She is not a topic of conversation. Despite her beauty, despite that elusive quality that pleases the eye and fosters the affection of both men and women, despite the care with which she listens to them, gently drawing from them their apprehensions and attending to their joys, rendering these fashionable people deeper and more true, despite all of this, she is no longer discussed. It is as if she has been forgotten by society, has never even existed, after being absent for—what, how long? Nine weeks. Only nine weeks.
Is it diffidence on society’s part? Concern for her, for him? Or simply a determination to build an unbreachable wall against something that has not been explained—that can never be explained? Do they sense disorder and pull away from its contagion?
Emily isn’t a topic of conversation; nevertheless, when he is not with her, she is all he can see or hear, and he must struggle to banish her beloved form from his mind, wrestle with the urge to leap to his feet and summon his carriage so he can race home to her. Even at this instant, on this fussy society evening, when he looks at the people who surround him, it is not them he sees, but Emmie in all her guises: it is her intelligent forehead he finds in the Duchess of Aldington’s arch brow, her confident bearing that straightens General Leyton’s stoop, her pliant willingness that softens Lady Darch’s intimidating bosom, her musical laugh that overlays de Courtenay’s pompous posturing. Even in her absence, Emmie obscures them all.
She has turned away from society—withdrew at first reluctantly and with tears of disappointment, then deliberately, with an air of quiet stubbornness. The debutante ball in April, the celebration of Cissy’s coming out: that was her last public appearance. There she sat in one of the nests of chairs edging the ballroom, battling her body, her face drained with effort. Only he and Beatrice, whose worried eyes met his, really knew with what pain she must be dealing to be unable to respond with her usual kindness, her winning interest in those around her. She rose, tried to speak with other scattered guests, her weary shoulders curling; she hovered in the corner of the hall, face wan. Then Cissy’s plump body whipped past his own chair, was whirled about the dance floor, her face shining out at her admirers, and when he turned to look again, Emily had vanished.
It was in the chill air of the balcony that he had finally found her, leaning over the balustrade—her shoulders shaking, her hot breath clouding the air—and he ’d gathered her to him, smoothed the lines of pain that scored her forehead and bracketed her mouth, and whispered words of comfort while she whimpered like a small animal, holding the worst of her distress inside, for Cissy’s sake.
Come, he ’d said. Let’s take you home.
And now? Now he must attend these society dinners and balls and daytime jaunts alone, at Emmie’s insistence, even as they mean nothing to him without her. For she is concerned with their place in society, she says, and he knows this to be true, but still he wonders what she does when he is not home with her, wonders how it is to be free of his presence and the weight it seems to place on her. And so they continue the illusion that hers is a passing indisposition, even as it drags on week after week, even as she disregards elegant carriages outside their front door and the calling cards that are left with bewildered servants, Millie wringing her apron in uncertainty and dismay.
And when he rushes home from these interminable gatherings, eager to see his Emmie again? Then he finds the stranger who, it seems, has taken her place.
The horse’s hooves might be rattling, the reins flapping, London’s streets whizzing by in a blur as they race along the Strand, but he himself feels like a wheel grinding a stationary, ever-deepening rut. It’s been two years now on Common Pleas and suddenly he feels fed up. Heartily sick of it all. The legal institution has become too familiar, with its tangle of corruption and conservatism, each day bogged down in endless, pointless ceremonies, while he winces at the lack of respect for jury members amongst his fellows, the bullying of clients and witnesses—the badgering that twists their words and traps them in contradictions, until they stutter into silence, twisting their hands in confusion. It’s a game, he sees now, a never-ending, ham-fisted game, and sometimes he wants to throw his own hands in the air at the inefficiency, at the sheer waste of it all, even as he learns the rules and plays to win.
Would the Queen’s Bench be any better? More purposeful, more … productive? He’s visited the Old Bailey, seen the goings-on: the charges of larceny, rape, murder and so on—more interesting, by far, than disputes about property and tussles over debt, as well as graver in effect. But the passage of justice is no less flawed in the criminal courts, surely, if sometimes defence counsel is not even permitted, if in serious crimes the accused cannot defend themselves, or question their sentence?
The cab wobbles, slows, then pulls to a near halt. Dust swirls over the doors and into the cab, billowing against him, and he pulls the kerchief from his breast pocket to shield his face, knowing that by tonight his hair will be full of the grit and grime of the city, the creamy linen at his wrists filthy with it. Once, he would have anticipated cleaning up properly at the courts, but he knows too well now how unlikely that is: towels, combs, even water, are scarce in the robing room and the place stinks like an overflowing cesspool.
The cab driver wheezes behind him and clears his throat with a hacking cough. Wellington Street: that’s why they’ve slowed. It’s humming, as always, clouds of dirt rolling from beneath the feet, hooves and wheels destined for Waterloo Bridge, that stream of traffic flowing against his, ’buses jamming up behind and around their cab. But they are still moving at least, and there is the reason for the delay: a ’bus horse upended in the middle of the crossing, legs flailing and the driver taking to it with a whip, the whistle and crack arriving moments after the downward sweep of the man’s arm. Arthur winces at the casual cruelty—the pointless attack on a helpless beast—but then he hardens himself. What difference could his concern possibly make, anyway?
Lately it seems to him that London is full of them: helpless beings he is unable to help. Look at the poor, those downtrodden by the classes above them; what justice is in the criminal courts for those with no money to pay, no access to some kind of public defence? Does punishment benefit anyone turned criminal through poverty and circumstance? Those narrow, dark cells in Newgate Gaol have stayed with him, along with the yard in which the prisoners must take exercise. Exercise! The sunken enclosure is like a long chimney and the men trudge at its shadowed base as if they are turning the workings of Hell. He’s witnessed a hanging, too, heard the crowd in the street roar and bay like animals as the skinny man jangled and twitched into death. Afterwards, Arthur walked away as quickly as he could, as if he could leave the image behind.
Maybe it’s time to reassess. As a barrister he can do little to help these unfortunate wretches, but as a politician he might have some decisive effect, influence the will of Parliament and push for legislation that might aid London’s sorry, heaving mass of humanity. He will speak with Father again, see if he has suggestions about a seat—though Father has grown stiffer still over the last year, his ideas calcifying … Anyway, there will be time for talk once Emmie is at Herdley and he going to and fro, balancing his different, disparate worlds. Only two more weeks and, pray God, the sweet air and Bea’s ministrations might alleviate the pitiful torment of his wife.
The air is full of the Thames’s stench; it is only their passage along the Strand that whisks into the cab a semblance of freshness at which he sucks, cursing the heat and stink of London in the summer. Why, even the trees look miserable, their leaves blackened; even the feathers of the birds perched on the statue of Charles I seem to droop despondently. And he knows his cynicism, even despair—the way he sees his work, the city and the plight of its people—is coloured by the helplessness he feels every time he thinks of Emily. But this makes no difference to his mood, to his sense that everything is hopeless. Sullied. And it seems to him, as they rattle their slower way down Parliament Street towards Westminster Hall, that something vital has withdrawn from him over the last months. Faith in the legal system. Perhaps faith altogether. The worship at All Saints seems a dream to him now, his gratitude for his fortunate life and, most of all, for the miracle of his wife, premature, some kind of punishment. God’s joke on him, his pleasure, his celebratory pride.
The cab is slowing, pulling up at the water trough in New Palace Yard, and he must remove himself, busy himself with clients, carrying Emmie’s pain about with him like a weight he cannot put aside. Will not put aside.
Oh, if only he could help her!
It will be late by the time he gets to chambers, but there are no clients until the afternoon and he must speak with Mrs Wilson, still new to the job, see how she is coping with a mistress effectively absent, ask how she is managing the preparations for his wife’s journey to Hierde House, all this before Emily and her mother return from the consultation—yet another physician specialising in “women’s complaints”, yet more pills and potions. Thank goodness the housekeeper was engaged before Emmie became so ill and that she has taken it upon herself to make sensible decisions without troubling them. Without troubling his wife.
He hears the roar as he leaves the library, another as he trudges up the stairs. When the wind is in the right direction, they can hear them from Regent’s Zoo, those exotic lions; picture them pacing behind their bars, demanding meat, their claws and teeth sharp and keen.
He goes through the bedroom, quietly enters the dark chamber beyond, now claimed as hers; eyes the narrow bed that has replaced, for her, their cosy nest with its tousled bedclothes and his ready embrace. I must be alone, she ’d said. I have hardly the strength to be in my own body. And when he ’d entered this chamber one day without knocking, thinking to ease her loneliness, her hands had made fluttering movements like birds trying to take flight, and she ’d blurted out that she couldn’t tolerate the presence of another person, their unspoken expectations … and he knew that she meant him. That he was another person. She cried and apologised, over and over, as he made to approach her, as he backed out quickly without a word.
It is damp here, the coals cold in their hearth. The new couch is naked save for a pair of lady’s drawers strewn over it, legs without feet. Emily retreats to this so-called spinal couch regularly now, clutching at herself, and he can’t help but resent the object for the time she shares with it, the tears she weeps on it that should be shed in his presence. Was purchasing the couch a sound decision? How much of the back pain that has now joined the list of her other, private, pains is a true part of that complaint and how much simply a result of the way she must sit now—when she has to sit, for convention’s sake—her hips forward and posture slumped? Does it benefit her to closet herself away from the natural light, the busyness of the everyday?
He sniffs and turns, draws in the unfamiliar scent, finds it most pungent at the cabinet next to the bed: musky, like newly turned earth; bitter, but swaddled in cloying sweetness. Laudanum, perhaps, prescribed by her father, who does not seem to know what else to do, apart from recommending physicians and throwing out words that mean precisely nothing for all the good they do. Unmoored, he says. Nerves.
But the outlandish words do fit this stranger, somehow, this new wife who is at turns excitable and despondent, restless and inert, buoyant and despairing; whose steps he hears in the night, boards creaking under her sleepless feet; whose muffled sobs and wails reach him even in the stillness of his study; whose joyful, tuneful voice has surrendered to a querulous and fretful tone he tries not to dislike.
The bed is as yet unmade by Millie and the disarray reminds him of something, the tatters of clothing and bedding return a memory: the ragged feathers of a rook in their yard yesterday, its torn and crimson-flecked wings spread as if in flight; Ginger standing over the blue-black corpse yowling proudly, waiting for praise, his own striped and gnarly body smaller than his prey’s; the old tom fighting ferociously for his prize as the yard-boy tried to reach the bird’s body, do away with the mess.
In these times everything seems to remind him of violence, and to bring back childhood feelings he ’d thought left long behind: resentment at being so needed, helplessness in the face of an appeal, guilt at his own incapacity. If only there were an enemy, if only it would show itself, then he would fight it. Be her champion. Why, it was only short months ago that he felt—no, knew—his love could overcome this obstacle. For Emily had turned to him trustingly when the pains first began, and he ’d soothed her when she cried It burns, held her when she returned from the water closet, clutching her belly, walking in a strange, halting motion so unlike her usual grace. And when, in the quiet night, she sobbed her dismay—I hate to disappoint you, Arthur, but it stabs and I cannot, I cannot—he assured her that his own needs could be put aside, that his love for her was not dependent on love-making, that he would always care for her, no matter the complaint. He ’d felt protective, strong enough to carry her through this ordeal, even when it had no name, even when finding the words to describe it made them both blush, even when it struck at the very heart of their marriage.
But he has not been able to help her and now something is changing between them, has already changed. It seems to him that she cannot forgive him for his inability to solve this terrible mystery—or does he imagine the accusation in her eyes? He does not imagine his own guilt; the relief as she turns inward and away from him.
The journal sits by her bed. It travels with her around the house as she moves from place to place, unable to find comfort or ease. She scribbles in it at her little portable desk, reads it avidly, treats it as her closest companion, confesses to it, perhaps, and no longer writes her almost daily letters to Beatrice. And so, it seems, she is turning away from his sister too.
Now his fingers itch to open the journal and he thrusts them in his pockets, swings his body around the chamber, thinks to conjure something precious, leave a part of himself here, in this, her refuge. Something to reach her, remind her, bring the old Emmie back to him. For she can’t have gone far, can she? His Emmie, her face alight, her gaze always running ahead to a precious something she might catch if she were to run or skip or laugh with joy. His Emmie, understanding his own childhood loss, knowing the way that grief can break time down, make each tiny moment a pocket of existence that swells and becomes forever. His Emmie, singing her trust in life’s goodness, lifting her praise to the heavens. His Emmie, who if you were both starving and had only one morsel of bread, would give it to you without thought. His Emmie, whose shade comes to him at night as he hovers between sleep and wakefulness, pulling him into her with a ragged exhalation, groaning in pleasure, cradling his head against her breasts.
That roar again. He feels it roll through his body and reverberate through his mind, trespassing on all he thought to keep safe, threatening its very existence.
They cross Devonshire Street and continue towards Regent’s Park, their feet finding a matching stride, just as they used to all those years ago at Rugby School. Arthur feels his body shifting as he walks—tense shoulders dropping, taut face releasing—and in the thick, grey silence he is almost able to think himself into someone other than a man with a tormented wife; is glad now for Tom’s insistence: a walk through the breaking day, just as they used to in that last spell at Rugby, the masters less strict as their charges became men. And now, when he senses Tom smiling beside him, he is again a carefree school fellow, off to make some mischief with his friend.
The homes of Portland Place are still shut against the night, the only signs of life a servant girl emptying slops and a sweep tucked into a doorstep waiting for the household to rise. Under a streetlamp at the corner of Park Square, a bobby sags wearily inside his uniform, lifting himself to attention to return their greetings, pretending only now to notice a vagrant rousing himself for another hopeless day and shooing him along. A black cat slips shadow-like over the road, its rakish glance at Arthur conspiratorial, as if recognising him for another creature of the night.
They pause for the market cart laden with fruit baskets, then cross the Outer Circle and make their way onto the Broad Walk. The park is monochrome in the dawn, its pathways empty. Several blackbirds sing from the small trees.
Arthur draws his coat more tightly against the nip of autumn. It should take them thirty minutes, he calculates, walking slowly and with conversation. Primrose Hill in time to see the sun rise. He must do as he planned while they walk, as he and Tom planned together: speak about Emily and what ails her. Despite his reluctance, he knows he must.
It’s not that he lacks faith in his friend. He trusts the bond forged years ago, when Lawler stood to support him in that terrible fight with Rattlin. For even with separations along the way—himself at Oxford, Tom training in medicine at the University of London—that trust is still there, along with the memories and all the things understood from a shared history, where nothing needs to be explained. And it’s this he clings onto for a moment, to justify his hesitation, his resistance to surrendering their companionable silence, the momentary ease, to dark feelings and hard thoughts. Aren’t some things best left unspoken between men? But he must confide in someone, when all is a terrible mystery, he tells himself, and he cannot think of anyone better than Tom, with his knowledge and his calm common sense. He studies his friend’s level gaze, the startling white hair more a golden-blonde these days and always kept cropped and tucked away under a hat. When he ’d teased Tom about the frequent visits to a barber shop, before the bad times had begun, his friend demanded, Well, would you trust a physician in curls? They ’d laughed then, and punched each other’s shoulders.
Flowers are waking in the Avenue Gardens, brightening into day-colour, purples in fine green skirts. Are they asters? Some kind of autumn daisy? Emily would know, he thinks. And then, when a dusky magenta peeps from the bottom layer of the next bed, he is reminded of her favourite petticoat, and could cry.
“Do you miss her?” Tom is the first to break their silence.
“It’s been only five days.”
“Still, Arthur.”
“Yes,” he admits. “Yes, I do.”
Would it be a betrayal to tell Tom he also feels a sense of respite at his wife’s absence? That he misses her, but not who she has become? He strikes at the grass with his walking stick.
“You say the issue is with congress?”
The directness is a relief. “Yes. But it is more than this, far more.” He considers, searching for the words. “She has severe pain.”
What more can he say?
Can he speak of how, at the beginning of it all, her body would clench when he reached for her? How she winces now when he touches her? How her frightened eyes shift from his? How she no longer tells him that she loves him?
Impossible.
They circle the Griffin Tazza, the winged lions muscular, their gaze blank and foreign.
“Is the pain always in that area?”
“Yes. And beyond.”
He feels the familiar stab of guilt: how his wife must bear this alone. How she chooses to bear it alone, says a voice in his mind.
They brush through shrubs busy with tiny flitting birds and return to the avenue of plane trees. Here and there, grimy-looking boys now trot along the Broad Walk, and suited and hatted men make their brisk way southward. A party of eager young women cluster at one of the lampposts, pointing out the George IV cipher to each other. Are they from the country? Spending a day in the “Big Smoke”, just because they can?
“It isn’t my field of expertise,” Tom says. “But I know enough of disorder that has no easy answer to tell you how readily such nervous malady can be made worse.” He scratches his chin thoughtfully. “You say that Charles is monitoring her health? Suggesting specialists?”
“Yes.”
A pungent, earthy scent fills the dawn air. What part of it is elephant or hippopotamus dung? What part lion? They walk through the cries and rumbles that drift over the hedge of the zoo and Arthur tries to say the words, but they skip away from him like flat stones across murky waters: Emmie at Herdley … not ideal—Bea busy, Father confused … going to Hierde House when work will spare me … And, what should I do, Tom? What can I do?
The paths are filling with people of all sorts, strides purposeful and busy. At the bridge their own boots ring hollow; below, the canal is fathomless, its water dense and green. Then it is over Albert Road, noisy now with clattering carts and the hoof-fall of smart cab horses, and up the path towards Primrose Hill, where young lads, up early, trundle their hoops down the grass, shouting and laughing.
“I’m loath to confuse the issue,” Tom continues tentatively. “Charles is a very knowledgeable physician.”
“Yes, yes, of course, but even Charles seems lost … And I’m worried, Tom. All I can think is that she must be somewhere nourishing. We’re hoping that—”
A loud honking interrupts, drawing their eyes to the dark V in the lightening sky. Some kind of goose, Arthur thinks. A flock making its way to warmer climes.
“So we’re hoping that Hierde House might give some comfort, some healing, where the city can’t,” he finishes clumsily.
Tom gives him a reassuring smile. “It is a sound decision, I think, Arthur. Really, I do. The situation can be deliberated anew when she returns to London—if the symptoms persist. These mysterious ailments can pass equally mysteriously. Don’t lose hope.”
Tom’s clasp of his shoulder is comforting and he feels his heart lift. It has been such a short span of time, really. She may yet recover, with Bea’s help, in the sweet air of Herdley. If not now, then soon. Very soon, perhaps.
So they walk on, he and Tom, speaking more easily, the matter having been broached, the worst said. They round the Shakespeare Oak, flatten the damp grass with their boots as they climb, note the first signs of russet and amber in the plane trees and chestnuts, mark the lean of the hardy little hawthorns near the summit, join the small clutch of early walkers and sightseers at the top of Primrose Hill.
A bruised mist hangs over the city. In the distance, church towers are indefinite battlements. The horizon spills orange and the air fills with bird calls, the tap-tap-tap of stick on hoop, awed whispers, and there is a clarion call in his mind, through his body—he feels his very soul vibrate with a demand. Fingers of light uncurl through the dusty city air and up the grass, a great hand reaching for him.