Valhalla, p.27
Valhalla, page 27
It is long since evening by the time she reaches White Lodge. As the carriage rolls across the dripping park, she looks as always for the first sight of the friendly lights of its windows, but tonight there are none. The shutters are closed, the curtains drawn firmly against the night. Still, she has never been so glad to see the portico loom up out of the darkness. Tonight she would have crawled on her hands and knees to reach it.
Beneath the lamp in the porch, the black-clad figures wait to greet her. Her parents and Madame Bricka are pleased to see her as always. Their lives, since she left them, are the ghosts of what they once were. But they are surprised by her arrival too and do not hide it. They have prepared the large room in which she gave birth to the little prince, but she asks instead for her childhood room high above the park. In fact she insists upon it, she says. She will make up the bed herself if she has to.
At supper, she eats nothing beyond a little soup and bread. She makes the excuse that her tummy is not yet recovered from the birth. The conversation is on one topic. The Duchess sheds many tears. Does May remember that wonderful day on his yacht? When darling Liko let her take the wheel? What fun it was. How they will all miss him. What a tragedy! Yet her mother’s tears are unremarked upon because they are unremarkable. Mary Adelaide cries at the sight of a fallow deer with a limp. How May Teck yearns for that same release, except that hers would shake the old walls of White Lodge, loosen it from its foundations and set it adrift on a sea of scandal and sensation. She catches Madame Bricka watching her. Bricka knows her far better than the Duchess ever has. And Bricka, she is quite certain, is not fooled by dry eyes.
‘It is wonderful to see you, Princesse,’ she says, ‘but why today? And in such sad circumstances.’
‘Do I need a reason to return?’ May replies. ‘I just had a great ache to see you all and to sleep tonight in my old home, in my dear old bed.’
And so she does. And indeed it brings her comfort. When the house is stilled and silent, she stands in her nightgown at the window. The rain has cleared away now and the winter moon shines a pale wash of light over the park. She hears an owl in the big crumbling oak just beyond the garden gates. A little way down Queen’s Ride, a shadowy shape moves from the cover of the bracken. It stops right in the middle of the bridle path and stares up at the house. Is it a man? A poacher? Then the moonlight catches the tips of the antlers as it shakes its great head. Does it see her at her window? Is that why it stops? It stands stock still for a minute, watching the house, then paws the ground a few times and canters off down the slope till it dissolves into the trees. She wonders why it is not asleep in the woods with the rest of its herd. Why is it pacing the night? Has something dreadful befallen it too? Does it hardly know which way to turn? Does it seem to it that all hope is gone and that nothing fine will ever happen again?
The fire in the grate is dying and a chill comes on the room. Without drawing the curtains, she melts into her little bed. Through the long hours, she lies and watches the light of the moon creep slowly across the dressing table, the wardrobe, the small bedroom chairs, the framed photographs on the shelf. She runs her fingertips over the dips and lumps of the mattress; every one familiar. The bed seems smaller now or perhaps she has simply outgrown it. How wonderful it would be to shrink down, like Alice, and feel the bed grow bigger and bigger until she is lost in the vast expanse of it, no bigger than a piece of fluff on the blanket which nobody will ever notice is there.
She aches to sleep but is afraid of it too. What pictures will come to her? The happy ones in which she herself will feature? Or the others, all the more awful for being imagined: the day he first shivers under a tropical sun, the tiny, fetid cabin on an unknown ship, the moment he knows he will never come home? In the event, when a brief oblivion does come, there are no pictures at all. Just an overwhelming, blessed darkness.
When Pilgrim brings her tea in the early morning, May wonders if the girl can tell, if she can see straight through even the most careful disguise. After all, Pilgrim already knows about death. May need not wonder long. The girl is nearly silent, but her eyes speak. When she passes May the tea cup, there is the slightest of pressures from her hand.
‘I see you’ve not brought much with you Ma’am,’ she says. ‘Will more of your things be coming out from St James’s?’
‘I’ve not thought about it. I came in a hurry.’
‘There are some of your old dresses still in the wardrobe here. Her Grace says she can’t bear to part with them. Shall I choose one for you?’
‘But it must be black. I shall just wear yesterday’s again.’
After a clear night, the drizzle is speckling the window again. Her legs feel like an elephant has slept on them all night long. When she tries to rise from the bed, she sags back down upon it. She drinks the tea and nibbles at the biscuit in the saucer, then puts on her robe and sits at the mirror. She looks ghastly; her eyes puffy, her skin pale but clammy to the touch. She must take a warm bath, throw cold water onto her face and then go down to breakfast. The thought of it is grim, but it will be done. And then what? The necessary letters must be written to Aunt Queen and, obviously, to Beatrice. My God, what will she write to Beatrice?
On her way to the bathroom, with little thought, she opens the door of the wardrobe to see which of her young dresses her sentimental Mama has kept. And then she sees it. The surprise takes her breath away. She grips a chair to steady herself. It is the scarlet dress from the tableau vivant. How in heaven’s name did it get here? It seems like an intruder from another world, a time and place of blinding happiness. It is the dress before which Liko had bowed down and spread his cloak in the mud. The dress she had worn when, for a minute or two, she was Gloriana and she had been worshipped.
She lifts it down from the rail. The scent of the perfume she had used on that summer evening clings faintly to the fabric. She holds the gown against her body and stands before the long mirror. In doing so, she is ruined. All hope of containment is gone. May Teck, the good, sensible girl, is no more.
The scarlet dress falls from her grasp. She staggers from the room, down the servants’ stairs and out into the feeble daylight of the garden. She does not see where she is heading. She merely runs, as fast as her leaden legs will allow. She unlocks the garden gates and stumbles out into the park. It is cold, but she does not feel it. It is wet, but she does not notice. All she wants is to run. The hems of her robe and the nightgown underneath are soon sodden from the grass and torn on the bracken. Her slippers turn to a velvety mush. Her hair, loose on her shoulders, is weaved by the hated wind into rats’ tails. Yet still she runs, down the long grassy slope towards Pen Ponds, shouting curses at God. Only here does she stop, the water’s edge a barrier around which she has no more energy to struggle. She is gasping for air, her breasts heaving against the drenched, thin fabric of her robe, her eyes no longer wet, but wide open as if in disbelief at what is happening to her.
Now she wonders if the water is truly a barrier? Might it not be a portal? The ponds are bordered all around by a jungle of reeds but, here and there, are small patches of sandy ground, where fishermen throw out their lines and her brothers once launched rowing boats in the summer to reach the tiny islands in the middle. On one of these patches, May Teck now finds herself. The water is dark, almost black; the breeze scalloping the surface, wavelets breaking against the banks. It is shallow, she knows that; yet it is deep enough. As the thought crosses her mind, she begins to weep again at the very horror of it. Then the shivers invade her. Just as he must have done when the illness first took him into its grip. Oh how cold she feels. Could the black water in front of her be that much worse?
Among the long grasses that fringe the water, the mandarin ducks take shelter from the weather. Now one or two begin to squawk and soon, like a chorus, it seems as if a hundred of them join in. The cacophony throbs in May’s head as the tears spill down her face. At first, in the maelstrom of her mind, she does not notice the other noises trying to push their way in. Voices are calling her; distant at first, then ever closer. As she rocks backwards and forwards on her feet, she does not bother to turn and look. Then, suddenly, arms are round her; a thick cloak is draped across her shoulders, frightened eyes look into hers, wanting to comprehend. Madame Bricka and Pilgrim try to pull her back from the edge of the pond on to firmer ground, but she pushes them away. The gesture alarms them even more, because now they understand all too well.
Madame Bricka, stout and winded from running, takes a few steps back. She stands as still as she did on that day long gone when she had bearded the stag. Now she uses that stillness, not to repel but to embrace. She opens her arms wide.
‘Princesse, viens a moi.’
At first, May Teck does not budge. Then, slowly, quivering like an aspen, she steps back from the water and falls into the strong, enfolding shelter.
Step by slow step, the tutor and the little maid half carry May Teck back up the grassy slope to the house. Her mother, pacing to and fro at the garden gates, hurries out to meet them. The first flush of relief on the nectarine cheeks pales at close sight of her child. The daughter who has given her everything of which she dreamed. Gloriana in waiting.
‘Oh May,’ she cries. ‘What have we done to you?
XXXVII
Winter, 1896
It never happened. It never happened at all. By now, the wind and rain have obliterated the footprints in the sand at the water’s edge and on the grassy slope. The garden gates are firmly locked again. If any servant caught a glimpse from an upper window or through a half-open door, he or she will never say. They will whisper of it among themselves of course. They will remember till their dying day the time the daughter of this noble house was smuggled back to her room like some broken doll. But they will never breathe a word beyond these walls.
In the room itself, the tutor and the maid dry and warm her and ease her gently into the little bed. There is much fussing and flapping. Her parents are almost hysterical. The local doctor must be sent for, cries the Duchess. Heavens above, it is less than six weeks since she gave birth. The Duke keeps rambling about poor Queen Jane. One motherless prince was bad enough back then, but might there now be two? And then he laughs, as he so often does these days, without reason and at the most inappropriate moments.
The doctor, a blunt old cove who has seen everything, tells them all to calm down. May Teck, he says, is of strong stock. You’ve only got to look at her. Strong, sweet tea and a few hours’ sleep is the only medicine required. For everyone else, he prescribes a large brandy and gets back into his carriage. He too can be trusted; his practice built on their patronage. When his wife asks tonight what took him to White Lodge, he will simply grunt that it was woman’s trouble. That’s all. Nothing of importance.
The old cove is right, though. In a few hours, May Teck finds herself again, or at least enough of herself to function. In truth, it is the fussing and the flapping of her parents that quietens her. She has been used to their melodramas all of her life, and if she is calm, they become so too. Such is the way of it. Thus the house in the park settles again. As usual, the rooms are dusted and swept. The dogs are walked and the horses exercised up and down Queen’s Ride. Letters and invitations are answered and the demands of the Needlework Guild not entirely neglected. In the kitchens, the cook is chopping the heads off chickens. It must be a faultless meal tonight. Their princess’s husband is coming to dine then take her back to the old palace. They know too well what a stickler he is. More than once, he has sent dishes back. A pain in the arse, says the cook under her breath.
A telegram arrived from Norfolk late last night after May had trudged up to bed. Her hand trembling a little, the Duchess opened it though it was addressed to her daughter. ‘What on earth is going on?’ the telegram asked gruffly. Was his wife there? Was somebody else dying? He would arrive tomorrow evening in time for an early dinner. Afterwards, they would both return to St James’s.
While May Teck flits in and out of sleep, Madame Bricka slips into the room to watch over her. How good it is, when she opens her eyes, to see dear old Bricka sitting by the fire, book in hand. May reads less now than she did in the old days down in the white sitting room. It seems to her she does everything less now. Lives life less. Except of course in the losing of her heart.
Madame Bricka comes and sits on the bed and strokes May’s cheek with her fingertip, in that strange way of hers.
‘I wish you would stay here for a while,’ says Madame Bricka. ‘Until your spirits are a little better.’
‘I must go back with him tonight. I have no choice.’
‘Well. I warned you, remember? In the great chapel at Windsor, before you were married. Be careful what you wish for.’
‘I told you there was something else I wished for too,’ replies May. ‘That I wanted the chance to feel love? Well I got that after all. It just wasn’t where I expected it to be.’
‘And I wanted it too, remember?’ says Madame Bricka. ‘At least you found it. Even for a while. At least you know what it’s like.’
‘And I know too that it is in me. The ability to love. I’d been so afraid that it wasn’t.’
‘Then do you think you can learn to re-direct it? To the place it is supposed to go?’
May turns her head away, gazes into the flames of the fire.
‘I don’t know. Not yet, I think. In time perhaps.’
Madame Bricka flares her nostrils like an angry horse.
‘How feeble they are, these men,’ she snorts. ‘Yet husbands expect wives to see them as gods, do they not? Your problem, ma pauvre, is that you’ve married a man whom half the world will one day believe to actually be one. And what pray, is the solution to that dilemma?’
‘Oh shut up, Bricka dear, and give me a cigarette.’
For a while, they sit smoking quietly together as they have done so many times, their breathing almost as one.
‘I could never bow down to any man,’ says Madame Bricka. ‘Never accept that he is intrinsically better than me. Just couldn’t do it and that’s that. Which is why I’m a spinster lady working as a secretary in somebody else’s house, instead of having my own.’
‘And was that the right decision?’
‘For me, yes,’ replies Madame Bricka. ‘Except for the children of course. I’ve come to realise what I have missed. The little prince has taught me that. I was quite wrong about the children.’
May Teck feels the familiar pulse of guilt. She turns away again and looks out through the window at the tops of the old oaks, each one as familiar as the fingers of her hand.
But Bricka is right about men, she thinks. All May’s life, she has been surrounded by fragile men and valiant women.
But Liko did not conform to the pattern. He whom the other men looked down upon. The puppy-dog clinging to his wife’s skirts. The master of the revels. Liko, suffocated by the life he led, was still stronger than any of them. Because, despite it all, he managed to do what Georgie had once told her none of their kind could ever achieve. To stay themselves. To hold on to whatever was their essence. Liko had managed it through his love for his children, his affection for his uninspiring wife, through the joy he found in guiding his boat across the wildest waves and safely into harbour. And had he, May wondered, in the crumbs of time they had spent together, also found fragments of himself in what he had felt for her? Had she given him that at least?
Again she pictures, as she so often does, the box at the theatre. When his hand had enclosed hers, when she did not return the pressure and so it slipped away. In the long procession of years to come, she will not forget the slipping away of the hand. The nothingness that it left behind in her. It will come back to her at the oddest moments when she believes herself contented enough; on a day when the sun is shining, when the newspapers have said something nice about her or she has been given some pretty new trinket to add to her countless collections of objects. Like a sickness once believed cured, it will strike again with double its force.
Now, in her old bedroom, she turns her face back into the pillow. Madame Bricka kisses the top of her head.
‘Hush now, Princesse,’ she whispers. ‘You will survive this. I know you will. I’ve told you before, you are the best of all my precious girls, of all my half-children. Always the best of them.’
Madame Bricka throws on a few more coals on the fire. The rain is coming down again.
‘Would you like me to read to you a little? Shall we journey into Barsetshire for a while?’
‘No, not now. I don’t think the books will work today.’
When May wakes again, the January afternoon is giving way to dusk and the room has darkened. A figure still sits by the fire, but it is her mother now, half asleep, the embroidery drooping from her fingers.
Not for the first time, May thinks how old and tired Mary Adelaide has become. Twice or thrice now, and without warning, she has fainted clean away. She has even lost some weight. Like a slow puncture on a bicycle, the ebullience seems to be leaving Fat Mary. The thing she wanted most from this life was given to her. Is the price to be paid that there is no longer any point to it?
May uncurls herself from the little bed and kneels down by the fire. She takes the embroidery from the wrinkled fingers and gently rests her cheek against her mother’s knee. A hand stirs and softly strokes May’s head.
‘I’m sorry chick. I didn’t realise how much you would feel the loss.’
‘I rather think you did, Mama,’ she replies, looking up now into her mother’s face.
Mary Adelaide avoids her eyes, glancing nervously at the door, as if the entire household might have its ear to the keyhole. She leans close in towards the child in her lap.
‘Dear God May, you will hold the highest position there is,’ she whispers. ‘I pray that nothing…’
