Chapter 1. The Undercroft - 1959
Ian told Scarlet he bought the house as a gift. It was an apology for their cramped city quarters, compensation for Scarlet falling so heavily pregnant with their son. He, universally considered the ultimate bachelor, gave majestic permission for his wife to begin the nest-building and home-making he knew she had thirsted for ever since their hasty marriage. But as she sat beside him while he drove through the desolate winter countryside, she felt nothing but dread: how could he buy a house - reputedly for “her” - without her actual assistance? “Truths” presented by Ian seemed always subtly different from actuality, but in Scarlet’s experience men never told the truth to women. It would be just like Ian to have purchased a ruin for the name alone. He was impulsive – act first, rationalize after – but he never thanked Scarlet for pointing it out. Women were supposed to be the impulsive, hysterical, emotional creatures, men were calm, rational, learned by definition. Period. Scarlet had discovered there was even less room in England than in America for the sexes to locate the androgyny Virginia Woolf recommended. So what was her fear, exactly? She felt for it nervously as if exploring a bad tooth. Would they be in hock to the moneylenders till kingdom come? The “big money” Ian assured her they were always on the edge of had yet to arrive, and yet he confidently continued to expect it. She wished Ian could see that auctions engineered participants into foolish decisions, but Ian considered himself above foolish decisions. In the short early months of marriage, Scarlet learned to pick her battles. Husbands didn’t welcome any overt attempts to “change” them. Unsaid between them, probably unremembered by him, was an episode early in their marriage where she’d suggested, “That will never work” to one of his passing fancies and he’d grabbed her by the throat. Made her shudder to think about it now; so clearly she should not think about it. Fetuses might be negatively affected by thoughts like those. After he’d cooled down – and apologized – she’d tried to get him to acknowledge that such behavior should never happen; his response was, “You shouldn’t taunt me.” So the blame was subtly – or unsubtly – placed on her. She was left with the unpleasant sensation that he’d somehow reserved the “right” to lose control – but at least it had never happened again. Hadn’t he married her a brief three months after their first meeting, just to stop her returning to America? She’d been dazzled by his beauty, his gorgeous male power, glittering intelligence, tall wide-shouldered body, and those long-lashed blue eyes fixed so deliciously upon her. All Oxford considered him the matrimonial catch of the year – you could claim she’d already benefited enormously from his hasty decision making. Everyone she met envied her, so to whom could she confide her marital difficulties? Not to the sister who told her “never surrender” and who refused to attend the wedding. All the “friends” she had so far collected in England were Ian’s eager slaves. Men might be demanding, self-involved, autocratic, but didn’t that make them better in bed? Wasn’t that the real reason Scarlet had married him, the secret she dared not confess but everyone suspected, that he had overwhelmed her with a display of sexual seduction just the memory of which raised every hair on her body to antennae. Now that she was nine and a half months pregnant it seemed as if she would never be svelte, or young, or even whole - again. That was not all that had changed. She didn’t like it when she overheard him describing her as a “born hausfrau” – was there an uglier word in ANY language? She felt misrepresented, as if he deliberately missed the evidence of her true nature and the meaning of her entire existence. Wasn’t such blindness a crime against love? Yet what had he “done”, besides purchase a castle for her? At the apex of pregnancy – you could also call it the nadir - she was willing to admit that possibly she misrepresented HIM. They needed a fresh start. But when a baby was expected, wasn’t that the pattern of couples everywhere? She couldn’t silence her inner critic. She was repelled by all the bluster he deemed necessary to “get ahead”. Maybe she didn’t like the concept of “getting ahead,” especially considering he was so disparaging of America’s “crass commercialism.” And what was that about, his reliance on the occult? He made a game of consulting his “imp” through Tarot cards – a funny party trick morphing into a disturbingly dissociative responsibility dodge. When she suggested as tactfully as she could that perhaps they should not expose a growing child to superstition he “doubled down” with outlandish “universal mythologies” of magic, nemesis, false birth and disguise. He had convinced himself his parents were no relation; he translated his envy of the aristocracy into an unshakeable conviction that he belonged rightfully among them. The democratic American in Scarlet tried to show him the pride in becoming truly “free” and his own person, but the lure of imposture seemed too strong. Thank goodness for her diary – there was nowhere else to confide her unsettling thoughts. She disguised her journal as a “baby book” – a document she could be certain he would never read. Her totally inadequate London doctor – whom she would be happy never to see again – had assured her that pregnant women were all prey to “nonsense fears” and she would feel completely different following delivery. Scarlet was hopeful that deep in the country – perhaps with a midwife – she could secure more enlightened care. So she sat beside him on the way to view this new acquisition. And smiled. She felt a gush of relief at the first sight of her new home. Perhaps she could participate in her husband’s fantasy after all. This gate, massive and rusty, fallen back against its stone surround, was an open invitation to a fairy tale. And something Ian could never resist: this twisted iron surmounted by a pair of stone wyverns. Through the supernatural powers of language he claimed wyverns as his “power creature”. Was the town of Wyvern-on-Wye named after the house or the other way around? Whichever was true, she knew he’d claim the whole town as his by right. She gasped out loud and Ian rippled with the same pleasure he demonstrated on skillfully dispensing an orgasm: “See what I mean? It’s a castle.” There it was, at the end of a curving drive, Wyvern House, miniature alcazar burrowed in a cleft, as if the earth itself had sunk beneath its weight. “My goodness,” was all she managed, thinking, as she knew he did, how impressed future guests would be, especially if they could clear away the brambles, re-paint the gates and set the slipping wyverns more solidly, less threateningly aloft. Up close, the “castle” proved considerably less commanding, revealing unpointed brick, mucky stucco, bleeding windows and muddy drive. Over the double front doors was carved a date which threw it completely out of the running for any claim to aristocracy: “1892: Magnus Bronfen”. “Soap manufacturer,” said Ian. “All soap manufacturers dream of castles, apparently. How else could you get a castle and six acres for nine thousand pounds?” She shuddered at the sum. Neither his family nor hers had ever seen so much money. In their five years together they had barely cleared a thousand pounds, and owed more than that. If she succumbed to this place what time would be left for working out her complex verse play? She had seen nothing encouraging, so far, about the financial viability of verse plays in general. Ian himself was not doing much better with his proposal for a “modern mythology” TV series. They would be thrown back on Ian’s first idea: using his “imp” to win a football pool. Or her secret, most private fancy; writing an explosive novel that told the truth about women’s experience. The one time she had mentioned it Ian had been very clear that he considered “women’s fiction” a literary disgrace. “Plus the novel’s dead. Plays are the thing, Angry Young Men and all that. Look! There is a garden. You could start a market garden. I’ve heard these roses were famed far and wide.” What had she ever done to make him think she longed to garden? But “rosarian” certainly was a better title than “hausfrau.” Much better. At this time of year, the overgrown garden offered nothing to see, but it was walled; the walls covered with the same brambly vines that were eating up the gate. They should be replaced with, say, espaliered fruit trees. By somebody. Someday. To her relief, inside she saw an ordinary house without the unlivable discomforts of an actual castle. The front hall was rather splendid with a huge creaky oak staircase that shed sawdust (deathwatch beetle!) when walked upon but the large rooms were blessed with electric light and there were four generous bathrooms: three second floor and one down. “I don’t think they spent a penny on the place after building it,” said Scarlet. “I’m sure they didn’t,” Ian agreed. “This Magnus guy died almost immediately. The current heir lives in town – I don’t think he has a sou but what I gave him. He says the place has been for sale – slowly dropping in price -- his entire life.” It always impressed Ian to arrive at a “magic moment”. A fatalistic man, with a strong sense of “destiny”, he’d doubtless consulted his horoscope before marrying Scarlet. “He only has what the bankgave him,” Scarlet longed to correct, but didn’t. Their marriage was the envy of their friends because neither of them – NEITHER – ever gave in to cracks like that. Ian had repeatedly stated his opinion that “money” was an imaginary concept anyway, created in the modern world by promises to buy and sell. By failing to leap aboard the mad carousel, you guaranteed being left behind. Sixty-six years without improvements or upkeep should certainly give any buyer pause, thought Scarlet. What Horrible Secret – probably more than one – was this house hiding? Drains? Vermin? As if reading her thoughts – which he probably was, because marriage made a person good at that -- Ian continued, “Apparently the problem is the railways – having to change trains from London to arrive in the middle of nowhere with eight miles to go. But now that everyone has a car that will change. By road, the distance from London is two hours, tops.” No one in their London group really “owned” a car, but everyone aspired to, so why point out that the drive had taken them three hours? Ian would only say it as because his pregnant wife needed to pee every five minutes and maybe it had been. Ian had acquired the station wagon (third-hand) because he’d acquired the house, launching them to the summit of their particular clique. As they walked from room to room Scarlet felt herself warming to this unlikely residence – it certainly had potential - and feeling a lot more forgiving towards her improvident spouse. The rooms were big, well laid out, and the mullioned windows vast and wonderful. There was even a room of empty bookcases clearly meant to be a library – what else could writers ever require? The dining room was a bit dark but the scullery was enormous. “If we updated the appliances we could eat in here,” said Scarlet. “It would be cozy.” Ian made a moue of disagreement. “Why neglect such a magnificent dining room? I mean, we’ve got one, why waste it?” “Keep it for special occasions,” Scarlet murmured. Most of the time it would be just the two of them and a baby, because they’d never be able to afford live-in help. What couple benefited from intrusion cleaving their togetherness? “Pas devant les domestiques” was the English mantra. Three large rooms beside a dining room, scullery and butler’s pantry Scarlet counted, then upstairs were six bedrooms laid out rather unimaginatively around a poorly lit central hall with bathrooms connecting between them. Scarlet suggested they each take for a study the smaller bedrooms. But Ian claimed the library. “Those are kids’ rooms, don’t you think?” he disparaged. Scarlet felt a thrill that he even contemplated extra children. He hadn’t seemed the least excited about her pregnancy until his flicker of interest when the doula suggested it might be a boy. “If you prefer,” she agreed. “Why don’t you take the library for your office and I’ll take the odd bedroom. For now.” She was determined to have the baby with them in their bedroom for starters, requiring her do up just one guest room. Seemed a good way to keep out an overage of guests. She was too well-trained to argue. There was no attic whatsoever and the stairs to the tower were barred with a handwritten “Danger” sign. “I haven’t been up there,” Ian told her. “Pomeroy the Heir pronounced the stairs unsafe. I think we have to assume the whole Tower is a disaster area. He suggested just cutting them out altogether, getting rid of that weak flooring and making it sort of a skylight where you can look up.” Trust a man to come up with such an idiotic idea. “I’ll investigate spiral metal stairs,” said Scarlet. “They come in modular one piece units and I know where we can get one cheap.” Ian snorted, “The more fools they, then, lowering the price just because their Tower was a fake.” Since they couldn’t go up, they went down, down to the “undercroft”, as Ian called it, not a “basement” but a magnificently warm, low-ceilinged room with winking-eye lights to the outdoors, shelves of bottled fruit, an empty wine rack and a huge furnace. Purring away. The furnace clearly was newer than 1892 – and if that was the case, the situation might not be as desperate as Ian had painted it. “I wonder if any of that fruit is still good,” said Ian. Scarlet’s spirits lightened. She felt a poem coming on.
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