I immediately ran to Frederick, and on sight of me, Roger thought better of going further and staggered away with the painted ladies.
“Are you alright?” I asked Frederick, helping him up.
“Thank you,” he said. “I tripped, merely.”
We both knew this was not true, but it served to inform me that the incident was not to be discussed and we returned to the booth in silence. Though Evelyn and Aunt Madge did not detect anything amiss, the exchange had left me feeling most unhappy and I was glad when we got to the playhouse where my own thoughts would be put away for a while.
Yet even at the playhouse there were more confusing scenes, which began to make me wonder whether I had misapprehended Frederick’s character. As we were filing into the auditorium, a stranger accosted him most angrily and Frederick gestured to us to take our aunt in and he would follow. When we had taken our seats, I saw him making his way towards us when another fellow stopped him and had, as my aunt would say, words. Both my cousins, it seemed, had an unnatural capacity for finding trouble. I looked across to see whether my aunt was aware of all this. She was.
“Do not judge your cousin,” she said mildly. “Appearances can be deceptive. I’d wager he has been taken for Roger, and these gentlemen are Roger’s creditors.” She sighed. “Or he has done them some other wrong. Either way, dear Frederick thinks I do not know.”
Having placated the gentleman, Frederick joined us, and I noticed his eye was puffing up somewhat from where Roger had struck him. Nevertheless, he smiled broadly at us all and sat down as though nothing was amiss. Yet I could not enjoy the play, and thought on the pain both he and my aunt must endure on Roger’s account.
That night as we were in bed, I told Evelyn everything that I had seen at Vauxhall. She did not seem surprised.
“When we got home and you were helping Aunt I asked Frederick about his eye, and I thought tears welled up for a moment, and he said, with great feeling: ‘I am no saint, but my brother is a devil.’ And then he went to his room.”
We both lay awake for some time. And finally Evelyn said, “Other people’s families are a mystery,” and turned over and went to sleep.
The next day Roger was confined to his bed all day. Evelyn took him some tea and bread and butter on my aunt’s instruction and I don’t know what happened, but afterwards she came to me mightily distressed and said I was never to go into Roger’s room alone. I asked her why, but she wouldn’t say, only made me promise not to. Well, my readers will think I am a believing little fool, as I thought Evelyn meant I must not be alone in his room, but that if he were there it would be alright. (I had a habit of being blockheadedly dense on such matters. My aunt had once warned me, when we were going to a dance where there would be much to drink and little to eat, against what she called mixing drinks to avoid feeling ill the next day, and I assumed she meant not to mix them in the same glass, so drank freely of all kinds of things, but one at a time, and could not understand why I felt as though my brains had been baked in the morning.) Had I thought about it for even a second, I would have realised that I had never seen any of the maids go into Roger’s room for Cook made an exception to not coming upstairs in his case and always brought him anything he needed herself.
Although I was extremely intrigued at what might be in Roger’s chamber, I had no intention of disobeying my sister, and so forgot the matter. I could not help liking Roger when he was sober, thinking him vastly amusing and he told such tales of adventures at Oxford. It did not seem that going to the university entailed a great deal of work at all. He was training to go into the law, but said it was “dry old stuff” and he didn’t care much for it. Evelyn seemed not to like Roger so much and when both brothers were there she usually talked with Frederick, of whom I also became increasingly fond, partly because he loved books, as we did. He was studying to go into the priesthood, though he was not like any clergyman I knew, and certainly not like Clarissa’s husband. It was strange, but I barely thought of my family now. Evelyn and I would sometimes talk of our sisters, but we rarely heard from Clarissa or Diana, and we often wondered what had become of Grace and Frances and this always made us sad. The life we led with Aunt Madge seemed almost a different world to our first home, and it seemed strange to think of our sisters in other places living their lives.
Roger sometimes disappeared for days on end and it was plain to see why Aunt Madge despaired of him. When Frederick returned to Oxford, Roger found reasons to delay going, and then fell ill, which gave him an authentic excuse. I did not know precisely what was wrong with Roger and whenever Dr Rookham came to treat him, he would afterwards talk seriously with my aunt, but the door was always firmly shut on these interviews. I knew that whatever it was, the treatment was at least as unpleasant as the disease, for Roger dreaded the doctor coming and once, when he heard him announced, shouted out “Tell him he is not needed and that I am dead already!”
11
I had not seen Roger for about a week when I passed his room and heard him calling. Aunt Madge and Evelyn and the servants had all gone to church (except for Cook, who was a Non-conformist and had to get the dinner on) and I had stayed at home as we were expecting Mrs Macready, whom I was supposed to entertain until my aunt’s return. Almost as soon as they had gone a message came to say that Mrs Macready was not coming, and while I briefly considered following the others to church, I decided instead to treat myself to a morning of leisurely reading. I was therefore not best pleased to be instead ministering to Roger, but there was no one else, and I did feel very sorry for him. I knocked before opening the door. The room was very gloomy, the curtains only partly open, and there was a most offensive smell. It crossed my mind that the smell might come from the thing I must not be alone with. Did Roger keep an animal of some kind here?
“What do you lack, Roger?” I asked. “Can I get you something?”
“Is that you, H?” his voice seemed thick. “Come here, I can’t see you.”
I approached the bed with some caution, as I was still wary of what might be in the room. Roger looked terrible, his skin seemed grey and he was shivering but also sweating.
“Please sit with me a moment,” he said. “H, I feel absolutely done in.”
“Oh, Roger!” I exclaimed, and felt tears pricking the backs of my eyes. I had not seen anyone close to me in such a desperate condition. I sat on the bed and took his hand in both of mine. “Can I do anything for you?”
“What would you do, H?” he asked.
“Anything,” I said.
“Have you ever lain with a man, H?”
I thought I must have misheard him.
“I don’t understand you, Roger. What do you mean?”
“I thought as much,” he said, and laughed bitterly, so that I noticed his scabbed lips. I also realised, belatedly, that he was very drunk and that the empty bottles by his bed had not contained medicine. It was small wonder he was rambling in his talk.
I was feeling extremely uncomfortable now and began to withdraw my hands, but as soon as he felt them begin to slip away, he grasped them tighter.
“Cousin!” I exclaimed. “Tell me what you want and I’ll get it.”