How Do I Love Thee? (24 page)

It did not matter whether I agreed with it or not, he was our father. He loved us. He wanted what was best for us. And if that meant never to marry, then—

A sudden catch in my chest hinted at an alien feeling of rebellion that started an argument within.

But why doesn’t Papa want us to marry? Where is the logic?

Papa knew best. He always had. What other father in the world would continue to care for all his children well into their adulthood? The financial sacrifices to keep us all together—

Hidden away.

We were not hidden. We could go out.

But do you?

I was not the issue. My siblings went out.

Only to Papa-approved venues.

Henrietta sneaked away. . . .

She’ll get caught, and then what?

I remembered when Papa had screamed so loudly at Henrietta and had slapped her, sending her to her knees. The memory still upset me. I did not wish for such a scene again.

For her sake? Or yours?

I noticed the novel I had been reading, staring at me from my bedside table. It was a book by Stendhal called
Le Rouge et le Noir—The Red and the
Black
. It was a tragic tale set in France during trying political times. Since I had finished it, it had ridden me like an incubus. It was a book to be read at all risks. What interested me the most was how Stendhal—unlike any other novelist I had read—lingered in the minds and hearts of the characters, letting us know what they felt and thought. Mind and heart . . . it was a place where I was most at home. But beyond the style which so enraptured me was a story of people held captive by the rules of those in power, suffering the need to play a role in order to receive the support of those they loved.

Just like you are held captive. Just as you play a role and suffer.

“I do not suffer!”

There is hypocrisy in pretending to be virtuous.

I answered my own accusation. “I do not pretend—”

But Papa does.

Appalled by such disloyalty, I grabbed the book and marched it across the room to the farthest bookshelf, where I placed it on the bottom of a stack of five.

There.

To counter the thoughts ignited by the book—and my discourse with my sister—I chose another book off the shelf.
Pilgrim’s Progress.
One of Papa’s favourites. We had spent many hours discussing its virtues.

I retreated to the sofa, waited until Flush fit himself into his place by my side, and dove into the safety of its pages.

As I read the newspaper I became more and more enraged. I slapped a hand against the offensive words. “This is not fair. Moreover, it is unchristian.”

Sette looked up from his perusal of my bookshelves for something “diverting.” “Whatever are you talking about?”

Occy rolled a ball across the room, sending Flush after it. “The price of crinolines rising, Ba?”

I took offence. I cared little for fashion. That was Henrietta’s department. “I speak of the Corn Laws.”

“What
are
you talking about?” Occy asked.

Without warning, Papa entered the room. “What’s this I hear? My Ba mentioning Corn Laws?”

Finally an ally. I held out the paper for his review. “The tariff on English corn must be repealed so the price can lower and poor families can afford bread.”

Sette yawned and arched his back. “As long as we can afford bread, I do not see that it matters.”

Papa glared at him. “Such elitist attitudes are not worthy of a Barrett,” he said. “And you only afford bread because I buy it for you.”

“Sorry, Papa.” Sette reddened and went back to his book search.

I was heartened that Papa supported my empathy for the poor. Mother had always encouraged charity work, and though I had been unable to physically go out among them as Arabel often did, I could offer moral support and . . .

Perhaps something more.

“What if I offered a poem in the opposition’s support?” I asked.

The room turned silent. Then Occy and Sette looked at each other and burst out laughing. “A woman’s verses? Think of the impertinence of it,” Occy said.

Sette let his voice rise an octave. “Oh, dearest corn, how wrongly you have been priced! Without repeal our bread cannot be sliced.”

I was horrified by their laughter and derision. “ ’Tis a serious subject. If the poor spend their meager wages on bread, then they have no money left for luxuries like clothing, and the demand for clothing falls. With too much clothing on the market, the price must surely fall in order to entice people to buy, and subsequently the wages of the clothing workers will also fall, creating more poor.”

Sette grabbed a book to his chest and gasped. “Oh my! What shall we do?”

“We should think of someone beyond ourselves,” I cried. “Life exists beyond these walls.”

“How would you know?” Occy said.

Once again, the room silenced. Then Occy ran to my side. “I’m sorry, Ba. I didn’t mean . . .”

Papa cleared his throat, then finally spoke. “Your compassion is admirable, Ba.”

I nodded victoriously at my brothers.

“But . . .” He stroked his chin, thinking. “I do not consider it wise for you to be included among the dissenters. It is not proper for a woman to be involved in political work.”

I did not know what to say. As a learned woman was I not permitted to have opinions? To share those opinions? To try to change the cruelties of the world for the better? I thought of an example of a time when I had helped through verse. “Two years ago I wrote ‘Cry of the Children’ about child labour conditions. And other writers added their pen to the horror, so much so that Parliament enacted a new law, and Fleet Prison was closed.”

Papa’s look was condescending. “I believe Mr. Dickens’ stories were the ones deemed instrumental in provoking the changes.”

He was right. I immediately regretted mentioning my paltry offering. But my pride proved stronger than my regret and I added, “In America, Edgar Allen Poe gave my poem on the children effusive praise. He even dedicated a book to me.”

Sette snickered. “From what I’ve read of Poe, I am not certain that was a compliment.”

Papa took a step towards the door and motioned to the boys that it was time to leave. “We are all proud of your poems, Ba, but keep your subjects set on dead Greeks and seraphims and leave the issues of society to men.”

I was deflated. It was as though my body had been pierced and all life-giving air had been released.

I heard my brothers scramble down the stairs while Papa paused one last moment for a final offering. “You must be careful of your reputation, Ba. Poe giving you a dedication, and then there was the time when your name was mentioned in a magazine near that of George Sand. Any connection with that abandoned woman can cause irretrievable harm.”

I was struck dumb. Although I did not agree with the way some other poets lived, or even some of their work, that did not mean we could not appreciate one another’s efforts.

“I assume this will be the end of your inclination towards involvement in the Corn Laws?” Papa said.

I nodded, but only because I wished for him to leave. When he had done so, when I was alone from the appalling masculine rampancy to which I had been afflicted . . .

How dare they demean me so? Demean the power of my work? They did not need to remind me that I was but a woman and had no power, no rights, no standing.

I should write it in spite of them . . . to spite them.

I knew I would do no such thing. I would not vex Papa for the world.

But as I heard the dulled sounds of my family going on with their day below, I felt a vacancy and silence which struck me as freshly as ever and with equal despair. The men of my family did not care to hear my views, indeed did not even believe I deserved any. My sisters may have been content to live within these feminine restrictions, but I was not. Not completely.

Wilson came to the door with a letter. “It’s from him,” she whispered.

Another man.

When I did not take the letter right away, she pulled it back. “Do you not wish to read it?”

I shook my hesitation away. At this moment Robert was the only man I wished to hear from. I took the letter and plunged into his words with hope of comfort and affirmation. I quickly received both:
Pray tell me,
too, of your present doings and projects, and never write yourself “grateful” to me, who am
grateful, very grateful to you, for none of your words but I take in earnest.

I stopped reading and felt the sting of tears. This man—this one man among all men—cared what I did each day, what I thought, what I dreamed. This man would not laugh at me but with me, would not disparage but lift me up, would not ignore me but offer appreciation.

And I . . . I would return the favour.

I waited patiently as the doctor counted my pulse while looking at his pocket watch. When he was through, he dropped my wrist and shook his head. “It is too fast, Miss Barrett, far above your usual rate. Have you been exerting yourself?”

I was surprised to feel myself blush. I hastened to give him an answer that would satisfy. “I can assure you I have made no physical exertions. As is the rule, I am here all days, finding my worth in solitude and reading.”

He looked unconvinced. “Perhaps you have been writing? Perhaps that is what has taxed you so?”

Writing poetry? No. I could honestly assure him that the upheaval of my body was not caused by the strains of creation. But, of course, I had been writing . . . Had my correspondence with Robert been the cause of my racing heart?

I could not tell him that, and so I merely said, “I have not been working.”

“Then I do not know why you are feeling so poorly.” He looked down at me, stroking his whiskers. “Knowing your history, there must be something that is causing you agitation.” He opened his bag and removed two bottles of medicine.

Suddenly, the thought of his prescribing more than my usual draught of opium did not appeal. “I will be fine, Dr. Chambers.”

He gave me a second glance. “
Fine
is not a word I have heard from you.”

He was right. I generally welcomed doctor visits and encouraged additional medicines. In fact, it was I who usually had Papa request the doctor come. This was the first time in recent weeks that it had been Papa who made the call in spite of my protests.
“You are not yourself, Ba. There is
an agitation with you lately, a stirring that surely must be caused by a nerve disorder of
some sort.”

He was wrong. The doctor was wrong. Although I had felt weakened, and had first blamed it upon the blustery winds, I had come to see in the past days that the wind that stirred my nerves into unrest was not external, nor something that was shared by anyone else. The winds of agitation blew from within and were flamed by a few words in Robert’s last letter to me:
You think that I “unconsciously exaggerate what you are to me” . . .
I never yet mistook my own feelings, one for another. Do you think I shall see you in two
months, three months? I may travel perhaps. . . .

In the week since I had received the letter I had suffered every range of emotion. I was elated and humbled by his feelings for me, astounded by his confidence in them, agitated by his mention of a meeting, and horrified at the thought of his traveling to some far-off land. Not that letters could not span the miles between here and there, but to have him close, but a short distance in New Cross . . .

The chance of it made the idea of a meeting more judicious. If I did not agree to meet him before he left for months and months—with all chance of meeting evaporating within the distance that separated us-could I live with myself?

And so, as usually happened when I worried, my body rebelled, weakened, and progressed into the chest congestion that was always waiting in the wings of my life for its chance to make an entrance.

But in order to even fathom the idea of a meeting, I had to be well. This time, of all times in my invalid life, I could not linger in the sickbed, content to be ill—and nearly encouraged to be so—because I had no better use of my time.