“I don’t know,” I said. “But you said, once, that we are the people to whom nothing happens. I wonder if, perhaps, there is a provision for us. I know this sounds silly, but—a provision for us specifically, for the people to whom nothing happens. Perhaps the door has been sent—to allow us to communicate with one other, so that we will not be, you know, lonely.”
“But then why only the three of us—and Pug?” asked Mary. “Surely we aren’t the only ones to whom nothing happens.”
“Don’t forget Mrs. Churchill,” said Eliza. “Although she did not encourage the acquaintance, after that first meeting in Bath. I think, to her, the Miss Martins of Abbey-Mill Farm were of no consequence. She was not as condescending as you are, Miss. And we have not seen her now for more than a year.”
“But that shows there are others,” I said. “That we have not found them does not mean they do not exist. Perhaps it’s time we started looking for them.”
Here are the things my mother wanted me to have. Beauty, in which I failed her completely. Come to the mirror, let us look at my face, so pale, so insignificant. Wit, ditto. Once, when I was a child, Fitz’s sister Georgie came to visit. She said to me, after an afternoon during which we were supposed to be playing, “I would like you better, Anne, if you weren’t so dull.” Accomplishments, of course, I could not have. Dr. Templeton and Dr. Bransby agreed: I must not hold a pencil or paintbrush, must not practice the pianoforte, must not under any circumstances learn to dance. I must not exert myself in any way. Dr. Galt said, “What a pair of quacks.” But by then it was too late; I was neither beautiful, nor witty, nor accomplished. I had nothing to recommend me except a fortune.
And of course, Mother wanted me to marry Fitz.
Fitz said to me once, as we were walking in the garden, “Anne, we can talk to each other, can’t we? I mean, we used to be friends when we were children.”
He looked, as he always looked, sad and uneasy. I think he had read too much German philosophy. Once he had told me that at Oxford he had lost his faith in both humanity and God.
“There’s no reason we can’t be friends now,” I said.
“Then—would you care terribly if we didn’t marry?”
I put my arm through his. “Oh, Fitz. Marry that girl, the one who came with the Lucases, who plays the piano so badly.” She did play badly, I was jealous enough to say that. I cared, of course. It was difficult not to love Fitz. But I remembered what Dr. Galt had told me.
“It’s your heart, my girl. It’s like a lake in there, sloshing around. I wish it had a good, steady beat like a piston. Someday, we’ll be able to replace the human heart with a machine.”
“That doesn’t sound at all nice,” I said. “How can a machine love?”
There were other things I asked him: “Am I going to die?”
“We’re all going to die. And if you’re careful, you won’t die any sooner than most. But that means no marrying. You must learn to content yourself with the pleasures of an old maid. The first child you have—then you will die, Anne. And perhaps the child will die as well. Do you understand?”
“If Mother were here, she would dismiss you at once. Do you know I’ve been destined to marry my cousin since I was born? It’s a sort of dynastic alliance.”
Dr. Galt laughed. “It’s time the de Bourghs and the d’Arcys had some new blood. You’ve been marrying each other too long.” Then he shook his finger at me. “But I’m serious, Anne. You can live long and well, but you must find another way.”
And: “What if there were a door that could take me, in an instant, between two places that are far away from each other, perhaps even far away in time—into the past for instance, or even the future, when Napoleon will be defeated.”
“As we all hope he will be!”
“If there were such a door, how would it work?”
“So you’ve been following my advice.”
He had told me, “Most of the women I know waste their lives embroidering on silk and reading French novels. You should hear my own daughters, talking about the regiment! It’s soldiers, soldiers all day long. But you, Anne, with your natural ability and the library here at Rosings, can develop the intellect that God gave you. Read philosophy, read history. Learn Greek. There is nothing in the field of scholarship that you can’t accomplish.”
“Despite my broken heart?”
“Because of your broken heart.”
“Doors that transport you through space and time are not my specialty,” he answered. “But at a meeting of the Royal Society I once saw a mechanical apparatus with two arms, which resembled a headless doll. A spark of electricity jumped from one arm to the other, instantaneously, without seeming to have passed through the space between. Later that day, at a lecture attended by the King, I heard a philosopher say that we are all composed of energy. Why should we not, with a mechanical device, or a door as you called it, pass from one place to another, like that spark?”
And he smiled at me, as though I were a clever child. That is what we see in the mirror, a sick child, although I am almost twenty.
“Keep reading, Anne. Keep exercising your mind as much as you can. If you can’t have the life that other women have, remember you can still have a life that is fulfilling, even in some ways superior to theirs.”
This is what I told Fitz: “Marry her with my blessing. And if you accomplish nothing else, you will have made Mother thoroughly angry. That in itself will be an accomplishment, I think. Life at Rosings will be so much more interesting for a while.”
He looked down at the path. “I don’t even know if we could be happy together. But I can’t help loving her. Oh, I’m a fool!” My introspective, morose cousin. Would he make a good husband for anyone? He would, I thought, have made a good husband for me.
“You must get out into the sun more often, Anne,” he said. “You look like a fish that has lived in a cave for a hundred years.” I was startled and gratified that he had noticed.
“What sun?” I said. “The sun never shines at Rosings.”
Once, when I was in London with Mother, I saw a blind man being led by a dog. A black dog, a labrador mostly, and it led him to a street corner where the dog sat, and then the man sat and put his cap on the pavement. The dog lay down beside him, leaning into his ragged coat.
At first, Pug led me. I could not see the door myself. Eventually, I learned to see the shiver, as Mary described it, when it appeared. And eventually, I even learned to summon it—at least, when it wanted to come.
What I liked best was going to Lyme. I would sit on the Cobb, watching the ships come in and the fishermen unloading their nets, the fish gleaming orange and purple in the evening light. The smell of the fish, the smell of the sea, the harsh voices of the fishermen. The feel of rough stone. It was as though I had been transported to fairyland.
I did not like going to London, but the door opens where it wants to. Its intentions are inscrutable, the destination not under our control. And that is where I met the Miss Martins.
They were walking down the street, still with their aprons on, looking into the shop windows as though they had never seen shops filled only with ribbons, or only with ladies’ shoes. I knew immediately that they had traveled through the door, as I had. We recognize each other, we travelers through the door.
“Please forgive my forwardness,” I said, “but—I am Anne de Bourgh.”
It was the first time they had been to London. We went to the Queen’s Palace and the park, with its strutting ducks and tubs of orange trees. Mary admired the parterres, which were, she said, “even fancier than at Donwell Abbey,” and Eliza laughed at the French fashions. “Imagine,” she said, “if I wore that bonnet at home!” We walked down Pall Mall and finally stopped to have cakes at a shop near Marlborough House, although the attendant did not seem to realize we were there. We took what we wanted, and I left some coins on the counter. It was evening and I was trying not to show that I was at the end of my strength when the door appeared again, in the middle of St. James’s Square, and took us back to Abbey-Mill Farm. They could see that I was not well, so they made me lie on the sofa and bathed my forehead with rosewater. Then there was the door, right in the parlor wall, and it took me home to Rosings.