There was one young girl who was expecting a baby. She had been raped and used to cry out at night; she was terrified at the sight of men. Her name was Jenny and she was only twelve years old.
Then there was Miriam. I think in time I grew to know Miriam better than any of the others. There was something intense about her. She was reticent and did not want to know anyone. She was locked in with her own tragedy.
I found the days long and strange. Lavinia rested a good deal. Janine had certain duties which Aunt Emily expected her to perform; but I was there more as an onlooker. I could not help feeling that I was in some way in a world of shades, among people who would one day escape from it and resume their normal personalities. At the moment they were unreal ... lost souls in a kind of Hades, fearing Hell and hoping for a sight of Heaven.
Miriam used to sit in the garden quite often, alone and brooding. At first she did not encourage me to sit with her, but it might have been that she sensed my sympathy and the temptation to talk to someone was too strong to resist.
Gradually I learned her story. She was passionately in love with her husband. He was a sailor. They had longed for a child and that blessing had been denied them. It was a sadness, but not a great one, because they had each other. She loved him deeply; she lived through one separation after another, waiting for the reunion. Her cousin had said she must not stay at home and brood during his absences, but go out a little. She had had no great desire to, but finally she had been persuaded.
She looked at me with tragic eyes. "That is what makes it all so stupid ... so pointless."
Tears coursed down her cheeks. "To think that I have done this to him."
I said, "Don't talk of it if you'd rather not."
She shook her head. "Sometimes I feel better for talking. Sometimes I think I'm dreaming and this is a terrible nightmare. What am I doing in this place? If only I hadn't gone ... if only ..."
"That is what so many people say."
"I couldn't bear him to know. It would kill him. It would be the end of everything we had."
"Wouldn't it be better to tell him? What if he should find out?"
"He never will." She became fierce suddenly. "I'd kill myself rather."
"This baby ..."
"It came about in the most silly way. I didn't know the man. They had given me too much to drink. I wasn't used to it. I told him about Jack—that's my husband—and he said his name was Jack. I don't know what happened. He took me somewhere. I woke up next morning with him beside me. I nearly died. I dressed ... I ran out. I wanted to wash everything out of my mind. I didn't want to remember that night. I wanted to pretend it hadn't happened. And when I found I was pregnant because of it I just wanted to die."
I put my hand over hers. She was trembling. I said, "Why don't you tell him? He would understand. You love him so much and he loves you. Surely he would forgive you."
"I could never face him. You see it was perfect ... and now ..."
I said, "You wanted a child."
"His child."
"This is your child."
"I would hate it. It would always be a reproach."
"You were innocent. They gave you too much to drink. You weren't used to it and that happened. I am sure that if your husband really loved you he would understand."
"He would not. He could not. We were everything to each other."
"And what of the baby?"
"I shall get someone to adopt it."
"Poor little baby!" I said. "It will never know its mother."
"You are too young to understand what was between Jack and me. No child could ever mean more to me than he does ... not even his. I have thought and thought. I have to do it this way."
"But it is making you very unhappy."
"I don't expect ever to be happy again."
"You should try, I am sure. It was one little moment when you were off guard. It wasn't as though you took a lover."
"It would seem like that."
"Not if you told him."
"He would never understand."
"Why don't you try? That poor little baby ... to be born unwanted. That is the most terrible tragedy of all."
"I know. My sin is heavy on me. I have thought of taking my life."
"Please don't talk like that."
"If I did it would break Jack's heart and if he knew of this it could never be the same between us. He would never believe me entirely. He is passionate and jealous. He so much wanted a child ... and to think that another man gave me what he couldn't ... I know Jack. You don't. You're too young to understand these things."
And so she talked to me and again and again she went over her problems. I tried to advise her but, as she said, I was too young to understand.
I thought a great deal about those children who would be born in Aunt Emily's clinic—the unwanted ones—and I thought of my own parents, who had planned my education while they were waiting for me. I thought of Lady Harriet, who had long upbraided the Almighty for denying her offspring, and who had rejoiced so wholeheartedly when her prayers had been answered that she spoiled her children to such an extent that Lavinia had come to this pass.
There were other patients besides the women who were expecting babies. There was the poor old man whom I had seen from my bedroom window sitting on the seat, on the first day I had come. I learned that he had been a great scientist in his day, but he had had a seizure which had robbed him of his mind; and he was at this place because he was unwanted by his family and had been put here to await death because it was the most convenient way of disposing of him. There was one woman who lived in a world of her own. Her manner was haughty and she believed she was reigning over a large household of servants. She was known as the Duchess. There was George Thomson, who was always laying fires in cupboards. He caused a great deal of anxiety and had to be watched. He had never attempted to light the fires, but there was always the fear that he might.
They were like people from a shadow world.
I often wondered about Janine, who had been brought up in this place by an aunt whose relationship to her she denied. The house was bright. There were blue curtains and white furniture everywhere, and yet somehow it seemed a dark and mysterious place, and I never felt at ease in it. I would wake in the night sometimes and start up in fear. I would gaze to that other bed where Lavinia lay, her beautiful hair spread out on the pillow. Her sleep was often troubled. I wondered how often she thought of her lover, swaggering up to us outside that patisserie with his tales of grandeur, his sole motive being the seduction of gullible girls. And those weeks of pleasure had led to this. What a lesson! I wondered if Lavinia would ever learn it.
She had been seen by Dr. Ramsay—a small man with dark, rather frizzy hair, some of which grew out of his nose and ears. He had examined her, declared her to be in good health and had said that all was going reasonably well and that we could expect the baby during the second week of August. This was good news. We had thought it would be two weeks later.
I told myself: Soon we shall be out of this strange place. Here I felt shut away from the real world. It would be good to be back in the natural world, for the idea struck me that anything could happen here. Yet Aunt Emily seemed determined to create a homely atmosphere. She was always bright and breezy and wanting to know if we were "comfy." If only she had not those sharp blue-green eyes, which seemed to betray something to me that I would rather not know.
The days seemed normal enough; it was during the night when I heard strange noises. The little girl would suddenly cry out in terror, and the scientist would wander about tapping his stick, murmuring to himself that there was something wrong in the laboratory. The Duchess sometimes walked in her sleep, and we would hear her giving orders to the bust of George IV in the hall, thinking it was her butler.