by Maggie Ford
With no other option, Michael gave the man a formal nod of the head and left, wondering why the man should feel so touchy about his asking to take Ellie out for a brief evening of freedom. Freedom – that was how it struck him. Something about her intimated that this house constituted a prison to her from which she seemed forever struggling to escape.
What mystified him more was the sudden and abrupt hesitation mid-sentence when he’d refused his help. He’d been about to call her something. ‘My…’ My what? Surely he hadn’t been about to say ‘daughter’, though it had sounded as if that was exactly what he’d been going to say. Did he honestly see in Ellie a replacement for the loss of his daughter and, having lost her, was he terrified of losing the replacement? Was that why he was so reluctant to let her out of his sight?
Michael shrugged. He was probably being fanciful. But he liked Ellie a great deal. He wanted so to get to know her better. She’d told him she’d be seventeen in less than three months. He was twenty-two, a difference of five years: perfect, as far as he could see, for two people to get together.
Of course there were two obstacles: one, his parents, who had higher hopes for a future wife for him than a girl originating from the slums of the East End, though he didn’t see her as such; the other, Doctor Lowe, who seemed to him to be quite obsessed with her.
Give it time, came the thought, as he hailed a cab to take him home. Be patient. Who knows what time can do?
* * *
The country was mourning the death of its long-reigning Queen – in deep mourning. With all entertainments closed, people were dressing in deepest black, as when a close relative has passed away.
Having ascended the throne at the age of eighteen, Victoria had reigned for sixty-four years – long enough for many to have known no other monarch but her. Though it was expected of one of her age, her death was still a shock. She’d become an institution.
With her many children having married into other noble families, she was known as the Mother of Europe as well as the Mother of Empire, her empire being so extensive that half the world on every globe in every school was coloured pink. Now, on the twenty-second of January 1901, she had died. Now they would have a king again. It felt very odd. A new king for a new century! Things would never be the same again.
Her funeral took place on the second of February. Ellie did not go to watch it, Doctor Lowe considering it more suitable not to go gawping at the solemn procession of one so dearly loved. To her surprise, however, on the fourteenth Michael said that instead of teaching her that day, they’d be going to see the procession of King Edward and Queen Alexandra on the opening of their first Parliament.
‘Doctor Lowe thinks you’re being stifled by not going out as often as you should. He would take you himself but will be with his wife. Apparently she wishes them both to go there on their own.’
In the midst of her delight at Michael taking her, Ellie mentally shook her head at the woman. In obedience to her husband’s dictates, Mrs Lowe no longer treated her to the open loathing and disdain she had once shown, but still refused to give any sign of friendliness. Anyway, the feeling was mutual.
It was a sunny morning, but cold. Well wrapped up, Ellie stood beside Michael in the crowd. He’d given her his arm and she clung to it for warmth but derived a good deal more from their closeness than protection from the cold.
Even though she was of average height, it was almost impossible to see anything for the mass of heads in front of her as she heard the cheering coming towards her in waves when the new King and Queen in their state coach approached.
‘I won’t be able to see a thing from here!’ she pleaded.
At her words, Michael chuckled and, easing his arm from her hold, crouched down. ‘Here, climb on my back if you can.’
‘I can’t do that!’
‘Of course you can,’ he answered urgently. ‘Hurry up now. There’s not much more time and I can manage you. You weigh next to nothing, you’re so slight.’
‘What about you?’
‘I can see well enough.’ At five foot ten he would. ‘Now come on, or you’ll miss it all.’
It was quite a feat trying to clamber on his back, her skirt impeding her, her best hat in danger of tilting itself at an alarming angle.
‘Here, love, up yer go!’ She heard a man’s voice behind her as a pair of hands clutching at her slim waist helped to hoist her feet off the ground. ‘Yer young man’s right, yer know: yer as light as a bloomin’ fevver!’
She thought only momentarily of the imposition of a strange man’s hands on her waist before she was hoisted up to a good vantage point. She couldn’t even turn round to see the man’s face, but his voice heartened her – a real, full-blown Cockney voice. The next moment a surging shock went right through her like a stab from a blade of hot iron. It was her dad’s voice – she was sure of it.
She could only half-turn, getting merely a side view of a sea of globe-shaped faces, unrecognizably contorted with excitement as the magnificent gilded state coach came into view drawn by a team of plumed horses.
‘Stop wriggling!’ Michael scolded, laughing. ‘Can you see?’
She turned back, her heart still thumping. ‘Yes I can see!’ she said automatically. She had probably been wrong – it couldn’t have been her dad, the man always on her mind; but it had been a strange feeling. Firmly she concentrated her attention on the spectacle passing before her.
Despite the splash of colour provided by the royal coach, the soldiers’ uniforms and the silver and gold trappings of the household cavalry, black remained the prevailing colour in mourning for the late Queen, a solemn reminder of the country’s recent loss. If anything, the gesture endeared the onlookers all the more to its new sovereign, the air being rent with cheering.
‘That was really wonderful,’ Ellie sighed as, with the departure of the glorious royal procession, the crowd began to thin and disperse.
She had slid down from Michael’s back, with no one now to assist her, being careful not to have her skirt ride up and show the calves of her legs. The moment her feet felt firm pavement she looked around for the owner of the Cockney voice, but he was probably long gone. She’d never know now if it had been her father or just a figment of an oversensitive imagination. But if it had been him, what would she have done?
Better was the memory of her arm in Michael’s, his laughter at her trying to scramble on to his back to see better, the way he now threaded her arm through his again and suggested they have a cup of tea and a bite to eat before returning her home.
‘That’s if we can find anywhere at all to eat,’ he chuckled, patting her gloved hand. ‘I expect everyone has the same idea.’
At that, she laughed lightly, forcing thoughts of her father from her mind for the moment.
That night she lay awake, thinking about the episode. What would she have done had it been her father? She could still feel those hands on her waist and in retrospect they felt horrible, as if pawing at her. Ellie felt herself shudder with loathing and the memory of that old clawing feeling she would get in her stomach as he leered at her. She had it now.
Angrily she turned over, trying to think of nicer things. Finally she fell asleep, but her dreams were of his weight on her, his grunting and sweating, the vile feel of him, while she was rigid, her mind numb, in fear that she might suddenly be sick over him and bring his anger down on her. It was a recurring dream, often waking her in the small hours. Next morning she’d remember and feel that shame, as she always did after such a nightmare, and make a renewed vow to find him, to make him pay as painfully and humiliatingly as possible.
She longed to see Michael, but it was Friday and she wouldn’t see him again until Monday. Her weekend would consist of being nice to Doctor Lowe, whose obsession with her was becoming more irritating than alarming, of feeling the loneliness that weekends often brought, with the staff long ago having stopped speaking to her, and of trying to avoid his wife.
Her only escape was pai
nting – that and hoping she and Dora could steal an hour together to enjoy a bit of a gossip.
It was so much easier these days. Mrs Lowe no longer held sway over Dora, though the girl was still her personal maid and companion. Since she had returned home, Mrs Lowe was less in her room and more with her husband, eating with him again, entertaining and accompanying him when out to dinner with friends and acquaintances. Ellie guessed it was a new ploy to let her see that she hadn’t beaten her.
But it didn’t matter. For her it was something of a relief, having his attention drawn away from her a little. He still made much of her, asking to see her work, hovering over her, enquiring whether she was happy and content, still calling her ‘my dear’ and, more importantly, making sure she was well dressed and had money enough to buy nice things with.
That was what she most wanted from him; the rest could go hang and perhaps, when she decided to leave here, it might not be so hard as it had once looked. He wasn’t taking her out on so many of those uncomfortable and boring little visits to places of culture. Nor did she eat with him at table now his wife was sharing his company once more. That had been short-lived anyway and she ate in his study again. In a way she was glad not to have Florrie serving her in the dining room, her nose up in the air, being deliberately slapdash when serving her.
So the days went by. Spring came in fine and warm. Her seventeenth birthday had come and gone. A birthday cake had been made for her at Doctor Lowe’s request, she and Dora quietly sharing it in his study. If his wife knew about it, perhaps from Mrs Jenkins, she made no sign.
The trouble was, being left more and more to her own devices was getting tedious, leaving her feeling lonely and isolated, her mind turning more and more to the day when she could get right away from this house.
She looked forward to seeing Michael three days a week. She wished it was even more and was beginning to feel a fear that Doctor Lowe might decide to terminate it, thinking she had learned enough. It was a dilemma. If she let him see her greatly improved work she might risk his saying that she needed no more tutoring; but to display her worst attempts might make him decide Michael was a waste of money. Either way she’d not see him again.
They no longer used the doctor’s study. Now that she had progressed to painting in oil, the odour of oil, varnish and turpentine pervaded the room. A few weeks ago he had suggested they avail themselves of the little attic room where Florrie had once been obliged to sleep. From there would waft no smell of her work.
The place was small but bright. Light came in from a small dormer window in the roof during the day – perhaps not as bright as an artist’s studio would have called for, but adequate enough for her. She spent most of her time here with all her materials to hand, as bought by Doctor Lowe. She and Michael were completely isolated from the rest of the house. They could talk and laugh without being overheard.
Better still, there was no Doctor Lowe to come barging in to interrupt them as he might have done had it been his study. Not that Michael ever behaved in any way improperly. He’d never even attempted to kiss her cheek again, but if he came close, she’d feel a thrill pass through her, wondering if his reaction was the same as hers. One thing did change – one secret thing.
One Thursday evening in May, with the twilight still lingering over the roofs of the houses opposite, it was almost time for him to leave when he gently took the paintbrush from her hand. ‘You’re so cooped up here,’ he said softly. ‘Don’t you feel the need for a breath of fresh air?’
The words took her by surprise. The way he’d taken her hand had put her suddenly on her guard, even though his touch had for a second excited her.
She turned and gave him an enquiring look. ‘A breath of fresh air?’
Why did she always echo what he said?
‘We could creep out,’ he whispered. ‘It’s a lovely evening. We could take a walk, find a coffee stall; then I can bring you back. What do you say?’
What could she say? The idea tempted her. ‘How do we creep out?’
‘Wait until the staff retire – which will not be long now, as it’s getting late – and Mrs Jenkins is closeted in her room with a book and cup of cocoa. Florrie can let me out the front door as she usually does before going to bed. If Mrs Jenkins isn’t still in the kitchen, you can creep out the back door. I’ll wait for you there. When we return, I can leave you at the back door. No one will see you enter and no one will ever need know.’
He was like a small boy arranging to bunk off out of a school dormitory. But the idea was tantalizing – the exhilaration of risk, the prospect of being completely alone with him for the first time ever. She found herself nodding eagerly. Why not? She was her own mistress, virtually.
In the dwindling twilight, in an ordinary day skirt and jacket, not even a hat – but who would see her or care? – she walked with her arm through his, thinking that surely this must be the beginning of something between them.
From Roman Road they turned left into Cambridge Road, crossing over towards Bethnal Green Road, her old haunt immediately bringing back a host of memories that she hastily cast aside. Just as he’d said, there was a coffee stall on the corner outside the Salmon & Ball, busy serving a few customers. Many a time she and Dora, as children, had sat on the pavement outside that pub, nibbling a hard arrowroot biscuit and sipping a glass of lemonade while Mum and Dad had been inside enjoying a few glasses of beer. She’d been quite small then, Dora a mere toddler, her brother Charlie out with his mates.
That was when Mum had still had her looks and Dad had still been interested in her. It was only later that hard work, caring for her family, and poverty because of a man seldom in work preferring to gamble, drink and womanize away the money she earned, had aged her and brought her to ill health.
Memories she preferred to forget. But that was then and Michael was with her now. Slowly they sipped the dark, steaming Camp coffee from thick mugs, Michael talking quietly to her about his life.
‘Even if my father had allowed me to study, I’d never have found the talent you have.’
‘You could do, if you study hard enough,’ she told him, jokingly taking a leaf out of his book when telling her always to study hard and dedicate her mind to her work.
He didn’t laugh but looked at her in the fitful light of the coffee stall’s kerosene lamp swinging in a light breeze. ‘One day you’ll be a good artist. You are now, but you need to think of spreading your wings, taking a chance and leaving the place where you are now living. You have all the talent. What you don’t have, Ellie, is the courage and the hard shell required to face the difficult world that’s out there. It’s a difficult world for a woman where artists who earn their living are men.’
‘Women paint,’ she said, a little put out by what he’d said.
‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘ladies of leisure, I imagine. But it’s as a recreation, much as they would embroider a pretty picture. They’d never dream of trying to sell the pictures. It’s fine for a man but apparently frowned upon, as unsuitable to say the least, for a young lady to lower herself by selling her paintings.’
A sardonic note had crept into his voice and Ellie’s brief moment of offended pride dissipated instantly. He was with her, not against her, had only been trying to point out the pitfalls to her.
‘I can face anything,’ she said defiantly. ‘I wasn’t brought up a lady and I know all about hard times, so I won’t be upset by what others think. In fact, I mean to be the first woman artist to be famous!’
It sounded such a ridiculous statement that she expected him to laugh, but he didn’t. He frowned. ‘Then your work would have to be unique, different from anything else that’s ever been. I often think that to get on in the world a woman has to be twice as clever, twice as talented and twice as astute as a man, who I guess can get away with anything. That takes hard work and courage and, as I say, a strong carapace.’
‘Carapace?’
‘A protective shell,’ he enlightened her, laughing now. He
put his empty mug back on the coffee-stall counter and, taking hers from her, put that beside it. He nodded his thanks to the heavily built, bewhiskered man who had served them, and guided her away.
‘Time I was taking you back,’ he said. ‘Mustn’t abuse my position.’
It was lovely walking through the darkened streets, again with her arm through his. It all seemed so natural. ‘Can we do this again?’ she asked, and he smiled.
‘I don’t see why not.’ To her they were the most wonderful words she thought she’d ever heard.
Sixteen
Turmoil raged within Bertram Lowe’s breast as he glared down from his study window. A small path led past the back gate. Beyond were the garden and churchyard of St John’s, dim in the last light of this July evening.
For weeks Ellie and her tutor had been creeping out behind his back for evening strolls. Mrs Jenkins had reported it to him, saying that as head of the household he should be acquainted with the goings-on here. Yet what could he say? Michael Deel and Ellie were free agents. He could hardly forbid it without looking a fool.