by Clare Clark
‘What was?’
Mrs Aveling shook her head. ‘I shouldn’t have mentioned it.’
‘But you did.’
‘Yes.’ Mrs Aveling considered Maribel for a moment. Her dark eyes were shrewd. ‘There was a piece in this morning’s paper about the trial. A leader. The usual hyperaesthetic rant.’
‘And?’
‘It is Mr Webster’s wholly unconsidered opinion that, while Mr Burns is a gold-hearted working man and martyr to the cause, your husband is nothing but a charlatanic toff with an insatiable appetite for attention. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.’
Maribel blinked at Mrs Aveling. Then she twisted round again in her seat. Mr Webster was deep in conversation with Mrs Besant, leaning towards her so that Maribel could only see the side of his head. Mrs Besant nodded and then said something to the man on her other side. He nudged her, jerking his chin towards Maribel. Before she could turn back Mrs Besant caught her eye. She smiled, a twisted fleeting smile of something that might have been sympathy or apology. Maribel did not smile back. The thought of Webster hunched like a carrion bird behind her caused her stomach to turn over.
‘As I said, it’s nonsense and unimportant nonsense at that,’ Mrs Aveling said. ‘Sound and fury, signifying nothing. No one thinks he’ll hang on much longer at the Chronicle. That’s the real reason for the leader, of course. Webster has convinced himself that your husband is one of those conspiring with Lord Worsley to get him out.’
‘What? How do you know?’
‘The League keeps a careful eye on Mr Webster.’
‘But that’s absurd. Edward would never – and, as for John Worsley, he has gone out of his way to defend the wretched man.’
‘No one is saying it’s true. But Alfred Webster is a preacher’s son with two years of formal schooling to his name and an ingrained mistrust of the upper classes.’
There was a commotion in the court. There seemed to be some confusion, a door at the side of the courtroom opening and shutting, whispered altercations between several men in robes. Maribel thought she caught a glimpse of Edward’s face in the shadowed hallway, but she could not be sure. She leaned forward, gripping the rail. Mr Morris’s book fell from his lap, the invitation card dropping from between its pages. He leaned down to retrieve them both. Maribel looked at the card and she was filled with a sudden cold terror that this was the reason for the delay, that the card was in breach of some inviolable court regulation and that the consequences for Edward would be vicious and irredeemable.
Then the judge took his place and the court was called into session. Edward and John Burns were brought to the dock and the charges read and opening statements made. No explanation was given for the delay. It was a long time before Maribel’s pulse slowed and she was able to listen with some contrivance of attention to the proceedings of the court. Even then she was uneasy, troubled by the lapse in her concentration, afraid that for too many vital minutes she had failed to collect her energies on Edward’s account. That was the problem with doing something. There was always the danger that it was the wrong thing to do.
29
THE TRIAL WAS BRIEF. Though acquitted of assault, both Edward and John Burns were found guilty of unlawful assembly and sentenced to twelve weeks’ imprisonment at Pentonville without hard labour. As the verdict was read out Edward looked up to the visitors’ gallery and, for a moment, his eyes met Maribel’s. Then he was led away. Mrs Aveling laid a hand on Maribel’s arm but she hardly felt it. She hardly felt anything.
‘He will be out in no time,’ Mr Morris said encouragingly. ‘No hard labour, that’s the main thing.’
Edward, who had done nothing, who had entered Trafalgar Square peaceably and unarmed, who had struck no one and had raised his arms only to shield his face from the blows of the police, was to be imprisoned. He would be confined alone in a cramped unheated cell. He would be forbidden to speak. It was unbearable to think of him shivering in the bitter chill of November nights, the damp and itch of the meagre regulation blanket, the cries and the curses and the stink of the bucket in the corner and the dirty straw on the floor. It was worse still to imagine him condemned to silence, his head bowed over his miserable work. Prisoners in Pentonville were permitted to use their voices only once a week, at chapel on Sundays, and then only the words allocated to them by the hymn book. Those spared hard labour were forced to pick oakum, pounds and pounds of it until their fingers bled. Edward’s fingers had been what she had noticed about him first. She had tried not to notice their faces but hands were different. He had always had beautiful hands.
‘Of course, he won’t serve the full twelve weeks,’ one of the men said. ‘He’ll get time commuted for good behaviour.’
‘Good behaviour? Campbell Lowe?’ another joked and several of the men laughed.
‘If the Commons did not break his spirit, it will take more than Pentonville to do it,’ a third man said and there were hoots of agreement and more laughter and the shuffle of boots on the wooden floor as people gathered up their coats and umbrellas and made their way out of the visitors’ gallery. In the lobby they nodded at Maribel and those who knew her shook her hand, but awkwardly, without quite meeting her eye, and muttered their commiserations into their mufflers.
‘Well, that’s that then,’ she heard one man say to his companion as he stepped into the darkening afternoon and she realised that it was, for them.
They would not abandon Edward, of course. They would write letters to the Times and publish articles in the Commonweal and speechify in Battersea and Clerkenwell, words heaping upon words, a citadel of proselytisation and poetry and propaganda in which they might shelter, leaving Edward coatless in his frozen cell.
‘Go home!’ the organisers of the march had said, passing the word around the disordered ranks of protesters as the cavalry pressed their horses forward and the Guards with their bayonets occupied the square, ‘Go home!’ but Edward had not gone home. He would not go home now. Edward, who had not turned back at the police line, who had not surrendered or slipped away but who had stood firm, knowing himself defenceless, and who had fallen, because the fight was not only on his tongue but in his blood and in his heart.
Outside the police court Maribel waited with Mrs Aveling as Mr Morris went in search of a cab. It had grown dark and a raw breeze eddied scatters of litter and dead leaves. Around them the offices were emptying. Clerks in cheap overcoats hustled along the crowded pavements, their heads lowered. On the other side of the street Maribel saw Mr Webster walking with Mrs Besant. Beneath a street light he paused, fiddling with his gloves. Mrs Besant said something and he turned abruptly, his gaze meeting hers across the choke of traffic. Maribel thought of him smirking in the warm parlour of Green’s hotel, his face fat with self-satisfaction, and she knew that she had never hated another person so entirely in all her life.
Without stopping to think she stepped off the kerb, forcing her way between the jam of carriages.
‘Careful there, ma’am,’ a cabman admonished. She did not hear him. The rage roared in her ears, blocking out everything but Mr Webster and his hateful milky eyes.
‘Was that what you wanted?’ she cried as she pushed her way towards him. She knew that she was shouting, that people were looking, but she didn’t care. ‘Now that they’ve locked him up are you satisfied?’
Mr Webster contemplated her and shook his head. It seemed to Maribel that he was trying not to smile.
‘Madam,’ he said, ‘your husband understands the rules. He broke the law. He must take the consequences.’
‘Does that include having his name blackened in the gutter press by a man who claimed to be his friend? You are a monster, Mr Webster, a shameless, cowardly, self-seeking monster. I don’t know how you sleep at night.’
Mrs Besant leaned forward and took Maribel gently by the arm.
‘Mrs Campbell Lowe –’
Furiously Maribel shook her off.
‘This has nothing to do with you!’
Mrs Besant pressed her lips together.
‘I’ll be at the office first thing,’ she murmured to Webster. ‘Mrs Campbell Lowe, I can’t tell you how sorry – if there is anything we can do to help . . .’
Maribel did not answer. Mrs Besant hesitated. Then she walked away.
‘You are making the most terrible fool of yourself, you know,’ Mr Webster said softly.
‘Is that so? You don’t think it is you that is the fool, spitting out your poisonous opinions as if they matter, as if you matter? No one cares what you think, Mr Webster. Not any more. Your career is over and you’re the only person in London who doesn’t know it.’
Webster’s smile shrivelled. ‘You venomous little bitch –’
‘That’s right, resort to vile insult. Isn’t that how you’ve always done things at your dirty little rag of a newspaper? No wonder John Worsley can’t wait to be rid of you. I hope he sees to it that you never write another word as long as you live.’
She wanted to spit in his loathsome face. Instead, she wheeled around before he could answer, pushing her way back into the traffic, the blood drumming in her ears. Mrs Aveling frowned at her as Maribel rejoined her on the other side of the road.
‘What was that about?’ she asked.
‘Someone had to say something. That brute was supposed to be on Edward’s side.’
‘I applaud your spirit. But tread carefully. The problem with newspapermen is that they tend to have the last word.’
Maribel did not reply. Her hands were shaking and it occurred to her that she was very cold. Clumsily she fumbled for her cigarettes. ‘Might I?’ Mrs Aveling asked.
Placing a cigarette between her lips Mrs Aveling leaned in as Maribel struck a match, cupping her gloved hands to protect the flame. In the hiss and flare of the lucifer the tips of their cigarettes touched. They inhaled together, the flame hardening to scarlet as they drew it up the paper. When Maribel pulled away, dropping the match to the ground, a tiny scarlet curl of burning tobacco from her cigarette clung to the end of Mrs Aveling’s.
‘I didn’t know you smoked,’ Maribel said.
‘Zealously.’
Mrs Aveling closed her eyes, drawing the smoke deep into her lungs. There were blue veins in her eyelids and her fingernails were yellow. They smoked in silence, the smoke twisting and thickening about them, veiling their faces. There was no sign of Mr Morris or the cab. As she smoked, Mrs Aveling regarded Maribel from beneath the rim of her hat, a small frown notching the skin between her eyebrows.
‘I liked your invitations,’ she said at last.
‘I’m afraid it was not much of a party.’
‘I don’t know. Nearly everybody came.’
‘I should have chosen a more congenial venue. And served punch.’
Mrs Aveling smiled. Maribel tried to smile back but the exhaustion was too strong in her. She swayed a little, pressing the back of her hand to her brow.
‘Come back with me to Sydenham,’ Mrs Aveling said on impulse. ‘Just for tonight. Edward and I should be very glad to have you.’
Edward and I. The ache was in the ordinariness of it. Maribel shook her head.
‘You are very kind. But I want to go home.’
‘All of this has been very difficult for you. Are you sure it is wise to be alone?’
‘No. But I think it would be easier by myself.’
Mrs Aveling considered her for a moment, smoke issuing in a long, thin stream from between her lips. Then she leaned forward and, to Maribel’s surprise, kissed her lightly on the cheek. Her lips were very dry.
‘I was wrong about you. I always thought you were one of those decorative wives.’
‘Decorative is not so bad.’
‘All the same, I should resist the temptation to judge by appearances. It is hard enough to prove our worth to men without having to fight the same petty prejudices in our own sex. We owe it to each other to look beneath the surface. To notice the small daily struggles.’
Mrs Aveling’s vehemence startled Maribel. She blinked wearily and took a long drag of her cigarette.
‘It infuriates me when others think they know me because of my father,’ Mrs Aveling said. ‘What is it that we have to do to prove that we are more than our fathers’ daughters, our husbands’ wives?’
She held her hands out towards Maribel, palms upwards. It was plain she expected an answer but Maribel was too tired to think what it could be.
‘Your father was a great man,’ she said.
Mrs Aveling let her hands drop.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He was.’
She ground the end of her cigarette out beneath her heel, and it was as though she extinguished the conversation with it. There was a silence, no longer comfortable. Whatever intimacy had existed between them was gone. Maribel took a last sharp pull on her cigarette, the tobacco so hot and harsh that it closed her throat, and let it fall.
‘At last,’ Mrs Aveling said, gesturing with her chin towards the kerb.
Mr Morris had finally secured a cab. He stood with the door open, waving at Maribel with his book.
‘Go on,’ Mrs Aveling said. ‘Or you will lose it.’
Maribel hesitated. She thought of touching Mrs Aveling’s arm, of kissing her on the cheek, but she could imagine doing neither. Without the cigarettes they were strangers.
‘Goodbye, then,’ she said. At the door of the hansom she turned, raising her fingers in farewell, but Mrs Aveling was already gone.
Alice served supper on a tray in the drawing room. She had drawn the curtains and banked up the fire and put a folded blanket at the end of the chesterfield and the room was warm and cheerful, but there was still a hollowness to it, a hollowness that found its echo in Maribel and held its note, as sharp and insistent as the ring of a glass. She ate a little, forcing herself to swallow, and drank a glass of wine. Then, pushing the tray to one side, she lit a cigarette. She could hear Alice moving about in the bedroom, setting out her nightclothes and pulling the curtains and turning down the bed. There was the muffled pad of feet on thick carpet.
A little later Alice knocked at the door. In one hand she held an earthenware hot-water bottle wrapped in a cloth, in the other an envelope which she set on the mahogany side table beside Maribel.
‘This came for you, ma’am,’ she said. She glanced at the tray and frowned. ‘Is that the best you can manage?’
Maribel looked at the plate, at the congealed wax-yellow potatoes, the black-green wilt of the cabbage. The untouched lamb chop, grown cold, was iced with white fat. She nodded. Alice tucked the hot-water bottle under one arm and hefted the tray.
‘There’s apple charlotte if you’d like it,’ she said.
Maribel shook her head. She wanted to tell Alice that she had no further need of her, that when she had finished with the bedroom and the tray and whatever else there was she could go to her room, but the effort of words was beyond her. Instead she leaned her head against the buttoned back of the chesterfield. The fire hissed and, in the corner of the room, the grandfather clock counted time, catching its breath before each tick as it always did.
How many evenings had she spent in this way, curled on the sofa in front of the fire while Alice busied herself in the narrow kitchen and Edward gave a speech or ate a dinner or did whatever it was that Members of Parliament did when they were obliged to return to the House for a late vote? Ida would be in her kitchen now or perhaps in the cold parlour, sitting on the hard settle with its lumpy horsehair cushion. As for Edward –
Her stockinged feet found the folded blanket at the end of the sofa and she reached down and pulled it over herself, and the softness of the wool and the familiarity of its smell that was cigarette smoke and laundry soap and the faint river-water scent of wind from being aired outside was a consolation more exquisite than any she could have imagined, a consolation so pure that it drew the poison of the day from her blood as a mouth draws the poison from a wasp sting, with infinite tenderness. She clasped the bl
anket against her cheek and, though she did not weep, her eyes spilled with tears. She grieved for Edward and for Ida and for the ordinary comforts that could no longer bring solace but were instead a betrayal, because they were hers alone.
When Alice put her head round the door the fire was almost out. Maribel sat on the floor, her elbows on her knees, staring into the embers. The air was blue with cigarette smoke.
‘Is there anything else, ma’am?’
Maribel did not answer. Alice hesitated. Then she crossed the room, leaning down to touch her mistress on the shoulder. Maribel turned slowly and blinked, like a child waking from sleep. Between her fingers a cigarette smouldered, burned nearly to the stub. Alice took it from her and put it out in the overflowing ashtray on the side table.
‘It’s late,’ she said gently, her Yorkshire vowels stretching the words like dough. ‘Would it not be time you were getting to bed?’
Maribel said nothing but she allowed Alice to help her to her feet. In the bedroom the lamp was already lit. With her customary plain competence, Alice unclasped Maribel’s pearl necklace, unfastened her lace collar, unbuttoned her dress. Maribel watched, expressionless, as Alice folded her chemise and rolled her stockings into neat balls. She did not move, could hardly remember how it was done. She let Alice guide her arms into her nightgown, sat where Alice set her on the stool before her dressing-table mirror, watched her reflection without curiosity as Alice loosened her hair and, dropping the pins into a saucer, brushed it out in strong smooth strokes. Maribel closed her eyes. She did not move. She sat with her hands clasped in her lap as her hair crackled and shivered, alive with its own electricity. Neither of them spoke.
Alice stopped brushing. She leaned forward to return the silver-backed brush to its place on the dressing table. Maribel caught her wrist. The fear in her was sour and urgent, like vomit.
‘Not yet,’ Maribel whispered.
Alice hesitated, the brush still in her hand. She looked at her mistress’s reflection in the mirror. Maribel looked back at her for a moment. Then she dropped her eyes. Very gently Alice placed her free hand on Maribel’s shoulder, smoothing the soft fabric of her nightgown. Her hand was warm. Then once again she began to brush. Maribel closed her eyes and all the loneliness in her rose up to meet the rhythmic pressure of the brush against her scalp.