The Jeweller's Skin (18 page)

She stood up and pulled back one of the curtains.  The draught from the ill-fitting window touched her ear.  The grounds were dark.  A tree became clear, the still-bare branches dipping in the wind; then the side wall of C Villa, with one lit window.  What could I have done?  Come back to the asylum, and asked to see their records?  She shivered.  I could have found out what happened in such cases.  There would be a procedure.

Something moved on the grass.  She watched a fox, running across the lawn, low to the ground, tail streaming out behind him.  I suppose he is heading towards the farm.  To attack the chickens; could he get into the run?  Should I tell someone?

She let the curtain fall back, and sat down again.  Perhaps after all it would be good to meet Violeta.  She let herself drift into a wordless scene, the young woman tall, sweet-faced, forgiving her.  I want her to pity me.  She was ashamed.

And what about her?  Will I feel pity for her?  Will I need to?  I have tried not to think what life she has had without me, she reminded herself, severe, because she needed to know all of her failings, before her daughter could come and face her with them.  At least if I am still sane by the time we meet.

She unscrewed the top of the bottle of blue-black ink, and studied the pen.  The new nib looked too fine to write with, scratchy.  She dipped and touched it against the neck of the bottle, then wrote on the cover of the writing-pad:
Violeta.
 

It could have been the first day she had learned to write.  How foreign my handwriting still is, she thought.

She opened the pad, and straightened the line-guide under the first sheet.

Holywell Hospital. 
They don’t call it asylum any more.

Dashwood Lane

Epsom

Surrey
.

Is that how I wrote to Edwin when I was in here?

She sat back and contemplated the four short lines, in her flowing writing, the ink all but black.  Do I write her address?  To find it she would have to look at the letter again.

Mr Rathfelders had said not to explain.  But he was cautious: suspicious of Violeta. 

I could tell her everything, now, in this one letter.  For a long time she sat and thought what it would mean: her marriage to Edwin, the house in Camberwell, the asylum, her escape, the housekeeping job, Felix.  Coming back.  The fear of going mad again.

Poor young woman, she thought, amused, with tears in her eyes; I would terrify her.

27
th
March 1947

Dear Violeta
,

1922

-

1935

My father is very patient, and I am not. He is going to make a brooch in filigree-work, for the wife of a Dubrovnik businessman.  I have looked at the drawing; I think it will be the most beautiful brooch anyone has ever seen.  So I sit on my high stool, trying not to squirm, waiting for him to take the wire [like embroidery thread; I could embroider him a handkerchief] in his narrow tongs, and twist it, oh, terribly slowly into place.  But he is not ready.

He is starting what I call cooking, and he calls annealing.  This is a process out of a fairy-tale, something a bewitched prince might use to dispel a curse.  If I were not so impatient I would let myself be enchanted, even though I have seen it many times.  I have to stay still, stiller than usual on my stool by the bench, because of the fire.  The charcoal is already red, and sputters, though quietly, hushed by the rules of my father’s workshop.

My father is holding a skein of fine gold wire on the palm of his hand.  He picks up a length of ordinary wire, iron, to tie the gold down.  I hate this iron wire, which is dull-toned, and stops the gold from springing out on the heat.

With his right hand he scoops sawdust out of a sack, and scatters it over the floor of a wide pan.  The bright ring of wire with its iron shackle lies flat - how carefully he places it - in the centre of the pan; then another handful of sawdust to disguise it.  In spite of myself I have forgotten the brooch.  There is a lovely roasting smell as the sawdust catches, brightens as if infected by the gold.  He pulls back the pan; takes it off the burner and settles it on a trivet.  Little flames flicker around the disguised mass.

For once, my father looks over at me, and smiles.  I am helping him cook the wire, I tell myself.  I want the sawdust to burn for a long time.

It flops; there is a heap of soft ash.  My father leans down to the pan and blows gently.  The ash flies up, and falls like snowflakes towards the floor.

This is the magical part.  The wire is no longer gold, but burning red.  My father leans close to check it is red all over.  If even a fraction of the wire coil isn’t cooked through, it will break when he works it: just there, at the cool part.             

I sit high up, some feet away from the pan, leaning forward, holding onto the sides of the stool with both hands, watching the red-hot wire blanch back to gold.

1922

But there were changes.  So many men had come back from the war - so many had not come back, which was part of it - shaking, afraid of nightmares; and had been, still were, housed in asylums,  many originally built by George Thomas Hine.  The men, or their families, trekking out to visit, had reported back: the diet, tuberculosis, the sudden access of brittle bones among otherwise fit but unruly patients; so that even the gentlemen of the House of Commons, eight miles from the nearest asylum, were forced to consider.  They produced an Act.  If the desperate and the deluded, after all, were not afflicted by moral degeneracy, since some had been moral enough to fight for their country, then their condition must be conceded to be an illness, and their places of care hospitals, not asylums.  What was more (and here the gentlemen recognised human frailty; even called hospitals, asylums were far away, and good staff hard to retain) the Committees visiting them should be critical.  They should take care that patients were not only nourished, but provided with food to tempt the appetite.  ‘What?’ said Mrs Olby at Holywell when she heard, from the ponderous Matron, ‘and on the same money?’  But her voice didn’t carry; and the House by now was musing on other things.

Staff were a problem.  It was the War, again: women had worked in all kinds of occupations, many unsuitable, but what could you do?  And now the men had taken over from them (but not entirely: so many young men lost), the women turned out to have new ideas.  Carrying a chamber-pot down all the back stairs, five flights, of the Midland Hotel at St Pancras, or a full coal-scuttle up in the other direction, was not a new idea.  So the Midland Hotel, that Florentine palazzo, that great terra-cotta station front with imported French tiles and stencilled walls and mythic mosaic ceilings, and the trains behind it steaming in from Sheffield, was closing, for want of chambermaids.  Young Dr Bosanquet, setting out to walk in the Peak District in the months before his marriage, found it very trying, arriving with his bags from Russell Square, instead of breakfasting above the station.

So much change.  Miss Grey and Miss Ainsworth found the girls they’d taught quite frivolous, these days, when small groups came to visit; quite exhausting; they were relieved to have retired.  Although two, it seemed, would go to Bedford College, where thank heavens they would be allowed to graduate, unlike Oxford and Cambridge, still full of foolish men.  ‘As long as they don’t become bores,’ Miss Ainsworth said, ‘like those young men with their ridiculous decadence.’  Though of course the war…  It was more likely, Miss Grey pointed out sadly, they would marry before they had finished their degrees.  Ah well.

As for what happened far off, in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes: who knew?  Not Edwin Humphreys; his former though unsaid trade, finding out that very thing and reporting back, to a room on the third floor of the Foreign Office, was not needed.  The death of King Peter was not after all important; the Regent seemed to have sufficient grip.  Or it was important, but Edwin was superfluous.  So he travelled simply, from Camberwell to the Bank, by way of the Waterloo and City Line, and thence to the office, where the wool trade, pretext for his exciting life in Prizren, had become the reality.  There had been enough excitement.

‘Just a plain vegetable soup,’ Miss Ainsworth said.  ‘You don’t have time to do anything fancy.’

Narcisa’s back was still turned, her hands in the deep white sink, with the knives and colander.

‘Do you understand, Humphreys?’  The voice-tone went up, as if scrabbling on a scree slope for a footing.  From behind, Narcisa’s nod was invisible.  Miss Ainsworth spoke to Miss Grey in the corridor.  ‘I suppose she’s going to be ready in time.  You might as well be talking to a rock.’

The japonica tapped against the kitchen window.  ‘We make
this
from
this
,’ Miss Grey had said, opening the pot a little reluctantly, offering a bead of pale red on the end of a spoon.  They were outside, in the kitchen garden, a row of bright lettuces beside Narcisa’s foot.  Disbelieving, she jerked her head at the straggling bush reaching across grey brick with a few pink flowers.  Miss Grey tightened the jam-jar lid: ‘I will teach you.’  It was two nights before Narcisa, dawdling after the ladies had gone to bed, dared enter the larder and find the pot again, with its looped script label.  She lifted out no more than Miss Grey had given: it was true, the taste she’d remembered: quince.  She stood still in the larder and almost smiled.

Japonica, she told herself now in silence, drying her hands. 
Did
she understand them? She couldn’t have said how.  They spoke, sometimes loudly, sometimes laboriously; and out of the breakers and streams of sound something, maybe not the words, splashed up and soaked her.  So it seemed: each sentence an assault, a drenching.  This was not new; it had been like that for years.  Only here in the house there were only the four of them with the maid, plus Spencer who came once a week to do the garden; and so the splashing and buffeting happened more often.  I will have to get used to it, she told herself, drying the knives, taking the lid of the soup-pot so the steam rose in her face.  She prodded a piece of carrot; another few minutes.

Back at the window, with nothing more to do till the soup was ready, she wiped her face with her apron.  A blackbird stopped between the lettuces, jabbed at the earth.  At the asylum it was all extreme; people wailed, they shouted, they stared at you in disgust and gave you orders.  What had struck her most, coming to this house, was the cushioned quiet.  Miss Grey and Miss Ainsworth raised their voices only when they couldn’t get through to her.  Everything they addressed to her was practical:
No, the other plates; just a plain vegetable soup; half past eleven. 
Their talk together, as far as she understood, carrying in cakes and tea to the drawing-room, was much the same:
Did you speak to Spencer?  What time is the dressmaker? 
But over the weeks, less worried about mistakes, getting used to their voices, she had started to read deeper.  Just now, for instance, the
plain vegetable soup;
Miss Ainsworth was saying,
For goodness’ sake, woman, don’t make me spell it out: it’s not worth much trouble.

She warmed the billy-can, and began ladling.  If I were poor I would not want to be given this.  She tasted it off the spoon; it was thin and sweetish.  What else could she put in?  The stock itself was weak, that was the trouble.  She stood at the larder door and scanned the shelves.  They used so little seasoning; no herbs, apart from bay-leaf, which she’d used in the soup, and mint; spices they seemed to think were just for baking.  As for wine…  In the end she opened a bottle of Worcester sauce, tasted a drop on her finger: that might do it.

Perhaps the poor family liked watery soup too.  If you are poor, no-one asks you what you like.  She clipped the lid onto the billy-can, and wrapped it round with a tea-towel.  Would the woman have some way of re-heating it?  What sort of kitchen did you have if you were poor?

She walked behind them down the steep street, past the row of tall grey houses, each on its own, with a dark tree in most of the front gardens.  Miss Grey and Miss Ainsworth nodded to an old man with a walking-stick.  The basket weighed heavy with the soup and the loaf; she changed hands again.  I am not going into the house.  I will not do that.  The determination had gradually grown inside her.  I have made the soup, that’s enough.  I do not want to be there.

They crossed the road, Miss Grey turning to see she was following.  How would she do it?  They would want her in there, she was quite certain; they would want her to see them giving the food to this woman.  When we get to the door I will hand over the basket.  Miss Grey will take it.  Then I will shake my head, and turn away.

A woman with a small dog was speaking to them.  She walked more slowly, not wanting to catch up.  The problem of staying outside was worrying her.  I could not bear it.  They will think I’m running away to do something.  I will show them I’m not.  I will find somewhere to sit and wait for them.

The sun was hot on her head through the dark-blue hat.  She looked up.  It was good after all to be outside, to have the sun on her face and to be moving.  She let herself feel the strength of her legs, walking.  Beyond the wide street, the spire over to her right, the heavy green tops of trees that might be a park, she could see the bare flat line of a hill-top.  A horse, tiny and intricate in silhouette, walked daintily along the grass line, led by a small figure, a boy or man.  After a little while another followed.

*

The upstairs maid was a fair, plump girl called Nutting.

Narcisa had looked blank at the introduction.  ‘Oh, she works upstairs,’ Miss Ainsworth said, impatient.  ‘Not in the kitchen with you, you understand?  She knows what to do, in any case.  She’s a good girl, mostly.’

When Miss Ainsworth had gone, Narcisa asked, ‘Your name?’

‘Nutting, please, Cook.’

Narcisa shook her head.  ‘
Your
name.’

The girl stared. Then, eyes wide, as if it were an extraordinary question: ‘Oh,
Christian
name, you mean.  Oh, sorry, Cook.  Emmie.’

From which Narcisa understood she would have to call the girl by her surname, as the women called her Humphreys;  at least when they could hear.

Emmie was slow and careful, completing each task solemnly and (to Narcisa’s relief) in silence.  She came in from her parents’ house early in the morning, and left after lunch.  ‘As much as we need,’ Miss Ainsworth said, as if Narcisa might be expected to complain. ‘Don’t believe in all that fuss, you know.’  At lunch-time Emmie came down to the kitchen, and Narcisa prepared something from leftovers, or a plate of cold meat and cheese, for the two of them.  She thought Emmie wanted something more from her, gossip perhaps, or, even worse, guidance; but it was as much as she could do to offer food, and smile, and once or twice manage to ask a question.

In spite of this, Emmie seemed to want to help.  ‘Ssh, give it here,’ she whispered one morning, as Narcisa was preparing a tray to be taken in.  ‘It’s the vicar, he has to have the best china,’ and she pointed to the tea-set with the roses, high in the end cupboard.  ‘Look, it’s bone,’ she said, and held up a cup to the light, her fingers showing through as shadows.  Then she laid the tray and carried it to the drawing-room, pushing the door open with her wide bottom.  Narcisa, grateful, kept back a couple of scones; which Emmie ate at a rush, as though someone might come in and grab them off her plate.

It was Emmie who arrived with a letter for her.

Narcisa stood still, her hands in the mixing-bowl, her heart beating.  ‘I’ll just put it here on the side,’ Emmie said.

Narcisa leaned over to look.  The stamp was English.

My dear Nora,
Clara had written.

At lunch-time she was at the cleared kitchen table, reading.

I hope you are well and settled in your new life.  They sound as if they could be difficult, your two ladies!  But it’s good you have a position, don’t you think?

She pushed the bread-board over to Emmie, who cut four thick slices, and gave her one on the point of the knife. 

I am still with my sister Flora, and brother-in-law, but as I have told you it’s very small, and I may take a room with another girl.  I wish you were here to share with me, but there we are!  The laundry is a good job, and very –

She couldn’t make it out.  Clara, she knew, found it hard work to write.

‘Emmie,’ she said urgently, ‘what is this?’  She pointed to the word.  Emmie came round the table, to see better.  ‘
Is a good job and very –
oh, friendly –
is a good job and very friendly.’ 
She might have wanted to ask more, but Narcisa was reading again, so she sat down.  Narcisa pointed to the bowl of apples.

The doctor thinks the TB is more or less gone.  What we put up with there, Nora! But I do feel stronger.

As for you –
she waited while Emmie took off her apron, and fetched her coat from the closet –
As for you I am sure you will think about your little girl, and hope to have her with you very soon.  Never mind what your husband said, men don’t know anything.  Save all the wages you can.  I am sure you will find a way, if you have some money! Like everything.

Remembering you fondly,

Your loving friend,

Clara.

When Emmie had gone, Narcisa read the letter over again.  She was not sure she had understood it all; but Clara was there, her low, hoarse voice, her thin face, the secret grin that had seemed the thing that saved them.

She says she’s better.  Is the TB really gone?

Clara decides to have hope, Narcisa thought. 
I am sure you will find a way:
how can she be sure?

It is this country, she thought, remembering Edwin; they believe whatever it suits them to believe.  They do not give you any time to despair.  For the first time Clara seemed strange and remote to her.

She ran upstairs, and tucked the letter under her nightdress on the bed.  It was still true that Clara had made this effort to write to her.  She could see her, tall, leaning over the table, thinking each phrase and laboriously writing. 
Your loving friend:
it was true, that was what she was.

As she came downstairs, the board showed that the morning-room bell was ringing.

*

She was out in the yard with the mangle, feeding the wet sheets through, cranking the handle.  The flattened sheets folded themselves over and then fell; she caught them, tightened the screw, and put them through the rollers once again.  Water splashed grudgingly into the tin bath.

Her fingers were cold right through, with the wet linen, and the sharp breeze on her skin.  When she carried the basket over to the line, the pale sunshine made a bright triangle on the washing.  She took dolly-pegs from her apron pocket, and hung out the pillow-slips side by side, then the sheets, and hoisted the line on the cleft of the worn pole.  The washing lifted and beat against the wind; the sun shone through it.

She wiped her hands on her apron, and stood a moment.  A lock of hair was whisked across her face.

There were firm footsteps.  Narcisa turned quickly, tucking her hair back.  A man stood just by the corner of the house, at the edge of the yard.

‘Do excuse me, Miss,’ he said.  ‘Or is it Madam?  I did knock at the back door, but there was no reply, so I ventured to look.’

She shook her head.

‘Of course,’ he said, ‘you’re the foreign housekeeper.  They said about you down the road.’  He was short and strongly built, with brown hair curling up around his cap.

‘The kitchen,’ she said, and walked past him to the back door.  He stood back, looking her up and down.

Indoors, she said, business-like:  ‘You sell something?’

‘Ah yes,’ he said cheerfully, ‘I definitely sell something.  Or at least I hope to.’  He was speaking more slowly, needing her to understand.  He lifted his leather box onto the table.  ‘Have a guess?’ he asked, hands on the brass clasps.

She didn’t move.

‘Dusters!’ he announced, as the lid flew open.  She was smiling, she couldn’t help it: all the drama, and here he was with a yellow duster in each hand, as if he’d made them appear out of the air.  ‘Now you may laugh,’ he said; but she could see it was all he could do not to laugh himself.  ‘But that just shows you have not been at this house long.  Isn’t that true?  You are new to this position?’

She nodded, reluctant, but pleased at the same time.

‘Ah well, you see.  Now just feel that,’ he said, and put a yellow duster straight in her hand.  ‘How about that? Is that not the softest duster you’ve ever seen?’

She managed to say, ‘But I am not
wearing
it.’

He looked at her sharply over the leather box.  ‘A beautiful lady like you ’ - he took up the patter again, though just for a second she had taken him aback – ‘should be wearing silks and satins.  And believe me, if I had those silks and satins…’

She stepped back, without meaning to.  ‘Quite right,’ he said, ‘I am letting myself be distracted.  But these dusters, you see, will pick up any dust which an ordinary cloth’ – he swept it over the table – ‘though of course in
your
kitchen…  You ask your maid here,’ for Emmie had come in at just that moment.  ‘Here, young lady, you know all about dusters.  Feel that one, eh?  You tell the lady here.’