“What kind of plans, Miss Brougham?” I murmured, thinking she was dressed very plainly for an heiress. And she spoke plainly too, slowly and distinctly in the way of a schoolmistress, nodding her head for emphasis. “I want to know how best to ameliorate the effects of poverty and disease among the working classes,” she said. “It is shocking, is it not, Mrs. Gibson, that so many babies die before they are a year old? And so many young women turn in desperation from the right path? And so many fit men have no work? And so many families have nowhere to lay their heads at night? And that cholera stalks the streets?”
“Oh, yes! Indeed it is.” I’d heard the men talk, of course, Alfred in particular becoming very heated and angry about iniquities and injustices. And of course it was dreadful to think of all those hundreds of poor people.
“You see, Mrs. Gibson, I am fortunately endowed with more wealth than I need or could possibly spend. I wish to see it put to good use. Wide use. Efficient use.”
“Indeed. And my husband?”
“What better adviser than the author of Miggs’ Tales and Little Amy? And this, too—”
She fished a piece of paper out of her reticule. It was a newspaper article: “Why the Poor Law is an Ass.” It was signed “Alfred Gibson.” I had never seen it before.
“I am sure he would be happy to help.” I looked up and caught his eye across the table. He was next-but-one to Mr. Carlyle, and had succeeded in making him laugh most heartily, so that he banged the table with his fork. The young lady who sat between them was apoplectic with mirth, and Alfred was doing things with a handkerchief and a glass of water that was making her laugh the more.
Miss Brougham’s eye followed mine. I felt disconcerted. “My husband is a great humorist,” I said, “but that does not mean he is not serious at heart.”
“I am aware of that.” Miss Brougham smiled. “He does not need defending.”
My memories of that night are burned into my mind. Not only because it was my first foray into company since Kitty’s birth, but because of what happened afterwards. We did not stay late at the Hemmings’; I was still liable to become tired, and after only a half-hour in the drawing room, we took our leave, with much regret from the assembled company. Miss Brougham extracted a promise from Alfred to come and see her in Albemarle Street, and Mr. Carlyle and Mr. Hunt begged him to join them for lunch at their respective clubs. But while we waited for the carriage, Alfred suddenly became agitated.
“There is something amiss,” he said.
“What do you mean? How do you know?”
“We must get home as soon as possible.”
“Is it Kitty?” My heart was in my mouth. “I should never have left her.”
“I don’t know. I know only that something is wrong.” His face was rigid as iron.
He pushed me into the carriage and told the driver to put on all speed. We rattled crazily through the streets, and I longed to know the reason for his fear, but Alfred was so white-faced that I dared not speak further. As we turned into Channon Street, we saw the front door open, and Grace the kitchen maid standing on lookout. As we drew up, Bessie came running out, pale as paper. Alfred flung open the carriage door and was out in a trice, running past her up the stairs, a man possessed.
“Is it Kitty?” I cried, as I climbed down clumsily, catching my skirt on the carriage steps in my haste and ripping a long piece from the hem. I had to stop and tear it further to free myself, but I was so agitated, and my hands were trembling so much, I could hardly do it.
“No, ma’am,” said Bessie, breathlessly, as she stooped to help me. “It’s not the babby; it’s Miss Alice.”
I have to admit to a moment of blessed relief that it was not my child who was the cause of the alarm, before the immediate renewal of anguish in knowing it was instead my sister. I took Bessie by the arm as we hastened to the door: “What’s happened to her?”
“We don’t know, ma’am. She went all pale and shaking. It’s a seizure, we think. Joe’s run for a doctor. We was looking out for him when you come. We sent a message to Chelsea too.”
I mounted the stairs to Alice’s bedroom. Each step of the two flights felt like the side of a mountain. My heart was nearly bursting as I paused for breath at the top. The door of her room was open. He was sitting on the bedstead with his arms locked around her. Her head was drooping on his breast, her eyes were closed, her face was colorless. I stood by the door, panting. He made no acknowledgment of my presence, but held her as if she were a baby, repeating her name, over and over. Then a great shaking sob came from him, so violent that it went through his entire body, and by necessity through hers: “Oh, my darling girl! Please don’t leave me. I can’t do without you!”
I stood there motionless. I thought I would faint—but whether it was at Alice’s dead pallor or Alfred’s groaning despair, I cannot say. Then there was a commotion downstairs. Footsteps coming up: a greatcoat, a leather bag, a smell of whisky, the doctor trying to attend to Alice, Alfred refusing to let go of his hold on her. And all the time this dull pain, this terrible despair, these words echoing in my head: My darling girl. I can’t do without you!
“Look, man, I must examine her.”
“She is gone. Leave her. You can do nothing for her now.”
“That’s for me to decide, I believe.” The doctor lifted her eyelids and looked at her eyes, holding her wrist—so insubstantial it looked now—and waited. He frowned and shook his head slowly in my direction and I felt a terrible sense of disbelief. Then he took an instrument from his bag and attempted to look in her mouth.
It was too much for Alfred. He thrust the doctor’s hand away in a fury: “Enough, damn it! Leave her alone!”
“Come, sir! This is beyond sense. Not much point in calling a medical man unless you let him do his business. I need to certify the cause of death. I need to be satisfied.”
Alfred did not budge.
The doctor turned to me: “The servants said the fit was sudden, ma’am. Did the young lady have a fever? Did she choke? Did she complain of pain?”
I shook my head. “No, never. She was always well. She was well when we left her.”
“No history of fits, then? I need to be satisfied, or I’ll have to refer the case to the coroner.”
“No, she mustn’t be mauled over.” Alfred’s voice was thick with grief. “You heard what the servants said. It was a seizure. Write that down. Seizure. Seizure. One word, that’s all. I’ll pay you five guineas, ten if you like. Do it, and leave your bill. Is that understood?”
The doctor paused, then, meeting Alfred’s implacable look, said, “I suppose the case seems straightforward enough.” And he turned and went down the stairs. Minutes later I heard the door bang. Alice continued to lie motionless in Alfred’s arms.
I approached the bed tentatively. “You should have let him—”
“What could he say that would make any difference?” He lifted Alice slightly, so her face was close to his. Tears poured down his cheeks, wetting hers in turn, so it looked as though she were crying, too. “Oh, Dodo, she was everything to me.”
How could he say such a thing? To me, his wife? I told myself he could not mean it, that he was so shocked he did not know what he was saying. Yet as I watched him rock her in his arms, I knew he was never more serious in his life. It was as if I were watching a terrible living tableau of all my worst fears. I had to clench my teeth together to stop myself shaking. In desperation, I put my hand out to him. He did not take it; in fact, I doubt he saw it, he was holding her so passionately. After a while he murmured thickly, “Leave me with her. Leave me.”
I had to obey him, although it didn’t seem right. I kept hearing his voice in my head: My darling. I can’t do without you. Bessie and Grace were standing on the stairs, clasping their aprons to their faces. “She’s gone,” I said, forcing my voice out surprisingly loud. “She’s at peace.”
They both nodded, then started to cry. “God bless her, she were such a good young lady,” said Be
ssie, wiping her eyes on her apron. “Always so kind and helpful. I can’t believe it, Mum. I swear to God she were fine until nine o’clock. Then she said she felt faint and we—Grace and me—thought she had caught a fever walking out in the rain yesterday. She said she’d go and lie down, and I said that would be a good idea and I went to see to Kitty—not thinking nothing, Mum.”
“And I goes down to see as Joe had done the boots proper, and to lock up the back door,” said Grace. “And I’d that moment done it and cleaned round the sink and put away the dishes when Bessie comes running, saying Miss Alice has fell off the bed and can’t talk …”
“And I send Joe to the Scotch doctor I knows round the corner—”
“And I gets a boy to take a message to you in Clarendon Terrace—”
“And I goes back to her and tries to get her back on the bed, but she’s a dead weight and I can’t lift her—”
“And I comes up and we both lift her, and try to get her to open her eyes. But she can’t do it. Her eyelids are flickering, like moths. And I says she’s too good for this world; that the Good Lord will take her—”
“Stop! Please stop.”
They stop and look at each other. “It’s not our fault, Mum. We did all we could.”
“Yes, I’m sure you did. You weren’t to know.”
“The master’s taking it bad, isn’t he?” Bessie indicated the sobbing coming through the bedroom door.
“He cannot bear to think of the death of a young person.”
“None of us do, Mum. Although Miss Alice was pretty much grown.”
“Yes, but she was still a child to him.”
“It’s being a writer isn’t it, Mum? That makes him feel things different?”
That must be it, I told myself. “Yes, Bessie, that’s why we shall all need to be very patient with him. Very calm and very quiet. Now go to bed and tomorrow we’ll see what must be done.”
They went up to the attic, crying and whispering. “It’s her sister, though, isn’t it?” I heard Grace say. “I shouldn’t like it if my husband were carrying on like that, writer or no writer.”
I didn’t know what to do. I sat on the stairs for a long time, looking at the jagged tear along the hem of my gown, and trying to put aside all thoughts of anger and envy, to think of the pity of it instead. Alice was dead: she would never see womanhood, or marriage or children. How mean and petty I had been to resent the brief moments of joy that Alfred had given her; the amusements he had afforded her; the glimpses he had given her of how it felt to be loved by a good, true man! And now, as if to serve me right, she was taken from me, and I would never talk with her again, or see her sweet face, or be the recipient of one of her many acts of kindness. I wanted to weep, to beg her forgiveness—but no tears came. In their stead was a kind of numbness, as the image of Alfred holding her tight forced itself upon me, over and over again: My darling girl.
A long time seemed to pass, and I began to wonder what was happening on the other side of the door. I got up and listened. No sound. So I seized the knob noisily and went in. He was on his knees at the bedside and Alice was lying on the bed. He had arranged her pretty silk gown so it spread out each side of her; and he’d loosened her hair and crossed her hands over her breast. He’d made her look exactly like an angel, and my heart nearly burst.
“Oh, Dodo, help me.” He held out his hand. And in the midst of my grief, my spirits rose to think he still needed me, and I went to him more gladly than I can say. His hand felt chill and trembling as he pulled me down next to the bed. We both knelt, side by side, my sister above us, as if we were worshipping her. As I gazed on her innocent, childish form, tears pricked the back of my eyes; and I felt my anguish reaching out and mingling with his. “She was so very young and pure,” he said. “I cannot endure it.” But as I gripped his hand, I felt something in his fingers. It was a lock of her hair, grasped tight.
“We both have to endure it, Alfred. It’s hard for me, too. After all, I hardly thought to see my own little sister dead before me.”
“Before you?” He clutched me suddenly, his eyes almost starting from his head. “You won’t die, will you, Dodo? You won’t leave me on my own?”
I am ashamed to admit that, even in the midst of my sorrow, I felt a kind of joy. I embraced his shaking form with all my strength. “I’ll never leave you, Alfred.”
“You are a good wife.” And we embraced again, and I loved him so much at that moment that I resolved, as God was my witness, never to be jealous again.
Even as we knelt with our arms around each other, Kitty began to wail in the distance; and Alfred looked up, his face blank: “What’s that?” As if he had no recollection of her existence.
“It’s Kitty,” I said hurriedly. “Bessie will see to her. But we cannot stay here like this, Alfred dear. We must send to my parents. We must get in the woman to lay her out. We must call for the undertaker. And we must order some crepe.”
“Crepe?” A look of horror. “No. Not for Alice. I absolutely forbid it. I want her buried in white with flowers all around her.”
I stared at him. He looked as if poised to drop senseless at the slightest opposition. So I kissed his forehead: “Whatever you say, Alfred.”
He let go my hand, and taking Alice’s curling strands of chestnut hair, he put his lips to them before placing them carefully in his watch case. His hand shook, and he could hardly do it. But as he struggled, I couldn’t help noticing he was wearing her ring on his little finger.
“You have taken her ring, Alfred?”
“Yes. I shall wear it as long as I live.”
“That is so beautifully devoted of you,” I said, my voice trembling with the effort not to censure him. “But don’t you think Mama may want the ring herself? Or perhaps I should like it.”
“Your mother? No. I am sure she will not begrudge it me. And I know you would not, Dodo dear.”
I could see then that he was the tragic hero and Alice was the dead heroine, and I was simply standing in the wings. I knew at that moment it was useless to speak of my own grief. I knew it was in vain to hope that he would wipe my tears and cherish me and tell me I was not to blame, that my jealousy was not the cause, that Alice’s death was not my punishment for having evil thoughts. I knew he did not see my anguish in the outpouring of his own. I could feel his massive grief filling the house, spilling out into the night. And I knew it would spill forever into his books.
9
“MISS WALTERS IS HERE.” WILSON ANNOUNCES THE dressmaker. I can see her in the passageway outside. She is carrying a great parcel of cloth.
“Have her come in.”
Miss Walters is as thin as I am fat. She looks as if she could be blown down by the slightest breeze. But she is an excellent needlewoman and has made my clothes for many years.
“Good morning, ma’am. May I offer my heartfelt—”
“Yes. That is understood.” I hate speaking of my grief to strangers.
“But it was a most exceptionally fine funeral, was it not? All those hundreds of people. Thousands, perhaps, would you say?” She spreads her wares on the bed and unwraps them as she talks. I suppose she has a professional interest in funereal occasions. Perhaps she does not realize I was not present. Although she must wonder why I am ordering mourning attire so late.
“Thousands, indeed. But I am against ostentation in the matter of death. Indeed, I do not really approve of wearing black. It was Mr. Gibson’s view, too.”
Miss Walters is astonished, although she tries to hide the fact. “I see,” she says, although she clearly does not.
“However, I am bidden to meet the Queen, and must look the part.”
I watch for her response and am rewarded. She looks up, eyes wide: “The Queen, ma’am?”
“Yes. Tomorrow morning. So I am relying on you to have it ready in time.”
“Oh, indeed, have no fear. We’ll have it ready even if the girl has to stay up all night. Now, Mrs. Gibson, do we need to be measured agai
n?” She surveys me as if I were a building. “Maybe the waist and bust. And the arms.” Her tape measure is out in a trice, and she is encircling my girth, bending my elbow, turning me around as if I were a humming top and jotting down numbers in the notepad that hangs from her waist. “A fraction more since last time. But I have allowed for that.” She picks up a bodice, a sleeve, a yoke, places them against me, patting, pinning.
“I want it very plain.”
“No crepe panels?”
“No crepe at all.”
“No borders? No bands?”
“None.”
She is silent. I know what she thinks, that I show insufficient respect. Especially for one who is to see the Queen of England. But I shall only go as far as is necessary. I stand patient under her ministrations for ten minutes. The gown takes shape on me, tacked together with Miss Walters’s fine tacking thread by Miss Walters’s bony, pin-pricked fingers.
“How about a corded edge? Or some frogging? To give a little shape?”
She does not say that I have no shape, but I know what she means, and I have enough vanity to care. I don’t want the flunkeys at the Palace to think I’m a fright. I give in. I’ve already compromised my position after all. “Very well, Miss Walters. Edging cord and frogging. Nothing else.”
She makes a note, then gently removes all the pieces. Back they go into her brown-paper parcel, along with her measure, her pincushion, and her piece of chalk.
“As it’s so plain, we should have it done for this afternoon. I’ll send the boy with it before six.”
“Thank you. I appreciate your promptness.”
“Well, it’s always short notice when it comes to mourning.” She purses her lips tight. “Most people like to have it the same day.”
Girl in a Blue Dress Page 12
