by Michael Cox
I express hurt and surprise at the question, and ask whether she has any cause to doubt what I have told her about myself.
No, no! she cries, apparently anxious to reassure me. You mustnt misunderstand me. Of course I trust you, and have no reason at all for doubting you.
I suppose someone has been speaking against me, I venture, adopting an aggrieved tone.
No one has spoken against you, Alice. I only wanted to be sure that I am not giving my trust and affection to someone who will reject them, as you must excuse me
She lays down her work, and raises her hand pathetically to her brow.
A little compassion seems in order; and so I gently take her hand and, looking sympathetically into her eyes, ask whether she is alluding to her former friend.
She nods, averting her eyes.
The wound is still raw, I see.
Forgive me, Alice dear. I should not have put you in this position. It was wrong of me to ask such a question, as if youve ever given me any reason to mistrust you. But I must be sure completely sure that our friendship will be built on a firm foundation of mutual trust and frankness. I could not bear to be disappointed once again, by the painful dissolution of an attachment on which Id placed the highest value. We must be faithful to each other.
No secrets, I say, with another allusive smile.
No secrets.
Well, then, I continue, in a brisk but conciliatory manner, I shall answer your question. I have kept nothing from you concerning myself. I am the person you believe me to be, and no other: Esperanza Alice Gorst, born a month prematurely in Paris on the 1st of September in the year 1857. Would you have her history again, in a nutshell?
She was an orphan who knew neither of her parents, and was consequently brought up by an old friend of her mothers, Madame Bertaud. She came to England, to reside with another of her mothers friends, the late Mrs Emma Poynter, in October 1875, and secured her first position in service, as maid to Miss Helen Gainsborough, two months later. She then applied to become maid to you, my Lady, in which she succeeded against all her expectations, but very much to her satisfaction. And that, brief though it is, is the truth and nothing but the truth concerning Esperanza Alice Gorst.
Bravo, Alice! cried my Lady. You have shown true spirit under fire, and have come through it bravely as I knew you would. But you have hidden something from me, you know.
And what is that?
Your true character. You are submissive no longer, Alice I sense that strongly, although you still pretend that its your nature to be so. Dont look so startled! I like you all the better for it. It is testimony to what I have always known: that we are kindred spirits. It is only circumstance that disguises the person you really are. And now I have released you from subservience, so you may be yourself at last!
LISTEN! DO YOU hear it? It is the sound of a stick tip-tap, tip-tap echoing through the cold evening air. It is Mr Armitage Vyse, descending the front steps on his way to his carriage, for his Christmas visit to Evenwood is over.
As he is about to step into the carriage, he turns and looks up, his lean, flamboyantly moustachioed face illuminated by the lantern held up by his man, Digges. Our eyes meet.
He smiles such a smile! Broad and lingering, in which is comingled ingratiation and intimidation. It seems to say: Look to yourself, Miss Esperanza Gorst, for I have you in my sights. If he means it to frighten me, he succeeds. I strive to maintain my composure; but, knowing what he is capable of, my heart begins to thud. Then, with a slight bow, and still smiling, he doffs his hat, slowly replaces it, and climbs into the vehicle.
I am standing at one of the Picture Gallery windows, watching the bobbing lamps on his carriage as they fade and then disappear into the darkness. My Lady has a headache, and has retired early. As I left her, she confirmed her decision to spend some days in London, having, she says, overcome her previous aversion to the capital, and repeating her desire to take me about a little in society. So we are to depart for Grosvenor Square on the first day of the New Year, which my Lady never cares to celebrate. I feel apprehensive; but, despite the proximity of Mr Vyse, I shall be glad of the change of scene, and for the opportunity, perhaps, of seeing Mrs Ridpath again.
After I had watched Mr Vyses carriage leave, and was about to go up to my room, Sukie had come panting up the stairs, holding a package.
Im so sorry, Miss Alice, I should have brought it over this morning, but I overslept, and it quite went out of my head. It came yesterday.
The package contained a further sheaf of shorthand extracts from my mothers journal. Two hours later, with midnight approaching, I had completed my transcription of the new extracts.
I poured some water into a bowl to rinse my inky fingers. Then I wept.
II
To France
DRAWN FROM THE JOURNAL OF MISS MARGUERITE BLANTYRE
AFTER THEIR SECRET departure from Madeira, drawing on the little money that my mother had at her personal disposal, supplemented by the sale of some of her jewellery, my parents took ship for Mallorca. There they took lodgings in a house near the La Seo Cathedral in the city of Palma, temporarily adopting the name of Edward and Mary Gray, supposedly brother and sister. They remained only a short while on Mallorca, my father being certain that they would be pursued, and soon left the island for Marseilles.
After a hard and circuitous route northwards, they were finally married in Cahors, on the 15th of January 1857. These are my mothers reflections on that memorable event, written from the Des Ambassadeurs Hotel the following day:
For the first time in my life, I take up my pen to write my journal as Mrs Edwin Gorst no longer Marguerite Blantyre, or Mary Gray!
Edwin and I were married yesterday, Thursday the 15th of January, in the Church of the Sacré-Coeur. It took such a very little time to become someone else the wife of my dearest
Edwin, whom I shall always love, until Death takes me. And now I am his truly and completely his in every way a wife should be, and I cannot think how I may ever live again without his dear presence.
The inn is not very clean, but the food is excellent, and the city where Fénélon * was a student is delightful. This morning, on coming down to breakfast, I was addressed by one of the waiters, for the first time, as Madame Gorst! It sounded so strange and matronly to be considered a madame, and no longer a mademoiselle! But then, through the day, as I grew used to it, I found myself wishing to hear myself so addressed by every stranger who passed us in the street, so thrilling were the words to my ear. Madame Gorst! Mrs Gorst!
Edwin, who was withdrawn and silent for the last stage of our journey here from Montauban, is altogether changed optimistic, affectionately attentive, and wonderfully voluble on the various ancient buildings and antiquities that surround us here.
As we walked around the city this morning, arm in arm through the pale winter sunshine, smiling and laughing at the thousand and one little, but infinitely precious inconsequentialities that all lovers make their own, I felt that I would never be so happy again nor did I care if it were so.
In those all-sufficient hours, I was more truly alive, I believe, than I have ever been in my life, and could conceive of no possible augmentation of that wondrous completeness, in this life or the next. Whatever came, whatever trials I might undergo, I would always be armoured against despair against even the terrors of death by the memory that I had once, for a brief instant of time, walked through Paradise with my dearest Edwin.
III
The Avenue dUhrich
DRAWN FROM THE JOURNAL OF MARGUERITE GORST
IN THE LAST week of January 1857, my parents at last arrived in Paris, taking lodgings above the shop of a colourman * in the Quai de Montebello, on the Left Bank of the Seine, overlooking the Île de la Cité. Here they intended to make a temporary home until they could safely remove to England witho
ut fear of pursuit and discovery by my mothers uncle or his agents: her cousin and former fiancé, Fergus Blantyre, and his friend, Mr Roderick Shillito.
The owner of the shop above which they lodged, a Monsieur Alphonse Lambert, was a softly spoken and ungrudgingly generous man of about sixty years, with an invalid wife under his care. His good nature allowed my parents a considerable degree of latitude with respect to their rent; for by the time they reached Paris, their little stock of money had dwindled almost to nothing.
One day, my mother offered to assist their landlord in the shop, as a way of meeting their obligations until the rent-money then due could be found. She quickly became thoroughly at home amongst the easels, palettes, canvases, brushes, casts, and all the other articles sold by Monsieur Lambert, who just as quickly appears to have regarded her as an indispensable addition to his business.
As well as charming Monsieur Lamberts customers, my mother also displayed an immediate aptitude in the preparation of colours and, having drawn and painted since girlhood, revealed an artistic ability of no common order in the sketches and pictures of the neighbourhood that she soon started to produce, and which she shyly placed before the professional eyes of Monsieur Lambert for his opinion.
Then, one fine spring morning, to the proprietors surprise and delight, a gentleman, entering the shop with his daughter, for the purpose of buying her some colours and some brushes, chanced to see one of these productions, admired it, and enquired whether it was for sale. Soon my mother was obliged to abandon her duties in the shop and was given an attic room by her landlord, where she happily turned out views of the Cathedral and the quais that found an eager market amongst visitors to those picturesque areas of the city.
My father, meanwhile, occupied himself with occasional literary work, and with acting as an agent for his wifes artistic endeavours. He would spend long hours seeking out new patrons, delivering her drawings and paintings to them, and selecting new views and subjects for her to depict.
On his return one day from delivering a view of the Conciergerie to a gentleman in the Rue de St-Antoine, my father suddenly announced that they would be leaving the Quai de Montebello within a matter of days.
My mother was naturally astounded by the news, until he explained that, quite by chance, he had encountered an old acquaintance a Madame de lOrme, whom he had known, through a mutual friend, when living in London some years previously. This lady, of about my fathers age, was now a widow, but had been left well provided for by her late husband. On hearing of their situation, and living alone in a large house in the Avenue dUhrich, she had made the suggestion that my parents should take up residence with her, free of rent. They could occupy the whole of the second floor of the mansion, comprising half a dozen comfortable and well-appointed rooms, amongst which was a spacious, well-lit corner apartment that could be fitted up as a studio for my mother.
To this proposal my father had agreed, with apparently very little persuasion on the part of Madame de lOrme. My mother, less willing to leave the Quai de Montebello, and the modest but perfectly comfortable life that they enjoyed with Monsieur Lambert, at last reluctantly agreed to the plan; and so, in June 1857, they moved their few belongings, together with my mothers artistic materials, into Madame de lOrmes house in the Avenue dUhrich.
THROUGHOUT THEIR TIME in the Quai de Montebello, my parents marriage had continued to be a generally happy one, even though their financial circumstances were often precarious, despite the regular sales of my mothers work. The plan to live in England had accordingly been abandoned, and, by mutual consent, Paris was now to be their permanent home.
Soon after removing to the Avenue dUhrich, however, as is evident from several entries in my mothers journal, certain fractures began to appear in their previously happy union the reason for which, although never explicitly stated, caused my mother considerable pain and anxiety. Disagreement and dissension seem to have arisen, in part, from my fathers insistence that no communication of any kind should pass between his wife and her Blantyre relations, a most unreasonable prohibition (it seems to me, as it did to her), which went hard on my mother; for she loved her parents and sister dearly, and had hoped that the irrevocable fact of her marriage would effect a reconciliation with her nearest relatives, if not with her uncle.
Although it pains me to say it, I have also inferred a degree of unexplained antipathy between my mother and Madame de lOrme, and must additionally mention two or three veiled references to certain events in my fathers former life in England, the continuing consequences of which appear to have contributed, perhaps in no small way, to my mothers growing unhappiness.
Whatever the causes of their troubles, my father became distant and unpredictable in his behaviour, often shutting himself away for long periods, and leaving the house after dark to wander the streets. I cannot be sure whether this sad state of affairs persisted, or whether it was resolved; for from the middle of July 1857, the journal extracts sent to me by Mr Thornhaugh cease. They do not resume, and then only briefly, until September of that year on the first day of which month, at about three oclock in the afternoon, I was born in a room overlooking the high-walled garden of Madame de lOrmes house in the Avenue dUhrich.
IV
The Last Words of Marguerite Gorst
MY DEAR MOTHERS health was fatally weakened by the effort of bringing me into the world. She died on the 9th of January 1858, and was buried in the Cemetery of St-Vincent, under the slab of granite that I later came to know so well.
The final entry in her journal, written just three days before her death, speaks of her joy at my birth, and of the many hopes she had for my future life. She also expresses, most poignantly, her sorrow that her own parents continued in ignorance of her marriage, and now of the existence of a fine and healthy granddaughter. These are the last words that she ever wrote, and with them I shall now conclude:
6th January 1858
My life now is over, although Dr Girard persists in the kindly pretence that it is otherwise. I shall never again see dear Papa and Mamma, or my sweet, exasperating sister, with all her impetuous ways; and they will never now see their beautiful grandchild and niece. This is a most terrible and unnatural deprivation, which pains me beyond words; but Edwin has insisted that it must be so, and my love for him remains such despite all that has happened between us that I cannot, and will not, go against his wishes, even in the extremity of impending extinction. For I know that Deaths net is all about me, and soon I shall be gathered in.
I left Madeira in the highest hopes of lasting happiness; and, indeed, I was happy with Edwin for a time happier than I had ever been in my life. But all has changed he has changed since we left dear Monsieur Lamberts, and particularly since the birth of our darling daughter, on whom Edwin completely dotes.
When he is not restive and fidgety, he is distracted and preoccupied, as if his mind cannot escape from the unremitting consideration of some irresistibly compelling subject. He locks himself away, scribbling in his note-book, or writing letters to whom, I do not know; he walks about the garden deep in thought, for hours on end; he goes out at night, returning just before dawn.
He is silent at meals, even with M he neglects his work; and now he complains of headaches, for which only his drops he claims can effect relief.
Does he love me? Has he ever truly loved me? He has been the dearest, kindest friend and companion, my rock and support; and even through all the dark days of the last months, he has come back to me, on many occasions, as the Edwin I once knew, whom I shall never cease to love, even when I am in my grave. But love? True, entire, enduring love matching, point for point, the love that I bear him, and have so borne since the very moment of our first meeting? Has he ever felt this for me? I ask myself the question over and over, but no answer comes.
Mhas insisted on staying with me until Edwin returns, although I wished to be left alone. She is sitting
by the window as I write this, looking down into the garden. From time to time, she turns towards me and smiles. We speak little, having now nothing more to say; but we have reached a kind of understanding, for Edwins sake, which I believe contents us both.
From my bed I can see the bare branches of the chestnut-tree, and the high grey wall, tipped with iron spikes, that separates us from our neighbour, Monsieur Verron. Soon those branches will begin to bud with new life, and my darling girl, my little Esperanza, my precious hope, will lie beneath its canopy of gauzy green in soft sunlight, kicking her little legs, or dreaming unknowable dreams. Although I wish it could be otherwise, I am resigned to the necessity that she must be brought up here, under Ms roof; but I have the comfort of knowing that she will want for nothing, and that she will go out into the world as a lady.
The pain has returned, and still no sign of Edwin with Dr Girard. I wish so much that he would come!
22
In Which Madames Third Letter is Opened
I
By the Lake
THUS MY mother died, and with her the written record of my early life in the Avenue dUhrich came to an end. I had learned all I could of my parents from the journal extracts that Mr Thornhaugh had sent me, and from the recollections of Mr John Lazarus; but, to my bitter disappointment, much was still unexplained.
I wished particularly to know about the period after my mothers death, during which my father had been my only parent, and also the circumstances of his own death in 1862, when I was five years old.
