Becoming Belle

by Nuala O'Connor

  * * *

  —

  Wertheimer took to meeting Isabel at the Empire’s stage door each night and they would supper in the Café Royal or drink in the Corinthian Club with other revelers. She told him a little about Weston—his deceptions and frauds—but did not yet tell him of her condition. He, in turn, told her of the dull Jewish girls his parents introduced him to with the hopes that he would marry. Wertheimer had none of the sobriety of the older London Jews; he dazzled in a silk puff tie and Derby hat, and favored a plaid sack coat rather than the dark frock coat of his father’s generation. And always he sported the same scarlet blossom on his lapel. Isabel loved his dash and glamour and wished ardently that she could fall in love with him, love him completely as a woman loves a man, but he did not stir her in that way. Whatever spark is ignited by a beloved man, it did not light in her when it came to Wertheimer. He was a dear man, a good friend, but love? Sadly, no.

  * * *

  —

  Love does not dole itself out in sane rations, Isabel thought as Wertheimer walked toward her on Regent Street one frosty March afternoon, his carnation bright in his buttonhole, his face luminous on seeing her. The debacle with Weston had made her cautious, to be sure, she knew now that she had been merely dazed by him but, still, it was impossible to muster love where it did not exist and it was a shame. Here was Wertheimer, perfectly wonderful, but Isabel could not ignite a fervor about him. The heart was a fickle mistress, truly. Wertheimer stepped in beside her.

  “Dear one,” he said and offered his arm.

  “Isidor.” She took his elbow gratefully and leaned on it. Isabel had not been able to eat that morning—her pregnancy offered headaches that upset her from crown to rump: she could not stomach food easily, even the smell of bread made her want to lie back down some days. Now she did not feel well; she felt overheated despite the cold air. She stopped walking and groaned, put her hand to her face which seemed to pound. Then all was gray and she was gone.

  * * *

  —

  Having an ache in her lower jaw was the last thing Isabel could recall when she came to, seated on the footpath opposite Liberty department store, with Wertheimer propping her up. She put her hand to her chin and hinged her jaw.

  “My mouth,” she said, and took several deep breaths to rouse herself; her skin was clammy and she felt heavy eyed. She blinked and fixed her gaze on Liberty, determined to waken and steady herself. The script underneath the clock on the shop’s facade would not come into focus and she squinted. She knew it by heart anyway and murmured, “‘No minute gone comes ever back again, take heed and see ye nothing do in vain.’”

  “There, there, Issy,” Wertheimer said, and rubbed her back. “Don’t talk, rest a moment.”

  Isabel tried to heave forward to stand—how ridiculous to be slumped on the frozen ground like some useless sot.

  “I must get up,” she said, and her voice emerged as a rasp.

  “You should get up, Isabel, yes, you will catch a cold. If you feel you can rise, I will lift you.” Wertheimer put his hands under her armpits and pulled her to stand.

  “Thank you,” she whispered and looked around, hoping no one she knew had seen her. She felt weak and leaned on her friend again. “What happened to me, Isidor? My jaw hurt, I felt hot and then I was gone somehow as if a veil had fallen. I don’t remember exactly.”

  “I’m not sure what happened. You went quiet and then swooned and fainted away, but I managed to catch you. No harm done.” Wertheimer steered her toward Liberty. “Let’s sit down in the café inside, give you a few moments to recover.”

  “Yes, let’s.”

  Isabel allowed him to guide her up the stairs to a corner seat, where he pulled his chair close to hers. “Would you like to have something to eat?”

  “Yes. Tea and shortbread. That’s what I need.” Isabel nodded, tried to turn over in her mind the moment when she had lost consciousness. Why could she not remember?

  Wertheimer ordered, and when the food came, Isabel doused her tea in sugar and chewed two rounds of shortbread in haste.

  “Do you feel a little restored?” Isidor asked.

  Isabel sighed and was alarmed to find tears dropping from her eyes. “I feel much better,” she said and pushed at the tears with the back of her hand. Fainting in the street and now weeping in a public place once again. The ignominy of it. Isabel swiped at her wet cheeks.

  “Oh my dear.” Wertheimer put his hand on her arm.

  “It’s nothing, Isidor, don’t fret. I’m alarmed that I can’t recall fainting, that’s all. How embarrassing.”

  “There’s no need to be embarrassed, no one saw.”

  She looked at him. “Of course everyone saw.”

  Isabel’s tears fell fast and she wiped at her face with a handkerchief. “My head hurt this morning and I didn’t eat.” She sobbed. “I needed a little something to revive me, that’s all.” She hung her head and watched the tears waterfall into her lap; it seemed they meant to come despite her.

  “Something is ailing you, Isabel. More than a headache or embarrassment about waking up on the footpath. Do tell me. You can confide in me, you know.”

  Isabel looked at him, so amiable and sweet. Could it hurt to tell him of her predicament? Would he disdain her if he knew she was enceinte? Despite his bohemian airs might he be as old-fashioned as so many men were? She hesitated for a moment but decided to trust him. Isidor was a good fellow; his mind was as broad as he was affable.

  “The headache, Isidor, my fatigue, it’s all to do with my state. You know.” She looked into his eyes and willed him to take her meaning without having to say it out.

  “Your state?”

  “My condition, so to speak. A woman’s state.”

  Wertheimer sat back and looked at her. She might lose him now. Not every man would want to be friends with a disgraced woman.

  “Do you mean a monthly problem, Isabel?”

  She shook her head. “No, not that.”

  Wertheimer lifted his teacup and sipped, his eyes trained across the room. He placed the cup back in its saucer with care and turned to her.

  “Isabel. Issy. Are you trying to tell me that you are soon to be a mother?”

  She raised her head and dabbed at her eyes. “I am.”

  “Oh my dear.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “The noble state of motherhood awaits and you are all alone.” Wertheimer winced and Isabel took this as displeasure at her revelation; he was thinking, perhaps, of a way to extricate himself from their friendship. Her heart scuffled with her mind; Wertheimer was a gentleman, he must protect his own name. Isabel would have to accept it, though soon she would be entirely friendless.

  “If you no longer wish to go about with me, Isidor, I understand.” She said the words—gasped them—but didn’t quite mean them. She relied on Wertheimer and he was available to her in a way that Flo often was not these days; Isabel had come to depend on him rather. And he was such easy company, such a kind companion compared to erratic Weston.

  Wertheimer leaned across the table and lowered his voice even further. “If it’s a time for disclosures, Isabel, I feel I should tell you something about myself that I’ve been, well, if not concealing from you, I’ve maybe been hoping you would divine for yourself. Dear Issy.”

  Isabel bent her head nearer to his. She watched him fidget with the carnation in his lapel. Was he sweating? Whatever could it be? She pulled off one glove and twined her fingers into his.

  “Don’t be afraid to tell me your heart secrets, Isidor. I’m in no position to judge man or beast. And you know that you’re precious to me as a friend and I’d never peach on you if there is something you wish kept hidden.”

  Wertheimer nodded but looked miserable. He slipped off his glove so that their skin touched. He put his mouth close to her cheek. “Isabel, do you know what a sodomite is?” />
  Isabel felt relief: he did not mean to abandon her, he was confiding in her. “Yes, I do know what that is.” Isidor was telling her that he preferred boys to girls. What of it? Isabel squeezed his hand. “If that’s what you are, Isidor, that’s your business. It means little to me and I’m not about to broadcast it to the hoi polloi. I don’t think anyone we go about with in the West End would give a fig, do you?”

  Wertheimer exhaled and wiped the perspiration from his top lip. He glanced around and whispered, “But you know I could go to prison for it, Isabel?”

  “Yes, darling, I know it. But you’re discreet, are you not?” Wertheimer nodded. “Well, then, there’s nothing more to it.”

  “Dear girl,” Wertheimer said, and lifted his teacup to his lips. Isabel fancied his eyes were full and she felt a wash of compassion for him; his life must have particular difficulties, all things considered. She had fancied him trouble-free, a flitting bird about the town. “We must band together ever tighter now, Isabel,” he said at last.

  “We shall, Isidor. Issy and Issy, yes?”

  “Issy and Issy.” Wertheimer studied her for a moment. “Considering your delicate state, I feel you must move now from Turnagain Lane. Small lodgings like that won’t do anymore. You’ll need a proper home, somewhere peaceful. No more Turnagain, no more Madame Blunderbuss.” Isabel laughed and Wertheimer bit into a biscuit. “A decent home, yes, for you and the child. And I think I am just the man to help you with that.”

  A BIRTHING

  Isabel was two months sequestered in Wertheimer’s place, Fairleigh Lodge in Maidenhead, Berkshire, as far as the stars from London and its tale spreaders. She knew she was talked of, the newspapers made sly jokes at her expense without saying things outright. And when she dined out, foreheads would nod toward each other, then break apart to take her in. She kept her own head erect but, in the end, it was best to leave them to it and withdraw. Mr. Hitchins, the dear man, told people she was gone abroad and that she was welcome back just as soon as she was able to dance again.

  The plum of Isabel’s belly alarmed her; it poked obscenely from her front and grew larger by the hour. There was no getting away from it, unlike the false belly she had worn onstage for that daft Jack and Jill song. She had given up corsets by the time her stomach was so ripe it could not be contained, and she spent most days lounging in an armchair, for it was hard to sit upright without boning and laces to hold her erect. Who would see if she slouched, anyway, and who would care? Wertheimer took her any old way, as did Flo and Seymour. And it wasn’t as if she would get a chill in her kidneys when all she did was sit about Fairleigh Lodge like a sack of potatoes in the same loose morning gown. She found herself utterly fagged by it all.

  Flo had laughed when Isabel told her that her new home—courtesy of Wertheimer—would be in Maidenhead.

  “My, there is sport in that, considering your predicament.”

  “Not much sport for me, heavy as a cow and exiled from the Empire. It will dampen me to be so removed from everything: the theater, the life of London.”

  “Maidenhead!” Seymour said. “There’s nothing there but a Union workhouse and a clatter of low shops.”

  “Thank you, Seymour. That restores me utterly.” Isabel tutted.

  “I am sorry, Isabel. We shall come to visit you and provide diversions besides—shan’t we, Flo?”

  “Of course we shall. Don’t fret, old girl.” Flo pumped her sister’s hand. “It’ll all be over quick as quick and then you can make plans.”

  But Isabel had not realized that being in the family way would dull her, slow her body to syrup, make a quagmire of her mind. She made few plans, and forays into London were not a priority, after all. Maidenhead was convenient, somehow. The cottage hospital was close to Fairleigh Lodge if anything should go wrong with birthing; and Isabel found she did not miss the delights of town as much as she had feared. Her gaze turned inward and she generally passed her days in a sluggish, bovine trance and let Wertheimer, Flo and Seymour bring news of the city to her.

  “You will be out of purdah soon, Issy,” Wertheimer said often, “and then we will celebrate.”

  “I daresay,” Isabel would answer dutifully. “Perhaps we shall have a party?”

  “If you so desire, my dear. All of London is clamoring to see you.”

  “Really?”

  It cheered Isabel to think that the world waited for her and soon she would be ready to glide her way through it again. It cheered her that Wertheimer would say it even if it wasn’t fully true. Too often—and she was guilty of it herself—when a person disappeared from society, they were quickly discharged from the memory, as if they had never existed.

  * * *

  —

  As her pregnancy advanced into its late stages, Isabel found it hard to breathe; she felt as if her lungs might leap out of her mouth and land at her feet. Everything inside her was pushed upward by her stomach’s girth. The weight of the baby within her was a daily shock; how could an infant be so heavy? It felt as if she were carrying an anvil. The midwife said there was liquid in there, too—the babe swam inside her!—but Isabel’s off-kilter heft was uncomfortable and she longed to be rid of it. Her walk had become a splay-legged, back-arched waddle. She felt ungainly and wrong. The midwife had only recently told her how the baby would come out and she was still shocked by it.

  “It comes out the way it gets in,” the midwife said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Goodness me, haven’t you ever seen a birthing cow?”

  “No. Yes. No. What do you mean?”

  “You push it out”—the midwife pointed between her own legs—“from here.”

  Isabel had snorted, thinking the woman was joking. But when it dawned on her that she was not, she chewed this information like a cud, waking in the night to work over it some more. Surely not? Surely, surely not? She questioned her sister.

  “How does the babe get out, Flo?”

  “Oh, Isabel, you do make me laugh. How can you possibly not know where babies emerge from?”

  “It’s true, then. But why did Mother say that babies slid through the navel like a silken ribbon? She said it more than once—many times, in fact.”

  “And you believed it? Despite roars that might have contradicted it? Despite the times when she lost babies and you cleaned her sheets? Come now!”

  “I may have believed. Perhaps.” Isabel had believed it in spite of the wry, wicked look her mother employed in the telling of the tale, as if daring her daughter to contradict her. “But where on earth did you learn the truth of the matter, Flo, and why did you not tell me of it? Younger sisters should not know more of the world than their elders.”

  “Mother told me. And I presumed she had told you before me.”

  “Well, then. Our mother always did favor your education over mine.”

  * * *

  —

  The July day the babe chose for his arrival, Isabel’s head pinged with dizziness. Wertheimer had come to sup with her, as was his custom, though he rarely took more than coffee. Flo, who stayed frequently now that Isabel’s time was near, was still abed. Isidor’s color was as faded as Isabel’s from the long hours he spent on the town with the gang of boys who were his night friends.

  “You look wan, Isidor. I do wish you would take better care of your health.”

  “I’m all right, Issy, but if I’m wan, you’re cadaverous. You look shockingly pale today.”

  She rubbed her temples. “I’m a little groggy, that’s all. Light-headed.” She dipped her face toward the table to see if it might relieve the wooziness in her brain.

  “Are you all right, Isabel?”

  She straightened and put her hand to her cheek. “I fear I’m even duller than usual, Isidor. I think I’ll go back up and take my rest.”

  Wertheimer stood. “Do you need my arm?”
/>
  “No, no. Sit, read your Times. Go to the smoking room.”

  Isabel waddled up the stairs but, when she gained the landing, a sharp spasm banded her belly, and she gasped and lurched forward.

  “Unh,” she cried, and was rooted so deeply in the pain that all thought receded. She gripped the landing banister with two hands and leaned into it, her breath coming in broken spurts. “Ugghhhh,” she groaned, the sound coming from a part of her she hadn’t known existed. The pain receded, undulating away through her abdomen, so that she felt composed once more. The baby had moved suddenly, nothing more.

  Wertheimer, having heard her cry out, hurtled up the stairs, taking three steps at a time.

  “What is it, Isabel? Are you getting pains?”

  She shook her head, but when she went to move another wave began to build. She held the banister again and stared hard at the pattern of the anaglypta wallpaper, its liver-dark sequence of raised diamonds. She made herself concentrate on it while she huffed and panted through the paroxysm in her belly. Wertheimer stood by until she seemed more composed, then took her arm and tried to steer her toward her bedroom.

  “No!” she snarled and retained her crablike stance at the banister until the ragged pain had eased entirely.

  “Stay there,” he said, “I’ll get Flo.” He ran and banged on Flo’s door. “The baby’s coming,” he shouted.

  Isabel whipped her head toward Wertheimer. “Is it?” she said, but she knew, of course, that this was exactly what was happening. Another pain began to harness her body and she found she had to moan to get her through it. “Annnngghhhhhh.”

  Flo, hair wild and chemise half-undone, bounded to her sister’s side.

  “Quick, Wertheimer. She’s between pangs.”

  Wertheimer half carried, half dragged Isabel on one side, while Flo took the other, and they got her to her room and onto the bed. As she lay back, her waters broke, a modest puddle that soaked through her dress and onto the coverlet. Flo reached up under her sister’s skirts and pulled her drawers down and off. Isabel groaned as another spasm scorched its way upward through her; she began to feel dizzy again and her head lolled.