“Why should that be a shock? To her?” She received no answer. “Roger?”
“I believe the child may have conceived an affection for me,” he mumbled, confirming my suspicion that he would have attributed any claims I might have made against his behaviour to my own feelings for him. It was a most disgusting thing to hear pass his lips, as well as quite ill-advised on his part and made me feel sick again.
“An affection?” hissed Sylvia. “What kind of affection?”
“Oh, an infatuation, merely,” Roger hissed back, digging his grave deeper and deeper.
Evelyn took me to our room and made me lie down though I assured her I was quite well. She blamed herself for letting me come to dinner when I had been so ill so recently. Once Cook had brought me my eggnog and Evelyn was satisfied I was comfortable, they both left me.
I lay there listening to my heart thudding until it slowed to a more regular beat and then must have fallen asleep. I woke to hear the bells of St Mary-le-Bow and knew it was eleven o’clock. I was hungry, as I had hardly eaten anything, and so began to make my way downstairs.
Crossing the landing on the next floor I could not fail to hear the rumpus going on in Roger’s room. The tone was clearly that of people trying to argue quietly and as we passed I discerned only scraps, including “that little slut” and “in my condition” in Sylvia’s voice, and “hold your tongue, madam, or I’ve something here will stop it,” and then laughter, from Roger.
When I look back on that eventful night now, all this seems trivial. For even as we lived our little lives and fought our petty battles, death stalked the city, and soon would ride triumphant through the streets.
13
Almost daily noisy interviews took place between Aunt Madge and Roger behind closed doors over the next days, and it was a small matter, between what was audible and what Aunt Madge conveyed to us, to infer that Roger’s marriage was unsatisfactory to her on almost every point. He had not consulted her on his choice of wife. He had thrown up his studies at Oxford. He had no plan as to how to keep himself. He had made no effort to find lodgings for himself and his new bride. Yet though Aunt Madge sustained all these objections to the match, she now took the philosophical view that it was done, and they had to make the best of a bad job. However, it soon became clear that, however much of a philosopher Aunt Madge might pretend to be, she was far from happy living under the same roof as her son and his new bride, who now took marital discontent to hitherto uncharted heights.
After a fortnight of living as a married couple at Cheapside, Sylvia announced she was confident she was with child, which seemed mighty fast work, and Evelyn and I looked at each other but said nothing. It was small wonder Roger had married in such a hurry. It was clear that if he ever liked Sylvia, he did not now, and would mope round the house (for she did not like him to frequent his old haunts) complaining to anyone who would listen, usually the footmen. I once caught sight through the kitchen doorway of the Potters entertaining the other servants with their clowning, playing Roger and Sylvia as if on the stage.
REG: (A lace doily on his head as Sylvia): I curse the day I gained the vile, detested name of wife!
TED: (A poker through his belt as Roger): And I curse the day I ever committed the hateful crime of matrimony! (He pretends to drink from a bottle.)
REG: Before we are wed you treat us like queens! But the hour of matrimony ends our reign! I was warned ’tis so and ’tis true! I have been such a fool!
TED: There, wife, you have truth. You have so little brains that a penn’orth of butter melted under ’em would set ’em afloat. (He pretends to drink again.) You took a knock in your cradle I warrant.
REG: Oh speak not to me of cradles! Oh, you beast, you sot! Brute, rogue, poultroon! Thou art a rogue, a hector and a shab! Oh scanderbag villain! (Takes the bottle and drinks also.)
I took care not to be seen witnessing this pantomime, as it would not have done to laugh at Roger and Sylvia before the servants.
A circumstance concerning problems with her estate in the country gave Aunt Madge what Evelyn and I thought an ideal opportunity to absent herself for a while, and at least gain some respite from the continual torment of living under the same roof as the happy couple. At first she protested she could not leave London, but finally we extracted a promise that she would at least consider whether, for her own health and ease, it would be better for her to go out of town for a period.
One morning she called us to her. She appeared to have had little sleep and indeed we had all been aware at some point during the night of Sylvia screeching and Roger crashing about cursing.
“My dears, I am taking your advice and will go into Gloucestershire. I am most reluctant to leave you behind, but I will be frank with you and own that I do not wish to leave Roger and Sylvia in charge of the house. Roger will nominally be in charge of course, but I know you two will look after things and make sure the servants keep to the mark – for I fear they do not respect my daughter-in-law any more than they do my son – and also that they suffer no abuse. You can send to me at any time and I shall not be gone long. Perhaps no more than two weeks. Is this plan agreeable to you?”
We said that it was, and she should not trouble herself about us, as we could manage things perfectly well, and she should stay away as long as she wanted to. We eagerly agreed as to tell truth we were most concerned about our aunt’s well-being, for she had not seemed truly herself since Roger’s marriage.
“There are two further things,” she said. “Firstly, if I am delayed, or any unforeseen circumstance occurs – should I be taken ill, for example, and unable to return for a time – I would like you to continue with the monthly dinner. I do not wish to abridge you two girls of any pleasure, and besides, Dr Rookham and Mr Fluke will prove true friends to you should you need to apply to them for assistance of any kind. I have corresponded with them both and they have readily agreed to watch over you in an avuncular capacity. You may depend on them.” She stopped and looked earnestly at us and I could tell she was still debating whether she should leave us.
“Be perfectly easy, Aunt,” Evelyn said. “We will do as you ask, of course.”
“What is the other matter, Aunt?” I asked. “You said two things.”
“Yes, I did.” Aunt looked out of the window, took a deep breath, and then turned her attention back to us. “I want you to especially have an eye to Sal and Joe’s well-being.”
“Aunt,” I ventured, “you are as kind-hearted a person as ever I knew, but there are thousands of children in London in the same condition as you found Sal and Joe. May I ask why you particularly took in two blackamoor children?”
“Blacks and tawnies as well as whites are descendants of Adam, H,” said Evelyn primly.
Aunt Madge did not answer straightway, but indicated to Puss that he would be welcome on her lap and up he sprang. She pulled on his ears which I knew gave her, as much as him, much comfort.
“This is a delicate matter,” she said at last, “and I have to trust you with a great secret.” She sighed and beckoned us to sit close to her which we, much intrigued, did. She put her arms round our shoulders and went on in a low voice. “Though they do not know it, and even Frederick and Roger do not know it, those children are, in a manner, your cousins.”