Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits - Donoghue [62]
For a moment, sipping her thin tea, Elizabeth lets herself imagine Sherry as a murderer. As a man who deserves to have his wife stolen away from him, before he wears her out with bearing a dozen children. But having lived in his house all year, observed his kindness and his chatter, Elizabeth knows the worst that can be said is that he is a bit of a bore. He has never seen his wife for the wonder she is; he has no idea of his luck.
Every other lady's friend is content with her share, she reminds herself, biting down on the frail edge of her cup. What would the world come to if they asked for more?
There is a Dress Ball each evening at six. Elizabeth refuses every gentleman who asks her: "I regret my health does not permit..." Two hours of minuets, then an hour of old-style country dances; the young ladies go off to remove their hoops so as not to bruise themselves. Frances taps her foot and says it is not proper for a married lady to dance. Elizabeth always overcomes her friend's objections by the end of the evening. She smiles as she watches the older woman whirl across the floor with one widower after another.
But every night feels like the last night. Elizabeth sucks the marrow of pleasure out of each hour like a starving dog. This cannot go on.
"Quadrille!" cries Lord Humphry.
"Ombre," contradicts his sister.
Now the ladies look on, and fan themselves; the rooms are airless. Elizabeth watches Frances out of the corner of her eye. She knows there are limits to what a friend may ask, even the dearest of friends. She knows their stay was never meant to last so long. Any day now, Elizabeth must let Frances go home to her family, to the baby she will barely recognise. This is where the story ends.
When the gaming is over, there is an auction at which an Ethiopian girl sells for five guineas. "Vastly amusing," shrieks her new owner. Elizabeth meets the small milky eyes of the child and feels all at once that she may faint. Blackness covers her like a cloth thrown over a birdcage.
Frances rushes her home at once, with a link-boy stumbling ahead with his torch. They pass two women in bleached aprons. "Harlots," whispers Frances in her friend's ear. Elizabeth clings to her arm. Her breath echoes in the narrow street.
In, out, so regular, so unstoppable. Elizabeth tries to match her own breathing to her friend's. She turns painfully on her side and watches Frances's face in the moonlight that leaks through the window, across the pillow. Soft lines score the lofty forehead: a face worn out with feeling. Who does Frances love? Her spendthrift Sherry, her big Tom, her Charlie-boy, her Dick the Dunce, her pretty Lissy, her baby Betsy ... How can she have any love left? Yet it seems to come as easy as sweat. She even manages to love Elizabeth, this diy husk of womanhood lying beside her, bitter, unsleeping. Sister of my heart, she calls her, sometimes.
But the latest letter from Sherry is under the pillow. Elizabeth read it by candlelight while Frances was downstairs shouting at the chambermaid to fetch a compress for Miss Pennington's chest. Her hand shook as she opened the letter; she almost set the edge on fire. One word told her all she needed: "Dublin."
The friends have had their season.
I find it impossible to live without you. If Frances were to wake now, this minute, and ask her, look her in the eye and ask, "What is the matter with you?"—that is all Elizabeth could say, like a child repeating her one lesson.
I find it impossible to live.
She cannot remember how she got through the days before Bath, before London, how she bore the weight of her short life without Frances to share it. And still less can she conceive of how she is to live, in a week or a month or two at most, when Frances and her family will go back to Dublin.
Impossible.
A rough sea, a universe away.
She coughs, stifling it in the pillow. Then she lets herself cough louder. If she sounds bad enough, the older woman will wake from her