by Tim Jeal
When the clock in the cupola above the stables struck one, Tom was asleep.
Helen entered silently, closing the door with great care and placing her candlestick on the edge of the washstand. At first she thought that Tom was feigning sleep to impress her with his sang-froid but, on coming closer, she realised, from his light regular breathing and the peaceful expression of his pale upturned face, that he was indeed sleeping. The candles had burned right down and several were sputtering and on the point of going out. For a moment she felt angry with him, as if for a betrayal. He had not had to endure the nerveracking minutes she had lived through on the stairs and in the long passage-way, listening every few feet, testing each board; discovery could not bring him ruin. Had I waited for him, I should never have been able to sleep. Yet looking at his closed eyelids and tousled hair, she felt her anger ebbing, respecting him for his calmness. She sat down gently on the edge of the bed, being careful not to wake him until she had laid her cheek against his; for a moment he did not move, but then she felt his eyelashes flutter like the wings of a moth and heard him sigh; he opened his eyes and lifted his head a fraction, staring at her, at first with surprise, and then with horror and mortification. Not wanting to hear his apologies, she kissed him lightly on the lips and slipped into bed beside him.
‘Did you think I might not come?’
‘I thought perhaps Catherine …’
‘Stupid boy,’ she murmured, touching his shoulder with her lips and turning him to her. Perhaps five seconds since he had opened his eyes, and yet Tom felt as wide awake as if he had been plunged into ice cold water; his chest was aching and his limbs painfully tense. By contrast her body seemed relaxed and yielding under her silk peignoir. Until this moment he had seen her only in tight-fitting bodices, with her hair swept back and to the side from a central parting; now it hung loosely to her shoulders, glowing vividly in the candlelight, softening her features, making her seem like a girl. His tenseness eased a little as he traced the outline of her nose with a single finger, passing on over her lips and chin. Sitting up she undid the ribbon securing her peignoir, letting it slip slowly from her shoulders. They remained still for a few seconds and then lay down facing each other, side by side.
After she had stopped loving Harry, Helen had known perhaps half-a-dozen lovers, but none had caressed her with Tom’s delicate almost teasing gentleness; he would kiss her and then withdraw his mouth to brush her breasts with his lips. Often he came near to entering her, but then slid away, coaxing, pressing, eluding – increasing her suspense to the point of pain; seeking out hollows and angles, moulding his slender body to her shape, until she felt that they were merging – his warmth flowing around her, into her, their separateness dissolving; yet there was an element missing; by the stream she had found him as helpless as herself, but now, although aroused by the lightness of his touch, over again she felt the detachment of his wooing, and was filled with an agonising and humiliating sense of her vulnerability – as if she alone were truly naked and unveiled. He made her burn with the expectation of ecstasy, with the licking of small flickering flames, but not with an enveloping fire, not with a desire which was also close to fear, not with the promise of completeness she had glimpsed beside the stream: the fulfilment of utter surrender.
She turned away from him, raising clenched fists to her eyes, but when she lay back, she saw him gazing at her with eyes full of such concern and sadness, that she was sure he had shared her fear of any consummation which fell short of their imaginings; all his efforts aimed to recapture that lost moment.
‘My darling, I didn’t see your eyes – your eyes were hidden.’
A moment later her lips were parting his, her fingers probing and searching, twisting his hair and forcing his hands to her breasts with a desperation that snapped his control, making him echo her sobbing halting cries of pleasure, annihilating memories of her aloofness, filling him with a fierce and passionate tenderness, as he raised his narrow hips and thrust into her, feeling himself carried with her, almost before knowing that they had begun, almost before the slight resistance to his entrance had ended – so that when it was over, time lay sleeping with them a little while, undisturbed, stirring only with a dull murmuring in their blood, with the quieter rhythm of their breathing.
*
The candles had all burned out and between the curtains a thin bar of blue light was brightening imperceptibly with a hint of redness. Outside birds were singing. Helen woke with a sudden start, her heart beating violently and then slowing with the realisation that dawn was only just breaking. Beside her Tom was sleeping soundly, his face cradled in the crook of an arm, his fingers trailing in his hair. She hesitated a moment before waking him.
‘I must go.’
He nodded dumbly, incredulous that he had wasted such precious hours in sleep. They embraced a last time, but he knew that she was eager to be gone. She shivered a little, as she pulled her loose gown round her shoulders.
‘I’ll send for you when I get to London.’
He pressed her hand to his lips, loving her as she went, tiptoeing to the door like a thief, a thief in her own house; and as he saw the door close, and heard the faint click of the latch, he felt a leaden and helpless anger that such a night should end so furtively, as if they had cause to be ashamed. He flung himself down across her pillow which still held her warmth and lay as though dead.
*
The brougham was waiting, the liveried coachman on the box, and footmen carrying out Tom’s easels, canvases and boxes.
‘I hope your journey is not a tiring one, Mr Strickland.’
‘I hope not too, your ladyship.’
‘Perhaps if you are ever in the neighbourhood of Flixton or Rigton Bridge you will call.’
‘I would be honoured to, my lady…. Goodbye, Miss Crawford. Goodbye, my lord. Thank you all for your kindness.’
He left them standing at the top of the steps and walked down to the coach without looking back.
*
In Tom’s room, the housemaid, whose labours he had studied two mornings before, had stripped off the bed linen and was emptying the ewer and basin on the washstand when she noticed a fluted silver candlestick. She picked it up and shook her head, evidently puzzled at first, and then thunderstruck. As she replaced it a slow smile spread across her face – a smile of complicity rather than malice.
She was returning the candlestick to Lady Goodchild’s room, where she had often dusted and polished it, when she came face to face with Miss Crawford at the top of the main stairs. With a hasty movement she shielded it with her arm and moved past with a slight bob.
‘Mathews, are you hiding something?’
‘Where, miss?’
‘In your hand.’
‘Only a candlestick, miss.’
‘Then why hide it?’
‘I weren’t, miss.’
‘I saw you hide it. Where are you taking it?’
‘To her ladyship’s room.’
‘Where was it?’
‘In the corridor, miss.’
Catherine’s face was ashen and her hands trembling.
‘You’re lying, Mathews. Must I tell the housekeeper that you are a thief?’
‘No, please, miss.’ The girl’s face was scarlet and she was close to tears. Catherine came closer and said gently:
‘Did you find it in Mr Strickland’s room?’
The maid nodded and began to cry. Catherine leant against the wall, her face contorted with anger and grief.
‘Go,’ she shouted. ‘Go.’ Turning the moment the maid was out of sight, she ran to her room, choking with humiliated pride and hatred.
29
From his seat in a swaying hansom, Charles Crawford surveyed the mid-afternoon scene in St James’s Street; his view through the open front of the cab framed by the bony haunches of the horse and the driver’s reins sloping down from his perch behind. Opulent barouches, driven by liveried coachmen in powdered wigs, rolled by at a stately pace, l
ittle faster than the crowded omnibuses and lumbering brewers’ drays, holding up dashing mail-phaetons and broughams, but not detaining impudent costermongers’ carts and determined cabmen. Behind tall windows Charles saw the glint of chandeliers and yawning clubmen relaxing after heavy lunches, some gazing idly at a group of Creole singers shaking their tambourines on the pavement opposite; the noise of their voices and instruments inaudible above the grating roar of so many iron-rimmed wheels grinding over the granite setts.
The traffic slowed to a crawl near the Piccadilly end of the street and finally came to a halt as a blind beggar lurched out in front of a timber cart. Charles rapped on the roof of the cab with his cane to attract the driver’s attention and clambered out. Having paid, he walked along as briskly as he could on the crowded pavement, dodging past a knot of cabmen drinking beer on their stand and chatting with several shirt-sleeved waiters freed from their midday labours. Ballad sellers, orange girls and the occasional early prostitute mingled with shoppers and sight-seeing provincials.
Even the distant prospect of a visit to his aunt’s Bruton Street house was usually enough to depress and irritate Charles, but on this occasion Catherine’s letter asking him to meet her there had barely affected his spirits. Today every newspaper carried the story that the Tsar had rejected Turkish modifications to the Vienna peace plan, thus bringing the two nations to the brink of war. In peace-time Charles knew that it might be twenty years before he achieved flag-rank; with the help of a full-scale European war this time could well be halved. His only worry was that Scylla might not be ready for commissioning when the war at sea began.
His eager anticipation of hostilities had done much to alleviate his misery over Helen’s acceptance of his father. Nevertheless when she had written asking him to nominate Humphrey, his first reaction had been to refuse, but quite unable to think of any way of explaining such churlishness to his father, he had finally been obliged to offer the boy a cadet’s vacancy in Scylla. Yet though worried in case every sight of Humphrey should remind him of Helen, Charles had found some consolation in the thought that his responsibility for the young peer’s welfare would give him power over his mother – not that he intended to treat Humphrey with anything other than perfect impartiality nor use his power in any way. The possession of it would be enough. Charles was also pleased to have been able to appear magnaminous to a woman who had hurt him: the ideal gentleman forever turning the other cheek.
Having half-an-hour in hand, Charles walked along Piccadilly to the Green Park, hoping to fill in time amusing himself with a scrutiny of the sartorial excesses of any men and women of fashion who might be taking the air. He was therefore disappointed to encounter for the most part clerks and apprentices enjoying an afternoon off with their milliner or shopgirl sweethearts. He smiled at his stupidity; the time he had spent in Sheerness and Chatham had made him forgetful of London habits. Anybody wishing to be thought smart would hide rather than advertise their presence in town in August, with society all but dead, Parliament in recess, and everyone of ‘ton’ or consequence in the country. On reflection it seemed strange to him that Catherine had chosen this month to come to London. Originally she had written suggesting that he come to Lancashire, since she had urgent matters to discuss, but he had not wanted to see Helen, and had also been unwilling to leave Sheerness for long during the most critical phase of Scylla’s conversion. What his sister might wish to tell him in person, that could not be expressed in a letter, he was at a loss to know; although he suspected something along the lines of a touching personal appeal to him to use his influence with their father to allow her to return to Leaholme Hall. There was another less pleasing possibility. On calling at his club, Charles had found a letter from George Braithwaite, containing hints that during a visit to Hanley Park, George had gained an impression that Catherine was fond of Magnus’s young artist friend. Braithwaite had only implied this, and Charles was inclined to think that George’s rejection had made him morbid and vindictive.
Towards the end of his walk in the park, Charles saw a park keeper with a stick prodding one of a group of destitute girls, lying close to each other on the grass. They were dressed in what had once been finery: dirty torn muslin, grimy shawls and greasy napless velvet. Their faces were filthy and weatherbeaten; all of them in their early twenties and already past gaining a living from prostitution. Charles fumbled in his pocket, and to the keeper’s disgust, tossed them some silver; then in a more sombre mood he walked out into Piccadilly. He had known too many whores to look down on them.
That very morning he had visited Madame Negretti’s impeccably respectable dressmaking establishment and made arrangements for the coming evening. Dressmaking certainly took place on the lower floors of her premises, but the remaining ones housed one of London’s discreetest brothels, where clients provided references and made private appointments for particular girls. There was no violent stampede to pick girls from a tableau vivant, as in many brothels and burlesque houses, and the careful timing of appointments, and the lay-out of rooms, meant that patrons rarely, if ever, saw each other. The charges were as high as twenty pounds for a night, paid in advance, or added to an existing dressmaking account. Orgies and flagellation could be arranged, but always took place elsewhere. Madame Negretti also provided girls for other establishments, mainly hotels. She had catered for Charles’s occasional needs for nearly ten years in a manner which had left him few grounds for complaint. In truth he would have preferred to keep a woman for his sole use, but his means had not allowed it. His previous First Lieutenant had partially solved the same problem by paying his butler to marry a girl from an oyster-bar, on the understanding that she would be at his master’s disposal during his time ashore, and would be kept happy and provided for by the butler during his employer’s long absences at sea. But disliking the idea of complicity with servants, Charles intended to remain faithful to La Negretti and to do so with a clear conscience. The adulterous habits of certain sections of the aristocracy shocked and disgusted him; Charles’s stern sense of honour never allowed him to contemplate sleeping with a gentlewoman whom he did not intend to marry.
*
His aunt’s maid led Charles to a small back sitting-room on the ground floor, where he found Catherine diligently working at a shell-box. The room looked onto a bleak gravelled yard backed by a blackened brick wall supporting the gnarled and sooty trunk of an ancient wisteria. Charles embraced his sister perfunctorily and sat down on a frail oriental chair in front of a cluttered china cabinet. Whenever he came to Bruton Street, he felt cramped by the quantity of furniture in rooms never intended to hold half as much. He moved away a pole firescreen to see Catherine better. The room was hot and airless.
‘A fine month to be in London,’ he said gruffly.
‘I needed to see you.’
‘The work on the ship is only half done, and when it is it’ll be another two months before she’s fitted out and manned.’
‘Don’t be angry, Charles, I knew that, but could not wait to see you.’ He watched her lean forward, clasping her hands nervously. ‘You know that Lady Goodchild is in town?’
‘We do not correspond,’ he replied drily, moving his weight uneasily on the flimsy bamboo chair. ‘If she is, why the deuce aren’t you staying with her?’ He looked round guiltily in case the door was open.
‘Don’t worry, Aunt Warren is out till six.’ Catherine moved her chair closer to him. ‘I couldn’t stay with her ladyship because she’s only two servants with her and almost every room is given over to the auction. She’s selling everything there.’
‘She has every right.’
Resigned though Charles had become to losing Helen, he did not relish a long conversation about her finances or any other aspect of her behaviour. If Catherine wanted to leave Hanley Park, she should approach her father. He saw her get up and walk over to the door, where she listened a moment.
‘Why such secrecy?’ he asked, interest now overcoming irritation.
/> Catherine tightened the blue sash of her white dress and narrowed her eyes a little.
‘What would you do, Charles, if you thought Helen was deceiving father?’
‘How the devil can she be? It’s as certain as can be that he’s letting her have money. Not to marry him after that would be the most flagrant breach of promise I’ve ever heard of.’
‘I didn’t mean that she won’t marry him,’ she replied softly.
‘Then what do you mean?’
‘She’s been seeing Mr Strickland since she came here.’
‘Wasn’t he painting her portrait? He’s probably putting the finishing touches.’ The dismissive tone Charles had adopted was a token of doubt rather than confidence. He remembered seeing Helen and Strickland laughing together as he had peered through the window on the day of the last meet before Goodchild’s death; yet for his own peace of mind he was determined to avoid jumping to any hasty conclusion. To be ousted by his father had been painful, but to believe that Helen had taken a nondescript painter as a lover would be infinitely more wounding. Surely she would never risk so much, given her debts? Charles was also comforted by George’s suspicions. If Catherine had been fond of Strickland, and he had subsequently rejected her, she might well wish to harm him; nor had she any reason to love Helen. He saw that Catherine seemed shaken by his impervious attitude, and said more kindly:
‘You must explain more. How can I credit such a thing without hearing your reasons?’
Charles listened attentively as she told him about her intuitive suspicions, which had been borne out by their unaccompanied drive together and by the more critical discovery of the candlestick.
‘The maid probably left the thing in the wrong room,’ he said with crushing indifference.
‘With the candle burnt right down? The same maid always cleans both rooms and knows exactly what belongs in each.’