Four Hundred and Forty Steps to the Sea

by Sara Alexander

  “Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Crabtree!” cried Mr. George.

  “That’ll be all, Santina,” Mr. Benn said, with an unnecessary hand wave, adding to all the other spoken and unspoken gestures tracing my paper cut scars.

  I shut the door behind me and went upstairs to pack.

  * * *

  The next morning Mr. Benn and Mr. George called me to the back parlor. I found Mr. Benn by his grand piano looking out toward the glass doors that led to their garden. He was puffing on a thin cigar. The smoke reached me in sorrowful swirls.

  “Santina, my dear. It will come as somewhat of a surprise, to me more than anyone, that we can no longer offer you employment.”

  I gave a mute nod, unsure whether to express regret or surprise. Neither surfaced as it happened.

  “However, there are others in our circle who are more than willing to welcome you into their home and have you offer the tireless support you have given us, up till now.”

  I glanced over at Mr. George, but he was looking off toward an invisible horizon behind me.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Crabtree are keen for you to start with them right away. The major, for that is how you must address him from now on, has assured me that he will, like us, arrange your papers for America after your first year.”

  He left a pause here, which I knew he expected me to fill with grateful acceptance. I was happy that we were parting company with relative grace. Or, if not grace, at the very least that smooth veneer of some such which I had intuited was an impeccable British habit. That evening they walked me down the hill toward the heart of Hampstead village to my new home.

  * * *

  Adeline and the major’s house snuck into a slice of land between larger old brick homes at the convergence of two narrow lanes. Its layout was more warren than house, with low-ceilinged rooms leading onto one another in a maze of unexpected connections. Tudor beams hung crooked with age. Persian rugs overlapped one another in most of the rooms. A huge hearth stood in the main living room flanked by two sofas of different shades of velveteen violet. There were masks upon the wall, Indian gods and goddesses forever mid-chase, flaunting their half-clothed bodies, or leering at the spectator. I’m ashamed to admit that I avoided looking at the one which hung by my bedroom door, so full were its wooden carved eyes of malice. Its pupils were painted red and black and hair hung in sad curls almost touching the wooden floorboards below.

  At the far end of the house, squeezed in along one length of the courtyard garden, was Adeline’s studio. Small glass panes lined the upper section along the entirety of one side, letting in shafts of light from over the garden wall, which backed onto Christchurch hill. The roof was formed of skylights, bathing the anarchic space in a wash of light. Several easels flanked the space, with unfinished canvases upon them, bright with moments of intense inspiration or drying paint. The floor was speckled with memories of Adeline’s expressive explosions. Even in her condition, she would hide away for days at a time refusing food and rest. It frustrated the major a great deal, but I suspected that her artistic endeavors overtook both their lives with a ferocity neither could tame or understand, both succumbing to its seduction with varying degrees of resistance.

  Adeline acquiesced to her imagination with abandon. I caught her once, as I headed to the major in his study with a laden tray, through the gap between the open door and the frame. She was barefoot, which was not surprising: her feet reacted to any covering as an affront to their liberty. Her white smock hung, creased about her, the growing roundness of abdomen catching the light as she swayed, a plump moon. Her fingers were splattered and quick, letting the brush lead them in muscular strokes. But it was her face that captured my attention. Her eyes were bright, the auburn flecks crisscrossing, the blue even more visible in this light; shards of intense concentration. Her head was cocked to the side. If I didn’t know better, I would have said she was listening to something, music perhaps, a voice even. I was spying an intimate conversation. My eyes drifted to the canvas. I would have recognized that spiral anywhere. This was the artist whose work had captured my attention all those months ago in Mr. Benn’s gallery. It was beautiful. Bristles of guilt iced up my arm. I headed on to the study.

  The major’s hideaway smelled like the rest of the house, a compost of dusty books, sandalwood incense, and fresh flowers. He tamed the roses in their garden with intricate care and took cuttings most mornings when they were in full scent. A huge grandfather clock edged us toward the future in somber swings. His desk faced the large sash window, each framed pane offering a concise version of his beloved garden. Books lined the walls on heavy, carved mahogany shelves. Stacks mushroomed in each corner, a literary metropolis. Upon the tired green leather top was a correspondence organizer which never seemed to empty, and beside this, his pot of ink, into which he dipped between sentences as his pen scratched along his fine paper. I had gleaned that his time in the army had come to an enforced end and his hours spent in his room related to investment work of some sort. Adeline had rambled through their brief history, but she skirted details and my English didn’t equip me to understand all I needed to. She also painted her own background with broad brushstrokes, a snipe at the end of sentences about her estranged family whose aristocratic wealth and abundance stood in stark contrast to the contempt they held for the artistic life she had chosen, even if the major was able to almost keep her in the manner they expected.

  I stood for a moment before the clatter of the tray made him turn to me.

  “Sorry, Major—I do not disturb you? Here’s your four o’clock tea as you asked.”

  “Ah, yes, grazie, Santina.”

  He whipped straight back to his writing. The smoky steam swirled up from the narrow silver spout.

  “Lapsang souchong, yes? You remembered?” he asked without taking his eyes off his letter.

  “Yes,” I answered, wondering how he could drink something that smelled like a bonfire.

  “That’ll be all.”

  I left and closed the heavy squat door behind me.

  * * *

  The remaining months of Adeline’s pregnancy ripened throughout the summer. As the days lengthened, so did her energy. Several times I’d walk past the studio door finishing up my chores of the evening only to notice the lights still on and the soft smudge of a brush dipping into paint and caressing the canvas. I’d listen to the quickening strokes, wondering whether this infinite burst of energy was healthy. The next morning—I think she can’t have slept more than a handful of hours—she declared that we were to visit the ladies’ pond in the heath. I almost dropped her egg as she did so. Then I caught the major’s eyebrow rise up and lower, over the tip of the newspaper.

  “Henry, don’t be tiresome. Now is the time to listen to my body. I’m listening. You’d do well to do the same. It needs water. A great deal of it. This morning.”

  The major let out a sigh. The corner of his paper flickered on the last whispered trace of it. I placed a silver rack of fresh toast at the center of their breakfast table and, as usual, pretended not to hear very much at all.

  “Adeline—you’re the size of a modest whale. What on earth do you hope to achieve by thrashing around in freezing waters in this condition?”

  I scooped another spoon of marmalade into a small ramekin and set it beside the toast, spreading the sounds of their conversation into a distant periphery.

  As I reached the door, I heard my name and spun back toward them.

  “That’s settled then, yes, Santina?”

  “Pardon, Major?”

  “What I just said.”

  He hated to repeat himself. I hated asking him to.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear.”

  Another sigh. Deeper this time. He flopped his napkin beside his plate.

  “After breakfast you’re to accompany my bride to the pond. If she will not be convinced to avoid the icy bathing, then so be it. If you are there, you may offer assistance should she need it.”

  I ski
pped through most of the key words as he spoke, but the thought of me standing at the water’s edge in charge of a heavily pregnant artist, who, to my mind, had never done a thing that anyone had ever insisted of her, sent cold trickles of fear down my neck.

  I nodded, of course.

  * * *

  Adeline charged through the forest with long strides, ducking under lower-hanging branches, swinging her long limbs over stony patches. Her leather satchel lifted with each step, her towel draped over one shoulder, percussing her steps with a nonchalant swing. Meanwhile, I rambled behind her, walking eight steps to her three, tripping over unexpected stones, holes, muddy patches. I hated the feeling of being a stranger amongst this lush green. It reminded me of trekking light-footed amongst the mountainous wilderness of home. That was another life now. A twang of sorrow tugged. I ripped my attention away from the memories, feeling the prick of their thorns but tearing away, just as Adeline did with every bramble catch of her towel. The paths inched in again and led to a wooden gate. Adeline creaked it open and we followed the stony ridge. I could make out a jetty just beyond several oaks. As we turned, the glassy water opened up before us, shafts of morning light streaking through the branches of the trees that surrounded it. The bottle green water lay still, save for tiny ripples left from itinerant dragonflies. The reflections of the surrounding leaves dappled the surface with forest greens, ochre, sienna, and emerald, all crafted with exquisite perfection as in the hands of a skilled oil painter. I noticed I couldn’t move.

  “Yes, Santina—it is simply breathtaking. My very happy place. Come on!”

  And with that, she reached down to the bottom of her shift and with one lithe movement lifted it clear off her body. She placed her hands on her naked hips. I wished my eyes weren’t settling on her breasts, paper-thin porcelain streaked with threads of blue, ready to nourish. In the last few days, I had noticed her pregnant belly drop toward her pelvis. I knew her time was soon. Spidery-thin pink lines streaked out from her belly button.

  “Have you ever seen a naked pregnant woman, Santina?”

  I shook my head, feeling the heat of embarrassment color my cheeks.

  “Isn’t it wonderful and ghastly?”

  I wished some words would come to my rescue rather than this mute stupidity.

  “That’s why I must simply come here today. If I feel any heavier, I may never walk again. It is a horrid feeling. And amazing of course. Henry felt it kick last night. The little monster churned across my entire belly. I saw an elbow, I think.”

  She spun toward the water, reached the end of the jetty, stepped off, and disappeared. I’d like to think I didn’t hold my breath. I looked around for other bathers but none were to be found. I counted the seconds till she resurfaced, my chest tightening. Then her head rose with a spray of water. I sat down upon the jetty and watched her head bob over and under the green ripples, pretending that it didn’t look like the perfect thing I should like to be doing at this very moment.

  * * *

  A week later the baby came; small, pink, and loud. Perhaps I was the only one who noticed Adeline not sleeping for those first three days. No one else seemed to pay any mind to her manic delight. The major was transfixed with the babe. The midwife was cool and brusque. Adeline was a woman possessed with a frantic happiness. It made me feel uneasy. I watched her hold the tiny baby to her bare breast, sometimes not noticing when her nipple fell out of the babe’s mouth, or the wails as she flailed to reattach. I heard the cries through the night. I wasn’t convinced they were those of a mother adjusting to her new reality.

  On the fourth day we awoke to an almighty crash. I ran to my window. Down in the garden I saw that the major’s beloved greenhouse’s roof had collapsed. Jagged panes were strewn around a body.

  It was Adeline’s.

  Chapter 3

  I watched the major follow the ambulance crew out of the house. He shot me a fleeting glance as he left. I mustered a nod that I hoped would reassure him Elizabeth was in good hands. New End Hospital emergency department was only a few streets away, and that was some comfort. The door closed behind him. I held the screeching baby closer to my chest. I’d never felt quite so alone.

  Elizabeth wailed into my ear as I carried her down the darkened hallway toward the nursery. I found several glass bottles in a neat line upon the wooden dresser, left by the midwife earlier. I cared little for that woman, but now her disinfected approach to infants was the one thing that would carry me through the night with the child.

  I laid Elizabeth into her cot. She protested, jerking her limbs with deepening cries, leaving intermittent gaps between wails where her breath filled those tiny lungs before the next blast for survival. I filled a glass bottle with the contents of one of the prepared cans, picked her up, and looked at her tiny red face, contorted with anguish. I sat upon the nursing chair by the window and cradled her. She clamped her lips around the bottle’s teat, and her cries gave way to the brittle silence of the house.

  I tried to focus on the peace that washed over her tiny face, the dewy hair covering her cheeks that reminded me of the ripe peaches of my Amalfitani summers. For a moment, the terror of the past hour faded. She gave in to a milky sleep. I sat there for some time, feeling the flutter of her heart gallop against my belly. I didn’t notice I was crying at first. Then I saw the itinerant droplets blot the muslin cloth, covering her with little damp circles. I stood up and placed the bundle back into her cot. She stirred as she left the warmth of my arms but slipped back into her quiet as my hand smoothed away from under her. I watched her chest rise and fall, fitful and erratic. I’m not sure how long I stood there, making sure she was breathing, even if I knew my gaze alone would never ensure her survival. The brief escape from the image of Adeline’s crumpled face floating back into my mind was short lived.

  The minutes after her fall were already a blur. A flurry of panic, glass, blood. When we first reached her, I was sure she was already dead. As the major touched her though, she let out a groan, her eyes rolling in her head. I couldn’t have hoped to sail through the shock as he did. I followed his every instruction, holding Adeline’s hand and doing my best to keep her conscious while he called for help.

  Now, in the disquiet, my mind churns, longing for yesterday. Wishing there would have been some way to prevent this. Berating myself for not having the courage to alert the major or midwife to Adeline’s erratic behavior. It was not my place. Now everything felt unsure. I was stood on floating ice, watching small pieces break off around me.

  I pulled the nursing chair close to the cot. Stripes of moonlight cut through the square panes. Shadows crept through the house as it creaked into the night. Every woody sound pierced my fretful sleep. Each time Elizabeth took in several snatched breaths in a row, I awoke. I wrapped her tiny fingers in mine. That night I dreamed of my mother. The newborn and I both woke up crying.

  * * *

  The next few weeks snaked on between shards of silence. The major left promptly every morning after breakfast to visit Adeline, returned for a light lunch, retired to his study, then bedroom soon after.

  One morning he sat at the breakfast table longer than usual. I cleared his plate. When I closed the door behind me, I heard him cry for the first time. I stood with my back against the old wood, listening for longer than I needed to. I waited, not knowing why. He did not call me, of course. I cleaned the deep ceramic sink more than I needed. I took a moment to polish the window ledge above it and take in the garden, the roofless greenhouse and its bare skeletal rusting frame. Below, the major’s beloved tomatoes hung plump with fruit, oblivious to the tragedy that had crashed around them. I returned to the dining room to clear the rest of the dishes.

  “Santina?” His voice was thin.

  “Yes, Major?”

  He looked me in the eye. I don’t think he’d done so since that night.

  “I’m very grateful for your help at this time.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “This is a
temporary arrangement, of course. You understand. Adeline will be returning home in a few nights.”

  “Yes, Major.”

  “I will require your extra assistance during the transition. I will, of course, reimburse you fairly.”

  My brow furrowed before I could stop it.

  “I need more help from you,” he clarified, “more than your usual jobs.”

  “Yes,” I replied, “of course.”

  “Thank you.”

  He took a deeper breath. I felt like he wanted to say something more.

  “That is all for now.”

  I returned to the kitchen. He disappeared back into his solitary world.

  * * *

  Adeline returned a translucent shell. Her eyes were misty gray pools. I pretended not to notice the way her feet searched the floor, unsteady, someone trying to balance upon a moving ship. Her skin hung from her cheekbones like a fading memory. The major wrapped his arm around her and led her to the guest bedroom, which he had overseen the nurses set up for hours before she came home until it resembled a hospital room. A metal trolley stood by the window, lined with paper and a small drugstore of medicinal vials and bottles. Crisp linen towels towered upon the dresser.

  A regular stream of doctors passed through the house for the next week. It was impossible to not overhear their conversations with the major because each ended in the same heated manner, with the latter crying out for the medical men to leave. That instant. The strain spread over the major’s face like a drought. One morning, the more patient of the doctors sat beside him at the breakfast table.

  “Henry, you must listen to our advice. Adeline will not improve. Not for a very long time. If at all. This is not an episode of hysteria. She is experiencing the trauma of postpartum psychosis. You can’t just brush this off. The way you’re behaving, it’s like Adeline’s broken her leg and you’re hoping a sticking plaster will do the trick.”