Mr Atkinson of the beauty of an actress – as if his wife occupies some strongly lit stage and he, for all his public eminence, watches from a lowly distance. It seems to him that he has worked hard andachieved much and yet failed to give due attention to this wonderful creature with whom, once, he bounced so casually through the rituals of procreation.
In short, Sarah Atkinson is in her prime; and her husband is growing old and doting – and jealous.
In his sixty-fifth year attacks of gout confine Thomas within doors and disturb his usually even temper. He cannot accompany his wife on their accustomed walks, drives and visits. From the window of the house in Market Street, he watches her step into waiting carriages and be whisked away, and the constant paperwork before him, which concerns plans for the modernization and further enlargement of the brewery, the extension of the Ouse wharves and the conveyance of Atkinson Ale by river or road to ever more numerous points of consumption, cannot stop his thoughts, while she is gone, returning repeatedly to her.
Several men fall under his suspicion. His own brewery manager; a King’s Lynn corn merchant; the younger members of the Drainage Commission; the very doctor who calls to treat his gout. And none of them can explain, for fear of imputing to the Great Man of Gildsey a slander which he has not openly voiced, that Mrs Atkinson is innocent, innocent, and has nothing but loyalty and devotion for her husband, whom everyone knows she adores.
One night in January, 1820, an incident occurs for which no first-hand account exists yet which is indelibly recorded in innumerable versions in the annals of Gildsey. That January night Sarah returned from an evening spent, so it happened, in the irreproachable company of the rector of St Gunnhilda’s, his good wife and assembled guests, to a Thomas more than usually plagued by the pains of gout. It is not known exactly what passed between them, only that – according to what was unavoidably overheard by the servants and what Atkinson himself later gave out as confession – Thomas was gruff, grew surly, angry, and, whilst giving vent to the most unwarranted accusationsand abuse, rose up from his chair and struck his wife hard on the face.
Doubtless, even if this action had not had the terrible consequences it did, it would have been regretted infinitely. Yet Thomas had indeed cause for infinite regret. For, having been struck, Sarah not only fell but in falling knocked her head against the corner of a walnut writing-table with such violence that though, after several hours, she recovered consciousness, she never again recovered her wits.
Whether it was the knock against the writing-table or the original blow which caused the dreadful damage, whether it was neither of these things but the moral shock of this sudden fury of her husband’s, whether, as some have claimed, the knock against the writing-table was only an invention to hide the true extent of Thomas’s violence – is immaterial. In a distraction of remorse over the motionless body, Thomas calls his sons and in a voice heard by the whole house announces: ‘I have killed my wife! I have killed my darling Sarah!’ Horror. Confusion. Plenty of Here and Now. The sons, inclined at first, at what they see, to believe their father’s bald summary of the case, send for the doctor – the selfsame doctor whose innocent attentions have contributed to this terrible scene – who is obliged not only to tend the stricken wife but to administer copious draughts of laudanum to the husband.
On that night in 1820 Thomas Atkinson is supposed to have lost completely all the symptoms of gout. At least, he no longer took heed of them. Far worse torments awaited him. All through the next day and on into the next night he must watch by the bedside, praying for those sublime eyes to open and those dear lips to move. He must experience the rushing relief and joy of seeing, indeed, the lips
In short, Sarah Atkinson is in her prime; and her husband is growing old and doting – and jealous.
In his sixty-fifth year attacks of gout confine Thomas within doors and disturb his usually even temper. He cannot accompany his wife on their accustomed walks, drives and visits. From the window of the house in Market Street, he watches her step into waiting carriages and be whisked away, and the constant paperwork before him, which concerns plans for the modernization and further enlargement of the brewery, the extension of the Ouse wharves and the conveyance of Atkinson Ale by river or road to ever more numerous points of consumption, cannot stop his thoughts, while she is gone, returning repeatedly to her.
Several men fall under his suspicion. His own brewery manager; a King’s Lynn corn merchant; the younger members of the Drainage Commission; the very doctor who calls to treat his gout. And none of them can explain, for fear of imputing to the Great Man of Gildsey a slander which he has not openly voiced, that Mrs Atkinson is innocent, innocent, and has nothing but loyalty and devotion for her husband, whom everyone knows she adores.
One night in January, 1820, an incident occurs for which no first-hand account exists yet which is indelibly recorded in innumerable versions in the annals of Gildsey. That January night Sarah returned from an evening spent, so it happened, in the irreproachable company of the rector of St Gunnhilda’s, his good wife and assembled guests, to a Thomas more than usually plagued by the pains of gout. It is not known exactly what passed between them, only that – according to what was unavoidably overheard by the servants and what Atkinson himself later gave out as confession – Thomas was gruff, grew surly, angry, and, whilst giving vent to the most unwarranted accusationsand abuse, rose up from his chair and struck his wife hard on the face.
Doubtless, even if this action had not had the terrible consequences it did, it would have been regretted infinitely. Yet Thomas had indeed cause for infinite regret. For, having been struck, Sarah not only fell but in falling knocked her head against the corner of a walnut writing-table with such violence that though, after several hours, she recovered consciousness, she never again recovered her wits.
Whether it was the knock against the writing-table or the original blow which caused the dreadful damage, whether it was neither of these things but the moral shock of this sudden fury of her husband’s, whether, as some have claimed, the knock against the writing-table was only an invention to hide the true extent of Thomas’s violence – is immaterial. In a distraction of remorse over the motionless body, Thomas calls his sons and in a voice heard by the whole house announces: ‘I have killed my wife! I have killed my darling Sarah!’ Horror. Confusion. Plenty of Here and Now. The sons, inclined at first, at what they see, to believe their father’s bald summary of the case, send for the doctor – the selfsame doctor whose innocent attentions have contributed to this terrible scene – who is obliged not only to tend the stricken wife but to administer copious draughts of laudanum to the husband.
On that night in 1820 Thomas Atkinson is supposed to have lost completely all the symptoms of gout. At least, he no longer took heed of them. Far worse torments awaited him. All through the next day and on into the next night he must watch by the bedside, praying for those sublime eyes to open and those dear lips to move. He must experience the rushing relief and joy of seeing, indeed, the lips
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