Keeping the World Away

by Margaret Forster

  Maud listened (she had little alternative, since Charlotte was standing with her back against the door). When the plan had been explained to her, in all its glorious simplicity, she only said, ‘Why? Why should you give me your room?’ ‘Because I want to sleep in the attic,’ Charlotte said, ‘and Mother would never agree.’ ‘Why?’ Maud said again. ‘I just want to,’ Charlotte repeated. She was not going to waste time trying to make stupid Maud see the attraction of the attic. ‘Do not argue,’ she said, and said it so forcibly that Maud hung her head and agreed.

  *

  She took a candle up with her, but there was one already there, beside the bed. Maud had been taken up to the attic after dinner – she had dined with the younger children but had been allowed to stay up another hour – by her mother, and left with instructions to be a good girl and not fuss. It was eight o’clock, and still light. All the adults were now dining and would be safely in the dining room for at least two more hours. Charlotte waited another half-hour, and then went up to the attic, wearing her nightdress and carrying her book. Maud was out of the room instantly – Charlotte hardly had time to remind her to be quiet, and to burrow down under the bedclothes when she got to Charlotte’s bed and on no account say a word should anyone look in to say goodnight. She was to feign sleep if she was awake and not be tempted to risk replying.

  The swap was achieved smoothly. Charlotte smiled with contentment. There was no lock on the door, but she wedged her slippers underneath, making it more difficult to open, though she doubted that anyone, least of all Clara, would check up on Maud. So here she was, alone in this bare room, able to think without the distraction of furniture or belongings. It was like being in a nunnery. She had thought, once, of becoming a nun, but she had been unable to stand the thought of all the praying and the restrictions on conversation and, possibly, reading what she wanted to read. Privacy and independence would have to be gained some other way. Instead she had decided to become an artist. Her father had said he might consider letting her apply to study at the Slade School of Art, a notion her mother would label outlandish, and therefore not a word must be said to her as yet. It was a secret between them, one Charlotte clung on to desperately. There was another secret too. Her father had promised to take her on a tour to Paris and then to Florence and Rome, to see the art treasures. Her mother was not interested in art, and would not want to go with him, and Caroline, who was, had eloped and therefore missed her chance. Charlotte was to be the lucky one, but not yet.

  She could see herself so clearly as an artist. She could wear whatever she wished and no one would remark upon it because artists were expected, were they not, to look a little peculiar. She would, of course, have to live in a garret, but she would not mind. It was true that she had never been in a garret – it was, she thought, different from a mere attic, though she could not have said in what way – but that did not matter. Whatever it was like, she would accept it, however cold and dismal, because she would be entirely wrapped up in her art. All day long she would draw and paint, and only her father would be allowed to visit her. How she would go about selling her paintings she was not at all sure but a true artist did not care about money. Being without money would be exciting. She had once unwisely said this aloud, to her mother, but in the hearing of Jessie, and had been more bothered by the look of contempt on their housekeeper’s face than her mother’s furious order not to be so stupid. She had rephrased the remark: being without money would be challenging. Exactly what would be challenged she had not stopped to think.

  She did not put the maid’s shift on but stayed in her own nightdress after all. It was a plain garment, modest and worn enough really to have been a maid’s. Charlotte hated new clothes and had clung on to this old thing in spite of being given new ones. It felt comfortable, and she did not mind the tear in the hem or the missing ribbon which had once slotted through the holes in the neck. She got into bed, and pulled the bedclothes up to her chin and blew out the candle. It was dark now, and there was no moon. Staring upwards, she could only just make out the rim of the window in the ceiling and within it a blackness different in depth from the darkness in the room. It must be cloudy because not only was there no moon but no stars either. Maud would have been frightened. It pleased Charlotte that she was not in the least frightened but was excited instead. She had got what she wanted, a night alone in a strange, empty room. She wanted now to feel herself change, become another person, turn into the artist she was going to be. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on emptying her mind of trivia, but to her annoyance the trivia would not budge. Her head was full of the ridiculous wedding the next day, it raced away with visions of the whole charade in the church and then it was on to the feast and galloping towards the farewells to the bride and groom. Then afterwards. The trivia here was grotesque. She saw Priscilla in the hotel bedroom and pictured what would happen to her. She had read the books and knew. The library held books her father appeared to have forgotten she would have access to and which her mother would have burned if she knew of their existence. Charlotte knew. She had the anatomical detail correct even though it appalled her and she could not understand how what happened could be endured.

  ‘This will not do,’ she said out loud, sitting up in bed. She did not want to think of Priscilla or her wedding. She wanted to think about herself and art, and what she was on this earth for, and the meaning of life and other important, frightening questions. The purity of this small room was meant to help her. She had thought its bareness and simplicity would strip her mind of inconsequential clutter, that the room itself would have some sort of power. But again, Pricilla came into her thoughts. Priscilla was to live near Oxford, in the country, in what had been described as an attractive manor house. Charlotte had asked her what that meant. What exactly was a manor house? What was attractive about it? Priscilla did not know. She had not seen it. Charlotte could not believe it when her sister said, ‘What does it matter what it looks like? I am sure it will be very nice.’ Not to care what one’s house looked like! Not to mind what its rooms were like! Whereas to Charlotte the power of place was everything (further proof, if she had needed it, of her artistic temperament). She felt ill in ugly rooms and could be rendered speechless by a room’s furniture. All her dreams of the future were set in empty rooms, attic rooms full of light with magnificent views, rooms with only a bed, a desk, a chair in them. She had never yet in all her existence seen such a room.

  She lay down again. The trouble with her mind was that it jumped about so and would not be disciplined. This was maddening but also fascinating – why and how were the leaps and jumps made? She could not keep track of them or account for them. She looked at other people and thought how extraordinary it was that something as thin as the skin of a face could hide as magnificently mysterious an organ as the brain. ‘Let me look into your brain,’ she wanted to say to people, and knew it would never be possible. She visualised her own brain as a series of tiny, tiny boxes and drawers constantly being opened and shut. But how did what was in one compartment get into another? That was the puzzle. Such an aggravating puzzle that she was exhausted grappling with it and fell asleep, a frown on her face, long before she wanted to.

  *

  Sir Edward was the last to go to bed. He sat in the library until three in the morning, worrying. The amount he had drunk ought to have taken the edge off his worries but it did not. Through a haze of his own making problems loomed none the less large. And he felt sad. A man, on the eve of his daughter’s wedding, was perhaps entitled to be sad, in a sentimental sort of way, but his was not that sort of sadness. ‘I am sad, Papa,’ Charlotte sometimes used to say, ‘and I do not know why, there is no reason.’ Well, he had reasons. Hettie, for one. She would never bar him from her bedroom (that would be against her understanding of a wife’s duty), but he no longer wished to go there. That was sad. It was also not true. He did wish to go there, but afterwards regretted his visits and what happened during them. At the time, there was a certain sor
t of pleasure but it was not the sort he wanted. He wanted Hettie to love him as he loved her. Another lie. He did not love her, and she did not love him. They were ill-suited. Faithful to each other – and God knew, it would have been easy enough for him to be unfaithful without Hettie ever knowing – but sharing no interests except the children.

  Ah, the children. Slumped in his chair, Sir Edward reviewed them in his mind and the weight of worry increased. The children were Hettie’s business. She’d made them her business from the beginning, expecting little from him in the way of participation in their upbringing. He was there to pay for them and that was about all. There was Priscilla, only eighteen and about to be married to the most boring young man in England. He hardly knew her. She was pretty, he liked to be seen with her on his arm, and he liked painting her. Caroline he’d known better: a wild card, Caroline, a redhead, high-spirited, pretty too, but it had turned out he had not had the foggiest idea what made her tick – the shock when she ran off! And now where was she, with his grandson? They did not know. He had nightmares in which Caroline was wandering the streets, begging for food, dressed in rags, her baby howling, clasped to her breast …

  The boys were young. They were at school, out of harm’s way, doing well, according to their reports. He did not worry so much about them. Which left Charlotte. ‘The cuckoo in the nest’, he had heard an unkind aunt remark when Charlotte was about seven. Dark, where the others were fair; very tall, when her sisters were average height; short-sighted, when no one else in the family needed spectacles; and clever, so clever. He’d taught her himself after she’d run rings round the governesses who had been perfectly adequate for her sisters. He had wanted to send her to that place in Harley Street, an excellent establishment (or so he had heard) for educating young women, but Hettie would not hear of it. She claimed that Charlotte would only be encouraged in her oddness there. He had not yet dared to mention the Slade. He was not sure himself if to send Charlotte there would be the right decision. She had some talent, but her vision of herself as an artist was perhaps romantic rather than realistic. But he was proud of his youngest daughter’s ability, he didn’t want her to be stifled at home learning all those dreary accomplishments her mother set so much store by. Who said men only wanted their daughters to be dutiful and look pretty? He had high hopes for Charlotte and did not care who knew it. He would champion her whatever she wanted to do.

  Sighing, he heaved himself out of his chair and made his way to bed. Life would be hard for Charlotte. Hettie was right. To be so very clever and so very plain and so very odd was not a recipe for a happy life if you were a woman. He could see already that people did not take to Charlotte. He feared that in the future few men would look past the unattractive exterior – he was not blind – and see the sensitive, original, deep-thinking girl he knew, one who, to him, was so full of interest. He would rather talk to Charlotte than anyone he knew. She constantly surprised him with her insight into areas of knowledge he had barely thought about, pondering problems he was ashamed not to have considered in his whole life. What would happen to such a girl? He found himself groaning aloud as he climbed the stairs.

  *

  Priscilla did not know how to repack her valise. Charlotte had always packed her things, wherever she was going and, though she had watched, and tried to pay attention, she had learned nothing. There had never been any need to learn how to do such a mundane job when, if Charlotte was not to hand, ever eager and willing, there were maids available. But at the Hôtel Crillon the maid she had asked for did not come and she had brought no maid of her own – ‘Quite unnecessary,’ her husband-to-be had said, in the excellent and expensive hotels in which they would be staying. So Priscilla sat on the bed, trying not to catch sight of the appalling stain on the sheets, and wondered what she should do. But her new husband was impatient. The cab to take them to the station was ordered for two o’clock and they must be ready, there was no time to await the elusive maid. Feeling dizzy – she had hardly slept, and had wept surreptitiously a good deal – Priscilla began shoving clothes into the valise any old how. ‘Take the old labels off,’ Robert instructed her, ‘and put this new one on, firmly.’ Priscilla stared at him as though he had asked her to do something requiring Herculean strength. Robert ripped the old labels off himself. Quickly, he scribbled their next destination on new labels, and handed them to his wife. He knew he should be tolerant, but he was finding it hard, and he, too, had no servant with him. A gentleman could travel without one these days, and he always had an eye on expense.

  He left the bedroom and went to complain in person about the maid’s not appearing. Priscilla could not get the lid of her valise closed. In tears, she pushed and pushed, and tried to sit on the lid, but it was no good. Something would have to come out. She pulled out her nightdress (hateful garment it suddenly seemed, and now torn) and thrust it down to the bottom of the rumpled bedclothes. Extracting it made little difference. Her bed jacket would have to be sacrificed too, and her robe, which grieved her – it was very pretty, embroidered with pink rosebuds – but she would get Robert to buy her a new one in Nice. With difficulty, she could now push down the lid. At that moment, a bellboy came to collect the luggage and she thrust the valise at him, glad to be rid of it.

  The maid, finally arriving, found the new labels lying on the bed. She was far more interested in the beautiful robe and bed jacket, and wondered how she could smuggle them out of the hotel. Perhaps she would hand in one of them, together with the nightdress she later rescued.

  *

  A month later, when he had returned from his far from satisfactory honeymoon (if only he’d known Priscilla), Robert Charlesworth launched a determined investigation into how his wife’s valise could just have disappeared. Since Priscilla had never confessed that she had not attached the clearly written labels he had given her – she was already afraid of his temper – he was at a distinct disadvantage and was soon aware of this. The manager of the Hôtel Crillon was emphatic: the bellboy had collected the Charlesworths’ luggage and the porter had taken it to the waiting cab. Had Mr Charlesworth counted the pieces put into the cab before departure? No? It was not his job? It was not the job of the porter either. Perhaps the missing valise had gone in another cab, or to the wrong station? With respect, profound respect, Mr Charlesworth should make enquiries elsewhere.

  But ‘elsewhere’ was a hopeless place. He was asked, by all he contacted, to describe the valise in precise terms. Priscilla could not. It was brown, she thought, but more of a yellow; it was square, or maybe more oblong in shape; it had two brass locks, or maybe three, or maybe four. Charlotte came to her aid in the end, giving an absolutely accurate description and remembering, as indeed Lady Falconer did, that it had been purchased at Harrod’s. Harrod’s were pleased to supply a catalogue, in which there was a photograph of the said valise, and this was sent off to the police in Paris (who, naturally, were not in the least interested). Then someone suggested that the valise might somehow have been sent back to Victoria Station, mixed up with someone else’s luggage. Robert promptly charged off to Victoria’s Lost Property office, picture of the valise in hand (though why he should go to so much trouble no one could understand, least of all Priscilla).

  He was aware, when he took it, that the valise he had claimed as his wife’s might very well not be hers. Harrod’s had sold a great many of these things and besides the one offered for his inspection looked far more battered than Priscilla’s had any right to be. He had been asked if he could identify any belongings inside (it had been forced open) and thought the nightdress on top was his wife’s (it was white, wasn’t it, with lace at the neck?). He signed a chit, and took the valise not immediately to Priscilla in Oxfordshire but to her family home in London. He asked Lady Falconer and Charlotte to examine it before he restored it to its owner. ‘It is the same sort of valise but much more used,’ Charlotte said, ‘anyone can see that, but it is what is inside that will prove it is not Priscilla’s.’ As soon as it was opene
d, she flung the nightdress on the top aside – ‘That is not Priscilla’s,’ she declared, and, after a quick rummage through, ‘nothing here is Priscilla’s. It is not her valise.’

  Robert refused to take it back to Victoria Station. Lady Falconer was rather taken aback at the vehemence of his refusal – ‘But it is dishonest, Robert, to keep someone else’s property.’ ‘Someone has kept my wife’s,’ Robert said, to which Charlotte riposted, ‘That is illogical. There may be clues somewhere,’ she went on, ‘as to whose it is. We should search for them – think how grateful the owner might be.’ Lady Falconer thought rifling through another person’s belongings most distasteful, but Sir Edward, when brought into the frame, said Charlotte’s idea was sensible. It was agreed that he would stand by while his daughter did the detective work and that if no identification proved possible he would see that the valise was returned to Victoria Station’s Lost Property department.

  Charlotte was thrilled. The mysterious piece of luggage was placed on the morning-room table and, watched by her amused father, she began. Carefully, almost respectfully, she took out item after item and laid them beside the case. The clothes were not in the least like Priscilla’s trousseau. They were plain, though of good materials, and the colours were strong – deep blues, vivid greens, and a great deal of bright red. Charlotte was forming an image of their owner as she unpacked. Someone, she speculated, who was artistic, who had a love of colour and knew how to match it. Someone who walked wherever she went (three pairs of almost workmanlike boots and only one pair of light shoes). Knowing the structure of this particular valise as she did, from packing Priscilla’s so recently, she saved the compartment in the lid until the last. ‘Now, here,’ she said to her father, smiling, ‘is where we might expect to find a letter or a book with a name in, or some such.’