The thirteenth tale (24 page)

It was the cat, Shadow.

Again he nudged me, another cheek rub against my ribs, and a
meow, rather tardily, to announce himself. I reached out my hand and stroked
him, while my heart attempted to find a rhythm. The cat purred.

‘You’re all wet,“ I told him. ”Come on, silly. It’s no night to
be out.

He followed me to my room, licked himself dry while I wrapped my
hair in a towel, and we fell asleep together on the bed. For once-—perhaps it
was the cat’s protection—my dreams kept well away.

The next day was dull and gray. After my regular interview, I
took myself for a walk in the garden. I tried in the dismal light of early
afternoon to retrace the path I had taken by dead of night. The beginning was
easy enough: down the long borders and into the garden with the pond. But after
that I lost my track. My memory of stepping across the soft wet soil of a
flower bed had me stumped, for every bed and border was pristinely raked and in
order. Still, I made a few haphazard guesses, one or two random decisions, and
took myself on a roughly circular route that might or might not have mirrored,
in part at least, my nighttime stroll.

I saw nothing out of the ordinary. Unless you count the fact
that I came across Maurice, and for once he spoke to me. He was kneeling over a
section of churned-up soil, straightening and smoothing and putting right. He
felt me come onto the lawn behind him and looked up. “Damn foxes,” he growled.
And turned back to his work.

I returned to the house and began transcribing the morning’s
interview.

THE EXPERIMENT

The day of the medical examination came, and Dr. Maudsley
presented himself at the house. As usual Charlie was not there to welcome the
visitor. Hester had informed him of the doctor’s visit in her usual way (a
letter left outside his rooms on a tray), and having heard no more about it,
assumed quite correctly that he took no interest in the matter.

The patient was in one of her sullen but unresisting moods. She
al-owed herself to be led into the room where the examination took place, and
submitted to being poked and prodded. Invited to open her mouth and stick out
her tongue, she would not, but at least when the doctor tuck his fingers in her
mouth and physically separated upper from lower jaw to peer in, she did not
bite him. Her eyes slid away from him and his instruments; she seemed scarcely
aware of him and his examination. She could not be induced to speak a single
word.

Dr. Maudsley found his patient to be underweight and to have
lice; otherwise she was physically healthy in every respect. Her psychological
state, however, was more difficult to determine. Was the child, as John-he-dig
implied, mentally deficient? Or was the girl’s behavior caused by parental
neglect and lack of discipline? This was the view of the Missus, who, publicly
at least, was inclined always to absolve the twins.

These were not the only opinions the doctor had in mind when he
examined the wild twin. The previous night in his own house, pipe in mouth,
hand on fireplace, he had been musing aloud about the case (he enjoyed having
his wife listen to him; it inspired him to greater eloquence), enumerating the
instances of misbehavior he had heard of. There had been the thieving from
villagers’ cottages, the destruction of the topiary garden, the violence
wrought upon Emmeline, the fascination with matches. He had been pondering the
possible explanations when the soft voice of his wife broke in. “You don’t
think she is simply wicked?”

For a moment he was too surprised at being interrupted to
answer.

‘It’s only a suggestion,“ she said with a wave of her hand, as
if to discount her words. She had spoken mildly, but that hardly mattered. The
fact that she had spoken at all was enough to give her words an edge.

And then there was Hester.

‘What you must bear in mind,“ she had told him, ”is that in the
absence of any strong parental attachment, and with no strong guidance from any
other quarter, the child’s development to date has been wholly shaped by the
experience of twinness. Her sister is the one fixed and permanent point in her
consciousness; therefore her entire worldview will have been formed through the
prism of their relationship.“

She was quite right, of course. He had no idea what book she had
got it out of, but she must have read it closely, for she elaborated on the
idea very sensibly. As he listened, he had been rather struck by her queer
little voice. Despite its distinctively feminine pitch it had more than a
little masculine authority about it. She was articulate. She had an amusing
habit of expressing views of her own with the same measured command as when she
was explaining a theory by some authority she had read. And when she paused for
breath at the end of a sentence, she would give him a quick look—he had found
it disconcerting the first time, though now he thought it rather droll—to let
him know whether he was allowed to speak or whether she intended to go on
speaking herself.

‘I must do some more research,“ he told Hester when they met to
discuss the patient after the examination. ”And I shall certainly look very
closely at the significance of her being a twin.“

Hester nodded. “The way I look at it is this,” she said. “In a
number of ways, you could view the twins as having divided a set of
characteristics between them. Where an ordinary, healthy person will feel a
hole range of different emotions, display a great variety of behaviors, le
twins, you might say, have divided the range of emotions and behaviors into two
and taken one set each. One twin is wild and given to physical rages; the other
is indolent and passive. One prefers cleanliness; the other craves dirt. One
has an endless appetite for food, the other can starve herself for days. Now,
if this polarity—we can argue later about how consciously it has been
adopted—is crucial to Adeline’s sense of identity, it is unsurprising, is it
not, if she suppresses within herself everything that in her view falls on
Emmeline’s side of the boundary? ” The question was rhetorical; she did not
indicate to the doctor that he might speak, but drew in a measured breath and
continued. “Now, consider the qualities in the girl in the mist. She listens to
stories, is capable of understanding and being moved by a language that is not
twin language. This suggests a willingness to engage with other people. But of
the twins, which is it who has been allocated the job of engaging with others?
Emmeline! And so Adeline must repress this part of her humanity.”

Hester turned her head to the doctor and gave him the look that
meant it was his turn to speak.

‘It’s a curious idea,“ he answered cautiously. ”I should have
thought the opposite, wouldn’t you? That you could expect them to be lore alike
than dissimilar?“

‘But we know from observation that that isn’t the case,“ she
counted briskly.

‘Hmm.“

She did not speak but let him consider. He stared at the empty
wall, sep in thought, while she cast anxious glances in his direction, trying
to divine the reception of her theory from his face. Then he was ready to make
his pronouncement.

‘While this idea of yours is an interesting one“—he put on a
sympathetic smile to soften the effect of his discouragement—”I don’t recall
ever reading about such a division of character between twins in any of the
authorities.“

She ignored the smile and met his eyes levelly. “It isn’t in the
authorities, no. If it was going to be anywhere it would be in Lawson, and it
isn’t.”

‘You have read Lawson?“

‘Of course. I would not dream of pronouncing an opinion on any
subject without being sure of my references first.“

‘Oh.“

‘There is a reference to the Peruvian boy twins in Harwood that
is suggestive, though he stops short of the full conclusion that might be
drawn.“

‘I remember the example you mean…“ He gave a little start. ”Oh!
I see the connection! Well, I wonder whether the Brasenby case study is of any
relevance?“

‘I haven’t been able to obtain the full study. Can you lend it
to me?“

So it began.

Impressed by the acuity of Hester’s observations, the doctor
lent her the Brasenby case study. When she returned it, there was a sheet of pithily
expressed notes and questions attached. He, in the meantime, had obtained a
number of other books and articles to complete his library on twins, recently
published pieces, copies of work in progress from various specialists, foreign
works. He found after a week or two that he could save himself time by passing
these to Hester first, and reading for himself just the concise and intelligent
summaries she produced. When between them they had read everything it was
possible to read, they returned to their own observations. Both of them had
compiled notes, his medical, hers psychological; there were copious annotations
in his handwriting in the margins of her manuscript, but she had made even more
notes on his, and sometimes attached her own cogent assays on separate pieces
of paper.

They read; they thought; they wrote; they met; they discussed.
This went on until they knew everything there was to know about twins, but
there was still one thing they did not know, and it was the one thing that
mattered.

‘All this work,“ the doctor said one evening in the library,
”all this paper. And we are still no nearer.“ He ran his hand through his hair
in an agitated manner. He had told his wife he would be back by half past
seven, and he was going to be late. ”Is it because of Emmeline that Adeline
represses the girl in the mist? I think the answer to that question lies
outside the bounds of current knowledge.“ He sighed and tossed his pencil onto
the desk, half annoyed, half resigned.

‘You are quite right. It does.“ You could forgive her for
sounding testy—it had taken him four weeks to reach the conclusion she could
have given him at the beginning if he had only been willing to listen.

He turned to her.

‘There is only one way to find out,“ she said quietly.

He raised an eyebrow.

‘My experience and observations have led me to believe that
there is scope for an original research project here. Of course, as a mere
governess, I would have difficulty in persuading the appropriate journal to
publish anything I produced. They would take one look at my qualifications and
think I was nothing but a silly woman with ideas beyond her competence.“ She
shrugged and cast her eyes down. ”Perhaps they are right, and I am. All the
same“—slyly she glanced up again—”for a man with the right background and
knowledge, I am sure there is a meaty project there.“

The doctor looked at first surprised, then his eyes turned
misty. Original research! The idea was not so very preposterous. It struck him
that at this moment, at the culmination of all the reading he had done in
recent months, he must surely be the best-read doctor in the country on the
subject of twins! Who else knew what he knew? And more to the point, who else
had the perfect case study under his nose? Original research? Whyever not?

She let him indulge himself for a few minutes, and when she saw
that her suggestion had taken root in his heart, murmured, “Of course, if you
needed an assistant, I’d be glad to help in any way I could.”

‘Very kind of you.“ He nodded. ”Of course, you’ve worked with
the girls… Practical experience… Invaluable… Quite invaluable.“

He left the house and floated home on a cloud, where he failed
to notice that his dinner was cold and his wife bad-tempered.

Hester gathered up the papers from the desk and left the room;
her neat footsteps and firm closing of the door had the ring of satisfaction
about them.

The library seemed empty, but it wasn’t.

Lying full-length on top of the bookcases, a girl was biting her
nails and thinking.

Original research.

Is it because of Emmeline that Adeline represses the girl in the
mist?

Didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going to happen
next.

They did it at night.

Emmeline never stirred as they lifted her from her bed. She must
have felt herself safe in Hester’s arms; perhaps she recognized the smell of
soap in her sleep as she was carried out of the room and along the corridor.
Whatever the reason, she didn’t realize that night what was happening. Her
awakening to the truth was hours away.

It was different for Adeline. Quick and sharp, she awoke at once
to her sister’s absence. Darted to the door but found it locked already by
Hester’s swift hand. In a flash she knew it all, felt it all. Severance. She
didn’t shriek, she didn’t fling her fists against the door, she didn’t claw at
the lock with her nails. All the fight went out of her. She sank to the floor,
collapsed into a little heap against the door, and that is where she stayed all
night. The bare boards bit into her jutting bones, but she didn’t feel the
pain. There was no fire and her nightdress was thin, but she didn’t feel the
cold. She felt nothing. She was broken.

When they came for her the next morning, she was deaf to the key
in the lock, didn’t react when the opening door shunted her out of its way. Her
eyes were dead, her skin bloodless. How cold she was. She might have been a
corpse, if it had not been for her lips that twitched ceaselessly, repeating a
silent mantra that might have been Emmeline, Emmeline, Emmeline.