This was the most determinedly I had ever spoken to him. I knew what he was suggesting; the dissenters in the brewhouse had got to him. I had already been warned about this by Mr Ambrose.

  ‘I’m just considering all the possibilities.’

  ‘It’s a solemn onus placed on us,’ I said, repeating words my father had used. ‘Supporting those men who come to work here every day. And their families.’

  ‘It’s not a charity we’re running.’

  ‘Yes, I know that.’

  And, I wanted to add but didn’t, it’s I who still have charge of Havisham’s. After we’re married, then we shall attend to the transfer, but slowly, in good time, once I have assured myself.

  Perhaps he could read from my face just what I was thinking. So be it. I had the name to think of, as always the name, because without it where was I, and where would he be?

  I smiled at him, and waited – I kept smiling – until he finally responded in kind, with an easing back of his lips. We had never ended a conversation on a grumbling tone, and my mind was made up that we never would.

  Love to faults is always blind,

  Always is to joy inclin’d.

  Lawless, wing’d, and unconfin’d,

  And breaks all chains from every mind.

  * * *

  I didn’t hear from Moses until ten days before the wedding. His letter was direct to the point of abject rudeness. I was incensed.

  He had seen the notice of the engagement, and told the others. He hadn’t written to me because he didn’t know how he might be honest with me. Engagements don’t always lead to marriage, do they? But now, in reply to my letter (for which many thanks), his profuse apologies, only it was going to be very difficult to alter his plans, when he had an extra parish in his charge at present. He did understand that my heart was set. He and his sister-helpmate Louisa were of an identical persuasion; yet they both sent me their best wishes, and wanted me to know that I should be in their thoughts. He would pray for me –

  I tore up the letter. How dare he? How dare he?

  All his sort amounted to were licensed meddlers; the loveless and unloved who cross themselves at the thought of other people’s happiness; who couldn’t in a lifetime of Sundays put themselves in the position of the beloved.

  I tossed the letter into the fire’s flames.

  * * *

  I attempted to exorcise the incident by having dinner served to us that evening before the same fireplace.

  ‘Should we try to woo back dear Boodle?’ I wondered.

  ‘Boodle priced himself a little too high for my pocket.’

  ‘“Dear” indeed!’ I said.

  ‘Must’ve been talking to whatsisname.’

  ‘Nemo.’

  At that instant a memory flash …

  ‘He could be my present to you,’ I said.

  ‘You’re dreaming!’

  ‘I’m sorry –’

  ‘Not Nemo anyway.’

  ‘No. Boodle.’

  It had been a silly, misplaced remark, I said. I apologised for it, and I drew my chair closer to his.

  * * *

  It was usually he, I felt, who was dreaming. How far away he got from me sometimes. Eleventh-hour nerves, was it? About marriage? Or about his duties at work? I couldn’t always wait for his mind to clear, and I would tug at his arm to shake him out of his brown study.

  ‘It’ll be all right,’ I told him. ‘Everything will be fine.’

  He would stare at me for a few seconds, as if he didn’t understand what I meant. I would pull at his arm again.

  ‘I promise you,’ I said.

  At that a shadow of sadness passed across his face: only for another moment or two, until he was finally released from his doubts and was returned to me.

  * * *

  ‘What I have will be yours,’ I said. ‘And what you have will become mine as well.’

  ‘I have the better of that arrangement.’

  ‘And I shall honour you and obey you. As I must swear to do.’

  He would be in charge of the brewery. I should have the running of the house. When he had to be away, I would leave brewery matters until he got back, and I would learn to forget that once I had done what he was doing.

  Anything. He might ask anything of me, and I’d surely do it. All for love.

  THIRTY

  I woke early, and it was the first thought in my head.

  I marry this morning.

  * * *

  I lay for a while in bed. This would be the last time I took my rest like this, as a single woman. I felt a wonderful pleasurable confusion of anxiety, excitement and the comfort of my hopes achieved.

  I bathed in my dressing room, in front of a fire, looking out at the blue May sky, at the martins’ giddy zigzaggings. My helpers came and went. My bouquet arrived, not yet dried of its dew, tied with white and yellow satin ribbons.

  I drank some tea and ate a coddled egg and a piece of toasted bread spread with cherry jam. The slices of cheese and ham I left untouched.

  I felt just a little, gently dazed.

  * * *

  They dressed my hair first, which took half an hour, pomading and setting with silver combs and netting.

  Then they powdered my body from head to foot.

  Once I’d been wrapped in a peignoir, they went to work on my face.

  My eyebrows were plucked to fine arcs. I was whitened again. They painted my lips, and ringed my eyes lightly with kohl, turning them up slightly at the outer corners. My fingernails were buffed and glazed, and my hands were creamed.

  She was a woman I scarcely recognised, the one in the mirror, looking out at me with increasing incredulity and fascination.

  It was a carnaval mask.

  Sophisticated, experienced, worldly, a little arch, a little ironic: all the things Catherine Havisham hadn’t been.

  * * *

  And then, finally, the dress, without its train, which was to fall twelve feet behind me. French silk; but the silkworms had been brought from China.

  Sprig embroidery on the bodice and along the edges of the sleeves. The neck and cuffs were trimmed with Bath lace. There was a delicate tracery of gold foil on the back of the dress. The miniature buttons were each painstakingly worked in silk.

  It fitted me exactly as it should have. I could move my arms, and breathe easily. There was no straining. I saw no gathers anywhere.

  How strange, that such a consummately made garment should be worn for this one day only. But, as every girl growing up understood, her wedding day was the most significant she would know: a woman’s crowning glory.

  * * *

  They left me.

  It was just after half past eight. We had made good time. I was due to arrive at the church two or three minutes before ten o’clock.

  I found myself thinking of my mother. I wished she could have seen me, and I could have seen her expression of wonderment. I thought of my father; I felt it unlikely he would have been disappointed, since the brewery – what he had cared most for – was going to be under the management of the man very shortly to take me as his wife.

  As I was fitting my left foot into its satin slipper, there came a knock at the door.

  A letter.

  It was placed on the side-table.

  If I hadn’t had time to spare I should have left it there. But we were ahead of ourselves.

  I put down the other slipper, laid it on top of the dressing table.

  I leaned across for the envelope.

  I recognised his handwriting at once. It must be his last word on my single state, I thought, a missive of love on this sweetest of mornings.

  I split the seal with my thumb, drew out the sheet inside, unfolded it.

  * * *

  I had read only the first few words when I felt my heart leap up into my throat. I couldn’t breathe.

  ‘I cannot but expect that the Contents of this Letter must greatly aggrieve you –’

  I stared at the sheet of paper, my eyes fixed. The lines of script swam in front of me; white spots flared over them.

  ‘– because I do recognise how much your Heart was set on our Union.’

  No.

  No, no.

  ‘What I must say will distress you, I am certain –’

  I felt wetness on both legs, a stream of hot liquid starting to soak my stockings.

  ‘– and I can think of no way of preparing you easily for it.

  In short, Catherine, I cannot be your husband.’

  I couldn’t control myself; a rivulet of piss flowed out of me. Suddenly, in an instant, my life had turned to tragedy.

  ‘I hope that with the passing of the months, you will find it within you to offer me some measure of forgiveness.’

  He was having a last joke, wasn’t he? It was meant to be a test for me.

  ‘– to offer me some measure of forgiveness.’

  I closed my eyes for several moments, then opened them again. The letter was still there.

  ‘You will recover your Spirits and find some worthier Suitor for you than I could be.’

  * * *

  My cries brought the others to my room. I had fallen from the chair to the floor. I lay in my own urine. They helped me back on to the seat.

  Someone fetched smelling salts, and held them under my nose.

  ‘No. No, no, no, no, no…!’

  I flailed at them, howling.

  One of them had found the letter and read it; she was whispering as she passed it on.

  ‘It’s not true!’ I shouted. ‘It’s not true…’

  They held me to the chair. I tried to fight them off.

  ‘None of it’s true…’

  The rug was mopped at with old towels.

  ‘None of it’s true…’

  ‘It’s all right, miss.’

  I stared into the woman’s face.

  ‘What?’

  It was all right, it would be all right.

  Then she turned and I saw the look of utter dismay exchanged between her and the others. No. No, it wasn’t going to be all right. She’d lied to me. I struck out at her with my arms, and she fell back. Her eyes widened in her face, staring and staring at the beast in its lair.

  ‘Get away! Get away, all of you!’

  * * *

  Minutes passed, but I had no regard. Half an hour. An hour. Two hours.

  People came and went all morning. Came and went.

  Sometimes I screamed at them. Sometimes I said nothing. Sometimes I was unaware if anyone was there or not, I forgot …

  All I knew, the only thing, was this: I had reached the end of the life I’d had. It was lost to me now.

  * * *

  They must have cleared the church, and the guests been dispersed. But they didn’t ask me. I heard the whispers outside the door of my dressing room. Footsteps coming and going away. They knew they didn’t dare disturb me again.

  That was all I had. The letter. A sheet of paper. A message I couldn’t comprehend.

  Could he have thought that my love had dimmed?

  Had he misunderstood something I’d said, or not said?

  Had he allowed himself to be misled by what another person had told him?

  * * *

  ‘Lock the doors of the dining room, d’you hear me? Don’t let them disturb the feast. The feast must be left, just as it is.’

  She last remains, when ev’ry guest is gone,

  Sit on the bed he press’d, and sighs alone;

  Absent, her absent hero sees and hears.

  * * *

  They tried to undress me, but I resisted them.

  I felt … What?

  I felt that if I was still wearing my dress, then the wedding would still take place. If I removed it, I would be denying myself the hope of a happy ending.

  ‘I have to be ready, you see.’

  They tried to persuade me, but I wasn’t listening. I shook off their hands.

  ‘When, miss?’

  ‘Not yet, not yet.’

  And shouldn’t it have been ‘Mrs Compeyson’ by now? We ought to have set off on our travels, soon we would be enjoying each other’s company in a strange foreign city, en route to the strangest of all, he and I intimately marooned together by its lagoon.

  ‘Leave me as I am, will you? Just let me be.’

  Frightened glances. Hands turned palms upwards, gesturing helplessness.

  ‘Go now, go now!’

  * * *

  He needed more time, only more time, to prepare himself.

  ‘He’s taken cold feet, that’s all. He’s heard something, and it’s quite untrue. There’s been a dreadful misunderstanding. It’s not serious.’

  Wilt thou have this man … obey and serve him … and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live.

  The woman shall answer,

  I will.

  The next day I wore the wedding dress, and the next again. I became used to having that woman with me, framed in the looking-glasses. I would stare at her, and it was like watching one of those (nearly) stock-still tableaux. When she was seated, she scarcely made any movement at all, except to draw and exhale breath.

  I instinctively held out my hands to warm them at the fire, while my eyes passed over the Delft tiles on the hearth’s surround. There were canals there too. Windmills, barges, locks. Hump-backed bridges, skaters on an iced pond. A street of tall, narrow-shouldered houses. Tulips – no, chrysanthemums, growing in a garden pot.

  … then the solemnisation must be deferred, until such time as the truth be tried

  * * *

  The canals grew colder and colder, and started to freeze; the ice islands sighed. A bird flew low, between the Dutchmen’s high gabled houses, on the spruce scrubbed streets of Leiden and Arnhem, while the chrysanthemums – no, the tulips – shrivelled and died.

  * * *

  ‘Tea, miss? Won’t you try to drink some tea? Some toast? Here – You haven’t eaten at all, miss.’

  The wretched queen, pursued by cruel fate,

  Begins at length the light of heav’n to hate,

  And loathes to live.

  ‘You need to eat, miss. Isn’t there something? Whatever you tell me you want to … Miss Havisham?’

  * * *

  Try to remember. When it was you felt most alive.

  Try to remember who she was.

  One morning, rising to a blue May sky. Pink blossom on the cherry trees. The small flames of a new fire rustling in the grate, whispering excitedly.

  Now,

  – brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,

  And the night-raven sings.

  The cards. Play the cards.

  Ouvert. Pip. Renege. Sans prendre. Cut-throat. Widow.

  * * *

  ‘She won’t speak to us. Well, nothing to make sense of. She only talks to herself. It sounds like gibberish. But it must mean something. Something to her.’

  * * *

  I’ll bark against the dog-star

  I’ll crack the poles asunder

  I’ll sail upon a millstone

  And make the sea-gods wonder.

  * * *

  If …

  If …

  If …

  If I’d …

  If I’d …

  If I’d only …

  * * *

  If I’d only left the letter unopened / he might have been able to change his mind / somehow intuiting that I hadn’t received his message / and returning to Satis House with me / he would have found a moment to remove the envelope / to slip it undetected into his pocket / and I should have been none the wiser / concerning those foolish, last-minute nerves / which is all they were.

  * * *

  ’Tis folly

  – where ignorance is bliss,

  ’Tis folly to be wise.

  IV

  CATHERINE REGNANT

  THIRTY-ONE

  I felt I had a fire beneath me.

  Poor Dido …

  And that I was lying pinned, spread-eagled, on a pallet of live coals.

  … with consuming love is fir’d …

  Every pore of my body was dripping sweat. The coals hissed under me and grew hotter.

  Sick with desire …

  And seeking him – him she loves,

  From street to street

  The raving Dido roves …

  I kept asking for my wedding dress.

  ‘I need to be dressed. It will soon be time.’

  Time to leave for the church, to begin my new life, to claim my happiness.

  So shall their loves be crown’d with due delights,

  And Hymen shall be present at the rites.

  No. No, that wasn’t how the verse ran, not now.

  It ran quite differently, raving and roving.

  – for still – for still the fatal dart

  Sticks

  – sticks in her side, and –

  and rankles in her heart.

  * * *

  There were poultices and balms, steam and ice, all to try to bring my temperature down.

  They seemed to realise now that I was back among them again, that I had good money to pay those doctors and nurses for their attention.

  I was sleeping more regularly. Long deep sleeps, as if I hadn’t slept for weeks and weeks. Sometimes I would sleep through the whole of a day, and that day was then gone from my memory; nothing of it remained.

  I got up from my bed, feeling like a paper person, the figure of a woman who’d been cut out of paper and unrolled. I felt I had no substance.

  * * *

  Just now and then everything is in its proper place. Objects fit their shapes, and are their exact colours.

  And there are other times when everything will have been knocked out of kilter. Objects grow fuzzy around their edges, as if they’ve been dislodged: they can’t hold their colours, the colours percolate out. (Where – but no one ever tells me – where have they put the wedding gown?)