A Mad, Wicked Folly

by Sharon Biggs Waller

  “I should like to be a mermaid fair. Like her.”

  “Why do you say that?” he asked, pulling his gaze away from the painting and squinting at me.

  “She knows where she belongs, where she fits in. No one tells her what to do or how to spend her days. She’s completely and utterly free.”

  “And you are not?”

  I shrugged. “Who is? No one really. Well, no woman at least.”

  “That’s a very melancholy thing to say,” Will said, a note of surprise in his voice.

  “It might be to you. You’re a man; you can do as you wish, Will. Women cannot.”

  “Rubbish. That doesn’t have to be so.”

  “It’s very difficult.” I shot him a look of irritation.

  “So why should that stop you from doing what you want?” He sounded agitated, almost cross with me. “What would you rather be? Free, or trapped in a place where it isn’t difficult?”

  “Who says I’m trapped?” I could feel the tension returning between us, taking us back to the place where we both started. I was almost sorry I had brought him to see A Mermaid. Here he was judging me once again, when he truly knew nothing about me.

  “Don’t let’s quarrel in front of her.” I backed away from him and started to walk down the hall, leaving Will standing by himself.

  “Wait.” Will came up behind me and said quickly, “Vicky, I wasn’t trying to argue with you. Will you slow down?”

  I stopped and glared at him.

  “I’ve known you for only a little while, yet I’ve seen that temper of yours come out lots.” People were beginning to stare, so Will lowered his voice. “You’re happy to cause a ruck over some things, but it seems to me not when it counts most.”

  “Cause a ruck? How dare you!”

  “I don’t mean that in a bad way. You told me yourself, your parents won’t let you draw. That isn’t fair. Do you think you’re the only woman who is prevented from living her life as she sees fit? Instead of accepting all of this as ‘oh, well, that’s just the way it is,’ you should be doing something about that.”

  I snorted. “And how could I do that, Will? Barge in to Parliament and demand justice? You’ve been reading too many penny novelettes.”

  “The suffragettes are doing that very thing.”

  “What is my life to do with you? We have a business arrangement between us, William Fletcher, and don’t you forget it.” I knew from the look on his face that my words had stung him, but I didn’t give a fig.

  He nodded, his face suddenly serious. “Please yourself.”

  We walked out of the building, but we really weren’t walking together. It was as though we were both simply heading in the same direction.

  “Here.” Will pulled a bundle of papers folded in half and tied round with rough twine from his jacket pocket. “It’s my first chapter. See what you can come up with for illustrations and we’ll talk it over next Thursday.”

  I took the papers. Our fingers touched briefly, and without another word Will left.

  Nineteen

  Darling Residence, Liberty, Miss Winthrop’s Social Graces Academy,

  Avenue Studios, Piccadilly Circus, twenty-sixth to twenty-eighth of March,

  Friday, Saturday, and Sunday

  “WELL, HOW DID it go with your art model?” Sophie asked me that night as she helped me get ready for bed.

  “He’s pigheaded,” I said. Even hours later I was still in a foul mood from my row with Will.

  “What man isn’t.” She smiled at me in the mirror.

  “He has an extra measure of pigheadedness, then.” I picked up my jar of face cream and then plonked it back down again, too irritated to care about my complexion.

  “All right then, what about the mural?”

  “I loved that! I had no idea how much art the WSPU used and how they used it. Truly the mural is amazing. I think I want to be part of what they are doing.”

  “I’m glad. I’m happiest when I see young women fighting for the right to vote.”

  “Have you been going there long?”

  “I started in Huddersfield up north, where I’m from. Dora, the woman who taught me to sew, told me about the WSPU. I went to a meeting with her there and I bought a pin. But when I came down to London to seek a position as a lady’s maid, I was daft and wore it to an interview. As soon as I sat down, the lady of the house saw the pin and asked me to leave.”

  “That’s so unfair!”

  “That’s the way it is.” Sophie shook her head. She picked up my silver hairbrush and began to brush my hair. “So many women of the older generation are the same. They think life is never going to change and they either like it the way it is or they think they’ll just put up with the struggle.”

  She set the brush down and unbuttoned the top buttons of her blouse, and I saw the enameled badge she was wearing the other day pinned on her chemise. Up close I saw it had an angel blowing a trumpet, with a scroll at her feet that read Votes for Women. “Even if no one else can see it, I know it’s here.” She folded the skirt back and patted it. “Dora and the WSPU made me believe I could be more than just an orphan, and that’s helped me change my life. I’m happy you’re of the same mind.”

  In the next few days I was the dutiful daughter. I did my mother’s bidding, attending Miss Winthrop’s, going to the church charity on Saturday, and arranging my trousseau with Sophie every afternoon.

  But the mornings were mine. I worked as soon as the sun rose in the sky. During the hours before breakfast, I could work on my college submissions and Will’s illustrations uninterrupted and without anyone knowing about it, as long as I had sufficient sunlight and didn’t have to turn on the lamp. I worked on Will’s story illustrations, and, from memory, finished the sketch I had started of his face. I even started a study of my own hand to demonstrate my grasp of anatomy.

  I would draw until Emma knocked on the door with my cup of chocolate. Then I hid my art materials, taking care that not a pencil shaving or a stub of charcoal was left out. Everything went back into a hatbox, which I shoved deep into my wardrobe where no one but Sophie would ever look. I also had to make sure that not a spot of ink or smudge of charcoal remained on my hands. Ink was ever so hard to get out, and I had to scrub my fingers with carbolic soap and a pumice stone till they were nearly red raw.

  I had been right: Will’s story was brilliant. My brother Freddy and all the tuppenny novelette publishers in London would be lining up to publish it. In the first installment, Will introduced Robert Hoode as a politician working to change the labor laws but to no avail. I drew Hoode standing in the House of Commons giving a passionate speech while his peers ignored him. I drew some politicians yawning, some laughing, and some sleeping with their heads lolling to one side. I drew a group of men playing whist and another group tucking into a large meal of roast goose. I used diluted ink to wash the room in basic tonal elements, but then I used my dip pen with a fine nib to pick out the decorative architecture of the House of Commons and the angry expression on Hoode’s face.

  I liked the work so much that I wanted to include it in my submission to the RCA. So I did several preliminary sketches in my book first, and then a final illustration on its own to give to Will when we met again on Thursday.

  On Sunday after church, my parents and I went to Freddy’s for tea. Rose had not come to church, as she had begun her confinement. She had grown huge as a draft horse in the ten days since I had seen her last; it was impossible to imagine her having a child that large. My father looked appalled and avoided her completely, choosing instead to drink his tea quickly and insist that he and Freddy leave for the Reform Club earlier than they usually did. Rose did not appear to notice the snub, but I was angry with my father. As much as I disliked Rose, she was not at fault for getting so fat. Surely having a child grow within you was bound to wreak havoc with your figure. Then I st
arted thinking about how that might be me in not such a long space of time. I wasn’t stupid. I only hoped that I could put a baby off until I had finished college. But how could I do that? Nature would certainly take its course.

  And so I was feeling quite gloomy all round. When my mother and Rose went up to inspect the nursery, I declined to go. Instead I sat with Charlotte in the window seat, reading The Tale of Peter Rabbit to Charlotte. A policeman walked past the window then, swinging his stick, and my mind leapt to Will.

  I felt badly about what had happened between us in front of A Mermaid. A boy had never spoken to me so frankly before, and it quite took me off guard. Telling me that I wasn’t willing to fight for what was important? He had no idea how hard I had to work to put pen to paper without my parents knowing it. Why Will bothered to say such things to me I couldn’t fathom.

  But why I cared at all was even more of a mystery to me. As I’d said, we had a business arrangement. That was all.

  IT WAS RAINY and gray and foggy on Monday, and there was little light to work by, so I stuffed a petticoat into the crack under my bedroom door and turned on a lamp. But I was too tense to really concentrate; I was worried one of the servants would see the door stopped up and make a comment. So I gave it up as a bad job and climbed back into bed, feeling very cross.

  I swear the sky brightened the very minute Emma knocked on the door with my morning cocoa. But then there was no time to spare for drawing. Sophie, Mamma, and I went off to Liberty on Regent Street straight after breakfast to choose material and sundries for my trousseau. To add even further insult to injury, I would have to endure Miss Winthrop’s after we left Liberty.

  “Victoria will need an automobile coat, an excursion suit, and several lingerie gowns for her at-homes,” Mamma said. We were standing in the dry-goods department at Liberty, surrounded by bolts of cloth, froufrou lace trim, and whim-whams of all sorts. The sharp scent of starch, sizing, and cotton made my nose clog. “What color do you suggest for her engagement ball gown? Something in pink, perhaps?”

  Pink was my mother’s favorite color and my least. I must have looked dismayed, because Sophie waded in with a suggestion. “I think Miss Darling would look smashing in a sunny yellow mousseline de soie.”

  “Yellow?” My mother looked doubtful. “Yellow is not very chic, Cumberbunch.”

  Sophie pulled out a wooden spindle that was hung with a daffodil-yellow material. She held a swatch of the fabric to my face. “You see, saturated colors—deep yellow, blue, orange, green—suit Miss Darling well. Pastels wash her out a little, I find. As far as fashion goes, you want your daughter to set the trends, not follow them. She’ll be beautiful in yellow; no one else will be wearing it, but soon everyone will want to wear the color because of her.”

  My mother regarded me, head to the side. “Hmm, I do take your meaning, Cumberbunch.”

  I stood against the wall, chewing at my nails, frustrated and bored beyond endurance. A morning going through my wardrobe with Sophie was one thing, but this fashion bacchanal was taking up precious time.

  “Victoria, stop biting your nails, and do pay attention!” Mamma frowned. “She has no head for fashion,” she remarked to Sophie.

  “It’s not that I don’t have a head for it, Mamma, it’s that I’d rather be doing other things.”

  “Like what?” she snapped.

  Sophie shot me a warning look.

  “Uh, Miss Winthrop’s. Yes, I’m having such a lot of fun there.” A little note of sarcasm crept out despite my attempts to quell it.

  “Honestly, you have plenty of time. Now, Cumberbunch, Victoria will be wearing my coming-out gown for her debut, and my wedding dress as well, so I suppose you can work on altering those at home on Bailey’s sewing machine. But she’ll also have to have waists and skirts for everyday wear.” Mother sighed. “I know this is such a lot of work, so do say if you are feeling pressed.”

  “Not at all, madam. We can purchase made-up shirtwaists and even lingerie gowns here.”

  It seemed Mamma purchased the whole of Liberty. Finally, after another hour, we left the shop. But the interminable day drew on at Miss Winthrop’s; she had decided to add a new dance, the mazurka, to our repertoire. This time I trod on my own foot during the crossover step. My partner’s face went pink with the effort of trying not to laugh. Honestly, all these dances were the most impossible waste of time. And the step patterns were mind-boggling and quite gave me a headache.

  Our teacher divided us into groups and had one dance while the other watched. I was in the second group. The dance Miss Winthrop chose was the one I dreaded most of all: the quadrille. The quadrille struck fear into my heart more than any other because I could not blag my way through the steps by skipping and hopping as I could in the waltz and the polka. The quadrille was done by a group of four couples that made patterns within a set space upon the floor. If one went wrong, then the whole pattern collapsed. Worst of all, a dancer going wrong would be stranded in the middle of the figure, looking daft as her fellows cavorted around her and her forsaken partner continued on alone, arms in hold as if escorting a ghost dancer around the floor, for one never stopped in the middle of a dance if one could help it.

  I felt quite sick watching the girls dance. They all knew the steps perfectly and were able to make the intricate patterns the dance demanded. They glided through the little hops in place and the slides and twirls from one partner to the next when the music changed. They looked so delicate and feminine, taking tiny little measured steps across the floor, shoes poking out whimsically from underneath their skirts.

  I just knew I would make a fool of myself at the ball. I knew I’d be the one to go right when I was meant to go left, bumping into the other dancers. And then poor Edmund would be lumbered with me, dragging me around the dance floor as if I were a sack of coal someone had handed him to dance with as a jest.

  As predicted, I was perfectly awful when it was my group’s turn. It seemed as though the girls had decided in advance that they would just ignore me, and they danced the entire figure around me. I must have looked like a stray dog trying to get someone’s attention. I saw Sophie sitting along the wall with the other maids, a dismayed look upon her face.

  Miss Winthrop took me to one side after the dance and told me I’d have to have private tutoring if I did not improve soon. I think she took it as a personal affront that one of her students would have such a poor showing at the season’s balls.

  “You’re making very heavy weather of that dancing, if you don’t mind me saying so, Miss Darling,” Sophie said when we walked out of the dance studio. The sun was beginning to come out and a wind was freshening. I felt as though I had been released from prison.

  “I don’t think I’m cut out for dancing, Sophie. I’ll be the most terrible flop.”

  “You don’t know how lucky you are to get an invitation to such things.”

  “You go in my place, then,” I said.

  “Me, go to a ball? Chance would be a fine thing. I’d love to go.” She had a dreamy look on her face. “All the beautiful gowns and lovely people. Dancing the night away with handsome men . . .”

  “You wouldn’t like it if you danced like a cart horse, like I do.”

  “You’d be all right if you paid attention to your instructress. Half the time you’re away with the fairies. I’ve seen you. Looking out the window when you’re meant to be looking at the teacher. And what was that you were saying to your mother? About you loving dancing? You nearly gave it away.”

  “I’ll never get it,” I said gloomily. “And then I’ll have to come to extra classes, which means less time spent on my artwork.”

  Sophie heaved a sigh of exasperation, grabbed my hand, and pulled me off the street and into a little public square behind a wrought-iron fence bordered by beds of daffodils. “Oh for goodness’ sakes, your whinging is driving me barmy. It’s not difficult.”
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br />   “How do you know?” I said, following behind her.

  “I’ve been watching.” The park had a square of grass, which Sophie made a beeline for, stopping in the middle. She took my hands. “I’m the bloke. Come on now. We walk about side by side, arms crossed; marching around the little square, see? And now we go back to the spot where we started. Now you weave in and out with the other ladies.” She pushed me forward, and I made the little pattern.

  “Sophie, this is silly. People are looking!”

  “Let ’em look. You want to learn, don’t you? Now come back, and we march about arm in arm once and then you do the little pattern with the ladies again. Ba, bum, bum, bum, ba, ba,” Sophie sang out as I wove the pattern in the middle. “See, you’re doing it. You’re dancing. Now come back here, and we turn to each other and do that little jig step. Step, one two, hop, one two. Now go out and make a star with all four ladies.”

  I felt quite foolish holding my hand out to imaginary ladies and marching around, but I began to get the idea of the pattern, and as Sophie said, it really wasn’t that hard.

  “Bum, ba, bum! Now back to me, and we hold each other and skip around the circle.” Sophie and I dashed around the circle, facing each other in a waltz hold, giggling our heads off. Several nannies with perambulators and some children sitting on nearby benches laughed and clapped out a beat for us. Two little children, a girl and a boy, ran forward and skipped around with us. “Now the blokes make a star.” Sophie trotted into the middle and held out her arm to the little boy, the other tucked neatly behind her back. “And then we go around the circle again!” All four of us skipped about the circle. The little girl and boy danced together.

  “Now we turn to each other and bow.” Sophie stuck out her leg toward me and bowed low; I curtsied deeply. The children watched us and then did the same.

  “Again!” the little boy called. So we did the whole thing again. And then again, and then once more. Finally, exhausted, we called the impomptu ball a success.