I have woken from terrible dreams.
'I cannot see them,' I say. 'You must send them back. They must come another time.'
'Don't be tiresome, Maud.'
He stands and dresses, fastening his collar, his neck-tie. His coat lies neatly on the bed.
'I won't see them!' I say.
'You will,' he answers; 'for in seeing them you bring this thing to completion. You hate it here. Now is our time to leave.'
'I am too nervous.'
He does not answer. He turns, to raise a brush to his head. I lean and seize his coat— find the pocket, the bottle of drops— but he sees, comes quickly to me and plucks it from my hand.
'Oh, no,' he says, as he does it. 'I won't have you half in a dream— or risk you muddling the dose, and so spoiling everything! Oh, no. You must be quite clear in your mind.'
He returns the bottle to the pocket. When I reach again, he dodges.
'Let me have it,' I say. 'Richard, let me have it. One drop only, I swear.' My lips jump about the words. He shakes his head, wipes at the nap of the coat to remove the impression of my fingers.
'Not yet,' he says. 'Be good. Work for it.'
'I cannot! I shan't be calm, without a dose of it.'
'You shall try, for my sake. For our sake, Maud.'
'Damn you!'
'Yes, yes, damn us all, damn us all.' He sighs; then returns to the brushing of his hair. When after a moment I sink back, he catches my eye.
'Why throw such a tantrum, hey?' he says, almost kindly. And then: 'You are calmer, now? Very good. You know what to do, when they see you? Have Sue make you neat, no more than that. Be modest. Weep if you must, a little. You are sure what to say?'
I am, despite myself; for we have planned this, many times. I wait, then nod. 'Of course,' he says. He pats at his pocket, at the bottle of drops. 'Think of London,' he 190
says. 'There are druggists on every street corner, there.'
My mouth trembles in scorn. 'You think,' I say, 'I shall still want my medicine, in London?'
The words sound weak, even to my ears. He turns his head, saying nothing, perhaps suppressing a smile. Then he takes up his pen-knife and stands at the fire and cleans his nails— now and then giving a flick of the blade, to cast slivers of dirt, fastidiously, into the flames.
He takes them first to talk with Sue. Of course, they suppose her his wife, turned mad, thinking herself a servant, speaking in the manner of a maid, keeping to a maid's room.
I hear the creaking of the stairs and floorboards beneath their boots. I hear their voices— low, monotonous— but not their words. Sue's voice I do not hear at all. I sit upon the bed until they come, and then I stand and curtsey. 'Susan,' says Richard quietly. 'My wife's maid.' They nod. I say nothing, yet. But I think my look must be strange. I see them studying me. Richard also watches. Then he comes close.
'A faithful girl,' he says to the doctors. 'Her strength has been sadly over- taxed, these past two weeks.' He makes me walk from the bed to the arm-chair, puts me in the light of the window. 'Sit here,'
he says gently, 'in your mistress's chair. Be calm, now. These gentlemen only wish to ask you a number of trifling questions. You must answer them honestly.'
He presses my hand. I think he does it to reassure or to warn me; then I feel his fingers close about one of mine. I still wear my wedding- ring. He draws it free and holds it, hidden, against his palm.
'Very good,' says one of the doctors, more satisfied now. The other makes notes in a book. I watch him turn a page and, suddenly, long for paper. 'Very good. We have seen your mistress. You do well to think of her comfort and health for— I am sorry to tell you this— we fear she is ill. Very ill indeed. You know she believes her name to be your name, her history one that resembles yours? You know that?'
Richard watches.
'Yes, sir,' I say, in a whisper.
And your name is Susan Smith?'
'Yes, sir.'
And you were maid to Mrs Rivers— Miss Lilly, as was— in her uncle's house, of Briar, before her marriage?'
I nod.
And before that— where was your place? Not with a family named Dunraven, at the supposed address of Whelk Street, Mayfair?'
'No, sir. I never heard of them. They are all Mrs Rivers's fancy.'
I s p e a k , a s a s e r v a n t m i g h t . A n d I n a m e , r e l u c t a n t l y , s o m e o t h e r h o u s e a n d family— some family of Richard's acquaintance, who might be relied on to provide the history we need, if the doctors think to seek them out. We do not think they will, however.
The doctor nods again. And Mrs Rivers,' he says. 'You speak of her "fancy". When did such fancies begin?'
I swallow. 'Mrs Rivers has often seemed strange,' I say quietly. 'The servants at Briar 191
would speak of her as of a lady not quite right, in the brain. I believe her mother was mad, sir.'
'Now, now,' says Richard smoothly, interrupting. 'The doctors don't want to hear the gossip of servants. Go on with your observations, only.'
'Yes, sir,' I say. I gaze at the floor. The boards are scuffed, there are splinters rising from the wood, thick as needles.
'And Mrs Rivers's marriage,' says the doctor. 'How did that affect her?'
'It was that, sir,' I say, 'which made the change in her. Before that time, she had seemed to love Mr Rivers; and we had all at Briar supposed his care, which was'— I catch Richard's eye— 'so good, sir!— we had all supposed it would lift her out of herself. Then, since her wedding- night, she has started up very queer ..."
The doctor looks at his colleague. 'You hear,' he says, 'how well the account matches Mrs Rivers's own? It is quite remarkable!— as if, in making a burden of her life, she seeks to hand that burden to another, better able to bear it. She has made a fiction of herself!' He returns to me. 'A fiction, indeed,' he says thoughtfully. 'Tell me this, Miss Smith: does your mistress care for books? for reading?'
I meet his gaze, but my throat seems to close, or be splintered, like the boards on the floor. I cannot answer. Richard speaks in my behalf. 'My wife,' he says, 'was born to a literary life. Her uncle, who raised her, is a man dedicated to the pursuit of learning, and saw to her education as he might have seen to a son's. Mrs Rivers's first passion was books.'
'There you have it!' says the doctor. 'Her uncle, an admirable gentleman I don't doubt.
But the over-exposure of girls to literature— The founding of women's colleges— '
His brow is sleek with sweat. 'We are raising a nation of brain-cultured women. Your wife's distress, I'm afraid to say, is part of a wider malaise. I fear for the future of our race, Mr Rivers, I may tell you now. And her wedding- night, you say, the start of this most recent bout of insanity? Could that'— he drops his voice meaningfully, and exchanges a glance with the doctor who writes— 'be plainer?' He taps at his lip. 'I saw how she shrank from my touch, when I felt for the pulse at her wrist. I noted, too, that she wears no marriage ring.'
Richard starts into life at the words, and pretends to draw something from his pocket.
They say fortune favours villains.
'Here it is,' he says gravely, holding out the yellow band. 'She put it from her, with a curse.— For she speaks like a servant now, and thinks nothing of mouthing filthy words. God knows where she learned them!' He bites at his lip. 'You might imagine the sensations that produced, sir, in my breast.' He puts his hand to his eyes, and sits heavily upon the bed; then rises, as if in horror. 'This bed!' he says hoarsely. 'Our marriage-bed, I thought it. To think my wife would rather the room of a servant, a pallet of straw— !' He shudders. That's enough, I think. No more. But he is a man in love with his own roguery.
'A wretched case,' says the doctor. 'But we will work on your wife, you may be sure, to shake her of her unnatural fancy— '