It was late morning when Eliza came into the bedchamber to chastise me for lying on the bed, still in my shift. “Get up, Anne, we have so many petticoats to hem for the poor, and I need your help, or the work will never get done.”
“I cannot endure another day of this,” I said, pulling a quilt up over my ears. “Go away.”
“Please, sister, please.”
“At thirty-two years of age, I am confined to my parents’ house, subject to their every dictate, and treated like a half-witted girl of fifteen.”
“Submit,” Eliza told me, adding, “I have done so.”
“But I cannot be like you, Eliza. You never seem to have a moment’s freedom or a jot of self-fulfillment. Even when you sit down to play the pianoforte, Mama is at you to assist her with some wretched task.”
And truly, I knew that Eliza’s patience and compliance had been achieved at considerable cost. Though I could say nothing to her about the problem, I watched her daily consumption of brandy or sherry grow until she seemed to go about her tasks in a half stupor. Just last week, she and I sat with a roomful of biddies stitching away on prayer cushions for Mr. Strachan’s church, and I had to press my foot against hers from time to time to keep her awake.
I noted also that there was now nothing much that interested her except the gossip of the town. I knew that she probably had some tidbit to impart to me this morning for she yanked the quilt from my face and pulled me upwards. I complied—what else was there to do?—and went to the captain’s chest at the bottom of the bed from which I pulled a bedraggled muslin gown. Unfortunately this action merely fuelled her desire to “spill the beans,” a phrase I’d heard my American uncle use when Papa and I had stayed with him on our way to England.
“Oh Anne, do not wear that droopy thing. You must know that certain people in this town have noticed your lethargy, and they attribute it to your disappointment over Mr. Robinson. They are saying, in fact, that you are ‘distracted’ after him.”
“And who, pray, was the chief spreader of this most interesting news?”
“Mrs. Small, in fact. She has told everyone that on at least three occasions you have crept into the Robinsons’ house where you have spent time ‘fondling their infant son.’ She implies that this action comes from a broken heart.”
I laughed. “I suppose that I must not blame the much-maligned Mrs. Small for spreading this most interesting anecdote. It’s her revenge on Mama who has never really appreciated the woman’s fine talent for invention and focuses only on her long-ago adultery with Mr. White.”
I pulled the “droopy” dress over my head and smoothed my hair into place. While I was in Tolpuddle I had it cut short so that it curled naturally around my head and needed no care or primping. Of course Mama and Papa had chastised me, calling the cut “unnatural,” but I kept it that way.
Eliza was in full sail now. “But you do seem to yearn after Mr. Robinson, Anne. I noticed how you chatted with him and how attentive he was to you at Governor Maitland’s last Assembly.”
“He merely found me a seat for the songs and recitations. I suspect he has heard Mrs. Small’s gossip and enjoys it. He is a man who craves centre stage in our small world.”
Eliza sighed. “I must go back downstairs now. I shall tell Mama that you are up and ready for the stitchery.”
The door closed. I waited until I heard her footsteps descending. Then I burrowed back into the captain’s chest and extracted a small bottle of laudanum that I had stolen from Mama’s store. She had not noticed its absence, or if she had, she probably thought that in moments of distress she had drunk it all. No doubt she would buy some more soon at Mr. Allan’s store.
I held the bottle to my lips and swigged a gulp or two. As I restored the bottle to its hiding place, I reflected on poor Eliza’s dependence on brandy. Was brandy a worse anodyne than laudanum? The answer was obvious.
* * *
Downstairs in the parlour, I found Eliza already lost in a pile of petticoats. I sat near her in the most uncomfortable chair I could find since from experience I knew that an aching back would in time give me a legitimate excuse to escape upstairs to the bedchamber where, once more, I would seek to drown my sorrows in slumber. I would try hard to avoid the laudanum.
Mama was also present. She had laid her stitching aside and was in the process of opening an envelope. “It was just this moment delivered by one of our dear rector’s servants, and I must of course give it my immediate attention.”
“Oh, good Lord,” she exclaimed as she read it. Since Mama rarely took the name of the Lord in vain, I knew the note contained some distressing information. Moreover, her face had turned crimson, and for a moment I found myself hoping that she still had enough laudanum hoarded somewhere to calm herself.
“What is it, Mama?” Eliza asked. “May I be of help?”
My mother read the note aloud, weeping as she uttered the words of its content: “I do not enter into the unhappy differences between you and your daughter Anne, but they are common knowledge to us all. I wish them buried in oblivion, and I will not grant either of you Holy Communion until they are resolved in harmony and peace.”
I could not control my actions at that point. I threw down the damned petticoat I had started to stitch, ran over to Mama’s chair, tore the note from her hand, and threw it upon the fire.
“Oh, my God,” I said, having no inhibitions about the use of the Lord’s name. “The men in this world! They wreak their revenge on us women, not on the male race. Is there any mention of Papa in this note? Is he to be forbidden to take Communion? No, of course not. And yet, Mr. Strachan must surely know that these so-called ‘unhappy differences’ are mostly between Papa and me, not between you and me.”
“But what am I to do? If we are banned from Communion, the whole world will see and ponder the cause.”
“Excuse my language, Mama, but I don’t give a damn about being excluded from that silly ritual of chewing on a bit of stale bread and drinking some bad wine. But I know it is a matter of importance for you. Go now to the desk and reply to the man.”
I pulled her forward, pushed her towards the desk in the corner of the parlour and plunked her down on the chair. I picked up the plume, dipped it in the inkwell, and thrust it into her hand. “Write,” I said.
“But what am I to say?”
“I shall dictate. All you have to do is write it down.”
To my utter surprise, Mama nodded. Here is what I told her to write, trying not to choke as I spoke these words: “My dear Mr. Strachan, Anne and I have settled our differences and look forward to your continued blessing upon us.”
Mama seemed pleased, finished writing this sentence, signed her name, and was about to return the plume to its place on the desk when I spoke again. “We are not yet finished, Mama. There is one more sentence that must be added. ‘I trust you will not grant Holy Communion to my husband William who is the instigator of all the dissent in this house.’”
I, of course, did not expect Mama’s compliance in the writing of these additional words, but I was surprised to hear a snort of laughter from Eliza.
“Now fold up that note and seal it,” I said, “and Lucy will deliver it to Mr. Strachan’s house. As for me, I am heading back upstairs where I shall sleep or read one of the books that my dear Uncle Henry gave to me upon my departure from Tolpuddle.”
As I rushed out of the parlour and up the stairs to the bedchamber, I kept mouthing the word “Tolpuddle” over and over. In that little town, where all my cherished relatives and friends resided, lay my sole hope of happiness and fulfillment. After Mary’s confinement in March, I would find a way to return.