Fanny and Stella

by Neil McKenna

  Not long after this, Miss Empson mounted an expedition deep into the heart of Lord Arthur’s territory. No stone was to be left unturned, no drawer unopened, no letter unread. She went through everything with a fine-tooth comb. She pried and probed and poked about her, and she was rewarded, if that was the right word, by the discovery of an entire wardrobe of ‘lady’s wearing apparel: bracelets, necklets, chignons and the like, silk dresses, shawls and everything that ladies wear, kid boots and more’. There were pots of paint and rouge and powder, and an assortment of other feminine necessities, the particulars of which she felt it indecorous to enter into.

  Miss Empson put two and two together. It dawned upon her that when Lord Arthur said that the woman he had surreptitiously let out was a man, he was almost certainly telling the truth. Miss Empson was shocked and revolted. Under her roof, in her bed. If that was their pretty game then they were out, out on their ears, that very night. Of one thing she was sure. She would need a nip or two of brandy – and probably several nips – before her stomach could be settled that night.

  In Bow Street Magistrates’ Court, Miss Empson was confused. Boulton and Park were there in the dock and she recognised them both as the two young men she had turned out. One was dark and one was fair. One was plain and one was pretty (though not so pretty now, she noticed with satisfaction). But which was Boulton and which was Park? Lord Arthur had told her that his country cousin was called Boulton, but surely this could not be so. In court, Boulton had been identified as the dark, pretty one, but she was as sure as sixpence that the young man who had spent the night in Lord Arthur’s bed, the young man whom she had seen dressed as a woman, was the plain, fair one. She pointed to him in the dock.

  ‘The prisoner nearest to me – Park – who I call Boulton, is the one who slept with Lord Arthur,’ she said. ‘That is the one. It was the one with the golden hair.’

  Fanny shifted uncomfortably on the hard wooden bench of the dock as she was fingered by the redoubtable Miss Empson. She did not like to be reminded so graphically of her all-too-brief and doomed liaison with her sister’s husband. Needless to say, Arthur had fallen at the first fence. Under interrogation by Stella he had crumpled and confessed all, and even tried to save his own sorry and scrawny neck by implying that it was Fanny who had made all the running.

  Stella had been incandescent with rage. She did not know which was worse: Arthur’s infidelity or Fanny’s betrayal. But if she blamed anyone, she blamed Fanny. Arthur was weak, indecisive and painfully susceptible to flattery. Stella could well imagine how Fanny had flattered and simpered, and simpered and flattered until poor foolish Arthur did not know whether he was coming or going, at which point Fanny would have pounced like a cat on its unsuspecting prey.

  There had been tears and tantrums, scenes and slappings. Arthur was devastated and appalled. Fanny could only hang her head in shame and beg her sister’s forgiveness. But Stella was adamant. She renounced her husband, disowned her sister and did what all sensible married women should do in such circumstances: she went home to her Mamma.

  17

  ‘Come Love’

  Love is a pretty pedlar

  Whose pack is fraught with sorrows,

  With doubts and fears,

  With sighs and tears,

  Some joys – but those he borrows.

  Robert Jones,

  ‘The Muses Gardin for Delights’, 1610

  W hy Stella had even bothered to keep this short note was a mystery. It had been hurriedly scrawled in pencil on a torn and crumpled half-sheet of paper. Stella was not much given to keeping billets-doux. She was so accustomed to receiving letters from ardent swains and besotted beaux that she had become careless of such epistolary declarations. And in comparison to so many of the epic letters of love and adoration and despair that she received from young and not-so-young gentlemen, this short note barely ranked as a Valentine.

  It was addressed in a decidedly shaky script to ‘Mr Ernest Boulton at Mrs Dickson’s, 118 Princes Street, Edinburgh’ and contained the briefest of brief messages:

  Darling Erné,

  Do come up tonight. Everybody is too drunk to mind. Donald is here and wants to see you. Come love.

  Always for ever thine.

  JSF

  Bring Mr P.

  ‘JSF’ were the initials of Mr John Safford Fiske, the United States Consul in Edinburgh, who had recently fallen head over heels in love with Stella Boulton. ‘Donald’ was Donald Sinclair, a friend and fellow sodomite of John Safford Fiske. And the mysterious ‘Mr P.’ of the postscript was Harry Park, Fanny Park’s older brother, who was spending a few days in Edinburgh with Stella. Eight years earlier, Harry had fled a charge of ‘having indecently exposed himself and trying to incite a Police-Constable to commit an indecent offence’. Now, as ‘Mr Charles Ferguson’, Harry was living quietly in the out-of-the-way and unpronounceable small town of Lesmahagow in Lanarkshire, or Abbey Green, as its more anglicised and prosperous residents preferred to call it.

  T he year 1869 had not been kind to Miss Stella Boulton. In fact, it was decidedly cruel, beginning with her startling discovery of a brazen and heartless infidelity on the part of her caro sposo, Lord Arthur Clinton, with none other than her beloved sister, Mrs Fanny Winifred Graham (née Park).

  It had, according to Arthur, only happened the once, in fearsome Miss Ann Empson’s drawing-room floor in Davies Street. But once was enough. Of course, she blamed Fanny. Arthur was easily led and it was not the first time that he had had his head turned by the tricks and wiles of a designing and unscrupulous woman.

  It was a bitter blow. She tore up the cards engraved with that luminous title ‘Lady Arthur Clinton’ and reverted to her maiden name. She was now just plain Miss Stella Boulton (though her many gallant admirers would protest vociferously at the epithet ‘plain’ when applied to the lovely Miss Stella).

  It was perhaps as well that she had returned home to Peckham Rye. Within weeks she was ill. Very ill. Gravely ill. It had all begun a year or so earlier with a nasty suppurating boil on her anus (or her ‘arse-quim’ as Fanny was fond of calling it). She had been under the care of Dr Hughes, who treated the sore with the vigorous application of poultices, ointments, antiseptics, douches, injections, disinfectants and dressings, as well as supplying her with a formidable battery of different medicines. Nothing seemed to work.

  She had suffered from it almost constantly while she was living with Arthur, and, really, was it any wonder that she was so often out of sorts, short-tempered and snappish? But Stella had winced and grimaced with the pain and carried on as if nothing was the matter. Someone, after all, had to pay the rent and put food on the table, and as Arthur was so mired in debt and seemingly so incapable of earning money, it was left to her to manage matters as best she could. So Stella still had to go out on the pad, tattered and torn, and instead of moaning with pleasure, real or simulated, she moaned with pain. It was all the same to the punters. Stella sighed. The things she did for love.

  Dr Hughes had been called to the house and his manner had been very grave and subdued. He said that the boil had turned into an abscess and now the abscess had turned into a fistula in ano. Stella was not exactly sure what a fistula in ano was. All that she knew was that it was agonisingly painful, and that the longer it went on, the worse it became. Dr Hughes said if Stella did not submit to the knife, he would not answer for the consequences. Indeed, matters had reached such a pass that even with an operation, there was no guarantee of success. Any delay would be fatal.

  T he operation was a success. Within a fortnight Stella was feeling better, and the pain was very much diminished. In time, Dr Hughes assured her, it would disappear altogether.

  One consequence of this near brush with death was that Fanny was forgiven and the sisters were reconciled. Upon being informed of the gravity of Stella’s illness, Fanny rushed to her sister’s bed of sickness and begged for forgiveness. It was graciously granted. Stella was not one to hold a grudge. Besides
, she missed Fanny more than she cared to admit. Husbands and lovers might come and go, but when all was said and done, the love of a sister was rarer and more precious than rubies and pearls.

  As the spring turned to summer, and the summer turned to autumn, Stella was very much improved in health. But she felt increasingly restless in Peckham Rye. Having been mistress of her own establishment, such as it was, in Southampton Street, it was hard for her to bow to the superior claims of her Mamma to be mistress in her own house. So when, in late September, Louis Hurt invited her to go and spend a few months with him in Edinburgh for a change of air, Stella accepted with alacrity. However dark and damp and dour Edinburgh in the winter might be, at least she would be free, like a bird set free from a gilded cage.

  During her convalescence, there had been moments of reflection and introspection when she questioned whether she had done the right thing in giving Louis up. There was much to recommend him. He was tall and handsome. He was from a good family. Like Arthur he had been educated at Eton, but unlike Arthur, he had made his own way in the world. He was hard-working, sensible and solvent. His prospects were good, and most importantly of all, he was utterly devoted to her.

  Louis had courted her assiduously and her Mamma, always determined – over-determined, perhaps – to see her marry well, had entertained the highest hopes for the match. Louis was always a welcome visitor at Peckham Rye, often spending as much as a fortnight with them before rushing off to remote and rustic places to inspect post offices.

  But Stella had always had her doubts. In truth, Louis was more than a little dull. He was strict and strait-laced. He did not approve of her career. He did not approve of drag. He did not approve of her campish ways. He did not approve of her going out on the pad. He did not approve of unpaid bills, unmade beds, dirt, disorder or disarray.

  Louis was reluctant to call her Stella. He called her Ernest, or Ernie, but never Stella. And though he never exactly put it into words, Stella sensed that he disapproved of her friendship with Fanny. All he wanted her to do was to behave herself, to conform, to grow her moustache, to be more manly and masculine, to be less mincing and to try to be Ernest Boulton, the beloved boy of Louis Hurt. Now, at a time when she felt weak and helpless, Louis’s strong arms, his unfaltering love and his certainty seemed very appealing.

  S tella’s worst fears about Edinburgh were not fully realised. It was certainly dark and damp and dour, but it was also austerely beautiful, and the cold winds from the North Sea were refreshing and invigorating after the fugs and smogs of London. Louis had been there for a year or more and had comfortable chambers in Princes Street, in the very heart of the city. Mrs Dickson, the landlady, seemed to be a good soul, and mercifully there was none of that poking and prying about of uppity servant girls that had so plagued Stella at Mrs Peck’s in Southampton Street.

  There was bound to be a fly in the ointment, though, and this time the people who lived above were being tedious, as people who live above generally are, and had complained about the noise of the piano, most especially about her ‘playing weekday tunes on the Sabbath’. Mrs Dickson had tactfully requested Stella to ‘leave it off on a Sunday’.

  There was much to discover, much to learn and much to enjoy. Stella professed herself charmed by everything she found, even though in her heart of hearts she still sometimes hankered after London, after Coventry Street and the Haymarket, after the Alhambra and the Burlington Arcade, after the theatres and the streets and the shops, after that great erotic tide that bore down upon her and engulfed her, sweeping her up and taking her where it willed.

  Stella had only to set foot in the streets of Edinburgh to draw gasps and stares. Many, but by no means all, of these gasps and stares were hostile. The rest were of the bewildered, the curious, the frankly interested and the downright flirtatious variety. Stella revelled in the attention. ‘Nothing like him had ever been seen in Edinburgh before,’ Mr John Doig, a colleague of Louis’s, declared. ‘He was spoken about a great deal, and a great number of people expressed doubts about his sex.’

  There was no shortage of gentlemen callers. In fact, there was a surfeit. Stella’s debut in Edinburgh caused quite a stir in certain circles and in no time at all she was besieged on all fronts by beaux. There was that roguish rough diamond, Mr John Jameson Jim, who, after a severe bout of brain fever (brought on, he confessed, ‘by drinking and girls’), had seen the light and abruptly transferred his gruff and manly attentions to Stella, falling for her hook, line and sinker. ‘Have you the same love as ever for me?’ he would write in the plaintive and pleading tone of a lovesick youth.

  Or there was plain and honest Jack from the small town of Musselburgh, just outside Edinburgh, who, not to put too fine a point on it, was desperate to pass a night with Stella, and not solely for the charm of her conversation. Plain and honest Jack favoured a bold and direct approach when it came to matters of the heart. ‘Will you stay tonight?’ he demanded in pencil. ‘You are a great cow if you don’t.’

  Or the very charming and helpful young man behind the counter at Messrs Kensington and Jenner who had been so understanding and so accommodating in the matter of a new gown in silk moiré for Stella which she ordered on the last day of March. He had given her such a knowing look, a loaded look so redolent of meaning, that Stella blushed and hardly knew where to put herself.

  And finally there was Mr John Safford Fiske, who was as fine a specimen of American manhood as she had yet met. He was tall, but not too tall; muscular, athletic and lithe; manly and masculine, with sensual lips and large soulful eyes which melted her heart – as well as various other organs – when their loving gaze turned upon her.

  Fortune had always smiled upon Mr John Safford Fiske. He had led a charmed and happy existence and was, in consequence, charming and happy. From the moment of his birth to parents of modest means in the small and unexceptional town of Ashtabula on the shore of Lake Erie, a benevolent Fate had steered John Safford Fiske safely through the treacherous waters of life. All those who knew him (or knew of him) were convinced that he was destined for great things.

  His talents were prodigious. At Yale he had demonstrated a facility for languages, both living and dead, and for history, ancient and modern. He had a passion for literature, especially for poetry, and was conspicuously widely and well read. But he was no dry and dreary scholar, slowly desiccating in his tower of ivory. Here was a manly man, a man of strong ruddy flesh and bright ruby blood, fleet of foot, sound in wind and limb, a man well-endowed with strength and courage as well as virtue and learning.

  When, after a distinguished career at Yale, John Safford Fiske accepted the position of Deputy Clerk for the New York State Senate in Albany, there were those who prophesied a bright future in the world of politics or the world of diplomacy, or both. He exuded trust and integrity, and he effortlessly married an innate authority with an easy charm. People looked to him and up to him. They relied on him to frame arguments, suggest solutions, resolve disputes and generally make the world a better place.

  John Safford Fiske himself entirely concurred with all these estimations and expectations of greatness to come. He had always held that Fortune and Fate helped those who helped themselves, which was why, in the summer of 1867, he had not hesitated to take the bold step of writing directly to Mr William H. Seward, United States Secretary of State, to ask, quite charmingly, for the position of United States Consul in Edinburgh. He was supported in his application by Judge Joseph Mullin of Watertown, New York, who praised his protégé as ‘a young man of unblemished character, perfect integrity and unquestionable ability’.

  Appointing Mr Fiske as United States Consul, Judge Mullin wrote, ‘will do no discredit to the department or the country’ and will ‘aid a young man who is destined to do honour to both’. Mr Fiske ‘intends devoting himself to literature’, Judge Mullin continued, and ‘seeks a place abroad with the aim of extending his knowledge of man’.

  The application was successful and so, in the autu
mn of 1867, the twenty-nine-year-old Mr John Safford Fiske arrived in the New Athens ready and eager to take up his consular duties. They were not especially arduous. Much of his work was ceremonial. Going here and going there. Attending this and attending that. Receptions, banquets, balls and dinners. Listening, smiling, being charming. He was admirably suited to such duties. With his strength, wisdom, youth and vigour allied to an absolute certainty of his own destiny, Mr John Safford Fiske was the perfect embodiment of his young nation’s values and aspirations, of its sense of its own importance and of its coming greatness.

  John Safford Fiske had a plan. He wanted to marry, and to marry well. He would need a wife, a wife with a fortune to place at his disposal so that he could fulfil his literary and his political ambitions. His present means were more than adequate to meet his needs, but even in the great democracy of the United States, it was money that talked, and talked the loudest; money that opened doors; money that made the world turn; money that bought influence and brought power. He needed money, and the fastest and easiest way to acquire money, and lots of it, was to marry, and to marry well.

  In fact, Mr John Safford Fiske was preparing to surrender himself to matrimony. Fortune and Fate had again smiled upon him and provided him with a young, beautiful and charmingly dressed heiress. She was American, born and bred into one of the best and oldest families on the East Coast, so he could be quite sure of her pedigree.

  She was coming to Edinburgh in the spring. She was coming to see him. She was expecting him to propose to her and he was determined to do so. They would marry that summer and then, after a year or two in Edinburgh, he would be appointed ambassador, perhaps to London or to Paris, where he would live in splendour and serve with distinction before returning to Washington and the Senate.