'Unnatural?' says Richard. He shudders again. His look grows strange. 'Ah, sir,' he says, 'you don't know all. There is something else. I had hoped to keep it from you. I 192
feel now, I cannot.'
'Indeed?' says the doctor. The other pauses, his pencil raised.
Richard wets his mouth; and all at once I know what he means to say, and quickly turn my face to his. He marks it. He speaks, before I can.
'Susan,' he says, 'you do well to feel shame in behalf of your mistress. You need feel none, however, in behalf of yourself. No guilt attaches to you. You did nothing to invite or encourage the gross attentions my wife, in her madness, attempted to force on you— '
He bites at his hand. The doctors stare, then turn to gaze at me.
'Miss Smith,' says the first, leaning closer, 'is this true?'
I think of Sue. I think of her, not as she must be now, in the room beyond the wall— satisfied to have betrayed me, glad to suppose herself about to return at last to her home, the dark thieves' den, in London. I think of her holding herself above me, her hair let down, You pearl. . .
'Miss Smith?'
I have begun to weep.
'Surely,' says Richard, coming to me, putting his hand heavily upon my shoulder,
'surely these tears speak for themselves? Do we need to name the unhappy passion?
Must we oblige Miss Smith to rehearse the words, the artful poses— the caresses— to which my distracted wife has made her subject? Aren't we gentlemen?'
'Of course,' says the doctor quickly, moving back. 'Of course. Miss Smith, your grief does you credit. You need not fear for your safety, now. You need not fear for the safety of your mistress. Her care will soon be our concern, not yours. Then we shall keep her, and cure her of all her ills. Mr Rivers, you understand— a case such as this— the treatment may well be a lengthy one . . .?'
They rise. They have brought papers, and look for a surface on which to put them out.
Richard clears the dressing- table of brushes and pins and they lay them there, then sign: a paper each. I don't watch them do it, but hear the grinding of the pen. I hear them moving together, to shake each other's hands. The staircase thunders as they go down. I keep in my seat beside the window. Richard stands in the path to the house while they drive off.
Then he comes back. He closes the door. He steps to me and tosses the wedding-ring into my lap. He rubs his hands together and almost capers.
'You devil,' I say, without passion, wiping the tears from my cheek.
He snorts. He moves to the back of my chair and puts his hands to my head, one hand to either side of my face; then tilts it back until our gazes meet. 'Look at me,' he says,
'and tell me, honestly, that you don't admire me.'
'I hate you.'
'Hate yourself, then. We're alike, you and I. More alike than you know. You think the world ought to love us, for the kinks in the fibres of our hearts? The world scorns us.
Thank God it does! There was never a profit to be got from love; from scorn, however, you may twist riches, as filthy water may be wrung from a cloth. You know it is true.
You are like me. I say it again: hate me, hate yourself.'
His hands are warm upon my face, at least. I close my eyes.
193
I say, 'I do.'
Then Sue comes from her room, to knock upon our door. He keeps his pose, but calls for her to enter.
'Look here,' he says when she does, his voice quite changed, 'at your mistress. Don't you think her eyes a little brighter . . .?' We leave next day, for the madhouse.
She comes to dress me, for the final time.
'Thank you, Sue,' I say, in the old soft way, each time she hooks a button or draws a lace. I wear, still, the gown in which I left Briar, that is spotted with mud and river-water. She wears my gown of silk— blue silk, against which the white of her wrists and throat is turned to the colour of cream, and the browns of her hair and eyes are made rich. She has grown handsome. She moves about the room, taking up my linen, my shoes, my brushes and pins, and putting them carefully in bags. Two bags, there are: one destined for London, the other for the madhouse— the first, as she supposes, for herself; the second for me. It is hard to watch her make her choices— to see her frown over a petticoat, a pair of stockings or shoes, to know she is thinking, These will surely be good enough for mad people and doctors. This she ought to take, in case the nights are cool. Now, that and those (the bottle of drops, my gloves) she must have.— I move them, when she leaves me, and place them deep in the other bag.
And one other thing I put with them, that she does not know I keep: the silver thimble, from the sewing-box at Briar, with which she smoothed my pointed tooth.
The coach comes, sooner than I think it will. 'Thank God,' says Richard. He carries his hat. He is too tall for this low and tilting house: when we step outside, he stretches. I have kept to my room so long, however, the day feels vast to me. I walk with Sue's arm gripped in mine, and at the door of the coach, when I must give it up— give it up, for ever!— I think I hesitate.
'Now, now,' says Richard, taking my hand from her. 'No time for sentiment.'
Then we drive. I feel it, as more than a matter of galloping horses and turning wheels.
It is like an undoing of my first journey, with Mrs Stiles, from the madhouse to Briar: I put my face to the window
as the carriage slows, and almost expect to see the house and the mothers I was snatched from. I should remember them still, I know it. But, that house was large.
This one is smaller, and lighter. It has rooms for female lunatics, only. That house was set in bare earth. This one has a bed of flowers beside its door— tall flowers, with tips like spikes.
I fall back in my seat. Richard catches my eye.
'Don't be afraid,' he says.
T hen they take her. He helps her into their hands, and stands before me at the door, looking out.
'Wait,' I hear her say. 'What are you doing?' Then: 'Gentlemen! Gentlemen!'— an odd and formal phrase.
The doctors speak in soothing tones, until she begins to curse; then their voices grow hard. Richard draws back. The floor of the carriage tilts, the doorway rises, and I see her— the two men's hands upon her arms, a nurse gripping her waist. Her cloak is falling from her shoulders, her hat is tilted, her hair is tearing from its pins. Her face is 194
red and white. Her look is wild, already.
Her eyes are fixed on mine. I sit like a stone, until Richard takes my arm and presses, hard, upon my wrist.
'Speak,' he whispers, 'damn you.' Then I sing out, clear, mechanically:
'Oh! My own poor mistress!' Her brown eyes— wide— with that darker fleck. Her tumbling hair. 'Oh! Oh! My heart is breaking!'
The cry seems to ring about the coach, even after Richard has swung closed the door and the driver whipped the horse into life and turned us. We do not speak. Beside Richard's head is a lozenge-shaped window of milky glass, and for a moment I see her again: still struggling, lifting her arm to point or reach— Then the road makes a dip.
There come trees. I take off my wedding-ring and throw it to the floor. I find, in my bag, a pair of gloves, and draw them on. Richard watches my trembling hands.
'Well— ' he says.
'Don't speak to me,' I say, almost spitting the words. 'If you speak to me, I shall kill you.'
He blinks, and attempts to smile. But his mouth moves strangely and his face, behind his beard, is perfectly white. He folds his arms. He sits, first one way and then another.
He crosses and uncrosses his legs. At length he takes a cigarette from his pocket, and a match, and tries to draw down the carriage window. It will not come. His hands are damp, grow damper, and finally slide upon the glass. 'Damn this!' he cries then. He rises, staggers, beats upon the ceiling for the driver to stop the horse, then fumbles with the key. We have gone no more than a mile or two, but he jumps to the ground and paces, coughs. He puts his hand to the lock of springing hair at his brow, many times. I watch him.