Girl in a Blue Dress

by Gaynor Arnold

  “A dance!” he said on our last night. “We must have a dance! We can dance on the terrace—the weather is so warm, and there is a full moon! We might even dance on the beach!”

  “Will you dance with me, Papa?” said Kitty. (We had allowed the older children to stay up as a special treat.)

  “No, me first!” said Louisa, pinching her hard, while pushing towards him, and clasping at his watch chain.

  “Come, come! No quarreling! I shall dance with any young lady who asks me. And some who do not. Prepare yourselves!” He pulled up his sleeves. “I am a demon dancer! I will not be denied!”

  Then he and Charley pushed the piano through the French windows to the terrace—with a great deal of huffing and puffing and wiping of brows—and the children brought candles and a lamp, and I sat down to play. Charley asked his niece to dance, which she did, very prettily, with dancing-school airs and graces—and Alfred partnered Kitty. Alfie ran to get Bessie out of the kitchen to dance with him, and Louisa sulkily pulled little Eddie around by the arms until Alfred picked them both up, spinning them around till they screamed. I was in no state to prance about. I had only a month to go with Ada. But I played a rousing tune—“The Borderers”—and Alfred, setting down the children, attempted a Highland fling. I played a polka next, and Alfred asked Mary to partner him up and down the terrace. They whirled past, Mary’s great hoop swinging about with the vigor of Alfred’s actions and threatening to knock over the lamp we’d placed on the low wall. Then, as I was consulting my music, everyone changed partners once more, and before I could strike up, I saw Alfred waltzing Miss Sarah Evans at great speed across the terrace, down the steps, and along the beach and—to our horror—into the waves. At first they danced in and out of the shallows, then they began to go deeper, and I could see she was both clinging to him and struggling to escape. But he took her farther and farther into the water, holding her so tight to him that she could not get away.

  “He is mad!” cried Charley, loosing his wife and rushing to the wall.

  “Will he drown her?” Alfie asked Bessie, staring with interest at the two figures, now quite far away and silvered in the moonlight. “Like Jack Black drowns Poll?”

  “Oh, the poor girl!” said Bessie. “She is frightened. Mrs. Gibson, make him stop!”

  Serve her right, I thought. If you play with fire, you’ll get burnt. But all the same I called to him to stop, and Charley echoed my call with his booming voice, and the children added their high-pitched shouts. Alfred looked up and saw us all arranged along the wall watching him and stopped. He bowed, as if acknowledging a fine performance. As he loosed her, Miss Evans made her escape up the beach, dragging her soaking skirts over the sand to the flagstones. She was crying. “My frock!” she sobbed. “My frock is ruined!”

  Be thankful it is only your frock, I thought. And was ashamed of myself.

  When we closed the door of our bedroom and Alfred started to take off his soaked trousers, I asked, “Why did you do that?”

  “Why?” He seemed surprised at the question. He was not in the habit of querying his actions. “No reason. It was a lark.”

  “I’m not sure Miss Evans would agree. Couldn’t you hear her screams?”

  “Oh, yes. They were very thrilling. She was quite exhilarated. Not every young lady gets to dance in the sea with the One and Only!”

  “You were the one who was exhilarated, Alfred. She was frightened. She was struggling and you wouldn’t let her go!”

  “I had to keep her from falling, Dodo. She’d have gone down like a ninepin in those waves.”

  “You were behaving like Jack Black, weren’t you?”

  “Jack Black?” He laughed. “Do you compare your benevolent spouse to that low-life villain?”

  “Yes. You can be a villain too, you know. After all, you write them so well.”

  He laughed again, a shade uncomfortably. “Then must one be a murderer to write one? That’s nonsense, Dodo.”

  “Maybe. But one must know how it might feel. One must get some … satisfaction … from it. I’ve heard you in your study, ranting aloud. One day Bessie thought you were being attacked by a burglar and came upstairs with a rolling pin.”

  “Did she?” He chuckled. “Did she, though? I shall have to increase her wages on account of the extra services she offers.”

  “Be serious.”

  “I am always serious.”

  “Yes, I know that, Alfred. Which is why I know this lark is more than it seems. You cannot laugh it off.”

  “I’m not. I kept the young lady away from the cruel sea. It is only her gown that’s suffered.”

  “It is more than that. You took advantage of her.”

  He frowned. “On the contrary, she is such a stiff and formal young lady, I merely tried to shake her up a bit.”

  “You know she is in love with you, don’t you?” I did not mean to say this but it was out of my mouth before I knew.

  He looked away, started taking off his coat and waistcoat, putting them in the press. “I know no such thing. She’s merely a silly girl with a head full of vanity.”

  “You don’t really think that.”

  “Don’t I? What do I think then?” He turned to me, his eyes dangerously bright.

  “I don’t know—but I do know you needed to have her in your power.”

  He hesitated a second, then laughed. “But, Dodo dear, I have the whole nation in my power. Why should I concern myself with one young lady of seventeen?”

  “Because you find her attractive, of course. Anyone can see that.”

  “Ah, Dodo, don’t you know that I find all young ladies attractive? Even if they are foolish enough to wear their best silk dresses to the seaside and display themselves on sofas as though butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths.”

  I took him by the arm. His shirt cuffs were wet and he smelt of the sea. “But matters are not simply one-sided, Alfred. A young lady’s feelings are important too. Don’t you remember how I wore my best silk dress to watch a certain play in Stepney so you would look at me? And she wore her best dress tonight so you would look at her. And now you have humiliated her.”

  “Good grief, it was simply a lark. And I wager she’ll make a good story of it when she gets back to town and takes tea with her school-friends. She will be proud of herself then. She will exaggerate the size of the waves, and the depth of the sea, and the tremendous vigor of the One and Only in defying it all.” He chuckled.

  “I doubt it. She is not you, all drama and excitement. She is an impressionable girl, and you terrified her. You cannot do as you like with women merely because you have a stronger will. It’s not respectful to them—or to me either.”

  I could hardly believe I was saying these things, straying again to the dangerous territory I had vowed so many times to avoid. He did not get angry, however. “You place too much importance on a piece of innocent fun,” he said, fussing a little with his lapels and cuffs as they lay in the press. But he was uneasy; after a moment he turned and said, “Do you really imagine she thought the worse of me?”

  “Of course she did, Alfred. As I would have done, had it been me. Her evening is ruined, her dress is ruined, and her opinion of you is ruined. If she says anything at all to her school-friends, it will be that Alfred Gibson is either mad or bad.”

  He looked shocked, perplexed, alarmed. I knew he never could abide anyone thinking ill of him, even when he was clearly at fault. “Well, we can’t have that. The One and Only will make amends immediately!” He threw on his dressing gown and stalked out. I heard him knocking on Miss Evans’s door. By the time I was on the landing, he was prostrate on the floorboards outside. “Oh, dear Miss Evans! I am a wretch who does not deserve your good opinion. Say you forgive me! I shall buy a new frock, a better one, one decked with diamonds and pearls—but say you will forgive me!”

  The door opened and Miss Evans peeked around the crack. She was in her nightgown, with a shawl hastily thrown over it. Her hair was down, and fra
med her face in a fine, dark cloud. Her eyes and cheeks were still red from crying.

  Alfred put out his hand and touched her bare foot. Lifted it gently. Held it in his hand, the hand where Alice’s little ring still circled his finger. Then he kissed it. She let him do so, letting her toes linger in his palm, smiling forgiveness; and I thought how easily she was won over, how easily we all were.

  11

  I AM SURE THAT I AM NOT JEALOUS BY NATURE. FROM MY earliest years I was always happy to share in the joy of others. I never minded in the least when my sisters received an extra kiss from my mother or a special present from Papa—or if my school-friends had finer frocks or possessed daintier hands, or were quicker at arithmetic or more graceful at their dancing steps. Indeed I was generally reckoned to have an amiable and obliging nature. Had I been wife to Cousin George, I cannot imagine resenting his attentions to other ladies or time spent away from me on his business affairs.

  But loving Alfred was unlike anything I had ever known. From the moment I met him, I should have liked everyone else in the world to disappear and the two of us to lie in each other’s arms forever. I was young, of course, and romantic. No doubt in time, and had our lives followed a normal course, I would have developed a more prosaic attitude. But our life was far from normal: not only was Alfred exceptionally attracted to company of every kind, but almost everyone he met—man, woman, or child—was exceptionally drawn to him in return, so my possessive nature was being perpetually put to the test. In New York, when we were but newly married, I was forced to sit aside, neglected, while he allowed young women to bear him off to the dance floor and then to the refreshment rooms, so that I hardly saw him at all. In London, he seemed to make new friends every week, and the moment they became part of his circle, he’d be off on some jaunt with them, walking, riding, and dining in an ecstasy of enthoosymoosy. From very early in our marriage it seemed as though I could possess only what the world had left behind—the cuffs and coat-tails of his existence.

  And I was not good at hiding my feelings. When we were first married, Alfred would instinctively sense when I was pettish or displeased. I see Princess Pug is growling again, he’d say. What has put her out? Come, let me see! And he’d take my hands and affect to read my palm, tracing the lines with his ink-stained forefinger: Ah! The flat-iron’s too hot and the dinner’s too cold and Yours Truly has been out all afternoon when he should have been here kissing his wife and devouring pork chops and gravy. Am I right?

  Indeed, it was a matter of pride with him that he could divine the thoughts of others, even feel their pain and pleasure. He had been profoundly shaken by his premonition of Alice’s death that awful night and was convinced some sort of magnetic power had been unleashed between them, transmitting her agony directly to him. He became even more convinced when, on a visit to Mr. Faraday’s laboratory, he watched iron filings cluster around a magnet in wonderful patterned lines. He could hardly take his eyes off them: All that invisible energy floating around in the ether, unharnessed! If only one could make good use of it, Dodo!

  It was no surprise, therefore, that when the great French hypnotist came to London only a year or so later, Alfred could not wait to be present. The hall was crowded with people of all kinds and qualities, and I felt almost faint at the heat and the press of the throng. From the advertisements, I’d expected it to be a rather sensational thing, but to my astonishment, perfectly respectable members of the audience ascended to the stage and subjected themselves to the mesmeric influence, and afterwards many testified to its healing powers. Alfred watched everything intently, his eyes fixed on the hypnotist, watching his every move and listening to his words. “This is a tremendous power for good,” he’d whispered to me excitedly. “Don’t you think so?”

  I wasn’t at all sure; in fact I thought it rather alarming. And when we got home, I sank upon the bed complaining that the whole proceeding had left me with a headache. Alfred immediately pulled up a chair: “Let me cure it—I’m sure I can.” I wouldn’t agree at first—after all, it was disturbing to see people fall asleep to order, and not knowing anything that had happened while they were in that state. And Alfred had no expertise in the matter. “Suppose I stayed asleep forever?” I said. “Suppose I never came back to the world of the living?” “Come on, Dodo,” he said. “You trust me, don’t you? Just look at my eyes.” So in the end I looked. And went on looking. And waited for something to happen. And the next thing I remember was Alfred laughing at me: “By George, you went under quickly. Now, tell me, is your headache any better?” And indeed, as if by magic, it was quite gone. But I could scarcely believe he had done anything at all, as I had no memory of it. He assured me that he’d only had to whisper a suggestion in my ear for my brow to clear immediately.

  He was cock-a-hoop at his success and over the next few days he tried it on me several more times—and each time I was subdued in seconds. He told me that on one occasion Kitty (who was not yet three) had tried to wake me, shaking me and crying, but I did not hear the child or respond to her until Alfred gave me the command.

  It seemed such a simple process that I asked if our positions could be reversed. He acceded readily enough and sat in the basket chair which had become our customary “patient’s seat,” but he would not stay still and made so many faces, produced so many comical ailments, and inhabited so many different characters all at once, that I could do nothing for laughing. “I doubt you could mesmerize him anyway,” remarked O’Rourke, who was watching the proceedings. “You have no wish to impose your will on anyone else.” But Alfred was ready—indeed eager—to try his powers on everybody we knew: Charley and Mary Evans, Bessie, Lottie and Tom, O’Rourke, and even Miss Brougham all put themselves in his hands. Moreover, in the years that followed, he extended his skills beyond our circle so that even casual acquaintances came under his spell. And thus it was that we became involved in what O’Rourke jokingly called The Mysterious Affair of Madame Brandt, although there was no mystery, and certainly no joke.

  We’d met the Brandts in Paris, where we had spent a pleasant few days en route for Switzerland. I had persuaded Alfred that he needed a rest after producing four novels in three years; he had persuaded me in turn that we needed to save money by taking a house abroad. The Brandts were also bound from Paris to Lausanne, and Alfred proposed taking the couple as traveling companions in our carriage. I thought we should be seriously crowded, with the four children, Bessie, a hired man, and all the luggage, but Alfred declared the men could ride outside and “endure wind and weather and have, moreover, the chance to smoke a number of excellent cigars.” So it was done his way, as always.

  They were a strange couple. Monsieur Brandt was short and plump, with a deal of gold about his person by way of numerous rings, watch chains, and cravat pins, as if he was determined to display upon his person every item of adornment that he owned. Madame Brandt was, by contrast, thin and pale, with beautiful aristocratic features, and a nervous, strained look. Her dark hair was very thick and lustrous and worn in ostentatious piles, not at all the fashion. I could not help but notice that she held a cambric cloth to her face a good deal of the time, a cloth steeped in clove oil, that made a pungent smell in the carriage. She admitted that she suffered from a kind of neuralgia, and that when attacked by the pain, she could hardly speak or eat, and sleeping at such times was impossible.

  “She is a martyr to her condition,” said Monsieur Brandt at our first stop. “I have never known a woman suffer so much. You are a martyr, are you not, ma choux?”

  Madame Brandt nodded. Alfred stared at her until she became aware of his gaze and lowered her eyes in becoming modesty. He continued staring and eventually said, “Would you allow me to try something? I think I may be able to help.” He leaned forward, his eyes still on her, and I knew what he was going to do.

  “Alfred really has remarkable powers,” I said to her, by way of encouragement.

  “Do you really think you can aid me, Mr. Gibson?” she said, sighing l
ike a tree in the wind and turning her sad eyes at him.

  “Oh, please, let him try!” I said.

  “I suppose it can do no harm.”

  “Oh, no, Madame Brandt,” I urged her. “No harm at all. It is akin to sleeping. One knows nothing.”

  So that evening, in the dining room of the Relais des Bois, on the road between Troyes and Dijon, Alfred attempted to mesmerize her, using only the repetitive movement of his hands and the intense gaze of his eyes. Madame Brandt immediately fell into a trance, and seemed to lose her rigid posture, almost lolling over the edge of the chair. He lifted her gently and spoke quietly to her, telling her repeatedly that the pain was fading and would go away. And when he told her to wake up, she sat up straight and said she felt very much relieved. But at ten o’clock that night Monsieur Brandt knocked on our bedroom door for Alfred to attend her again. And Alfred, who was already in his nightshirt, put on his silk dressing gown, combed his hair, dabbed lavender water on his wrists, and went to do her bidding.