part, the mouth flutter, only to suffer the redoubled agony of knowing that though the eyes open they do not see him, or if they do, do not recognize him. And though those lips move they will never again utter to Thomas Atkinson a single word.
Sarah Atkinson is thirty-seven. Fate has decreed that, knocks on the head or no, she will live a long life. She will not go to her rest till her ninety-third year. For fifty-four years she will sit on a blue velvet chair before the window in an upper room (not the room once shared by her husband but a room to be known simply as Mistress Sarah’s room), staring now straight before her down the cluttered thoroughfare of Water Street to the Ouse, now to her left over the rooftops to where, in 1849, the tall chimney of the New Brewery, on its site by the Ouse wharves, will rise.
But it is doubtful whether she will see these things. She will retain the paradoxical pose of one who keeps watch – but over nothing. She will not lose her beauty. Her upright, forward-looking posture will convey an undeniable grace. Even in old age when her flesh has shrunk but the firm mould of her bones remains (for in such a state her portrait will be painted, in a black dress with a diamond necklace, at the instigation of her sons – and what a perfect sitter she will make!), she will preserve the sadly imperious demeanour of an exiled princess.
At regular times servants will come, with meals on a tray, to comb her hair, light the fire, prepare their mistress for bed, or merely to sit beside her at the window, through bright mornings or sombre twilights, offering unanswered comment on the activity in the street below. And so too will come Thomas, to sit by his wife, often for hours on end, to clasp and wring his hands, to utter God knows what entreaties – but Sarah will never make the barest sign that she knows who he is.
All this he must endure. But first he must watch the doctor come daily, for prolonged visits. He must watch him look grave, thoughtful, shake his head and finally decide that he can do no more and the advice of specialists must be sought. Thomas will arrange, at great expense, for eminent physicians to come from Cambridge to examine his wife. He will conduct Sarah like some rare exhibit round the consulting-rooms of that learned city.He will take her to London to be examined, tapped, probed and considered by still more eminent men of medicine, and will donate to St Bartholomew’s Hospital the sum of £500 for ‘the Further Investigation and Better Relief of Maladies of the Brain’.
He will offer a fortune to the man who will give him back his wife; but no man will claim it. He will return to Gildsey, to the silent unrelenting enmity of his sons and the judgement of a whole town. For will they not, considering all he has done for them, his works and undertakings, the prosperity he has brought them, forgive him this one act of human weakness? No, it seems not. There are even those few, yet die-hard disciples of Temperance who add to the existing rumours the embellishment that when Thomas struck Sarah he was blind drunk from his own fine ale – and does this not prove the truth of the old saying that (far from spreading good cheer) brewers are the cousins of brawlers?
And if others have it in them to forgive Thomas, Thomas will not wish to be forgiven, not wishing to forgive himself. In the Jolly Bargeman and the Pike and Eel, where Temperance does not enter, they still smack their lips over Atkinson Ale, for its flavour remains ever true, ever conducive to the forgetting of troubles; and besides, the Atkinson business is now in the hands of young George and Alfred – long may they thrive. But as for old Tom, they preserve a dour brevity of comment or shake their heads, as once the doctor did over his poor wife.
The times cannot be numbered when Thomas Atkinson will ask, Why? Why? And again Why? (For heartache, too, inspires its own sad curiosity.) Not content with the verdict of
Sarah Atkinson is thirty-seven. Fate has decreed that, knocks on the head or no, she will live a long life. She will not go to her rest till her ninety-third year. For fifty-four years she will sit on a blue velvet chair before the window in an upper room (not the room once shared by her husband but a room to be known simply as Mistress Sarah’s room), staring now straight before her down the cluttered thoroughfare of Water Street to the Ouse, now to her left over the rooftops to where, in 1849, the tall chimney of the New Brewery, on its site by the Ouse wharves, will rise.
But it is doubtful whether she will see these things. She will retain the paradoxical pose of one who keeps watch – but over nothing. She will not lose her beauty. Her upright, forward-looking posture will convey an undeniable grace. Even in old age when her flesh has shrunk but the firm mould of her bones remains (for in such a state her portrait will be painted, in a black dress with a diamond necklace, at the instigation of her sons – and what a perfect sitter she will make!), she will preserve the sadly imperious demeanour of an exiled princess.
At regular times servants will come, with meals on a tray, to comb her hair, light the fire, prepare their mistress for bed, or merely to sit beside her at the window, through bright mornings or sombre twilights, offering unanswered comment on the activity in the street below. And so too will come Thomas, to sit by his wife, often for hours on end, to clasp and wring his hands, to utter God knows what entreaties – but Sarah will never make the barest sign that she knows who he is.
All this he must endure. But first he must watch the doctor come daily, for prolonged visits. He must watch him look grave, thoughtful, shake his head and finally decide that he can do no more and the advice of specialists must be sought. Thomas will arrange, at great expense, for eminent physicians to come from Cambridge to examine his wife. He will conduct Sarah like some rare exhibit round the consulting-rooms of that learned city.He will take her to London to be examined, tapped, probed and considered by still more eminent men of medicine, and will donate to St Bartholomew’s Hospital the sum of £500 for ‘the Further Investigation and Better Relief of Maladies of the Brain’.
He will offer a fortune to the man who will give him back his wife; but no man will claim it. He will return to Gildsey, to the silent unrelenting enmity of his sons and the judgement of a whole town. For will they not, considering all he has done for them, his works and undertakings, the prosperity he has brought them, forgive him this one act of human weakness? No, it seems not. There are even those few, yet die-hard disciples of Temperance who add to the existing rumours the embellishment that when Thomas struck Sarah he was blind drunk from his own fine ale – and does this not prove the truth of the old saying that (far from spreading good cheer) brewers are the cousins of brawlers?
And if others have it in them to forgive Thomas, Thomas will not wish to be forgiven, not wishing to forgive himself. In the Jolly Bargeman and the Pike and Eel, where Temperance does not enter, they still smack their lips over Atkinson Ale, for its flavour remains ever true, ever conducive to the forgetting of troubles; and besides, the Atkinson business is now in the hands of young George and Alfred – long may they thrive. But as for old Tom, they preserve a dour brevity of comment or shake their heads, as once the doctor did over his poor wife.
The times cannot be numbered when Thomas Atkinson will ask, Why? Why? And again Why? (For heartache, too, inspires its own sad curiosity.) Not content with the verdict of