The Asylum (24 page)

When she had finished, we changed places, but the change in the mirror was scarcely perceptible, which made the sensation all the more dreamlike. I had not done this since my mother died, and I had forgotten the intimacy of it: the soft tug and crackle of the brush, the warm scent rising from her hair. After a little, her eyelids drooped, and then closed, but small responsive movements of her head, and the smile that played about her lips, told me that she was not asleep.

At last I set the brush aside. Lucia rose to her feet and embraced me, murmuring, “I did not realise how lonely I have been.” She went over to the bed and settled herself in it like a child, her faced turned toward the light. I left one candle burning and slipped in beside her so that we were face to face, each with an arm around the other. Her eyes closed again; within five minutes she was fast asleep, but I kept myself awake for a long time, feeling the soft rise and fall of her breast against mine, her breath stirring my hair. This, I thought, is what people must mean by wedded bliss. But would it be the same with a man? I remembered the bull-calf in the field, and my aunt saying, “Same with humans—never cared for the idea myself.” Most novels ended in wedded bliss, but novelists never mentioned the bull-calf. I had always imagined something rough and clumsy and painful; now, bathed in the warmth of Lucia’s body, I knew that this was everything I had hungered for, safe within the circle of my arms.

I would happily have stayed awake all night, but sleep at last overcame me, until I woke in darkness to feel Lucia, now lying with her back to me, struggling in the grip of a nightmare. Her voice rose to a shriek; for a moment she fought to push my arm away, then turned, shivering, into my embrace. “Hush, Lucia, hush,” I murmured. “You are safe now.” I stroked her hair and drew her close, and felt the answering pressure of her lips before her breathing slowed and settled again. Again I strove to keep awake, breathing the scent of her hair and picturing our life together, in a cottage by the sea . . . Uncle Josiah had managed perfectly well before I came here and could surely do so again . . . perhaps at Nettleford?—we must visit, at least, and see the house where I was born . . . or on the Isle of Wight, though not so close to the cliff this time . . .

I woke to grey twilight and the smell of guttered candlewax, alone with the fear that Lucia had been nothing but a dream. Springing out of bed, with my heart pounding wildly, I ran to my sitting room. There was no trace of Lucia; except for my nightgown, neatly folded on the end of the sofa. And I had not even asked her the name of her hotel . . . I sank down upon the sofa, pressing the gown to my face. Out of it fluttered a slip of paper, on which was written in faint pencil, in a hand not unlike my own:
“A thousand thanks—I did not want to wake you. I shall come to the shop this afternoon. L.”

Persuading Uncle Josiah proved even harder than I anticipated. I cornered him at breakfast, as I had promised, even though I was more than half afraid that Lucia would change her mind about staying—assuming she had not vanished like a fairy. But, I told myself, if she does still want to stay and I have not spoken to him, she may think that I do not really want her to. And so I steeled myself to interrupt—he was intent on a catalogue that had just arrived in the post—by asking if he had liked Miss Ardent.

“Yes, my dear,” he said without looking up, “a charming young lady.”

“I am delighted you think so, Uncle, because she is coming to stay with us.”

He set down his magnifying glass and peered at me in absolute bewilderment.

“I don’t understand.”

“Miss Ardent is coming to stay with us,” I repeated. “In the spare bedroom, upstairs.”

“But, Georgina, you cannot be serious. It is out of the question; we cannot have people staying here.”

“Why not, Uncle?”

“Why not? The expense, the inconvenience, the . . .” He threw up his hands in a helpless gesture. I had thought, watching him at dinner with Lucia the night before, how much frailer he had grown in the year I had lived with him. His skull was now entirely bare; even his drooping white moustache seemed thinner. My heart smote me, but I would not be put off.

“There will be no expense, Uncle; Lucia will contribute fifteen shillings a week, just as I do, which is more than enough to pay for her keep.”

The last part, at least, was true; I had resolved to pay him myself, without telling her. It would leave me less than ten shillings a week, but I did not care.

“And there will be no inconvenience, either; Lucia will help in the shop, when she can, and we will take our meals upstairs in my sitting room, so that you can read at table in peace, without being disturbed by our chatter.”

“Well—I shall think about it,” he said, folding his catalogue.

“No, Uncle, we must decide now. She is staying in a hotel, and she needs a home.”

“Mrs. Eddowes will not like it—she will complain.”

“I will deal with Mrs. Eddowes,” I said, realising to my surprise that I meant it.

“But, but—we know nothing about Miss Ardent.”

“I know already that she is my dearest friend,” I said firmly. “She and I have a great deal in common.”

“No, no, no; I really cannot allow it. The inconvenience has already begun; I was very surprised, Georgina, to find the shop closed when I returned from yesterday’s sale. If you are going to be gadding about with Miss Ardent when you should be minding the shop . . . and now I must get on.”

“Uncle,” I said breathlessly, “if you will not allow Lucia to stay, then I must leave your house. I shall always be grateful to you for taking me in, but I have been very unhappy, and desperately lonely here, and without Lucia’s company, I can bear it no longer.”

He sank back into his chair, with one hand pressed against his heart.

“But, Georgina, what has possessed you? I had no idea you were unhappy. If you wished to take an afternoon off, you had only to say so. How will I manage without you? The orders . . . the parcels! How will I ever get out to a sale?”

He looked and sounded so feeble that I feared he might collapse on the spot. If he does, I thought, I will be wholly to blame: I encouraged him to dismiss the boy,
and I insisted upon helping in the shop; of course he has grown to depend upon me. But the thought of Lucia spurred me onward.

“You managed perfectly well before, Uncle. We can easily find you someone else to do the parcels and mind the shop.”

“But he would want to be paid! I cannot afford the expense!”

“In that case, Uncle, you have only to agree that Lucia may live with us.”

“Oh very well, very well, if you insist. But it is really most . . . most inconvenient.”

“You will not be inconvenienced in the slightest, Uncle. Everything will be exactly the same.”

“I do not see how, but I suppose I must put up with it.”

He rose unsteadily to his feet and shuffled out of the room, leaving me shaken by my own boldness and wondering if I had grown callous and hard-hearted.

Thursday, 12 October

It is after midnight. Lucia is (or so I imagine) asleep in her room, which is already quite transformed; it is such a delight to have her here, and I know that she shares my feeling. Such a contrast to yesterday: Uncle was wounded and huffish all morning; then, as the afternoon dragged on and still Lucia did not return, I paced about the empty shop like a caged animal, imagining all sorts of catastrophes.

When at last she appeared in the doorway, I confess I shed tears of joy, and then felt very ashamed of myself: she had woken very early and did not want to disturb me. She had been walking and thinking all day, she said, reliving her life as if it were someone else’s. Charlotte and I had aired her room and made up the bed, but she chose to spend one more night in the hotel, “to prove to myself that I am not afraid to be alone,” she said, “now that I know I don’t have to be.” I spent the evening composing a letter to Mr. Lovell, and tossed and turned most of the night . . . but she is here now, and safe, and that is all that matters.

Wednesday, 18 October

It is only a week since Lucia appeared in the shop, and already I cannot imagine life without her. The likeness astonishes me more every day. Uncle cannot tell us apart, and nor, I think, can Mrs. Eddowes; not that she would care. Lucia wears my clothes, having so few of her own apart from the gorgeous peacock gown; she is having two new dresses made in the same pattern as my own. When I teased her about it, she smiled and said, “Yes, I am a chameleon; I take on the colour of my surroundings.” We often wonder whether our mothers resembled each other as closely as we do, but without so much as a miniature between us, we can only speculate. Lucia is always constrained when she talks of “Mama”—the mother she remembers—whereas she will speculate freely about “Rosina,” as if they were quite separate beings. She finds my childhood inexhaustibly fascinating, and steers the conversation back to me at every opportunity. Mr. Lovell has not yet replied, so we have nothing more to go upon.

Uncle is still being huffish and put upon with me (or with Lucia, when he confuses us—she takes it in very good part). I should never have promised him that everything would stay the same. He sighs ostentatiously at the smallest change to his routine, and reminds me at least twice a day that he is far too old to manage without me. I had selfishly imagined that Lucia and I would look after the shop together, but she prefers to walk alone in the afternoons. She is very tactful about it, but I can tell that she craves solitude in which to reflect. “It is like remembering two different lives at once,” she said yesterday, “and wondering which of them is mine,” but she will not be drawn beyond generalities.

I worry about her wandering the city alone, with very little idea of where her feet are carrying her; she insists that she is not afraid of Thomas Wentworth—or anybody—but is she simply putting on a brave show for my sake? I cannot tell. I suspect she broods, as I would surely do in her place, over the dark strain in the Mordaunt blood, and whether it runs in her veins, but of course I dare not speak of that in case I am mistaken. Sometimes, when her face is shadowed, a chill comes over me, and I fear she would have been happier if we had never met.

I understand completely why she needs this time alone; yet I long to be of more comfort to her: I would happily spend every waking—and sleeping—minute beside her. Every smile, every caress, every kiss, is precious to me: friends and cousins in novels are always kissing and embracing, but every evening—the time I most look forward to—when we embrace and say good night, I long to say, Come to bed with me, and let me hold you as I did that first night.

On Sunday I summoned the courage to say, “Lucia, I know you suffer from nightmares; why don’t you stay with me, and then I can comfort you?” She smiled and caressed me, and seemed to hesitate before she replied, “Thank you, dearest cousin, but I’m sure I shall sleep soundly tonight.” I am afraid to ask her again, in case she should think—I am not even sure what. Is it wrong of me to feel as I do? Am I like Narcissus, falling in love with my own reflection?

Thursday, 19 October

Today, for once, Uncle Josiah did not go out; he was expecting one of his oldest clients, and said I might take the afternoon off. Lucia, to my delight, insisted that I accompany her. We walked up to Regent’s Park, arm in arm, and wandered around until we came upon a little grotto with a seat inside, just out of sight of the path. This, surely, was where Rosina and Felix Mordaunt had sat and talked. There was even a coffee stall nearby, kept by a wizened old man who said he had been there twenty-seven years, perhaps the very same one; it was like being served by a ghost.

We took our tea back to the grotto and sat down on the bench, which was only just wide enough for two. Our shoulders were touching; I took my cup in my left hand so as not to jostle Lucia, and edged a little closer to her, until it came to me that this was how Rosina must have felt, sitting in this exact spot, with Felix Mordaunt beside her.

“Have you ever been in love, Georgina?” said Lucia, as if she had read my thought.

I started, almost spilling my tea, and blushed.

“Not before—I mean, no, no, I haven’t.”

“But do you think about marriage—do you long to be married, to have children?”

“I don’t think I do, no. I—I don’t think I have a very high opinion of men. Our little household at Niton seemed very complete, even after Mama died. I knew when I was older that there was
something
I yearned for, and I vaguely assumed it must be marriage, but I have never met—never even seen a man I could imagine marrying. As for children, I know that I am supposed to long for them, but I don’t think I actually do; I can’t even imagine what it would feel like. I feel—I feel entirely content, sitting here with you.”

I felt myself blushing even more.

“And you, Lucia?”

“Oh, I have fancied myself in love with various young men, but like you, I could never imagine marrying any of them. And I am accustomed to freedom, to making my own way in the world; I will not surrender that lightly. I wish I could live many lives, and be many different people; I should like to know what it feels like to be rich, to go to wonderful balls and banquets, and wear extravagant clothes, and be admired by everybody; but only for the experience: to walk on stage, so to speak, with the cream of society, play my part to perfection, and slip away again. Perhaps we shall do such things together, one day; it is what fascinates me about being an actress. But the theatre is so artificial, so mannered; I should love to be an actress in real life. The secret of acting, I feel sure, is to become the person you mean to play; not simply
pretend
to be them, but to cast off your usual self as completely as you shed one costume and put on another.”

“It sounds fascinating, but I have no talent for acting.”

“I am sure you have. Your uncle is always saying he could not manage without you; let us prove him wrong by changing places for a day. I will be you, and do the parcels and mind the shop; you shall wear my peacock blue, and I shall make up your face a little—in the most delicate fashion—and I will wager that even Charlotte will not realise what we have done.”