Chapter Fourteen 1898 #6
When they’d eaten, Audrey fell asleep with Arthur draped across her, the pair of them snoring softly.
Theo looked closely at Crudge, noticing that though he’d climbed the hill quite easily, his shoulders were more stooped, and his eyes couched in ever deeper hollows.
He’d always seemed old to her, but was growing older still. The thought dismayed her.
‘How is Mr Bourton?’ she asked.
‘Nicholas is very well, thank you. I left him trying to decipher some of my more tangled notes, poor boy. The Gentleman’s Magazine has offered to publish extracts from the book, if I can only get them ready in time.
A lifetime of scribbling things down in the field has quite destroyed my penmanship.
But he tolerates it. He tolerates me, the dear boy. ’
‘I’m sure he’s happy to,’ Theo said. ‘He’s obviously very fond of you.’
‘Yes.’ Crudge’s smile was almost shy. ‘Yes. I believe he is.’
‘I’m glad.’
Theo searched around for some way to say that not only did she understand, but that he could speak freely with her, if he wanted to. It would change nothing between them. But there was no way to say it, so she said:
‘It’s so wonderful to see you, Uncle.’
‘I’m terribly sorry Ralph doesn’t approve of me, my dear. And I understand some of his reservations – I am not a relation, after all.’
‘Perhaps not by blood, but in every other way. I wish he would understand it better.’
‘I fear that what a person does not wish to understand, they never will.’
‘He’s . . . he’s getting worse.’
Theo couldn’t help herself. Tears stung again, and she struggled to hold them.
‘Worse? In what way?’
‘Oh, nothing! I didn’t mean . . . Only, I’d so hoped that when we finally had Arthur he would be pleased with me.’
She saw the full scale of her unhappiness dawning upon Crudge.
‘It’s my fault,’ she said. ‘I have turned him hard – he was so good-natured when I first knew him. I’ve tried, but . . . I cannot love him, and he knows it. I have wounded him deeply.’
‘Wounded him, perhaps, but—’
‘He has a mistress. I saw them together. I think it’s been going on for some time – or else she isn’t the first. And then he tells me that you are not a moral man!’
‘Oh, Theo.’
‘I . . . I should have made myself love him. He’s a brilliant man, and he used to be so kind.’
‘You might as well try to make the sun rise ahead of time,’ Crudge said gently.
‘Then I should never have accepted his proposal.’
‘But how can you regret it, when it has brought forth this adorable little boy?’
‘No. You’re right.’ Theo rubbed at her eyes.
After a pause, Crudge asked: ‘Is he cruel to you?’
‘He— not cruel, exactly. But I seem to disappoint him at every turn. I frustrate him. He works so very hard, and does such important work, and all he asks is that I cherish and obey him, as a wife should. But I fail constantly at those two things! Mother says I must try harder, and she’s right.
Because what choice do I have? I can’t leave. ’
‘No. The law is most unkind on that score.’ Crudge put his hand on her shoulder. ‘It distresses me to see you so unhappy, my dear. I hadn’t realised it had got so bad.’
‘I ought to be happy. I have Arthur, and Audrey, and a nice home . . . I must be a terribly ungrateful sort of person.’
‘Or one whose emotions are authentic, and won’t be marshalled here or there at will. Perhaps you are merely very honest.’
Theo thought at once of Toby; she suspected Crudge had been hinting at Toby.
But it was impossible, so she suppressed it.
He belonged in another world, from long ago, and it was painful to remember it.
She never asked Crudge if he heard anything of the Meriwethers, since nothing he might report would bring her any comfort.
‘I don’t feel honest,’ she said. ‘I have gone against my better judgement at every turn, because I am a coward.’
‘You are not a coward – I will not have it! It’s so easy to look back and castigate oneself for decisions made and paths taken, but at the time of choosing we all simply do what we can. What we think is best, and what we can manage.’
‘And I must live with those choices forever.’
Crudge could hardly deny it. ‘Nothing is forever, Theo,’ he said. ‘Though, I appreciate it must feel that way. If you ever want to stay with me in London, for a short or a long time – whether under a cloud or otherwise – I shan’t ever turn you away. You must never think you have nowhere to go.’
‘Thank you, Uncle.’
She held his hand for a while, knowing that she could never visit him without Ralph’s permission. And that he would never give it.
After that, Crudge succumbed to the sunshine and dozed as well, and Theo stared into the sky and tried not to feel trapped.
She knew she was blessed in many ways; and if she must inch through her days, forever on edge, then she would just have to find a way to live with it.
I do think we sometimes must just . . . try to be happy.
And in the trying, make it so. Ralph’s words, but she knew now that trying to be happy was like trying to be in love.
How readily you love him, he’d said, watching her with Arthur.
And he was right: that was love – an irresistible impulse that had nothing to do with effort or necessity.
Again, Toby stalked the edges of her thoughts; but he brought her no peace.
When Ralph got back from London the following evening, Theo knew at once.
She knew from the way he slammed the cab door, and strode along the path without looking up at the house, or at the window from which she was watching.
She knew from the way he dumped his hat and coat on the floor when the servant wasn’t quick enough to take them, and the way his face was fixed as he came into the room.
Dread coursed through her. She had no idea how Ralph had discovered her deceit, only that he had. The anger came off him like a smell.
Arthur was on her lap, chewing an ivory ring and drooling.
‘Audrey, take him. Take him!’ she hissed, standing up and handing her son to the startled girl. ‘Go upstairs.’
‘But, miss—’
‘You will address my wife as madam, or you will be dismissed from this house!’ Ralph shouted. ‘How hard can it be, for pity’s sake?’
The sudden noise set Arthur crying. With a worried glance at Theo, Audrey hurried him from the room.
Theo’s heartbeat was like the quick ticking of a watch, and sweat prickled her armpits. Ralph took two steps towards her, drew breath as though to speak, and then hit her instead. A back-handed slap that sent her sprawling on to the couch.
A bright light exploded behind her eyes.
She kept them shut as the world collapsed inwards and she was reduced, for a moment, to nothing – a mere collection of scattered sensations: the taste of blood between her teeth, the smell of dust in the cushion beneath her, and the racket of her pulse.
Person becomes object. Seconds later she realised that although the pain was a shock, the violence was not.
She’d seen it coming months ago – perhaps even years ago.
A sudden memory of storm clouds caught in a photograph; of a creeping, inexorable shadow on the horizon.
No amount of forewarning could keep a storm like that from breaking.
At length, she became aware of Ralph weeping. Looking down, she found his head in her lap, his arms around her legs. There were spots of blood on her dress and she brushed at them absently; her lower lip was stinging, swelling, and her neck ached fiercely.
‘Theo, forgive me . . . forgive me . . .’ he said, muffled.
Theo said nothing. Her mind would not stop picking at the issue of how he’d discovered her disobedience. Had her mother betrayed her? A chance sighting somewhere? Or had he arranged to have her watched from the very outset? The idea made her skin crawl.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Ralph went on. He looked up, face bloated with tears and regret. ‘I never want to hurt you . . . Never! But . . . Why did you disobey me? Why?’
Still numb with shock, Theo told the truth. ‘Because I cannot obey you. Not in regards to Mr Crudge.’
‘But you must.’ He got to his knees and took her hands. ‘Don’t you see, I only want what is best for you, and for Arthur?’
Theo stared at him. Her head throbbed. He was making no sense to her.
‘But I . . . I should not have struck you. It was a despicable thing to do! My darling Theo, I will never do it again, I swear it. That is not who I am.’ His tears began again. ‘You do understand, don’t you? That’s not who I am.’
He looked distraught, so Theo dared to hope he could be telling the truth.