Do It Now
A cold, damp Christmas Eve brought
John Montague to the plain-fronted club in the London side street. Shrugging off an overcoat that was heavy with
drizzle, his eyes were drawn to the open door through which he could see men
sitting peaceably with papers, drinks and each other. Moving through the room, he reached an
ox-blood red leather chair by the fireside, which slowly revealed a slumped
figure who cradled a glass of scotch, untouched. As Montague approached, Alec Braithwaite’s expression
was shielded by the chair’s wing, a protective curl around the man whose head
was bent, deep in thought.
‘Braithwaite?’ Montague rested a hand on the back of the
chair. When he saw his friend’s
expression, Montague looked concerned but also as if he had expected it. His
tone quavered a little as he tried again, ‘Alec? Minnie sent me out to find
you. You know what my sister is like, a
regular worrier if left unchecked. She
had some foolish notion you were in some sort of trouble…’
His voice trailed off, all jollity, forced through like
winter flowers, running out. Braithwaite’s
face barely registered his presence, but at Minnie’s name he seemed to flinch,
then stir as if coming to from sleep.
‘Monty?’ His friend shifted in the chair, his still-full
glass placed on the table and a pretense of normality established, before he
gestured to chair on the other side of the fire facing him. ‘Heavens, what is
the time? I was quite lost in thought.
So much to plan, you know, so many considerations for –‘
Braithwaite paused, as if coming to the frayed end of his
pleasantries. Creases of something
troublesome clustered around his eyes. Again, he seemed to pull himself to the
surface as Montague friend sank into the facing chair. He had feared the worst
when Minnie had propelled him out into the night to find her errant fiancé but,
dash it all, he liked Alec, older than him by a good few years and so
worldly. Just lately however, the
drinking had become more noticeable, the humour sharper, his attention
distracted, forever straying to something else. Someone else? Minnie had demanded of him. Lord, he hoped not, he
was not up to untangling that sort of mess. He braced himself as he posed the
question in the vaguest possible way.
‘Alec, is everything as it should be?’
For the longest moment, Braithwaite stared at him in
silence before remarkably, the corners of his mouth twitched a smile and a
snort of hard laughter shot from him. His eyes wandered as thoughts crowded him
and again a bolt of laughter broke the silence between them. Montague waited
for an explanation but none came and the silence resettled over them, so he pressed
the point, fighting the discomfort.
‘Minnie is worried that – well, that you are having
second thoughts.’ His blustering, clumsy and mortifyingly embarrassed, seemed
to register with his friend, whose expression softened.
‘Oh heavens, no, no, I have absolutely no doubts on that
front. I am…’ A pause and briefly, like a flicker of a flame, Braithwaite’s
face shimmered a genuine smile. ‘Monty, your sister is one of the finest women
I have ever met. If it is indeed my fate to marry her, then I shall consider
myself to have been blessed by the angels.’
Montague rushed to be satisfied with this, a bloom of
relief growing then wilting back as Braithwaite sank back into his thoughts.
Montague sat forward, preparing a second assault. He paused as the club’s man
brought him his drink and nodded that the men wished to be left alone.
‘You and I, Alec, we have been friends now for ten
years.’ Montague started again with real intention, despite the discomfort in
his voice. ‘I mean, heavens, you are marrying my sister. Come now, I must have
the truth about this blessed gloom that has come over you. You are worrying
Minnie, and if she becomes distressed, we shall all suffer…’
He tailed off with a guilty smile that Braithwaite
returned as a pale echo. Shifting in his chair, Montague watched his friend reach
for his glass and drink deeply, then looked at his friend with purpose. Montague
willed him to speak, the seesaw of his moustache as his wound up his nerve to
tackle some uncomfortable topic. Braithwaite’s
further pause brought a blustered explosion of frustration from Montague.
‘Damn it, I demand you tell me immediately what this
accursed matter is, or I shall call the wedding of myself!’
His threat was entirely in vain, not least because poor
Monty would not have dared get between Minnie and her bridal dream, nor even
less between his mother and her new chartreuse hat. Stiffly, slightly, as if
restrained, Braithwaite moved himself in the chair. He looked at the expectant
face of his friend.
‘If I tell you a story, Monty, if I tell you, then it
must remain here.’ The stillness of his friend’s voice brought Montague forward
in his chair once more with an eager nod. Braithwaite held up a slightly
quivering hand, as if to slow his keenness. ‘You shall not like, nor even
understand, what I am about to tell you. Dash it all, I’m not sure I understand
it myself.’
‘Tell me, old man, tell me. Let’s get this settled here
and now so that all this can be forgotten.’
The older man leaned back, not lost in thought this time,
but seeming to compose himself. He placed his glass back down on the table
between them and wove his fingers into a bridge, on which he rested his lips.
When he spoke, it was against his fingers as if he tried to hush himself.
‘Do you believe in ghosts?’
This opening was so sudden and plain, that Montague, for
a moment, thought he was joking and a wry laugh escaped him. His friend’s face
did not move, his eyes still fixed on him.
Montague looked around, self-consciously.
‘Well, foolishness, I know, but I mean, I’ve never –‘
Braithwaite’s hand rose again, this time without the
tremor.
‘If I was to tell you there was a ghost with us now, what
would you say?’
In shock, Montague jumped a little and looked swiftly
around with such gusto that the few other men in the club looked over, eyebrows
raising, murmured disapproval. He gave a short laugh.
‘There is nothing, I see nothing here. You are joking, I
see, very funny.’ His voice was unsteady, and his surety in his friend was
being sorely tested. He arranged his face sternly against such teasing, but
Braithwaite remained still. His eyes flickered to the side.
‘She’s not here for you.’ Montague heard his own breath quiver out and a creep of
fear stroked his spine. Braithwaite
settled back in his chair and began to tell his story.
‘Although I am a few years your senior, Monty, we are
both old enough to have seen some life. I fear that possibly when both of us
were young, our decisions were not the wisest nor the kindest. If at the end of
this tale you wish to take your sister far away from me, I will quite
understand. I will publish a letter in the Times to the effect that the blame
was entirely mine.’ Braithwaite paused, as Montague began to object, but his
love for his near-brother meant that the younger man relented and allowed him
to talk. ‘You must hear me out, my friend, you must allow me to explain what
has been dogging my step and crowding the corners of every room I rest in. I
say ‘what, but I mean ‘who’. I shall tell you how I came to meet Miss Lydia
Hargreaves.’
‘I was eighteen when I first saw her. Her father worked
for mine, and every so often she would be sent by her mother on some errand
that brought her to the offices. In truth I was very fond of her father, so
completely unlike mine. James Hargreaves was soft spoken, gentle, patient, and
his talent with ink and paper made him the most accomplished draughtsman I have
ever seen. He should have risen higher,
achieved more, earned more, but my father liked him where he was. To allow
Hargreaves to rise would have meant removing his boot from the man, and that
was not my father’s way.
James Hargreaves became an old man under my father’s eye,
still producing the same quality of work, the same fine drawings. His daughter
had been born and grown to become a beautiful young woman, all while he was
finely inking those blessed plans for Nathaniel Braithwaite and Sons. I began
to see that the only time his daughter got to see her father was in those brief
moments of errands, such were the hours my father worked him. You would think
they would be like strangers, but no, an easy affection always filled the room
as she crept in to slip a note or a wrapped parcel of food to her father. I allowed it because I craved that familial
warmth. It was alien to me, but I could
observe it as a play on the stage of our office. Her presence removed years
from the dear old man’s face, she filled the room with a glorious glow and one
day I realised, with a start, that it was love.
Hargreaves passed one afternoon. He slipped from his chair with the smallest
of cries, as if apologising for the meagre fuss he made before dying there on
the office floor, his pen still in his hand. I cannot now explain the despair
that came over me, as if I had lost my own family, but I think, to my shame,
what I was most bereaved of was those visits by his daughter; the hushed laughter, her toffee-coloured hair
in a glinting bundle under an often askew hat. She seemed a confection of my
own imagination, more so after poor Hargreaves passing as I dreamed of her, her
step on the stair to my office, her fine gloved hands presenting me with
hastily wrapped parcels of food, her smile, that warm, heartening beam that
brought life and purpose to any man who saw it and no doubt sustained
Hargreaves against the slow destruction my father ground against all who worked
for him, kin and all.
I pressed my father to allow my presence at Hargreaves
funeral. The pretense was a presence from the company, which, being a proud man
who liked things to seem proper and appropriate, he agreed to, although made
much of the work I would have to make up for the hours I would be absence.
There, swathed in black, was my jewel, her glimmering presence muted by her
sorrow, yet no less beautiful and her warmth somehow intensified by her need to
comfort. I had never met Mrs Hargreaves before, yet she obviously knew me as my
hand as seized as if I was family, and she wept openly. She was forthcoming
with her fears of widowhood, how was she to manage now? She cried so freely
that I became more than discomforted, I became actually afraid of such an
outpouring and to me, a stranger! Her daughter moved silently to her mother’s
side and pressed steadying hands on her shaking figure. The girl’s expression when her eyes met mine
was embarrassed, not of her mother’s display but that I, Alec Braithwaite, had
seen them in such pitiful times. Had she sensed that my life was already
colourless enough? She tilted her face to mine, a little of the sparkle
returning, if only for a moment, and when she spoke it was with the clarity of
a pert brass bell.
‘My father held you in high esteem, Mr Braithwaite, it
would be a pleasure if you would visit us when we are less strained, to take
tea and tell us of his work.’ She paused, and her mother’s plaintive mewing
ceased, as caught by this idea as I was.
‘It would be my pleasure, Miss Hargreaves,’ I replied and
her hand, just for a beat brushed my arm, before she turned her attention to
the mourner who had approached. I did
not wish to outstay my welcome and so gave my attention briefly to the mother,
whose hand had taken the place of her daughter’s on my arm. Her face was now electric, although still
shining with tears. She had seen
clearly, like a fox, all that I had hidden, both in my heart and my account
books. Her fingers tightened as she whispered, ‘Yes, come. It would mean so
much to Lydia and myself.’
Lydia Hargreaves – I finally knew her name, and when I
attended their modest home for tea, I was entreated to call her Lydia. I brought her the softest of paisley shawls,
tinted with the same golden strands as her hair. Her quiet delight filled me with joy and she
discretely concealed the shawl from her mother, promising to wear it when her
mourning was over. My Lydia, as I came to think of her, had all the gentle
looks of her father, and stayed attentive through my visit. Her mother, however, was quite another
creature. She was sharp and a little too
familiar for someone who scarcely knew me.
Where her husband had been respectful of our position, almost to a
fault, Mrs Hargreaves took liberties by inches, and would not relinquish what
land had been gained, until you found yourself occupied. It was clear at once
that she intended her daughter for me.
This revelation was not unpleasant, quite the reverse and I allowed this
invasion without considering the implications. Lydia and I developed the
understanding without having the time to truly get to know each other, and
therein lay the fault, for which I take full blame. I should have realised that
despite assuming the gentle manner of her most excellent father, it took two
parents to create this blessed child and I had not considered the mother’s
character in my Lydia. Indeed, she became ‘My Lydia’ in my mind, before I
discovered who the girl really was.
‘Do it now!’ became her favourite refrain. At first it was a cheery cajoling, a tease
and pleasurable invitation. It grew to be a stick with which to drive me
towards whatever she desired. The request of a kiss on one day became a
pressure to strive harder at the company, to ask for more than I could manage,
to just become more for her sake.
There were not enough hours in the day to cater for her whims. Her mother became her echo, it was as if I
was courting the both of them as they were always together, a duality of
pressure until I was saddled and yoked and hip deep in the furrow I could
barely plough. My beautiful Lydia, my sunshine and spark had become my drover,
demanding that rings be bought and houses found, all immediately. I struggled
and I buckled.’
There was a pause in the narrative as Alec drew his
tumbler once more to his lips with a shaking hand. Montague watched, his mouth
open in uncertain horror and at the silence, he stumbled to speak.
‘But, surely, Alec,’ he began in a hurry, ‘you did not
marry this girl?’
Alec shook his head, swallowing, his eyes dipped.
‘I did not,’ he confirmed, shame washing his words. ‘I
would have, yet fate stepped in and Miss Hargreaves died.’
‘Good God!’ Montague exclaimed, then adjusted his tone from relief to
one of sympathy, not wholly convincingly. ‘I’m sorry to hear that, but you were
free!’
‘I was.’ The two words were murmured, then followed by
three more. ‘So I thought.’
‘The mother?’ asked Montague, but Alec shook his head.
‘No, that harridan faded into the background. I found
myself unshackled from them both, and for my shame, I celebrated my freedom. I
did so discretely because to the world I was a bereaved man, affianced if not
wed, but still I had to maintain the pretence of sorrow when all I felt was
relief. Still though, she found me out.’
Alec paused, drinking deeply, his eyes settling on his
friend, who was agog. With a nod, he continued.
‘At first the voice was indistinct. Do it now she’d whisper in my ear and I’d turn and see
nothing. I believed it a figment, a
result of overwork, of drink, too little sleep. Then I would catch a glimpse of
her in the corner of my eye, so close and smiling. Do it now, Do it now. I could not believe it was Lydia, her
presence there to force me still further from beyond the veil. Do it now, Do it now, on and on, scarce
leaving me alone. I tried to ignore her, I moved city, abandoned my family
business, and even fell in love with another, but still, just in the corner of
my eye she dwells, never satisfied.’
Montague turned sharply, looking about.
‘And she is here now?’ he whispered. Braithwaite nodded
stiffly, causing the younger man to lean forward. ‘Be gone, spirit! Off with
you, you are not needed!’ he intoned softly.
The older man smiled weakly.
‘Thank you, Monty, but it will not help. It is down to
me, I believe I can dispel the phantom myself.’
‘But it is Christmas Eve, my dear fellow, come back with
me. Minnie is beside herself with worry
over you.’ Montague reached over the table, his hand extended. Braithwaite
capitulated, shaking it, and gave a faint smile.
‘All will be well, brother, if I might call you so.
Return to your home and tell Minnie that all is as it should be.’
‘Well then,’ Montague nodded, and rose, ‘we shall see you
in the morning, for church?’
‘As you say,’ Braithwaite replied, and allowed his
companion to leave. Montague reached the
door, but could not leave without a final glance back. All will be well, he had
promised. A fancy, a foolishness, his
nerves possibly frayed by work, or drink or something. Possibly a tease, a joke
from his brother to be, yes, that would be it.
As if to signal this, Alec Braithwaite nodded reassuringly towards him
as he loitered. All would be well, Montague was certain.
Back out in the black, glittering night, the cold air
pinched at Alec Braithwaite’s lips and nose. His steps turned homeward, back to
his rooms. What a liar he had become, and how solidly now she dogged his steps,
her face contorted with pity. Had he provoked her on purpose? Oh, but she was
there, hovering, crowding him, beside him as he strode purposefully onwards.
What now then, Spirit? Confess it all? Ridiculous. Tell
dear, stupid Montague and his pretty, wealthy sister what had happened with
Miss Hargreaves, what had truly happened?
Her silence was concerning. He had given her plenty of
reason to speak now, plenty of justification to tell her tale but she was mute.
He had always craved her attention so deeply. She found it impossible to
refuse. He had been drawn into the Hargreaves home by the mother and had taken
what he wanted there. Oh, the mother,
now there he had been honest. A foulsome
woman bent on social climbing despite the lack of ambition her husband showed
on that front. She had thrust sweet Lydia in his lap, expecting him to propose.
To marry beneath him was unthinkable.
Lydia had not thought so. Had he encouraged her?
He had asked for a kiss, just one and in return he would
bring her a gift. She had smiled, shyly, and timidly acquiesced. Her face
humorous, she had agreed. Do it now
she had murmured with a wrinkled nose.
He had promised a ring if she would allow a little more
liberty. She had tilted her head uncertainly, but pressed and promised, the
liberties were allowed. Do it now she
had whispered afterwards, her voice shaking and ashamed. A paste ring had been
given with no formality.
He had promised a wedding if more ground had been given.
Bolder, crueller demands followed and each time she yielded, expecting a formal
declaration, her plaintive plea of Do it
now, sorrowfully echoing.
Alec turned sharply to his door, and could almost hear
the swish of her skirt, the pull on his arm, that final time they had met. She
had pursued, begged and pleaded. His child was growing inside her, he could not
deny her any longer, he must save her, if he had any love for her. She had
clung to him and he had turned on her fast and hard his hands on her arms,
driving her back, back, back until she hung over the rail backwards, her breath
catching. He felt his body alive with
her fear and she had seen it all, finally.
Do
it now, she had said, her voice soft and final.
How dare she? He had pushed her over and away. That was an end to
it.
Alec slammed the door behind him, a futile gesture as she
was already inside the house, the tap of her shoes on the hall tiles in the
darkness. He strode through to his room,
but this time closed the door softly.
‘So, here we are, my sweet Lydia. I see now how you will
never let it alone. Will you dog me down
the aisle? On my wedding night, will you be in attendance?’
He paused, listening, his arms raised in challenge in the
empty room. There came no reply. He
roared in frustration.
‘Well, now, silence is it? After all I’ve said, all I
accused you of to poor stupid Monty? What use is your silence now? I know you
are here. Am I never, ever to be free of you?’
He filled a tumbler with scotch, listening intently but
the room was quiet, but for his own noises. A rustle of silk pulled his head to
the left, searching the dim room for the source.
‘What? What must I do, you accursed harpy?!’ he screamed
uncontrollably, spinning to see her. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the
glint of gold on her toffee hair, the timid way she drew back from him, out of
his sight. He cries became a choked sob
and he turned this way and that, trying to find her as she slipped from him.
‘Lydia, please, Lydia, don’t leave me. Speak, please, speak, once more, I beg-’
In a dark corner of the room, a side table held an object
that Alec had not noticed before, a box. He approached unwillingly, his tumbler
of whiskey swaying with his uncertain movement.
He raised the lid and saw his pocket revolver nestled in a paisley shawl,
the golden threads glinting.
Do
it now.
Her voice, sweet and soft. She had not deserted him, and for the first
time, Alec granted her wish.
