“I was shocked by the last instalment you gave me to read.”
“Shocked?”
“Well, maybe hurt is the better word.”
“I’ve hurt you, my dear? I would never wish to hurt you with anything I wrote. What is it that troubled you?”
Nelly took a deep breath. The remains of their modest supper lay between them. She was never much of a cook but did not like to keep Jane late. They often had to content themselves with plates of cold food. Tonight there had been cheese and salad, and a nice wine. She had waited until they had eaten to speak but she felt she had to say something. She could not keep her feelings secret and lie when he asked her what she thought; surely she of all people had a right to an honest reaction beyond proofreading marks or recommendations about structure.
At first, she had been hugely relieved that he was publishing another novel; it had been almost five years since she had coaxed him through the excruciating final numbers of Our Mutual Friend in the aftermath of the train crash and he had not written anything since. Or, at least, he had not published another novel. Of course, he had made contributions to his magazine, producing the much-anticipated Christmas story every year; he had done some more reporting for his Uncommercial Traveller series. But he had not really written. Instead, he had read.
Oh, how he had read, taking Nancy and Sikes up and down the country, travelling to America. The latest tour had almost killed him. She had thought he would expire on the spot that night in Manchester, but he had come back to consciousness in seconds and, despite her pleas for him to remain where he was, had struggled to his feet within minutes. He had brushed off Mr. Dolby’s repeated suggestions they call a doctor and would not hear of cancelling the remainder of the tour; they begged him to at least rest for a few days but he had read the next day and honoured every commitment till he finished up the following month.
She sometimes thought the readings were a way of escaping writing, a way of assuring himself that his readers still loved him without actually having to produce any new stories with which to entertain them. He could have retired if he wanted, spent his time at Gad’s Hill. No one would have thought the less of him. But she knew that he was too restless to ever stop working and too sensitive to ever be deprived of the delights of his own imagination.
Years before, she had taken a secret pride in Great Expectations, published during those happy days at Mornington Crescent, before she had to leave for France. They said it was his best work ever and she felt it was her love, her sacrifice, that had let him achieve it. If others might suspect there was something of Nelly in the heartless Estella, loved beyond reason yet declining to love in return, she only saw something of him in Pip, with his boyish infatuation lasting a lifetime. At any rate, she had rejoiced in that book and she had wanted another. However, the delivery of Our Mutual Friend had only proved excruciating, and she saw that their last chance was fast approaching. Perhaps if she were honest she would have to admit that for her to feel her power she needed him to feel his power. She needed him to be vital since neither of them could still pretend he was youthful.
The new story was a mystery. Safer to move in a different direction, not to attempt another sprawling Bildungsroman. Unusually, he had neither read out loud to her from his manuscript nor asked her to read the proofs as he began writing; she wondered a bit about that at the time but didn’t ask any questions. His work on it seemed precarious enough that she did not wish to risk the balance. Perhaps, she thought sadly, their literary collaboration had been so polluted by the agony of Our Mutual Friend, he did not wish to renew it. At any rate, she was busy enough with the house, the dog, her mother’s visits, her trips to town, her books and her music. So, when the first number appeared she had no idea what to expect. The novel was set in a cathedral town named Cloisterham, a place that would be quickly recognized to those who knew it as Rochester, the city of her birth. He himself had spent the early years of his childhood just next door, in nearby Chatham. And there had been a relationship in those first pages that made her queasy. Now, as she caught up with the story in a batch of manuscript pages he had finally left with her the previous week, her fears were confirmed. She was deeply unsettled by the shape the novel was taking. She did not wish to disrupt his progress, change his direction or risk him stopping and yet she felt too aggrieved to remain silent.
“You are telling the story of a man obsessed with a very young woman, still a girl really, and that man forces himself on her despite her obvious distaste and resistance.” Nelly had just read Chapter 19 of The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
“You are not going to make the mistake of reading fiction as autobiography, my dear. I have warned you before…”
“No. There is nothing of you in Jasper. He is a man without compassion or generosity, animated only by envy. His pursuit of Rosa is grotesque. It would make me very sad to think you saw yourself that way.”
“I am a storyteller. It’s a story.”
“Jasper is a villainous villain, fair enough, but it’s Rosa I really object too.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“Well, first of all her name. Rosa Bud.”
“Yes. Rosebud. She is young and innocent.”
“I was young when you met me…”
“Seventeen. Young and innocent.”
“Young girls are not necessarily innocent. I certainly wasn’t.”
“My dear. Really. What can you mean?”
“I don’t mean I wasn’t pure. Before, well, before Mornington Crescent I was certainly a maid.”
“I never doubted it.”
“But I did know something of the world.”
“Did you, indeed? And what did you know of the world?” He took a jocular tone, seeking more comfortable ground. It annoyed Nelly; despite the fancy dinners and expensive presents that marked her every birthday, despite the celebration of her thirtieth the previous year, he seemed to forget that she was no longer seventeen or twenty-one. In her anger, she spoke.
“I knew enough to take precautions, for starters. Otherwise, I might have borne you ten children instead of just one.”
There was a silence between them.
“I’m sorry. That was unfair.”
They never spoke of his wife; he spoke of his love for his daughters—Nelly had met both and was on cordial terms with them even if she had visited Gad’s Hill but twice—and of his worries for the sons he had sent off to India and Australia, but they never even acknowledged that these now adult children had a mother. Charles, seeking a fresh life with his true love, had taken the position that his wife no longer existed or even that she had ever existed; a large fancy to maintain with nine living children to his name. Nelly tended to relegate Catherine to the same forgotten corner of life, although, as the years went by, she came to realize that Charles was not always an easy companion and that his wife, whatever her faults, might have had some justifiable grievances. Nelly became less certain of her own superiority, less certain that she was his natural partner. Still, she did not dwell unduly on Catherine’s fate and if it seemed cruel to deprive the woman of her growing children’s company, the childless Nelly, who had motherhood so quickly snatched away from her, was only dimly aware of what a bitter punishment this might be. As for her, there was no longer any risk that she might have to remove herself to France again. Charles was old now. He kissed her lips, he stroked her hand and, on the occasional night he spent in the house at Peckham, he leant across to pat her thigh through the thick eiderdown before falling exhausted into what was often a loud and restless sleep.
“I just mean to say that Rosa has no character, no idea about anything, perhaps she has been sheltered and so knows little of the world, but she has no idea of herself either. She is just pure innocence. Such people don’t exist.”
“She has character; she is spoiled and petulant with Edwin.”
Nelly dismissed that with a wave of the hand. “That is simply a decoration, like her hair ribbon or her shawl. It helps advance your plot but it is superficial and is a quality quickly abandoned once Eddy disappears. As a character, she does nothing but represent purity. She has no purpose at all; she simply reacts to Jasper. She is too good, innocence just sitting there waiting to be injured. There has to be something in between Estella and Rosa, some kind of real girl.”
Charles drew himself up. Nelly saw his eyes were watering. “I am sorry you find my characters so poorly drawn,” he said.
And, instantly, she felt deep remorse for having hurt him, for prodding him about his failings rather than accepting his gifts. She sat silent for a minute.
“Well, she had the good sense to break it off with Eddy; that shows strength of character, that is purpose,” she said, making a peace offering. “I suppose she marries Neville Landless in the end, does she?”
“Or something like that. Youth will to youth.”
“Perhaps. If there’s youth around. You certainly did not take me away from any Eddy.”
“But you will have your Neville in the end, Nelly. I promise you. You are not my creature and you will have your real life soon enough.”