Havisham: A Novel (15 page)

But I persisted.

Another inheritance he’d been depending on wasn’t going to come to him after all. His cousins were disputing the old man’s will.

(In
Young Werther
the very same situation had occurred. Goethe described the wear and tear on the soul, and because my head was still full of the book I wasn’t surprised by what he told me. Goethe’s art was to take perfectly from the life.)

He said he had accounts to settle.

I told him off the top of my head, I would lend him some money. I could do it without my father discovering.

‘No, Catherine –’

‘Whyever not?’

‘I couldn’t take it.’

‘I insist.’

I asked him how much he needed.

‘Won’t you want a little more?’

I suggested I double the amount.

He stared at me.

‘At last,’ I said, ‘Charles Compeyson is lost for words.’

*   *   *

Out of the others’ hearing, Moses asked me, ‘How did Sir Thomas put it?’

‘“Sir Thomas”?’

‘Browne.’

‘Oh.’

‘“Love is the foolishest act. Which dejects the wise man’s cooled imagination”.’

‘You’ll have to explain.’

‘Ah … You’re joking, I see.’

He started to laugh. I shook my head.

‘No, I
don’t
understand.’

After he had put his argument, I offered mine.

Love, I said, took no account of any rules or ordinances.

‘Your wretched Werther again?’

But really I was thinking of inflamed Dido.

‘The more foolish,’ I tagged on, ‘the more instinctive, the more natural … Then the better. Surely?’

It was hard for me to tell just what Moses thought of my response. He was going to reach into his pocket for his portable copy of Browne, but decided to leave it there. I had a feeling I’d lodged a stick very firmly in the spokes of his poetic wheel.

*   *   *

Our hermit, it transpired, was being obdurate. The not-so-saintly Nemo.

Thought he wanted a bit more
cash,
made him an offer, but he said it wasnt going to be enough. ‘Name your Price, then.’ He couldnt. I dont know what the reason is, but he’s not so green, our friend Mr N.

I set off to call at the hermitage. But when I had it in my sights, its occupant came into view, talking with W’m. Why W’m? I dodged behind a tree, not to be seen.

Afterwards I thought that W’m must have seen me, he was watching me so closely at the dinner table, just as he used to do.

We spoke about inconsequences.

Wasn’t there, though, an ironic curl to his lips? – as if he knew something about me I wouldn’t have wanted to be more widely known?

At Durley we had unexpected visitors, a party en route to the coast from London. Among them was the silver-haired man, Garrick’s double, who had hovered as silent witness outside the Temple of Thespis – called Calvert. And, with him, the woman I had once passed in a corridor who had seemed only half awake and yet, from under those heavy eyelids, had seemed to miss nothing. The two were now married.

Congratulations were offered to W’m, and Lucinda Osborne was put on display, to general disappointment and a deal of
Schadenfreude
.

I thought I would take advantage of their social activities to tackle the hermit again. Only steps away from his fastness I heard voices. Cries. The door was ajar. I went forward on tiptoe and looked in.

Two dishevelled bodies lay writhing on the floor.

His trousers were undone and his bare buttocks exposed.

Her dress and undergarments were hoisted high on her waist, and her legs were wide apart to admit him.

The pair gasped and moaned while he rode her like a wild thing. His buttocks thrashed and juddered as he plunged in and out of her.

It was W’m – and Mrs Calvert.

She let out a pained, ecstatic moan.

I stumbled back and fell against the door, which creaked. I rolled out over the threshold.

Outside I kept in motion. I started to run; I didn’t stop, didn’t look back, I ran on legs that seemed not to belong to me.

I continued running, back to Durley Chase, as fast as those legs would carry me.

T
WENTY
-
ONE

That evening I was invincible.

I chattered with our augmented company, I laughed, I argued for and I argued against, I continued to laugh, I regaled the troupe with Rochester tales, I ate my veal escalope heartily and diluted my wine with very little water, I charmed and I cajoled, I sent my laughter shooting up into the top left-hand corner of the frieze in the dining room, I devoured all the fragrance in the bowl of roses, I made faces at myself in the table silver, I imagined myself a beauty for our extended party and for a moment or two perhaps I deceived them as well, I couldn’t decide between syllabub and strawberry fritters and took both, I laughed as we ladies got to our feet and then I carelessly drifted from the room, I played a jaunty sarabande on the Broadwood and my fingers flew, I won a hand of vingt-et-un and a second of loo as I knew I must, I laughed as easily at my wit as all the others did, and all this time I betrayed nothing of myself. I let W’m see just what he had let go by him. I was even prevailed upon to sing.

‘You have such a pleasing voice, Catherine.’

‘Thank you, Lady Chadwyck.’

I sang while Mouse accompanied me, keeping me in tune. The song excused me.

‘I’ll sail upon the dog-star and then pursue the morning;

I’ll chase the moon till it be noon but I’ll make her leave her horning.’

My voice had never been more supple, or my pitch surer.

‘I’ll climb the frosty mountain, and there I’ll coin the weather;

I’ll tear the rainbow from the sky and tie both ends together.’

Afterwards, alas, came the fall. I didn’t appear next morning. I couldn’t move from my bed. I lay quite still, staring at the ceiling, like an effigy on a tomb.

Lost all my tender endeavours

To touch an insensible heart.

A maid tiptoed in and out. The housekeeper came and stood over me, and departed.

Sheba, then Mouse, asked if I was ill; answer came there none. I was lamenting my innocence, grieving for my naivety. W’m had caught me first.

Did you not see my love as he past by you?

His two flaming eyes, if he come nigh you,

They will scorch up your hearts.

I had allowed myself to be educated, so that I could be close to him. Any learning I acquired had been for his sake, to try to impress him. How little I had really known about the world’s ways.

Ladies, beware ye,

Lest he should dart a glance that may ensnare ye!

A tall, hawk-nosed man introduced himself as the family’s physician. He placed his hand on my brow and against my neck, before testing my pulse. He stood against the wall for a good while, and I sensed that all he did was watch me. Moses came to the door, asking after me.

‘My estimate would be, this is an upset of the spirits. Where the distracted mind goes, the body will soon follow suit.’

‘I shall tell the others. Lady Chadwyck is very anxious to know. I have a letter from her son addressed to you –
with
enclosure.’

‘Please thank him. Few deal with the practicalities in such brisk fashion.’

‘My cousin is quick, you’re quite right, and methodical when he wishes to be.’

W’m must have felt he had good reason to sweeten the physician.

I’ll lay me down –

How easy it was for me like this.

–
and die within some hollow tree.

I lay meanwhile on white feathers, layer upon layer, renouncing my folly.

The rav’n and cat,

The owl and bat

Shall warble forth my elegy.

I had flattered him with my attention, and perhaps because of it W’m had thought to ply his charms elsewhere.

Did I really think I might have been half in love with him? He and his friends were too sophisticated and too worldly for love. They sneered at it. I’d had to be rejected to know to look for love elsewhere, and to find it with another. The thing I had seen, at the hermitage, had been a hideous travesty. It had repelled me, but it fascinated me too. Now I couldn’t put the obscene picture out of my mind.

I reached for the bell pull, tugged on the cord. The maid came running. I told her to bring me water. I needed to be up, moving about, keeping occupied, busying myself. Or – or should I feel sorry for poor W’m, I wondered as the girl helped dress me: oughtn’t I to be pitying him for his ignorance of love?

In the mirror, I found myself again. Concentrating on my face, I worked on its colour. In front of me was someone who realised that this time at Durley Chase must draw to an end. The conclusion would come as it must, but the process had been accelerated within the past twenty-four hours.

At some point the name came up. We were sitting by ourselves, Sheba and Mouse and their mother, and Moses. Lady Chadwyck was talking about the London Set, who seemed to think that the county entertainments were laid on for
their
diversion. Now it was supposed that no event was complete without some representation from them. The Londoners in turn felt they could afford to be choosy about which events they attended.

‘Mr Calvert’s wife’ was mentioned as one of the habitual offenders. I looked up from my book. Sheba turned towards her mother, while all the time darting her needle into her tapestry canvas.

‘W’m isn’t here to speak up,’ Mouse said, blithely unaware. ‘I’m sure he would want to defend her.’

‘Your brother is a mere provincial to that grandee,’ Moses told her.

‘He says she has a false reputation.’

‘Reputation for what, Marianna?’ Lady Chadwyck asked. ‘Or –’ She hesitated. ‘Ought I not enquire?’

‘Who has
not
enquired!’ Mouse laughed, dealing the last of the cards for a game of piquet with me. ‘If that is how she wishes to spend her husband’s money, gadding about –’

‘She certainly keeps his name in circulation,’ Moses said. ‘That is one way of viewing her activities.’

At that very moment, at the word ‘activities’, Sheba caught my eye. I didn’t look away in time, and felt the skin on my face heating. I stared at the spread of twelve cards in my hand.

‘What is the matter, Isabella?’ Lady Chadwyck asked.

‘Nothing at all, mother,’ Sheba said.

‘Have you pricked your finger? Let me see what you’ve –’

‘Don’t concern yourself, please.’

It was clear to me now, as I prepared to exchange first on the baize, that I wasn’t the only one to know this family’s private shame. It felt not like a secret shared, however, but a secret twice hidden.

III

R
OCHESTER

T
WENTY
-
TWO

My father was found lying insensible across the desk in his office. He had collapsed.

A new doctor came and pumped out green bile. He told me as soon as I got back home, his heart had suffered, like last time, on account of his diseased lungs.

‘His lungs?’

‘I gather your father had no knowledge.’

‘He had a winter cough. And couldn’t shift it.’

‘You’ve been away, Miss Havisham?’

‘What can be done about it?’

‘You both must exercise forbearance.’

What did the man mean, ‘forbearance’?

‘He’ll recover?’

‘I…’

I begged him to tell me. Quite frankly.

‘His disease will kill him. Later I can give him opium, to dull his pain.’

*   *   *

My father aged quickly after that. Years in only weeks.

Those were his final weeks. I hated what I was witnessing.

Until this point I had seen him not just as he was but as a man who included all his younger selves which I remembered. A composite. Now I couldn’t mistake him for anyone except this grey and ashen invalid (when he was in bed) or this stooping and sullen man with whom I shared a house (when he was up on his feet, but shakily), who forgot not to break wind when I was there, who was preoccupied still with the brewery but who looked as if he longed for nothing more than to be done with it.

I would try to remind him that he shouldn’t exert himself. Clearly he thought it was extraneous advice; there was work to be done. Born a Havisham and reared a brewer, he had no choice in the matter, and who else to do his job if he didn’t?

*   *   *

Arthur returned, with a jackal’s timing.

My father asked to see him. Arthur alone.

‘If you might leave us for a little while, Catherine. Please.’

I stood guard outside the room. It wasn’t such a little while.

I went outdoors, into the garden to cool my cheeks.

When I came back in, Arthur passed me in the hall. No engineered collision this time. He was staring in front of him, he didn’t seem to notice me at all. His face was quite white, but he was wearing the widest grin I’d ever seen.

I discovered soon enough that my father had repented.

Mr Snee was summoned from London. The will was going to be altered.

My father wouldn’t discuss anything with me until the deed was done, until the new papers were signed and Mr Snee had gone on his way again.

Unequal shares, but Arthur’s restored inheritance would be a fortune enough.

*   *   *

My father had woken.

I was sitting by the bedside.

‘I don’t know why you did it, father.’

He didn’t reproach me for saying so; he didn’t even sigh.

‘One day,’ he said, ‘you may understand.’

‘I want to understand
now
.’

‘That’s my Catherine. Still proud, eh?’

I drew myself straighter in the chair.

He asked me, ‘Is it about the money?’

‘Of course not.’

‘You’ll still be a rich woman.’

‘I’m not interested in that.’

‘You think
you
have first entitlement?’

‘Arthur…’

‘He’s had a difficult start in life.’

‘He didn’t need to.’

‘You’d have preferred I was open about my marriage?’