‘No need ter worry,’ Kitty said. ‘We’ve fell on our feet, ain’t we Jim.’
‘You got any bacon?’ her brother asked. ‘I could just fancy a rasher a’ bacon.’
How odd life is, Rosie thought as she put the bacon in the frying pan. Two jobs lost and new ones found in no time at all, an’ yet me an’ Jim only just a proper husband an’ wife to one another after all these weeks. It makes me wonder what the next change is going to be.
In fact the next change was predictable but because she was kept so busy in her dual life as waitress and housewife, she didn’t have the leisure to foresee it. Autumn came and went, and her disappointing love life continued until she accepted it as normal: November brought a fog so thick that the trams had to have men walking in front of them with blazing torches to show them the way: and then it was December and Kitty said it was colder than it had any right to be and stoked the kitchen fire halfway up the chimney. The first sprouts appeared in the market alongside delicately wrapped mandarin oranges, and decorated boxes of dates. But Rosie’s work never eased up for a minute. There were mornings when she was so rushed, she didn’t even have time for breakfast, or it made her feel so sick she couldn’t eat it when she’d cooked it. And she lost count of the afternoons when she felt so tired, she wanted to lie down on the floor in the restaurant and go to sleep. In fact there were days when she had to hang on to her control to keep going at all.
‘It’ll be Christmas ’fore we know it,’ Kitty said. ‘Are we goin’ to midnight mass our Jim?’
Midnight mass, Rosie thought, and her mind was suddenly filled with a vivid memory of sitting in their familiar pew at St Mary’s, as the carols were being sung, with Ma and all her babies around, straining her neck to see the babe in the manger and thinking what it must have been like to be born in a stable in the middle of the winter. Babies, she thought, remembering them all, Tess an’ Tommy an’ Edie an’ the Baby Jesus. And her mind suddenly clicked into understanding and she knew why she’d been feeling sick at breakfast time and dropping with exhaustion by mid-afternoon. A baby. That would explain everything. I’ll go and find my little diary she thought and see when I made my last mark. Now this very minute. And she left Kitty and Jim planning their Christmas and went upstairs, her heart fluttering with excitement.
The last mark she could find was at the end of August, which was over three months away. If this is a baby, she thought, I’m a third of the way there. The thought filled her with awe. I shan’t tell Jim yet. It would upset him, having another mouth to feed and nappies to buy and everything and me not working. I’ll keep it to myself until I show and then break it to him gently. After all, I can go on working until it’s born. So he won’t have that worry yet awhile. I can let out my skirts and blouses. That should hide it for a bit. He’s bound to notice I’m putting on weight sooner or later, but I’ll have worked out what to say to him by then.
But as it turned out it wasn’t Jim who noticed she was putting on weight, it was the housekeeper at the club.
Two weeks before Christmas, the maître d’ appeared in the restaurant when all the guests had gone, and they were clearing the tables and setting them for breakfast. It wasn’t like him to return to the restaurant when the meal was over, so they paused in their work to see what he wanted. He picked his delicate way between the tables until he reached Rosie, then he inclined his head by way of greeting her and asked if she would be so good as to come to his office. There was a surprised silence. Rosie was aware of questioning faces turned in her direction all around the room. It made her feel a bit uncomfortable but there couldn’t be anything wrong, could there? She stuck her chin in the air and followed him, trying to look unconcerned.
His office was a quiet place after the endless coming and going in the club, leather chairs like the ones in the smoking room, an oak desk, rows of important-looking folders on the shelves behind his head, brown velvet curtains gathering dust at the window, a strong smell of cigar smoke.
‘Do sit down,’ he said, indicating the chair on the other side of his desk. Then he leant his elbows on the desk, folded his hands neatly one on top of the other in front of his mouth, rested his nose on them and pondered. It was some time before he spoke.
‘It has been brought to my attention,’ he said, giving her a vague smile, ‘that it might be possible that you are — how shall I put this? — that you are — um — in the family way.’
‘Yes, sir,’ she said happily. ‘I am.’
‘Ah!’ he said and pondered again. ‘This presents us with something of a problem,’ he said. ‘As you will appreciate. It is company policy not to employ any woman who is — um — in the family way.’
She was so appalled she fought back at once without thinking. ‘That ent fair,’ she said hotly. ‘I mean to say, it ent a disease. It ent catching, like consumption or diphtheria. It’s natural. Why should I be sacked just because I’m carrying?’
‘Quite,’ he said, smoothly. ‘I take your point. But it’s company policy, you see.’
Her answer was hot and instant. ‘Then it ought to be changed.’
‘Quite possibly,’ he said, giving her a fleeting smile. ‘However until it is, I’m afraid we have to abide by it. I’m sorry I’ve had to give you such unwelcome news. We will pay you until the end of the week, of course. Your usual envelope is waiting for you at the desk.’
And that was that. She got her coat and hat and steamed to the front desk, hot with fury, chin in the air, eyes blazing. Which was how Gerard de Silva saw her as he strode into the welcoming warmth of the club with a group of his friends, splendid in his winter cape and his flamboyant muffler and a dramatic black hat.
‘Well, well, well,’ he said. ‘If it’s not our Rosie, bigod. What’s up?’
‘They’ve given me the sack,’ she said, angrily.
‘Have they too,’ he said, looking at her calculatingly. ‘Well if that’s the case, you’d better come and work for me. I’ve just lost my latest model. Off to the Riviera with some silly young idler, more fool her, and you have just the sort of colour I’m looking for.’ His friends were teasing and calling out to him, but he ignored them. ‘What do you think? Would you take it? I pay well.’
She accepted his offer at once, without thinking at all. That ’ud show ’em. ‘Yes, sir. I’d like to.’
‘Good,’ he said, smiling at her, brown eyes gleaming, teeth very white in the dark bush of his beard. ‘There’s my card. Come to that address, nine o’clock Monday morning.’ He put the card in her hand and strolled off to join his friends, ‘Yes, yes, I’m coming, you dreadful impatient lot!’
She held the card in her hand and read it.
Gerard de Silva
Portrait painter to the great,
the good, and the frankly impossible.
Member of the Uffizi Society Oxford
And then an address in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. Wait till I show them this at home, she thought.
It was a lovely moment. She waited until she had dished up their supper and they’d all started to eat. Then she told them. ‘Got the sack today,’ she said, with splendid aplomb, ‘so you two ent the only ones.’
Kitty was instantly sympathetic. ‘Oh Rosie!’ she said. ‘That’s awful.’
‘Got another job though. Straight away. Just like you.’
They both asked, ‘Where? What?’ their faces eager to know more.
‘I’m going to be an artist’s model,’ she told them. ‘What d’you think a’ that?’
‘My stars!’ Kitty said, deeply impressed. ‘You are comin’ up in the world.’
But Jim’s face was a study in horror. ‘A model?’ he said, his voice rising with alarm. ‘Oh fer cryin’ out loud, Rosie! You can’t work as a model.’
She fought back at once, chin in the air. ‘I can,’ she said. ‘I’m going to.’
‘No,’ he said, doggedly. ‘You can’t. You don’t know what them artists are like. Terrible some of ’em are. They paints women in the nu…’ Then
he stopped because he was embarrassed and none too sure of the words he needed to tell her what he meant. ‘Wivout…’ he tried. ‘I mean ter say, wiv no clothes on.’
She laughed at him. ‘You’re such an old Puritan,’ she said. ‘They don’t all paint nudes.’
‘But what would you do if he asked yer to?’
‘I’d tell him no; I wouldn’t do it.’
He was still scowling. ‘Leave it fer a day or so,’ he urged. ‘See if you can find somethin’ better. You don’t ’ave ter go rushin’ into it. Me an’ Kitty can manage fer a week or two, can’t we, Kit?’
‘I ent got a week or two,’ Rosie told him crossly. ‘An’ neither’ve you. I got to earn as much as I can while I still can.’
‘Whatcher mean “still can”?’ he asked. ‘What’s ter stop yer?’
She blurted out the answer before she thought about it. ‘I’m carryin’,’ she said, almost crossly. ‘That’s why. I got till May to earn as much as I can, then I shan’t be earnin’ no more for months.’
The news gave him a shock he couldn’t hide. ‘Oh my dear good God!’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she said, glad he’d understood her need to work even though she was already regretting the way she’d told him. ‘So you see…’
He was still digesting the news, caught between a rising delight that he’d fathered a child and the most hideous anxiety that they wouldn’t be able to pay the rent. ‘Oh my dear good God,’ he said again.
‘So I shall go to work on Monday morning,’ she said. And as he didn’t argue, she assumed it was settled.
Chapter 15
Gerard de Silva had lived in Cheyne Walk ever since he’d got his first sizeable commission and had begun to earn substantial fees. That was several years ago but the thrill of owning such an elegant house on such a prestigious street was still as strong as it had been when he first moved in and he enjoyed it every morning, strolling from room to room just for the pleasure of knowing it was his, admiring the Italianate moulding on the ceilings, the elegant fireplaces, the splendid view of the Thames from the high Georgian windows of his studio and his drawing room, relishing the sense of order and comfort. He’d taken the house with two live-in servants already installed in the top floor flat, a married couple called Fenchurch who cared for him in a discreetly attentive way, she as cook/housekeeper, he as butler and general factotum. Add to that a succession of riotous dinner parties with his artistic friends, a cellar stocked with French wine and a library full of books, and there were days when he knew he couldn’t possibly want for more. It was true that lovers and models tended to come and go but the urge to paint grew stronger by the day. And now he had a new model and the canvas already stretched and primed ready to welcome her and the portrait was growing so strongly in his brain he couldn’t wait to begin. He glanced at his fine clock on the mantelpiece and saw that it was two minutes to nine. And the doorbell rang.
Rosie Jackson had dressed very carefully that morning in her best red skirt with the seams let out, her prettiest blouse and a new pair of stockings bought for the occasion, thinking that if she was going to be a model she’d better try and look the part. She regretted it as soon as she reached the tram stop because it was raining and blowing a gale and the cold and damp seeped into her bones. By the time she reached Mr de Silva’s fine house, with its important windows and its elaborate door and all that fine brickwork, red against the slate-grey of the sky, she was very cold indeed and aching for the protection of her old thick skirt and her knitted cardigan. But she tried not to be disheartened by the cold — or daunted by the house. Whatever this job required of her, she would do it to the best of her ability, even if it meant feeling chilly now and then. She climbed the stairs to the front door, feeling purposeful and rang the bell boldly.
A nice, comfortable-looking woman opened the door and ushered her in saying, ‘Come on in out this wicked cold, my lovely. I got a nice fire a-goin’ for ’ee.’ And when she’d taken Rosie’s hat and coat, she led her up a grand staircase and along the landing into a room that seemed to be full of light. There was very little furniture in it apart from a plain wooden chair set against the wall, a chaise longue with an easy chair to match it, a little round table, a painted screen and an artist’s easel, but there were shelves full of books lining the walls and a good fire in the grate. She could feel the warmth of it from where she stood, just inside the door, taking it all in, aware that everything about this house said wealth and comfort. Then Mr de Silva emerged from behind the screen with a paintbrush behind his ear and a beautiful red velvet gown and a pair of long red gloves draped over his arm.
‘Ah there you are,’ he said. ‘Good, good. Just slip behind the screen and put this on, will you?’
‘Land’s sakes sir,’ the comfortable woman said. ‘Let the poor gel get her breath. She’s mortal cold.’ She turned to Rosie and put a restraining hand on her arm. ‘You stand by the fire me dear and warm yourself up. That’s my advice to ’ee.’
Gerard de Silva grinned at her. ‘This is Mrs Fenchurch, Rosie,’ he said, ‘who is my housekeeper and sees it as her mission in life to tell me what to do, as you will observe. Not that I ever take any notice of her. Do I Mrs F?’ And he grinned at Mrs Fenchurch too.
He treats his servants like human beings, Rosie thought, admiring him for it. It made a nice change after the haughty way they’d dealt with their staff at the castle and the arrogant superiority of those two Eden boys.
‘Well come and sit by the fire then,’ he said. ‘I suppose I can spare five minutes for you to thaw out. Don’t forget our coffee, Mrs F.’
‘As if I would,’ Mrs Fenchurch reproved him. Then she smiled at them both and left them to it. Rosie perched on the edge of the chaise longue as close to the fire as she could get and held out her hands to the blaze and, after a few minutes, Mr de Silva walked across to her, laid the gown and the gloves across the other end of the chaise longue, and took hold of one of her hands.
‘You are cold,’ he said.
‘Yes sir.’
‘Um,’ he said, still holding her hand and looking thoughtful. ‘Perhaps we should get one or two things straight before we start working together. You don’t have to call me ‘sir’ or ‘Mr de Silva’. Just call me Gerry and I will call you Rosie and life will be a great deal easier. When you’re warm enough, go and put this gown on. You can do it behind the screen if you’re feeling modest. Only be quick. I want to see what you’re going to look like.’
She went at once, carrying the gown over her arm very carefully because she felt rather in awe of it and feeling pleased by that nice modest screen, thinking it would be something to tell Jim about. She was shivering by the time she’d taken off her skirt and blouse, but the weight of the gown was warming around her body even if it did leave her neck bare and it was a good fit, despite the baby. She looked down at the lovely train, swirling about her feet, and the heavy gold thread of the embroidery round the hem and all over the bodice and felt like a queen. The only problem was that it fastened at the back and she could only reach the hooks at her waist. And of course she had quite the wrong shoes on. She emerged from behind the screen, feeling breathless and not at all sure of herself. And was reassured by a happy smile.
‘First rate,’ Gerry said. ‘As I knew it would be. Come here and let me fasten it.’
She stood still in front of him while he hooked her into her finery. ‘I’ve got the wrong sort of shoes on,’ she said.
‘I will paint you different ones,’ he said. ‘And jewels at your neck. Just put the gloves on and I’ll arrange you and we can get started.’ His beard was bristling, and his eyes were lustrous with excitement. But he took his time over arranging her, settling the train into a lovely swirling curve and lifting her head so that she was holding it at just the right angle.
‘What do you want me to do with my hands?’ she asked.
‘Hold onto the curtain with one of them and let the other one dangle.’
She did as she was told.
‘Now keep perfectly still,’ he said. ‘Don’t move until I give you permission.’
For the first half an hour she stood as still as a statue, looking out of the window at the boats on the Thames and wondering where they were all going. It was so quiet in the room she could hear the lick of the flames in the fire. From time to time this man she was to call Gerry sang to himself in a tuneless way or shifted his feet with a sudden shuffling sound. Soon she had a stiff neck and wanted to move it to ease it — and didn’t dare. Then she wanted to sneeze and had to struggle not to and couldn’t manage it. And at that, he put his head round the side of the easel and said, ‘All right?’ but didn’t wait for her to answer. She was really quite relieved when Mrs Fenchurch arrived with a coffee tray which she put down on the little table beside the fire. Now perhaps she could stop modelling and move about a bit.
Mrs Fenchurch made up the fire. ‘There,’ she said, when it was done. ‘That’ll burn up nicely. Don’t let the coffee go cold.’
‘You see how she bullies me,’ Gerry said, stepping out from behind the easel. His smock was splashed with paint and he was looking extremely pleased with himself.
‘You wouldn’t eat anything if I didn’t,’ Mrs Fenchurch told him. ‘Now come an’ sit by the fire the pair of you an’ drink this up while it’s hot. Then you’ll get the beauty of it.’
The coffee was very welcome to Rosie. She took off her gloves and set them aside so that she wouldn’t spoil them and put her hands round the cup to warm them. And Mr de Silva sat in the easy chair with his long legs stretched out in front of him towards the fire and drank his own coffee and scowled, which was a bit disquieting. As soon as his cup was empty, he got up and rushed back to his easel, so she finished her own coffee and took up her pose again. After a few seconds, he appeared beside her to rearrange her train, but he still didn’t say anything.
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