Abigail (46 page)

She had not made that connection. “It’ll take two or three hours,” she explained. “It’ll demand no effort of us. It’s something you wanted to do. If we don’t do it now, we never will. Oh, come on! I just can’t go back home yet.”

It took an hour to locate the grave, with its modest headstone, tucked away on a ridge near the eastern edge of the grounds. Victor stood above it, head on one side; his glass eye seemed to stare down at the grave, his good eye looked absently at her.

She laughed. “Listening still?”

He collected himself and looked at the grave. “Not to this one.” He shook his head. “He wasn’t a
good
man even. He wrote insulting letters to his friends about Lafargue, who was his son-in-law and who founded the French Communist Party. And he treated Charles Longuet the same way, who married his other daughter, Jenny. They were both refugees from the Commune. ‘The Devil take the pair of them,’ he wrote to Engels. He was prejudiced against us Latins.”

Still looking at the earth, he fell back into silence; but his mouth went on working.

“What?” she asked, knowing the signs.

He chuckled. “I was thinking of a poet of my youth, Olivier Roux. No one reads him now. He was the generation before ours—you know, the generation that believed it did all the hard work while we skimmed off the rewards.”

“What generation doesn’t believe that!”

Victor smiled at the truth of it. “Olivier was a lifelong atheist. Yet he called us all to his deathbed ‘to see how a good Christian can die.’ He even had a priest there.” Victor laughed. “It must have put the fear of God into God, because Olivier recovered and died of drink in the arms of a
grisette
a year later to the very day.”

She joined his laughter. “Why think of that just now?”

“So that you won’t misunderstand me when I say…” He paused and looked about them. “This would be a good place for us when our time comes.”

“Here?” She was looking at the nearby ground.

“No!” He gave a theatrical shiver. “Cleaner earth. Over there.” He pointed at the unbroken turf several dozen yards away. Then he stooped to pick up a stone and threw it to mark the spot.

“Robin Hood!” She laughed again.

He was sucking the back of his wrist, just above the hem of his glove. “Stinging nettle,” he said. “The old bastard.”

“Wait,” she told him. “There’ll be a dockleaf somewhere. There always is.” She found one and pressed its juice to the pale blisters of the sting.

“In nature,” he said, smiling down at the concentration on her face, “where the poison lies, the antidote is never far to seek.”

She raised her eyes to dwell in his and smiled back. “D’you really think she did it, Victor?” she asked. “Or was it just bravado, to shock Walter? My God—think of those two going on meeting all their lives! Our families have been so close! D’you think she did it? With her own father?”

“Over fifty years ago,” he answered. “Is it the kind of truth that need concern you now?”

“I’ve seen that dress, that blue serge dress she wore. She showed it to me. And a sovereign she kept—I’ll bet it’s the same one. She said she kept the dress because it’s the one she was wearing when my father proposed to her. And the sovereign was her savings—her contribution to the firm’s beginnings. But now look at the clouds of double meaning surrounding them. Has she forgotten all that half of it? Or am I being too fastidious?”

He bent at the knees to kiss her. “Home?” he asked.

They began the downhill walk to their waiting cab. “And she threw Annie out into the
street
!”
Abigail continued. “Just for telling me the simplest, most elementary fact about men and women. She threw her out. Yet she knew
exactly—
I mean, personally, from her own life’s experience; it wasn’t a vague something in a book, it had actually happened to her! So she
knew
what would happen to Annie.”

“And yet, one would say she is a kindly woman. No monster.”

“And even Annie said my mother was right to throw her out.” She laughed a humourless laugh. “It isn’t just me that’s confused. Everyone is.”

At the gate he turned and looked back up the hill.

“Shall I stay?” he asked.

She laughed in bewilderment. “What d’you mean?”

“I’m an old man. And already I’m wondering if the cab fare home isn’t an extravagance.”

She hugged him fiercely and stopped his mouth with a kiss. “Don’t,” she pleaded. “Never talk like that. I can’t imagine this world without you. Oh, my darling, my darling!”

It was two days before she dared to look again at Walter’s Summit memoir. Victor complained of having drunk too much wine at lunch and was taking a nap on a divan in the corner of their study. Feeling private yet not alone, she unlocked the drawer and pulled out the papers.

They lay face down, and she saw there was writing on the back of the last sheet, something she had not seen the first time. It ran:

“Oh, Nora, Nora, what a blind fool am I, and how I curse this fiend-prick that reduces all women to a simple harbour for him to anchor and toss in but never rest. You are a jewel among women, the most perfect who ever lived. John Stevenson will be a great man but you will make him so; without you he’d just be one of two dozen clever, jumped-up navvies. But I saw you before he did. I talked with you before he did. Why then did I not understand you as you are? I know why—because my old one-eyed Polyphemus was looking at you. Not I. Oh, my love, I love you, my love, my love. Nora, Nora Nora.”

How, she wondered, could one ever judge such a man? He was a monster hypocrite and he was sincere; he thought himself marvellous and he disgusted himself; he loved his wife and fought like one possessed to undo her life’s work; he felt contempt for women, reduced them to a single commodity, pursued them relentlessly until they yielded it—and then wanted to know all about them as fellow human beings!

You could make sense of him only by ignoring one half or the other. She wondered what Victor would think of it. Anyway, it was time for him to get up or he’d not sleep tonight.

“Darling?” she said.

He did not stir. Smiling she walked over to shake him, but when she stood above him the smile vanished and she froze.

“Victor!”

A light sweat beaded his face. He stirred feebly. She heard no breathing.

“Oh, my God! Victor!”

With fevered hands she loosened his collar. She plucked out his handkerchief to mop his face. She felt stupidly incompetent. What else should she do? Fetch a doctor! She ran to the landing and screamed for anyone to come. Frances was there, on the landing below, immediately.

“Run and get a doctor,” Abigail shouted down. “The Baron’s not well.”

“Shall I telephone?” Frances asked.

The telephone! Oh, the habits of a lifetime! She must calm down and think. “Yes, Frances. Ring my brother Clement. His number’s in our own book. Tell him it could be life and death. Tell him to come at once.”

She ran back to Victor. He was stirring slightly, muttering something. “…doctor.”

“He’s coming. The doctor’s coming, darling. Oh, stay…stay, Victor. Don’t leave me.”

He smiled and fumbled for her hand. “No…doctor,” he whispered.

“Of course we’ll get a doctor. He’s already coming. My brother Clement’s coming.”

“Pills…potions…”

“Are you in pain?”

“Listen! Pills…potions…poking about…fiddle-faddle. Don’t want it. Time’s up.”

“Victor! Please! Oh, God, where is Clement? Frances!”

“Calm! Be…calm. Let it…be calm.”

“Victor?” She climbed on the divan beside him.

“Love,” he said.

She fought with herself not to cry.

“Sing.”

She raised her head and hummed, a formless tune at first but it soon resolved itself into the humming part in the “Habañera” from
Carmen.
They had recently heard Emma Calve sing it at a recital.

A smile settled on his face. Looking at the creases in his flesh, ravaged by more than time, she felt a sudden hatred of it—for failing him and giving up like this. Then, still humming, she leaned forward to kiss it, with some half-clear notion of coaxing it to stay by him and see him through.

Clement came within twenty minutes, though it seemed like twenty hours. He was a quiet, observant man, sparing of gestures and superfluous words. He worked at Victor’s body with an efficiency that did much to calm Abigail.

“It was undoubtedly a heart attack,” he said at length.

“Will he live?” Abigail asked.

“Oh, yes.” He smiled down at Victor, who was watching him with heavy eyes. “A year from now, Victor, you’ll probably be healthier than you have been for the last five years. I’ll give you a minute dose of…” He hesitated and smiled at both of them. “I never know whether to tell this to patients or not. The treatment is arsenic and strychnine! But I stress: the dose is minute. It will stimulate your heart.”

“You mean flog it at hard labour,” Victor said in a near whisper.

Clement laughed. “It’s used to that,” he said. “The heart is a mere hewer of wood and drawer of water. Don’t heed the poets. But, to make the hard labour somewhat less hard, I’m also going to give you something that’ll open up all your arteries so they’ll offer less resistance.”

“What?” Abigail asked.

“Oh, the usual nitrites. Nothing exciting.”

He gave Victor several small pills of different colours and wrote a prescription for a regular supply.

“You look pretty comfortable there,” he said. Victor nodded.

“Might as well stay there tonight.” He turned to Abigail. “Just take off the outer garments and cover him lightly. Keep a fire in. I’ll be back tomorrow and we’ll move him to bed.”

Abigail saw her brother to the door. “We’ll do some tests,” he said, “when he’s over this.”

“I want to know the truth, Clement.”

He looked at her, assessing how deeply she meant it. “I’ll tell you the worst I suspect. I think he’s had high blood pressure for rather a long time.”

“Which means?”

“It means I can invite you to dinner in two months’ time with fair confidence—but two years? The tests will tell. Some hearts adapt amazingly.”

Compensatory hypertrophy will fail,” Victor said complacently. “Dilatation will increase and lead to mitral incompetence with regurgitation, leading to pulmonary congestion and all the usual signs of failure of compensation.”

“You are looking well this morning,” Abigail said, drawing the curtains.

“Attacks of angina and syncope will be common, accompanied by dyspnoea and hyperventilation.”

“I told Frances to burn those books.”

“I know them by heart. Pathologically the cardiac muscle evinces brown atrophy and fatty and fibroid degenerative lesions.”

She kissed him lightly. “It sounds dreadful, but I must say you look as if you thrive on it.”

“It’s a just punishment—kiss me again—a just punishment for turning myself into a
petit bourgeois.
”

“In what way?”

“This regime—three light meals, light exercise, fresh air, no worry, watered whisky, free purgation, sleep!”

“It’s what old Karl wanted for everyone. The chance to write poetry. You’re going to get up today and walk around.”

He was delighted, really, once he discovered he wasn’t going to be a helpless invalid but could even recover completely—if only for a time. She contained her anxiety by badgering him, and he teased her, to make the badgering easier to sustain. That was his true regime. And under it he made remarkable progress. By Christmas he was his old self again and they both allowed themselves to hope, against all medical opinion, that his attack had been a mere episode.

***

One evening in the following spring, the spring of 1891, Frances asked Abigail if they might have a word.

“You remember I said I’d been thinking about this work you’re doing?”

“Yes.” Abigail poured herself a Madeira. “For you?” she asked.

“Please. Goodness, I should be doing that.” She rose again.

“You sit where you are. I’m much more interested in your ideas.” She handed her a glass. “To health.”

“Indeed.” She sipped. Abigail noticed that her hand trembled; it was the first sign of nervousness she had ever seen in the girl. She left the gaslight deliberately low. Bare branches stirred outside; their shadows bobbed in stately dances up and down the walls.

“I’d imagine you’re pretty well unshockable by now,” Abigail said.

Frances snorted. “It doesn’t
mean
anything to me. I mean I’ve never…well…I’ve never…”

“Of course not. But I imagine you knew something of the facts?”

“Yes,” she admitted grudgingly. “But…well, for instance, you can know that chocolate’s for putting in your mouth, can’t you. I mean that’s a
fact.
But it doesn’t tell you anything about the taste, does it. Nor about how you can get a craving for chocolate.”

“Very good! Is that what has surprised you?”

“Well…I mean: Walter! Craving isn’t the word, is it. Are they all like that? Men?”

“To a degree they are. Not so exaggerated, perhaps.”

“Another thing, Abbie. What’s that blood we get each month?”

“I’m not sure. My brother Clement, who ought to know about these things, says it’s because girls outgrow boys until they’re about fourteen or fifteen, then we slow down and they catch up. But meanwhile our bodies have got used to making fresh blood at the faster rate—and anyway we have to keep it up for when we have babies. Because it stops then, as I suppose you know. In between, well, it’s just our bodies keeping in practice. And when we reach my age it begins to stop because”—she smiled—“we’re past having babies. Tell me, has this anything to do with…you know?”

“Not really. Except that it’s strange, isn’t it, all this ignorance. Anyway, I was talking about Walter and how strong all their desires are. And going on all the time.”

“Yes.”

“Well now, that’s point number one: you can’t stop them. No one can stop them. All right?”

Abigail grinned. “All right.”

“Now, point number two. What was point number two? Oh yes! All those notes you and the Baron made on different civilizations, where you found they all of them said that intercourse was only to be inside marriage?”

“Yes?”

“That’s point number two. Now, if you put one and two together…well, it’s like a law against breathing, isn’t it? I’m sorry I can’t say this in a very literary and proper way, but…”

“Go on, Frances. It’s splendid.”

“Well. That leads to point three, which is that all those civilizations had some form of prostitution. They said ‘don’t do it’—officially—and then they tolerated it unofficially. But only for the men. They don’t tolerate it for the women.”

“That’s because of inheritance. A husband’s illegitimate children stay outside the family; but a wife’s…”

“I know. I know. That was point number four: you’re bound to get two standards. Because of that. A loose one for men and strict one for women. Funny, isn’t it!” She laughed. “We’re brought up thinking all this is just Holy Writ and keep-your-mouth-shut, and really there’s a lot of very good reasons for it and it’s quite interesting to think about and talk about.”

Abigail was now torn between two reactions. On the one hand, she was delighted that Frances had reached this freedom of thought on her own; but, on the other, if this trivial conclusion was the
result
,
the thought itself wasn’t worth much. “Is there a point number five, Frances?” she asked.

“Five, six, seven, eight…hundred!” Frances smiled proudly. “For a long time I was stuck there. At point four. Then I read Mrs. Besant’s book, you know the one,
The Law of Population
,
and
The Malthusian
,
and
The Wife’s Handbook.
How good are they, Abbie? Those things they talk about…those Malthusian devices?”

“Well, they’re not perfect.”

“Oh.” Frances pulled a face. “Pity.”

“Why?”

“Well, that’d be the answer, wouldn’t it? If a woman could be sure of not having a baby, that would do away with point number four, wouldn’t it? There needn’t be two standards. It could be the same standards for us as for them.”

“Frances!” Abigail began to feel excited.

“But wait!” the girl said. “It’s a lot more than that. It’s everything. You’ll see! You know where Walter says he prefers working-class women to his own class? He can talk to them more easily and so on? Well, now we can see why. Upper-class men can never be natural and easy with girls of their own class, can they—because we know what natural and easy leads to. But suppose it didn’t! You can’t stop the men wanting it, we know that. But suppose you didn’t have to!”

“Yes! That’s it, Frances: suppose we didn’t
have
to!”

“They wouldn’t go running after working-class girls then, would they. It would put a stop to all that.”

“Of course…and the men who didn’t develop that habit when young wouldn’t retain it into later years. Frances, you…you genius! You may not have it all yet but there was a…there was a
logjam
of thoughts in my head, and you’ve broken it up. Bless you! Is there more?”

“Well, then I started thinking, that’s all very well for the upper classes—all the fun and frolic as usual. What about the ninety percent of us, right down to the working-class girl brought up ten in a room? From what you’ve been writing, I think it’s them you want to help more than your own kind.”

“They
are
my kind, Frances. My dearest, warmest friend, apart from the Baron, grew up ten in a room and lived half her life in the workhouse orphanage. But you’re right, yes. I don’t really give a pinch of snuff for ‘my’ kind. What follows?”

“What follows is that a girl can’t love as we’d like her to love unless she has a sense of her own dignity. And she can’t develop dignity ten in a room. She needs a room of her own. Dignity is privacy, really, isn’t it.”

Abigail was silent a while. “You shame me, Frances,” she said. “You cut through everything so exactly. But what you’re saying is that the task I’ve set myself is impossible. To go from ten-in-a-room to a situation in which everyone has privacy—it’s centuries away.”

“Yes, Abbie!” Frances grinned broadly. “That’s the whole point.”

“Well, it doesn’t delight me as it seems to delight you.”

“It ought to. Don’t you see…it frees you from trying to do
everything.
That was your Uncle Daniel’s real mistake, you know. He tried to do everything, upset the whole arrangement of things, and he succeeded in absolutely nothing. But we can pick our area and concentrate on it with a good conscience, even though we know we’re neglecting lots of other important things. You could write a book about these ideas, and that would be right. Or you could set up a Malthusian clinic in the East End, and that would be right, too. Or you could promote better housing and health, and
that
would be right. Even assist the struggle for better female wages and more secure jobs, because that would also be going our way. You see? Anything, almost, because you’re not just saying that
love
ought to be different—even though you are. I mean…” She choked in exasperation at the vastness of it all. “
Love can’t be different until everything else is different.
”