by Sarah Burton
Evelyn and I were most cautious getting into the boat, as neither of us had been on the river before, but Aunt Madge jumped in with the carelessness of a true citizen. The river looked much bigger from here, and I hoped the boat would not sink as I could not swim. Frederick pointed out all the spires of the churches and our aunt supplied the names of those he did not know. It was windy, too, on the river, and smelt, as I thought, how the sea would smell. We had a good view of the bridge and the houses on it and Frederick told me that Nonesuch House (the great house in the middle) was brought in pieces from Flanders and reassembled on the bridge, and that due to the ingenuity of its construction, not one nail was used to hold it together. London was indeed full of such marvels. And Frederick said that the fire that had burned part of the bridge down was caused by a maid leaving a bucket of hot ashes under a staircase, which it ignited, and Aunt Madge said, “That’s right! If in doubt, blame a woman!”
The New Spring Gardens were very pretty, though Aunt Madge said it was even better a little later in the summer, and there were all kinds of amusements, from a dancing bear to a marionette show. Frederick suddenly decided we should have some custard tarts, even though we had just had quince marmalades. Despite our protestations (and in truth my aunt never put up a convincing argument against tarts of any variety) he chivvied us into a booth and ordered us up some tarts and coffee before disappearing, as he said, to pay his respects to an acquaintance. While my aunt descanted on the relative merits of the tarts of the New and Old Gardens, my gaze followed Frederick and I saw that he had found Roger. I was just about to speak when I realised something was amiss and made an excuse to slip out to get a better view of what was occurring. Roger was with some ladies, who were very heavily painted and brightly dressed and they were all very drunk and noisy. I had never seen ladies drunk before and it was most alarming. One of them lifted up her skirts and showed her legs right up to her garters. Frederick turned away and seemed to be gesturing towards the booth, as if to encourage Roger to go away and not let his mother see him in this condition. Nevertheless, to my horror, Roger began to lurch towards the booth, surrounded by his exotic companions who seemed anxious not to let him out of their sight. As a last resort, Frederick put himself in Roger’s way, and to my horror, almost before I had realised it, Roger threw a punch at Frederick, knocking him to the ground.
I immediately ran to Frederick, and on sight of me, Roger thought better of going further and staggered away with the painted ladies.
“Are you alright?” I asked Frederick, helping him up.
“Thank you,” he said. “I tripped, merely.”
We both knew this was not true, but it served to inform me that the incident was not to be discussed and we returned to the booth in silence. Though Evelyn and Aunt Madge did not detect anything amiss, the exchange had left me feeling most unhappy and I was glad when we got to the playhouse where my own thoughts would be put away for a while.
Yet even at the playhouse there were more confusing scenes, which began to make me wonder whether I had misapprehended Frederick’s character. As we were filing into the auditorium, a stranger accosted him most angrily and Frederick gestured to us to take our aunt in and he would follow. When we had taken our seats, I saw him making his way towards us when another fellow stopped him and had, as my aunt would say, words. Both my cousins, it seemed, had an unnatural capacity for finding trouble. I looked across to see whether my aunt was aware of all this. She was.
“Do not judge your cousin,” she said mildly. “Appearances can be deceptive. I’d wager he has been taken for Roger, and these gentlemen are Roger’s creditors.” She sighed. “Or he has done them some other wrong. Either way, dear Frederick thinks I do not know.”
Having placated the gentleman, Frederick joined us, and I noticed his eye was puffing up somewhat from where Roger had struck him. Nevertheless, he smiled broadly at us all and sat down as though nothing was amiss. Yet I could not enjoy the play, and thought on the pain both he and my aunt must endure on Roger’s account.
That night as we were in bed, I told Evelyn everything that I had seen at Vauxhall. She did not seem surprised.
“When we got home and you were helping Aunt I asked Frederick about his eye, and I thought tears welled up for a moment, and he said, with great feeling: ‘I am no saint, but my brother is a devil.’ And then he went to his room.”
We both lay awake for some time. And finally Evelyn said, “Other people’s families are a mystery,” and turned over and went to sleep.
The next day Roger was confined to his bed all day. Evelyn took him some tea and bread and butter on my aunt’s instruction and I don’t know what happened, but afterwards she came to me mightily distressed and said I was never to go into Roger’s room alone. I asked her why, but she wouldn’t say, only made me promise not to. Well, my readers will think I am a believing little fool, as I thought Evelyn meant I must not be alone in his room, but that if he were there it would be alright. (I had a habit of being blockheadedly dense on such matters. My aunt had once warned me, when we were going to a dance where there would be much to drink and little to eat, against what she called mixing drinks to avoid feeling ill the next day, and I assumed she meant not to mix them in the same glass, so drank freely of all kinds of things, but one at a time, and could not understand why I felt as though my brains had been baked in the morning.) Had I thought about it for even a second, I would have realised that I had never seen any of the maids go into Roger’s room for Cook made an exception to not coming upstairs in his case and always brought him anything he needed herself.
Although I was extremely intrigued at what might be in Roger’s chamber, I had no intention of disobeying my sister, and so forgot the matter. I could not help liking Roger when he was sober, thinking him vastly amusing and he told such tales of adventures at Oxford. It did not seem that going to the university entailed a great deal of work at all. He was training to go into the law, but said it was “dry old stuff” and he didn’t care much for it. Evelyn seemed not to like Roger so much and when both brothers were there she usually talked with Frederick, of whom I also became increasingly fond, partly because he loved books, as we did. He was studying to go into the priesthood, though he was not like any clergyman I knew, and certainly not like Clarissa’s husband. It was strange, but I barely thought of my family now. Evelyn and I would sometimes talk of our sisters, but we rarely heard from Clarissa or Diana, and we often wondered what had become of Grace and Frances and this always made us sad. The life we led with Aunt Madge seemed almost a different world to our first home, and it seemed strange to think of our sisters in other places living their lives.
Roger sometimes disappeared for days on end and it was plain to see why Aunt Madge despaired of him. When Frederick returned to Oxford, Roger found reasons to delay going, and then fell ill, which gave him an authentic excuse. I did not know precisely what was wrong with Roger and whenever Dr Rookham came to treat him, he would afterwards talk seriously with my aunt, but the door was always firmly shut on these interviews. I knew that whatever it was, the treatment was at least as unpleasant as the disease, for Roger dreaded the doctor coming and once, when he heard him announced, shouted out “Tell him he is not needed and that I am dead already!”
11
I had not seen Roger for about a week when I passed his room and heard him calling. Aunt Madge and Evelyn and the servants had all gone to church (except for Cook, who was a Non-conformist and had to get the dinner on) and I had stayed at home as we were expecting Mrs Macready, whom I was supposed to entertain until my aunt’s return. Almost as soon as they had gone a message came to say that Mrs Macready was not coming, and while I briefly considered following the others to church, I decided instead to treat myself to a morning of leisurely reading. I was therefore not best pleased to be instead ministering to Roger, but there was no one else, and I did feel very sorry for him. I knocked before opening the door. The room was very gloomy, the curtains only partly open, an
d there was a most offensive smell. It crossed my mind that the smell might come from the thing I must not be alone with. Did Roger keep an animal of some kind here?
“What do you lack, Roger?” I asked. “Can I get you something?”
“Is that you, H?” his voice seemed thick. “Come here, I can’t see you.”
I approached the bed with some caution, as I was still wary of what might be in the room. Roger looked terrible, his skin seemed grey and he was shivering but also sweating.
“Please sit with me a moment,” he said. “H, I feel absolutely done in.”
“Oh, Roger!” I exclaimed, and felt tears pricking the backs of my eyes. I had not seen anyone close to me in such a desperate condition. I sat on the bed and took his hand in both of mine. “Can I do anything for you?”
“What would you do, H?” he asked.
“Anything,” I said.
“Have you ever lain with a man, H?”
I thought I must have misheard him.
“I don’t understand you, Roger. What do you mean?”
“I thought as much,” he said, and laughed bitterly, so that I noticed his scabbed lips. I also realised, belatedly, that he was very drunk and that the empty bottles by his bed had not contained medicine. It was small wonder he was rambling in his talk.
I was feeling extremely uncomfortable now and began to withdraw my hands, but as soon as he felt them begin to slip away, he grasped them tighter.
“Cousin!” I exclaimed. “Tell me what you want and I’ll get it.”
“I want you, you little idiot,” he said, grasping me by the shoulders and pushing me backwards onto the counterpane. As I opened my mouth to scream he put a pillow over my face so I could hardly breathe.
I need not fright my readers by recounting what then took place, and I do not recall it in detail and believe I may have fainted, for all that remained afterwards were disjointed senses of assault, both to my dignity and my person. I remember believing I might die, so unfamiliar and invasive was the pain, and that I might even have died already and be now in Hell, where they say torments are never-ending, as these seemed. Had a stranger attacked me in a dark alley, it would have been far preferable to this abuse at the hands of one whom I trusted and, in a sort, loved. It made no sense. I could not understand it. And compounding the dislocation of logic were my cousin’s repeated agonised cries, throughout, of “God forgive me! God forgive me!” And as, at times of peril, many disparate thoughts rush through one’s head, suddenly I understood Evelyn’s warning. There was no wild animal in the room. The beast was Roger himself.
I do not know how I found my way back to my own room, where I washed myself and wept and shivered and do not know whether I slept or not. I was shaking uncontrollably when Evelyn found me in bed and was unable to speak. She guessed I had caught a fever or an ague, and I did not disabuse her. Although my body suffered, my mind was strong, and even while the assault was happening I had been able to think clearly enough to resolve that no one should ever know of it. Mine was a private shame. I think even then I believed I could survive, but I doubted I could bear the humiliation of it being publicly known. I had seen what had happened to Grace. I had learnt that men walked away while women bore the consequences. I wanted above everything to tell all to Evelyn, but in my feverish state, fears ran round my head that Evelyn might actually kill Roger if I told my story, and then she would be hanged. And I also felt I had partly brought it on myself, as I had not heeded Frederick’s warnings, nor understood Evelyn’s, in fact had ignored the many signs that Roger was capable of great wickedness. It had simply never occurred to me that he might be wicked to me. Of all the many bad things I felt about myself, that which recurred most was that I had been, as Roger said, a little idiot.
Of course, little of this was clear at the time. Evelyn later told me that I lay in bed moaning and shivering and in a fever for three days and nights together and never spoke a word in that time. Then I began to rally. Dr Rookham had been sent for as soon as I fell ill and diagnosed a hysterical fever, prescribing only bed rest, but proposed to cup me if I showed no improvement. I later learnt I shrank so alarmingly from allowing him to examine my body that he was reluctant to force me, so the bruises and other hurts I had received disappeared in time, unknown to anyone else. As I gradually came back to the world, I began to be sensible of those around me, and though I still did not speak, could hear and understand them. One day I heard Dr Rookham and Evelyn talking in low voices in the room.
“Will you see my cousin while you are here?” asked Evelyn.
“Now there is a dog wants shooting,” muttered Dr Rookham.
“He recovers, does he not?” asked Evelyn.
“He does,” answered the doctor. “He’ll soon be fit enough to go whoring again, and catch the pox again. This is his third blast in as many years, you know.” Then he stopped, and in a most tender voice, added, “Oh, my deepest apologies, my dear. I have spoken out of turn. This is talk most unfit for modest ears. You are such an apt little nurse, I begin to forget you are a lady.”
Horror gripped my heart. Roger had the foul disease. This made sense of my feelings of dirt and degradation that I found water could not wash away. I sank back into fever and insensibility. After another three days I rallied again, but this time continued steadily to improve. I had been only dimly aware of any human attentions, but had been touched by the almost constant presence of Puss, who had chosen to spend his hours of repose beside me. When I believed myself incapable of feeling, I was sensible to his friendly salute on entry, which was to sniff my face and lick my hand reassuringly before settling down beside my bed.
The morning I felt better, I sat up in bed and said “Hello Puss,” and he cocked his head on one side, until I repeated the greeting, whereupon he jumped up on the counterpane and kissed my face with many affectionate licks, before jumping down and running barking through the house, as if to alert everyone to the change in me. As soon as Evelyn had satisfied herself of my well-being, she told me of the many kindnesses that had been shown during my illness. Cook had made tempting dishes every day for me, while little Joe and Sal had been heard praying for my recovery every night. The footmen, whom I never considered even noticed me, had been very solemn and enquiring after Miss H and procured flowers for my room, and Frederick had twice asked after my progress by letter from Oxford. And dear Aunt Madge had been so concerned at Evelyn’s fatigue – for she hardly ever left my side – that she had herself sat up one whole night watching over me when my fever was at its height. I had come to a decision, while what Aunt called Dr Sleep was doing his work, that just as I did not recollect much of my illness, I would choose to forget, as far as was possible, everything that had happened from the moment Roger had called me into his room until this moment when I spoke again. It had simply not occurred. It was the easiest path, and the most secure.
I quickly regained my strength, having always enjoyed rude health, and was soon back to my usual duties. This was rendered much easier by the circumstance that Roger had gone to stay with friends in the country to complete his convalescence. Still, I resolved not to dread seeing him again. After all, why should I? Nothing untoward had taken place between us. With each day I was able to swallow my necessary lie a little easier and was able to live again.
I had been completely well for above a week when Aunt Madge’s monthly dinner party came round again. Roger was to be present, as were all the guests from the previous party excepting Frederick who was in Oxford. Evelyn expressed some doubt as to whether I should attend, but Aunt Madge said it would be good for me and that was that. I wanted to get it over with, and was ready to approach the coming encounter bravely, but then all threatened to be ruined by a stunning discovery I made the same day in the library.
While I had put away, with more or less success, the terrible events in Roger’s room, I was sensible enough to realise I could not ignore the possible consequence: to wit, that I might have acquired the foul disease. I therefore w
aited for an opportunity to consult a certain medical book which Evelyn and I had previously occasionally frighted ourselves with by looking at the pictures therein.
I sought to learn the symptoms of the disease I feared, so I would recognise them if they appeared. These I was relieved to find had not yet manifested themselves, but I memorised them as I feared to write anything down. The learned author told how the venereal fever was to be got from whores – a word at which I then trembled but which now does not give me the least unease – though gave no hint as to where the whores got it from. It said that the disease was most contagious when these women were “impelled to a satisfaction” which puzzled me, but I believed I had not been impelled to a satisfaction so far as I was aware and took some comfort from this. There was a deal of other sordid stuff about “foul scorbutic wombs” and then the author went on to deal in cures. These included various potions and compounds, the employment of turpentine and arsenic and the injection of mercury or solutions of metals such as gold and silver. This, the good doctor said, “inflicts the severest pain on the victim” and I almost felt sorry for Roger, which just proves what a little fool I was still. He then mentioned sweating tubs and other devices and the last cure the doctor suggested was “to lie with a sound woman”, which I at first flipped past, as not applying to women, but then the horrible realisation crept over me that this was what Roger had done. I was his cure.
12
My plan was to avoid seeing Roger until dinner, when, in the company of others I would have no option but to behave in a way which would arouse no suspicion. This was easily accomplished, by reason that as soon as Roger arrived, he was summoned to my aunt’s presence and there followed one of their customary noisy and emotional interviews. This one was much noisier and more emotional than usual and went on for nearly two hours and at one point Evelyn reported hearing my aunt sobbing. Evelyn observed that I looked pale and again asked me not to go down to dinner, but I insisted. Above anything I did not want to give Roger the satisfaction of thinking he had hurt me, or indeed was capable of having any effect on me whatsoever. I could not change what had been done to me, but I could choose the person that Roger perceived in me.
