Part 15 (1/2)

'Even Daisy might have done wrong,' I say.

'In principle, no doubt.' He smiles. 'We are all born sinners, after all. But, in truth, what sins could you have committed when you were what? Ten? Eleven? Cross words, perhaps? Little untruths, or failure to say your prayers? Well, I forgive you those, if you need forgiving.'

It's as if I am calling to him from a distant sh.o.r.e in a language he doesn't understand. I have to persist, though. I take his hand in mine. 'Robert, supposing just for a moment that I had committed sins that were much worse than you imagine? Sins that are preventing me being a proper wife to you?'

'I'd forgive you, of course.' It comes out so pat. 'But you've lived in the bosom of a G.o.d-fearing family all your life. How could you have committed any real sins?'

'But if I had would it change your feelings for me?'

'There is nothing that would change my feelings for you, Margaret.' He gives me his most brilliant smile.

'Nothing? Are you sure, Robert? Absolutely, completely sure?'

His brilliant smile is somewhat fixed now. 'Good heavens, what is this catechism of ”just suppose” all about?' he says. 'Truly, my dear, it's rather silly, and I think you should stop it straight away.'

I see that he is uncomfortable with the notion that I have sins; they spoil his idea of me. But if we are to start afresh in our marriage, I must speak what is in my mind, truth or not. 'Please, Robert, there are things I need to tell you. I'm not altogether sure about them. But you might wish you hadn't married me when you know.'

'I think that unlikely, unless good heavens, you're not by any chance married to someone else, are you?' He pretends to think this very amusing.

But I won't be stopped. I warm to my theme now, the acc.u.mulated despair of seven weeks rus.h.i.+ng to the surface. 'But supposing there is a part of me you don't know about some secret I haven't told you? Supposing I am not quite as I should be? Supposing that's what's stopping me from being your wife in more than name?'

He laughs, uneasily this time. 'Come now, Margaret.'

'I won't ”come now”!' My voice rises as the words spill out. 'Supposing there is an impediment, Robert? An impediment that cannot be overcome? Perhaps that is the cause of all our difficulties. Maybe I will never be able to love you. Maybe you should cast me off. You can annul a marriage that's not been consummated there'll be no disgrace to you. You can say I am mad just like my father.'

'Quiet, I beg you!' He glances at the door. In a low voice he says, 'Are you really telling me that you wish to end our marriage?'

'No, Robert, I don't wish to. But it may be for the best.'

'I see. I suppose the truth of the matter is that you find me repellent.' A flush creeps over his cheeks.

I want to deny it, to spare him more misery; but I cannot separate him in my mind from Papa Papa with his ticking watch; Papa with his hands around my waist; Papa in his nights.h.i.+rt, pulling me onto his lap. And I know it was the sight of Robert in his nights.h.i.+rt that so horrified me on our wedding night. Even before the glimpse of his naked skin and bushy hair. And I begin to shake even now to think of his dark and secret body beneath his respectable clergyman's clothes; the waxy flesh under the thick layers of serge and linen. 'No, Robert,' I say, trying to find the words to console him. 'It is not exactly that.'

'Not exactly?' He laughs a short and mirthless laugh. 'Hardly an extravagant compliment. We men have our pride, you know. We like to think we are attractive to our wives.'

'You are attractive, Robert. You are kind and good and ' I cast about for what to say. ' And you are very nice-looking, too.'

'Nice-looking! Well, Margaret, forgive me, but when a man's had to watch his wife sheltering under the bed on her wedding night it's hard to believe that she finds him ”nice-looking”! When she refuses to kiss him or even to hold his hand, it is hard to believe she finds him appealing in any way!'

My voice rises again. 'Why won't you understand? It's Papa. He's the one who's coming between us. Oh, please make him go away, Robert! I don't want him near me any more!' I start to weep, noisily. The tears gush down my cheeks in torrents and run into my mouth as I gasp and sob, gasp and sob.

He is alarmed now. 'Please, Margaret, take a deep breath. You are near to being hysterical.' He releases his hold on me and takes out his pocket-handkerchief. I watch him shake out the neat folds before he wipes my cheeks. 'Now, listen to me. You have allowed your imagination to get the better of you and have started believing the most ridiculous things. The ”difficulty” in our marriage has nothing to do with any sins you may have committed as a child except in your mind. That is where you are at fault. That is where your thoughts are disarrayed. I do not blame you, and therefore there is no need to blame yourself. If misplaced blame has been holding you back from loving me, I'm sure our problem can be resolved in no time at all. There will be no need for doctors.'

'It's not misplaced blame, Robert.' I sob, wis.h.i.+ng he would listen before jumping to conclusions.

'Well, maybe that is not the only reason. You are young and fragile and your fear of the conjugal act is understandable. But I am sure the Harley Street man will set your mind at rest on matters of well, on any matter of concern. And I have been reading some books on the subject books I should have consulted earlier and I realize a woman must not be pressed. She must be allowed to ready herself for her wifely duties in her own time. Preparation is necessary: a light diet, loose clothes, meditation. One should not rush into things on the wedding night so soon after all the exhaustion of the preparations: the ceremony, the wedding breakfast and so forth. And one needs to ration one's resources; abstinence should be practised even within marriage in order to protect the woman's health. I have been too hasty, I see. I have only thought of myself. If it is anyone's fault, it is mine.'

All the time he's been drying my tears, I've been obliged to study his face at close quarters. There are flecks of yellow in the brown of his irises, a small round mole near his eyebrow, and a patch of reddened skin where he has shaved too close around his mouth and chin. I'm shocked that I've never seen these imperfections before; it comes home to me that I have never really looked at him as a woman should look at her lover, with an eye for every detail of his face and body. I've drifted through our courts.h.i.+p like a dream-girl. And Robert never broke into that dream; content, it seemed, with soft words and shy smiles. And I suppose I must have imagined that married life would go on like that that we would lie side by side in our bed-gowns and chatter inconsequentially into the small hours; that he would make b.u.t.tercup crowns for me and place them chastely on my head before turning over to pursue an innocent sleep; or that we would kiss in bird-pecks like Hansel and Gretel in the wood. I must have kept everything else at bay happy simply to envisage new clothes, wedding presents, and the pleasure of leaving my mother's house. Poor Robert, as he watched me come to him with orange blossom in my hair, could have had no idea what an unprepared wife I would turn out to be. And for my own part, I had no premonitions, no fears, no misgivings. I might have been setting out on a summer picnic. No shadow of the past even crossed my mind. But my ignorance is not Robert's fault, and I need to be the one to make amends.

'Dear Robert.' I put my hand up to his face, tracing the shape of the little mole. 'You are so good and patient. I will do whatever you say. I will forget my foolish thoughts. I will see the doctor and do whatever he recommends.'

He smiles. 'I am so glad. So very glad. We will triumph, Margaret. We will triumph.' He brings his own hand up to meet mine, running his lips lightly over my fingers so lightly it tickles. I am surprised to find that, having no expectation that it will lead to anything else, I almost enjoy the sensation. A slip of fire threads through my abdomen. We sit in silence for a while, and I think that maybe things will resolve themselves as he says, with time and patience, with light diets and loose clothing, and the careful advice of the Harley Street man.

'Now, my dear,' he murmurs. 'If it is not too prosaic a point, I think we might allow ourselves to get up from the floor. It's unseemly to be crouching here and a little hard on the joints.' He rises, puts out his arms and lifts me up so we are both standing on the scattered contents of the journal. His heel almost skewers a piece of card lying face down, and he stoops to retrieve it.

But I have already seen what it is. As I catch sight of the scratched and battered backing with Daisy 1862 written on it, I remember oh dear G.o.d, I remember the day I came into Papa's study, and all the photographs I'd secreted in my journal were laid upon his desk, like a dreadful game of patience. And there was Papa standing behind the desk, staring at them and then at me, as if to be sure that I was the same girl, in my cotton dress and pinafore, as the angels and nymphs and flower-girls that lay so artfully in front of him. I thought he would surely punish me most severely for keeping such a secret and I was unable to speak for fear. His face seemed quite flushed, but he put his arms around me and said, 'Well, Daisy, you have clearly been a beautiful angel for John. I think you must be an angel for me, too.' But, although he was not at all cross and said there was nothing at all wrong, my clothes seemed to burn me with shame as I took them off.

Robert must not see the picture. I try to pull it from his grasp. But he thinks I am teasing, and holds it away from me, laughing. 'Please don't look at it!' I cry.

But Robert laughs again. He wants to see, he says. He turns it over, full of delighted antic.i.p.ation. He expects a shy little girl in a pretty dress. The shock almost floors him. 'Good G.o.d,' he exclaims, and sits down suddenly upon the bed. There is a long silence. His gaze seems fixed to the photograph, as if mesmerized. Then, after a long while: 'Who on earth took this?'

'A man called John Jameson,' I say lightly. 'He was a friend of Papa's.'

'I know who he is. He is the best-known man in Oxford. But he is a respectable man in Holy Orders.' He shakes his head, as if it is beyond imagining.

'But what is the matter?' I ask.

'You are naked,' he says.

'I was being a cherub,' I say, attempting lightness. 'You see, I have wings.' Although I can't help thinking that the feathers look rather forlorn, now.

Robert holds the photograph by the corners, as if it is contaminated. 'But why on earth are you smiling like that?' His voice is shaking.

'Smiling?' I'm surprised he thinks that. John Jameson told me never to smile when he was taking a photograph. He said smiles had the habit of looking fixed if they were held for more than ten seconds. I have a very candid expression, admittedly, and there is perhaps just the hint of a smile. 'I don't know, Robert,' I say. 'Perhaps I was happy. Mr Jameson usually made me happy.'

'Did he? Then he seems to have been successful where I clearly have not.' His voice has a hurt, angry tone that I have never heard before.

'What is the matter, Robert? It's only a photograph.'

'Oh, I think it is more than that, Margaret. That's why you didn't want me to see it.'

'I simply needed to explain the circ.u.mstances to you.'

'Explain? What explanation could you possibly give?' I see with dismay that he is near to tears. 'What a fool I've been! I imagined that you were innocent as the day. And yet, here you are naked, seducing this man!'

I'm horrified by his language and by the anger that throbs through his voice. 'What do you mean, Robert seducing? I was just a child!'

'But you have confessed it here in this very room this very room, Margaret! You knew you were in a tainted state a great sin, you said. Perhaps a mortal sin. You even suggested we should end our marriage on account of it.'

'But I didn't mean this!' I gesture at the photograph; Daisy looking up so brightly, insensible of the storm raging around her. 'This is not what I meant. This is nothing!'

His face is a picture of misery. 'Nothing? You mean I'm even more mistaken about you?'

I'll have to confess it now. I try to keep my voice calm; it's Robert's voice that has been raised this time. 'Yes, Robert, you have been mistaken. And it all has to do with Papa.'

He cuts me off with a groan. 'Please don't try to blame your father, Margaret. That is a low and wretched thing to do.' Then, as if it suddenly occurs to him: 'Don't tell me the poor man saw this picture?'