The Well of Loneliness (2 page)

At about this time Stephen first became conscious of an urgent necessity to love. She adored her father, but that was quite different; he was part of herself, he had always been there, she could not envisage the world without him—it was other with Collins, the housemaid. Collins was what was called ‘second of three’; she might one day hope for promotion. Meanwhile she was florid, full-lipped and full-bosomed, rather ample indeed for a young girl of twenty, but her eyes were unusually blue and arresting, very pretty inquisitive eyes. Stephen had seen Collins sweeping the stairs for two years, and had passed her by quite unnoticed; but one morning, when Stephen was just over seven, Collins looked up and suddenly smiled, then all in a moment Stephen knew that she loved her—a staggering revelation!

Collins said politely: ‘Good morning, Miss Stephen.’

She had always said: ‘Good morning, Miss Stephen,’ but on this occasion it sounded alluring—so alluring that Stephen wanted to touch her, and extending a rather uncertain hand she started to stroke her sleeve.

Collins picked up the hand and stared at it. ‘Oh, my!’ she exclaimed, ‘what very dirty nails!’ Whereupon their owner flushed painfully crimson and dashed upstairs to repair them.

‘Put them scissors down this minute, Miss Stephen!’ came the nurse’s peremptory voice, while her charge was still busily engaged on her toilet.

But Stephen said firmly: ‘I’m cleaning my nails ‘cause Collins doesn’t like them—she says they’re dirty!’

‘What impudence!’ snapped the nurse, thoroughly annoyed. ‘I’ll thank her to mind her own business!’

Having finally secured the large cutting-out scissors, Mrs. Bingham went forth in search of the offender; she was not one to tolerate any interference with the dignity of her status. She found Collins still on the top flight of stairs, and forthwith she started to upbraid her: ‘putting her back in her place,’ the nurse called it; and she did it so thoroughly that in less than five minutes ‘the second-of-three’ had been told of every fault that was likely to preclude promotion.

Stephen stood still in the nursery doorway. She could feel her heart thumping against her side, thumping with anger and pity for Collins who was answering never a word. There she knelt mute, with her brush suspended, with her mouth slightly open and her eyes rather scared; and when at long last she did manage to speak, her voice sounded humble and frightened. She was timid by nature, and the nurse’s sharp tongue was a byword throughout the household.

Collins was saying: ‘Interfere with your child? Oh, no, Mrs. Bingham, never! I hope I knows my place better than that—Miss Stephen herself showed me them dirty nails; she said: “Collins, just look, aren’t my nails awful dirty!” And I said: “You must ask Nanny about that, Miss Stephen.” Is it likely that I’d interfere with your work? I’m not that sort, Mrs. Bingham.’

Oh, Collins, Collins, with those pretty blue eyes and that funny alluring smile! Stephen’s own eyes grew wide with amazement, then they clouded with sudden and disillusioned tears, for far worse than Collins’ poorness of spirit was the dreadful injustice of those lies—yet this very injustice seemed to draw her to Collins, since despising, she could still love her.

For the rest of that day Stephen brooded darkly over Collins’ unworthiness; and yet all through that day she still wanted Collins, and whenever she saw her she caught herself smiling, quite unable, in her turn, to muster the courage to frown her innate disapproval. And Collins smiled too, if the nurse was not looking, and she held up her plump red fingers, pointing to her nails and making a grimace at the nurse’s retreating figure. Watching her, Stephen felt unhappy and embarrassed, not so much for herself as for Collins; and this feeling increased, so that thinking about her made Stephen go hot down her spine.

In the evening, when Collins was laying the tea, Stephen managed to get her alone. ‘Collins,’ she whispered, ‘you told an untruth—I never showed you my dirty nails!’

‘Course not!’ murmured Collins, ‘but I had to say something—you didn’t mind, Miss Stephen, did you?’ And as Stephen looked doubtfully up into her face, Collins suddenly stooped and kissed her.

Stephen stood speechless from a sheer sense of joy, all her doubts swept completely away. At that moment she knew nothing but beauty and Collins, and the two were as one, and the one was Stephen—and yet not Stephen either, but something more vast, that the mind of seven years found no name for.

The nurse came in grumbling: ‘Now then, hurry up, Miss Stephen! Don’t stand there as though you were daft! Go and wash your face and hands before tea—how many times must I tell you the same thing?’

‘I don’t know—’ muttered Stephen. And indeed she did not; she knew nothing of such trifles at that moment.

2

From now on Stephen entered a completely new world, that turned on an axis of Collins. A world full of constant exciting adventures; of elation, of joy, of incredible sadness, but withal a fine place to be dashing about in like a moth who is courting a candle. Up and down went the days; they resembled a swing that soared high above the tree-tops, then dropped to the depths, but seldom if ever hung midway. And with them went Stephen, clinging to the swing, waking up in the mornings with a thrill of vague excitement—the sort of excitement that belonged by rights to birthdays, and Christmas, and a visit to the pantomime at Malvern. She would open her eyes and jump out of bed quickly, still too sleepy to remember why she felt so elated; but then would come memory—she would know that this day she was actually going to sec Collins. The thought would set her splashing in her sitz-bath, and tearing the buttons off her clothes in her haste, and cleaning her nails with such ruthlessness and vigour that she made them quite sore in the process.

She began to be very inattentive at her lessons, sucking her pencil, staring out of the window, or what was far worse, not listening at all, except for Collins’ footsteps. The nurse slapped her hands, and stood her in the corner, and deprived her of jam, but all to no purpose; for Stephen would smile, hugging closer her secret—it was worth being punished for Collins.

She grew restless and could not be induced to sit still even when her nurse read aloud. At one time she had very much liked being read to, especially from books that were all about heroes, but now such stories so stirred her ambition that she longed intensely to live them. She, Stephen, now longed to be William tell, or Nelson, or the whole Charge of Balaclava; and this led to much foraging in the nursery ragbag, much hunting up of garments once used for charades, much swagger and noise, much strutting and posing, and much staring into the mirror. There ensued a period of general confusion when the nursery looked as though smitten by an earthquake; when the chairs and the floor would be littered with oddments that Stephen had dug out but discarded. Once dressed, she would walk away grandly, waving the nurse peremptorily aside, going, as always, in search of Collins, who might have to be stalked to the basement.

Sometimes Collins would play up, especially to Nelson. ‘My, but you do look fine!’ she would exclaim. And then to the cook: ‘Do come here, Mrs. Wilson! Doesn’t Miss Stephen look exactly like a boy? I believe she must be a boy with them shoulders, and them funny gawky legs she’s got on her!’

And Stephen would say gravely: ‘Yes, of course I’m a boy. I’m young Nelson, and I’m saying: “What is fear?” you know, Collins—I must be a boy, ‘cause I feel exactly like one, I feel like young Nelson in the picture upstairs.’

Collins would laugh and so would Mrs. Wilson, and after Stephen had gone they would get talking, and Collins might say: ‘She is a queer kid, always dressing herself up and play-acting—it’s funny.’

But Mrs. Wilson might show disapproval: ‘I don’t hold with such nonsense, not for a young lady. Miss Stephen’s quite different from other young ladies—she’s got none of their pretty little ways—it’s a pity!’

There were times, however, when Collins seemed sulky, when Stephen could dress up as Nelson in vain. ‘Now, don’t bother me, Miss, I’ve got my work to see to!’ or: ‘You go and show Nurse—yes, I know you’re a boy, but I’ve got my work to get on with. Run away.’

And Stephen must slink upstairs thoroughly deflated, strangely unhappy and exceedingly humble, and must tear off the clothes she so dearly loved donning, to replace them by the garments she hated. How she hated soft dresses and sashes, and ribbons, and small coral beads, and openwork stockings! Her legs felt so free and comfortable in breeches; she adored pockets, too, and these were forbidden—at least really adequate pockets. She would gloom about the nursery because Collins had snubbed her, because she was conscious of feeling all wrong, because she so longed to be someone quite real, instead of just Stephen pretending to be Nelson. In a quick fit of anger she would go to the cupboard, and getting out her dolls would begin to torment them. She had always despised the idiotic creatures which, however, arrived with each Christmas and birthday.

‘I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!’ she would mutter, thumping their innocuous faces.

But one day, when Collins had been crosser than usual, she seemed to be filled with a sudden contrition. ‘It’s me housemaid’s knee,’ she confided to Stephen. ‘It’s not you, it’s me, housemaid’s knee, dearie.’

‘Is that dangerous?’ demanded the child, looking frightened.

Then Collins, true to her class, said: ‘It may be—it may mean an ‘orrible operation, and I don’t want no operation.’

‘What’s that?’ inquired Stephen.

‘Why, they’d cut me,’ moaned Collins; ‘they’d ‘ave to cut me to let out the water.’

‘Oh, Collins! What water?’

‘The water in me kneecap—you can see if you press it, Miss Stephen.’

They were standing alone in the spacious night-nursery, where Collins was limply making the bed. It was one of those rare and delicious occasions when Stephen could converse with her goddess undisturbed, for the nurse had gone out to post a letter. Collins rolled down a coarse woollen stocking and displayed the afflicted member; it was blotchy and swollen and far from attractive, but Stephen’s eyes filled with quick, anxious tears as she touched the knee with her finger.

‘There now!’ exclaimed Collins. ‘See that dent? That’s the water!’ And she added: ‘It’s so painful it fair makes me sick. It all comes from polishing them floors, Miss Stephen; I didn’t ought to polish them floors.’

Stephen said gravely: ‘I do wish I’d got it—I wish I’d got your housemaid’s knee, Collins, ‘cause that way I could bear it instead of you. I’d like to be awfully hurt for you, Collins, the way Jesus was hurt for sinners. Suppose I pray hard, don’t you think I might catch it? Or supposing I rub my knee against yours?’

‘Lord bless you!’ laughed Collins, ‘it’s not like the measles; no, Miss Stephen, it’s caught from them floors.’

That evening Stephen became rather pensive, and she turned to the Child’s Book of Scripture Stories and she studied the picture of the Lord on His Cross, and she felt that she understood Him. She had often been rather puzzled about Him, since she herself was fearful of pain—when she barked her shins on the gravel in the garden, it was not always easy to keep back her tears—and yet Jesus had chosen to bear pain for sinners, when He might have called up all those angels! Oh, yes, she had wondered a great deal about Him, but now she no longer wondered.

At bedtime, when her mother came to hear her say her prayers—as custom demanded—Stephen’s prayers lacked conviction. But when Anna kissed her and had turned out the light, then it was that Stephen prayed in good earnest—with such fervour, indeed, that she dripped perspiration in a veritable orgy of prayer.

‘Please, Jesus, give me a housemaid’s knee instead of Collins—do, do, Lord Jesus. Please Jesus, I would like to bear all Collins’ pain the way You did, and I don’t want any angels! I would like to wash Collins in my blood, Lord Jesus—I would like very much to be a Saviour to Collins—I love her, and I want to be hurt like You were; please, dear Lord Jesus, do let me. Please give me a knee that’s all full of water, so that I can have Collins’ operation. I want to have it instead of her, ‘cause she’s frightened—I’m not a bit frightened!’

This petition she repeated until she fell asleep, to dream that in some queer way she was Jesus, and that Collins was kneeling and kissing her hand, because she, Stephen, had managed to cure her by cutting off her knee with a bone paper-knife and grafting it on to her own. The dream was a mixture of rapture and discomfort, and it stayed quite a long time with Stephen.

The next morning she awoke with the feeling of elation that comes only in moments of perfect faith. But a close examination of her knees in the bath revealed them to be flawless except for old scars and a crisp, brown scab from a recent tumble—this, of course, was very disappointing. She picked off the scab, and that hurt her a little, but not, she felt sure, like a real housemaid’s knee. However, she decided to continue in prayer, and not to be too easily downhearted.

For more than three weeks she sweated and prayed, and pestered poor Collins with endless daily questions: ‘Is your knee better yet?’ ‘Don’t you think my knee’s swollen?’ ‘Have you faith? ‘Cause I have—’ ‘Does it hurt you less, Collins?’

But Collins would always reply in the same way: ‘It’s no better, thank you, Miss Stephen.’

At the end of the fourth week, Stephen suddenly stopped praying, and she said to Our Lord: ‘You don’t love Collins, Jesus, but I do, and I’m going to get housemaid’s knee. You see if I don’t!’ Then she felt rather frightened, and added more humbly: ‘I mean, I do want to—You don’t mind, do You, Lord Jesus?’

The nursery floor was covered with carpet, which was obviously rather unfortunate for Stephen; had it only been parquet like the drawing-room and study, she felt it would better have served her purpose. All the same it was hard if she knelt long enough—it was so hard, indeed, that she had to grit her teeth if she stayed on her knees for more than twenty minutes. This was much worse than barking one’s shins in the garden; it was much worse even than picking off a scab! Nelson helped her a little. She would think: ‘Now I’m Nelson. I’m in the middle of thee Battle of Trafalgar—I’ve got shots in my knees.’ But then she would remember that Nelson had been spared such torment. However, it was really rather fine to be suffering—it certainly seemed to bring Collins much nearer; it seemed to make Stephen feel that she owned her by right of this diligent pain.