Winter

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‘Thomas, they are getting bigger and bigger, they are so much bigger than they were. You can’t deny it. We are almost engulfed!’

Trees were fine things, noble things, thought the old man; he simply did not understand the problem.

‘My dear, this is a very exposed, draughty spot; if there were no trees, imagine what it would be like. I remember it when Emma and I first came here, before the trees were planted. She was always complaining about the wind. If there were no trees, we should be blasted.’

‘I am not talking about cutting them down, it is a matter of cutting back. They are so big. They take so much light. And the spores … the spores are so bad for one’s health.’

She was becoming upset; this was what the neuritis did to her. ‘Let us talk about it another time.’

‘When?’

‘In the morning. Now is not a good time. Has Wessex been out? Wessex? Have you been out?’

‘Yes, he has,’ she said.

They wished each other good night and she departed for her bedroom, where she no doubt took one of the pills that were meant to improve the blood supply to her nerves.

He forgot about the trees straight away. Instead, as he finished his whisky, he again allowed his mind to be occupied by thoughts of Gertie, with her pale complexion, oval face and liquid eyes. Fifteen miles of dark countryside lay between here and Beaminster, but he had no difficulty in bringing her to life. He saw her in her little cottage, standing by the fireside, hoisting her skirts to warm her legs. He saw her red lips as she yawned, and the white of her teeth, and the skin shining on her arms, just as he had once imagined Tess yawning, red-mouthed, arms shining like satin. Gertie was the very incarnation of Tess.

Sighing to himself, he wondered whether he would ever have the opportunity to explain how close she was to his heart. The discrepancy in their ages seemed to make such a disclosure impossible; nonetheless, between them there was a perfect reciprocity of thought and emotion, or so the old man felt.

CHAPTER II (#ulink_f3e59e7f-e5fc-5ace-b1ee-59c102996d56)

Last night I asked him, not for the first time, for indeed I have asked him a number of times, if we could have a few of the branches taken down as the house is now in shadow for much of the day. The problem is most acute in the summer, when we are engulfed by foliage, but even now, with winter almost upon us, the trees are an oppression. They oppress me, they darken my life. This is a dark house. He would not discuss it. I tried again this morning.

‘Thomas,’ I said, ‘forgive me for mentioning it again but we must talk about the trees. I know you are very preoccupied, but this is the right time of year – this is the time for tree work. The birds are not nesting now.’

We were at the breakfast table, and he said nothing, not a word, he looked elsewhere as if he had not heard me. He looked at his toast. He studied his toast. I wondered if I had spoken or if I had merely imagined speaking. Had my senses deserted me? Had my words left my mouth or had they stuck in my throat?

I drew a breath. I pressed on. ‘You said in the summer we could not cut back then, because of the birds, and now it is nearly winter. The servants agree with me – they agree entirely. Mr. Caddy agrees too, I have spoken to him. The trees have to be cut back sometime. And the ivy, too,’ I added, aware that I was annoying him by my persistence, that he would prefer me not to mention the subject.

He looked at his toast as if it was burnt. He fiddled with the handle of his tea-cup.

He believes that the trees must not be touched for fear of wounding them. Can trees be wounded? Trees are not sentient creatures. He talks of mutilation and disfigurement. To care for the feelings of birds and animals is one thing, yet to believe that trees are capable of suffering as human beings suffer is quite another. What of my suffering? I am still not well, I know I am not well. The doctors say that on all accounts I must avoid straining my nerves. Can he not see how the trees are hampering my recovery? Can he not see how I suffer?

‘This is such a dark house,’ I said. ‘I feel everything would be different if there were more light.’

He raised his eyes to mine. ‘Later, Florence, later,’ he said, softly. ‘Not now. I am thinking.’

I fell silent. I could say no more, for the moment. He was thinking; that is, he was thinking about his work; a poem was possibly taking shape inside his head. How should I know what shapes form inside his head? All I know is that on account of the trees I am condemned to shadow. I wish he would understand how dark and gloomy they make the house, and how much the absence of sunlight oppresses my spirits during the winter months, but this it seems is of no consequence when set against the supposed feelings of the trees and the nesting birds.

This is how our breakfasts always are. I am not meant to speak and therefore I do not speak, although in the spaces that might be occupied by speech I often address him with silent questions. When were you ever happy? Were you happy when you were a boy? What could make you happy now? Should we not be happy? Is it not in our natures, is it not part of our beings, to strive for happiness? Has your writing made you happy? Would you not be happier if you were to say, I have written what I have written, enough is enough, and to put down your pen? What iron compulsion makes you continue? Thomas?

My life is full of these unanswered questions.

What irks me, more than anything, is that he is perfectly capable of gaiety. When guests arrive for tea it is as if an electric light were switched on (not that we have any electricity here!): suddenly he becomes a different human being. He chats and jokes and entertains, and reminisces about his childhood and tells confidential witty anecdotes. He performs. None of our visitors has any idea what he is truly like. They marvel at him! ‘What a marvel he is!’ they confide in me as they leave. (O that word, ‘marvel’!) ‘So sprightly! So spry! Such vigour!’ I nod in agreement. As soon as they are gone, the light switches off; he relapses to his former self.

The truth is, he cannot be bothered to make an effort for me, his wife. I who do nothing but make an effort for him, I whose whole life is devoted to him, I who tiptoe after him, lay out his clothes, help him dress, read to him for hours every evening and do all that is humanly possible to make him happy, I am not worthy of the performance.

He left, with Wessie at his heels. O Wessie, Wessie, stay with me, I beseeched him silently, do not leave me now – it was all I could do not to call him back – but they were both gone. I remained at the table with my feelings, my words which I may or may not have uttered. The door closed. My hand shook as I tried to drink my cup of coffee.

I am not suggesting that all the trees should be cut down, merely that those nearest to the house should be thinned. Is that so much to ask? To thin the trees so that light, blessed light, will once again shine freely into the rooms? Was this not his intention when he built the house, forty years ago? The house faces south; it should be filled with sunlight, and yet it is dark. But there is nothing to be done, until later; later, later, it is what he always says; and so the matter is forever postponed, and meanwhile the trees grow ever nearer. The branches are nearly scratching at the panes of the windows, and the gutters are blocked with autumn leaves, and the chimneys are covered in ivy. The air is damp. Even the lawns are affected: they are thick with moss and ugly worm-casts.

I cannot feel that trees are necessarily friendly creatures. In the right situation, I admit, they are pleasant enough. Here they are hostile. Left alone, they will overwhelm the house. This is how I choose to begin my account, which I tell to myself, since there is no one else to tell.

I am busy, too; I have my daily round of tasks. There are the hens to let out of their coop. They have a little field to the side of the garden, away from the trees, in sunshine. I bought this field with my own money, four years ago, since he would not buy it, although he has so much more money than I, although he may well be, according to Cockerell, the wealthiest writer in the entire country. Is that possible? How does Cockerell know? I waited to see if he would offer to buy the field for me, but it did not seem to occur to him. If it did occur to him, he gave no sign of it having occurred to him. I might have asked him directly, but I have my pride. Thus I had to raid my own small savings. That is how things are. That is the way of things.

I open the door of the coop and out they come; seven lovely hens. ‘My beauties, my darlings. How are you today?’ I love my hens and I talk to them in a particular voice which I persuade myself – with what truth I cannot say – they recognise. O, but I am sure that they do. I have names for them all. This is Betty; this is Jess; that is Hetty. Dear little Hetty! That one is Maud.

In the low sunshine they glow with light. Their feathers shimmer. ‘Patience, patience,’ I say to them, ‘patience, my dears.’ They fuss and cluck as I hold up the bag of grain, and then I dip in my hand and throw out the seed. They make a quick rush and begin to peck and stab, and as they do so wheedling sounds of gratitude come from their throats. Even when they are eating! How sweet and contented they are!

It does me good to see such contentment, I who feel so little contentment. It does me good to be in the sun, away from the long shadows of the trees.

I scatter four handfuls of grain. Some of the hens – Betty, and Alice, particularly, are bigger and more forceful than the others. Please, please, I beg you, be patient! I have enough for you all.

They are laying well at the moment. Yesterday, I collected three brown eggs; today, three more, which will do very well for this evening’s dinner. I admit that there are times when I think that I should be kind and allow them to keep their eggs, to sit on their eggs. Would that be kinder? But the eggs would not hatch, there would be no chicks, they would sit and sit and nothing would happen, which would be dreadful for them, they would be perpetually disappointed. I think it is better that I take the eggs, to spare them that disappointment. They are fond of me, they do not care whether I take the eggs.

The sun shines over the field, the birds sing – O, I admit, my ownership of the field does afford me a certain satisfaction, for almost everything else is his. The house and its contents belong to him; they were his long before I became his wife. I live in the shell of his ownership. The field is mine, however, and therefore perhaps, upon further consideration, I am glad that I bought it with my own money, that he did not buy it for me. Yes, I am glad, I think, although I would have liked him to have offered to buy it for me, as he might easily have done. I am not saying that he is miserly but, if I may draw the distinction, he is very careful; he does not realise how much money he has and does not believe it, even when he is told. He avoids conversations about money, just as he avoids conversations about the trees. These are not matters I am able to talk to him about, among so many other matters.

Obstinacy is ingrained into his very nature. It blinds him to common sense. It makes him deaf to all persuasion. Was he always like this, or has his obstinacy grown over the years? He cannot have been like this as a young man. But then, how do I know? I did not know him when he was young. Even though I have seen a number of paintings and photographs, to relate the young man there with the old man now defeats me. Inasmuch as I am able to imagine it, he was exactly the same then as he is now.

To give one instance of his obstinacy: the telephone. I could not understand the nature of his objection, although it seemed to be based on some irrational fear of the instrument. He murmured vaguely: ‘Human beings have succeeded in communicating for centuries without the use of a telephonic apparatus; I do not understand why it must suddenly become a necessity.’ – ‘Thomas,’ I said, somewhat exasperated, not least by the absurdity of the phrase ‘telephonic apparatus’ in this day and age, ‘of course, it is not a necessity; it is a convenience. It would be very convenient to have a telephone here. It would be convenient for ordering groceries, and coal, and for visitors.’

I went on to say that it was becoming odd for us, in a house this size, not to have a telephone.

‘There would be wires everywhere,’ he said. ‘They are very ugly.’

‘We will soon be used to them,’ I countered.

He became a trifle petulant. ‘Florence, I do not want to be used to them. Merely because the world happens to have moved in a certain direction, it does not follow that we have to move with it. Besides, there is the cost.’ (As if he would even notice the cost, when he is so wealthy! The wealthiest writer in the entire country!)

Later, he said that the press would discover the number and that the telephone would never stop ringing. The noise would be an intrusion and would prevent him from working. ‘And what if it rings in the night?’ he went on. ‘Imagine that; we shall be woken by it ringing and you will hurry out and fall down the stairs and break your neck.’ I did not know whether to laugh or cry. ‘Is that likely?’ I asked. ‘Who on earth is going to ring in the night?’ He gave me a particular look, a look that I have come to know well, intended to convey the message that he was impervious to all argument, however reasonable.

I enlisted the help of Cockerell, when he next came to stay. He always pays greater attention to Cockerell than to me, although I am his wife. I took Cockerell aside and asked him whether he had had a telephone installed at his home in Cambridge, and he said that he had had one for four years and that it had come in jolly handy as it was so much quicker than the post and capable of carrying so much more information than the telegraph. Exactly! ‘Well,’ said I, ‘if you would persuade Thomas, I should be very grateful.’ So he said he would – that is, he would try – ‘But, Florence,’ he said, ‘your husband is a very hard man to bring round, once he has set his mind against something.’ – ‘Sydney,’ said I, ‘he is an ox! He doesn’t like anything new; he would like the world to be as it was in eighteen fifty! The world has changed, like it or not. But, please, don’t tell him that I asked you to say anything; if you do, he will set himself against it on principle. He is so prickly nowadays.’

The argument that Cockerell employed was that, if my husband were to fall ill and to need a doctor, a telephone would be immensely valuable and might even save his life. I had told him that much myself, had advanced the self-same point; he had paid not a farthing of attention. Once the point was made by Cockerell, however, it carried more weight; he nodded.

‘Is it not the case that, sometimes, the apparatus remains alive when it should not?’

‘How do you mean, alive?’

‘It is still alive. It listens when it should not.’

‘Thomas –’ I broke in – ‘a telephone is not alive; it is a machine.’

‘What I mean,’ said he (to Cockerell, not to me; although I had spoken, it was as if I had not spoken), ‘is that the line remains open when it should not. The operators at the exchange have the ability to eavesdrop on one’s private conversations, without one’s knowledge.’

‘Where on earth did you hear that?’

‘I believe that it occurs very commonly.’

‘I doubt it very much,’ Cockerell told him. ‘I doubt it very much indeed! The operators are far too busy to spend their time eavesdropping on people’s conversations. Is that truly your main objection to the telephone?’

‘It is one of my objections. If something is possible, then, human nature being what it is, it is likely to happen. You don’t have newspaper reporters poking about all the time, trying to discover details of your private life. It is different for me.’

‘That may be true,’ Cockerell agreed. ‘But I hardly believe –’ he stopped. ‘You see, I never use the telephone for conversation. It is simply a very handy little thing to have, for contacting people, in emergencies. You don’t have to use it yourself.’

Eventually my husband gave way, which pleased me, although I admit that I was slightly aggrieved that Cockerell had succeeded where I had failed. The truth is, he trusts Cockerell’s judgement but does not trust mine; that is the truth.

On the day the telephone was installed, and for several days afterward, he was very irritable and claimed that he had been unable to write a word on account of it. ‘But, Thomas,’ I said, ‘no one has rung! We have not had a single call!’ – ‘No,’ said he, in a very melancholy voice, ‘but I am thinking of it waiting to ring. It will ring sooner or later. It is there, in my mind; waiting.’

Mr. Caddy is wheeling his barrow past the vegetable garden. Mr. Caddy has been gardener here at Max Gate for a long time. He is a man of about fifty, entirely bald, with wide ears, and a ruddy face which comes not only from working all his life out-of-doors but also, I suspect, I suspect strongly, from drink. At my approach he drops the handles in order to touch his forehead.

‘The gutters need unblocking,’ I tell him. – ‘Yes, ma’am.’ – ‘Could you do it soon, please?’ I ask. ‘Before the next storm, if possible. It is almost winter. Winter is almost upon us.’ – ‘Yes, ma’am.’ – ‘And if you could pick up some of these twigs and sticks, and rake the drive.’

He nods and yes ma’ams me for a third time, a little slowly, as if behind his respectful exterior he is laughing at me. Yes, for some unaccountable reason I feel sure he is laughing at me, and that my stole must have slipped. He is staring at my scar. A terror seizes me, it is all I can do not to break down on the spot and gibber like a mad-woman. What has become of me? Pull yourself together, Florence, I tell myself, remember who you are. You are mistress here.

I hold his eye and say: ‘I very much hope we shall be allowed to cut back some of the trees this winter.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

As I walk on I adjust the stole which, it turns out, has not slipped at all, but I am quite sure that he was thinking of it. Mr. Sherren, the surgeon who performed the operation, said that it was a very neat job and that the scar would fade in time but it has not faded at all; it is still red and ugly, even when I cover it with powder. I hate looking at it in the glass. But I can hardly speak too highly of Mr. Sherren, who is one of the best surgeons in London, if not the very best; of all the doctors I have ever met, he is the one in whom I feel most confidence. As soon as I saw him I felt more confident. He examined my neck with so much care and spoke to me so kindly. He has a very soft, warm voice and gentle hands. I noticed how long and delicate his fingers were, the fingers not of a surgeon but a pianist. His finger-nails were perfect. I said to him, ‘I always knew it was cancerous, but no one ever seemed to believe me,’ and he said, ‘Mrs. Hardy, you have come to the right place.’

When he visited me after the operation we had a long talk in which he told me that as a young man he had been to sea as a ship’s surgeon, which he had loved, and in return I mentioned the years I spent as a school-mistress, and how fulfilling that had been. I said to him (something I strongly believe) that there is nothing more important than education. ‘Sometimes,’ I said, ‘I think I might still be teaching now, but for my wretched health. Good health is such a blessing.’

He was very sympathetic. He said that good health was as important as good education, and that people who have a naturally strong constitution often find it so hard to understand what life is like for those who do not. In my experience that is true, very true.

Mr. Sherren then asked whether my husband was writing any more novels, and I said that he had given novels up completely and wrote nothing but poetry. I went on to mention that I too was a writer, and that I had written several books for children. He was interested and wanted to know more, and of course I had to admit that they had been published a long while ago and that I had written scarcely anything in the past few years except for one or two magazine articles. My days (I said) are so taken up with domestic duties that I have very little time for writing on my own account, and even when I do have time, no energy. I have not written on my own account for a long time, except in my head. Nonetheless, once I have recovered my health, once I have truly recovered, I shall be able to write again. That is what I constantly tell myself, and what I told Mr. Sherren, who said he would be very interested indeed to read anything I wrote. He was certain that I would be able to write again. ‘If there is one thing that I have learnt about life,’ he said, ‘it is that it is never too late.’ There was something about the confidence with which he uttered those words that I found quite inspiring.

I did not tell Mr. Sherren that my husband does not like me to write, although that also is true. When we first met he encouraged me, but soon after we were married this came to an end, or so it seems to me. Indeed I have come to suspect that he despises my writing. He has never said as much, not in so many words, but I have not forgotten what happened over my ‘Book of Baby Beasts’. It was a book for young children, describing the characteristics and behaviour of a large number of infant creatures found in the English countryside, and at the start of each chapter there was a little poem, for all children love the sound of a poem as I know so well from my days as a school-mistress. I always did my best to encourage a love of poetry in my pupils, and every morning after saying prayers and taking the roll I used to read them a few verses. Even now I remember the hush in the class-room and their eager faces, listening intently, drinking in the words.

Many of the poems in the book were written by my husband, but there were five that I had written myself, among them one poem in particular I was very proud of, of which I was very proud (grammar is so important). It was about a hedgehog, Master Prickleback.

My name is Master Prickleback,

And when alarmed I have a knack

Of rolling in a ball

Quite snug and tight, my spines without,

And so if I am pushed about

I suffer not at all.

As I say I was very proud of this poem, which I thought and still think is as good as any of his poems in the book, and I remember that he said that it was very good. However, a year or more after we were married there was a very strange incident when I awoke in the night and heard what I believed to be a baby crying in the garden beneath the window. When the cry came again, I instantly jumped to the conclusion that some servant girl must have left a baby that I should be able to take in and bring up as my own. I had never had this idea before, but now it grew upon me with tremendous force, and I ran through to Thomas, who was asleep, and he rose promptly and together we went to the window. The night was still and warm, with half a moon, but the ground around the trees was all in dark shadow. ‘It is a pleasant night,’ he said, after a time. – ‘I heard it clearly,’ I said, for I thought that he did not believe me; ‘I promise you; I know I heard it. We must search the garden. I am going down. Thomas, I beg you, let us search the garden. I am not imagining it, I assure you. I am sure that there is a baby.’ He hesitated for a moment, and then perceiving my state of anxiety he turned and put on his dressing gown and slippers. Together we went down the stairs. The bolts on the back door sounded very loud as he pulled them back, and Wessie began to bark. I was afraid that he would wake the maids who would think that the house was being burgled and I rushed to let him out. We proceeded into the garden. I was barefoot. The dew was very heavy and silvery blue in the moonlight, and Wessie who was very excited to be out at such an hour raced to and fro. Dogs can smell so well in the dark. I heard the cry again near the vegetable garden; it now had a piteous, mewing quality. ‘There!’ I said. We walked towards it, and found two hedgehogs in the act of congress. Their journey towards each other could be traced by the paths in the dew. Wessie sniffed at them, whereupon they recoiled and curled into their defensive postures. I felt very foolish to have mistaken the cry of a hedgehog for that of a baby, and apologised very much, but he very kindly said that it was an easy enough mistake to make, that the sounds were not that dissimilar and that he might well have made the same mistake himself. Even so, I was so very distressed that it took me hours to get to sleep.

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.