“I daresay, I daresay.” I am too unnerved to split hairs. “But we must leave the matter now. I am too shaken. And I am sure you are more so.”
I try again to make for the door. But she holds on to me. “Please hear me out. Please, I beg you.”
I turn to her with disbelief. “Do you really wish to speak with me now? After what I have done?” We are both breathing heavily, and Miss Ricketts’s hair is loose around her shoulders, making her look even younger than before. I have no idea of my own appearance—ragged as a newly fledged bird, I imagine.
“I spoke in haste,” she says. “The subject is a delicate one. But I believe we have to trust each other.”
We exchange looks and, from the corner of my eye, I watch the door apprehensively. What will Mrs. Ricketts make of us both? “And your mama?” I say breathlessly.
“She will not interrupt,” she says. “I assure you we can speak in perfect confidence.”
I wonder at this. Has her mother wrapped a muffler round her ears and sat like a sphinx in a distant corner? But Miss Ricketts seems in earnest, and my legs are trembling so much that I have to sit down. She sits down too, and for a while she seems to drift into a kind of abstraction. I wonder what she will say, what more she can say. Suddenly she turns and speaks in a new, decisive way: “Mrs. Gibson, have you ever come to a place in your life and wondered how you have arrived there? Knowing that, if you had been able to see that place before you set out, you would never have taken the path at all?”
I nod, although I am not sure what she means. We can all look back and see we have made mistakes, I suppose.
“You see, each step I have taken these ten years has been almost insignificant in itself, yet when all the steps are put together I find myself at a very different place from the one I expected—on the very edge of respectability and self-respect. Perhaps not even on the edge, but beyond it. It was only my love for Alfred that led me there. Only the desire to please and make him happy.”
I can understand that. We are together in that at least.
“And now he is gone and I have to make a life for myself, somehow.”
“But he has left you money. That is something.”
“It simply makes my reputation worse. Yet the only wrong I have done is to have allowed myself to be persuaded that our affection—Alfred’s and mine—did not matter to you. I need you to believe that.” She puts her hand on mine. It is very tender and small; it reminds me of Ada’s hand.
“Why do you care about what I believe, Miss Ricketts?”
“I realize—I have been slowly realizing since you first set foot in this room—that I want—and need—your forgiveness.”
“Forgiveness? For ten years of loneliness and misery? That is a great deal to ask.”
“I have been lonely and miserable, too. And now my life is blighted; I can speak to no one about what is dearest to me. I have no position as a wife or widow. The few who know of me regard me with mistrust. Some days I can hardly endure it. I should almost rather be shaken to death”—she smiles wryly—“than linger on in this fashion.” She pauses. “I have lived in the shadows for so long, it is hard to remember when I was last free hearted.”
Poor girl. “Well,” I say more gently, “I cannot promise forgiveness, but at least I shall hear you out. What is it that you need to say?”
She makes another pause. “I need you to understand how I became enmeshed in something I had no wish for. At first, I admit, I was delighted to be Alfred’s protégée. New roles came quickly and I wanted to prove I was worthy of his faith in me. But I saw it as a means, Mrs. Gibson—a means to soar free of him and make my own way, so Mama and I could be independent. But I found I could not escape him. Night after night he was there in the audience. Watching. He always joked about it, saying he had to keep an eye on his investment—but it was intimidating to know he was there, looking at me with those intense eyes of his. Even though I tried to put him out of my mind, I couldn’t avoid seeing the faint white blur of his face, and the slight movements as he held up his opera glasses whenever I spoke. The first occasion, he even came backstage afterwards and the stage manager (knowing him, of course) let him through. ‘Mr. Alfred Gibson to see you!’ he shouted, knocking on my dressing-room door. Everybody gawped, from stagehands to the leading man. Everybody wanted to see him. ‘Enjoy the show, Mr. Gibson? Tell us, how’s The Red House going to end? My wife swears she never cried so much in all her life!’ He was perfectly polite, and smiled, answering them all with a word or two before stepping inside, and it warmed my heart to see him so loved. I remember, too, how beautifully dressed he was, his evening clothes perfect, his cloak lined with crimson satin, a carnation in his buttonhole, diamond studs down his shirtfront, and the most highly polished shoes I have ever seen. He left the door politely ajar and leant up against the wall, hands in pockets, smiling round the dressing room, saying how much he loved the smell of greasepaint.
“Of course I told him he mustn’t come to see me so publicly, that the world would draw the wrong conclusions. He wouldn’t have it: ‘Oh, I am an habitué of the Green Room and you are my protégée. No one will think amiss.’” She looks sideways at me. “But you will appreciate, Mrs. Gibson, that I had a sounder knowledge of the theatrical world with its penchant for gossip, and I begged him not to compromise himself—a married man, a family man; the greatest family man in the world, in fact. ‘They will be talking already,’ I whispered. ‘They will be leering and joking and thinking they know something, when they know nothing at all. Even if you care nothing for me, please do not place yourself or your family in jeopardy by such intimate visits.’ He laughed, saying, ‘Is this an intimate visit? I did not realize! How very delightful! In that case, I am more than ever reluctant to give it up.’ And he took a coin from his pocket and tossed it in the air: ‘Heads I lose—and am banished from your dressing room forever!’ To my relief, it landed heads up, and he stared at it as if he could not believe it—”
I smile grimly. “He would not have believed it. He could always make that coin fall as he wished.”
“Oh, I see—a trick.” She frowns. “But it wouldn’t have mattered which way it fell; he simply insisted that if he could not come backstage, nothing in the universe would stop him watching from the front. ‘I shall be at my post in the left-hand box when ever I can, armed with a dozen pocket handkerchiefs in case there is material of a lachrymose nature.’ I begged him not to do that—really, sincerely, Mrs. Gibson, I begged him—but he merely laughed. So I asked him at least not to be so conspicuous, but to sit well back out of sight. He wouldn’t have that, either: ‘I will not bend to you there, Miss Wren! I will not pay five shillings merely to lurk at the back of the box like an escaped convict. I will have my full entitlement!’” She swallows and looks earnestly at me. “And he made sure of it. There he was, night after night, as if he were the worst kind of stage-door lounger.”
“So he came to gaze on you from afar,” I say. “Was that all?”
“Oh, no, every post seemed to bring acres of correspondence. To be frank, I wondered how he had the time.”
I catch my breath. How easily she says that—and yet I can hardly bear to think how he might have used the very same loving words he used to me, as he gave her the same bracelet. The bracelet is bad enough—but his love letters are like my own blood.
Miss Ricketts sees my consternation: “No, no, Mrs. Gibson, they were not love letters! Admiring letters, perhaps, but nothing that I couldn’t show to Mama—or to anyone. He liked to tease, as I expect you know, and it was always his conceit to pretend I had become too grand for him, that I didn’t care if he had to walk back from his office with a jaundiced heart, and ‘no prospect of tea and cakes chez Ricketts.’ I see I am a man whose usefulness is spent! Young ladies who were once grateful for the slightest word from the One and Only now cast their sights on Fame and Fortune—and merrily grind the poor devil of a hack beneath their dainty feet. Away all thoughts of cozy evenings around a r
oaring fire! The bird is flown. My Jenny Wren has burst from her cage and left me languishing.” She shakes her head. “What was I to make of such sentiments, Mrs. Gibson? It seemed he was far from ‘languishing’ when he turned up at our apartment with his hat at a jaunty angle and sporting the most brilliant of waistcoats. On the contrary, he always seemed in the best of spirits, full of his plans for a new weekly journal, a charity reading, a new conservatory, his intention to go abroad as soon as The Red House was finished, his ideas for a new serial—a bloodthirsty murder to lift my spirits. When he went on in this fashion, drawing myself and Mama into his confidence in the pleasantest way, he made me feel quite wicked to have ever doubted his intentions.”
So this is what he was up to all those afternoons when I would have died for a single word from him—even about conservatories. I begin to resent Miss Ricketts anew, for taking so easily what I was denied, for offering him an alternative little nesting place for him to be companionable and happy. “So what happened to change this cozy state of affairs?”
“Oh, please—as I have told you, it was not cozy for me at all. On the contrary, I was in a continual state of dread. He was a fascinating companion—yet the one thing I was sure of, every time I saw him, was that I must separate from him; make my own way, and escape the dreadful sense of obligation.” She pauses, staring down at her hands. “I might even have had the strength to do so. I cannot, in all honesty, say that I would not have done. But as you know, events overtook us. Well, one event, I suppose.” She glances at my uncomprehending face. “You must know what I mean.”
I think she must be referring to something between them which she is too delicate to explain; then I realize with a sick feeling that it is something closer to home; the very worst moment of my life, in fact. My skin grows clammy even at the thought of it. Dear God, I certainly don’t want to talk about it with Miss Ricketts. But she looks mutely at me, and I am obliged to answer: “You mean that dreadful announcement, I suppose?”
She nods. “I cannot think what possessed him. The first I knew was when I came home late from the theater, and there was a scribbled letter thrust through our letter box warning me that something was about to happen which might draw me into its vile orbit. He said he would strive—as no man had ever striven—to prevent my name being connected to this event in any way, but he had to warn me that his attempts might not meet with success. My dear girl, you must be prepared for a blow. Believe in the power of truth. And believe me always your faithful servant and friend. Of course, I was at a loss to know what event he was referring to, but I imagined rumors must have begun or accusations been made. And I was frightened that half London would find out where I was living, and come and stare up at my window and point me out. Yet there was nothing I could do. Mama and I had to sit tight and rely on Alfred to defend us. I couldn’t even reply to his note. He’d told me I was never to write to him at home. Letters are opened in our house, he said. Even private ones.”
I redden.
“The next day, there it was in the newspaper. What he wrote about you was so shocking I didn’t know what to think. I was appalled to imagine I might have unwittingly been the cause of it all, and that sooner or later, everyone would blame me for what he had done, and say that he had turned out his wife for an actress less than half his age.”
“But you were safe, you silly girl!” I cry. “I was the one who was exposed to humiliation. I was the one who lost everything that mattered—not only Alfred, but my children and my home. I lost my whole life, Miss Ricketts. And whatever blame may have attached to me in our marriage, I truly believe he would never have put me out of my house if it hadn’t been for you.”
Her face falls. “But he had never even hinted at it. And I had done nothing—absolutely nothing—to suggest that I wished to take his wife’s place.”
I sigh. “Women don’t have to do anything,” I say. “They merely have to be. The men will make what they will of us. Don’t you see that you were simply another young creature to be endowed with all the perfections of his imagination? You are very much in the mold—his own particular mold, I mean. The mold I never fitted once I became a wife.”
“Well,” she says with some asperity, “I cannot say what mold I was in or how I came to be in it. But I do know that he became almost beside himself from then on, saying that he didn’t know whom to trust; that his friends were giving him bad advice; that his children were rebellious and sullen; that he couldn’t work. Only Sissy keeps me going. She runs the house so wonderfully, in spite of all that is being said about her—vile rumors that I cannot even speak of to you. I did think it odd, of course, he and she and the children all in the house together, a proper snug little family. He always spoke so warmly of her, Mrs. Gibson, that I thought perhaps the vile rumors were true.”
“You were not alone. Half London thought that. It was brave of Sissy to face it out, but she would have gone through fire for him. And in case you are wondering, Miss Ricketts, in spite of all he had done to me—so would I.”
She turns her head and, as the light strikes her skin, I see that there are long trickles of tears coursing down her pale, downy cheeks, and dropping off the end of her chin. She makes no attempt to wipe them away. “I didn’t know that. I took his word that you rejoiced as much as he did that your years chained in misery had at last come to an end. I swear I would never have encouraged him otherwise.”
Ah, we are getting closer to the truth. My chest feels tight. “So matters changed after that?”
She hesitates. “Well, I did not turn him away.”
“Yet do you still insist nothing improper passed between you?” I watch her face, with its air of injured innocence.
“Nothing I consider improper. The world may have a different view, and I suspect it does. But then the world considers all loving transactions between a man and a woman to be completely carnal.”
Carnal! I have never heard that word said by a woman. I look at her sweet little mouth with surprise. Yet her assumption of innocence is absurd. Even I, foolish, good-natured Dodo with only half a grasp on the ways of the world, know this. I feel suddenly impatient. “Come, come, Miss Ricketts. A man does not usually pay court to a woman, pay her rent and give her substantial gifts of money and jewelry, merely in order to take a cup of tea with her or watch her from the back of a theater box. You are not green; you must have known what he wanted of you by then, however he dressed it up.”
“I did not, I swear. He never used the word love to me. He never kissed me, except on my forehead. But I knew his association with me would affect his reputation. He was already being spoken of in ways he hated, and I could not add to that. So I finally took courage to write and say I would see him no more. I shall do well now you have set me on the right path. And I have Mama to protect me.” She bites her lip. “He did not reply for several weeks, and I thought he was, for the first time in his life, doing what I asked. I missed him, of course; I missed him dreadfully. But I knew I would be stronger if he were not there to muddle my mind.” She shakes her head. “Then, no sooner did I start to feel my own thoughts clear and separate from his, than a letter came. I dared hardly open it. I thought of putting it away, pretending it had never come, but Mama said, ‘What can a letter do?’ And so I read it, forgetting that a letter was composed of words, and that he of all people knew how to use them.”
Oh, indeed, I think. Oh, indeed.
“He said he had hesitated to speak plainly before, in case he frightened his little bird away. He said he had a favor to ask: It is no slight thing, but I believe you will take pity on me. Do not turn away impatiently or come to a conclusion before you have heard me out. You know I would do nothing to hurt you.”
She stops. My breath is tight in my chest. I feel I cannot listen to this; yet I must.
“It seems—telling you now—as though I am praising myself in repeating what he said—but you must understand how it affected me. He said that no one—even those to whom he had the strongest bond
s of affection—could soothe his mind and make him happy as I did. I have rented the prettiest little house in Norwood. We can be as content and secret there as Babes in the Wood. Nothing else need change—nothing! I promise on my life! You are as sacred and precious to me as my own daughters. Until I know, I cannot work or sleep or rest. Say you will be my special angel. Say you will be there every day by my side. Say the one word that will make me live again.”
As she speaks, as I hear the echoes of his boyish love letters to me, and remember his earnestness and charm, his mixture of desperation and certainty, I feel as though everything within me is dissolving. I look with envy at her light brown hair, her delicate chin, the jet earrings twinkling as they lie against her neck, the well-fitting dress that shows her tiny figure to advantage.
She resumes: “I assure you, Mrs. Gibson, I did not entirely know what he meant. Indeed, I was alarmed to think I should have the responsibility of keeping England’s most famous writer in a state of continual bliss. I didn’t wish to be his angel, or anybody else’s for that matter.”
I am silent.
“But how could I refuse him? Even knowing that if I agreed to live in that pretty house with him, I would step outside the respectable world forever, and lose my reputation, my profession, and my chance of marriage.”
“What did your mother advise in all this?”
Miss Ricketts casts down her eyes. “Mama said I must decide such a thing for myself.”
“But you were so young!” I burst out. “And she of all people should have known what it would mean.” Even as I speak I recall my dereliction of duty over Kitty.
“You question her concern for me? But think what it meant for us—an end to our traveling up and down England to play at any theater that would have us, an end to dirty lodgings and dishonest landladies, an end, in fact, to all our debts and anxieties. But Mama would not tell me what course to take. All she would say was that she was sure that Alfred Gibson was an honorable man. And I remember saying, ‘Brutus was an honorable man.’ And she looked at me and said, ‘Whatever else, child, I don’t think he will murder you in the Capitol.’” She smiles grimly. “Oh, Mrs. Gibson, believe me when I say that I simply could not decide what to do. I delayed answering for days. I hoped, somewhat absurdly, that matters might resolve themselves without my making a decision at all. All the time I was playing in The Rivals at Drury Lane, I’d be saying my lines and hearing the laughter and beginning to feel exhilarated; and then I’d see that faint blur in the box, and know he was there, and my heart would sink. Indeed, I almost wished he would carry me off and ravish me. Then at least I would not be responsible for my own disgrace.”
Girl in a Blue Dress Page 39
