"That's Miss Pennington," the gossips say; "she does not dance." Which, in Bath code, means: spare your breath. Her partner is bony and invisible. The lady's not for marrying.
Miss Elizabeth Pennington is a fortune, past twenty-five and still a spinster. Friends blame her health. Enemies blame her finickiness. She has come to Bath in the care of a humble companion, Mrs. Sheridan. ("Wife to the theatre man, don't you know, with a houseful of children left at home.") Both ladies are vicars daughters, but there the resemblance ends. The younger has all the money, it is said, and the elder all the wit.
What the gossips don't know is that a year ago, Elizabeth turned up on her friend's doorstep in Covent Garden without a word of warning. "I am come to take up my abode with you," she stuttered, absurdly Biblical. Words memorised in the hired carriage, sentences stiff with anticipated disappointment.
"I find it impossible to live without you."
She strained for a breath.
"You may shut your doors against me—"
The doors swung open.
She lived all that year with Frances and her Air. Sherry and her children. Elizabeth taught the smaller ones Aesop's fables, poured tea for Sherry's visitors, and could always be relied upon to have read their latest works. When the new baby came, the Sheridans named her Betsy, in Elizabeth's honour.
She made sure to make herself indispensable. Sherry joked that his wife had no need of his company anymore; he stayed out late with poets and ballet-masters. In letters from home, the Reverend Pennington asked his daughter with increasing querulousness how long her friend would require her. Elizabeth answered only with remarks on the weather.
She picked at her food, and fed the best bits to the baby. Whenever she was taken by a coughing fit, that long winter, she covered her mouth with one of her two dozen handkerchiefs, each of them trimmed with the best Bruges lace.
Frances refused to be alarmed by her friend's husky voice, the violet tinge about her eyes. All her darling Elizabeth needed was a trip to Bath: taking the waters and seeing the sights would restore anyone to perfect health. Especially one so young. Especially one so worthy of all life held in store.
And what could Sherry do but agree? What husband could object, except a brute? What could any man say, who had the slightest sense of the exquisite force of female friendship?
They promised to write to him weekly. They left the baby with a good clean nurse.
Before dawn Elizabeth is shaken awake by the rattle of carts, the bawling of muffin-men.
"I declare," yawns Frances beside her in a perfect imitation of Lady Danebury, "this is such a fatigating life, I scarce have strength to rise!"
This town was designed by the sick; every hour a different amusement keeps death at bay. At sunrise they go to the Bath in sedan chairs; the chair-men's puffing breaths leave white trails on the air. The first time Elizabeth saw a bathing costume, she was so appalled she laughed out loud, but now she pulls on the yellow canvas jacket and petticoat and thinks nothing of it. What she shrinks from is the moment of ducking under the arch and wading out into the basin, under the gray sky. The water scalds, even on the coldest mornings. Elizabeth cannot help imagining that she is being boiled down to the bone, rendered into soup.
Oblivious to the heat that flushes their cheeks, ladies stand and gossip with their necessaries laid out on little floating trays: snuffboxes, pomanders, nosegays wilting fast. Clouds of yellow steam fill the air. In a far corner, Frances has her bad leg pumped on. She chats with the pump-man as if he were family; she lacks any sense of the gulf between herself and the lower orders. Elizabeth can always make out her friend's voice in a crowd; still full of Dublin, after all these years.
Two boys dive in, raising wings of water. Elizabeth holds down her stiff skirts so no one can snatch at them. She tells herself that no one is looking at her, but lodgings crowd around the Bath, and footmen and beggars ring the walls, pointing out the fairest faces, the greatest dowries. One day someone threw a cat in, and there was a wonder: it could swim.
Elizabeth backs against a pillar, light-headed. She pulls her handkerchief from her straw hat to wipe her cheeks. She sinks deeper into the water, and fiery fingers lay hold of her stiff shoulders; for a moment she is relieved to the point of tears. She shuts her eyes and tells herself to trust in the waters. So many, of all ranks of life, have been cured, even some three times her age; there is a marble cross in the corner, hung with discarded crutches. Why can she not believe?
It seems to her now that these are the waters of death in which disease leaks from one frail body to another. The ghostly smell of bad eggs fills up her nostrils, and a stained plaster floats by. Flakes of snow drift down from the sky, then turn to rain; the whole world is made of vapour.
"My dearest?"
That smile that sustains her, like daily bread.
When Elizabeth climbs up the steps to join Frances, her costume weighs on her so she cannot breathe. But then again, she cannot remember when she last drew breath without a struggle. When she was a girl? A child? At home, there was an oak tree; surely she climbed it?
The Guides are stained brown from the waters. They tell her how well she looks today. Such a lie is worth half a crown each.
The leather of the sedan chair is still wet from the last customer. "Home now, and quick about it, before Miss Pennington takes cold!" orders Mrs. Sheridan. Her voice is sharp with borrowed authority. But she has omitted to tip the chair-man in advance; she finds it hard to persuade herself to make free with her young friend's fortune. Out of spite the man leaves the curtains open, so the rain drifts in on Elizabeth's eyelids. The streets are clogged with barrows.
Back in bed, the ladies keep the blankets over their heads to make themselves sweat out the poisons. Outside the muddy window, the pattens strapped to strangers' feet clink like blackbirds. To distract her friend from the cough that doubles her up, Frances recites some new phrases she overheard in the Bath. "My dear girl is vastly embellished, she is a perfect progeny of learning," she squeaks. "La, my dear, you put me in a terrible agility!"
Lying there, chuckling and wheezing, Elizabeth should be perfectly happy. She is happier, at least, than she has ever been in her short and narrow life. Is she not here, in Bath, with Frances, the two of them curtained in their bed, forgetting fathers and husbands and children and all, shedding the ordinary world?
By eight in the morning the ladies are at the Pump Room, listening to the violins and forcing down the water.
Words fill the air around them like feathers, moving too fast to catch. "Your lordship's immensely good." "I'm laced so tight my stomach's sore." "Nay, I grant you, the fellow dresses prodigiously." "Oh, Iud!" "Oh, monstrous!" "Miss Pennington? La, she'll not last till Easter."
Elizabeth lowers her eyes and sips her glass of warm metallic water. For a moment she has the impression she is drinking blood. Frances must have overheard that remark too; she gets two red spots high on her cheeks, and tells her young friend how becoming her lavender pelisse is, and her little muff of rabbit skin.
Elizabeth knows better, knows what Frances cannot know, must never find out. She knows she wants to die.
The doctors think a young lady of fortune must have everything to live for. Each doctor who visits assures her that he knows where to fix the blame: frailty in the family, damp in the bones, tight-lacing and spiced food, an excess of exercise or education, too many baths. One recommends enemas; another, marriage. Miss Pennington thanks them all and pays their fees without a murmur. She is coming to realise how very rich she is. If she was only a pauper, this dying would have been over with long ago.
At Mr. Leake's booksellers, Elizabeth and Frances browse through the latest poems about the antiquities of Bath and the pleasures of melancholy. But they like the old books best. Sometimes they spend the morning on a sofa, reading aloud their favourite letters from their dear Mr. Richardson's Clarissa. Elizabeth often asks Frances for the scene in which Anna comes to see her dead Clary's body. "My
sweet clay-cold friend," Anna cries, trying to kiss some heat back into the corpse; "my sweet clay-cold friend, awake."
Halfway through that letter, Frances glances up from the page to rest her aging eyes, and for a moment her gaze admits it. Acknowledges that Elizabeth is not simply ailing, not simply weak in her spirits. Truth flickers in the air between the two of them. And then Frances snaps the book shut and remarks, "How well that yellow lace becomes i" you!
Elizabeth loves her most for the lies.
Frances hopes one day to write a novel. The heroine will meet unhappiness on every page, but she will never stop being good. She has never mentioned it to Sheny; she would prefer to surprise him. Elizabeth is the only one to know of her plan.
It occurs to Elizabeth that her friend is misled by the younger woman's pale, slim face, her gentle expression, her occasional verses. An unmarried, invalid lady is too easily assumed to be all soul, all sweetness. Frances seems to think that because the good suffer in this imperfect world, those who suffer must be good. Has she never peered into the back of Elizabeth's eyes and seen the greed, the rage, the morbid longings? How well does she know her friend, for all her devotion?
Elizabeth cannot face the public breakfast, held every morning at eleven. On good days, Frances may prevail upon her to visit a pastry-cook's for a jelly or a tart. Elizabeth always tries a bite or two, then lays her spoon down unobtrusively and pushes the plate towards her friend, an inch at a time. Frances takes mouthfuls between her eager sentences.
They might try on hats at a milliner's, or visit the ladies' coffee house, where Elizabeth sips the sweet black brew till the dizziness retreats to a distance. If the day is mild and the gutters stink, they buy violets to hold to their noses. They cross the paths of the same people five times a day, with a curtsey for each, like nodding marionettes. There's Mr. Allen, noted for benevolence; Mr. Quin, once the king of the stage; Mr. Gainsborough, whose rooms are stuffed with handsome ladies and their handsomer portraits.
Red-faced servants trundle wheelchairs up and down the streets. Elizabeth avoids the eyes of the desiccated women who let themselves be rolled along. But then she makes herself give one of them a civil nod. She need not stiffen at the creak of a wheelchair; she need have no fear, for herself, of such a drawn-out old age.
Down by the river, the ladies stand and look across at the sweet wooded curves in the distance. "Someday well drive to the hills," says Frances. "When you are feeling more like yourself."
If Elizabeth can catch a breath today, she and Frances will walk up to see the Circus. Mr. Wood is always there, overseeing the buildings his father dreamed of; this will be the first street in the world to form a perfect circle. He points out where the tiers of Doric columns will rise, where the Ionic, where the Corinthian. The ladies smile with their mouths shut, so as not to yawn. Elizabeth tries to imagine being needed by the world, having such projects, reasons to stay alive.
The wind pours down North Parade and soaks right through her. The air moves past her mouth too fast for her lips to catch. She stands still, waiting for a breath to come her way, utterly insubstantial. It occurs to her that she died some weeks ago and never noticed. Perhaps she is not the only one. Perhaps the whole city is populated with ghosts, and their faces are made of powder, and their hooped skirts are empty as bells.
"Race you to the bottom of the hill," says Frances with light irony. Elizabeth starts to laugh, soundlessly. She slides her arm into the elder's and offers her whole weight. Interlocked, they set off on the infinitely slow walk down.
***
Everyone goes to the Abbey at noon. Above the great door, stone angels on ladders climb to heaven and let themselves down to earth. Joyous and polite, they wait their turn, even the ones whose heads have been worn away by centuries of rain.
Elizabeth and Frances like to sit at the back. Bright coloured light drips through the windows. Today the sermon is on Gethsemane. Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; tarry ye here, and watch with me.
Her pale hand and her friend's brown-spotted one lie together on the pew. What, could ye not watch with me one hour? She steals a look at Frances, her serious profile, the drag of the skin around her eyes. The church is full of people, but for Elizabeth the world has narrowed to one face.
Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, hut the flesh is weak.
If Elizabeth feels up to it, she argues with her Creator. Her illness, she tells Him, is none of her making. But this is only partly true, and she knows it. True, in Elizabeth's lungs there is a sickness like a dreadful guest who sits and sits and will not leave. But in her heart squats the sickness that will not let her eat, will not let her live. Not long, at any rate. No longer than this companionship will be permitted to last; no longer than she may wake every morning to the soft nape of Frances's neck.
Her favourite part of the day is when they linger after the service and read the memorial tablets.
Thro' painful suff'rings, tranquil to the last,
Thy lips no murmurs, no repinings passed...
Some are in the shape of urns, bulging like stomachs from the wall; others are fallen columns.
In testimony of regard to the memory
of a pearl beyond price,
this monument is erected
by her much afflicted husband.
One tablet is meant to be a curtain; the marble ripples beneath the letters.
A woman truly amiable ...
translated into another world...
"This one lived to the age of ninety-two," marvels Frances.
Elizabeth leans over her friend's shoulder. Their cheeks are not an inch apart. What she has never explained to Frances is that she is choosing phrases for her own inscription.
...though sudden to her friends yet not to her,
as appears by these verses
found in her closet after her decease...
No, Elizabeth has written nothing worth marble. Her verses are thin leaden things. Nothing to leave behind her, then. Only a share in a much-divided heart.
...but to none could her merits be so well known
as to her affectionate friend,
who considered her as her support,
her comfort and advisor...
"Here comes Mr. Lampton," Kisses Frances in her ear, "and we've still not called on his mother."
...whose grief must he as lasting as breath...
But how lasting is that? Elizabeth leans on a pew, wheezing. Darkness comes and goes about her eyes.
"My dear? Are you ill?" asks Frances.
...who henceforth can look to no happiness
but in the hope of reunion
with the dear departed in a happier world.
That is the thought Elizabeth clings to. The other world, the only real world, when she and Frances will have outrun time. When need and guilt and incomprehension will have fallen away like hairs from a brush. Where the two friends may stroll forever between soft green trees.
They dine at three. How sweet, the press of a worried hand on one's wrist. But eating seems inconceivable. Elizabeth's mouth will only open the width of a finger, and the beef smells of blood. She has the impression that wine drains through her as the rain through peat; that food is too slippery to glue itself to her bones. If her friend bullies her to eat, tears begin to collect in her plate.
"Oh my dear, my dear!"
The ladies sip port to celebrate the anniversary of their meeting. They forget to write to Sherry and the children. Elizabeth feels a terrible delight.
At five they go to the theatre, or to Harrison's Rooms. Lady Cholmondley complains about the servants. "The very teeth in one's head aren't safe, if one sleeps with one's mouth open!" Every table has a literary lady or two. There sits Mrs. Scott, a little pockmarked authoress who lives at Batheaston with a female friend. It is said her husband tried to poison her before she ran away from him. "She is much to be compassionated, poor soul..."
For a moment, sipping her thin tea, Elizabeth lets herself imagine Sherry as a murderer. As a man who deserves to have his wife stolen away from him, before he wears her out with bearing a dozen children. But having lived in his house all year, observed his kindness and his chatter, Elizabeth knows the worst that can be said is that he is a bit of a bore. He has never seen his wife for the wonder she is; he has no idea of his luck.
Every other lady's friend is content with her share, she reminds herself, biting down on the frail edge of her cup. What would the world come to if they asked for more?
There is a Dress Ball each evening at six. Elizabeth refuses every gentleman who asks her: "I regret my health does not permit..." Two hours of minuets, then an hour of old-style country dances; the young ladies go off to remove their hoops so as not to bruise themselves. Frances taps her foot and says it is not proper for a married lady to dance. Elizabeth always overcomes her friend's objections by the end of the evening. She smiles as she watches the older woman whirl across the floor with one widower after another.
But every night feels like the last night. Elizabeth sucks the marrow of pleasure out of each hour like a starving dog. This cannot go on.
"Quadrille!" cries Lord Humphry.
"Ombre," contradicts his sister.
Now the ladies look on, and fan themselves; the rooms are airless. Elizabeth watches Frances out of the corner of her eye. She knows there are limits to what a friend may ask, even the dearest of friends. She knows their stay was never meant to last so long. Any day now, Elizabeth must let Frances go home to her family, to the baby she will barely recognise. This is where the story ends.