Chapter Fifteen 1902 #7
He smiled involuntarily. ‘I am indeed. And blessed with three delightful youngsters.’
‘I can tell from the way you brighten that you love them. And would never hurt them.’
Womersley’s smile disappeared. ‘Indeed, I wouldn’t harm a hair on their heads, nor tolerate anyone else to do so. And it grieves me that not all men feel or behave in the same way.’
‘But at least there are those like you in the world. That is something to be grateful for.’ Theo hung her head. ‘If you met my husband, you would like him. Everybody does.’
Womersley took his leave soon afterwards.
Theo took one more night away from Ralph. She and Audrey lay either side of the bed with Arthur sound asleep between them. Before long Audrey drifted off as well, but Theo stayed awake.
She went through it from every possible direction, but the answer was always the same.
She could not remain indefinitely in Shaftesbury.
She might go to a hotel in a different town, or even take an apartment, but only if Timothy Crudge continued to foot the bill, which Ralph would certainly discover.
She couldn’t risk causing any trouble for the old man.
Her husband’s abhorrence of him was as strong as it was unreasoning.
She couldn’t bring charges of assault against Ralph until the next time he left her with visible injuries, and even then she didn’t think she could face it.
The gossip; the opprobrium. And all of it only to risk separating herself from Arthur.
Marriage was a steel trap. She’d been foolish to think she could prise open its jaws and escape.
Ralph enjoyed his reputation of benevolence and charm; perhaps of genius.
Theo knew it from the way he behaved in company, the way he absorbed compliments with a modest glow but no embarrassment.
Her short absence could easily be passed off as a visit to family, but still.
Theo expected the potential exposure of the true state of their relationship to have enraged him.
She expected bruises, perhaps fractures, and the taste of blood.
She expected Audrey to be fired. When they arrived back, in silence, she went up to the bedroom to wait, wanting to get it over with.
But when Ralph came home and found her there he flung himself to his knees instead, gripping her skirts in his fists as he let out a single, loud sob.
‘Forgive me, my darling,’ he said. ‘Please don’t leave me . . . I do love you so!’
Eventually, steeling herself, Theo laid one hand on his head. His shoulders heaved.
‘I have behaved like an animal,’ he said. ‘But I will be better. I will be better. I just . . . I love you both, so very much, and it . . . it hurts me to see how well you love one another, and how little is left for me.’
‘Oh, Ralph! Of course Arthur loves you,’ Theo said. ‘You’re his papa – he worships you.’
‘Then why does he cringe from me?’
She didn’t reply. Experience had taught her not to trust his contrition, and certainly not to rely on it. Anything she said now would be remembered, and perhaps used against her further down the line.
‘He’s just so very little,’ she said weakly. ‘That was what upset me so.’
‘I won’t lay a finger on him again, I swear it. Not without the most serious provocation.’
Ralph looked up, and she was shocked by his pleading face, his trembling mouth.
There were lines around his eyes now, and grey strands through his hair.
His neck was thicker than it had been, his cheeks mottled with broken capillaries.
He was distraught, but she couldn’t feel sorry for him.
Once, perhaps, but not any more. The most serious provocation.
Who knew how trivial a thing that might turn out to be?
She was offended by his mimicry of love.
‘I won’t be a brute to you any more,’ he said. ‘You do believe me, Theo?’
‘Yes,’ she lied. ‘Of course I do.’
‘You would never . . . work against me, would you?’
‘Of course I would not,’ she intoned, with a sudden thump of guilt that made her feel sick.
‘I know it; I do. You must hate me. Oh, how you must hate me! When all I ever wanted was to be loved by you.’
‘I don’t hate you, Ralph.’
His resolution might last a week a two, she supposed; perhaps up to a month. He would be home promptly at the end of the day; he’d be sober, solicitous, gentle in bed. But it wouldn’t last. She could not feign love any better now than before, and his anger would return.
But, much sooner than she’d guessed, he came home very late one evening, and undressed quietly, as though not to disturb her. He slid into bed beside her and whispered, tightly, close to her ear:
‘If you ever do that again, Theo . . . If you dare to make a public spectacle of yourself, or of me, then I shall know you have become irrational. I am your physician and your husband; I would need no second opinion before sending you away for treatment. Your mother mentioned it once, before we were married, and perhaps I was wrong to dissuade her. I would do whatever was needed to restore you to reason, Theo. As is my duty.’
Theo held her breath. She knew he could do it. He could impose an open-ended stay at a sanatorium; take what freedom she had with a word, and separate her from Arthur indefinitely. She would be powerless to stop him.
She didn’t dare to cry.
Two weeks later, a letter came. The envelope had been addressed first to Miss Hallewell, at Hallewell House; but it had been corrected in her mother’s handwriting, and sent on.
Theo didn’t recognise the original hand, though it had a Shaftesbury postmark.
The letter was scruffy, the paper thin and inexpensive.
5, Church Street, Motcombe
12th October
Dear Miss Hallewell
You do not know me but I know you. That is to say I remember you from a goodly time back. Now it comes to it I hardly know what to write or whether I should but I saw the bit in the paper about the Hospital and that fellow and his sister and it hant let me alone ever since.
I was a nurse at the hospital for a time.
I was not married then and my name was Sarah Webster.
Now I am Mrs Toller since I married Clarence Toller the grocer here at Motcombe.
I was there when your friend was in for the cut on her head.
Melissa Cartwright she was called. I hant forgot her name.
I remember you from when you came to visit her.
I was the one you saw who took you along to the ward tho we were halted there by the doctor.
Another time I heard you talking to Sister Hendry and the doctor about her.
I was passing by looking for Sister and I heard you ask if there may be some other things that had gone wrong with Melissa other than the bump on her head and them telling you ‘no’ and what she had been suffering before they operated on her.
It hant ever sat right with me since I know it was not true.
I asked Sister about it soon after or I tried to since she would not speak of it.
And before long I was dismissed. Sister said it was because I was not cut out for it and maybe that was it.
I did not make a good nurse really. I liked the people and wanted to look after them but I would swoon at the sight of blood or muck.
To begin with they said it was normal and I would grow out of it but I never did so maybe that was the reason.
But that she sent me off so suddenly perhaps was not by chance.
I cut Melissa’s hair for her before they took her down for her operation.
That was the Monday morn when she later died that same day.
A section of her hair needed to come off so that Dr Anscombe could tell the full extent of the injury and where to make the operation.
She was such a quick and jolly girl and we were of an age more or less.
She made no fuss at all. ‘The doc wants a closer look at my bonce’ so she said.
We had a joke and a laugh in fact. She bid me cut the hair neat so she should still look pretty for the doctor.
‘Do not do it like the time Pip took the shears to me’ so she said and she was all smiles.
I did it as gentle as may be but she said not to worry for her head did not hurt one bit any more.
Then afterwards I heard them tell you she had gone much worse and was at deaths door. But that Monday morn as she was about to go down for the operation I had a laugh and a joke with her and she was right as rain. I swear my oath on it.
It has sat heavy on me all this while and tho it is thirteen years since it is fresh in my mind and I know I have it right.
There never seemed much to be done once she was dead and then that poor lad Christopher hanged too.
Dead and buried the pair of them. And I knew Dr Anscombe to be a good man so I said nothing thinking perhaps I had it wrong or else an honest mistake was made.
But now I think it was none of that. I have written to you and not to the newspaper because I do not know what good or evil my saying so might do.
It was not right and that is Gods own truth.
And I have known in my heart since I heard you talking to them that you did not credit it either however much they would have it their way. So perhaps you will know what to do.
Yours truly in good faith
Mrs Sarah Toller