Far Above Rubies

by Anne-Marie Vukelic

  My husband raised his eyes, saw me and blinked for a moment, not at all sure if I was real.

  ‘My God, Kate, where in heaven’s name have you been?’

  His voice betrayed both anger and relief. But, as I came toward him, his face turned pale at the sight of my bruised and bloodied neck.

  ‘Dear Lord, what has happened?’ he whispered fearfully.

  There were many tears shed as later, wrapped in a blanket and sitting by the fire, I related my awful ordeal.

  ‘Kate, I must insist,’ Charles began sternly and then catching Mary’s eye, softened his tone, ‘What I mean to say is that you must promise me, that you will never do anything so foolish again.’

  I nodded and dropped my head against his shoulder with a sob.

  A few days later, at Charles’s suggestion, we returned to the cottage in Chalk. It was just what I needed to soothe my troubled nerves. The small latticed windows opened out onto the surrounding countryside and, while Charles worked away diligently, safe in the knowledge that he would not be disturbed by any more nocturnal wandering on my part, I lay in bed, hypnotized by the sunlight resting upon his dark curly hair. Every so often he would stop writing and catch me watching him with contentment. The encounter with the thief had been a terrible shock and yet my misfortune had brought with it an unexpected blessing: some time with my husband. At that moment I felt a sense of peace that I realized had been missing ever since our last visit here.

  When we returned home, sadly the weather changed. The wind and rain drove hard across the courtyard dampening everything with its persistence. Large pools of water had formed on the ground and our lodgings looked more uninviting than ever. I peered intently at the faces of the men hanging about our doorway. Was he here … hidden among them … waiting for me? I looked at their large, dirty hands and their twitching fingers, and instinctively raised a protective hand to my throat. Stepping across the threshold, I shuddered, imagining that I could feel his breath once more on my face, and I did not dare to look in a mirror for fear that I might see the reflection of his face.

  The heavy atmosphere outside somehow seeped through the walls of Furnival’s Inn and suddenly it seemed that Charles and I had very little to say to one another. My eyes fell upon the dent in the dining table where he had struck it with his cane and I realized that in the chaos of my disappearance, the preceding discord between us had been forgotten. Charles had still not apologized for his unkind words and I inwardly acknowledged that the trip to Chalk had been a reparation, a means of making amends on his part. But beyond this, I knew that my husband would never admit that he had done anything wrong.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  November 1836

  Furnival’s Inn, London

  October came and went, and I felt my usual melancholy at the onset of winter. Charles often chastised me for burning the oil in almost every room, but I loathed the dreary days and long evenings exacerbated by these grey lodgings that I could never think of as my home. Thoughts about the previous occupants flitted across my mind. I wondered, had these rooms ever meant anything to them? Somebody had once cared enough to decorate the walls in the paper that was now faded and curling at the edges; and the portraits that were placed about the room, someone had cared enough to arrange them so.

  The faces that smiled back from those gilt frames were strangers to me and I was sure that they had smiled just as cheerfully in the pawnbroker’s shop window, from where they had no doubt come. They appeared to possess a sense of happiness and dignity that I had not felt since my life at York Place. I missed Mama and Papa, I missed Alice, our Scottish servant and I missed my little Georgina who had filled our house with life. If only I had some useful purpose, then maybe I would feel more settled here. Charles had made it clear that my role was to see to the running of the home and nothing more, but he was hardly ever here to see that I was trying hard in this endeavour.

  Even now, I could not put a name to the fanciful duties that I had envisioned for myself before our wedding. Perhaps it had been to apply balm to the wounds inflicted upon my husband by his working life. Or, maybe, it had been simply to offer companionship by the fireside when he arrived home. However, it was Mary about whom he fretfully enquired as soon as he stepped over the threshold of Furnival’s Inn, and it was Mary who provided the balm with her soothing tone at the end of a trying day.

  Outside, I heard laughter coming from the courtyard below and it drew me to the window. The view from here was usually uninspiring; our rooms were on the back of the building and the only variation in scenery came from the shifting patterns of the sunlight across the neglected courtyard. If I had had a clear view down Leather Lane or Brooke Street, I would have only seen the projecting upper storeys and wooden beams of lodging houses more dismal that my own. But today, as I looked down, I saw Charles and Mary carrying a small ornamental table between the two of them and laughing as they struggled to walk in time together without dropping it.

  ‘Move a little more this way, Mary,’ Charles coaxed.

  ‘My arms are aching! You said it wasn’t far,’ she giggled.

  ‘Well, let us put it down for a moment then,’ Charles replied, good-naturedly.

  The scene did nothing to lift my mood; I had had an attack of nerves that morning, which was becoming quite common since the theft of my jewellery, and I had declined the opportunity to venture out. I was now expecting our first child and I resented the carefree attitude of my sister and my husband.

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’ I called down from the window.

  Mary smiled up at me, her face glowing. ‘Don’t be vexed, Catherine. We have brought a surprise for you. Look, a pretty table to put at your bedside.’

  ‘Couldn’t you have had it delivered?’ I said, with irritation.

  ‘Why tip the delivery boy for doing what I could manage myself?’ Charles called cheerfully. ‘I have carried it most of the way. Mary has only assisted me for the last hundred yards.’

  He spoke partly with the pleasure of having saved an unnecessary expense. He was not a mercenary man by any means, but I had begun to notice that an excessive fear of debt seemed always to accompany him, and any expenditure must first be justified as absolutely necessary in his mind before any financial outlay, no matter how small. He spoke also with the realization that perhaps it had not been at all seemly to allow a young lady to struggle alongside him in such an undignified manner.

  Later, over lunch, I was quiet and withdrawn and I did not join in the light-hearted conversation that flowed backwards and forwards across the table.

  ‘… what do you say, Kate? Kate?’

  Charles put down his knife and fork and sighed. ‘For goodness’ sake, Kate, what on earth is wrong with you today? You refused to come out to the town this morning, you will not join us in conversation over lunch and you have not even thanked Mary and I for the gift that we bought you. Don’t you like the little table?’

  I stared with indifference at my untouched meal. ‘What use is a table, if the house that I am to place it in is detestable to me? How can I bring a child into the world and feel any joy at the prospect of bringing it up here? There is nothing in these rooms that belongs to me; the furniture is not ours, the rugs are not ours; the portraits on the walls are not even of our relatives. Nothing here is mine. Nothing at all.’

  There was no passion in my voice, no vital energy whatsoever.

  ‘But it will not always be this way, my love,’ Charles said with encouragement. ‘You know that I mean for us to have something better, but you must be patient. I cannot work any harder, you know that, and you must not make me feel that what I am doing at present is not good enough. That is very mean-spirited of you.’

  He began cutting away vigorously at his meat, which was a little coarse, and in exasperation he dropped his knife and fork with a clatter. ‘Oh, bother! Kate, why must you always choose the cheapest cuts? We are not paupers, you know.’

  I was just about to remind him how frequen
tly he prompted me to be more careful with the housekeeping when Mary, sensing disquiet, calmly intervened.

  ‘Perhaps if we had a dinner party and invited all the family and some of your friends, Charles. Some of your new colleagues, people that Catherine and I have not yet met. That would surely lift Catherine’s spirits.’

  She turned to me for confimation, but before I could reply, Charles jumped at the idea. ‘Yes! Of course. What a capital suggestion.’ He wiped his mouth with a napkin, threw it down on the table and immediately got up and began to pace the room.

  ‘Let me see. We shall have good food.’ He eyed me with a marked look, ‘Wine, music – your father could play his cello for us, and we could have some dancing. What do you think, eh, Kate?’

  ‘It seems that between the two of you, it has been decided.’ I replied with an air of weary resignation.

  The following week, our rooms at Furnival’s Inn were lit up with extra candles. I had to admit that all in all it did look rather inviting, and my spirits lifted a little. Charles inspected the table setting several times, straightening the knives and forks, refolding the napkins, giving the wine glasses a final polish until he was completely satisfied.

  ‘Now, what about the seating arrangements?’

  It was a rhetorical question rather than an invitation for an opinion from me.

  ‘Your parents can sit here at the top, next to you and me, Kate; my sister, Fanny, and her new husband, Albert, next to them; William and Isabella Thackeray there, and cousin Elizabeth and Mary, with Daniel Maclise and my brother Fred opposite them. Yes, I think that will do it. Or … should I put…?’ I left him to his vacillations.

  Mama and Papa were the first to arrive, followed by Fanny and Albert. Mama took off her cloak and then peered at my face. Not at all satisfied with what she saw, she began to fuss around me.

  ‘Ye look a little pale, m’dearie. Are ye sure that ye are up to having too much excitement this evening? Ye’ve not been yourself at all since that awful incident.’

  ‘Well, if she will go running out into the streets in the dead of night, what can she expect?’ Fanny interjected, never one to miss a chance to reprove me.

  Charles quickly interposed. ‘George – Mrs Hogarth, how good of you both to come. Please, let me introduce you to a dear colleague of mine, a fellow author and fine illustrator I might add: Mr William Thackeray.’

  The tall, curly-haired man with a genial face smiled and shook hands in turn with my parents. ‘Pleased to meet you, sir, madam.’

  ‘And this is his wife, Isabella.’

  She was a rounded, pleasant-faced woman, who had no remarkable features to speak of other than her thick dark hair, which was looped in plaits on either side of her head.

  Fred Dickens arrived not far behind another of Charles’s new friends, the artist Daniel Maclise. I had only met Fred once before and had immediately warmed to him. He was near to my own age and still had a good deal of boyish mischief in his eyes. Within a few moments of his arrival, he had elicited good-natured laughter between himself, Cousin Elizabeth and Mary.

  Mr Maclise, who was very handsome and originated from Ireland, took off his hat and held out his hand to greet me. ‘Madam, I am happy to make your acquaintance at last.’ He put his hand inside his coat pocket and pulled out a small package which he placed in my hand. ‘For you, madam, although I am only the means of bringing it to you. The gift itself is from your husband,’ he explained.

  Intrigued, I unwrapped it with great haste and inside found a framed miniature of Charles.

  ‘Mr Maclise!’ I laughed with delight. ‘You have captured his likeness exactly.’

  ‘Do you like it, Kate?’ Charles asked.

  I was touched by his thoughtfulness. ‘Yes,’ I whispered, quite overcome for a moment. ‘Yes, it is wonderful’

  ‘You can put me up there.’ He grinned, gesturing to the wall. ‘In among the gallery of unknowns.’

  ‘Oh no, not at all, my love,’ I protested. ‘I will hang it at my bedside, above the little table that you bought for me.’

  Daniel Maclise nodded in agreement. ‘I do not think that you will ever sit in a gallery of unknowns, Mr Dickens. And I think you’ll find that this is not the last commission that I’ll be given to paint your likeness.’

  The meal, to my complete relief, was a success. The meat had been bought, on Mama’s recommendation, from her butcher in Fulham and it was the most tender side of beef that I had ever tasted. There were noises of appreciation throughout all the courses and Charles caught my eye with a wink and a smile. A realization of joy flooded through my body. At last! This was what I had been looking for: the incomparable feeling of having the approval of one’s husband.

  After our dessert, we pushed back the table and arranged the chairs in a circle so that we could hear Fanny sing. Albert fussed around her devotedly, but could not please her no matter how he adjusted the music stand; and when he was unable to turn over the pages of her music without fumbling, I felt painfully sorry for the poor fellow and wished that the ground would open up and save him from his humiliation and Fanny’s withering glare. Papa followed with a round of merry tunes on his cello and Charles danced with enthusiasm, swinging me around without a care for my being with child. Fred excitedly mimicked his brother, confident that whatever Charles could do, he could do equally well. He divided himself more than fairly between Mary and Elizabeth and even managed to persuade Mama to dance with him, despite her protestations of a weak heart! Between them Mr Maclise and Papa happily shared the contents of the whisky decanter, and if Papa’s playing suffered any for it, we did not notice.

  In the early hours of the morning we bid our guests goodbye amid much suppressed laughter and reprimands of ‘Shhhh!’ from Fanny. Charles stood in the courtyard and waved them off energetically, still full of boundless energy. It had been a wonderful evening. I was happy, and what mattered more than anything else in the world was that I had managed to be a success in the eyes of my husband. I turned to Mary to thank her for suggesting such a wonderful evening, but, unexpectedly, Mary was not at my side. When I trod quietly back up the stairs to the sitting room, I found her fanning herself with an unsteady hand and looking quite pale. I knelt down at her side and took her hand.

  ‘Dear Mary, whatever is the matter?’

  She smiled, with greater concern for me than for herself and said, ‘It is nothing to worry about, dearest. Young Frederick quite wore me out with his jokes and vigorous dancing, that is all.’

  ‘Still, you do not look well, Sister. Let me help you to your room.’ I took her arm and, despite her reassurances of good health, I noticed that she trembled slightly and leaned upon me rather heavily. How selfish I was. I had been so caught up in my own dejection, that I had not given any thought to the adjustments that Mary had had to make. She, too, had left behind the comfort and familiarity of York Place, the support of Mama and Papa and the help of a housemaid, and yet, her only concern had been to cement the happiness of Charles and myself. I had overburdened her, I was sure of it. I suddenly realized all that Mary had done for Charles and me and how her presence in my home, rather than being a hindrance to my marriage, as I had once feared, had in fact eased the relationship along.

  Full of remorse, I kissed her goodnight. Her face was damp with perspiration and at that moment I was chilled by the most terrible thought: what would become of my marriage without her?

  ‘Mary?’ I whispered, gripped with horror and fear. ‘You won’t ever leave me, will you?’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  January 1837

  Furnival’s Inn, London

  ‘Yes, it is true, the wife of a writer needs the patience of a saint!’ Isabella laughed.

  With the growth of Charles’s fame in the City, there was an increase in the number of visitors who called at our door. Some came merely out of curiosity to see where the ‘Inimitable Boz’ was living out his life. Others formed part of our close circle of friends – among these was Isabella Tha
ckeray. Since our first meeting she and I had quickly found that there was much that we had in common and she had become a regular visitor to our home. When I described how Charles would work late into the night and then grunt with irritation the following morning, she would nod and laugh with understanding. It was such a blessing to have someone who could comprehend what I had thought to be my unique position.

  Isabella had been born the eldest of twelve children and long before she became a mother herself, she had wiped sticky hands and faces, calmed boisterous siblings and spoon-fed fidgety babies. She was a neat-handed seamstress, a competent cook and, if she had not been the most kind-hearted friend that a woman could wish for, I should have been envious of her talents. Instead I counted myself lucky to have found her companionship.

  Her benevolence also extended to those whom others would not have welcomed so freely. She had befriended a widowed Jewess, old Mrs Rozawich, and her daughter Esther, and occasionally they would accompany Isabella on her visits to Furnival’s Inn. Old Mrs Rozawich did not smile a great deal and her lips were permanently set in a thin line of animosity. But I supposed that it was hardly surprising. Despite the presentation of the Bill of Emancipation, the Jews were still viewed with suspicion and prejudice by many. Isabella, however, looked beyond these things and saw only another human being in need of charity. I was sure that beneath her hostile exterior, Mrs Rozawich was touched by Isabella’s kindness, but having been rejected and moved along so often in her life, her trust and thanks were not easily won. Her husband, Saul, had been dead for fifteen years. He had left Russia with few belongings and it was the money which their son, Peter, earned from his second-hand plate and jewellery stall, that kept Esther and her mother with a home to call their own.

  Esther was unmarried, and whenever she visited she had the curious habit of scrutinizing me over her spectacles, as though she were trying to fathom out what it was that had qualified me to achieve what she had not: namely, entrance into the holy estate of matrimony. I could almost hear her thinking, ‘How could such an unremarkable woman have married a man like Mr Dickens?’