9308-3953

“Why? Because we were poor? Because we were women? Both situations limited our
options, as I shall be the first to admit. And yet we had employment, a roof over our heads, a safe
place in the social order. But Mary did not find that enough. She did not like being a governess. She
pulled against the leash. And now it is my turn to ask if you understand what I am saying. My sister
preferred to –“
“That has nothing to do with you.”
“It has everything to do with me, for I have the same impulses. When I saw the wall
with Trevor…or that night back in Mayfair… Yes, on that night so long ago, I was upset. Yes, I had
encountered death on that day just as I have on this one, but still I…”
“You were vulnerable and I was drunk. The fault lay entirely with me. I should never
have come to you under those circumstances.”
“But you didn’t come to me, Tom, that’s just the point. I came to you. And in the hours
that followed, perhaps you used me, perhaps I used you….or here is a rather large thought. What if
no fault lies with either of us? What if we were merely human beings following a human impulse?
Being no more than what our God had made us to be?”
This last remark startled him perhaps most of all. He had been raised to assume without
question that there was always some fault, some failure of the will in every situation, and that usually
it was his.
“And now shall you move to America? Take up with the transcendentalists and run
naked through the open meadows proclaiming free love for all?”
She chuckled. “It hasn’t gone as far as all that. But you tell me you are like Cecil and
who is to say that there is not some small part of me that is like Mary?”
“You cannot compare a single night with me to her unfathomable decision to walk the
streets. The actions arise from utterly different impulses.”
“In degree, perhaps, but not in intent.” She paused and her voice changed. Became
softer and more thoughtful. “If you are a destroyer by nature, as you claim, then why would have
chosen to become a doctor?”
“I’m not sure I have. My studies in Cambridge have been disrupted so that I might
indulge a compulsion, arisen from God knows what infirm part of my brain, to look over and over
again upon the face of death. And who knows when I shall return to school?”
She lifted an arm and pointed, a gesture exaggerated enough that even the small and
flickering candle rendered it quite clear.
“My room,” she said, “is over there.”
“And mine,” he added with an identical movement, “lies in that direction. You shall
now go one way and I shall go another and this conversation – while too extraordinary to ever be
forgotten – shall not be referred to again.”
“You shouldn’t drink so much, you know. It makes you morose.”
“It is drink that makes me everything that I am, Emma, which is just what I am trying to
tell you.” He rattled his glass and she could hear the bell-like tinkle of ice within. “Drink makes me
clever and clumsy, amorous or sleepy or hungry or bold.”
“They say it is medicinal in this heat.”
“Ah. Shall I tell you one of the ugly little secrets of the medical profession? One of
many? The only difference between a medicine and a poison lies in the dosage.” He held his cup to
her candlelight. “Look into this glass and tell me what you see.”
“A splash, most likely of gin.”