“It’s new to me, too,” she said. “I think I’m gauging everybody.”
“Me, too,” he murmured.
She waited a little, then reached over and put her hand on top of his hand. They lay like that for a few quiet moments, and finally she took her hand away.
That Sunday, while the others were outside by the pool, she sat in the living room and made the call home. She spoke to her mother, and found that she couldn’t say the words right away. Doris asked how she was, then talked about Peggy, the doctors said she was fine for getting pregnant again when she wanted to. Her spirits were good. She and Scott were indeed going to try again soon. Lily said she was happy to hear it, then took a breath and got it out. It came out baldly, and felt heartless.
Her mother was silent on the other end. She took an audible breath. Then: “Are you happy about it, darling?”
“Yes. I’m ecstatic about it.” She saw Tyler fidgeting on the couch, biting the cuticle of his thumbnail and looking off into space. He rose, finally, held his hands out, palms up, as if to ask if she needed him to say something. She waved him away, and blew a kiss.
Doris said, “I’m thrilled for you, sweetie. I’m out of breath.”
Lily thought she heard tears in Doris’s voice. She thought of her living alone in that house with its rooms that were being repainted and redecorated, her husband married to someone else, planning another family, her daughter pregnant now, too. How terrible if happiness were available only at the cost of it to others. She said, “I’m pretty breathless, too.”
When her mother spoke again, the strength had returned to her voice. “You’ve called your father, right? You absolutely have to do that, you know.”
“I’m worried about Peggy. I don’t want to get Peggy on the phone.”
“Do you want me to tell him to call you?”
So her mother had understood. “Could you?”
“I’ll call him right now. I know he’s home because I just spoke to him. Stay by the phone—if for some reason I don’t get him, I’ll call you back.”
After her mother broke the connection, Lily went to the sliding glass doors that opened onto the pool and looked out. Tyler was sitting in one of the canvas chairs, hands folded in his lap, gazing off at the distant sparkle of the river, the moving gleam of the highway overpass. It was a bright, hot, still day. The others were ranged in various parts of the pool, tossing a foam football back and forth.
The phone rang, and she jumped. She walked over and answered it. Her father said, “Doris tells us you have news?”
She said the words, a deadpan statement of fact, emotionless as the recital of a street address. She heard it, and couldn’t alter it, or muster any lightness of tone. Her father already knew. It was in the way he said how happy he was to hear it, and she sensed, too, that his joy for her was rehearsed—that at heart he was a little taken aback. He had most likely been warned off expressing any kind of surprise. She said, “Thanks, Daddy,” though she hadn’t quite heard the last of what he said.
“Anyway,” he continued, “so Peggy’d like to say hello.”
She waited. Her abdomen seized up, a cramp.
“Hello, Lily?” Peggy’s voice. “Congratulations.” It was full of unfelt brightness, a striving for affectionate cheer.
“Thanks,” Lily said. “I—I know you’ll be calling us soon—” She couldn’t get the rest of it out.
“It’s such good news. I’m very happy for you.”
“Thanks. Thank you so much.” She had to work to keep the stress she felt out of her voice.
“Well, here’s your father,” Peggy said.
Scott came back on the line and was enthusiastic again, repeating his congratulations and telling her to take care of herself, and give Tyler his best. Lily said she would.
When they had broken the connection, she turned to see that Tyler had come in. “It’s too hot out there if you’re not swimming.”
“That was harder than I thought it would be,” she said to him. “I should’ve had you call them for me.” She smiled. “After all, this is your doing.”
He took a step toward her, and then seemed to hesitate. Something changed in his eyes, like the memory of something dark. He said, “My stomach still hurts.” He put his arms around her.
When she kissed his neck, his breathing quickened; he shuddered. She leaned back to look into his eyes, and felt a little shiver of alarm at the strange blankness in his face. For an instant it was as though she were staring into the cold, lifeless eyes of a statue. But then his expression relaxed into a smile, and he shook his head. “I know it’s just nerves,” he said. “But my stomach is in knots right now.”
TWELVE
1
May 20, 1880
Dear Friend—
Yesterday I earned my father’s displeasure again, quite by my own will, I’m afraid. I have hidden away a copy of Locklar’s Physics, because I haven’t finished with it, and I heard Father promise it to Bishop Mayhew on the morrow. Well, it is to be a morrow several morrows hence, by my lights. Father raged, and threw the Geography of Antarctica at me, which I managed to duck. He chased me out the door of this house, but Bexley Heath is not Highgate, and, skirts and all, I easily outdistanced him. What a wonderful wide lawn is this! Perfect for racing and leaving angry oaths in the far distance. I wandered for an hour through the graveyard, while the sun sailed toward the horizon and the trees became a darker green. You will be happy to know that I have a new friend, for which I thank providence we dragged ourselves to the country. His name is C. F. Varley, an electrical engineer. He comes to see me in the afternoons, and we talk about what he has given me to read. We met in an unusual way: Charley and I were in the town together, to purchase some flour, and I saw some men I knew to be chemists, and I decided to try my knowledge with them. I entered their conversation, told them of my interest, and when asked to go on, espoused something which made them laugh.
—And are you able to produce gold yet? one of them said.
I went out and stood crying in the street, furious with myself, and furious with Charley, who refused to stop badgering me about it all. And C. F. Varley walked up to me, kindly and calm, and introduced himself. When it became clear, through Charley, not me, what had happened, he averred that he was a friend of Father, and that he would gladly teach me what he knows about chemistry.
I don’t know what he says to Father about me. But in this latest instance involving the Locklar’s Physics, he walked over from his cottage while I was camping out among the gravestones. There I was reading the dates, marking the lives long and short, and he came to within twelve feet of me before I saw him, and it took all I had to keep my startlement from showing.
—What have we here? he said.
—We have a diplomatic vigil, said I. A wait for the storm clouds to pass.
—Be these fatherly storm clouds?
—Of a kind, I said.
—Explain.
—A conflict of wills over a book, sir.
—Then are we to put off our talk?
There is such humor in his face: a round, whiskered red face with big bushy gray eyebrows and a wonderfully wide forehead.
—We could talk here, I told him.
—In a graveyard?
—No one will interrupt us, I said.
—True. But academic.
—Nevertheless, I said.
—You’re determined.
—The word comes close.
—Aye, he said. And would there be repercussions concerning the master of your house?
—There might be, I said. In truth, sir.
—Thank you for your honesty, he said. I believe I’ll delay our visit if you don’t mind.
—I understand completely, sir, I said.
And I watched him walk away, shaking his head and chuckling to himself. I watched him for a good long time, since there were no buildings or fences for him to disappear behind, and when he got to the far side of the field, he turned, a wo
nderfully crooked old shape there in the descending darkness, in the fading shade of those tall trees, and waved to me.
The move from Highgate was for Mother’s health, and seems to have had an effect. Though this house is full of what I can only call mistakes in construction—doors hung all wrong, lintels faltering as if under too much weight, window frames that don’t fit the spaces, breezy as open doors, the whole house drafty as a barn; and the plumbing is perversely unpredictable. I have been forced to take things in hand. I have been allowed to receive regularly by post a copy of The English Mechanic, which I am putting to good use. Varley has helped a little, and there is, of course, the spur of his appreciation: I am unused to that sort of encouragement, though I must say Mother and Father did purchase The Pursuit of Knowledge Under Difficulties for me, a gift whose application seems to have put me at a strange remove from them, at least by turns.
In any event, I fixed the pump, which at first coughed up copper-stained sludge, and then receded into a stubborn refusal to yield even that, coughing like an old, old horse whenever I worked the handle and belching nothing but earth-smelling air. I supposed the well to be empty, but I fixed it; it took me all of an afternoon. Me. I wrestled with it until it blessed me, and there was a surfeit of water, clear and cold and wonderfully free of secondary flavors. I had the use of the Mechanic as an assistant. Instructions not terribly well written but clear enough. I fixed it, and when Father saw that I had fixed it he stood up tall and looked at me with new eyes, a grudgingly proud man. He began to talk of my getting about more, out in the world. I’m to leave for a holiday in Wales, with Cousin Rose, in less than a week. There is even talk of a brief foray to Paris. How I would love to be on the waters of the channel, on my way to the Eternal City!
But all of this is in jeopardy, of course, now that we have run upon these rough waters regarding the Physics.
I stayed out in the air, in the cemetery, for a good hour, walking about and observing the phenomena, and then I ventured back to the entrance of the house. He was seated in the library, still in his waistcoat, and perusing one of the big volumes of natural history he had brought only recently from London. He turned and saw me, and shook his head.
—I suppose you’re proud of yourself.
—No, I said. But I will not bend. And no punishment will make me. I shall not relinquish the book until I have done with it myself. Not for you, not for anyone.
He stared at me for quite a long time, then.
—Do I frighten you at all? he asked.
—Yes, you do, said I.
—When do I frighten you?
—When you yell, and throw things.
—Yet there is no change in your behavior. Why is that?
I had no answer for him, so I simply lifted my shoulders slightly in what I suppose passes in most cultures as a shrug.
—Where do you get it? he said.
—Where do I get what?
—Never mind. Will you please try to hurry yourself with my book?
—I will do that, I said.
That was yesterday. And all day today he has glowered and won’t speak to me, and I haven’t ever let him know how much more I dread that than all his bluster and his noise. I spent the afternoon in Mother’s room, reading to her from the newspapers and wishing I could do something to cause a riot in the house, something to make the silence in his part of the house go away. If only he would have someone over for cigars and brandy; if only he would forget that he’s angry with me. When he speaks to Mother he tells her to communicate with me:
—Tell “the learned one” I would like to have my book before the end of the week if that is at all within her range of expectations and allowances.
He moves by me without so much as a look, and Mother repeats the message exactly as if I have not been standing there all the while. We both have to suppress our laughter.
I am almost finished with the book, and then he can have it, and not until then.
The environs of Bexley Heath are open and rural compared to Highgate, and the tall, surrounding trees make a lovely shade in the summer afternoons. Mary’s father has gone on another journey, and she is the one now who gets the longest letters from him. She understands that he has respect for her, that in some odd way, for all their conflicts and her stubborn refusal to be governed entirely by him, he has learned to favor her. It is true that all the money is spent on Charley’s education; yet there is something unfocused and almost frivolous about Charley, and rather overly delicate, too. Her father has perceived this. It’s even possible that he wants to use her to shake Charley into a deeper concentration on his studies.
Charley is often too much like his uncle Henry. He’s frequently in trouble at school, and can’t seem to spend five minutes together on the same subject. Even so, Mary is only allowed German lessons, to help with her father’s planned study of religious practices and rites among the primitive tribes of the world—he has said on more than one occasion, with exactly the complacent unfocused casualness of Charley’s talk, that it will be definitive. He’s been talking about it for years, and some part of Mary has begun to know, without quite admitting it to herself, that her father’s plans are like Charley’s plans.
She takes the lessons each Friday, and on most Mondays. The instructor, Mr. Meuller, is sometimes called into the city to perform in his other profession, as a taxidermist. His cottage is crowded with animals in a hundred different frozen poses: lions and bears and various equine species, a few sea creatures. Because her father used to quiz her in the language, it comes readily to her, and Mr. Meuller keeps remarking on her quickness of mind.
In the evenings, when not going over the thickets of knowledge about electricity and chemistry with Mr. Varley, she pores over her father’s medical books. She needs much of it for her work upstairs, with her mother, who in the first days after the move from Highgate seemed slightly better, but has taken a turn for the worse. Mary has observed blood in the sputum her mother produces, and this has alarmed her. The sick woman insists it is nothing to worry about unduly; she has produced blood before.
—It’s an irritation of the throat, she says.
Mary looks into her throat and sees white blisters on the back of it—small round sore places. These grow still smaller and heal, and then appear again. Mary wonders if something in the food her mother’s eating produces it, and she works to change the diet—more soups, fewer spices. Since the move to Bexley Heath, they’ve had to depend on another charwoman, Mrs. Craig, who’s a disaster in the kitchen, and so Mary has taught herself to cook, too. She isn’t half bad at it, and her mother compliments her. The blisters in the older woman’s throat disappear and do not come back, but the cough persists, as does the pain in her lower extremities. It hurts to walk. She’s incessantly anxious about her husband’s welfare. She tells Mary that with each journey she expects never to see him again; the world is so dangerous. Mary has begun to read about Africa again, roaming through the work of Mr. Burton, his description of his search for the source of the Nile.
When Charley comes home from school, he expects to be served, too. His sister does so cheerfully, with wonderful efficiency and with humor. The household runs smoothly, with all the work Mary has done on it. She finds comfort in the daily tasks she sets herself, and she learns a kind of concentration that shuts away doubt, or uneasiness. She spends each day in a steady labor to keep order and to advance her own growing knowledge of the world, and her reward for all the hard work is what she calls “little hours” with Mr. Varley. She has begun to realize a talent for friendship with men—especially older men, with whom she feels most at ease. Her night sweats and panics have been put down, tamped into the folds of her dark garments, and tied tightly as the knots in her hair: when she looks into the mirror in the mornings, she sees plain, drawn features, unadorned, and she never looks at her own body anymore. She’s a grown woman and others are beginning to remark on it.
One, a vicar who accompanied her father back from Londo
n one afternoon, looked straight into Mary’s face and spoke about her in the third person to her father.
—This young woman would be striking if she took the least care to adorn herself.
Mary, who had been caring for her mother all day and had come down to see what her father might need, had looked at the vicar and said, quite pleasantly:
—Oh, it’s not nearly as bad as you think, Vicar. For I do speak our mother tongue.
For this, she was rebuked by her father, who demanded that she apologize. She did so, through her teeth, and later she took the opportunity of spilling some tea on the vicar, an act for which she hoped that God (if he was at all as he was mostly supposed by the civilized populations of the world to be) would forgive her.
She tells all of this to Mr. Varley, who laughs.
—Well, he says, still laughing. From the sound of it, you’re a modern lady now, I promise you.
—I’d like to run into the bugger again, Mary says, and then catches herself. Sorry.
He goes deeper into the laugh, coughing.
—No, Mary. Bugger it is. You don’t remember his name?
—I never got ’is name. A vicar.
—Delicious.
—I’m certain I could get the name from Father.
—We’ll just refer to him as the bugger.
They are both laughing now, and are such good company together, Mary and her elderly male friend. How she loves the time with him. The sun seems brighter, the colors of the world more vivid, when she’s with him. He tells her, sputtering and giggling, that he never knew anyone, man or woman, quite like her.
—And tell me, Mary, why is it that you’ve taken to wearing only black? You aren’t in mourning, are you?
—I like black, she tells him. Black favors me. I like my own color in it.
—You’re not slightly funereal, though, as a personality. I don’t believe I’ve ever been with a more delightful creature.
—Well, you must get out and about more.
Hello to the Cannibals Page 25
