I wet my lips that are suddenly dry and I open my mouth several times without getting the words out, for it is as if the shyness that had been gradually leaving me during my time at Ellesmere Lodge, the inability to speak that plagued me all those years, has returned. I glance at you and am glad that you are still lying there with your eyes closed and not witnessing my confusion. But I am conscious of your waiting on my answer, and I feel the moments stretching between us. Finally I mumble, just as I pull the blanket up to my neck and bury half of my face, like a child, so you can't hear me properly, nor suspect the reason for the telltale tremor in my voice, “You know, I can't remember now either. Isn't that strange? But I'll think about it; it will come back, I'm sure.”
And you say, “Oh, don't worry. It's just that there are so many things that I wonder about, that I would like to ask you now that I have you here.” You chuckle. “Maybe it's the age thing. This looking back.”
You softly pat my shoulder that is already burning up under the blanket, my whole body, from cowardice, from sadness, from denial.
“But,” you say, “things can wait. We have lots of time.”
I DID NOT MAKE
it downstairs for the next few weeks. After the equanimity of the previous day, clearing out Mr. Bridges' room, who could have guessed what surprises awaited? I cleared out all the bits and pieces. I retrieved the jewellery boxes, placed the rings and cufflinks inside them, and set them along with some odds and ends from the chest of drawers into a box and labelled it for the cousin to take away. Then I started on the bedside table. There wasn't much in the large bottom drawer, just a few fat file envelopes. I didn't open any of this, feeling respectful of Mr. Bridges' privacy.
After that task, I decided to take a break and I spent some time looking through his
CD
collection before packing that away. Since Matron had offered me a memento, I was strongly tempted to take his miniature stereo and some music to go with it. For that was not on the list of things the family wanted. But then I thought it was much too extravagant for me, as I'd seen similar sets advertised in American magazines for thousands of dollars. I was intimidated by its endless array of buttons. How would I ever understand them? The red and green and yellow lights that raced along a track or blinked softly, even now. Should I unplug it? Turn it off? Where was the
CD
he had been playing that day? I looked at the little player, willing it to defeat me, but when I found the button marked
STOP
and I pressed it and it did so, I smiled in my moment of triumph.
On the floor, between the chair and the stand holding the player, I found the empty case together with the other
CDS
he had brought home that day. They had probably been placed there by someone else, as I remember now his putting them down in the chair when he entered the room with me. I reached down to pick up the
CDS
and brought up the mail he had carried in that day. Most of the envelopes were unopened, but as I walked over to drop them in the carton with the papers, I came to one that had been torn open, and I stopped. Unlike the others that were clearly official, with typed addresses, this address was handwritten, in flowing black ink. It had come from the U.S.A. I squinted at the return address, which was on a little printed label. Mrs. Margo Haynes-Crosswell and a Florida address. My first thought was that it was from one of his children, then I remembered they did not live in Florida. Then I thought, well, it's a cousin, it's a married woman, so that's okay then. But instead of throwing it into the box, I held on to it, a feeling compounded of fear and jealousy growing in my heart. I truly didn't know why I had such a strong reaction to this letter, which could have been of the most innocent sort. But I felt the envelope burning my hand and without any further thought I extracted sheets of airmail paper so fine they crackled.
Well, isn't this proceeding just like your typical Mills and Boon or Harlequin novel? Or maybe more like Victorian romance, or one of Mrs. Revd. Humphrey's bodice rippers. The device of the letter! That fatal letter by which lies are finally ripped away and truth is unmasked. It was like that for me. Though it took more than one letter to convince me of the enormity of this lieâthe ignominy of something much, much worse. It wasn't that here was revealed the romance conducted on those Miami visits, an old flame rekindled, that hereâfinallyâwas the woman he intended to marry. Far worse was to come. For I would discover that I had all along been playing a starring role in their little drama: the Little Country Mouse, or
LCM
to use their playful shorthand.
That first letter was only the beginning of what I was to find out. I read it as my face burned and my body shook so much I had to sit down. And then I read it over and over again. She was obviously returning home to marry him, to be the chatelaine of the mansion he was restoring. That much was evident, but now she had finally given him a date, assuming all the work was finished by then. Was this what he had rat-tatted on my door to tell me? The source of his secret, inward smile, his playfulness that day? The fact that nothing I thought of as a relationship with him ever existed. Not even that most basic of connections, mutual friendship, respect, loyalty?
I came to this conclusion after sitting down in the armchair to read the stack of letters from her that were in the top drawer, for I went looking for them, neat packs in order of arrival, each set bound with coloured rubber bands. There was no reference to me in the first letter I read, and so my initial reaction to the shock was shame at my own poor deluded self. Shame at my foolishness. Thankfulness that I had confided in no one. Shame at how I had mentally elevated myself into a sphere that I was so clueless about, for this was one in which a woman would get down to brass tacks immediately after the endearments and the pledge.
For dear Margo was dictating the terms from the start, with the whip hand holding
Architectural Digest
to beat the rat that was running around in the cage. Inventory, inventory. These types of windows. This type of flooring for the living room and hallway. Carpets? Question? Back patio ripped up and replaced with terrazzo tiles. Relined swimming pool, a gazebo at the far end. Paint chips, catalogues, estimates for designer sanitary fixtures coming by courier. And when next would he be up so they could consult?
I guess I'm being facetious about this now because I really don't want to talk about the other bit, the part so painful that it scored my heart more than anything had ever done. It was so cruel. So gratuitous. So indecent.
I spent the rest of the day in that room reading those letters. I had to. I didn't leave the room to eat the lunch brought up for me. After Maisie knocked on Mr. Bridges' door to let me know she had left it in my room, I got up and turned the lock in the door. I could not trust myself to speak to anyone.
I focused on the discussion of the china, the throwing out of the oldâhis, Spode, too old-fashionedâa suggested list of the new that was to be bought. Perhaps they could have a look on his next trip, or should they wait until Europe and see what they had in Florence? She was thinking she would get rid of her silver tea set, for she seemed to recall his was much nicer. They didn't want two, did they?
I kept thinking, china? New tea service? At her age? I didn't know her age, but from the large photograph in the drawerâmuch handled, I now noticedâand the smaller one among the many framed photos in the room that I had never actually scrutinized before, she had that seamless, elegant, bland look that denoted age erased by plastic surgery, the tight smile a tribute to expensive orthodontics. Her hair and her face had that finished, polished look that rich people who take care of themselves seem to have, but the eyes behind the mascara looked tired and washed out. Or maybe the image was simply dissolving into my own raddled, washed-out, washed-up self.
I READ ALL THE
letters. I now know the worst that can befall a human being. But I also finished off my job in Mr. Bridges' room, left everything neatly packaged and labelled and tied up for Matron. The
CDS
in racks fitted into cartons. The stereo in the very box it had come in, which I found stored flat in the top of the clothes closet. The framed photos all carefully wrapped before packing, to go with the other carton for the cousin. I turned back to survey the room before I closed the door. Good job! Every scrap and speck accounted for. No broken hearts lying on the floor. Not a shred of trampled reputation or skewered loyalty. Those were tightly bound up in the stack of letters, which I clutched firmly in my hand as I exited. My precious souvenirs.
I HID THEM IN
the same place I used to hide the pens and pencils I borrowed when I first came to Ellesmere Lodge. None of that foolishness anymore. All the pens and pencils have been liberated, restored to some owner, if not the rightful one. But that whole subject is making me think that perhaps if paper and pens and pencils had not been invented, typewriters or printing presses or computers, there would be a lot less misery in the world. Though I'm not sure how I've arrived at this argument, which jerks me from the sleep I have been trying all night to fall into. The ink that wrote those letters is black and rich, the hand is firm. The recipient is dead. The current reader is dying. Well, not quite, not yet.
â¦
just keep dragging YOUR RED WAGON along
.
SLEEPLESS, I GET UP
in the middle of the night. I switch on the light and retrieve the letters. I have another read. A sampling only this time. Already I have engraved on my heart the phrases that will now forever jump out at me, ambush me like a fist in black leather gloves. I'm grateful for Mr. Bridges' sense of order, for the letters are arranged to be read chronologically. I start at the back. So what becomes accessible is a history of our relationship, or, rather, a history of a relationship that was not. It was an amusement for two people.
It was clear from reading her remarks just what it was he told her. Everything. I didn't start off as
LCM
âLittle Country Mouse. For remember, the mouse first roared at him. So at the beginning I was
MCC
âMad Country Cow. The Mouse only came much later, when he realized how shy I was really, and how much he had to coax me to get the words out. Little Country Mouse meeting Town Rat.
My face burned with flame afresh, feeling as red as the dress I wore the day I first signalled my interest in him; for from then on he was reading me like a book. Writing me like one too. For soon Miss Margo gets all cutesy about
her rival
. About him coming perhaps to prefer women with
clodhopper feet
over one
clad in Manolo Blahnik American size six. Triple A
. Underlined. The bitch! Enquired about my growing transformation into a
glamour puss
, commented on the hennaed hair! (So
out it's in again
, she hissed.
Bravo LCM!
). Worried about the two of us
getting hot and sweaty together in the garden
. Warning him not to introduce me to
the practice of taking showers together to cool off. Reserved strictly for size six tennis-playing non-gardeners
. Many exclamation points topped with cute little hearts.
I stopped reading then, taking my only consolation from the fact that he had written to her about some of the other residents of Ellesmere Lodge, though perhaps not with the malice he reserved for me. For regardless, they were all more or less of his own social group and perhaps not suitable targets. Still, I don't know what he had actually said, perhaps it was only her pen that dripped with vitriol.
What! Old Ruby de la Whats-her-face still alive? My God, she must be a hundred years old. Still grasping at youth and wearing those awful shades of eyeshadow? Well, at least they match her jewellery. I wonder who gets them when she pops off?
What was with this woman? Perhaps I wouldn't have felt so badly if she hadn't come across as such a perfectly awful human being. I wondered how Mr. Bridges could stand her. Then I reminded myself that he was an awful human being himself. Now I wish he hadn't gone and died, for I would prefer to think of him living with this woman as a punishment worse than death. The thought made me giggle, but the next minute I was retching with pain.
Ever since I fished out that first letter from its envelope, my feelings were running up and down. Sometimes I thought it served me right, the gods were paying me back for my curiosity. I didn't regret my actions, for the thought of those letters falling into someone else's hands was even more chilling. Though I hadn't been named in any of them, anyone familiar with Ellesmere Lodge would have easily identified the creature who came to figure as
LCM
. I hastily suppressed the thought that Matron perhaps had taken a look at them?
I put the letters back in their hiding place and crawled into the cave of my bed, which was to become my hiding place, every bone in my body aching. But before I switched off the light, I got out my notebook and found the page where I had made my Inventory, and I crossed out
intelligent
. I also crossed out
well read
. I had been read too well. And I wrote
Knowledge Is Power
. And then I crossed that out too.
I NEVER WANTED TO
get out of bed again. I felt so rotten I couldn't take satisfaction from Matron's discomfiture. She thought it was her fault that I had overexerted myself the previous day. I assured her that it was simply my flu returning. She watched me like a hawk for the next few weeks, came in person to administer medicines or take my temperature, little knowing that the germ that had been implanted in me had no cure, for it was called shame, one that I had to hide from the world. Or maybe what I was doing was wallowing in it, for almost every night I found myself tottering out of bed to fetch the stack of letters and read portions of them. Then I had nightmares about what would happen to them if I died and they were found. I tried to think of sensible means of disposing of them. But really, I didn't want to destroy them, I wanted to wear the wounds they inflicted as my stigmata. Punishment for my gall, my prideful self.