The Woman In The Mirror. Rebecca James
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barely a passing nod on his part. The second was while selecting books in the library for our afternoon study, when I caught him watching me from the door. ‘Are you finding everything you need?’ he asked, but I knew when I turned that he had been standing there longer than was necessary, and longer than an ordinary man would were he hoping to ask such a pedestrian question as that. I replied that I was, thank you, and he retreated to whatever preoccupation holds him in thrall from day to day in his study. Still, even after he’d gone, I felt his eyes on my back and I wondered for how long he had waited, unseen, behind me, before he spoke. It ought to have unnerved me but instead I found it a thrill. I find him a thrill. The surprise of him, appearing as if from nowhere, dangerously quiet and dangerously handsome…
Alice Miller – for heaven’s sake, wake up!
Mrs Wilson’s admonition at Quakers Oatley: I am dreaming again. I am imagining. Always prone to such things, or so I am told.
It is a fine September day, unusually warm for the onset of autumn. This afternoon, the children and I head across the parkland to a promised lake. Part of my concern is to ensure the twins’ physical exercise, and their favourite pastime is swimming. It seemed to me we would be spoiled for water, with the sea surrounding us, but Mrs Yarrow was quick to extinguish that notion. ‘Oh no,’ she said quickly. ‘Absolutely not, miss. The captain would never allow it. The sea is off limits.’
‘We wouldn’t go far. Mere paddling.’
‘No, miss. Captain de Grey forbids it. No child of his will ever set foot in that water. You mustn’t think of it. Swear to me you won’t.’
Of course, I had no option but to swear, and the children accommodated my embargo with their usual charm and gentleness, directing me instead to a pool in a sheltered glade. It is an almost precise circle, bordered by reeds and the fat, happy heads of bulrushes. A dragonfly hovers over the still, blue surface.
‘Geronimo!’ Edmund leaps in in his shirt and shorts, splashing like a dog.
‘Edmund,’ Constance cries, ‘you’re not in your bathing suit!’
‘I know! Isn’t it splendid?’
I ought to chide the boy but the sheer ebullience of his performance brings a smile to my face, after which my scolding would be pointless. ‘Just for today,’ I tell him, sitting with my hands looped round my knees, enjoying the warm breeze as it teases my skirt. Constance obediently changes into her swimming suit and lowers herself gingerly into the water. Edmund promptly splashes her.
‘No! I don’t like to get my hair wet!’
‘Don’t be such a girl.’
‘I am a girl.’
I watch them frolic with childish abandon, the water spraying over their arms and heads in bursts of silver. I find their courage and resilience admirable – the courage and resilience of all children, I suppose. They scarcely knew their mother before she died; they will hardly have a mind picture of her. And yet they carry no bitterness, no sullenness, simply a love of life. I think back to my own childhood and try to pinpoint a moment at which things seemed straightforward, but it’s difficult. When I think of bathing, I think of the dank green bathroom at my parents’ house in Surrey, of the crust of mould around the bathroom taps and the cracked soap in a tray on the sink. I think of the water, cooling around my ten-year-old body, the wrinkled skin on my toes and fingertips but I still didn’t want to climb out. I could hear my parents arguing downstairs, a slammed door then the angry stomp of footsteps on the stairs. My father’s fist would pound on the door. ‘Are you still in there, girl?’
Or I think of the baths at Burstead, those harsh iron troughs, a naked bulb swinging above my head and the shrieks and yelps of girls in the yard outside. When I first arrived at boarding school, I cried in the bath. I cried because I was lonely, and I hadn’t any friends, and I wanted my parents even though I hated them and I wanted my home even though I hated it, and everything was confusing. A girl called Ginny Pettifer had found me crying, and brought her friends to look in at me and laugh. I close my eyes, pushing down the dreadful memories. Of that miserable bath, yes, and of Ginny’s gleeful face at the door – but then of years later, and more water, much more, blooming the most perfect shade of red like a lover’s rose, and a tangle of hair and two panicked, swollen eyes, a hand reaching for mine and grasping air…
My parents had imagined that Burstead was the answer to their problems. I spent seven years at that school and the first five were miserable. Then, all of a sudden, Burstead stopped answering their problems, and started answering mine.
‘Alice, Alice, look!’ Constance’s cry brings me back to the present. She is on the rim of the pond, ready to jump. ‘I’m going to jump! Look, look!’
‘I’m looking!’
With a splash, she’s back in the water. Edmund complains at the impact, splashing her back. For a moment I let myself become part of the joyful scene, really part of it, as if I were one of the children here, a long time ago. No mistakes made, no loss, no suffering. Stop daydreaming, Alice. Daydreaming is for fools.
When the time comes for them to get out, I reach in and offer my arm. Constance takes it first, warm and definite, full of trust, then the boy.
The twins giggle as they dry off in the sun.
See? I think. I did the right thing. This time, I did.
*
Later that day, while the children are taking their supper, I hear a motor car approach the house and then the sound of a slamming door.
‘Are we expecting anyone, Mrs Yarrow?’
‘Only the captain’s doctor.’
I go to greet him. The man on the doorstep is a little older than me, with a mop of brown hair and a neat moustache. He carries a doctor’s bag and there is a wire-haired pointer at his heels. ‘You must be Alice Miller,’ he says, amiably.
‘How do you do.’
The man nods his cap, removes it. ‘Henry Marsh, the captain’s physician.’
‘So I understand. Won’t you come in.’
In the hall, Henry Marsh takes off his coat. The dog trails after him, a splash of white on the tip of his tail. He makes a comment about the animal being his trusted assistant, and how Captain de Grey has no objections to his attendance. I smile and stroke the dog, fussing round his ears and his gruff, wizened face. The doctor watches me kindly, inquisitively.
‘How are you settling in?’
‘Very well, thank you.’
‘Is the man of the house up and about today?’
‘I haven’t seen him – but that doesn’t mean he’s not.’
Henry smiles back. ‘It’s a big place, Winterbourne, isn’t it?’
‘Certainly.’
‘It takes some getting used to?’
‘I’m used to it already. The children have helped me with that.’
Henry’s smile doesn’t move or change, but his eyes no longer concur. ‘I’m sure,’ he says. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I must see to my patient.’
‘Of course.’
An hour later, the doctor is back in the hall, the dog keeping close to his heels.
‘Is everything well, Doctor?’ I ask.
He appears somewhat troubled; I offer him a drink. ‘No, thank you,’ he says. ‘I’d best be on my way. I’ve another appointment in Polcreath.’
I see him move to go, then, on impulse, I place a hand on the door.
‘Doctor,’ I begin, checking swiftly behind me that we are alone, ‘forgive my impertinence, but I wonder if the captain is quite