‘I too am at a loss for words. Madam, I am at your service.’
Mrs Plant rises to her feet and smoothes her dress. Through the corner of her eye she notes that a small military tent has been erected in the centre of the bed, despite orders to the contrary.
‘Sir, might I speak plainly?’
‘Madam, you have my undivided attention.’
‘I know not what meaning to attach to this. It is a mystery and I am not sure I like it.’
‘I assure you, Mrs Plant, that I remain in the dark as well.’
‘In any case, I count on your discretion.’
‘On this matter I am as mute as the Sphinx.’
‘I’m a business woman. Smutty rumours of an attachment are not to my advantage.’
‘Indeed, Madam, I’m well aware that I have nothing whatever to offer you.’
‘You’re presumptuous, Sir. I shall decide that for myself.’ So saying, she kisses him again!
Whitty awakens. Therefore he was asleep. With eyes closed he can sense somebody standing over him – not Mrs Plant, nor the physician, Mr Gough, both of whom he would identify by smell, though not with equal relish.
He opens his eyes, and is surprised – nay, astonished – to see before him the androgynous Mrs Button. Thinks Whitty: Is he awake? For Mrs Button is the stuff of unpleasant dreams.
‘Good-day to you, Mr Whitty.’
‘Mrs Button. Such an unexpected pleasure. Is your mistress well?’
‘Mrs Marlowe is moderately well, Sir, and sends her compliments to you.’
‘To what do I owe this unexpected visit?’ (Whitty struggles to maintain composure, for the pain of his excited breathing is quite excruciating.) ‘Is it a message by any chance?’
‘Indeed, it is a message. My lady asks the honour of your attendance in two days’ time on a matter of some urgency.’ Mrs Button produces an envelope from her sleeve and lays it upon the bed beside him. ‘I am instructed to await your response.’
Clumsiness is a damnable thing with a set of broken ribs; as a consequence, some time elapses before he manages to tear open the envelope, while allowing for minimal movement and avoiding the broken finger. In the meanwhile, Mrs Button’s mien of vague disapproval does not alter, nor does she break this silent torture with an offer of assistance. But no matter: when the correspondent finally retrieves and unfolds the message, the three words which comprise its entire content expand to fill his mind entirely, as though with a euphoric gas.
MR RYAN ACCEPTS.
35
Chester Path
Sewell alights on the Outer Circle and crosses to the iron gate. As usual, the upstairs curtains flutter.
He is beginning to feel used, like fifth business in a smutty little comedy from the Restoration. With greater frequency he returns to his rooms to find his food eaten, his drink drunk, his cigars smoked and his bed sticky. It never occurred to him that sexual intercourse might prove so messy, slipshod and insanitary; nor that two people might perform the act so often.
If indeed there are only two.
Again he reminds himself why he lets Reggie use him, why he does not complain. David and Jonathan. Friends for life.
This modern utilitarian age does not understand the pure, lifelong friendship that can obtain between one boy and another, akin to the instinctive bond between brothers, yet deeper in that it does not rest upon an accident of birth.
All men are naturally drawn to those examples of love in nature and in art that represent lifelong fealty and sacrifice, that exist as monuments to it: the love of a dog for its master, of a soldier for his comrade.
At Eton, Reginald Harewood rose to the defence of Walter Sewell a second time: an incident in which Sewell stood accused of putting a noxious substance into another boy’s food. Harewood swore that Sewell had undertaken nothing of the sort. It was thereafter at Sunday service – a moment he relives almost daily – when Sewell, burning within, found the courage to ask Reggie whom he liked best in their row.
‘Lumsden?’ whispered Sewell.
‘Only third best,’ replied Reggie.
‘Etheridge?’
‘Fifth.’
While the chaplain droned out the true meaning of the Eucharist, they traded names down the row to the end, until Sewell (and, he feels certain, Reggie) realized not only that each had omitted his ‘first best’, but that the only boys remaining had been each other! In that moment Sewell experienced the thrill, not untinged with apprehension, which occurs upon first discovering the existence, or at least the possibility, of reciprocated love.
Such absolute, unimaginable joy. Caught in the moment, Sewell laid his hand gently on the back of Reggie’s soft blue blazer, then on the waist – Oh, Heavens! Did Reggie feel Sewell’s hand, did he know what had transpired between them?
Yes. Surely, yes. Deep down, he had to have known.
Despite this heightened intensity of feeling, their association continued to adhere to the highest possible standard, as it has since. Sewell would never have allowed such a thing to take place, even had Reggie expressed such a desire – the things that other chaps did on cold nights while bedded double. Reggie and Roo did not do that appalling, dirty thing. Indeed, Sewell remained pure in body, even while his friend spent into available women, almost at random. It does not matter – do you see?
Nor does it matter that Reggie uses him. Their friendship will continue undiminished when his friend can no longer manage the grubby act with his darling wife Clara; when the latter, with a high collar to hide her wattles, is having it off with the ostler. Even then Sewell will still be there, and nothing will have changed.
Which is not to say that Sewell is enthused by the current situation.
When first he laid his rooms open for Reggie’s copulations with his cousin, he imagined the act as a relatively dry affair involving a mixture of pleasure and pain, along with a certain abandonment and noise. However, to go by the evidence, one had to wonder at the sheer outlay of human secretion. In the interests of research, one evening Sewell hid himself in the study with a glass tumbler held by the wall, the better to overhear the goings-on in his bedroom.
It turned out to be a long evening. Indeed, at some point during the activities, Sewell fell asleep on the couch. When he awakened, he resumed listening, and it became clear that the young woman in the next room was no longer Cousin Clara. Then it dawned upon him that Miss Greenwell was not the only young lady featured in these exercises. The evidence of this is now inescapable, to the extent that, having changed the sheets, still he cannot sleep for the smell.
Sewell reaches for the brass knocker, set in the jaws of a lion. After three strikes precisely, the door swings open to reveal Bryson, long-faced and impeccably liveried and impersonal as always.
‘Good afternoon, Bryson. Walter Sewell to see Miss Greenwell.’
‘A very good afternoon to you, Mr Sewell, Sir, and may I say welcome.’
‘Thank you. I am pleased to be here, and pleased to see you as well. By any chance is Miss Greenwell at home?’
‘Please step inside, Sir, and I shall be extremely glad to determine that for you.’
As always, the servant examines Sewell’s card as though he has never encountered its owner; satisfied that Sewell is not an intruder, Bryson admits the guest into the ante-room, then exits to obtain instructions. Alone, Sewell bites a fingernail while rereading the framed verse on the marble wall:
God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.
Presently he hears the voice of the footman: ‘Miss Greenwell is in her chambers, Sir, and regrets to say that she is unwell.’
‘Quite. Oh dear. Thank you, Bryson, I shall not trouble her further. Please convey my hopes for her speedy recovery.’
‘Kind of you, Sir, but Miss Greenwell indicates her wish that you should follow me.’
It has already occurred to Sew
ell that Clara knows about Reggie’s indiscretions, for she possesses a fair degree of animal cunning. If so, what now? Of course a woman is less blinded by love and has a higher tolerance for physical messiness. Thus, it follows that Clara will seek not to end the problem, but to limit the damage. If so, why is she about to perform a sick-bed scene for his benefit? What will she ask of him now?
He follows Bryson upstairs, wiping his palms with his handkerchief to keep them dry. The stairwell seems unheated and smells strongly of varnish. They proceed onto the landing and down a hallway, rendered tube-like with its rounded Paladin ceiling and maroon velvet wallpaper.
Having entered Clara’s boudoir, he stops to assimilate the unfamiliar feminine hideaway, a decor he has not visited since his mother’s dressing-room, to which he would be summoned for periodic chastisement; both rooms redolent with that peculiarly feminine reek of perfume, powder, musk and scented linen. Lit by gaslight, doubled by a large mirror, sit a row of dolls in frilled dresses, staring fixedly at him with painted blue eyes, while the curling iron steams on its iron stand.
Not too ill for hairdressing, seemingly.
Comes a weak voice from within the bed-curtains: ‘Roodie, is that you? I beg you to come closer so that I may see you.’
He hates the way Clara has further diminuated his schoolboy name, which he never gave her permission to use in the first place. To her he is less than a schoolboy, more like a prodigious toddler. He pushes these caustic thoughts to the side upon the appearance of Miss Brown, with her perpetual crewel work.
‘Roodie, you remember Miss Brown — my companion, protector, and confidential friend. Miss Brown, perhaps you recall Mr Sewell, an acquaintance of my cousin Reginald.’
‘Delighted to see you, Miss Brown. And to see that you are looking extremely well.’
‘I am well within reason,’ replies Miss Brown. ‘I am obliged to you, Sir.’
Holding his gaze a further instant as though to read his thoughts, Miss Brown parts the bed-curtains; in reaching out she reveals a pair of white arms with the bones clearly visible beneath transparent skin, like a membrane through which the skeleton is about to emerge. Having performed this service, she retreats to the corner of the bed, whereon she sits, motionless as though she has become a part of the bedpost.
Filled with misgiving, Sewell peers through the curtains.
Reclining upon a bolster and pillows, Clara Greenwell has become in her own mind the consumptive heroine of a French novel. Her breasts are clearly outlined beneath the silk bedclothes, lit by a candelabra on the side-table so that her features are thrown into relief, her golden ringlets spread about the pillow, dishevelled yet symmetrical, the eyes gently closed, the lips slightly pursed as though she is waiting to be awakened by a kiss from a prince.
‘Is it you, Roodie?’ she whispers, as though asleep.
‘Clara. What has happened? What is wrong?’
‘Don’t you know, Roodie?’
‘I assure you that I don’t, Clara.’
‘Such a child, so innocent and kind. That is why I love you so.’ She opens her eyes slowly and quotes in a whisper:
‘I hear a voice you cannot hear,
Which says I must not stay;
I see a hand you cannot see,
Which beckons me away.’
‘Dear Heaven, Clara, you frighten me! When last we met, you were never better.’
‘Give me your hand, Roodie, that I might hold it.’
He wipes his palm hurriedly with his handkerchief and feels her little soft hand slip into his. He wonders how firmly he is expected to hold it, while Clara resumes her ghostly monologue.
‘Three times it appeared to me. Last night I beheld it for the third time. ‘Prepare, Clara,’ it said. ‘Prepare for death.’ I know you must think me a foolish girl …’
Stooping awkwardly within what amounts to a small, heavily perfumed tent (to sit upon the bed is out of the question), grasping the young woman’s hand, Sewell makes sympathetic, pigeon-like noises, while Clara whispers half-remembered passages from novels featuring spectral appearances and premonitions of death.
At length, she focuses her lovely eyes upon his. ‘Dear Roodie, please, you mustn’t worry.’
Comes a voice from the foot of the bed: ‘Miss Clara has received a severe shock to the system, which occasioned an ague, which weakened the young lady’s heart.’ Miss Brown pronounces the memorized sentence crisply, for it will earn five shillings.
‘Oh, Roodie, I don’t understand any of it. Am I dying?’
‘Dear Heaven, Clara, please tell me what happened.’
‘He has another. I am certain of it. Did you not know?’
‘Reggie? Surely not! It is not possible!’
Clara begins to weep genuine tears, in great, childish sobs – for, beneath the performance, she feels truly humiliated. ‘You are much too kind to admit that it is so. Hold me, Roodie! Hold me, for I am betrayed!’
‘I assure you, Clara, Reggie has never spoken of you in other than the most affectionate terms.’
‘You are so good. You do not see the evil in others. But I saw the marks of his betrayal.’
Thinks Sewell: To what, exactly, is the woman referring?
‘Roodie, I am undone! Hold me, my dear, for I am dying!’
Out comes another torrent of sobbing until even Sewell becomes aware of what is expected. With the greatest reluctance he sits on the edge of the bed, whereupon she wraps her bare arms around him and sobs into his chest.
‘There, there …’ Sewell, whose chest has tightened and who has reddened considerably, is at a loss for words, as well as for an appropriate place to put his hands. His arms, of necessity, wrap themselves about the soft flesh encased in warm silk, whereupon she pulls him downward, gradually but inexorably, onto the bolster.
‘Hold me, Roodie! Please hold me!’
Miss Brown crosses to the window and examines carefully the traffic swishing back and forth on the Inner Circle; for supper she will have a joint from the master’s table.
Reeling from the shock of Reggie’s betrayal, and against the possibility that she might not succeed in reawakening his affections, Clara determined it the wisest course to prepare other arrangements just in case. Sadly, upon resuming her at-homes with various young gentlemen, it became apparent that word of her indiscretions with her cousin had reached their ears, in however vague a form, thereby depreciating her value. Having reviewed Sewell’s family history and his considerable establishment, Clara Greenwell has begun to view Reggie’s friend in a new light – not as a laughable foil but as an alternative position. Indeed, if necessary she could come to find him rather adorable and sweet.
As the position becomes clear in Sewell’s mind, he resists the urge to flee pell-mell out of the house. Of course it is inconceivable to Clara that this unlovely young man might be moved by anything other than desire for her.
Thus, Reader, we leave our two young people, holding each other in a most intimate posture, each wishing the other were somebody else.
WHITTY TO FRASER: ‘PUBLISH AND BE DAMNED’
Questions Spark Vicious Attack
by
Edmund Whitty
Senior Correspondent
The Falcon
Your correspondent begs the reader’s absolution for having failed to reply promptly to the vile calumnies uttered in print by the columnist for Dodd’s, then to be aped by his desperately vacant imitators, an absence necessitated by a period of recovery from serious injuries arising from differences with certain parties – who, like Mr Fraser, disagreed with our presumptuous scepticism, albeit with sharper teeth than any yapping Scotch mongrel.
For our presence on this page and not the Obituary page we owe nothing to our libellous friend and much to the estimable physician Dr Gough, together with the most modern medical equipment British ingenuity can devise.
In keeping with The Falcon’s standard of utter integrity (as opposed to another organ, its eye peeled for ever-darke
r shades of black), we propose to set down a series of unembroidered facts, later to be followed by irrefutable proof, when health permits.
When one’s accuser’s viewpoint is limited to the bottom of his glass of gin, how may he be disproven by rational argument?
We find ourselves likewise paralysed when we attempt to unravel our friend’s self-serving pieties and fortuitous suppositions, which belong to another era, in which men believed that the world was flat and the plague was caused by the Jews. Let it suffice to note that, if Fraser’s proof will sink a reputation, then heaven help Her Majesty’s Navy; and if our Mr McSodden supposes that his flaccid assertions amount to penetrating journalism, then heaven help his employer.
By way of contrast to our friend’s amalgam of unfounded pronouncements, behold the particulars by which any reasonable citizen might question William Ryan’s guilt of the offence for which he is condemned to die. We appeal to the Englishman’s native common sense and inborn judgement of character – quantities notably absent from consideration in today’s criminal courts, as well as upon the pages of certain journals.
William Ryan, to be sure, is an unsavoury character whose fellows may be seen on any evening, propping up the bar of a Soho gin palace, men characterized by a distaste for honest work, a gift for fraudulence, and a lack of common morality.
I have seen Ryan, in the flesh. I have sat across a table from him, and I can tell you that his fingers are permanently scarred, as a result of skinning them for the purpose of deciphering a marked deck of cards. This is the sort we are dealing with. I have spoken with this reprehensible cad at length and can report one fact with utter assurance: here is a man inspired by one consideration alone – Money.
The Fiend in Human Page 27