Page 50 of A Theory of Dreaming
I have not come to this position easily, nor has it been my choice. After these past months, and the terrible toll my mother’s death has taken on him, my father has become a fearful and distrusting man. He is racked with terror that I, too, will be taken from him, his only surviving family, his only daughter. I understand: it has been the closeness of our bond that has weathered him through his grief; he has only slept easily when I am at his side. And so, he says, he cannot entertain the thought of my leaving.
My dear Clementina, I have wept over this, and, in secret, only within the lockbox of my mind, I have even raged. I have grown weary of my own grief and wearier still of my father’s. I do not wish to be a spinster, locked in this manor with only him for company. I can only hope that next year, when the courting season comes again and the purple hyacinths bloom, that he will have exorcised this spirit that seems to possess him, this grim specter of neurosis and fear.
And I do hope, in the meantime, that your own dreams are fulfilled.
All my love,
A.A.
The 7th day of Spring, 81 AD
Dearest Clementina,
Thank you so much for your swift and gracious reply. Just as I hoped, it is still true that you understand the inner workings of my soul better than any other living being.
The same certainly cannot be said for my father, whose temper seems to worsen by the day, even by the hour. Just last evening I tried to go for a stroll about the grounds, relishing in the newly warm temperatures, but before I could even put on my walking shoes, he was upon me. He told me that springtime was the time for ripening illness, that fever comes in blooming with the irises. He said the physician has warned him against too many hours spent out of doors... so now it has been near a week that I have not been permitted to leave the manor. Miss Maud has been taking my letters and bringing my meals to my bedroom door.
I have begun to feel—not feverish, but sick in a different manner, nauseous with fettered anger. Yet every night when my father comes to me I cannot refuse him. It would only make his temper worse. And so, I will continue to bear through it all, and hope that I might begin to subtly dissuade him from these fixations and fears.
All my love,
A.A.
The 31st day of Spring, 81 AD
Dearest Clementina,
Forgive me for this latest lapse in reply; things have gone from bad to worse with my father, and he has banned me from writing to you at all. I am penning this letter surreptitiously and will pass it to Miss Maud when he is otherwise occupied. I hope that it reaches you.
My father has begun to refuse all callers, distrusting even the couriers and carriage drivers. He has dismissed a number of our serving staff, out of suspicion that they might infect him with fever—or, I think, that they will put in my mind dreams of defiance. I know I will suffer terribly if he somehow discovers that I am still writing to you.
I have begun feigning sleep when he visits my room at night, though even this does not dissuade him. Presently, I have also begun to ruminate on a philosophical matter: Does grief alter one’s spirit, or does it merely reveal one’s fundamental nature? The creature who comes to me is not one I recognize, not the father I once loved, who once read to me by the soft gleam of candlelight.
Please, Clementina, pray for my deliverance from these abhorrent circumstances. You know that I am not such a one for prayer, but I have been calling upon Saint Britomart daily. I must believe that the patroness of chastity has not abandoned me.
All my love,
A.A.
The 19th day of Summer, 81 AD
Dearest Clementina,
This may be the very last letter that I write. My father has come down with a fever. All our servants have been dismissed, save for Miss Maud, and the physician who comes and goes, but only at my instruction. My father says he trusts no one else but me to tend him, though he is delirious and half the time speaking gibberish. When he is more lucid, he calls out my mother’s name. He mistakes me for her, often. I suppose that he has for quite a long time. As the years have passed, I have become more a wife to him, and less a daughter.
You were right, Clementina, when you said that my mother’s death marked my family for further doom. It is here now, my father’s death. Mine will follow soon after. I pray to Saint Calidore for the courage to face it when it comes. For the courage not to flinch when death knocks at my door.
All my love—and enduring beyond the veil,
A.A.
And then, with alarming quickness, the night of the Midwinter Ball was upon them.
Effy had half expected the university to cancel it, but Dean Fogg had instead sent a missive about the importance of keeping tradition alive in the face of a crisis of morale. Meanwhile, she had done little in the past weeks other than readLetters & Annalsand sleep.
She had never been able to sleep during the day before, but now she realized that all she had to do was take a sleeping pill or two or three and she could knock herself out like a light. Hours would pass while she drifted in the dreamless dark. She had begun to feel out of sorts in the real world, mechanical in her motions. More like a ghost than a living girl.
But Effy wasn’t sure if she would have prepared for the ball any better regardless. Preparing would have involved calling her mother and asking her to send a dress, and she felt that she’d sooner jab splinters under her nails than pick up the phone.
