The Quickening Maze Part 11

Annabella giggled. 'I'm afraid I am merely mortal.' 'To judge from your appearance, it seemed in order to ask. Beautiful day, no?'

Of course, of course. Hannah wiped her forehead. She let them talk on for a moment more, then pinched Annabella's arm. Annabella turned and looked into her friend's red eyes and understood.

'If you would excuse me,' she said, 'I must go and speak to Mrs Allen. I haven't done so yet. She must think me terribly rude.'

'By all means.' Tennyson bowed.

Hannah smiled. It was over, she knew. It was already over. The failure was outside of her body. It was already there, in the green and sunlit day. And it had always been there. In every thought she'd had about him, or just behind it, was the emptiness, the hollow-ness, the knowledge that she was wrong, that it wasn't true, that it wouldn't happen. The realisation came as a great liberation. Weeks and months of prayer and hope suddenly evacuated from her. She could say anything and her words would just be air, unavailing as a fragrance. She might as well tell the truth. Sweating and faint, she was nevertheless calm. The world was thin around her, bright and threadbare, and she spoke out loud what she actually thought.

'Mr Tennyson,' she began.

'Yes?'

'For a long time now I have wished to say something, to know something.'

'Is that so?'

'It is. You see, I have developed a great admiration for you.Well, it's more than that. I'm enamoured, might be a good word. And I was hoping that this admiration might be mutual, that you might perhaps consider me as a possible wife, a plausible wife.' She laughed at the phrase.

'I see.'

'Yes. Absurd, isn't it? I shouldn't have said anything. It's very unconventional, but then I thought you aren't conventional. Also, I have a fever.'

'I see.'

They stood there together with the people moving around them. Tennyson said nothing for a long time. He exuded his familiar, thick silence, then said, 'I'm very honoured, of course . . .'

'Of course,' Hannah laughed.

'But . . .'

'Please don't feel you have to finish that sentence. I've been most tiresome. If you would excuse me. I'm very sorry.'

Hannah smiled and turned and hurried into the house to be sick.

Annabella found her when eventually she returned to the garden. 'Well?'

'No, not well.'

'Frankly, I think you'll live to be relieved. I mean to say, are all poets so dirty? Did you see his ears?'

'I wasn't especially looking at his ears.'

'A lucky escape. You can think of it thus.'

'Oh, I will. Who wants to be married to such ears?'

Annabella's disrespect was typical and did not at that moment upset Hannah, although later it would remain in her thoughts. Annabella's beauty fronted for her; behind it she was disloyal, satirical, and n.o.body knew. 'Nymph or dryad?' She tried to mimic his Lincolnshire accent. 'Nymph or dryad?'

Posthumous to hope, Hannah felt quite empty apart from the seethe of her sickness sensations. The one effort she still had to expend was to make sure she was always where Tennyson was not. And soon the day would be over. Days ended, like everything else. She chatted as best as she could with other guests and allowed her damp hand to be kissed when her father introduced her to the brightly dressed Thomas Rawnsley, who made machines or something else and lots of money. It was only later, when she was alone in her bed, that she cried and cried.

'Pssst!'

Eliza looked up from her household accounts.'How may I help you?'

'Shh!' Matthew pressed a finger to his lips, then beckoned with a curling finger to follow him through the doorway.

Eliza blew on the inked page and went after him, found him loitering half-way round the corner of the vestibule.When he saw her, he moved on. She laughed, bustled after.

'Where are you leading me?' she called.

He crouched out of sight. When she rounded the corner, he stood up, pirouetted, and beckoned her on.

'Fool.' She followed him, laughing as he danced away.

The house was empty, with all the wedding guests gone. He led her all around it until she was panting, then finally stopped by his study door. 'If you would care to follow me.' He smiled. His whiskers looked mischievous.

'Gladly,' she breathed.

He opened the door for her and in she went. She saw immediately what he'd been leading her towards.

'What is it?'

'Aha,' he said. 'What is it indeed?'

Eliza looked at the box on the floor. 'I thought it was one of the wedding gifts when it arrived.'

'In which case you were wrong. Isn't it beautiful?'

It stood on his desk, a bra.s.s machine with three curving feet, a stem, a barrel with a handle and many radial arms that branched up at right angles with finer stems surmounted with globes of different colours, some of them surrounded by a corolla of tiny globes on separate stems.

'It is called an orrery.'

'Heavenly bodies?' she asked.

'Of course. The sun there in the centre.'

'It's beautiful. Was it very expensive?'

'What a vulgar question. Come here, my dear, and turn this handle.'

'I won't break it?'

'Fear not. The heavens are at your command.'

He stood behind her and held her waist, warmed by the chase through the house. Eliza took the handle and turned. The mechanism was beautifully, gelatinously smooth. From left to right the worlds revolved with their moons waltzing around them while the large bra.s.s ball of the sun stood unmoved, adored, reflecting the lamplight.

'What is the one with all those moons?'

'Jupiter.'

'Aren't you clever?'

'Terrifically. Prodigiously.' Matthew kissed her neck.

The day was light and taut. A breeze hissed against the trees. High white cloud was dragged across the blue. She could smell the burnt dust of the path.There had been no reprisals, not yet, for her sin, no claws pouncing into her, no shame. She was in accordance with His will. There was yet work to do. The exorcism was reaching its climax. She closed her eyes and prayed.

A voice said, 'Too frightened to look, is it?'

Mary opened her eyes and saw the one who she had been waiting for, Clara, the witch. Mary thanked G.o.d for sending her. 'I have no fear of anything.You are the one who fears. Everywhere you see . . .'

Clara giggled.'You are a liar,' she said.'I can do things to you.'

'No, you cannot. I am invulnerable because . . .'

'Yes, I can.Terrible things.You couldn't invent them.'

'I'm alone in a madhouse. I've nothing but His protection. What can you do? You have . . .'

'You think this is the worst? You think this is the worst there is?'

'I know there's worse. I've known it. Most of us have. I've spent hours . . .'

'But being Jew-Jesus's wh.o.r.e, you're preserved.' Clara giggled again.

'G.o.d loves you too. It is limitless. It is larger than this world. This world is so tiny . . .'

'I'd p.i.s.s on it.'

'It's there. Even after you've p.i.s.sed on it, it will be full of kindness, radiant . . .'

'Why don't you show me? Why don't you come with me? There's something I want to show you. If you can stand it.'

'There's nothing you can show me . . .'

'Then come and look at it. Come on.'

Clara started walking away, her hair twitching over her shoulder. Mary paused only for a fraction of a moment, then followed. Death could take nothing of value from her, so what could Clara do?

Simon trotted over to Clara to ask her where she was going. He grabbed hold of her shoulder. She dived away out of his grasp and turned on him.

'But where don't you . . .' he began.

'We're going to the place,' she whispered. 'You can't come.'

'No . . .' he lowed.

'You cannot come.'

Simon knew not to try to disobey her. He put a finger in his mouth and stood back.

Clara led Mary to the gate. Peter Wilkins awakened from his seat, pushed his hat back on his head and unlocked the gate for them.

They immediately left the path. Clara stepped over brambles, the broken light flickering over her. Things flew. The forest made its little eating sounds.

'A little further,' Clara said.

A clearing of sc.r.a.ped earth. There was something on it.

'Here. Now look upon it.'

'You dwell in darkness and there is no need. Light is abundant. It searches out every part of you. It loves you.'

'Shut your holy, stinking mouth. This is my place you're in. Look upon it.'

'What is it?'

'It has powers.'

'It has none. It has no connection . . .'

'Shut your mouth and look upon it.'

Mary stepped forward and looked down. It had the form of a circle and was about the size of a large plate. It was beautifully made from tiny pieces. At its edge was a fence of small sticks. It had a spiralling, repet.i.tive pattern made with feathers, remarkably matching stones, berries, insects' shiny wings, nuts, leaves. At its centre was the swirl of a snail sh.e.l.l. Mary looked up at Clara who was smiling, muttering, apparently waiting for something to happen to Mary, for her to be distressed, changed in some way. Again Mary looked at it and felt her gaze absorbed. She found it pitiable, with that safe house of a sh.e.l.l, that dream of home, at its centre. Intricate and powerless.

'Now that you've seen it,' Clara told her,'the demon will have entered you.'

'No demon can enter me. An angel told me so.'

'What you invent is your own affair. Wait now and see.'

Mary shook her head. She felt nothing. Perhaps the exorcism had already been achieved. Clara was mistress of no devils. To be sure, though, Mary set her foot on the shape and dragged it across. Clara ran and knocked Mary onto her back and tore at her. Mary, in a moment of dreadful, unchristian weak-mindedness, put up her hands to defend herself. It pleased her then to have those hands bitten and stamped on. Clara spat finally on her and ran away. Mary felt burning trenches in her face. The trees swayed peacefully over. She stood up and cool blood poured down along her chin. She caught drops in both hands. She stood and held her hands out until they were bathed. She pressed her hands to her face, printing them scarlet, and walked triumphantly back to the madhouse.

There she met William Stockdale, who took a relishing look at her and said, 'Oh dear, oh dear. I think the doctor will have to see about this. Time, I'm thinking, you spent some time at my pleasure in the Lodge.'

Autumn

'Listen, listen, we'll make a penny or two, what? Old days, nothing. I know the public's taste as well as I ever did.'

He stared at him, stared into him, but he could see in John's eyes that it wasn't John looking out, or was only for fractions of moments, when he would sense himself seen and look quickly away. John was speaking very rapidly. In the middle of his fattened face, his mouth was dry and muscular, his breath unclean.