Winter. Christopher Nicholson

I never use the telephone for conversation. It is simply a very handy little thing to have, for contacting people, in emergencies. You don’t have to use it yourself.’

      Eventually my husband gave way, which pleased me, although I admit that I was slightly aggrieved that Cockerell had succeeded where I had failed. The truth is, he trusts Cockerell’s judgement but does not trust mine; that is the truth.

      On the day the telephone was installed, and for several days afterward, he was very irritable and claimed that he had been unable to write a word on account of it. ‘But, Thomas,’ I said, ‘no one has rung! We have not had a single call!’ – ‘No,’ said he, in a very melancholy voice, ‘but I am thinking of it waiting to ring. It will ring sooner or later. It is there, in my mind; waiting.’

      Mr. Caddy is wheeling his barrow past the vegetable garden. Mr. Caddy has been gardener here at Max Gate for a long time. He is a man of about fifty, entirely bald, with wide ears, and a ruddy face which comes not only from working all his life out-of-doors but also, I suspect, I suspect strongly, from drink. At my approach he drops the handles in order to touch his forehead.

      ‘The gutters need unblocking,’ I tell him. – ‘Yes, ma’am.’ – ‘Could you do it soon, please?’ I ask. ‘Before the next storm, if possible. It is almost winter. Winter is almost upon us.’ – ‘Yes, ma’am.’ – ‘And if you could pick up some of these twigs and sticks, and rake the drive.’

      He nods and yes ma’ams me for a third time, a little slowly, as if behind his respectful exterior he is laughing at me. Yes, for some unaccountable reason I feel sure he is laughing at me, and that my stole must have slipped. He is staring at my scar. A terror seizes me, it is all I can do not to break down on the spot and gibber like a mad-woman. What has become of me? Pull yourself together, Florence, I tell myself, remember who you are. You are mistress here.

      I hold his eye and say: ‘I very much hope we shall be allowed to cut back some of the trees this winter.’

      ‘Yes, ma’am.’

      As I walk on I adjust the stole which, it turns out, has not slipped at all, but I am quite sure that he was thinking of it. Mr. Sherren, the surgeon who performed the operation, said that it was a very neat job and that the scar would fade in time but it has not faded at all; it is still red and ugly, even when I cover it with powder. I hate looking at it in the glass. But I can hardly speak too highly of Mr. Sherren, who is one of the best surgeons in London, if not the very best; of all the doctors I have ever met, he is the one in whom I feel most confidence. As soon as I saw him I felt more confident. He examined my neck with so much care and spoke to me so kindly. He has a very soft, warm voice and gentle hands. I noticed how long and delicate his fingers were, the fingers not of a surgeon but a pianist. His finger-nails were perfect. I said to him, ‘I always knew it was cancerous, but no one ever seemed to believe me,’ and he said, ‘Mrs. Hardy, you have come to the right place.’

      When he visited me after the operation we had a long talk in which he told me that as a young man he had been to sea as a ship’s surgeon, which he had loved, and in return I mentioned the years I spent as a school-mistress, and how fulfilling that had been. I said to him (something I strongly believe) that there is nothing more important than education. ‘Sometimes,’ I said, ‘I think I might still be teaching now, but for my wretched health. Good health is such a blessing.’

      He was very sympathetic. He said that good health was as important as good education, and that people who have a naturally strong constitution often find it so hard to understand what life is like for those who do not. In my experience that is true, very true.

      Mr. Sherren then asked whether my husband was writing any more novels, and I said that he had given novels up completely and wrote nothing but poetry. I went on to mention that I too was a writer, and that I had written several books for children. He was interested and wanted to know more, and of course I had to admit that they had been published a long while ago and that I had written scarcely anything in the past few years except for one or two magazine articles. My days (I said) are so taken up with domestic duties that I have very little time for writing on my own account, and even when I do have time, no energy. I have not written on my own account for a long time, except in my head. Nonetheless, once I have recovered my health, once I have truly recovered, I shall be able to write again. That is what I constantly tell myself, and what I told Mr. Sherren, who said he would be very interested indeed to read anything I wrote. He was certain that I would be able to write again. ‘If there is one thing that I have learnt about life,’ he said, ‘it is that it is never too late.’ There was something about the confidence with which he uttered those words that I found quite inspiring.

      I did not tell Mr. Sherren that my husband does not like me to write, although that also is true. When we first met he encouraged me, but soon after we were married this came to an end, or so it seems to me. Indeed I have come to suspect that he despises my writing. He has never said as much, not in so many words, but I have not forgotten what happened over my ‘Book of Baby Beasts’. It was a book for young children, describing the characteristics and behaviour of a large number of infant creatures found in the English countryside, and at the start of each chapter there was a little poem, for all children love the sound of a poem as I know so well from my days as a school-mistress. I always did my best to encourage a love of poetry in my pupils, and every morning after saying prayers and taking the roll I used to read them a few verses. Even now I remember the hush in the class-room and their eager faces, listening intently, drinking in the words.

      Many of the poems in the book were written by my husband, but there were five that I had written myself, among them one poem in particular I was very proud of, of which I was very proud (grammar is so important). It was about a hedgehog, Master Prickleback.

      My name is Master Prickleback,

      And when alarmed I have a knack

      Of rolling in a ball

      Quite snug and tight, my spines without,

      And so if I am pushed about

      I suffer not at all.

      As I say I was very proud of this poem, which I thought and still think is as good as any of his poems in the book, and I remember that he said that it was very good. However, a year or more after we were married there was a very strange incident when I awoke in the night and heard what I believed to be a baby crying in the garden beneath the window. When the cry came again, I instantly jumped to the conclusion that some servant girl must have left a baby that I should be able to take in and bring up as my own. I had never had this idea before, but now it grew upon me with tremendous force, and I ran through to Thomas, who was asleep, and he rose promptly and together we went to the window. The night was still and warm, with half a moon, but the ground around the trees was all in dark shadow. ‘It is a pleasant night,’ he said, after a time. – ‘I heard it clearly,’ I said, for I thought that he did not believe me; ‘I promise you; I know I heard it. We must search the garden. I am going down. Thomas, I beg you, let us search the garden. I am not imagining it, I assure you. I am sure that there is a baby.’ He hesitated for a moment, and then perceiving my state of anxiety he turned and put on his dressing gown and slippers. Together we went down the stairs. The bolts on the back door sounded very loud as he pulled them back, and Wessie began to bark. I was afraid that he would wake the maids who would think that the house was being burgled and I rushed to let him out. We proceeded into the garden. I was barefoot. The dew was very heavy and silvery blue in the moonlight, and Wessie who was very excited to be out at such an hour raced to and fro. Dogs can smell so well in the dark. I heard the cry again near the vegetable garden; it now had a piteous, mewing quality. ‘There!’ I said. We walked towards it, and found two hedgehogs in the act of congress. Their journey towards each other could be traced by the paths in the dew. Wessie sniffed at them, whereupon they recoiled and curled into their defensive postures. I felt very foolish to have mistaken the cry of a hedgehog for that of a baby, and apologised very much, but he very kindly said that it was an easy enough mistake to make, that the sounds were not that dissimilar and that he might well have made the same mistake himself. Even so, I was so very distressed that it took me hours to get to sleep.

      In