I am sitting by the window now, up in this atrocious nursery,
and there is nothing to hinder my writing as much as I please,
save lack of strength. John is away all day, and even some nights
when his cases are serious. I am glad my case is not serious!
But these nervous troubles are dreadfully depressing. John does
not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to
suffer, and that satisfies him. Of course it is only nervousness.
It does weigh on me so not to do my duty in any way! I meant to
be such a help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and here I
am a comparative burden already! Nobody would believe what an effort
it is to do what little I am able, to dress and entertain, and order
things. It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby. Such a dear
baby! And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous. I suppose
John never was nervous in his life. He laughs at me so about this
wallpaper! At first he meant to repaper the room, but afterwards he
said that I was letting it get the better of me, and that nothing was
worse for a nervous patient than to give way to such fancies. He said
that after the wallpaper was changed it would be the heavy bedstead,
and then the barred windows, and then that gate at the head of the
stairs, and so on. “You know the place is doing you good,” he said,
“and really, dear, I don't care to renovate the house just for a three months
rental.” “Then do let us go downstairs,” I said, “there are
such pretty rooms there.” Then he took me in his arms and called me a
blessed little goose, and said he would go down cellar, if I wished,
and have it whitewashed into the bargain. But he is right enough about
the beds and windows and things. It is an airy and comfortable room
as anyone need wish, and, of course, I would not be so silly as to
make him uncomfortable just for a whim. I'm really getting quite fond of
the big room, all but that horrid paper. Out of one window I can see the
garden, those mysterious deep-shaded arbors, the riotous old-fashioned flowers,
and bushes and gnarly trees.
Out of another I get a lovely view of the bay and a little private wharf belonging to
the estate. There is a beautiful shaded lane that
runs down there from the house. I always fancy I see people walking in these
numerous paths and arbors, but John has cautioned me not to
give way to fancy in the least. He says that with my imaginative power and
habit of story-making, a nervous weakness like mine is sure to
lead to all manner of excited fancies, and that I ought to use my will and
good sense to check the tendency. So I try. I think sometimes
that if I were only well enough to write a little it would relieve the press of
ideas and rest me. But I find I get pretty tired when I try.
It is so discouraging not to have any advice and companionship about my work.
When I get really well,
John says we will ask Cousin Henry and Julia down for a long visit;
but he says he would as soon put fireworks in my pillow-case as to let me
have those stimulating people about now.I wish I could get well faster.
But I must not think about that. This paper looks to me as if it knew
what a vicious influence it had! There is a recurrent spot where the
pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside
down. I get positively angry with the impertinence of it and the everlastingness.
Up and down and sideways they crawl, and those absurd, unblinking
eyes are everywhere. There is one place where two breaths doesn't match,
and the eyes go all up and down the line, one a little higher than the other.
I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before, and we all know
how much expression they have! I used to lie awake as a child and get more
entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most
children could find in a toy-store. I remember what a kindly wink the knobs
of our big, old bureau used to have, and there was one chair that always
seemed like a strong friend. I used to feel that if any of the other things
looked too fierce I could always hop into that chair and be safe. The
furniture in this room is no worse than inharmonious, however, for we had to
bring it all from downstairs. I suppose when this was used as a playroom
they had to take the nursery things out, and no wonder! I never saw such
ravages as the children have made here. The wallpaper, as I said before,
is torn off in spots, and it sticketh closer than a brother— they must have
had perseverance as well as hatred.
Then the floor is scratched and gouged and splintered, the plaster itself
is dug out here and there, and this great heavy bed which is all we found
in the room, looks as if it had been through the wars. But I don't mind
it a bit— only the paper. There comes John's sister. Such a dear girl as she is,
and so careful of me! I must not let her find me writing. She is a perfect
and enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for no better profession. I verily
believe she thinks it is the writing which made me sick! But I can write
when she is out, and see her a long way off from these windows.
There is one that commands the road, a lovely shaded winding road, and
one that just looks off over the country. A lovely country, too, full of great
elms and velvet meadows.
This wallpaper has a kind of sub pattern in a different shade, a particularly
irritating one, for you can only see It In certain lights, and not
clearly then. But in the places where it isn't faded and where the sun is just so—
I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to skulk
about behind that silly and conspicuous front design. There's sister on the stairs!
