margins, the ruled lines. The unwritten script, the unwritten life, the unanswered question. Begin again, begin again. But you cannot begin again. It is done now. You cannot go back. The gap has opened. You have crossed the boundary and leaped across a widening crevasse. You cannot go back. You are on the far side, for better or for worse.
Dora is puzzled. Dora cannot see why Bessie does not rejoice. Bessie has her exit visa, which is what she has always said she wanted. Why is not Bessie happy now, now that she has only a few months to wait before she takes up her rightful place and enters on her inheritance?
For Bessie, these empty months prove an eternity of selfdoubt. She lives now in Doubting Castle, and she tries to clean it up. Bessie scrubs at the back step in Slotton Road. Bessie disposes of a dead rat that she finds lying in the drain. She picks it up with fire tongs and wraps it in rags and throws it in the dustbin. Bessie takes down the curtains and washes them in the tub and stares at the sooty water. Viciously she mangles them through a heavy wringer and hangs them in the backyard to dry. They sag heavily on the line, and dark smuts descend upon them as they hang. They brush darkly against the dirty wood of the clothes prop. It is impossible to get them clean or to keep them clean.
Her mother Ellen is not wholly pleased to see her clever daughter scrubbing the step. She smells criticism. Ellen is no slut. She does her best. It is the place that is at fault, and Bessie will learn that she cannot conquer place.
Although Bessie had now formally left school, Miss Heald kept in touch with her prodigy. At first she was not too disturbed by her low spirits. It was natural to suffer a reaction. Such moods were common in young people. Once Bessie got to college in October, and found herself among her peers, in young and lively company, then all would be well. Nevertheless, she knew that Bessie was a delicate plant, and she was concerned enough to make suggestions to cheer her and to help fill this dormant phase. She encouraged Bessie to go to the Gilchrist Lectures at the chapel, on ‘Stars and Nebulae’, on ‘Mediterranean Flora’, on ‘The Life Cycle of the Honey Bee’, on ‘Darwin’s Finches’, on the ‘Pessimism of Thomas Hardy’, on ‘The Romans in Ancient Britain’. Bessie stared, in a mixture of horror and boredom, at the reconstructed image of fragments of a bronze diploma awarded to a Roman soldier in A.D.124 to commemorate his discharge after twenty-five years in the service of his Divine Emperor: it had been dug up near Sheffield in A.D.1760, and the original, like most such spoils, had been removed to the British Museum in London. So even the wretched Romans had needed diplomas and certificates and documents to validate them. This soldier had been of the first cohort of the Sunuci; he had been honourably discharged at last, and allowed, at last, his citizenship and one legal marriage (but only one, according to the bowed and barely audible Professor Harding). Twenty-five years was a long haul, thought Bessie, and perhaps that was why she sighed and shivered.
Miss Heald persevered. (Was she sexually attracted to Bessie? Certainly not, she would confidently have answered. And she would have known what the question meant.) In a lighter vein, Miss Heald invited Bessie to listen to Mendelssohn and Melba and Caruso on her new Gramola Table Grand. Bessie hated the Gramola, though of course she did not say so, and Miss Heald had to conclude that Bessie, for all her gifts, was not very musical. The Debating Society in Northam and the Reading Room of the Literary and Philosophical Society were more successful. But Bessie remained oddly lacklustre. Was it boy trouble? Or had she found her first sighting of Cambridge a little—well, intimidating? If the latter was the problem, Miss Heald could sympathize. She herself had felt very much up against it when she had first left her parents’ home in little
Dora is puzzled. Dora cannot see why Bessie does not rejoice. Bessie has her exit visa, which is what she has always said she wanted. Why is not Bessie happy now, now that she has only a few months to wait before she takes up her rightful place and enters on her inheritance?
For Bessie, these empty months prove an eternity of selfdoubt. She lives now in Doubting Castle, and she tries to clean it up. Bessie scrubs at the back step in Slotton Road. Bessie disposes of a dead rat that she finds lying in the drain. She picks it up with fire tongs and wraps it in rags and throws it in the dustbin. Bessie takes down the curtains and washes them in the tub and stares at the sooty water. Viciously she mangles them through a heavy wringer and hangs them in the backyard to dry. They sag heavily on the line, and dark smuts descend upon them as they hang. They brush darkly against the dirty wood of the clothes prop. It is impossible to get them clean or to keep them clean.
Her mother Ellen is not wholly pleased to see her clever daughter scrubbing the step. She smells criticism. Ellen is no slut. She does her best. It is the place that is at fault, and Bessie will learn that she cannot conquer place.
Although Bessie had now formally left school, Miss Heald kept in touch with her prodigy. At first she was not too disturbed by her low spirits. It was natural to suffer a reaction. Such moods were common in young people. Once Bessie got to college in October, and found herself among her peers, in young and lively company, then all would be well. Nevertheless, she knew that Bessie was a delicate plant, and she was concerned enough to make suggestions to cheer her and to help fill this dormant phase. She encouraged Bessie to go to the Gilchrist Lectures at the chapel, on ‘Stars and Nebulae’, on ‘Mediterranean Flora’, on ‘The Life Cycle of the Honey Bee’, on ‘Darwin’s Finches’, on the ‘Pessimism of Thomas Hardy’, on ‘The Romans in Ancient Britain’. Bessie stared, in a mixture of horror and boredom, at the reconstructed image of fragments of a bronze diploma awarded to a Roman soldier in A.D.124 to commemorate his discharge after twenty-five years in the service of his Divine Emperor: it had been dug up near Sheffield in A.D.1760, and the original, like most such spoils, had been removed to the British Museum in London. So even the wretched Romans had needed diplomas and certificates and documents to validate them. This soldier had been of the first cohort of the Sunuci; he had been honourably discharged at last, and allowed, at last, his citizenship and one legal marriage (but only one, according to the bowed and barely audible Professor Harding). Twenty-five years was a long haul, thought Bessie, and perhaps that was why she sighed and shivered.
Miss Heald persevered. (Was she sexually attracted to Bessie? Certainly not, she would confidently have answered. And she would have known what the question meant.) In a lighter vein, Miss Heald invited Bessie to listen to Mendelssohn and Melba and Caruso on her new Gramola Table Grand. Bessie hated the Gramola, though of course she did not say so, and Miss Heald had to conclude that Bessie, for all her gifts, was not very musical. The Debating Society in Northam and the Reading Room of the Literary and Philosophical Society were more successful. But Bessie remained oddly lacklustre. Was it boy trouble? Or had she found her first sighting of Cambridge a little—well, intimidating? If the latter was the problem, Miss Heald could sympathize. She herself had felt very much up against it when she had first left her parents’ home in little
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