by Clare Clark
She was obliged to wait more than thirty minutes before Mr Webster finally came to the office. He brought with him like a gust of warm air the noise and hubbub of the newspaper, which filled the room as he stood on the threshold, issuing instructions to a man with a hasty pencil and a frown between his eyebrows. When Maribel half rose from her chair he raised a hand in a gesture which was at least as much command as apology. The young man with the pencil scribbled, then set the pencil behind his ear. Webster nodded. Then, turning to Maribel, he fixed her with his milky eyes.
‘Mrs Campbell Lowe,’ he said. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’
The sarcasm in his voice was unmistakable. Maribel smiled coldly.
‘No doubt I have come at a bad time,’ she said. ‘I should have made an appointment, except that this really can’t wait.’
Webster crossed his arms. ‘If you have something to say, say it. I am in a hurry.’
‘Very well.’
Leaning down Maribel took up her portfolio and loosened the ribbons. Her heart thumped in her chest but her hands were steady. Carefully she drew out a print and laid it on the table.
‘I have come about this,’ she said.
Webster frowned and took a step towards the desk. Maribel watched his face, impatience giving way to puzzlement and then to a furious disbelief as he snatched up the print.
‘What the Devil –’
‘I thought you should like to see it,’ she said evenly.
Webster wheeled round. He brandished the photograph, his mouth working, then cast it from him as though it were poisoned. It made a low swoop before landing beneath Maribel’s upright chair. She bent down and picked it up.
‘It is rather good of the girl, I think,’ she said. ‘Less flattering of you, perhaps, but then your resemblance to Oliver Cromwell was never particularly marked.’
Breathing heavily, Webster snatched the picture from her hand. He smelled strongly of carbolic soap and stale breath. His milky eyes bulged like marbles.
‘What kind of filthy trickery is this?’
‘Trickery?’
‘This – this obscenity, what in the name of the Devil is it?’
‘It is you, Mr Webster. You and a naked woman, but not, I think, your wife?’
For a moment Maribel thought that Mr Webster might strike her.
‘If you touch me I shall scream,’ she said, in the same conversational tone. ‘I can’t imagine you would want me to scream.’
Webster looked at her, his face contorted.
‘This is a libel. The man in that – you know as well as I that it is not me.’
‘Oh, but it is, Mr Webster.’ She proffered the photograph to him. ‘Take a closer look. The costume is foolish, of course, but see how you look directly at the camera. There can be no mistaking you.’
Webster took the photograph from her. He stared at it, his jaw working. Then, very slowly, he tore it in two and dropped the pieces on to the floor. Maribel said nothing. Sliding her hand into her portfolio, she drew out another identical print.
‘That’s better,’ she said. ‘I should tell you that I have made a number of copies. I took the precaution of sealing them in envelopes addressed to several prominent gentlemen of my husband’s acquaintance who I think might take an interest in such a photograph. My maid has instructions to post them if I am not home by eight.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Goodness, that does not leave us much time, does it?’
Webster’s neck was scarlet. Slowly, a muscle jumping in his cheek, he tore the two pieces of print into tiny scraps.
‘No one will believe you,’ he hissed. ‘The picture is a fake and you know it.’
‘A fake, is it?’ Maribel studied the print in her hands, her head on one side. ‘And yet it looks so real.’
‘Of course it’s a damned fake. What sort of madness is this? I have never seen that – that harlot before in my life.’
‘Come now, Mr Webster, be reasonable. You are a married man, I understand that. The last thing you want is a scandal. You say you do not know this woman but, you see, I find that rather hard to believe. I happen to have this rather damning photograph.’ She rose from her chair and walked to the door of his office, her hand on the porcelain handle. ‘Perhaps we should consult your underlings. See what they think of the evidence.’
‘Evidence? That? It is nothing but a concoction of lies! I tell you, I have never seen that woman before.’
‘So you say. And yet here you are and here she is and from her condition one would have to assume that you are – to put it delicately – rather more than passing acquaintances.’
He lunged at her, his hands splayed, his arms jerking like a puppet’s, but Maribel was too quick for him. Turning the handle of the door she threw it open. The dammed-up clamour of the newspaper office cascaded over them. At a desk beyond the door, an island in a sea of hurrying people, a clerk looked up from his papers. Maribel nodded at him. In the pool of light from his brass lamp his hands were yellow as wax. Then she closed the door. Webster twisted away, slamming his fist against the wall. The framed letters shook.
‘I would be grateful, Mr Webster, if you could conduct yourself with a little more propriety,’ she said. ‘Now perhaps we can get down to business. I am here to make a deal.’
‘I don’t make deals with the Devil.’
‘Oh, I think you will in this case. You really don’t have a choice, do you?’
Webster was silent.
‘Very good. So here are my terms. Insofar as you must report the Bolsover Street case at all, you will publish in your newspaper only the names of the gentlemen cited by the defendants in court. If any other names are mentioned, any at all, I shall make certain that this photograph is as widely distributed as I can manage, and I should warn you, my husband and I know a great number of people. Of course, it goes without saying that any further invasion into our privacy, or that of our family, would ensure a similar result.’
Webster spat in disgust, swiping at the print in her hands.
‘You think that this – this trumpery will prevent me from doing my duty? The scientists that examined Hudson’s work – I am certain they could prove in a minute that this was a double exposure or some other manner of cheat.’
‘From a print? I hardly think so. To prove such a thing would require examination of the camera used to take the photograph, the camera slide, the plate from which the prints were made, the bath in which it was developed. Do you have access to all of those things, Mr Webster?’
‘There are such things as subpoenas, you know. I could make you turn them over.’
‘That is to assume I have them. Of course you could inform the police, prosecute me in the law courts, but do you really think that would help? Once the story became a matter of public record there would be no containing the scandal.’
There was a film of sweat on Mr Webster’s brow. When he drew his handkerchief from his pocket his hands shook.
‘This is perfectly absurd,’ he hissed. ‘You cannot blackmail me. People know my reputation. I am an honourable, respected man, a good Christian and a faithful husband and father. There is not a soul alive who will believe this filth to be genuine.’
‘I suppose you could take that risk, though it would seem hazardous to me, for a man acknowledged by so many of the gentlemen of his acquaintance to be infatuated with sex.’
‘I – how dare you?’
Maribel shrugged. ‘You are quite right. It is ill-mannered of me to repeat the private opinions of others, however widely held. I apologise. Let me ask you this instead. Do you remember a Mrs Burwood, Mr Webster?’
‘Is there no end to the baseless accusations that you mean to level at me, Mrs Campbell Lowe?’
‘Mrs Burwood is not one of your mistresses. Or, at least, not to my knowledge. No, Mrs Burwood was the widow you swindled when you published Mr Hudson’s photograph of her without her permission. The spirit photograph, surely you remember?’
‘There was no swindle, d
amn it, and I fail to see –’
‘Mrs Burwood, like so many other bereaved and grieving widows before her, believed that her husband appeared in her portrait because she wanted to believe. The desire to believe is very powerful, Mr Webster, especially when the proof appears to be incontrovertible. There are many people out there who believe that the camera is incapable of untruth. There are a great deal more who, thanks to years of sensational revelations in the City Chronicle, take considerable satisfaction in the exposure of a hypocrite. These people are your pupils, Mr Webster. It was you who cultivated in them the taste for blood, the voracious appetite for scandal and righteous disgust, the disregard for the niceties of privacy and the benefit of the doubt. You taught them well. Why would they not devour you too?’
Webster regarded her with a hatred so pure the air seemed to shrink away from it. His slit of a mouth pressed in on itself and, at his sides, his hands were clenched into fists.
‘Do we have a deal, Mr Webster?’
Slowly, as though his limbs were too heavy for his body, Webster sank into his chair. He regarded the piles of paper on his desk, then, with a great sweep of his arm, sent them flying into the air. Books and bundles of documents crashed to the floor. An ink bottle smashed, spattering the wall with black. As several loose sheets drifted quietly to the floor a black puddle spread across the worn wooden boards.
‘You shall go to Hell,’ he hissed. ‘You and your lying, cheating, fornicating husband.’
‘Perhaps. It is a chance we are willing to take.’
Webster looked up, fixing her with his milky eyes.
‘How does it feel to have a sodomite for a brother-in-law?’
Maribel lifted her skirts and stepped carefully over the puddle of spilled ink. For a moment she studied the photograph in her hands. Then she turned it round and placed it on the desk in front of Webster.
‘I haven’t the first idea,’ she said. ‘And I have no intention of finding out.’
41
IT WAS NEARLY THE end of summer. They stood together on the pebbled beach, her arm through his, watching the evening sun as it melted over the mountains. It was very still. Beyond the mirrored sweep of the loch the rocky slopes were hazed with purple. Inverallich was to be sold. The orchards that Maribel had planted had at last begun to flourish but the yields were no match for the mortgages. There was nothing else to be done. Already the smaller rooms of the house were packed up. There were pale squares on the walls where the pictures had hung, and the rugs lay in long rolls against the skirtings. The corridors were crowded with wooden tea chests packed with books and lamps wrapped in newspaper. The piano-forte had been sold. Its castored feet had left tiny dents in the wooden floor of the library.
By the end of the month they too would be gone. The buyer was a Mr Farquhar, Conservative Member for Richmond in Yorkshire, who had amassed a fortune in the construction of railways and canals. In the weeks before the sale he had brought an architect to inspect the property. They had talked of extending the stables, of redesigning the western facade of the house to include a clock tower. Plans had been drawn up for a folly on the island, a rotunda in the classical style. The gnarled old trees would have to be cut down.
They had achieved a good price, given the economic climate. The sale would allow them to pay off all of Edward’s father’s debts and leave them enough to live very comfortably. They would rent a smaller house in the constituency for as long as Edward continued to serve in Parliament. There would be an election before long and he did not mean to stand, even as an independent. The Liberal Party had finally withdrawn the whip when he, along with Keir Hardie, had attended the inaugural conference of the Socialist International in Paris as representatives of the newly minted Scottish Labour Party. Afterwards, in the midst of an angry debate in the House of Commons over the striking dockers, Edward had been challenged to declare whether he preached ‘pure unmitigated Socialism’.
‘Undoubtedly,’ he had replied cheerfully.
Maribel had had Alice make a cake, on top of which she had inscribed the word UNDOUBTEDLY in bright pink icing.
Edward bent, selecting a flat stone. He weighed it in his hand and then, with a flick of the wrist, sent it skimming across the surface of the loch. Maribel watched as it flew, leaving a feathered trail of arrows behind it.
‘It surprises me,’ she said. ‘How much I shall miss it.’
Edward smiled and chose another stone. ‘You will miss complaining about it.’
‘That too.’
‘You can spend your summers in Spain and Italy just as the doctor has always said you should. It will do wonders for your health.’
‘I know. But it’s strange. Somehow this place – it has worked its way into my bones.’
‘Like rheumatism?’
Maribel laughed as he kneaded her hand, pretending to palpate the knuckles. She caught his fingers in hers and kissed them. They were as familiar against her lips as her own breath.
‘It is beautiful here.’
‘Yes. It is beautiful.’
They stood together, arm in arm, watching the last honeyed slither of the sun behind the mountains. The horizon was smeared with gold. Above them the first stars were out and the pale wisp of the new moon was a smudge of chalk dust on the darkening sky.
When it was almost dark they turned and made their way back up the path towards the house. Cora had lit the lamps in the drawing room and the light spilled out through the French windows onto the terrace. Maribel held Edward’s arm tightly, dizzy with saudade. After Edward had signed the sale papers he had gone out for a walk alone. She had watched from an upstairs window as he stood among the mossy headstones in the family graveyard, the rain dripping from the gutter of his hat.
In the drawing room there was a tray with cake and tea in a silver pot.
‘Tea?’ Maribel offered. ‘Or something stronger?’
‘Tea is fine.’
Maribel poured the tea. She handed him the cup, touching his wrist lightly with her other hand.
‘You do not have to be brave, you know. Not with me.’
Edward sipped his tea. Then, reaching for Maribel’s cigarette case, he snapped it open, set a cigarette between his lips.
‘The solicitors claim the contracts are watertight,’ he said, striking a match. ‘The tenants and feuars are protected as well as we can manage it.’
‘And you?’
He shrugged, exhaling a plume of smoke.
‘I have money in the bank for the first time in my adult life. I have a cigarette and a cup of tea and a beautiful wife and no meetings until Monday. If I’m lucky that selfsame wife may even offer me a slice of cake. What more could I ask?’
‘It is your childhood home, Red. Of course it is awful.’
‘It is not awful. It is – a relief. The tenants concern me, it’s true, but I shall do what I can for them in Westminster and here with Hardie. As for the house, it had become a millstone around our necks. It will be a good deal easier to be a Socialist without it.’
‘You are very philosophical.’
‘There is no purpose in fighting what must be.’
‘This from the man who did battle in Trafalgar Square?’
‘That’s quite different and you know it. Come here. Let me tell you something.’
Throwing the stub of his cigarette into the fireplace Edward put down his cup of tea and set his arm around Maribel’s shoulders. She tucked herself against his chest, pulling her stockinged feet up underneath her.
‘An Indian from Buffalo went fishing on the Niagara River. As he waited for the fish to come his birch canoe caught in the current and began to drift towards the falls. At first he paddled desperately, frantic to escape the pull of the water, but, though he paddled like a madman, the waters continued to bear him forward. So he stopped. He dropped his paddle and lit his pipe and leaned back to smoke it. The tourists watched him through their opera glasses. It was said that as he approached the falls it was impossible to tell w
hat was spray and what pipe smoke.’
‘Is that really true?’
‘Cody said so.’
‘I admire the Indian’s style. But it is not yours. You never give up.’
‘Nor did the Indian. That’s the point. He knew better than to waste what time he had left on a fight he could not win. He accepted what had been and what had to come next and he took his pleasures where he was able. I mean to do the same.’
‘But this place is your querencia. This is where you belong.’
‘No,’ Edward said and he held her tightly against him, his lips soft against her brow. ‘This is where I belong.’
***
Edward’s mother had not come to Inverallich that summer. She told Edward that she was not as strong as he was, that she would not be able to bear it. Edward, who had not wept for himself, wept a little for Vivien. He blamed himself. Maribel, who had never much liked her mother-in-law, hated her for that.
They took Alice with them to help with the packing. Maribel, deprived of models, took a great many photographs of her. The Scottish air brought roses to her cheeks and a kind of soft homesickness to her expression. Some of the photographs were very good. In the evenings, when Edward was out with Hardie or at rallies, the two women ate together. Cora made it clear that she considered it quite irregular but Maribel did not give a fig for Cora’s opinion. Already on notice, she could hardly threaten to leave. Sometimes, after dinner, Maribel brought the atlas from the library and showed Alice the places where she meant to take her next photographs. Andalusia. Tangier. Marrakesh. She told Alice of the dark faces and vivid skies of the paintings of Delacroix, the Berbers in their white robes who seemed to have stepped straight from the agora of ancient Greece, and though Alice rolled her eyes, she followed the blue shapes of the coastlines with her fingers and tasted the unfamiliar names on the tip of her tongue. Alice would go too. There was no question about that.