The Thirteenth Tale

HESTER'S DIARY II

From the station I made a phone call to the bookshop. My father could not hide his disappointment when I told him I would not be coming home. "Your mother will be sorry," he said.

"Will she?"

"Of course she will."

"I have to go back. I think I might have found Hester."

"Where?"

"They have found bones at Angelfield."

"Bones?"

"One of the builders discovered them when he was excavating the library today."

"Gracious."

"They are bound to get in touch with Miss Winter to ask her about it. And her sister is dying. I can't leave her on her own up there. She needs me."

"I see." His voice was serious.

"Don't tell Mother," I warned him, "but Miss Winter and her sister are twins."

He was silent. Then he just said, "You will take care, won't you, Margaret?"

A quarter of an hour later I had settled into my seat next to the window and was taking Hester's diary out of my pocket.

I should like to understand a great deal more about optics. Sitting with Mrs. Dunne in the drawing room going over meal plans for the week, I caught sight of a sudden movement in the mirror. "Emmeline!" I exclaimed, irritated, for she was not supposed to be in the house at all, but outside, getting her daily exerciseandfresh air. It was my own mistake, of course, for I had only to look out of the window to see that she was outside, and hersister, too, playing nicely for once. What I had seen, caught a misleading glimpse of, to beprecise, must have been a flash of sunlight come in the window and reflected in the mirror.

On reflection (On reflection! An unintended drollery!), it is the psychology of seeing that caused my misapprehension, as much as any strangeness in the workings of the optical world. For being used to seeing the twins wandering about the house in places I would not expect them to be, and at times when I would expect them to be elsewhere, I have fallen into the habit of interpreting every movement out of the corner of my eye as evidence of their presence. Hence a flash of sunlight reflected in a mirror presents itself in a very convincing manner to the mind as a girl in a white dress. To guard against errors such as this, one would have to teachoneself to view everything without preconception, to abandon all habitual modes of thought. There is much to be said in favor of such an attitude in principle. The freshness of mind! The virginal response to the world! So much science has at its root the ability to see afresh what has been seen and thought to be understoodfor centuries. However, in ordinary life, one cannot live by such principles. Imagine the time it would take if every aspect of experience had to be scrutinized afresh every minute of every day. No; in ordertofree ourselves from the mundane it is essential that we delegate much of our interpretation of the world to that lower area of the mind that deals with the presumed, the assumed, the probable. Even though it sometimes leads us astray and causes us to misinterpret a flash of sunlight as a girl in a white dress, when these two things are as unlike as two things can be.

Mrs. Dunnes mind does wander sometimes. I fear she took in very little of our conversation about meal plans, and we shall have to go over the whole thing again tomorrow.

I have a little plan regarding my activities here and the doctor. I have told him at great length of my belief that Adeline demonstrates a type of mental disturbance that I have neither encountered nor read about before. I mentioned the papers I have been reading about twins and the associated developmental problems, and I saw his face approve my reading. I think he has a clearer understanding now of my abilities and talent. One book I spoke of, he did not know and I was able to give him a summary of the arguments and evidence in the book. I went on to point out the few significant inconsistencies that I had noticed in it, and to suggest how, if it were my book, I would have altered my conclusions and recommendations.

The doctor smiled at me at the end of my speech and said lightly, "Perhaps you should write your own book. " This gave me exactly the opportunity I have been seeking for some time.

I pointed out to him that the perfect case study for such a book was at hand here in Angelfield House. That I could devote a few hours every day to working on writing up my observations. I sketched out a number of trials and experiments that could be undertaken to test my hypothesis. And I touched briefly on the value that the finished book would have in the eyes of the medical establishment. After this I lamented the fact that for all my experience, my formal qualifications are not grand enough to tempt a publisher, and finally I confessed that, as a woman, I was not entirely confident of being able to bring off such an ambitious project. A man, if only there were a man, intelligent and resourceful, sensitive and scientific, having access to my experience and my casestudy, would be sure to make a betterjob of it.

And in such a manner it was decided. We are to work together!

I fear Mrs. Dunne is not well. I lock doors and she opens them. I open curtains and she closes them. And still my books will not stay in theirplace/ She tries to avoid responsibility for her actions by maintaining that the house is haunted.

Quiteby chance, her talk of ghosts comes on the very day the book I am in the middle of reading has completely disappeared, only to be replaced by a novella by Henry James. I hardly suspect Mrs. Dunne of the substitution. She scarcely knows how to read herself and is not given to practical jokes. Obviously it was one of the girls. What makes it noteworthy is that a striking coincidence has made it a cleverer trick than they could have known. For the book is a rather silly story about a governess and two haunted children. I am afraid that in it Mr. James exposes the extent of his ignorance. He knows little about children and nothing at all about governesses.

It is done. The experiment has begun.

The separation was painful, and if I did not know the good that is to come of it, I should have thought myself cruel for inflicting it upon them. Emmeline sobs fit to break her heart. How is it for Adeline? For she is the one who is to be the most altered by the experience of independent life. I shall know tomorrow when we have our first meeting.

There is no time for anything but research, but I have managed to do one additional useful thing. I fell into conversation today with the schoolteacher outside the post office. I told her that I had spoken to John about the truant and that she should come to me if the boy is absent again without reason. She says she is used to teaching half a class at harvesttime when the children go spud-hucking with their parents in the fields. But it is not harvesttime, and the child was weeding the parterres, I told her. She asked me which child it was, and I felt foolish at not being able to tell her. The distinctive hat isno help atall in identifying him, since children do not wear hats in class.Icould go back to John but doubt he will give me more information than last time.

I am not writing my diary much lately. Ifind that after the writing, late at night, of the reportsI prepare every day about Emme line'sprogress, I am frequently too tired to keep up withmyown record of my activities. And I do want to keep arecord of these daysand weeks, for I am engaged, with the doctor, on very important research, and in years to come, whenI havegone away and left thisplace, I may wish to look back and remember. Perhaps myefforts withthe doctor will open some door for me into further work of this kind, forI find the scientific and intellectual work more engrossing and more satisfying than anything I have ever done. This morning for instance, Dr. Mauds ley and I had the most stimulating conversation on the subject ofEmme line's use ofpronouns. She is showing an ever-greater inclination tospeak to me, and her ability to communicate improves every day. Yet the one aspectofherspeechthat is resistant to development is the persistence of the first person plural. "We went to the woods, " she will say, and alwaysI correct her: "I went to the woods. "Like a little parrot she will repeat "I" after me, but in the very next sentence, "We saw akitten in the garden, " or some such thing.

The doctor and I are much intrigued bythispeculiarity. Is it simplyan ingrained habit ofspeech carried over from her twin language into English, a habit that will in time right itself? Or does the twinness go so deep in herthat even in her language she is resistant to the idea of having aseparate identity from that of her sister? I told the doctor about imaginary friends thatsomany disturbed children invent, and together we explored the implications ofthis. What if the child's dependence onher twin is so great that the separation causes a mental trauma such that the damaged mind provides solace bythe creation of an imaginary twin, afantasy companion? We arrived at no satisfactory conclusion but parted with the satisfaction of having located another area of future study: linguistics.

What with Emmeline, and the research, and the general housekeeping that needs to be done, I find I am sleeping too little, and despite my reserves of energy, which I maintain by healthy diet and exercise, I can distinguish the symptoms of sleep deprivation. I irritate myself by putting things down and forgetting where I have left them. And when I pick up my book at night, my bookmark tells me that the previous night I must have turned the pages blindly, for I have no recollection at all of the events on the page or the one before. These small annoyances and my constant tiredness are the price I pay for the luxury of working alongside the doctor on ourproject.

However, that is not what I wanted to write about. I meant to write about our work. Not ourfindings, which are documented thoroughly in our papers, but the pattern of our minds, the fluency with which we understand each other, the way in which our instant understanding permits us almost to do without words. When we are both engaged in plotting the changes in sleep patterns of our separate subjects, for instance, he may want to draw my attention to something, and he does not need to speak, for I can feel his eyes on me, his mind calling to me, and I raise my head from my work, quite ready for him to point out whatever it is.

Skeptics might considerthis pure coincidence, or suspect me of magnifying a chance incidence into a habitual occurrence by imagination, but I have come to see that when two people work closely together on a joint project- two intelligent people, I mean to say-a bond of communication develops between them that can enhance their work. All the while they arejointly engaged on a task, they are aware of, acutely sensitive to, each other's tiniest movements, and can interpret them accordingly. This, even without seeing the infinitesimal movements. And it is no distraction from the work. On the contrary, it enhances it, for our speed of understanding is quickened. Let me add one simple example, small in itself but standing in for countless others. Thismorning, I was intent upon some notes, trying to see a pattern of behavior emerging from his jottings on Adeline. Reaching for a pencil to make an annotation in the margin, I felt the doctor's hand brush mine and he passed the pencil I sought into it. I looked up to thank him, but he was deeply engrossed in his own papers, quite unconscious of what had happened. In such a way we work together: minds, hands, always in conjunction, always anticipating the other's needs and thoughts. And when we are apart, which we are for most of the day, we are always thinking of small details relating to the project, or else observations about the broader aspects of life and science, and even this shows how well suited we arefor this joint undertaking.

But I am sleepy, and though I could write at length of the joys of coauthoring a research paper, it is really time to go to bed.

I have not written for nearly a week and do not offer my usual excuses. My diary disappeared.

I spoke to Emmehne about it-kindly, severely, with offers ofchocolate and threats of punishment (and yes, my methods have broken down, but frankly, losing a diary touches one most personally)-but she continues to deny everything. Her denials were consistent and showed many signs of good faith. Anyone not knowing the circumstances would have believed her. Knowing her as I do, I found the theft unexpected myselfandfind it hard to explain it within the general progress she has made. She cannot read and has no interest in other people's thoughts and inner lives, other thanso far as they affect her directly. Why should she want it? Presumably it is the shine of the lock that tempted her her passion for shiny things is undiminished, and I do not try to reduce it; it is usually harmless enough. But I am disappointed in her.

If I were to judge by her denials and her character alone, I would conclude that she was innocent of the theft. But the fact remains that it cannot have been anyone else. John? Mrs. Dunne? Even supposing that the servants should have wanted to steal my diary, which I don't believe for a minute, I remember clearly that they were busy elsewhere in the house when it went missing. In case I was wrong about this, I brought the conversation around to their activides, and John confirms that Mrs. Dunne was in the kitchen all morning ("making a right racket, too, " he told me). She confirms thatJohn was at the coach house mending the car ("noisy oldjob "). It cannot have been either of them.

And so, having eliminated all the other suspects I am obliged to believe that it was Emmeline.

And yet I cannot shake off my misgivings. Even now I can picture her face-so innocent in appearance, so distressed at being accused-and I am forced to wonder, is there some additionalfactor atplay here thatI have failed to take into account? When I view the matterin this light it gives rise to an uneasiness in me: I am suddenly overwhelmed by the presentiment that none of my plans is destined to come to fruition. Something has been against me ever since I cameto this house! Something thatwants to thwart me and frustrate me in every project I undertake! I have checked and rechecked my thinking, retraced every step in my logic, I canfind noflaw, yet still I find myself beset by doubt… What is it that I am failing to see?

Reading over this last paragraph I am struck by the most uncharacteristic lack of confidence in my tone. It is surely only tiredness that makes me think thus. An unrested mind is prone to wander into unfruitful avenues; it is nothing that a good night's sleep cannot cure.

Besides, it is all over now. Here I am, writing in the missing diary. I locked Emmeline in her room for four hours, the next day for six, and she knew the day after, it would be eight. On the second day, shortly after I came down from unlocking her door I found the diary on my desk in the schoolroom. She must have slipped down very quietly to put it there; I did not see her go past the library door to the schoolroom even though I left the door open deliberately. But it was returned. So there is no room for doubt, is there?

I am so tired and yet I cannot sleep. I hear steps in the night, but when I go to my door and look into the corridor there is no one there.

I confess it made me uneasy-makes me uneasy still-to think that this little book was out of my possession even for two days. The thought of another person reading my words is most discomforting. I cannot help but think how another person would interpret certain things I have written, for when I write for myself only, and know perfectly well the truth of what I write, I am perhaps less careful of my expression, and writing at speed, may sometimes express myself in a way that could be misinterpreted by another who would not have my insight into what I really mean. Thinking over some of the things I have written (the doctor and the pencil-such an insignificant event- hardly worth writing about at all really), I can see that they might appear to a stranger in a light rather different from what I intended, and I wonder whether I should tear out these pages and destroy them. Only I do not want to, for these are the pages that I most want to keep, to read later, when I am old and gone from here, and think back to the happiness of my work and the challenge of our great project.

Why should a scientific friendship not be a source of joy? It is no less scientific for that, is it?

But perhaps the answer is to stop writing altogether, for when I do write, even now as I write this very sentence, this very word, I am aware of a ghost reader who leans over my shoulder watching my pen, who twists my words andperverts my meaning, and makes me uncomfortable in the privacy of my own thoughts.

It is very aggravating to be presented to oneself in a light so different from the familiar one, even when it is clearly a false light. I will not write any more.