by Clare Clark
‘The photographs?’
‘Yes, dear. The photographs. They sound rather striking, I must say. Though I confess to having some sympathy with your critics. It is rather outlandish to claim photography as Art when the camera does all the work for you.’
Maribel swallowed. ‘A good camera is a great help,’ she said faintly.
‘I imagine it is like working with a lathe or some such. Not Art exactly but craftsmanship of a sort.’ The old woman considered Maribel, her head on one side. ‘You are fortunate. When one has much to endure, work can be a great comfort.’
‘I’m sure.’
Lady Wingate frowned. Then she waved a dismissive hand at Maribel.
‘Well, don’t let me keep you. Rush, rush, rush to whatever it is you rush to. New Women, pish. The whole lot of you will be dead of nervous exhaustion before you are forty.’
Inside the flat, Maribel leaned against the front door and tore the newspaper from the bag, her eyes scouring the page. A case of such loathsome indecency, such hideous evil, that the Chronicle could not remain silent. A scandal that threatened to engulf many peers, among them the son of a duke and a well-known baronet. The monstrous threats of those who feared exposure, the shameful cowardice of the police. The determination of one newspaper, led by its courageous editor, to take a stand against depravity and the grotesque abuse of power. The triumph of Truth and of Justice.
Three paragraphs of sanctimonious self-justification and then, at last, the crime itself, the very ink trembling with righteous disgust. Behind the darkened windows of a den of infamy in Bolsover Street, the Chronicle hissed, in the incense-choked air of secret chambers, ignoble peers of the realm had slaked their vile appetites, committing acts of unspeakable indecency with young boys.
The paper crumpled in Maribel’s hands, drifting to the floor as she let herself slide down the door to bury her face in her knees. It was not him. Whoever it was, it was not him. Not yet, not this time. She did not know how long she sat there among the folds of her skirts, inhaling their comforting darkness. She only knew that she would do anything to protect him, that there was no one in the world, no one at all, whom she loved as she loved Edward Campbell Lowe.
37
MARIBEL HEARD EDWARD’S KEY in the lock as she sat before her dressing-table mirror, watching Alice’s fingers twist and smooth as they made the final careful adjustments to her hair. She let out a breath and, beneath the whalebone embrace of her corset, her chest eased a little. Even by Edward’s standards he was very late.
‘Here he comes now,’ Alice said, standing back to consider her handiwork. ‘I told you there were nothing to worry about.’
When Maribel smiled the sheen of gloss on her lips caught the light.
‘If only it were that simple.’
It was several days since the Chronicle had made its explosive allegations and London was convulsed with rumour. A month or so earlier, two boys from the Central Telegraph Office had been tried for gross indecency, found guilty and sentenced to some months in prison. The whole affair might have passed unnoticed had both the lightness of their sentences and the eminence of their counsel not aroused the suspicion of a reporter on the Chronicle, who had, with Webster’s support, made his own enquiries. The police had been unhelpful. The brothel in question had closed down. Its proprietor had fled abroad. Though the boys had named names during their trial, their accusations were unsubstantiated and could not be made public. No arrests had been made. The Chronicle hinted at a government cover-up and then, as the scandal swelled, at pressure brought to bear by the authorities to gag the newspaper’s investigations. So far the Chronicle had refrained from specific accusations but it promised that names would be forthcoming. In the meantime its leading articles raged daily against the ‘perversions of a depraved aristocracy’.
The depraved aristocracy had its own theories about the identities of the guilty men. It was said that the two boys had been defended in court by a lawyer in the employ of the Earl of Somerset, equerry to the Prince of Wales, who, when the Chronicle story broke, was discovered to have fled to Hanover on unspecified royal business. Henry FitzRoy, the Earl of Euston, was another name whispered at society parties. Though no one knew for certain where FitzRoy was, it was rumoured that he had sailed for Peru. Most scandalous of all, and sotto voce, were the murmurings about Prince Albert Victor, son of the Prince of Wales.
Among England’s most eminent families there were shudders at the unmentionable practices of the offenders, and outrage at the reckless indiscretion of the Chronicle. Dowagers fanned themselves busily, as though troubled by a foul smell, and declared Webster the worst kind of parasite. His refusal to be silenced was pronounced proof of his detestable lack of breeding, his newspaper disdained as a filthy rag. ‘The scuttlebutt of the slums,’ one of Vivien Campbell Lowe’s grander friends had called it. Despite her repugnance, the old lady’s knowledge of its revelations had been thoroughly encyclopaedic.
Maribel heard the hall cupboard open and close, the soft hush of Edward’s shoes on the carpet. In the mirror the door handle turned.
‘Goodness, what kept you?’ she said gently. ‘You will have to hurry if you wish to bathe. We are expected at the Howards’ by eight.’
Edward’s face was ashen. He sank down onto the bed, one hand at his brow. Maribel gazed at him, the old terrors rising up in her like ghosts.
‘What is it? Edward, dearest, whatever is the matter?’
Edward shook his head mutely. Alice hesitated, catching Maribel’s eye in the mirror. Maribel nodded. She waited until the door had closed behind the maid, then rose from her stool to kneel before him, taking his hands in hers.
‘Tell me,’ she said.
He looked up at her. For an awful moment she feared that he might weep.
‘It’s Henry,’ he said.
‘Oh God, Edward. What is it? What has happened to him?’ Edward shook his head. ‘He – he says Webster has his name. That they mean to publish.’
Maribel stared at Edward. ‘Henry?’ she said dumbly and the shock was like a fist around her lungs. Impeccable Henry, with his easy charm and beautifully cut suits, involved in something so sordid, so squalid? It was impossible. And yet she knew that it was not. Henry was not like Oscar. He did not wear his hair long. He did not dress in fur and velvet and soft collars, a silk handkerchief cascading artfully from his pocket. He did not rhapsodise with voluptuous languor about Endymion as Oscar did when extolling the shameless Robert, or tell pretty actresses that, had they been boys, they would have ruined his life.
Henry was not showy nor was he in the least effeminate, and yet there was something in him that was not like other men. In the years that Maribel had known him he had pressed his lips to her upturned palms, had set his head on her shoulder, had smoothed her hair from her brow with the tenderness of a lover, and not once had she felt the discomfiting awkwardness of unwanted attention. He had never once looked at her, as many men looked at her, so that she had to lower her eyes. It was not only that he was Edward’s brother. There was a fire in the blood of other men, even quite old men, a heat that scorched her cheeks if she came too close, as though it sought to raise an equal heat in her. That fire did not burn in Henry. Once, years ago, when she and Edward had not been married long, she had asked Henry why it was that he had not yet found a wife.
‘It is not so bad as they say, you know,’ she had teased him. ‘With the right person.’
‘Ah,’ he had said. ‘Therein lies the difficulty.’
‘Your circle is too narrow and much too stuffy. You should come to our kind of parties. Beneath that elegant exterior you are a bohemian at heart, I know it.’
He had only smiled and shaken his head.
‘Darling girl, but I like my circle. You forget that I am both narrow and stuffy myself. Besides, my mother attends your kind of parties.’
They had laughed then, Maribel a little guiltily. She had not pressed him again. Discreet, amusing and ever the perfect gentle
man, Henry was much in demand. He was always escorting somebody somewhere.
‘I am not the marrying kind,’ he had said to her and she had assumed that he relished the liberties of bachelorhood. It occurred to her now that perhaps he had been horribly lonely. It was unbearable to think of gentle, urbane Henry ruthlessly exposed, the veil of his discretion torn away and the white light of publicity turned onto every recess of his secret life. All the same, it made her shudder. The thought of Henry touching those crude coarse boys with their gapped teeth and their greasy caps and their cunning weasel grins, of wanting to touch them, to press himself against them – it was not just that it was illegal, it was abhorrent.
Edward sighed. Extracting his hands from hers he pressed his fingertips to his forehead, massaging his frown. Silently she stood and, taking two cigarettes from the box on her dressing table, she lit them and passed one to Edward. He took it and inhaled, the red tip devouring the paper.
‘What will he do?’ she asked.
Edward shook his head. When he spoke the smoke came out of his mouth in ragged snatches.
‘He travels to Paris tomorrow. The police have dragged their feet but, if Webster names names, there will be pressure for arrests. At least in France he is safe.’
‘If ? Then there is still a chance that he might not?’
‘There is always a chance. The government is leaning heavily on him and I know that Euston has threatened to sue for libel if he publishes. Together that may be enough to scare Webster off.’
‘Do you really think so?’
‘No. No, I don’t.’
‘Oh, Edward.’
Edward said nothing but took another long pull on his cigarette.
‘Did – did you know?’ Maribel asked very quietly.
‘I don’t know. I suppose, sort of, I suspected that he might – I mean, at school – but one was expected to outgrow it, it was not something I – I did not think about it. I certainly never thought he’d be damned fool enough to get himself caught.’
‘That’s hardly his fault.’
‘Of course it’s his bloody fault. Ferreting around filthy back-streets with money-grubbing little rent boys. It was madness, utter bloody madness.’
Angrily Edward leaped up, crushing out his cigarette in the overflowing saucer on the dressing table. He stood for a moment, his back stiff, staring down at the tangle of hairpins in their porcelain dish, the clutter of powder puffs and matchboxes and silver-backed hairbrushes, all dully reflected in the table’s glass surface. He picked up a tortoiseshell comb, running his thumb along the blade of the teeth, and set it down again. When he turned round a crease pulled his eyebrows together and his eyes were desolate.
‘He’ll get two years,’ he said. ‘With hard labour. He will never survive it.’
They were the last to arrive at the Howards’ and the first to leave. Back at the flat Edward came with her to her room. She held him tightly as he pressed himself against her, his eyes closed and his face stricken with concentration. Afterwards he slept. Maribel did not. The hum of her thoughts and the ache in her lungs roused her frequently from her thin doze. In the morning the saucer by the window brimmed with butts.
She rose at the usual time and dressed in the shabby costume she wore for the darkroom. It would distract her to work. She was dizzy with sleeplessness, her thoughts swirling in her head like a snow-globe. She rubbed her eyes, staring at her pale reflection in the mirror as she put up her hair. Her reflection stared uncertainly back. Where would it stop? she thought, and then she sighed and shook her head, because there was no purpose in thinking that way. When she crossed the room the carpeted floor seemed to tilt like a ship beneath her feet.
At breakfast Edward spoke little. He stared unseeingly at the folded newspaper, the bridge of his nose pinched between his finger and thumb, blinking as though he had trouble with his eyes, and let his tea grow cold. When Alice brought the letters he reached out to take the pile but his hand hesitated halfway, suspended in the air. Edward regarded it in bewilderment, then brought it back to his plate. His long fingers crumbled the crust of a slice of unbuttered toast. His distraction made Maribel afraid.
‘Will you go into the House today?’ she asked him.
He shrugged. ‘I might as well. I shall be no less useful there today than I ever have been.’
The wretched attempt at a joke twisted her heart. She leaned across the table, placing her hand on his. He did not look up but his fingers opened, allowing hers to fit between them. Fragments of toast lay scattered about his plate.
‘We must not despair,’ she said. ‘Not yet. There is still a chance that Webster will not publish.’
‘Perhaps I should go and see him. Perhaps, if I talked to him –’
‘Surely that would only make matters worse?’
‘I have to do something.’ He looked up at Maribel. ‘When my father went into the asylum I swore to Mother that I would take care of them both. What a magnificent job I have made of it. Inverallich hanging by a thread and Henry –’
‘You have been a fine brother. A fine son. Henry too.’
‘What about Mother? On top of everything . . . It is not only the scandal, Bo. If this gets out, if they press charges – Henry may never be able to come back.’
‘Exile is better than prison,’ she said.
Edward stared at their hands, her fingers between his. Then, gently he extricated his hand. He shook his head.
‘Exile is a prison too.’
38
AFTER BREAKFAST THEY BOTH went to work. At Turks Row Maribel had a sudden dread of encountering Mr Webster on the stairs but she saw no one. The corridor outside Mr Pidgeon’s studio was deserted. She knocked softly. A moment later Thomas answered the door and handed her the key.
Maribel hesitated, fiddling with the ribbon. ‘Mr Webster,’ she said. ‘I wondered – you do not expect him today, do you?’
Thomas shook his head. ‘No, ma’am. He came the day before yesterday. No customers today.’
‘That’s not like Mr Pidgeon.’
‘Mr Pidgeon’s not here, ma’am. He’s got family business. Won’t be back till tomorrow.’
Maribel nodded. ‘Well, don’t let me keep you. I shall drop the key back when I am done.’
She stood in the corridor for a moment, smoking a cigarette. Then she unlocked the darkroom and went in. She had spent the previous day photographing the fishmongers at Billingsgate and she took the plates from her satchel and set them on the developing table. Yesterday, returning from the market in the Underground train, her hair ripe with the smell of fish, she had imagined developing the prints with excitement. It felt like a lifetime ago. She tried not to think at all as she set out the chemical baths and took down the bottles of solution. Mixing them together she slid her first plate out of its cover and slipped it into the bath of developer.
Anxiety made her clumsy. The solution splashed onto her wrist, burning her skin. Cursing, she spat on the burn, fumbling on the shelf nearest the door for a rag to wrap it with. As she tied it she noticed a thick brown folder tied with ribbon, WEBSTER printed in Mr Pidgeon’s neat capitals on the front. Before she knew what she was doing Maribel took it down and opened it. There, in print after print, was Webster, standing in his white collar and his jerkin with his legs astride and his milky eyes fixed upon the camera. There was a horrible satisfaction in looking at him, like a tongue probing a sore tooth. The photographs were almost all identical, differing only in the angle of Webster’s head, the set of his mouth, the position of his left hand. Turning them quickly one could almost see him move.
It was only when she closed the folder that she thought of it. The idea was absurd, impossible, but, as she took up her tongs, watching her photograph begin to form beneath the stippled surface of the chemicals, it too began to take shape.
On the shelf to the right of the table there were, as usual, several stacks of covered plates awaiting development. Each stack was wrapped in brown paper and marked with
the name of the customer. Standing on a chair she struck a match so that she might see them more clearly. The light snagged on the labels, BAXTER, HOLLAND, MAXWELL. She pushed them to one side impatiently. And then, as the flame burned almost to her fingers, a pile of perhaps twenty plates marked WEBSTER.
Maribel dropped the match. Very carefully she took the Webster plates and set them on the workbench. When she had rearranged the stacks so that the gap was not noticeable she clambered down and stood, one hand on the package, feeling the shape of them beneath her hand. Then, pulling out the cloth-lined box at her feet, she secreted the unexposed prints inside.
When she knocked at the door of the studio again Thomas looked surprised.
‘Is anything the matter, ma’am?’ he asked.
‘Not exactly. I wondered if I might ask you something.’
Thomas frowned, biting his lip. ‘Me, ma’am? I don’t know –’
‘How long have you been Mr Pidgeon’s apprentice, Thomas?’
‘It’ll be three years this June, ma’am.’
‘By now you must know almost as much as your master.’
‘I don’t know about that.’
‘The thing is, I need some help.’
‘It’d be better if you talked with Mr Pidgeon, ma’am. He’ll be back tomorrow.’
‘I’m rather afraid it can’t wait till tomorrow. Might I come in?’
Thomas hesitated. Then, reluctantly, he opened the door. Along the back wall of the studio hung the long curtain that had provided the backdrop to Webster’s photographs. In front of it stood the rocking horse and a small upright chair.
‘Is this how Mr Webster photographed himself last time?’ she asked. ‘Astride a white steed?’
Thomas grinned awkwardly and did not answer.