they were on a hillside and in danger of dying from exposure.

  He didn’t reply. They had never had a conversation before. When he had played draughts with her she had spent her time looking out of the window. After she had beaten him – he was hardly concentrating – he had thanked her and she had merely nodded. He had known her for a short while in life, and for a longer time in dreams, and now that she was here, in Quin’s front room, he could see no difference in her.

  ‘Perhaps it will hold off for a few more days –’ she began.

  ‘If I had written to you years ago,’ he interrupted, ‘would you have replied then?’

  ‘Ah,’ she sighed, and she backed away from him and, finding the sofa behind her, sank down heavily upon it and mindlessly arranged her gloves on her lap.

  ‘I imagine,’ he persisted, ‘that your existence then was such that you wouldn’t have replied. At least not favourably.’ He paused, and when she didn’t immediately answer, concluded, ‘I have always supposed it to be the case.’

  Still she could not speak. She felt he wanted to hear that her life in the past had been full of promise, that but for adverse circumstances she would be unobtainable. He needed to believe she was a catch. Already he doubted it – she was not what he had expected. How apt had been his use of the word existence. When he had written that he was of humble birth, implying that he was above conceit, he hadn’t been telling the truth. He was like everybody else, herself included: he pretended one thing and desired another. Humble his birth may have been, but in all other respects he was arrogant and ambitious. She did not dare look up lest the dislike she felt for him might show on her face. She couldn’t remember ever having seen him before and yet she found him unbearably changed.

  ‘Five years ago,’ she said at last, ‘I was with the Devany family at Rathmines. Are you acquainted with them?’

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘They are not just people of means,’ she said. ‘Mr Devany is a collector of paintings. The conversation at table was both instructive and amusing.’

  ‘I knew it,’ she thought she heard him say.

  ‘Sometimes as many as thirty people sat down to supper,’ she said. ‘Afterwards we played charades. In Ireland, being an inferior is no bar to mixing in society, on one level at least. The Thwaites and the Guinnesses began as brewers. The Gardiners started in the building trade. Miss Ambrose married a baronet.’

  How dreadful it was, she thought, to be of the same flesh and blood as Olivia. Soon she would begin boasting of her father’s connections, of the number of rooms in the house in Upper Sackville Street, of the size of the gardens at Inchicore.

  ‘I was never excluded from the company,’ she said. ‘And never more dejected or miserable.’

  ‘I, too, have not felt at ease with people,’ he said. ‘When I first began to make my way in the world and became classical master at St Elizabeth’s College in Guernsey, I hadn’t the knack of sparkling in company. Invited to the house of a colleague for supper, I was either so uninterested in what was being said that I went to the bookshelves and read all evening, or else so carried away by the topic under discussion that I monopolised the conversation entirely.’

  ‘I have often sparkled in company,’ Anne said.

  ‘Either way,’ he continued, ‘I was afterwards convinced that I had made a spectacle of myself, and shrank from visiting the house ever again.’

  ‘I was also governess to a child in Cork,’ she said. ‘I did not get on with my employer.’

  ‘It’s often the case,’ Watson cried out. He felt he could tell her anything. He wanted to confide in her all the tribulations and longings he had known in the life he had endured since his separation from her. ‘I never got on with the Revd Mr Davies in Guernsey,’ he admitted. ‘Not for an instant. He was a one-time fellow of St John’s College, Oxford, and so used to comfort and power that he had quite forgotten there was another kind of world. Once, when taking the Upper Class ferociously through Horace of a Monday morning, a pupil –’ He broke off abruptly. He had been about to tell her that a boy of seventeen had urinated out of fright and that Davies had made him sit in his pissed breeches until nightfall. He was suddenly fearful that he was casting himself in the role of an isolated man, a man unable to achieve intimacy. He said, ‘I was friendly with the French master. He came from the same lowly background as myself. We understood each other.’ It was far from the truth. Le Courtois and he had shared a sort of friendship, but it was one formed from necessity rather than compulsion, and had only lasted for the duration of the winter months. When summer came, Le Courtois had spent all his spare time down at the beach, tumbling about like a porpoise in the icy water and expecting him to be ready with a towel. ‘I cannot believe,’ he said, ‘that you have ever lacked friends. When I knew you at Mrs Curran’s you were always the centre of attention.’

  She was careful not to look at him. ‘Do you remember Mrs Strafford?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I do not.’

  ‘Mrs Strafford and the Miss Hannahans were almost inseparable. Sometimes they came with Dr Ormonde and Mr Roche.’

  ‘The names mean nothing to me,’ he said.

  ‘Dr Ormonde wore green slippers in the drawing-room.’

  ‘I remember no one but you,’ said Watson.

  At that moment Quin came downstairs, and shortly afterwards his mother arrived. Mrs Quin couldn’t tell whether things were going well or not. Watson was standing behind the sofa, staring at the back of Miss Armstrong’s bonnet. It was difficult to interpret his expression – he was either engaged by her or infuriated with her. Miss Armstrong was perched on the edge of her cushion like an overfed sparrow. In many respects both she and Mr Watson looked as if they had just returned from a funeral.

  Miss Armstrong seemed at first shy, and then less so. She ate most of the bread and butter the girl brought in at tea-time. Mrs Quin began by thinking she was plain, and later thought she was handsome. When spoken to she had a way of inclining her head as though she was listening to music. Mrs Quin didn’t quite catch the drift of the story she told about Dean Swift, but her son was so amused by it that he shook with laughter.

  Mr Watson hardly opened his mouth, except to drink his tea. How opposite they are, thought Mrs Quin. They will never mix.

  Then, in answer to her inquiry, Quin told Miss Armstrong that his wife was at present staying with a relation in Tuam.

  ‘Tuam,’ she cried, pressing her hand to her heart in a spectacular manner, as though she had been stabbed. R
ecovering, she said that it was in Tuam that intimations of her father’s ruin had been confirmed. ‘I was but a child,’ she said. ‘Yet it distresses me to talk of it.’ In spite of this, she proceeded to do so in some detail.

  ‘In the summer of 1814,’ she told them, ‘the Banking House of Ffrench and company failed. The news first broke in Dublin. At a quarter to three on the afternoon of the 27th June the Bank closed its doors to business. Rumours of impending collapse had already circulated and a crowd had gathered. A small window with iron bars was opened for the admission of notes, and a notice was posted up on the wall outside – “Bills accepted, but none paid”. Would you believe they could do such an inflammatory thing? It was like trying to prevent people travelling up a private path by writing a sign saying, “No way, this way”. Stones were thrown and the police had to be called. Two of the partners in the firm left by a back door and hid in the bedroom of a nephew who was simple-minded.’ She paused dramatically. Far from being distressed, she appeared elated. Her dark eyes were luminous with excitement.

  ‘What a calamity,’ said Mrs Quin, though she was finding it difficult to follow the point of the story.

  ‘My father,’ said Miss Armstrong, ‘was land agent to Lord Strahan, among others. He stood to lose his entire fortune. At that time we lived in Sackville Street, and at Inchicore House in the Phoenix Park –’ Her voice faltered momentarily.

  ‘I know it,’ said Mrs Quin. ‘It’s much run down.’

  ‘There was another branch of the Bank in Tuam,’ Miss Armstrong continued – she seemed determined to hold nothing back – ‘and a Discount Office in Galway. My father, poor soul, unable to receive any satisfaction in Dublin and out of his mind with anxiety, went immediately to Tuam. There the manager, Mr Keary, scrambled out of a window at the rear of the premises, spraining his ankle in the process, and escaped on horseback. He was pursued on foot by creditors, and later gave himself up to the Sheriff, preferring to be locked away rather than torn limb from limb. My father lost all his money. Every penny. He never got back even a farthing in the pound.’ All the while she spoke she was looking over her shoulder at Mr Watson. ‘For a time we stayed on in the house,’ she told him, ‘but it was never the same. How could it be? You cannot imagine the way it was, the parties, the excursions, the company at supper. Often as a child I was woken in the small hours by the noise of laughter. Such excitement in the house, such sounds of life. Sometimes I crept to the head of the stairs and watched them tumbling from the dining-room: Henry Boxer in his nightcap, bringing out the coats and the scarves and my father running backwards to the door, finger held to his lips for silence for fear my mother should wake. There was a plaster eagle in the alcove. In the lamplight its wings seemed to quiver. I used to think it would fly.’ She was still talking directly to Watson, as though there was no one in the room but themselves. ‘And then out would come Mr Cooley,’ she cried, ‘the old militia man from Ballyraheen who had piped a tune of death up the slopes of Vinegar Hill, supported at either elbow, hands clutching the waistband of his breeches as tilted like a lance he was skimmed across the polished floor.’ For a moment she continued to gaze at Watson animatedly, and then, as though she heard a door close on those departing guests, her face grew melancholy. Turning to Mrs Quin, she said, ‘The bailiffs came in their bowler hats and their leather aprons. They took away the furniture and the plate. All that was left was Mother’s chair, and the bed on which Henry Boxer had slept.’

  Mrs Quin could think of nothing adequate to say. It was most unusual, she thought, even in Ireland, to lay one’s past on the rug for strangers to walk over.

  ‘Lord Ffrench,’ Anne said, ‘later took his own life.’

  ‘And so he should have,’ said Watson. He came and stood in front of her, kicking over the cup and saucer which she had put down on the carpet.

  Mrs Quin felt it was an extraordinary pronouncement, coming from a man in holy orders.

  ‘He would certainly never have been able to sleep easy in his bed,’ said Quin. ‘Not after such a disaster.’

  ‘I sleep in a second-hand bed,’ Anne told him. ‘It belonged to a servant.’

  ‘What lives we lead,’ murmured Mr Watson. ‘There seems little order or pattern to our existence.’

  How alike they are, thought Mrs Quin. They are made for each other.

  Mr Watson, without explanation, began to tell them about some children who had gone poaching in Kent. He said that if they had been caught they would have been sent to the hulks. When they had heard the gamekeeper coming they had run away. As they ran the twigs snapped beneath their feet and the noise echoed through the trees like the sound of musket fire.

  Mrs Quin noticed he was standing on the handle of Miss Armstrong’s teaspoon. As he swayed backwards and forwards, the spoon jerked up and down.

  ‘One of the boys,’ Mr Watson said, ‘was calling for his mother. When they broke from the copse into the mustard field, smoke from the papermill was drifting across the sky.’ He raised his hand and waved it languidly in the air, imitating that floating cloud, and looked down at Miss Armstrong’s upturned face. ‘The boy continued to call for his mother,’ he said. ‘Over and over as he ran across the field.’

  After a moment, Anne said, ‘Poor little boy.’

  ‘Was he a pupil of yours?’ asked Mrs Quin.

  But Watson didn’t reply. As far as he was concerned there was no one there save Anne Armstrong and himself. It had grown dark and he could see the firelight reflected in her eyes.

  Ever since last night, when he had first remembered that August afternoon so long ago, he had been bothered by the feeling that he had forgotten something, something of significance. Now he understood what it was. It wasn’t the bully boy running ahead of him, blubbing for his mother, or the bird choking to death in the undergrowth that had caused the incident to rise from the layers of his mind, but an old, unaltered sense of loss. The fat child he had once been, who had run behind those others, the tears coursing down his cheeks, had wept not from terror but from grief. There was no one called Mother waiting for him beyond the five-barred gate. He had told his schoolfriends that she was dead, but it wasn’t true. She lived in Crayford, in a cottage by the church. She had given him away.

  Anne Armstrong’s words, the juxtaposition of poor and little, affected him so deeply that it was only an act of will that prevented him from sinking on to his knees at her feet and resting his head on her lap.

  The following morning, at breakfast, Watson asked Quin his opinion of Miss Armstrong. The question was a formality – he had already come to a decision.

  ‘She is very lively,’ said Quin. ‘You will not be bored. Nor is she secretive.’

  ‘She is used to hardship,’ Watson said. ‘She will not shrink from adversity.’

  ‘No,’ said Quin. ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘And her eyes,’ cried Watson. ‘Did you ever see such eyes? How they shone! Her whole nature is contained in the brightness of her eyes.’

  ‘They are certainly very fine,’ said Quin thoughtfully. It was his experience that a sparkling eye couldn’t be relied upon. Far too often it was extinguished in the darkness of day-to-day living. Still, he was pleased that Watson was showing signs of happiness. He had never before seen him moved by anything that did not come from inside a book.

  That afternoon Watson called on Anne in Great Britain Street. He proposed to her in Mrs Gallagher’s back parlour and she accepted him without hesitation. She had always behaved impulsively, and in any case it was plain that he intended to return to England within the week. This was not the time to shilly-shally.

  He asked her whether there was someone he ought to speak to, in regard to the marriage arrangements.

  ‘There is no one,’ she said. ‘That is, no one whom I respect. I live with an elder sister, but she hardly needs consulting.’

  He looked surprised. ‘I knew of an aunt,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know you had a sister.’

  ‘If I’ve not spoken of her b
efore,’ said Anne, ‘it’s because I’ve never felt she counted.’

  ‘I understand,’ he said.

  ‘By that I mean she isn’t dependent on me.’

  ‘You don’t have to explain,’ he assured her. ‘My own experience, in that field, has been unsatisfactory.’ He told her he had been taken from his mother as an infant, tucked Moses-fashion into a wicker basket. His grandfather’s assistant had fetched him away in a pony and trap along the road which led to Dartford. On the journey he had apparently screamed with fright; the assistant had lent him his knuckle to suck on. At this moment, looking at Anne Armstrong and observing the concern in her eyes, it occurred to him that all his life he had been searching for the road back. He spoke of the paternal grandfather who had brought him up – he had been a bookseller in Dartford. ‘When he died,’ he said, ‘he left me three hundred guineas.’

  ‘Hardly a fortune,’ she said, and he was a little irritated, because he had always felt that it was a substantial sum of money.

  ‘No,’ he agreed, ‘but without it I shouldn’t have attended Trinity College.’

  ‘I received nothing,’ said Anne.

  ‘He also left me some books,’ Watson said. ‘A few of them were of more than general interest.’

  ‘There was nothing to leave,’ she said. ‘Apart from the chair.’

  ‘And a collection of horse-pistols,’ said Watson. ‘I have a curious affection for them. He bought them as a young man.’

  ‘I have an oyster shell,’ she said. ‘My sister persists in thinking it was given to her, but she’s mistaken. My father picked it up off a beach and gave it to me one Easter Sunday. I remember because I had been ill with bronchitis and was temporarily deaf, and he told me to hold it to my ear and listen to the sound of the sea.’

  ‘An oyster shell is flat,’ said Watson.

  ‘All the same,’ Anne said, ‘I heard the sea.’