Susanna Clarke - The Ladies of Grace Adieu

"Queen Elizabeth," said Pewley Witts, winking at David and Tom. It was becoming clear how he revenged himself for all the slights and insults which he received from Mr Winstanley. It seemed unlikely that Mr Winstanley would have made quite so many foolish speeches without Witts to encourage him.

"Queen Elizabeth indeed, Witts," said Mr Winstanley pleasantly.

"Queen Elizabeth!" cried Mrs Winstanley in alarm. "Oh! But she was a most disagreeable person! If we must talk of queens, there are several more respectable examples. What do you say to Matilda? Or Anne?"

Tom leant as closely as he conveniently could to Mrs Winstanley. His face shewed that he had a great many opinions upon Queen Matilda and Queen Anne which he wished to communicate to her immediately, but before he could begin, Mr Winstanley said, "You will find Elizabeth, Mr Brightwind, between the window and the looking-glass. In Elizabeth 's time the people of Thoresby earned their living by making playing-cards. But the Queen granted a Royal Patent for a monopoly for the manufacture of playing-cards to a young man. He had written a poem praising her beauty. She was, I believe, about sixty-five years old at the time. As a consequence no one in England was allowed to make playing-cards except for this young man. He became rich and the people of Thoresby became destitute."

Mr Winstanley continued his little history of people who might have built a bridge at Thoresby and had not done so, or who had injured the town in some other way. His wife tried to hide his foolishness as much as was in her power by protesting vigorously at the introduction of each fresh character, but he paid her not the slightest attention.

His special contempt was reserved for Oliver Cromwell whose picture hung in pride of place over the mantelpiece. Oliver Cromwell had contemplated fighting an important battle at Thoresby but had eventually decided against it, thereby denying Thoresby the distinction of being blown up and laid to waste by two opposing armies.

"But surely," said David at last, "your best course is to build the bridge yourself."

"Ah!" smiled Mr Winstanley. "You would think so, wouldn't you? And I have spoken to two gentlemen who are in the habit of lending money to other gentlemen for their enterprises. A Mr Blackwell of London and a Mr Crumfield of Bath. Mr Witts and I described to both men the benefits that would accrue to them were they to build my bridge, the quite extraordinary amounts of money they would make. But both ended by declining to lend me the money." Mr Winstanley glanced up at an empty space on the wall as if he would have liked to see it graced by portraits of Mr Blackwell and Mr Crumfield and so complete his museum of failure.

"But it was a very great sum," said Mrs Winstanley. "You do not tell Mr Brightwind and Mr Montefiore what a very great sum it was. I do not believe I ever heard such a large figure named in my life before."

"Bridges are expensive," agreed David.

Then Mrs Winstanley, who seemed to think that the subject of bridges had been exhausted among them, asked David several questions about himself. Where had he studied medicine? How many patients had he? Did he attend ladies as well as gentlemen? From speaking of professional matters David was soon led to talk of his domestic happiness – of his wife and four little children.

"And are you married, sir?" Mrs Winstanley asked Tom. "Oh no, madam!" said Tom.

"Yes," David reminded him. "You are, you know."

Tom made a motion with his hand to suggest that it was a situation susceptible to different interpretations.

The truth was that he had a Christian wife. At fifteen she had had a wicked little face, almond-shaped eyes and a most capricious nature. Tom had constantly compared her to a kitten. In her twenties she had been a swan; in her thirties a vixen; and then in rapid succession a bitch, a viper, a cockatrice and, finally, a pig. What animals he might have compared her to now no one knew. She was well past ninety now and for forty years or more she had been confined to a set of apartments in a distant part of the Castel des Tours saunz Nowmbre under strict instructions not to shew herself, while her husband waited impatiently for someone to come and tell him she was dead.

By now Tom and David had given the half hour to the Winstanleys which politeness demanded and David began to think of Mr Monkton in Lincoln and of his anxiousness to reach him. But Mr Winstanley could not quite bring himself to accept that his two new friends were about to leave him and he made several speeches urging them to stay for a week or two. It was left to Mrs Winstanley to bid them farewell in a more rational manner.

They were not, however, able to leave immediately. There was some delay about fetching the horses and while they were waiting in the yard Lucy came out and looked nervously from one to the other. "If you please, sir, Mrs Winstanley wishes to speak to you privately!"

"Ah ha!" said Tom, as if he half-expected such a summons.

"No, sir! Not you, sir!" Lucy curtsied her apologies. "It is the Jewish doctor that is wanted."

Mrs Winstanley was waiting in her bed-chamber. The room was large, but somewhat sparsely furnished. It contained nothing but a chair, a chest and a large four-poster bed with green brocade hangings. Mrs Winstanley stood by the bed. Everything about her – rigid bearing, strained look, the way in which she continually twisted her hands together – betrayed the greatest uneasiness.

She apologised for troubling him.

"It is no trouble," said David, "not the least in the world. There is something you wish to ask me?"

She looked down. "Mr Winstanley and I have been married for four years, but as yet we have no children."

"Oh!" He thought for a moment. "And there is no dislike upon either side to the conjugal act?"

"No." Mrs Winstanley sighed. "No. That is one duty at least that my husband does not shirk."

So David asked all the usual questions that a physician generally asks in such a situation and she answered without any false shame.

"There is nothing wrong as far as I can see," David told her. "There is no reason why you should not bear a child. Be in good health, Mrs Winstanley. That is my advice to you. Be cheerful and then…"

"Oh! But I had hoped that…" she hesitated. "I had hoped that, as a foreign gentleman, you might know something our English doctors do not. I am not the least afraid of any thing you might suggest. I can bear any pain for the sake of a child. It is all I ever think of. Lucy thinks that I ought to eat carrots and parsnips that have odd shapes, and that I ought to persuade Mr Winstanley to eat them too."

"Why?"

"Because they look like little people."

"Oh! Yes, of course. I see. Well, I suppose it can do no harm."

David took as affectionate a leave of Mrs Winstanley as was consistent with so brief an acquaintance. He pressed her hand warmly and told her how sincerely he hoped she might soon have everything she wished for. He was sure that no one could deserve it more.

Tom was seated upon his horse. David's horse stood at his side. "Well?" said Tom. "What did she want?"

"It is a lack of children," said David.

"What is?"

"That afflicts the lady. The reason she never smiles."

"Children are a great nuisance," said Tom, reverting immediately to his own concerns.

"To you, perhaps. But a human woman feels differently. Children are our posterity. Besides, all women, fairy, Christian or Jew, crave a proper object to love. And I do not think she can love her husband."

David was in the act of mounting his horse as he said this, an operation which invariably cost him a little trouble. He was somewhat surprized, on arriving upon the horse's back, to discover that Tom was nowhere to be seen.