Winter

In the morning when we were getting dressed I could see the funnier side of it, and I reminded him of my Master Prickleback poem. ‘We saw Master and Mistress Prickleback,’ I said. To my surprise he claimed not to remember the poem, so I recited it to him. ‘O, yes,’ he said, ‘very good,’ but in a tone that could not have been less complimentary.

‘Thomas,’ I said, ‘it is only a poem for children, you know. It is not pretending to be great literature. Do you think it so very bad? It was meant for children, you know. Children love it.’

He was bending over, tying the laces of one of his shoes. In those days he was still capable of tying his shoe-laces. He said nothing at all, not a word.

‘Please,’ I said, ‘tell me the truth! Do you think it is a bad poem? Is that what you think?’

‘I said that it was very good, if I remember correctly. Did I not?’

‘You did, but your tone seemed to me to indicate the opposite.’

He began to tie the laces of the other shoe. ‘You misinterpret my tone. My opinion is that it serves its purpose admirably.’

He added, as though to soften the blow, that he was sure that children appreciated it, although that was not what I had said, I had said that children love it. There is such a difference between loving something and appreciating it. All the difference in the world! It was clear that he despised the poem, and also that he despised me for writing it. When I say that my entire being felt crushed I am not exaggerating, not at all.

Thus I lost heart. Lacking encouragement, I wrote no more on my own account, and instead I act as his secretary, answering letters, making copies, filing. In addition, I labour (‘labour’ is the word; it is one of the labours of Hercules as I once said to Cockerell) on his biography, using his old notes to piece together the story of his life. I am glad to do so, I do not complain, it is a very sensible arrangement. Who else could do it? All the same, when, as usually happens, he takes my sentences – the sentences over which I have taken so much care – and writes them over in his own creaking style, it is a little galling. It galls me. It is as if he cannot bear to hear the sound of my true voice. After all, I am supposed to be the author of this biography! Is it so surprising that I am a little galled at the way he rewrites my sentences?

I do not complain. Nor do I point out his deficiencies of style. If I dared to do so, I know what would happen: he would not argue or seek to defend himself, but would withdraw into his own fortress. Yet I am not alone: others have commented on his antique vocabulary and his convoluted, Teutonic sentence constructions. Sometimes I think it is as if my husband was a great tree and I stunted from living in his shadow.

Of this much I am sure: that it is not possible for me to write well on my own account until I have recovered my health, and it is not possible for me truly to recover my health until the trees have been cut back. Once they are cut back, I shall feel such a weight lifted off me. But unless and until the trees are attended to I cannot begin to write for myself.

Here I should like to mention my strong belief that the growth on my neck may have been caused, at least in part, by the close proximity of the trees. I believe it is very probable, or if not very probable then at least highly possible, that the invisible spores shed by the trees, countless numbers of which I must inhale each day, play an as yet unknown but significant part in the formation of cancerous growths. Some time ago I asked Dr. Gowring for his opinion on the matter, but Dr. Gowring is next to useless, a country doctor with an inflated reputation, and all he would say, with a supercilious air, and in a decidedly offhand manner which made me feel that I, as a mere woman, should not have dared to give utterance to such a thought, was that there was no scientific evidence to support my thesis about spores. I could barely control my anger. ‘But Dr. Gowring,’ I said, ‘it is possible, is it not?’ With some reluctance, he agreed that it could not be discounted as a possibility.

I naturally put the same question to Mr. Sherren when he came to see me after my operation, and he said that it was a most interesting and original idea. Sensing that he was strongly sympathetic to my thesis, I said that I wished someone would investigate it thoroughly. ‘For,’ I said, ‘if it were true, it would be so valuable.’ He agreed, and said that he would certainly mention it to his colleagues in the medical profession. ‘If only,’ he said, with a sigh, ‘we knew the true causes of things.’ I said to him: ‘I dare say I should persuade my husband to have our trees cut back. We have so many trees crowding round the house, we live in a half-darkness, it is quite sepulchral.’ He smiled. ‘Some day,’ he said, ‘I am sure, we shall have a better understanding of these things.’

In a small way, therefore, I hope that I may have contributed something towards the saving of lives, even if my life in itself counts for so very little.

Unlike my husband, I have no study of my own; I use a corner of the drawing room, where I have a little walnut writing-desk. Entering the room now, with the day’s post – a clutch of letters, and a small parcel, wrapped in string and brown paper – I am frustrated to see wet soot covering not only the hearth but also part of the rug. This is not the first time. The chimneys have not been swept for three years, and the drawing room flue is probably blocked by a jackdaws’ nest, a mess of twigs and straw. One watches the jackdaws carrying twigs into it in the breeding season. The fire never seems to draw well. When I speak to my husband about getting in the sweep, he always prevaricates. ‘Later,’ he says – how often have I heard that word! ‘Later’ should be inscribed on my tombstone, I sometimes think! I have told him that, if we do not have the chimneys swept soon, it will be too late, there will be a fire, and we will all burn alive. I have told him this, but it makes no difference. It is another instance of his obstinacy.

Let me give another instance: the motor-car. Motor-cars exist, they have existed for a number of years, they are very convenient and useful machines, for that reason I have attempted to persuade him to buy one. A motor-car would be more than convenient, I say to him, it would be liberating; we could drive round the countryside and look at some scenery, or we could visit the sea. The sea is not that far away and on the spur of the moment we could visit the sea. Would that not be lovely? On a day like this, with a little sun, to walk along the beach and smell the sea-air? To breathe the sea-air? We could take Wessie, too! Would it be so hard to unchain yourself from your desk for one day, for a single day, to visit the sea? But it doesn’t have to be the sea; if you prefer, we could visit a church or some prehistoric earth-work, or we could even go to Stonehenge! How easy it would be, and how good for us both! We could easily afford a car, after all you are the wealthiest writer in the country according to Cockerell. And, I hurry on, for I have thought about this a great deal, I have waited my moment, I have the arguments at my finger-tips, we would not need to employ a driver because I should learn to drive. A motor-car is not like a horse and carriage; it is as easy for women to drive as men, or so people say, and it would make all the difference to me, it would give me such confidence, I who have always lacked confidence, it might even give me the sense that I was in control of my own destiny, whatever my destiny is. Of course I have never managed to say all this to him, most of it is merely what I imagine I might say. The truth is that we do not have our own motor-car and therefore whenever we wish to go anywhere we have to plan well in advance, employing Mr. Voss, who works for a taxi company in the town, and I have to sit in the back as women always do, and Thomas who insists on sitting in the front never hears a word when I speak, or if he does hear he does not reply, or if he does reply I cannot hear him. Conversation between the front and the back of a motor-car is all but impossible. I do not understand why we cannot have a motor-car. Is it that they did not exist in his youth, that he regards them as in some way contrary to nature, that they are too noisy? Or that he cannot bear the thought of being driven by me? Or that I might drive to the sea by myself, leaving him alone? My suspicion is that he does not want us to have a motor-car because, while he may not realise it, part of him wants to keep me here, looking after him, day after day, night after night.

Elsie and Nellie are both in the scullery, pretending to polish the silver. I know what goes on here. Every day they put out the silver as if they are about to polish it, and then they sit and gossip. This happens every single day!

They look at me in a resentful manner.

‘I am afraid there has been another fall of soot in the drawing room. Did neither of you see it when you drew the curtains?’

‘No, ma’am.’ It is Nellie who speaks; Elsie is a mouse of a girl.

‘Well; there it is. I don’t care which of you does it, but please get it done.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

They do not like me, I am convinced of it. I cannot tell why, but I have never known how to talk to servants. It is just the same with Mr. Caddy and Mrs. Simmons. I never manage to strike the right note, I always sound so severe. Did his first wife manage any better?

While they set to work I take Wessie outside and give him his usual brush. We both enjoy this. Dear little Wessie! I don’t know what I would do without Wessie, truly I don’t.

Five minutes later, I am back in the drawing room (which still smells of soot). Settled at my desk, I examine the post. More than half of the letters bear London post-marks, which is usual; the majority of my husband’s readers are city-dwellers who dream of living in the country. For them the country is a perpetual summer. O, what I could tell them of country life in the winter!

Carefully I slit the envelopes with my paper knife. First, a letter from the President of the Wimbledon Literary and Scientific Society, inviting Thomas to attend one of its monthly meetings. ‘I am confident that you will have a warm and appreciative audience, for many of our members are avid readers of your novels and will be gratified by your presence.’ The answer is no: honoured as he is by the invitation, his health is not good enough nowadays for him to travel up to London, but he wishes the Society well.

Secondly, a letter from a female journalist, who is preparing an article for a newly established women’s magazine, ‘The Modern Woman’. She claims to be a lifelong devotee of his work (as do most journalists), and asks whether she may call here in order to carry out an interview. The magazine is illustrated, and she hopes that it is acceptable for a photographer to accompany her. She suggests two dates in the middle of December or, failing those, one in early January (any later and she will miss what she calls her ‘dead-line’). She and the photographer will catch the London train and arrive about noon, if that is convenient. The answer, again, and emphatically, is no, it is not convenient: he is too busy to give interviews, but wishes her well with her article.

A letter from The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children asks for support. I reply to this on my own behalf, sending a cheque for five pounds. I can ill afford it, but the way that children are treated in the slums of the East End horrifies me.

What next? Two letters requesting his autograph. These autograph-hunters are so persistent. Many of them employ cunning ruses, pretending to be young children, writing in misshapen capitals; but I am not fooled.

Next, a letter from a Miss Eleanor Pope of Islington, who declares that she loves his novels more than those of any other writer, and praises his profound understanding of the female mind; even George Eliot, she writes, does not come close. O! Miss Pope! Sit down, let me tell you the truth –

Another letter: this one from a Mr. Edward Bowles of East Grinstead who has apparently expended much time and energy on the task of identifying the locations of the places mentioned (though with fictional names) in the novels. He attaches a list of such identifications which he is ‘pretty well certain’ are correct, but if there are any errors he would like to know of them. Several places, despite much research (last spring he undertook an extensive cycling tour of Wessex), he has been unable to identify. He lists them. Mr. Bowles appears to be entirely unaware that: a) a book has been written on this very subject and b) several prefaces to the novels make it clear that certain locations are impossible to identify because they do not correspond to real locations!

Now to the parcel, which turns out to hold a manuscript collection of poems by a gentleman of St. Albans, one Harold Blacker. Mr. Blacker has written before, it seems, for his accompanying letter, in a florid hand, begins thus:

My dear Sir,

Thank you for the exceptionally kind letter which you sent me last year about ‘The Rains of Paradise’. I am pleased to say that I have now completed another volume, ‘The Rowan Tree – An Odyssey in Twenty Poems’, which I enclose with great admiration for a man who as all acknowledge stands preeminent in the world of modern letters.

Why am I spending my life on this drudgery? Am I not worth more? I am a writer too! Jumping up, so suddenly that my chair topples to the floor, I rush up the stairs to his study. I fling open the door and brandish the paper knife which I find sprouting in my hand. Why do you never think of me, you who are supposed to know so much about the female mind? Why do you take me for granted? Why do you never write any poems about me? What has happened between us? What about the trees? Why O why will you not accede to this one, small request? Why are you so obstinate?

Of course I do nothing of the sort – just think of my reception! Instead, as his dutiful secretary, I pull up my typewriter, and answer each letter in turn, taking a carbon copy which I put in a file. Already I feel exhausted. Even as I sit here, my entire body seems to be aching and my nerves are strung to snapping point. I cannot breathe!

How ridiculous this is. All round the country there are women whose situations are incomparably worse than mine, women living in the slums, women too poor to eat properly, women married to ne’er-do-wells and drunkards who beat and abuse them. What do I have to complain of, of what do I have to complain? I live a more than comfortable life here, I am lucky to be alive, I have books and clothes and food and a husband who loves me even if it is not in his nature to show it; count your blessings, Florence. You are alive! Think of the hens, pecking and strutting; unconscious creatures, they live for each moment, they do not fret themselves with questions. Think of little Wessie as he scampers hither and thither, his black nose twitching as he investigates some new scent on a blade of grass. These are good thoughts, and yet how hard I find it to hold on to them, how easy to revert to the old way of thinking: the weight of the trees, the length of the silences, the passage of the years, the sense of my inner self slowly darkening and drying, the sense of myself dry as an old gourd, dark as a shadow, the sense of something having gone wrong without being able precisely to say what it is, the sense of not being as completely alive as I ought to be, the sense of not being alive at all. Perhaps that is it, the sense that life is passing me by, or has already passed me by without my noticing; or perhaps it is the sense that this house is hostile to me because I am not his first wife. Sometimes I convince myself that she lies at the heart of the problem, and that she still lives here, in the air, in the trees, in the empty rooms; she is the true mistress of the house, and this is why I have such difficulties with the servants. No doubt she ordered the servants about without the slightest qualm. Do this! Do that!

I am determined not to mention her name, I am determined not even to think her name, although one of the things I have learnt is that often in trying not to think about a particular individual one ends up thinking of nothing but that individual, and in exactly the same way the more I try not to think about my neck the more vividly it returns and with it the possibility that Mr. Sherren for all his skill failed to remove every last particle of the infected tissue which is consequently growing back at this very moment. My mind is not my own, that is the truth, I cannot control my thoughts.

But, the truth is, the house is like a shrine to her. The calendar on the desk in his study is permanently set to the date upon which they first met, the shawl he insists upon wearing around his shoulders as he writes, and without which, he claims (a ludicrous claim), it is impossible for him to write well, was made by her; and on her death day we have to stand in po-faced solemn ceremony over the grave at Stinsford in which she is buried and in which he himself eventually plans to be buried (an honour from which I am presumably excluded). Let me add that the shrubbery in the drive is in the shape of a heart to signify his love for her, a love which, if it ever existed, did not exist in the last years of their marriage, when they lived in a state of mutual hostility. He has forgotten all that. (Have I forgotten? I have not forgotten.)

He sits there in the gloom and writes I know not what: another melancholy poem, in all probability. If the trees were cut back, is it not possible that he would begin to write poems that were not so very dark and melancholy, but full of light and hope? This is what I often think, that things might be different, be better.

Lying on my bed after lunch I watch the light moving in the sky and the flicker of the pale green veiny undersides of the ivy leaves on the other side of the window. The house is as quiet and peaceful as it should be, and if I did not know the trees were there I might even be able to imagine that they were not. I drift into a lovely sleep and wake unexpectedly full of energy. Downstairs I catch Wessie lolling on the sofa, his eyes half closed. ‘Come on, Wessie,’ I say, ‘you lazy-bones, what are you dreaming about? Walkies! Walkies! Upsticks!’ He gives a shiver of anticipation, as if to say: ‘Yes, mistress!’ and out we go.

Since my operation I have walked very little, I have not felt well enough, but I am determined to force myself out for the sake of my health. There are several short walks from the house. We might walk down to the railway line, we might walk along the cinder path by the railway and come back through the sheep fields, which would make a nice triangular walk; or we might cross the railway line and walk in the meadows by the river. We take the easiest course, the path down the stubble field and up the rise to the new plantation. Rabbits (their scrapes are everywhere) start at our approach, listen with their pink ears and scurry to their burrows in the roots of the hedgerow. We also see a small fox, a very alarming sight to anyone like me who keeps hens. There are not that many foxes round here but they are so ruthless when it comes to hens, yet even foxes have to live, one cannot blame them. It trots along the edge of the field, its brush streaming. ‘Look, Wessie,’ I say, ‘a fox!’ but he is too preoccupied with smells to hear me. At the top of the rise he finds some clods of fresh horse-dung. ‘No!’ I shout at him, ‘Wessie, no, no!’ He lifts his head – ‘O but, mistress, it smells so delicious!’ and takes a quick bite. – ‘No!’ I shout. ‘No! No! You naughty dog!’ He bolts a second mouthful, I haul him away. ‘You naughty dog! Bad! Bad boy! I am very cross with you, do you hear? You must not eat horse-dung! You should be ashamed of yourself!’ In my heart I am not really cross, I could never be really cross with him. He puts back his ears and pretends to be very contrite but within a few seconds he has forgotten and is lifting his leg on a withered thistle.

Evening. He listens in silence, or does not listen, hands laced in his lap, dressing gown tied tight. Half of his face, on the far side of the oil lamp, is in shadow, but I can see enough; his eyes are closed, his breathing steady. He is asleep. At each inbreath the wings of his nose part slightly and at each outbreath his lips purse and open. I pause, and wait to see what happens. Nothing happens.

‘Thomas?’

His eyes jerk open.

‘You were asleep.’

‘I was listening.’

‘I promise you, you were asleep. Shall I go on?’ Since the operation I have been very conscious of the strain on my throat and I should be glad to stop.

‘If you would; thank you. I was awake, I was listening to every word.’

I permit myself a small, knowing smile (taking good care that he sees it), and continue to read Jane Austen’s elegant sentences. His eyelids soon droop, his eyes close again, his breathing resumes its regularity. No doubt someone watching this scene would find it comic, yet my life is not a comedy as I am well aware. To what or whom am I reading? To the empty air? To the silent furniture?

At the end of the chapter I wake him up. We wish each other good night and climb into our separate beds, in our separate rooms.

This is where nothing happens again, although what often used to happen, a long time ago, so long that I almost wonder if it ever happened at all, is that he would leave his bed and arrive by mine, breathing heavily in the darkness. I would lift the corner of the sheets and in he would climb, dragging at my night-dress, wrenching it upward, hauling it above my shoulders. To avoid being suffocated I would pull it off my face, at the same moment turning my body and steering my breast towards his mouth. His bristly moustache would scrape the skin. He would nuzzle and mumble while I stroked his head and caressed his ears, all the while asking myself whether I should do more, whether I should stroke his back or spread my legs or take one of his hands and guide it towards my sex, or reach under his night-shirt, or even utter sounds of pleasure in the hope that they would encourage him to push into me, but there I was far too shy. For (I would think to myself), is it not just as likely that sounds of pleasure will put him off? Is it not safer to stay quiet? What do women generally do? What are women supposed to touch? Are there certain acts that are appropriate for a wife to perform as opposed to certain other acts that are not appropriate for a wife to perform? Where do the boundaries lie? How does one find out? But then I would say to myself, what does it matter that he so rarely pushes into me, surely all that matters is that it makes him happy, although would it not make him even happier if he did push into me? As a wife it is one’s duty to make one’s husband happy. I firmly believe that.

Generally he would doze off with his arms around me and his head on my chest, and once he was sound asleep I would ease out and get into his bed with my body another one of these unanswered questions. The beds here are single beds, far too narrow for two people.

As before there is a certain comedy in all this, if one wants to hunt it out. Here and now, with the advantage of hindsight, I can see that. But how difficult it was at the time! How difficult and complicated! For all her wisdom Jane Austen is no help here, and so far as I know there are no books that begin to address these matters (if such books existed, I would be far too embarrassed to read them even in secret, even if I could be sure that no one knew that I was reading them). In other fields of human activity knowledge accumulates as it is passed from generation to generation, but when it comes to the subject of sexual relations women today are surely as ignorant as they must have been thousands of years ago. In some ways I am glad that he seems too old to bother with these nightly jousts (jousts? Jousts is not the word I want but it will have to do for the moment), very glad, in some ways, although less glad in other ways. I should not mind it if for old times’ sake he wanted to climb into my bed now, but probably he is already deep asleep. He always falls asleep in an instant. He sleeps like a baby.