Fools of Fortune Page 14

  ‘Another thing,’ said Cynthia, ‘there was a distinct reference to domestic staff.’

  ‘Oh now, the Gibb-Bachelors do do their best, you know. And actually I quite enjoy the kitchen-work course. Mrs Gibb-Bachelor’s going to show me how to make toad-in-the-hole.’

  ‘If you ask me these appalling people are doing extremely well for themselves—their house decorated, their food cooked, dusting and cleaning, early-morning tea carried to their bedside. Not to mention the way the Professor stands so close to you.’

  ‘Oh, Cynthia, you are amusing! But you’re missing England, aren’t you, Cynthia? You’ll love it here in the end, you know.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be too sure,’ said Cynthia.

  When we had finished, Mrs Gibb-Bachelor was waiting for us in the hall.

  ‘Girls,’ she announced, ‘the Professor’s lantern lecture is at nine.’ She inspected each of us closely, as if for dirt. She fixed Cynthia with a stern eye. ‘My dear, I have to inform you that a napkin must be opened across the knee, never tucked into a garment. And it is ill-bred to prop ourselves on our elbows when drinking a cup of tea or other beverage.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Gibb-Bachelor.’

  ‘These are wee little faults I have noticed during the course of today, Cynthia. You understand too, Marianne?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Gibb-Bachelor.’

  ‘Then that is excellent.’

  She strode jauntily away, her scent lingering behind her.

  ‘Foul old pussy,’ Cynthia said.

  The Professor’s magic lantern showed us pictures of English landscape and houses which he attempted to relate to literature. He quoted the poetry of James Thomson, illustrating it with slides of Hagley Park. He quoted George Eliot and Mrs Gaskell, and in particular Wordsworth. ‘Here, by Nether Stowey, he walked with Dorothy. Here we see his house at Rydal Mount. And I have felt a presence that disturbs me…a sense sublime…’ He showed us Lyme Regis, and the Temple of Apollo at Stourhead.’/ have through every Garden been,’ he solemnly intoned, ‘among the red, the white, the green.’

  The reedy, academic voice came and went, as did the pictures of woods and meadows and mazes and rose-beds. I thought about you, unable not to. ‘But there’s a tree, of many, one,’ the Professor continued. ‘A single field which I have looked upon …’ Trees and fields appeared on the sheet which Mavis had been requested to pin up as a screen, oak trees and beeches, Scotch pines, alders, ash and apple. The fields were shown in different seasons and there was talk of ploughing and then of mellow fruitfulness. ‘Will the wretched man never cease?’ Cynthia muttered beside me.

  I dreamed of you that night, among the landscapes of the magic lantern show. Your warm body warmed mine, your lips were passionate, as they had been.

  Non, non, Marianne,’ cried Mademoiselle Florence. ‘You do not make the effort.’

  I tried. I apologized. I did my best to speak and smile.

  … so very busy, wrote my father, with all the preparations for the Harvest Thanksgiving. Your mother has spent two days in bed, her nerves fallen all to pieces after the turmoil of the last few weeks, Ireland and then the arranging and rearranging of your journey to Montreux. My blessed child, you are in all our prayers.

  In the famous castle by the lake the Professor stood by the pillar on which Lord Byron had scratched his name.

  ‘You’re troubled, little Marianne?’ he sympathetically enquired while the others marvelled over the flowing signature.

  ‘No,’I lied. ‘No, not at all.’

  ‘You may always come to me, you know. You may always tell me.’

  He stepped a little closer and placed a hand on my shoulder. He was my friend, he said.

  Again, that day, I looked in case there was a letter. In the early morning I had written down the Gibb-Bachelors’ address in Montreux and had placed it on your dressing-table. Then I had crept away while still you slept.

  ‘Visiting cards,’ decreed Mrs Gibb-Bachelor, ‘are placed on the hall salver or on some convenient table. Engraved of course, never printed.’ A married lady left one, and two of her husband’s. But should the lady called upon be unmarried or widowed then only one of the husband’s cards might be placed on the hall-stand or the convenient table.

  I prayed, listening to her voice. I asked for forgiveness. I promised that I did not seek to excuse my sin, that I would live with it and suffer for it if I might be given a little mercy now. ‘Dear God,’ I pleaded. ‘Dear kind God, please hear me.’

  Mrs Gibb-Bachelor smiled at each of us in turn.

  ‘And do not presume that hem-stitching is beneath you. The plain girl who is acquainted with the art of caring for her garments has the advantage over the pretty girl who is slap-dash.’

  That day, too, I looked in the letter-rack, although I had resolved I would not any more.

  The Professor said:

  ‘Little Marianne, you did not listen to a word of my lecture on Wordsworth’s sense of rhyme.’

  ‘Oh yes, I did indeed, Professor.’

  ‘Ah no, my little girl.’

  To my distaste, he laid a bony finger on my lips and did not take it away. His wig moved slightly as he shook his head. We were alone in the library.

  ‘For me you are a special girl, Marianne. Your discontent is all the more distressing because of that.’

  Again the finger, cold as ice, was laid across my lips. A fresh smile engaged the Professor’s own, drawing them back until large teeth protruded, like pale tombstones. We stood in the alcove of a window, I with my back to it.

  ‘Much of what I say when I speak of Wordsworth is specially for you, little Marianne.’

  ‘Please, Professor—’

  ‘You are labouring under stress, little girl.’

  Again he came close to me, pressing me back against the window. His breath had garlic of a day or two’s duration on it. His hps touched my flesh, high on my left cheek, just below the cheek-bone, and while they did so the palm of a hand slipped down my thigh, as light as the touch of a butterfly. I pushed him away, shuddering and feeling sick in my stomach. How could I tell him anything? ‘We might go to Kilneagh,’ you’d said. ‘It would be nice to show you Kilneagh.’ How could I tell him that no day in my life had been as happy? The men in the mill-yard had shaken my hand. In Lough you’d pointed out Driscoll’s shop and the Church of Our Lady Queen of Heaven. In Fermoy you’d pointed out the ironmonger’s and the draper’s where you’d done your Friday shopping. We’d been too shy to say what really we felt, but somehow that hadn’t mattered.

  ‘Now, my dear,’ Mrs Gibb-Bachelor announced breezily in her office, ‘a wee little bird has told me you have fallen in love.’

  ‘If Agnes—’

  ‘I did not say Agnes, dear. But it isn’t difficult to know when a friend’s in love, now is it? There are time-honoured signals, are there not?’

  ‘This is a private matter, Mrs Gibb-Bachelor.’

  ‘To be sure it is. On the other hand I cannot have my girls distressed. Our monthly visitation—clockwork regular, is it? Oh no, don’t look askance. I do assure you I have known love to upset girls mightily in that department. Quite topsy-turvy it all becomes.’

  ‘I would really rather not talk about this, Mrs Gibb-Bachelor.’

  ‘My little bird is a reliable wee creature.’ Head on one side, Mrs

  Gibb-Bachelor smiled, looking for a moment like a bird herself. ‘There need not be a secret between us, Marianne. Other girls before you have fallen in love with the Professor, my dear.’

  In astonishment I denied that charge. Repelled and outraged, I spoke as firmly as I could. ‘I am not in love with your husband, Mrs Gibb-Bachelor.’

  Mrs Gibb-Bachelor softly replied that love, too often, was not a matter of choice. It was understandable that girls should love her husband: the Professor was notably attractive, many girls had found him so.

  ‘But this isn’t true, Mrs Gibb-Bachelor. In no way is what you’re saying true.’

  ‘My hu
sband is a fine and sensitive person. No one blames you, Marianne. Indeed, to tell you the very truth, I often think it denotes a fullness of the spirit in a girl—’

  ‘I do not love the man.’

  ‘My dear, it is ill-bred to refer to the Professor in that way. It is also ill-bred to interrupt.’

  ‘Mrs Gibb-Bachelor—’

  ‘Above all, it is ill-bred to raise our voices. My dear, no blame possibly attaches to you and if our monthly visitation is not quite clockwork we must not worry. Love is its own master, Marianne.’

  I shrugged my shoulders and was told that that was ill-bred also. I began a further protest, then abandoned it. After all, what did any of it matter?

  ‘It will pass,’ Mrs Gibb-Bachelor promised. ‘The sentiments that have seized you, Marianne, will pass. Time is the healer, my dear.’

  These words dismissed me, and I did not reply.

  ‘Look, come for a walk,’ Agnes Brontenby invited, waiting for me outside Mrs Gibb-Bachelor’s office.

  I shook my head and tried to pass her by, but she touched my arm with a restraining gesture.

  ‘Dear Marianne, you must be sensible. We have known each other for all these years. I always liked you at school, Marianne, and I am sure I always shall.’

  ‘Please leave me alone, Agnes.’

  ‘The Professor—’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, it has nothing to do with the wretched Professor.’

  I walked away, leaving her astonished that I should use such unpleasant language. She afterwards mentioned that, but I did not say I was sorry.

  Day followed day, week succeeded week. Mavis’s rashes did not improve. Cynthia said she’d lost a stone because of the unappetizing food. The waiter in the Cafe Bon Accueil eyed Agnes Brontenby with a pleasure that was undisguised. ‘Dans I’immense salle regnait une ambiance joyeuse,’ dictated Mademoiselle Florence, but I could not understand and did not wish to. ‘Vous etes tres stupide,’ she shrilled at me. ‘Not ever a more stupide girl come to Montreux.’

  Each morning when I awoke everything came tumbling back at me, the lamp flickering and going out, the smell of paraffin in the darkness. I tried to write to you but could not. I wanted to say I was sorry, but at the same time longed that you would write and tell me you were glad.

  ‘Ill-health bedevilled me as a younger man. I might have married earlier in my life if it had not been for that.’

  Again I was alone with him, by the lake. He had contrived to dispose of the other girls in the Bon Accueil, hurrying them on to order our coffee and Florentines.

  ‘It is not wrong to feel tenderly for a man who is older than your father. You have been distressed by these feelings, little Marianne, but there is no cause for it.’

  I shook my head, staring over the still water of Lac Leman. I felt his arm on my shoulder, and then the coarseness of his beard on my chin and cheek, like mattress hair. His large teeth, seeking my hps, were cold.

  ‘Please, Professor.’

  I pushed at the scrawny body, as I had in the alcove of the library, the palms of my hands spread against his chest. His knees, one on either side of my left leg, grasped it strongly. He whispered that he could not live without me, and did not wish to. ‘You are my little wife,’ he whispered.

  ‘Please take your hands off me, Professor.’

  I broke from his embrace and stood furiously some yards away. I wanted to stamp my foot and then actually did so, my heel making a sharp staccato on the tarmacadamed path.

  ‘I do not feel tenderly for you,’ I cried, causing two women who were passing with dogs to look discomfited. ‘I have no feelings of any kind whatsoever for you. I am not your wife. It is absurd to say I am.’

  ‘My little child, I simply wish you were.’

  ‘You have a wife already. You are a lecherous man, Professor Gibb-Bachelor. Your wife is disgraceful to encourage you.’

  ‘Please,’ he whispered. ‘I cannot help my feelings for you. You are beautiful, little Marianne, more beautiful than Agnes Brontenby.’

  I told him then: I said I was no longer a virgin. ‘I believe you know that. I believe you’ve guessed, Professor Gibb-Bachelor.’

  ‘My dear sweet child, of course you’re a virgin. Do you not know the meaning of the term?’

  I told him how I had left my bedroom and crossed the landing, carrying the lamp with me.I would love you for ever, I said, even if you despised me and were ashamed.

  ‘Oh, little heart, this is not the kind of talk we like.’

  I hit him then. I hit him on the side of the face with my clenched fist. I told him he disgusted me. Without emotion I said:

  ‘So please in future leave me alone, Professor. Try this on with Agnes if you are tired of your wife. Try it on with Cynthia or Mavis or Mademoiselle Florence. But I would rather you kept your hands off me.’

  ‘You must not repeat this to Mrs Gibb-Bachelor, Marianne. It is the realm of fantasy, but it may be our secret, all this you like to think about your cousin.’

  ‘It is true. It occurred.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. But Mrs Gibb-Bachelor must not ever know. My dear, she’d pack you back to England this instant minute.’

  ‘I have no intention of informing your wife since she does not sensually attack me.’

  ‘Please, little child, don’t speak so harshly. I only love your prettiness.’

  I did not reply, except to say when he addressed me again that if my sinfulness was in some way revealed in my demeanour it did not follow that I would satisfy his lust. He wiped at his cheeks with a handkerchief, pretending, I believe, to cry. But by the time we reached the Cafe Bon Accueil he had recovered his composure.

  Conveniently he drifted into a reverie of such intensity that the scene by the lakeside might not have taken place. When later I said his attentions had become so pressing that I’d had to push him away from me and even had hit him Agnes Brontenby assured me I must have been mistaken. ‘Filthy old savage,’ Cynthia said, and was all for reporting the matter to Mrs Gibb-Bachelor. But I knew it wasn’t going to be worth it, for I would have no more trouble with her husband.

  Please don’t think badly of me. Oh, Willie, I do still love you so. The words could not be written; they belonged in conversation, yet conversation was impossible. All of it was punishment, the haunting emptiness, the fear, the unknown in the years that lay ahead. The teeth and the breath of the Professor were punishment also, his knees and fingers. Of course he had smelt out my sin.

  I spent that Christmas and the New Year with the Gibb-Bachelors, with Cynthia and Mavis and Agnes Brontenby. In early February all four of us prepared to return to England. ‘You have benefited enormously,’ Mrs Gibb-Bachelor insisted, the same remark to each of us. ‘Everything about you is splendidly improved.’

  I could not remain in the rectory. I knew that as soon as I returned. I walked in the gardens of Woodcombe Park, since we, its poor relations, were permitted to: by the mock-Roman summer-house, by the willows and the lakes and the stately yews: so different your Kilneagh was, a poor relation too. Like some uncharted region, fearsome and unknown, Kilneagh repelled me now, yet the pocket money I had saved in Switzerland was added to the modest amount I otherwise possessed and the journey to Ireland planned. For how could my father bless his congregation with the peace of God, knowing no peace himself because of the ugly truth with which I would soon disgrace him? How could my mother bear those cruel glances at her Mothers’ Union meetings?

  I fell in love with Willie, I wrote in the note I left behind for them and then I closed down shutters on my mind, unable to bear their pain as well as my own. I was pregnant with our child, I wrote.

  4

  The boat was several hours late arriving in Cork, slowed down by a snowstorm at sea. Exhausted and still seasick, I made my way to the house in Windsor Terrace, hoping to spend that night there before continuing my journey. But in several of the windows the blinds were drawn and there was no reply to my knock. I waited for more than an hour in
the hope that Josephine might return and then, since she did not, I dragged my suitcase down the pavement steps of St Patrick’s Hill, past the pawnbroker’s shop at the bottom of its steep incline. I asked a woman if she knew where I might find cheap lodgings and she directed me to the Shandon Boarding House, not far away. It was a melancholy place, about which hung an odour of old food and where payment was required in advance. There was a statue of the Virgin Mary on a table in the hall and a picture of her in my room. Long lace curtains were grey with the dust that lay thickly elsewhere as well, on the sideboard in the hall, on the staircase and the windowsills, on the hall-stand with its array of letters addressed to boarders of the past. No other boarder was resident at the moment, I was told by the unprepossessing woman who ran the place, though usually, she assured me, the house was full. I lay down for a while and then returned to Windsor Terrace, but there was no reply to my knocking. I slept poorly that night, haunted by fragments of disjointed dreams in which I was endlessly pursued by my parents’ weeping. In the morning I sat alone for breakfast in the airless dining-room, its tablecloth patterned with stains and crumbs.

  I took the train to Fermoy and left my suitcase at the railway station. Feeling doubtful about affording a hackney car, I walked to Lough, three miles you’d said it was, and then a mile to Kilneagh. Snow had begun to fall again and somehow it seemed apt that everything should look so different. I peered through the gates of

  Kilneagh at the long, whitening avenue, as beautiful now in frozen landscape as it had been that summer. I walked on to the mill, increasingly apprehensive of how you would greet me.

  ‘Good Lord above!’ exclaimed Mr Derenzv, regarding me with an astonishment he made no attempt to disguise. I expected to see you after I’d knocked on the door and his voice had called out that I should enter the office. I was determined to remain calm, not even to look at you in Mr Derenzy’s presence. But you were not there.