Luke was gratifyingly and amusedly admiring. ‘So – having now established a bosom friendship with Madame Parisot—’
‘Genevieve,’ Kitty corrected him, grinning.
‘—then poor M’sieu is snookered by the pair of you?’
‘Something like that.’ Kitty was unsympathetic. ‘And the bonus is – I really do like Genevieve very much indeed. And I think she likes me. And now she knows I’m not after her husband there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be good friends.’
‘You scheming little cat.’ He pulled her to him. ‘I’d never have guessed you had it in you to be so devious.’
She laughed softly. They were lying naked upon his bed. He kissed her breasts, gently rubbing the nipples with his lips, bringing the immediate, almost unbearable excitement to her body. She caressed his back, her fingers brushing lightly the scars of the long-healed welts that criss-crossed his wide shoulders. ‘My father,’ he had said, brusquely, when she had brought herself to question him. ‘Who else?’ And again, and not for the first time, she had found herself wondering that the man who had had such a father should so desire a son.
‘I think,’ she said, after a moment, as he lay with his head pillowed upon her bare shoulder, ‘that I might go to Paris. Will you mind?’
He lifted his head. She saw the gleam of his eyes in the half-darkness. ‘Of course I’ll mind. I’ll go mad with loneliness.’
She turned and nipped the smooth skin of his upper arm with her teeth.
‘Ouch!’ He pinned her to the bed, kissed her hard.
She emerged from his embrace, gasping and laughing. They wrestled playfully for a moment in the firelight before settling down again, bodies relaxed against each other. It was at times like these that sometimes her treacherous heart wondered why she ever fought him, why she simply could not be content to be with him, to bear for him the child that she knew he wanted. But then, as always, her logical head had the answer. It was impossible. It would never work. Quite apart from the storms that so frequently shook their relationship, what would happen to her – and to the child, if they had one – if he were taken? Or if – as must be more than possible – he simply one day did not return from one of his perilous enterprises? The thought was beyond bearing, but it had to be faced. Until she knew that she could accept his way of life unquestioningly she could not so commit herself. And sadly she knew in her heart that such acceptance would probably never come. How could she bring into the world a child with an unrepentant and notorious criminal for a father? What sort of life would they ever have? Love was not enough; she wished with all her heart that it were. She reached for him, drew him to her, kissed him fiercely, closing her eyes.
(iii)
Kitty had certainly meant it when she had declared her liking for Genevieve Parisot, and was delighted when it became apparent that the feeling was mutual. The stylish Parisienne was unlike any woman Kitty had ever come across before. She was acutely intelligent, utterly independent in thought and deed and had about her a chic that made every other woman in a room she entered look dowdy. She in her turn made no secret of her admiration of Kitty and her talent.
‘Oh, but of course, chérie! Charles is right!’ she enthused after having seen Kitty on stage. ‘You must – you must! – come to Paris! I tell you – you will be the sensation of the greatest season our lovely city has known!’
They went shopping together and in her positive way Genevieve left Kitty in no doubt whatsoever as to what she thought of her new friend’s dress sense. ‘Mais non! A horrible shade of pink! It makes you look like a great gangling schoolgirl! Try this one – ah, see how much better! But – so – a little off the shoulders. Madame! Here, please—’ She clicked imperious fingers. The small assistant hurried to her. ‘This may be altered so—?’
‘Yes, Madam.’
‘But Gené!’ Kitty protested, ‘I’ll feel as if I’m walking about half-naked – and the price!’
‘Oh, pouf! You’ll get used to it. You have lovely shoulders. When you stand up straight, that is. And you have the money. What is it for but to spend?’
Poor Charles, out-manoeuvred and faced with the fait accompli of their conspiracy, gave in with his Gallic shrug and more or less good grace and stopped his pursuit of Kitty. But he was adamantly set upon taking her to Paris, and the time for decision had to be soon.
Kitty vacillated. Though she had said to Luke that she would probably go, she still had not truly made up her mind to it. Charles wanted her to open at his new theatre on April the first, the same day as the Great International Exhibition was to open, and he had to have her answer soon, for that was barely a month away. Yet while she knew that on the one hand there could be no doubt as to the dazzling boost a success in Europe’s most glittering city could bring to her career, on the other the fear of the loneliness and disappointment of failure daunted her. Genevieve, in her eagerness to impress her new friend with the splendours of the city that she herself so loved, had almost succeeded in frightening her away altogether. The picture of Paris that Gené painted – a city of brilliant distinction, of cosmopolitan charm and gaiety, of exacting demands and a constant, restless search for novelty, a city all but dizzy with its own prestige and glamour – simply intimidated poor Kitty into a state of nerves she had not suffered since the Dipper had made his first appearance on the stage of the Queen’s. How could she hope to make her mark on such a place? And yet – both Charles and Genevieve obviously had faith in her, and why should they be wrong?
‘If I did go,’ she said to Pol one day, curled before the fire at number twenty-three, a half-gale rattling the window panes and flinging rain almost horizontally along the narrow street, ‘you would come with me, wouldn’t you?’
Pol had laid a tray with teapot and cups upon a little table. At Kitty’s words her hand stilled for a moment. Then she reached for the milk jug.
‘Pol?’ Kitty was puzzled at the silence.
‘Well, now.’ Pol poured the tea, straightened and handed Kitty a cup. ‘That, to be honest, is a question I was rather hopin’ wouldn’t get itself asked.’
‘Why ever not?’
Pol was looking uncommonly embarrassed. A faint flush stained her cheekbones. She perched on the edge of a chair, balancing her teacup.
‘Pol? What is it?’
‘Well, it’s like this, Kit—’ Pol hesitated, then, blushing sheepishly, blurted rapidly, ‘Barton an’ me – we’re gettin’ ’itched – an’ we reckoned as ’ow, if yer went ter Paris, well, yer could do without me fer a bit an’ we’d get some time on our own. Jus’ – well, jus’ ter sort of get used ter the idea I s’pose—’
‘Oh Pol! Pol, that’s wonderful news!’ Kitty was on her feet, flinging her arm about her friend’s neck and kissing her. ‘I’m so happy for you! When is it to be?’
‘As soon as we can. A month or so. Just somethin’ quiet—’
‘Oh, and if I go to Paris I’ll have to miss it!’ Kitty stopped, sobering. ‘But then – if I stay – I suppose you’ll be leaving anyway? How strange it will be without you!’
‘Oh, come on, now – don’t be daft. I just won’t be livin’ ’ere, that’s all. I doubt we’ll go a million miles away! Yer won’t get rid o’ me that easy! It’s just that – well, fer this summer, while y’er gone, if y’er gone, that is, it’d be nice to ’ave some time on our own, that’s all. Yer do see, don’t yer?’
‘Of course I do. Of course.’ Oddly, Kitty felt the sudden burn of tears behind her eyes. She blinked and swallowed, sat back on her heels, shaking her head. ‘And to think I didn’t know! Didn’t notice! Have I been so involved in my own affairs? Oh Pol – why didn’t you tell me?’
‘’E on’y got round ter poppin’ the question a couple o’ days since – an’, well, I bin waitin’ ter see if yer made up yer mind about Paris.’
‘You and the rest of the world.’ Paris with no Luke, no Matt – and now no Pol. A city full of strangers, and all of it to do again. Round went her thoughts in the sam
e old circle, mice on a treadwheel.
‘I’ll make up my mind tomorrow,’ she said.
* * *
She spent the following afternoon, as she spent so many afternoons, as if afraid to waste the time that she sensed was so precious to them, with Luke in his room. He had been away, his recent plans come to fruition, and he had returned as she had seen him once or twice before, high-strung and tense; too high-spirited. He had kept up a merciless flow of acerbic conversation until they had gone to bed, had made love with a wildness that had driven her beyond reason or thought and then, naked and restless, prowled the room, a glass of brandy in his hand. Not his first, she suspected.
She watched him for a long time, saying nothing.
He wandered back at last to the bed and sat beside her, his dark hand resting upon her flat stomach.
‘The Peelers,’ he said lightly, ‘aren’t always as stupid as they look, are they?’
‘You were nearly caught.’ There was no question in the words.
He smiled, savagely and with no trace of mirth. ‘I was, as you say, nearly caught. Perish the thought.’
Her heart had taken on an odd, uneven beat, unpleasant and disturbing. She hated the look in his eyes.
‘But I wasn’t.’ His sudden compulsion to speak of it apparently deserting him, he stood up abruptly and went back to the table where the brandy bottle stood.
‘What happened?’
He raised his glass, tossed back the contents in one smooth movement. ‘Nothing. Nothing happened. I got away.’
‘One day,’ she heard herself saying softly, the unspeakable finding its voice at last, ‘you won’t. What then?’
He turned to face her. The lean, handsome lines of body and face were blurred in the dim light of a cloud-heavy, cold day. His eyes were totally shuttered. ‘That won’t happen.’
‘How can you know?’
He shrugged.
She shook her head upon the pillow.
He refilled his glass, came back to the bed, stood looking down at her.
‘Did you know,’ he asked, ‘that I once did a stretch?’ He smiled self-derisively. ‘A “tailpiece in the steel”?’
‘No.’ There was soft astonishment in the word. The thought of Luke in prison was like the thought of the wind caged.
He swirled the liquid in his glass, watching it. ‘Death couldn’t be worse,’ he said. ‘You are reduced to the level of an animal. No – it’s worse than that, for an animal doesn’t know its own degradation. No animal can be forbidden the right to communicate with its own kind, to sit, to stand, to sleep, to wake in its own time and its own manner. The first thing they do of course is to strip you – and in doing that they quite deliberately take from you everything that gives you identity, that gives you pride, that declares that you are a man as they are, God curse their souls.
‘Their aim is to make of you a thing, a nothing – they control you every moment in everything you do. You may not speak, you may not smile, you may not blow your nose or make water without their permission and under their prying eyes. You may not greet a friend. You may not look directly at them, for that is insubordination. But neither must you cast your eyes too far down, for who knows then what thoughts you might be concealing?’ He paused. She had never in her life heard such a bitterness of hatred in a voice. ‘They confine you in a cell not much bigger than this bed, they shut the door with a sound like the knell of doom, and they lock you in. On their side of that door are the punishment cells, the whipping post, the manacles and the treadwheel. The oakum to pick till your fingers bleed and rot. The stones to break till you’re crippled. The coal sacks to sew. The bread and water diet. On your side there is nothing. Nothing but enslavement and deliberately inflicted humiliation.’ He lifted his narrow eyes from their contemplation of the glass and saw the look of horror in her eyes. As if waking, he shook his head a little, turned from her, slumped forward, elbows on knees.
A helpless, impossible rise of anger and pity held her. She wrapped her fingers around his strong wrist, feeling the warmth of it, the throb of his pulse beneath the thin skin. ‘Then for God’s sake, stop it, Luke! Stop it while you can! Before you’re taken again, and this time they kill you! You’re an intelligent man – you don’t have to thieve!’
Relentlessly gentle, he disengaged his wrist from her grip. ‘You think not?’
‘No!’
‘And I say – yes! I know nothing else!’
‘Then learn! Others do—’
‘Others are not me.’
‘Oh, don’t be so pig-headedly – arrogantly – stupid!’ She turned her head from him to hide the tears. ‘It’s no good even talking to you, is it? You’ll go on and on, doing things your own way – until you’re caught and flung into one of those bloody cells you’re so afraid of—’ She stopped, herself shocked at the word she had unthinkingly used. She heard his sharp breath, saw the stiffening of his back. ‘Luke—’ Her voice was pleading. She turned back to him.
He moved away from her, his face expressionless. He stood up, heading for the bottle again. ‘I’ve told you. They won’t catch me again.’
‘I’m glad you can be so certain.’ It was her turn to be bitter.
‘God help the copper who tries to take me in,’ he said.
She stared at him. ‘You’d kill—’
He nodded.
‘—or be killed.’
‘Yes.’
A strange emptiness suddenly seemed to have dulled her emotions and stilled her tongue. She sat up and reached for her clothes.
‘You’ve always known that,’ he said, his voice hard.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I suppose I have.’
‘You have to accept it.’
That brought her head up. ‘No, Luke. I don’t.’
She finished dressing. He pulled on trousers and a loose white shirt and returned to the bottle. Standing before the huge mirror that hung above the fireplace, she busied herself with her hair. ‘I’m thinking of having my hair cut,’ she said, simply to break the silence that had clamped suffocatingly on the room. ‘It’s such a nuisance on stage.’ And – God! she thought, I could be talking to Pol, or Amy—
‘Don’t.’
She shrugged. ‘I’ll see.’
His reflection appeared, very close behind her. ‘I like it as it is.’ His breath smelled of brandy.
‘I said – I’ll see. Shoulder length it’d be a lot easier to handle.’
‘I don’t want you to cut your hair.’
She knew he was three parts drunk. She knew she should humour him. ‘It’s not up to you, Luke. It’s up to me.’
Angrily he leaned across her to put his empty glass on the mantelpiece. ‘For Christ’s sake, girl, must you make a bloody issue of every single little—?’ His forearm caught the massive mirror. It creaked ominously.
‘Luke!’ She grabbed him and pulled him back. The great mirror teetered and toppled, turning over in the air to crash on its back upon the hearthrug. The glass, still in its frame, shivered to a cobweb of broken images. They stood looking down at it for a long moment of shocked silence.
‘Seven years’ bad luck,’ she said at last, shakily, looking at his face in the silvered kaleidoscope of reflecting shards. ‘Isn’t that what they say?’
He laughed, and it grated her nerves, chilling her. ‘A glass that size? A lifetime, I’d say. At least a lifetime.’
* * *
It was evident when he came to her dressing room that night that he had been drinking steadily since the afternoon. He was dressed as he had been then, in loose white shirt open at the neck, black trousers and boots. He had never, she thought, looked so much the gypsy. Nor had she ever seen him more handsome. When he came into the room she was seated at her dressing table contemplating with an exasperated frown a small mother-of-pearl box which lay before her. He threw himself onto the day bed, stretched out his long, booted legs. In one hand he held a small silver flask. Pol scowled at him. With an undisciplined grin he reache
d to pat her buttocks. ‘Hello, Pol, my love – when are you going to desert that itinerant songsmith of yours and run away with me?’
‘That’ll be the day.’ Pol threw a disgusted glance at the flask.
He grinned, toasted her with it, took a swig. ‘Pol,’ he said unrepentantly to Kitty, ‘doesn’t approve of me.’
‘I’m not surprised. I’m not sure I do myself at the moment. Don’t you think you’ve had enough?’
‘No.’ He smiled beatifically.
She turned from him, picked up the pretty little box. ‘Pol – do me a favour, would you? Take this down to the doorman and ask him to give it back to the Honourable What’s-his-name when he calls? I can’t possibly accept it. Flowers are one thing – but diamonds?’ She tilted the little box, peered into it a touch uncertainly. ‘I suppose they are diamonds?’
With a turn of speed that entirely belied his previous studied laziness Luke unfolded his lean frame from the day bed and was by her side, long finger touching very lightly the earrings that glittered, rainbow-brilliant, in the box. ‘They’re diamonds all right,’ he said, picking one up and holding it to the light. ‘Ye gods – Le Parisot’s going to town, isn’t he? I shouldn’t let your friend Gené see these—’
‘They aren’t from Charles.’ Kitty took the earring firmly from him and almost threw it back in the box. ‘They’re from the Honourable’ – she quirked a sharply mocking brow – ‘Ernest Belcham. His father owns half of Somerset, so he tells me. He’s a pest with more money than sense and even more self-esteem than money, and that’s saying something. He thinks he can buy anything he wants and he’s never learned to take “no” for an answer.’
Luke took the box from her, stood with it in his hand, angling it so that the stones that rested within it caught the light and sent shafts of fire flashing about the room. ‘Are you sure you want to give him “no” for an answer?’
She knew his perversity at these times. She removed the box from his fingers and snapped it shut. ‘I’m sure,’ she said, crisply. ‘Pol—’ She held the box out to Pol. Before Pol could take it the door swung open, with no knock. Framed in the opening stood a young man, foppishly dressed, a silk handkerchief drooping elegantly from his frilled cuff, a diamond pin glimmering in his matching creamy silk cravat. His soft, already thinning sandy hair fluffed above puffy, tired eyes. His mouth was that of a petulant child. He ignored both Luke and Pol.
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