by Clare Clark
A white and shapeless mass.
Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?
10
THE NEXT DAY, as promised, Maribel went to tea at Chester Square. She was late. As she was shown in, a posse of boys mounted on wooden hobby horses descended the wide staircase in a stampede of boots and whooping, the smallest one whirling a loop of rope around his head. Ducking their heads to avoid the ordinary courtesies, they careered across the hall and thundered, with a slam of doors, towards the garden. The maid sucked in her cheeks as she took Maribel’s parasol.
Charlotte was in her sunny sitting room on the first floor. She smiled as the door opened.
‘Dearest, you are come after all,’ she said. ‘I’m so glad. I thought you might have forgotten.’ Kissing the tousle-haired child on her lap, she set it onto its feet beside her chair so that she might stand up. Toys lay scattered across the Aubusson rug and, on the footstool, a mass of picture books, some open, was piled in a precarious heap. ‘Beatrice, say good afternoon to Mrs Campbell Lowe.’
‘Good afternoon, Mrs Campbell Lowe,’ Beatrice parroted and, sidling up to the tea tray, she snatched a bun, took a big bite from it, and slipped the rest into the pocket of her pinafore. Charlotte shook her head.
‘That will do, Bea dearest. Now go and find Ellen and the others in the nursery. There will be tea there too, you know.’
The child darted out of the room. Charlotte smiled.
‘How other mothers manage to bring up their children to be civilised human beings is beyond me. My lot remain resolutely feral.’
Maribel managed a smile. She felt giddy, thick-headed, as if she might be coming down with something.
‘You must be longing for tea.’ Charlotte peered into the pot. ‘Oh dear, I shall have to ring for more. This pot is quite stewed.’
‘I like my tea strong.’
‘Not as strong as this, surely?’
‘Possibly stronger.’
Charlotte shook her head and poured, adding milk and offering Maribel the sugar. Maribel took two teaspoonfuls and stirred, gazing into the rich brown swirl of her cup.
‘So you brought the Jubilee photographs, I hope?’ Charlotte said, gesturing at Maribel’s battered satchel. ‘Are they good?’
Maribel shrugged.
‘I don’t know. I have yet to develop them.’
‘I thought you were going to do them this morning? If I remember rightly it was the reason you were obliged to refuse my kind invitation to the Foundling Hospital recital.’
‘Ah.’
‘Quite right “ah”. Anyone would think you didn’t care for my children’s wilful destruction of the works of Schubert.’
Maribel smiled faintly. She removed the spoon from her tea and set it in the saucer. A cluster of tiny bubbles circled slowly around the edge of the cup. Charlotte looked at her.
‘I was only teasing.’
‘I know.’
‘Is something the matter?’
‘No, of course not.’ Maribel fumbled for her cigarettes. ‘It’s been a busy day, that’s all. If I can only sit here peacefully drinking my nasty stewed tea and smoking my nasty Egyptian cigarettes I shall be quite restored. Tell me about the recital.’
‘Must I? I shall bore us both half to death. Besides, we have much more important matters to discuss. Did I tell you that we dined the day before yesterday with the Rawlinsons?’
Sir Gerald Rawlinson was an illustrious physicist and member of the Royal Society whose most recent preoccupation was the proof, through scientific means, of the existence of God. As Charlotte described his latest experiments, Maribel sat quietly in a pose of attentiveness, sipping at her soupy tea, but she hardly heard a word. She kept losing the thread of what Charlotte was saying.
She had not lied to Charlotte when she had told her that it was her intention that morning to develop her Jubilee photographs. That morning she had indeed gone to Mr Pidgeon’s studio. As usual Thomas answered her knock but, to her surprise, instead of handing her the key, he blinked at her and asked if she might wait where she was. A moment or two later Mr Pidgeon himself appeared at the door.
‘Mrs Campbell Lowe,’ he said. ‘You are come at last.’
Maribel frowned. ‘Is there something wrong?’
Mr Pidgeon glanced behind him into the studio. Then he stepped into the corridor, closing the door behind him.
‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘I wonder if I might talk with you for a moment?’
The gravity of his expression was discomfiting.
‘Why?’ she said uneasily. ‘What on earth is the matter?’
‘Dear me, I have alarmed you. Forgive me. That was not my intention, I assure you. It is just the photographs, the ones you left in the darkroom to dry. It is not my business, I know, but in the circumstances it was not possible to avoid seeing them. Suffice to say, I have secured them in my private office under lock and key. I hope you forgive my presumption. I knew you would not wish them left in the darkroom.’
‘Oh, those,’ Maribel said. ‘You are kind but you need not have gone to any trouble, I know they are spoiled. The fault was plain as soon as I developed them, though I cannot think what it was I did wrong. Was it the bath, do you think, or something to do with the plates? I wouldn’t want to make the same mistake with these ones.’
Mr Pidgeon peered at her.
‘Mrs Campbell Lowe, am I right in believing that you have no children of your own?’
Maribel frowned. Mr Pidgeon had never before presumed to make enquiries that were clearly none of his business.
‘I’m afraid I do not see what –’
‘Forgive me but there were no children present when you took the photographs in question? Or at any time while the plates were in your possession?’
‘Not at any time. Mr Pidgeon, are you quite well?’
‘Indeed I am, madam. Indeed I am.’
‘Then perhaps you might explain to me what this is all about.’
‘Can it be that you do not yet know what you have?’ Mr Pidgeon was so enlivened that he bounced a little on the balls of his feet. ‘I had not imagined – why, how extraordinary. The image is quite clear, there can be no mistaking it.’
‘Mr Pidgeon, you are alarming me.’
‘Forgive me, I beseech you. It is only that, as a photographer by profession myself, I have naturally taken an active interest in spirit photography. I myself have on occasion experienced phenomena, interference if you like, in my work that cannot easily be explained away, but yours? It is unambiguous. Unmistakable.’
‘I am sure I don’t know what you mean,’ Maribel said firmly.
‘Then come in, come in. Come and see for yourself.’
Mr Pidgeon held open the door to the studio. Maribel hesitated. Then she stepped inside. On the far side of the room Thomas was sweeping the floor.
‘Thomas, Mrs Baxter and her family will be here presently,’ Mr Pidgeon said. ‘Please ask her to wait. Mrs Campbell Lowe, if you would come this way.’
The office was a small, cluttered slice of a room cut from one corner of the studio. Mr Pidgeon removed a pile of papers from an upright chair and, depositing them among many others on the large wooden desk, invited Maribel to sit. From high in the long, thin strip of window came the persistent whine and thump of a bluebottle banging against the glass. Taking a key from his pocket, Mr Pidgeon unlocked the narrow top drawer of the desk, and drawing out a manila envelope, handed it wordlessly to Maribel. She fingered the flap. Mr Pidgeon smiled at her encouragingly, showing his yellow teeth. Slowly she drew out the pictures.
‘Might I?’ Mr Pidgeon said excitedly.
Taking the photographs from her, he spread them out across the desk. Maribel leaned forward. There, five times over, wa
s Charlotte, her hand raised and her face tilted away from the camera, a pose that, as Maribel had hoped, succeeded in capturing something of both her gentleness and her intelligence. Two of the photographs were overexposed. In two more Charlotte had moved so that the lines of her face were blurred. Mr Pidgeon picked up the last one. Maribel sighed. There, like a veil of smoke thrown over Charlotte’s skirts, was the greyish smudge that spoiled the work.
‘Look here,’ Mr Pidgeon said, tapping the photograph with his index finger. ‘A child, quite plainly. May I ask you where you took these?’
Maribel gazed at the photographs. She felt a little dizzy.
‘I do not see a child.’
‘But you must,’ Mr Pidgeon insisted. ‘See the hand here, against the woman’s skirt, and here the face, half turned away. It is faint, of course, and indistinct in places as one would expect, but there is no mistaking it. It is most definitely a child, a boy I would hazard, perhaps eight or nine years old.’
Maribel pressed her nails into the palms of her hand. There was a pressure like a knuckle in her throat.
‘The blotch you call a face I call a thumbprint,’ she said.
‘It is a child. A spirit child.’
She shook her head dumbly. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I do not believe in ghosts.’
‘What about the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting? Do you believe in the Apostles’ Creed, Mrs Campbell Lowe?’
Maribel did not answer.
‘Are we not told that God works in mysterious ways? It is He, after all, who has blessed us with the scientific abilities necessary to invent and produce the camera so that we might better understand the miracles of His creation. This is possibly an unhappy question and most certainly an impudent one but forgive me for I must ask it – is it possible that you might by any chance recognise the child in this picture?’
It was like fainting. For a moment everything stopped. The drift of dust in the sunlight, the murmur of voices in the studio next door, even the rumble of traffic from the street outside ceased. The restless bluebottle fell silent. Maribel touched her dry lips with the tip of her tongue. Then, carefully gathering up the photographs, she stood. She could hear the sing of blood in her ears.
‘That is quite enough,’ she said. ‘You forget yourself, Mr Pidgeon. I shall see myself out.’
‘Mrs Campbell Lowe –’
‘Enough, do you hear me?’
Dashing away the tears with the heel of one hand, she flung open the door of the office and fled across the studio. From their perch on the chaise a mother and her clutch of plump-cheeked children regarded her open-mouthed, their picture book abandoned in mid-sentence.
‘What is wrong with that lady, Mama?’ a piping voice enquired as she banged open the studio door and clattered down the stairs towards the street. She did not slow her pace until she reached the iron railings of the Ranelagh Gardens. The horse chestnuts were in full leaf and the shaded paths were busy with children and starched nursemaids pushing perambul ators. Maribel hesitated, drawing a handkerchief from her pocket to blow her nose. Her eyes were sore, her throat swollen. A boy in an oxford jacket eyed her suspiciously as he rattled a stick between the palings. Then he stuck out his tongue. Maribel stared at him. He stared back. Then she went in.
For a while she walked, watching the children as they threw their balls and bowled their hoops and made elaborate shapes in the air with their skipping ropes. On the brittle dun lawn two little girls fussed over a chocolate-coloured spaniel with a ribbon around its neck while, beside them, an infant in a white knitted bonnet and white wool leggings stumped stiff-legged like a diminutive Egyptian mummy.
At the Embankment end of the gardens Maribel found a vacant bench in the shade of a high hedge and sat down. The pile of photographs lay face down in her lap, their edges curled by the damp warmth of her hands. She did not turn them over. Instead she leaned forwards, her elbows on her knees, her forehead resting on her fingertips, and in the darkness of her hands closed her eyes.
‘He’s a peculiar fish, though, isn’t he?’ Charlotte was saying.
Maribel blinked at her. She had the lurching sense of waking without ever having quite known that she was asleep.
‘Those disconcerting eyes. Cataracts, I suppose, though he appears to see perfectly well.’ Charlotte frowned. ‘Dearest, are you quite all right? You haven’t touched your filthy tea.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Maribel gave herself a little shake and reached once more for her cigarettes. ‘I am just a little tired, that’s all.’
‘You do look pale. Must you smoke so very much?’
‘You know I must.’
‘You know, Mr Webster was fearfully interested in your work. He kept asking me what you were working on.’
‘Mr Webster?’
‘Have you not been listening to a word I say?’
‘Of course I have. It is just that I cannot understand why everyone is so interested in Mr Webster all of a sudden.’
‘Because he is so excessively interested in you, that is why. The man is positively smitten.’
‘Charlotte, really.’
‘It’s perfectly true. I tried several times to change the subject but he would have none of it. He wanted to talk only of his beloved.’
‘Well, I can’t imagine why,’ Maribel snapped. ‘I have done absolutely nothing to encourage his interest.’
‘Oh, I don’t think Mr Webster needs encouraging. According to Arthur, he is mad on everything to do with sex and turns the air blue the moment the ladies are out of the room.’
‘Stop it.’
‘Arthur is convinced it is only his unrelentingly Nonconformist self-discipline that prevents him from becoming quite the debaucher. Apparently his father was a Congregational minister somewhere ferociously ascetic like York where they think novels the prayer books of the Devil.’
Maribel shook her head unhappily.
‘He referred to God as the Senior Partner,’ Charlotte added.
‘No.’
‘I’m afraid so.’
Maribel tried to smile. She took a sip of her tea. Everything about Charlotte’s sitting room was familiar, from the pattern of roses and forget-me-nots on the teacups to the yellow silk sofas and the Dresden clock on the mantelpiece. Even the jumble of wooden bricks on the floor at her feet seemed always to have been there in that precise arrangement, blue on yellow, the letter T facing upwards. She set her cup and saucer down on the table beside her.
‘Charlotte, I – there’s something I have to show you.’
Reaching into the bag at her feet Maribel drew out the photographs. Taking the top three she set them in a row on the fender stool. The lump in her throat made her cough.
‘Please,’ she said. ‘Tell me what you think.’
Charlotte leaned forward. ‘Are these the ones of me?’
Maribel nodded. Charlotte picked one up and then another, her brows drawn together in concentration. The point of her tongue showed pink between her teeth.
‘Well?’ Maribel prompted.
Charlotte looked up and smiled. ‘Maribel, these are really good. The way you catch the light in this one – it’s just beautiful.’
‘I – this part here –’
‘That’s a shame, yes, but it hardly ruins the picture.’
‘You don’t think – you don’t think it could possibly be a spirit?’
‘Very funny.’
‘I’m serious.’
Charlotte rolled her eyes. ‘You, the arch sceptic? Don’t be a tease.’
‘So you think it is ridiculous too? I – it is only that the photographer whose darkroom I use tried to convince me that it was the ghost of a child. A ghost! I mean, really.’
‘Except that it has happened, hasn’t it?’ Charlotte said, and she peered again at the photograph. ‘There was that man in America, what was his name, the one who made those portraits of Abraham Lincoln’s widow –’
‘And who was prosecuted for fraud.’
She looked up at Maribel, her eyes wide. Maribel’s face twisted a little and then she started to laugh. When Charlotte laughed too she laughed harder, the tears spilling over and running down her cheeks. She laughed until her cheeks ached, her arms wrapped round her stomach. When at last she stopped laughing her tea had gone cold.
‘Poor Mr Pidgeon,’ she said at last, wiping her eyes. ‘He will be so disappointed.’
‘I doubt it. His kind make do with a great deal less than this.’
‘Mr Pidgeon will have to make do with nothing at all. These photographs are going on the fire and that is that.’
‘How very selfish you are, dearest.’
‘I know, denying the Spiritualist crackpots their fun. Not to mention the penny press. I can see the headlines in Tit-Bits now: MEMBER FOR ARGYLL IN SÉANCE SCANDAL. FOREIGN WIFE SEES DEAD CHILDREN.’
‘No one expects anything else of foreigners. And Edward is never happier than when people are complaining about him.’
‘Then how about THE HONOURABLE MRS ARTHUR CHARTERHOUSE IS THE GHOST LADY!’
‘Arthur might object,’ Charlotte conceded. ‘But it would be rather thrilling for the children.’
Maribel smiled.
‘Fortunately for you, we have thrills aplenty already,’ Charlotte said, leaning back in her chair as Maribel picked up the photographs and slid them into their brown envelope. ‘We go next week to the Wild West – at long last. The boys are quite beside themselves. What they know about Buffalo Bill and his cowboys would fill an encyclopaedia. You aren’t leaving, are you? You only just arrived.’
‘I can’t stay much longer. Edward is only just back from Scotland and we are dining with the Webbs.’
‘The Webbs? And you refuse cake? Have you taken leave of your senses?’
‘I told you, Charlotte, I am not hungry.’
‘What has hungry got to do with it? See how thin you are. Are you sickening for something, do you think? If only you ate more and smoked a little less –’