Winter. Christopher Nicholson

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СКАЧАТЬ I pressed on. ‘You said in the summer we could not cut back then, because of the birds, and now it is nearly winter. The servants agree with me – they agree entirely. Mr. Caddy agrees too, I have spoken to him. The trees have to be cut back sometime. And the ivy, too,’ I added, aware that I was annoying him by my persistence, that he would prefer me not to mention the subject.

      He looked at his toast as if it was burnt. He fiddled with the handle of his tea-cup.

      He believes that the trees must not be touched for fear of wounding them. Can trees be wounded? Trees are not sentient creatures. He talks of mutilation and disfigurement. To care for the feelings of birds and animals is one thing, yet to believe that trees are capable of suffering as human beings suffer is quite another. What of my suffering? I am still not well, I know I am not well. The doctors say that on all accounts I must avoid straining my nerves. Can he not see how the trees are hampering my recovery? Can he not see how I suffer?

      ‘This is such a dark house,’ I said. ‘I feel everything would be different if there were more light.’

      He raised his eyes to mine. ‘Later, Florence, later,’ he said, softly. ‘Not now. I am thinking.’

      I fell silent. I could say no more, for the moment. He was thinking; that is, he was thinking about his work; a poem was possibly taking shape inside his head. How should I know what shapes form inside his head? All I know is that on account of the trees I am condemned to shadow. I wish he would understand how dark and gloomy they make the house, and how much the absence of sunlight oppresses my spirits during the winter months, but this it seems is of no consequence when set against the supposed feelings of the trees and the nesting birds.

      This is how our breakfasts always are. I am not meant to speak and therefore I do not speak, although in the spaces that might be occupied by speech I often address him with silent questions. When were you ever happy? Were you happy when you were a boy? What could make you happy now? Should we not be happy? Is it not in our natures, is it not part of our beings, to strive for happiness? Has your writing made you happy? Would you not be happier if you were to say, I have written what I have written, enough is enough, and to put down your pen? What iron compulsion makes you continue? Thomas?

      My life is full of these unanswered questions.

      What irks me, more than anything, is that he is perfectly capable of gaiety. When guests arrive for tea it is as if an electric light were switched on (not that we have any electricity here!): suddenly he becomes a different human being. He chats and jokes and entertains, and reminisces about his childhood and tells confidential witty anecdotes. He performs. None of our visitors has any idea what he is truly like. They marvel at him! ‘What a marvel he is!’ they confide in me as they leave. (O that word, ‘marvel’!) ‘So sprightly! So spry! Such vigour!’ I nod in agreement. As soon as they are gone, the light switches off; he relapses to his former self.

      The truth is, he cannot be bothered to make an effort for me, his wife. I who do nothing but make an effort for him, I whose whole life is devoted to him, I who tiptoe after him, lay out his clothes, help him dress, read to him for hours every evening and do all that is humanly possible to make him happy, I am not worthy of the performance.

      He left, with Wessie at his heels. O Wessie, Wessie, stay with me, I beseeched him silently, do not leave me now – it was all I could do not to call him back – but they were both gone. I remained at the table with my feelings, my words which I may or may not have uttered. The door closed. My hand shook as I tried to drink my cup of coffee.

      I am not suggesting that all the trees should be cut down, merely that those nearest to the house should be thinned. Is that so much to ask? To thin the trees so that light, blessed light, will once again shine freely into the rooms? Was this not his intention when he built the house, forty years ago? The house faces south; it should be filled with sunlight, and yet it is dark. But there is nothing to be done, until later; later, later, it is what he always says; and so the matter is forever postponed, and meanwhile the trees grow ever nearer. The branches are nearly scratching at the panes of the windows, and the gutters are blocked with autumn leaves, and the chimneys are covered in ivy. The air is damp. Even the lawns are affected: they are thick with moss and ugly worm-casts.

      I cannot feel that trees are necessarily friendly creatures. In the right situation, I admit, they are pleasant enough. Here they are hostile. Left alone, they will overwhelm the house. This is how I choose to begin my account, which I tell to myself, since there is no one else to tell.

      I am busy, too; I have my daily round of tasks. There are the hens to let out of their coop. They have a little field to the side of the garden, away from the trees, in sunshine. I bought this field with my own money, four years ago, since he would not buy it, although he has so much more money than I, although he may well be, according to Cockerell, the wealthiest writer in the entire country. Is that possible? How does Cockerell know? I waited to see if he would offer to buy the field for me, but it did not seem to occur to him. If it did occur to him, he gave no sign of it having occurred to him. I might have asked him directly, but I have my pride. Thus I had to raid my own small savings. That is how things are. That is the way of things.

      I open the door of the coop and out they come; seven lovely hens. ‘My beauties, my darlings. How are you today?’ I love my hens and I talk to them in a particular voice which I persuade myself – with what truth I cannot say – they recognise. O, but I am sure that they do. I have names for them all. This is Betty; this is Jess; that is Hetty. Dear little Hetty! That one is Maud.

      In the low sunshine they glow with light. Their feathers shimmer. ‘Patience, patience,’ I say to them, ‘patience, my dears.’ They fuss and cluck as I hold up the bag of grain, and then I dip in my hand and throw out the seed. They make a quick rush and begin to peck and stab, and as they do so wheedling sounds of gratitude come from their throats. Even when they are eating! How sweet and contented they are!

      It does me good to see such contentment, I who feel so little contentment. It does me good to be in the sun, away from the long shadows of the trees.

      I scatter four handfuls of grain. Some of the hens – Betty, and Alice, particularly, are bigger and more forceful than the others. Please, please, I beg you, be patient! I have enough for you all.

      They are laying well at the moment. Yesterday, I collected three brown eggs; today, three more, which will do very well for this evening’s dinner. I admit that there are times when I think that I should be kind and allow them to keep their eggs, to sit on their eggs. Would that be kinder? But the eggs would not hatch, there would be no chicks, they would sit and sit and nothing would happen, which would be dreadful for them, they would be perpetually disappointed. I think it is better that I take the eggs, to spare them that disappointment. They are fond of me, they do not care whether I take the eggs.

      The sun shines over the field, the birds sing – O, I admit, my ownership of the field does afford me a certain satisfaction, for almost everything else is his. The house and its contents belong to him; they were his long before I became his wife. I live in the shell of his ownership. The field is mine, however, and therefore perhaps, upon further consideration, I am glad that I bought it with my own money, that he did not buy it for me. Yes, I am glad, I think, although I would have liked him to have offered to buy it for me, as he might easily have done. I am not saying that he is miserly but, if I may draw the distinction, he is very careful; he does not realise how much money he has and does not believe it, even when he is told. He avoids conversations about money, just as he avoids conversations about the trees. These are not matters I am able to talk to him about, among so many other matters.

      Obstinacy is ingrained into his very nature. It blinds him to common sense. It makes him deaf to all persuasion. Was he always like this, or has his obstinacy grown over the years? He cannot have been like this as СКАЧАТЬ