In the early hours, I was woken by the sound of the front door slamming, the floor creaking and the rapid fire of feet along floorboards. I sat bolt upright, a jolt surging through me, and strained to listen to the furious whispers just outside my bedroom. I thought it had to be burglars and that I was about to be robbed and murdered in my own home. I sprang out of bed and on my toes watched a wavering light coming from under the door, shadows moving amidst it. Then I noted a familiar resonance to the voice, and my body collapsed like a paper bellows with relief.
‘Thomas?’ I called out.
The murmurings outside fell silent, and I swear that even the light stopped flickering, as if it too was holding its breath.
‘Thomas!’ I called out again, bolder this time.
Still nothing.
I fumbled for the matches by my bedside, and the footsteps dispersed. We were in a race against each other. I lit the candle and flew across the floor like a banshee, nightgown billowing behind me. My first thought was he had brought another woman home, as he had brought me, that he was secreting his mistress in the freezing attic and somehow sneaking her out when they were done. I wanted to know what she was. Maybe an exotic bird, all orange hair and black feathers. My insides boiled from fear to fury. How dare he bring back his new whore and play with her above my head? He would curse us both with a disease.
When I tore open the door there was nothing but darkness. My candle blinded me. The only sign that someone had been standing there was the unsettled dust now swirling in circles. I stepped out into the corridor and waited for my eyes to adjust. There was a creak to my left and I turned my head and held up my candle. Thomas was standing with his back to me, halfway up the attic stairs.
‘Thomas, what are you doing?’ This time there would be no denying what I could see with my own eyes.
‘Go to bed, Susannah. I must be up for work in the morning. I have to sleep,’ he said, and made to continue up the stairs.
‘No, you don’t! Where is she?’
I ran to him and grabbed the sleeve of his coat, while trying to keep the candle away from my wild hair. The arm of his coat was wet to the touch with what I thought was rain.
‘Dr Lancaster was speaking to me, Mrs Lancaster. Only me.’ It was Mrs Wiggs at the top of the main staircase behind us.
It was unsettling to see her in her nightgown. She looked much younger with her hair in a long plait over her shoulder, her gown as pale as her skin. She had a candle in one hand and a water jug in the other. She was staring down at my wet hand, so I glanced at it too. When I turned it over, it was bright red, bloodied. I looked to Thomas, who was facing me now.
‘What’s this?’ I said.
Then I looked at Mrs Wiggs, who had her eyes on the floor. I knew something terrible had happened, and they had already agreed in whispers that it was to be kept from me. I felt frightened of them both then, and backed away, towards my bedroom door.
‘I don’t know what has happened, but shall we not pretend I don’t recognise blood when I see it,’ I said, and took another step in the direction of my room.
Mrs Wiggs moved forward to speak, but Thomas rushed down the stairs and stopped her with a raised hand. Then he came slowly towards me with his palms up and his coat open, as if in surrender. His white shirt, undone, was covered in blood. I was reminded of arteries cut at the hospital and how the blood would spurt out with such force, it would hit me, the wall and the ceiling. A streak of scarlet. I felt sick.
‘What have you done?’ I said, inching away with my back to the wall, a bare foot over the threshold of my bedroom.
‘Mrs Lancaster, won’t you…?’ started Mrs Wiggs, but Thomas stopped her again with a glance. How close they must have been, to communicate with small gestures and looks.
‘Susannah, I’m not going to lie to you. It is blood,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want to wake you. The truth is, I was in a fight and I asked Mrs Wiggs to fetch me some water.’
‘There is water in our room, and ample in the bathroom next door,’ I said.
This Thomas, the one whose eyes were soft and blue, kept trying to make my gaze meet his as he came towards me. I refused.
‘I could hardly come and wake you like this. I didn’t want to scare you. You look pale, I’ve clearly given you a fright.’
‘Judging by the colour of your shirt, someone else is looking a lot paler than me,’ I said. ‘What fight? Why would you be fighting? Is the other man dead? What about the police?’
‘Mrs Wiggs, take the water to the attic. I’ll be up in a minute,’ he said. Then he lunged at me, tried to grab the arm of my nightgown, but I was ready and leapt into my bedroom.
‘No!’ I shouted. ‘You’re not coming in here. Go with Mrs Wiggs to your attic!’
I tried to close the door on him, but he butted a shoulder against it and thrust it open. I ran to the other side of the room and stood with my arms wrapped about me as he tore off his bloodied shirt and wiped down his arms and chest with it. I shuddered as he threw the bloodied rag on the floor. He looked at me, his torso blue in the moonlight filtering through the curtains. He stood there for an age, staring at me as if considering what he should do. I felt my own blood drain from my body, because I was frightened of him.
It is a strange sensation to be frightened of someone to whom you thought yourself close. Although the clues are there when you look back, it is still a shock. The understanding that I had no idea of who or what I had married came rushing up to meet me all at once. I could only curse myself for having been so stupid. I had good reason to be fearful too, because after this period of cold regard, he exploded.
‘I had a fight. A fight – that’s it! As my wife, you might be pleased the other fellow came off worse than me.’
‘You still haven’t told me why you were fighting.’
‘He owed me money.’
‘Money? For what? Why would someone owe you money?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It matters to me.’
‘You don’t need to know!’
‘It would seem there are many things I don’t need to know. Like where you go to get in such fights.’
‘What are you talking about? This is just like you! Making everything about yourself!’
‘I am your wife,’ I said. ‘I am under no illusions that you have your secrets. I don’t know where you go, or whose company you keep—’
‘I have given you everything you wanted. You wanted out of the hospital; I took you away. You wanted money; now you have it. But still you complain. Is it any wonder I have to escape from the woman who finds fault with everything – because I work or see my friends, because I want to relax without her whining in my ear. You were never happier than when I was lying in a hospital bed in fucking agony!’
He spat the words with such fury and hatred, and as he shouted, his chest hardened and his veins swelled like worms under his skin. I worried that the blood might burst out. I must have done something wrong, but I could not remember how the argument came to be my fault. Hadn’t we been stood in the hallway with him covered in blood? I was still blindsided by this turnabout when he flew at me and grabbed me by the shoulders. I dropped the candle and it rolled about the floor in its brass holder, still alight, until it stopped by the bedclothes.
‘The candle! The candle!’ I shouted.
He shoved me away from him and I stumbled backwards into the chest of drawers with the arch of my back. My head hit the mirror on the wall behind and cracked the glass. Thomas tried to stamp on the candle, missed it several times as it rolled around and taunted him, then trapped it and the light was snuffed out. We were in the dark, with only his laboured breathing for sound.
Mrs Wiggs pushed the door open; she held her own candle, which trembled as much as her voice.
‘Dr Lancaster, is everything all right?’
I touched the back of my head; it was wet with blood.
Thomas kicked violently at the brass candlestick. It bounced off the wall and nearly hit both Mrs Wiggs and myself as it ricocheted about the room. We both yelped as it sailed past. His hair was wet and hanging over his face.
‘I gave you what you wanted,’ he said. ‘And what do I get?’
At that moment I found him utterly repugnant and couldn’t even look at him.
I didn’t dare say a thing. A watery trickle was snaking its way through my hair and down my neck. He shoved his face right up close to mine. I could feel his breath on my cheek and smell the alcohol on him. My nerves screamed and my heart all but stopped; I thought he was going to hit me. I kept my eyes nailed to the floor.
‘I get nothing!’ he shouted in my face. Then he spat at me.
I flinched and shut my eyes. He stormed out, stomped up the attic stairs and slammed the door behind him.
I burst into tears, and Mrs Wiggs quietly retreated, taking the light of the candle with her. I was left alone to feel my way back to bed. After that, I locked my bedroom door at night.