The Children's Book - A. S. Byatt [208]
He put an arm around her shoulder.
“You are such a lovely girl. I never thought you were going to be so lovely. Queen of the Rosebud Garden of Girls. My Dorothy.” Dorothy stiffened.
“There are things I ought to tell you. But I wanted so much to tell you—to tell you”—he stumbled—“how perfectly lovely—”
He breathed hot whisky at her. She shrank back, and he gave her a clumsy push, which unbalanced her. She turned her face into the pillow, and muttered, in a child’s voice, “Go away. Please. Get off.”
And then he put his hand, unequivocally, inside the white cotton folds and touched naked flesh. Dorothy ceased to be timid and confused, and became very angry.
“Don’t do that. Or I’ll scream. Or ring the bell.”
“I only want to play with you a bit. My darling.”
His face wavered over hers. One hand worked inside her nightdress. One came over her mouth. Dorothy bit it. She bit with all her strength and she was strong. She bit the soft cushion below the thumb, and her mouth filled with blood. She shook the hand in her teeth like a mongoose with a snake.
“Bitch,” said Humphry. He sat up. His hand was pouring blood on the white frilled bedclothes. He said “Have you got a hankie? We must stop this. That hurt.”
“It was meant to. How dare you? Here’s a hankie. It’s far too small. Girls have stupid hankies. Go and get the hand towel. Then I’ll tear something up and make a bandage. I haven’t got much I can spare to tear up. Violet will be furious if I tear up this petticoat she spent so long on. You’ll have to put up with knickers.”
This word caused her to begin to shake. She said, drawing deep, sobbing breaths,
“You can’t go back with any of the stuff from this room, that belongs to the room, as opposed to belonging to me, or everyone will know. So it will have to be knickers. You could get to them. They’re in the drawer.”
Her pillow was blood-spattered. So was the neck of her nightgown. Humphry said with a ghastly laugh
“You’ve got blood on your teeth, like a stoat. And on your pretty lips.”
“I shall have to say I had a nosebleed. You’ve got blood on your nice dressing-gown, too. Two nosebleeds in a night is a bit unlikely. You must cut yourself shaving.”
She was trying to make a bandage strip from the knickers with an unsuitable pair of nail scissors.
Humphry said, stumbling over the words,
“Stop ordering me about.”
“It’s either be businesslike or collapse and scream, and I think even you would prefer the former. You’re drunk. I need to think for you. As well as for me,” she added, in a swallowed sob. She was breathing either too much or too little air.
Humphry said
“It’s not what you think.”
“I’m here, aren’t I? You—you attacked me. I was there. It’s not a question of thinking.”
“Yes it is. There are reasons. This is the wrong way to say it. I was always going to tell you. When the time came.”
“You don’t have to tell me. I know.”
“What do you think you know?”
“I’m Violet’s daughter. Someone—not me—has been listening into things.”
“Well someone has been garbling ‘things.’ You’re not Violet’s child. Phyllis is. And Florian. You’re Olive’s daughter. But not mine.”
Dorothy clutched the coverlet to her chest like the naked nymph in the ballroom.
“What?”
“You aren’t my daughter. So, you see, it wasn’t—this wasn’t—what you thought.”
Dorothy sat like stone.
“I didn’t mean to tell you this way. I do love you. Always have. Always will. My dear. Say something.”
Dorothy said “Who is my father?”
“You met him one midsummer. He’s a German from Munich. His name is Anselm Stern. The puppet-man. Things got out of hand at a carnival.
“You can’t say it’s made any difference,” he added, foolishly. Dorothy said
“You are being childish. You aren’t thinking. Of course it makes a difference. I am not who I thought I was. Nor, for that matter, is Phyllis. You have muddled us all up. All of you, you and both of them have made this muddle. You can’t just say it made no difference.”
“I love you,” Humphry repeated, clutching his bandaged hand in his whole one.
“Please go away,” Dorothy said with desperate dignity. “I need to think.