“You’re right,” I said. “Nothing ever does happen to me. I don’t think anything ever will.”
“Well then,” said Eliza, “here’s what Mary thinks. She thinks the door is for us. That it was put there just so we could find each other. Do you think that could be true?”
I put a clover flower on Pug’s nose, and he stared at me reproachfully before shaking his head so that it fell onto the grass. “We are told there is providence in the fall of a sparrow. Why not in the opening of a door?”
“That’s lovely, Miss,” said Eliza. “Just like Mr. Elton in church.”
When I was a child, I was not allowed to have toys. I slept on a bare bed, in a bare room. Those were the days of Dr. Templeton. He believed in strengthening. If I could be strengthened, I would no longer be sick or small. So there were cold baths, and porridge for breakfast, and nothing but toast for tea. Then came Dr. Bransby, who believed in supporting. If my constitution could be supported, then I would be well. Those were the days of baths so hot that I turned as red as a lobster, fires in July and draperies to keep out drafts, and rare roast beef. I have been on a diet of mashed turnips, I have been to Bath more times than I remember, I have even, once, been bled. Nothing has ever helped. I have always been sick and small. When I walk up stairs, I am always out of breath; when I look in the mirror, there are always blue circles under my eyes, blue veins running over my forehead. I always remind myself of a corpse.
When I was a child, I was not allowed to have friends. Other children, “young horrors,” as Mother called them, would be too softening, said Dr. Templeton, too trying, said Dr. Bransby. One day, so lonely that I could have cried, I wandered through the corridors, almost losing myself, and discovered the library. (“Over a thousand volumes,” said Miss Jenkinson. “The gilding on the books alone is worth more than a thousand pounds.”) Dr. Templeton’s regimen had confined me to the schoolroom, but Dr. Templeton had been summoned to Windsor Castle, to attend the King himself. And Dr. Bransby, whose carriage was expected that afternoon, had not yet arrived. Miss Jenkinson, thinking I was asleep, had put her feet up and fallen asleep with a handkerchief over her face. I could hear her snoring.
I tiptoed, frightened, down the endless corridors of Rosings, with de Bourghs and d’Arcys frowning at me from the walls. At the end of one corridor was an archway. I walked through it and saw shelves of books going up to heaven. (“The fresco on the ceiling was painted by an Italian, Antonio Vecci,” said Miss Jenkinson. “Although unlikely to appeal to our modern tastes, in his day the painting, of classical gods disporting themselves in an undignified manner, was considered rather fine. If you look in the corner there, up to the right, you’ll see where the painting was left unfinished when Vecci eloped with Philomena de Bourgh. He was later shot in the back by Sir Reginald.”)
Will you laugh if I tell you that the first book I read, other than my Bible and the Parent’s Assistant, which Miss Jenkinson appreciated for its edifying morals, was Aristotle’s Metaphysics? How little I understood of it then! How little I understand still, even after discussing it with Dr. Galt. But Dr. Galt seldom has time for long discussions.
My cousin Fitz teased me about my serious reading matter. “You don’t read like a girl, Anne,” he said, “but as if you’re prepping for Oxford. Look, I brought you some grapes from the conservatory.” I was not allowed to eat fruit, which Dr. Bransby said was not sufficiently supportive. But how tired I was of soft-boiled eggs and beef tea! “If you won’t tell, I’ll teach you a little Latin.”
From his window, Fitz could see when Dr. Bransby walked to the Parsonage, where he could smoke his pipe without Mother finding out. She did not approve of tobacco. When Dr. Bransby was out of sight, Fitz would say, “Come on, Anne, let’s go down to the maze!” We would laugh at the triton, with his absurdly distended cheeks, and crouch among the rosebushes, where no one could see us, feeling the pleasure of being unsupervised and completely hidden.
Of course, I knew why Fitz came, or had to come. Those portraits of the de Bourghs and d’Arcys—they haunted us both like ghosts.
Once, when I was fifteen, I said to him, “I’ll never be a beauty, will I?”
“You’re distinctive in your own way, Anne,” he said.
That wounded me, although he had meant it as a compliment. Was woman ever wooed thus? No, I don’t think so either.
Finally, Dr. Galt said, “It’s your heart, Miss de Bourgh, and there’s nothing to be done about it. You must live as normally as you can.” Thank goodness for Dr. Galt.
It was Pug who showed me the door.
“Take that dog out of the drawing room at once!” said Mother. “Can’t you see that he’s shedding on the cushions? Really, Miss Jenkinson.”
She would never, of course, say it directly to me. I was the delicate one, the last of the de Bourghs, who must be coddled and tortured into health. Into marrying and producing an heir. She steadfastly treated Pug as Miss Jenkinson’s dog, although every night that he was at Rosings, he slept in my bed, curled beside me, snorting in his sleep. She would never give in to something as vulgar as fact.
I took Pug into the garden. It had rained the night before. I had seen the lightning from my bedroom window, flashing over the avenue of lime trees, over the park where the tourists fed the deer. The triton looked wet and somehow glum. The privets were bent awry, as though they had been engaged in a mad dance. The path through the rose garden was covered with petals, like wet rags. Pug ran over them, toward the lime alley. And suddenly, he was no longer there.
“At first,” said Eliza. “I couldn’t see the door at all. But now I always see it, that—shiver, when it opens. Mary could always see it better than I can. And she seems to be able to—call it, sometimes.”
“I don’t know how I do it,” said Mary. “I just call, and it comes. But not always. Don’t worry, Miss, you’ll see it better after a while. And you’ve got Pug. He seems to be able to smell it, almost. As soon as the door opens, he goes right to it.”
That first time, the door opened into another garden. It surrounded a house, modern, not particularly attractive, smaller than Rosings. I wandered around the garden, curious and confused, not certain where I was or what I should do. Finally, I looked in through a window. A woman, stately, placid, as old as Mother but without her appearance of constant activity, sat on a sofa. “Why, Pug,” she said, “wherever have you been?” Pug jumped up on the sofa and sat beside her, like a cushion.
“The strangest thing,” said Eliza, “is that when you go through the door to another place—or time—no one seems to notice that you’re there. And when you come back, no one seems to notice that you were gone. It’s like being a ghost.”
“Do you think it’s wrong for us to go through it, Miss?” asked Mary. “Perhaps it’s a devilish device, as Mr. Elton would say, designed to tempt us.” She seemed genuinely distressed. I put my hand on hers.
“Don’t be silly,” said Eliza. “Miss de Bourgh has already told us that it can be explained naturally, like that machine at the Royal Society. Like lightning. Surely nothing in nature is of the Devil. Surely everything in nature has been created by God. And think of what finding the door has done for us! We’ve been to London, to Bath. Do you think the Miss Martins of Abbey-Mill Farm would have been able to travel to those places? And thank you again, Miss,” she nodded to me, “for showing us around Pemberley. It was a kindness my sister and I will never forget.”
“Do you believe, Miss, that the door is created by God?” asked Mary.