Beautiful Lies

by Clare Clark

  Towards the end of August Henry came to stay. He was his usual charming and urbane self, if a little thinner, and still a reliably sharp-witted source of gossip. The only subject they did not discuss was Bolsover Street, though the scandal remained a topic of speculation among the upper echelons of London society: not only had Somerset’s solicitor been convicted of obstruction of justice for assisting his client to flee abroad and sentenced to six weeks in prison, the rumours concerning the Prince of Wales’s eldest son, Prince Albert Victor, had continued to burgeon and the royal family had seen fit to dispatch him on a lengthy tour of India while they set about securing him a suitable wife. Oscar’s letters brimmed with sly supposition – he declared the Prince’s notorious narcissism ‘more Aphrodite than Ares’ – but Henry said nothing at all. When he spoke of the Prince of Wales it was only to remark upon his enthusiastic support for the return to Europe of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, which was to undertake a second tour the following year.

  ‘Cody intends to spend the first half of the year in Paris,’ Henry said as they walked around the garden. ‘There is to be an exhibition to celebrate one hundred years since the French Revolution. Let us hope the Prince can keep his head.’

  The rhododendron were in flower, their colossal blooms a blaze of crimson and white amid the dark foliage. Planted by Edward’s grandfather they had flourished in the poor soil, massing like an invading army around the lawn and down the drive. Maribel and Henry paused by the sundial to admire them. Within the circle of numbers on the lead face of the sundial a stooped Father Time held aloft his scythe, and beneath him the words NAE MAN CAN TETHER TIME OR TIDE. Maribel supposed the quotation was from Burns, with whom the Scotch were unaccountably enamoured. The lead was dull and spattered with bird droppings, and lichen grew in its grooved lip. She picked at it with her thumbnail, listening to the quarrelsome cawing of the rooks in the trees behind the house.

  ‘Will the show come back to London?’ she asked.

  ‘Naturally. There is the small matter of Miss Clemmons, after all.’

  ‘Of course. I had forgotten her.’

  ‘If only Cody had.’ He smiled, shaking his head. ‘I am sure that, if you wished to, we could arrange for you to photograph the Indians again. They are rather up your street, are they not? Those extraordinary faces.’

  Maribel shook her head. ‘Thank you, but I don’t think so. I am finished with myth-making.’

  ‘Myth-making? His new company of Indians are Standing Bull’s men. Real-life prisoners of war.’

  ‘Perhaps in America. Here they are just actors, aren’t they? Players in a flagrantly fictionalised version of their lives.’

  ‘Aren’t we all?’

  They were silent for a moment. Maribel pressed the palms of her hands against the rough stone plinth of the sundial. Perhaps, she thought, he did mean to confide in her. Then he laughed and declared himself wearied half to death of fresh air and suggested they go back inside and play cards. She took his arm gladly and squeezed it, giddy with relief. There was, after all, nothing to talk about. Everything was as it had always been. When the scandal he dreaded had failed to materialise Henry had returned from Paris, a little greyer about the temples perhaps but otherwise unaltered. The excursion to France, he told those who enquired, had been pleasant but fruitless; the horses he had gone to look at for the Prince of Wales, though much praised, had proved in the event to be unsatisfactory. It was tiresome but there it was. French bloodstock dealers were, after all, French.

  When the Chronicle ran an article in which the newspaper named both Somerset and Henry FitzRoy as clients of the infamous brothel, FitzRoy had immediately filed a case against Webster for libel. It seemed likely that he would win and that Webster might, once again, be sentenced to serve time in prison. Though he used his editorial platform to protest vociferously against the indefensible muzzling of the press by the Establishment, Webster had made no further allegations. Meanwhile his legal predicament had served as something of a warning to the proprietors of rival newspapers. The reputation of Henry Campbell Lowe, it seemed, was safe.

  In the darkroom at Turks Row Maribel had dropped the entire pile of plates onto the floor. The smash made a very satisfactory noise. Then she went to the studio to apologise to Mr Pidgeon. She hung her head as she told him that she had knocked them from the shelf as she hunted for another bottle of pyrogallic acid. When she begged his pardon the tears came easily. Plainly discomfited by so abject a display of contrition, Mr Pidgeon lent her his handkerchief and, assuring her that accidents happened, urged her to go home. Thomas would sweep up the mess. When she had recovered herself she went into the darkroom to collect her things. Thomas was kneeling on the floor, sweeping glass into a dustpan. He had looked up at her then, watching as she put on her gloves and settled the strap of her satchel across her shoulder. The intensity of his expression had made her uneasy. It had also made her want to photograph him.

  In the cigar box at Cadogan Mansions, interleaved with sheets of tissue paper and hidden beneath the piles of old letters, was a sealed envelope containing the photographs of Mr Webster and his unnamed consort. For surety, Maribel had put several additional copies in a second envelope. When she deposited the envelope with the bank manager she told him it was her will.

  She had brought the cigar box with her to Inverallich.

  ‘Will you not miss this place just a little?’ Maribel asked Henry when they were settled with tea in the drawing room.

  ‘Here? I shouldn’t think so for a moment.’

  ‘It is funny. Edward feels so strong an attachment to the place, to the weight of family history here. You don’t feel that too?’

  ‘Naturally, which is precisely why I shall be delighted to see the back of it.’

  ‘You didn’t hope to be buried here?’

  ‘And throw in my lot with the wretched bones of my forefathers? No thank you.’

  ‘I suppose the tragedy of your own father –’

  ‘The tragedy of my father was that he was a drunk and a bully and would doubtless have continued so had the fits not incapacitated him so thoroughly. He beat us both often, for the pleasure of it, I suppose, though he always insisted it was for our own good. The lunatic asylum was the best thing that ever happened to us.’

  Maribel stared at him. Insofar as she had thought of Edward’s father at all she had always imagined him to be a fine man afflicted by a terrible malady. She did not know why, quite, except that he had two fine sons.

  ‘So you see, I have never much liked this house,’ Henry said evenly. Clearing the teapot and plate of biscuits from the tray he set it between them on the sofa. ‘London is where I belong, if I belong anywhere. And, talking of London, I want to hear all about this new exhibition of yours. Come on, it’s your deal.’

  Maribel blinked. Then, picking up the cards, she shuffled the deck.

  ‘There isn’t much to tell,’ she said. ‘It is an even smaller gallery than More’s and consequently even less likely to sell anything.’

  ‘But they want to show your work.’

  ‘So they say.’

  ‘Well, then. You are an artist now, whether you like it or not.’ Maribel grinned. ‘Oh, I like it,’ she said. ‘I like it very much.’ Setting the remaining cards down in a pile between them, she turned the top one over. Henry picked up his hand, smoothing the cards into a fan.

  ‘Now down to business,’ he said. ‘Seven of clubs, me to start.’

  After Henry had gone it was just the two of them. Edward was busy with constituency work, Maribel with the packing up of the house. While some of the contents were to be sold most of the furniture and the better paintings were to be shipped to London where, with the money from the sale, they would finally be able to take a house. Edward was enthusiastic about the idea, Maribel less so. She had grown fond of the flat at Cadogan Mansions and of the looseness of life there, the absence of a kitchen and proper servants, the impossibility of entertaining. In a house she would be obliged to man
age staff, at the very least a cook and a housemaid, and to assume a great number of tedious domestic responsibilities. Besides, there was Alice, who was not a housemaid or a lady’s maid or a cook but something of all three and, in some ways, not quite a servant at all. It was not easy to see how Alice would fit into such a household.

  They did not talk of the future in those dying weeks of summer. It seemed too close, somehow, and the past already too far away. As the rooms emptied a silence settled on the house, the sweet sadness of saudade. Every familiar place, every ordin ary occupation, bore the weight of the last time.

  On their last Sunday at Inverallich Edward saddled Pampa and rode out into the hills.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said, but she only smiled and kissed him and told him to be home before dark.

  ‘You don’t want me. Not today. I would only slow you down.’

  ‘I don’t mind slow.’

  ‘You are a terrible liar, Red, and you know it. Go on. Go and say goodbye. Say it for us both.’

  ‘What will you do?’

  ‘I shall pack.’

  ‘But you’ve been packing for weeks. Surely there is nothing left to do?’

  ‘Almost nothing.’

  When he was gone she went upstairs. From the large window on the landing she could see the rooks circling above the trees at the back of the house. The previous afternoon Alice had gone out to the back to say goodbye to them. It was an old tradition in Yorkshire, she said, to tell the rooks of a death or departure, otherwise they would fall into a melancholy and forget to come home.

  ‘I imagine Mr Farquhar would be grateful if they did,’ Maribel had said. ‘Those birds are a menace.’

  ‘That’s as maybe but it’s very unlucky to lose them. The house they leave will never prosper.’

  It was on the tip of Maribel’s tongue to retort that, if the rooks had brought prosperity, they would not be leaving in the first place, but the seriousness on Alice’s face had stopped her. Later she had paused on the landing and seen Alice standing beneath the trees, her head tipped back, and, though she could not hear what she was saying, Maribel was startled by the commotion as the birds rose up, filling the sky with a great clamour of wings and cawing. Alice had watched them without expression, her arms crossed over her chest. Then she had wiped her hands on her apron and returned to the house. It was nearly dark when Maribel saw the birds coming back to their nests. They settled quietly, without their habitual hullabaloo, folding themselves up like umbrellas beneath the canopy of the trees. It seemed that they had decided to stay.

  In her bedroom Maribel opened the largest of the trunks and, from beneath a pile of blankets, carefully took out the cigar box. The satchel she used for her photography was hung by its strap from a chair. She unbuckled it and slipped the box inside.

  At the door of the kitchen she paused. Cora was bent over the range. In the pantry Alice was wrapping the last of the plates in newspaper.

  ‘I’m going for a walk,’ Maribel said, taking the iron key of the boathouse from its hook. ‘I shan’t be long.’

  She went first to the old stables and then across the lawn towards the loch. The boathouse had a dilapidated air. The paint had peeled from its plank walls and the roof was spongy with moss. The rusted lock was stiff. The doors had not been opened for a long time.

  Inside it smelled of peat and mildew. A narrow wooden dock ran the length of the boathouse like a shelf above the shallow water and, on it, near the back, the little rowing boat had been propped on struts to prevent it from rotting. Maribel ran her hand over its belly, feeling the rough skin of the flaking varnish. Despite the chill in the air the wood felt warm. At the bow the carefully painted black letters had faded. She traced them with a finger. Robinson Crusoe.

  She smiled, lifting the oars down from their nails on the wall, taking the rowlocks from their wooden box and slipping them into the iron sockets. She had always thought it was the rigorous discipline of boarding school that had made both Edward and Henry so unnaturally orderly. The boat was an awkward shape but it was not heavy and she slid the struts out from beneath it without difficulty, stowing the oars in the bow and dispatching the boat into the water with a quiet splash.

  It was a more difficult matter to climb into it. Without someone to steady it the boat rocked dangerously as she stepped down and she almost lost her footing, grabbing wildly at the dock to keep herself from falling and striking her elbow painfully on an iron ring. Cautiously she sat, tucking her skirts between her knees, and, using her hands to push off, she edged the boat out of the boathouse and into the loch.

  A breeze had got up. The sky was low, the loch pocked with little brown waves. The boat pitched as she leaned forward for the oars and slid them into the rowlocks. They too were rough from ill use, the grain of the wood splintery against her palms. Pushing at the mud of the loch with one oar she turned the boat round clumsily. Then, lifting both oars from the water, she leaned forward as Edward had taught her and began to row.

  The strap of the satchel cut across her shoulder and beneath her arm as very slowly the boat began to move. She had forgotten how heavy the oars were and how uncooperative. As she splashed her way into open water the wind buffeted the little craft, whipping her hair from its pins. Already water had begun to collect in the bottom of the boat, darkening the hem of her dress. She lifted her feet, pressing them into the walls of the boat, and leaned forward to pull again on the disobliging oars. She could see Cora, bending to pick something in the herb garden. She looked very small.

  By the time the bow of the boat scraped the pebbly strand of the island Maribel’s back ached and the palms of her hands were raw. She clambered out of the boat, careless of the water that sucked at her boots, and dragged it up the shore. The wind was even stronger here, a horizontal breeze that cut through her cape. Clutching her satchel, she scrambled up the narrow beach towards the trees.

  She chose a place on the far side of the island, out of sight of the house. It was a bleak spot, wind-flattened, the grass wiry and reluctant. The ground was very rocky. It was not easy to dig. The garden shovel she had brought was short-handled and lacked leverage. She had to slip her fingers under the bigger stones to loosen them, prising them out like teeth. Further down, the roots of the stunted trees twisted like thick cables, and rocks the size of flagstones made pavements in the ruins of the earth.

  It was in attempting to raise one of these rocks that she broke the handle from the shovel. She dug into the earth with her hands, levering the rock up until she was able to push it clear. Beneath the rock the earth was crumbly and flecked with pebbles. When the hole was deep enough she unbuckled her satchel and took out the cigar box. The wind caught in the string, making its ends flap. She smoothed them down, holding the box tightly in her lap. Then she leaned forward and placed it in the trough she had made. She looked at the box for a long time. Taking a handful of the crumbly earth, she threw it onto the lid.

  ‘Goodbye,’ she said or perhaps she did not, because the wind whipped the words from her mouth and sent them spinning across the brown waters of the loch.

  The sky beyond the mountains was a bruised purple and over the water it had begun very lightly to rain. The drops pitted the surface of the loch and the tongues of the waves were tipped with white. Rocking back onto her heels she picked up the broken blade of the shovel and covered the cigar box with earth. Then clumsily she hefted the flat rock back over the place where it had been, replacing the dug-up clods of turf and smaller stones until the rock was quite covered. By her feet a small white feather was caught in a twist of flowerless heather. She reached out, taking it in her hand. The feather’s shaft was fine as a fish bone, its down tremblingly soft. Carefully she planted it in the turned earth.

  At the trees she paused and looked back. Over the hills the rain had begun to fall in earnest. Clouds shrouded the slopes and turned the loch to lead. Against the dark soil the feather was very white. It shivered, its head bowed against the rising breeze. Then, abruptly,
caught by a sudden gust of wind, it danced across the earth and was gone.

  Author’s Note

  THE LONDON OF the 1880s has long fascinated me, mostly because it defies many of our assumptions about it. In the fifth decade of Queen Victoria’s reign, London was the largest and richest city in the world, and the centre of an empire that encompassed one quarter of the globe. And yet it was riven by political, economic and social upheaval. The contrasts have interesting parallels with our own times. Like 2012, 1887 was a Jubilee year, marked by lavish celebrations. Like 2012, it was a time of deep recession and rising unemployment. There were strikes, demonstrations, violent riots in which shops were smashed and looted. There were even temporary camps as the homeless sought refuge in Trafalgar Square.

  For the ordinary working man in 1887, without the safety net of the welfare state, the suffering was very great. The prolonged slump of 1884–7 was one of the worst of the century and the gulf between rich and poor had never been wider. In cities thousands lost their jobs. Those that were fortunate enough to keep them saw their wages slashed. The situation in rural areas was dire. Britain’s determined refusal to impose tariffs on imported grain had resulted in a collapse in prices. By 1885, the British were importing an astonishing 65% of their wheat and the sum of land under wheat cultivation had shrunk by a million acres. As agricultural prices collapsed, men flocked to London in search of work that did not exist, swelling the ranks of the urban unemployed.