When they were out of the house, Fred took Jessaline aside roughly and said, ‘What’s this about Oldham and Sue Witherspoon? What’s their connection? Tell me!’
Jessie looked surprised by his tone and manner and shook her arm free with a pout of her pretty lips.
‘Let go of me! What you in such a paddy for! Tommie, she calls him. One of ‘er fancy men, he is. ‘E certainly takes care of ‘er, I can tell you. And me,’ she added with a little giggle.
‘Jessie! What are you saying?’ Fred was angrier than he had been in years.
‘It’s all right. I don’t mean ‘e does anyfink wrong,’ said Jessaline, alarmed by his expression. ‘Don’t get upset, Georgie. Gawd, you’re so protective! No, nuffink like that. Proper gent to me… but ‘e does give me money sometimes and says ‘e’ll introduce me to some artists ‘e knows in Paris one day. Imagine that! Going to Paris and meeting artists there. No, ‘e’s Sue’s bloke. She and ‘im mean to go into business someday, she says.’
‘How long has she known this man?’
‘Dunno. A long time, I reckon. I seen ‘im around when we lived in Pomfrey Street but she never brought men back to our rooms. She went to a place she knew in Soho with ‘em. She said she wanted her own pad to do business and not be bothered by the bully boys and all the rest. Always goes ‘er own way, does Sue. She’s got a place in Suvvark now which suits ‘er for the minute. But she talks of going to Sin John’s Wood and says someone is going to set ‘er up there nicely.’
‘Oldham, I suppose?’
‘Maybe. Dun’ask me. I mind my own business where Sue’s concerned. She don’t like no nosiness.’
Impatient with his questions, Jessaline, always easily distracted, let her attention wander and Fred left further interrogation for another day. He put Jessaline into a cab and sent it on its way. He needed to walk and think over these latest revelations. So Sue and Oldham were busy scheming and making love behind his back. He had never for a moment supposed that Sue was faithful to him alone. She was a scheming bitch whose mind was on nothing but money. However, all the same, the knowledge that she was busy with her paramour, Oldham, perhaps as soon as he, Fred, had left her bed, cut deep and rankled. He had felt somehow special and important to her. What a fool he was. Dimly he began to realise that she and Oldham had seemed to have some understanding from the start. They had led him into this; it was all a conspiracy.
He took a cab and went straight to Sue’s lodgings. Racing up the stairs he knocked furiously at her door. Too bad if she was in bed with some fellow. He would make a scene and force her confession.
The little maid opened the door and seeing him, she let him in at once. He gave the girl sixpence and told her to take herself off somewhere. She obliged with alacrity, afraid of his angry looks.
Sue came out now. She was dressed in a loose gown and her
hair was still around her shoulders, a brush in her hands. She looked especially attractive but her charms had palled for him.
‘What on earth are you doing here at this time of day?’ she said, not looking too pleased. ‘I’ve said to you not to just come when it suits you. I do have other things to do, you know.’
‘Yes, like fucking Thomas Oldham!’
She stared at him for a moment and then resumed brushing her hair.
‘Yes, I do as it happens,’ she said equably, ‘what’s it to you?’
Fred came up to her; seizing the brush from her hand, he threw it aside. He pulled her towards him angrily and shook her so hard that she screamed.
‘It’s a betrayal, that’s what it is!’ he shouted. ‘You and Oldham… you’re cooking something up between you. I feel it, I know it, Sue.’
‘You bastard! Let me go! You can’t scare me. Don’t you start getting nasty now. There’s plenty you don’t know, plenty, and you won’t be so cocky once you’ve heard what I have to say, either. So you sit down and just listen to me.’
He refused to sit beside her as she sank onto the sofa but strode angrily about the room. She sat and regarded him with a faint smile upon her face that disconcerted him.
‘Sit here, my dear,’ she said, ‘I don’t know what you’re getting all upset about. Tommie is just a customer like you. Don’t tell me you’re jealous of a whore?’
‘Jealous of you? Jealous? I don’t give a damn about you. I’m not in love with you if that’s your impression. But something in this whole thing strikes me as planned.’ said Fred, pacing up and down. ‘I have woken up to the fact that I am a fool and that it just isn’t worth it. It isn’t worth it.’
‘Give up your little tickles, eh? Easy as that? You’ll come running in a week’s time, you wait and see. Can’t let it alone, my fine gent, can you? Oh, your nice lady may be very pretty, very fine but she doesn’t know how to fuck you like Sue does. Now how would she know anything about all that?’
Fred hesitated. It was true. He needed this woman but no, it wasn’t worth it. He had to be rid of this dark side of himself, find some other way out.
She rose now and came over to him, her loose gown falling aside to reveal her nakedness beneath. His breath caught as her hand moved expertly over his body and for a moment he almost gave in to her. Then the memory came to him of his children, of Ellie smiling at him that morning and even more maddening, of Thomas Oldham receiving these selfsame attentions. He pushed her away so roughly that she stumbled and almost fell.
‘I don’t mean to come and see you ever again… you can have Thomas Oldham. Let him buy Jessie’s pictures for you as he means to help you make a profit by them.’
Sue pulled her gown about her again and her eyes blazed at him.
‘Oh, now we’re getting at the problem. It’s the angry dealer scared he’s being cheated, is that it?’
‘No, that is not the problem. I don’t give a damn what you do with the pictures, either of you. They’re second rate rubbish anyway, but they will sell, because people are second rate and rubbishy these days. I have let myself down and all my ideals. But no more. Never again. This is goodbye, Sue.’
‘Is it, now?’ she said. Her face turned very hard in that moment and she looked ugly and bitter. Fred recoiled a little.
‘Is it?’ she repeated. ‘No, not so easy, my fine sir with your fine conscience. Now maybe is the time to let you into a little secret or two. You don’t remember me, do you? You don’t remember Bessie and her daughter either. No, that’s all buried and forgotten and paid off, isn’t it?’
He stared at her and felt almost faint. Bessie! What on earth had Bessie to do with it? And how did this wretched woman know about his past like this?
Sue stood, hands on her hips and smiled at him with an air of satisfaction.
‘Now that gave you a surprise, didn’t it?’
‘Who are you?’ he asked. ‘Who the hell are you? How do you know these things?’
‘You were a right young sprig, my dear, as fond of the wine bottle then, I recall, as you are now. I remember you coming along to the kitchen one night and you had your eye on that slattern Bessie for some reason. She was such a stupid girl. She could have made something of all that but went whinging to the mistress and then to you. She should have come to you straight off and got more out of it. As for me, I left you to it, humping that squalling idiot on the floor. But I remembered and said not a word. I just kept my eye on what happened and stored it away for when it might come in useful. It’s a habit I’ve kept up all my life and mighty profitable it’s turned out to be, too.’
The past rose before him like some horrible miasma of pain, regret and shame. He cast his head down and groaned.
‘Yes, you may well be upset. Bessie had your child, didn’t she? And she got herself a bloke and took the kid away from the Foundling Hospital and went off with her. But I kept in touch with her and when the kid was about seven, I took her off with me into service at a place in Marybone. And we’ve been together ever since. Well, you’ve guessed it, haven’t you?’
‘Are you saying… what are y
ou saying? That Jessaline… ?’
‘Is your daughter, my dear. But she doesn’t know it. Only I know it.’
Chapter 28
Fred sat down heavily on a chair and stared into space. Sue regarded him with a little smile of pleasure and triumph on her face.
‘I’ve so looked forward to telling you this some day,’ she said, ‘and here you are, let yourself in for it. No, my smart gent, you aren’t leaving me that easy. You may not want to fuck me any more, for which I can only be grateful as you’re no fun at all, but you won’t stop buying me pictures; any pictures I want, I shall have. Or else your missus will know of it all. And if she doesn’t care, then maybe the rest of the world may. Tommie and me, we’ll tell all society you’ve been having your own daughter. You could end up in prison. Jess will do anything I say and she’ll swear blind you have.’
‘No-one will believe such a thing! God, how terrible! Thankfully I didn’t make love to her,’ he added in a faint whisper.
‘Oh, they’ll believe it all right. Mud sticks, don’t it? They’ll tittle and tattle as they do, these fine ladies, having nothing better to pass their time, and it will spread through all the posh drawing rooms. They’ll look at you like you were a pariah.’
‘Why do you want to ruin me like this – what have I ever done to you?’
‘I hate your sort, that’s why. You people that are full of fine talk and pictures and being noble and all that when your hearts are black as the sewers. Who are you to set yourselves up to preach to us common folk? Like that Mr. Ruskin… he’s a fine one for sure, who couldn’t even make it with his own wife, or anything else from all accounts, but likes to tell us “common” folks what we should do and not do.’
‘How can you speak so when he has begun a Working Men’s College and cares for people by trying to bring something finer into their lives? Must everyone be brought to your disgusting, mercenary level?’ Fred said angrily.
‘Men like him don’t understand or give a toss for working men. They’ve never worked in their lives. Real work, I mean, toiling till their shoulders ache and their mouths are dry, doing dangerous stuff on roads and bridges and in sewers, building ships. Because a man who works like this goes to the pub for a few drinks afterwards, the dear souls throw up their hands in horror. They don’t know what a day’s real honest toil is and how little you get at the end of it. There they sit in their smart, fancy houses, writing their meaningless, selfish stuff, fretting over their poems and pictures like your Mr Rossetti and Mr Hunt and the likes. I hate you all!’
He was silenced by her bitterness. She had her reasons and they arose from her own degradation as far as he was concerned. He was little moved by her diatribe. All he knew was that she was saying Jessaline was his daughter and it must be so. She knew all the facts about Bessie and his dishonourable conduct with her, even about the Foundling Institute. He tried to think of Jessaline as his child and wondered what he should do. Should he speak to Ellie and confess everything? That seemed the best course. Then if he threw himself upon her kindness and forgiveness, to hell with the rest of the world and its opinions, he could weather it as Ruskin had weathered the comments and judgements of society over his impotent marriage. He had after all done nothing that any other man before had not done and was still doing. Men tampered with their servants all the time by most accounts. Surely, no one would believe he had tampered with Jessaline and if they did, they would think he had done so in ignorance. Or would they?
‘You’ll not browbeat me, Mrs Witherspoon,’ he said grimly, ‘Thankfully, Jessie doesn’t know anything about the fact that you think I’m her father.’
‘Oh, don’t worry, you’re her father all right. And you owe her, don’t you? She’s been cheated of her place in society. Can you not find some way to better her future besides modelling for some stupid artist here and there? Can’t you settle a sum on her? I don’t ask for myself. I ask for her. She’s young and she needs to be taken care of and you have a duty to perform to your own child.’
‘I have made a settlement on her long ago, through her mother.’
Yet if it was true, he did feel he owed the girl something. How strange that he should have come across her as he did that night. That she too was drawn to him in turn. Had it all been set up to trap him? He pondered the idea but no, that meeting with Jessaline had been pure chance, no one could have known of his intention to go out that night. She must later have mentioned his real name to Sue, who saw an opportunity to set him up. If only he had never gone out at all. If only Ellie had been at home. He half blamed her for not being there as good wife should be. She was always elsewhere, always abandoning him to his own darkness and depravity. He needed a steady hand to lift him out of all this.
For the moment, he was trapped and had no idea where to turn or what to do. He looked at Sue with loathing but she merely smiled a little, her arms folded, the dog seated on her lap, baring its little teeth and growling at him as if sensing his anger and unpleasant intentions.
‘You needn’t try anything funny, either,’ she said. ‘I have my protectors. And Oldham knows all about you too and he’ll make a regular song and dance. I’m not asking a lot. Not asking for money. Just bring me that Turner you got the other day. That’ll do for now. ‘
Ellie wondered of late what was wrong with Fred. He was in a very withdrawn and dark humour, his normally cheerful face creased with worried frowns. Her beloved father, Joshua, had died a week ago. Her heart was very heavy and she yearned for some consolation, a shoulder to lean on. She had spent the last month in Oxford, waiting on Joshua, constantly by his bedside. With her own hand she had fed him as he lay helpless and feeble upon the pillows. Her arm about his shoulders, she would raise up his now light, porous form while she spooned the broth into his mouth with loving care.
He looked so weak and shrunken in his illness and she knew he was in pain. Yet not a murmur of complaint arose from him. He smiled at her a little. When he spoke, it was in a voice that was nothing like the strong voice of Joshua Farnham but rather some fading echo of what he had been.
‘Thank you, Ellie, dear good girl.’
Even this was too much effort but he said it often, always thanking her, always quiet and patient and humble. She felt the tears streaming down her face despite her efforts to be composed and calm.
‘Don’t leave me, Papa,’ she murmured one day, thinking him asleep.
He opened his eyes and gave her his weak smile.
‘I’ll be with Maria again… won’t leave you, Ellie. We’ll both watch over you.’
‘Oh, Papa… I want you here!’
‘Can’t stay forever, none of us… we just get too tired.’
She watched his eyes close again and he fell into a gentle slumber. Tired with watching and waiting, she also fell asleep in the chair by his bed. When she awoke, she felt a strange sense of stillness in the room and rising up quickly, her heart pounding, went to him and looked at his face and was amazed at how smooth and peaceful it looked. She knew then that the spirit had departed his body and that he was, as he had hoped and yearned, with his beloved wife, Maria.
Ellie returned home to the joy of her children, glad and happy to be with her little ones again. The house had run smoothly enough in her absence but something was different and she had no idea quite what it was, simply sensed an atmosphere, especially when Fred was around. He was irritable, moody and impossible to talk to these days. He didn’t seem to care about her father’s death except in the most perfunctory and practical manner while she felt close to tears all the time.
Once he would have been there when she needed him, comforting, warm and secure but now it was as if he had drawn away from her. It didn’t do to let the children see her grief and so she had to smother it within when they were around. It would have been so consoling to join her husband in the parlour of an evening and talk with him, sense his kindly presence even if nothing was said. Many an evening Fred was either out and she had no idea where he went, or els
e he was at home but went straight to his study and absorbed himself in papers and books.
He seemed to be writing poetry again. She kept finding wrinkled up scraps of paper on the floor. This was so strange. Fred never made a mess, hated things out of place. One evening, she picked up one of the pieces of paper and smoothing it out, read:
… It’s a dark place with howling
Grief and pain and weeping
Old ghosts come swirling up
To greet you, take you back…
Another piece read thus:
There is a bond in some dark secret part of me
That’s part of you, a canker in your soul as well From our first glance, first touch on secret places known to me Your dark, my dark, confused and mingling dwell…
This was strange sentiment. Very strange. She frowned and wondered.
She could only suppose one thing – that there was some other woman in his life.
She came in the study one day to find him staring moodily into space. His face looked drawn and tired and she was puzzled. What had happened to her smiling, easy-going husband? What was it that seemed to eat him from within? She was afraid that he might be ill and this frightened her. Nothing must happen to her Fred. She couldn’t bear it if anything was to happen to him too.
‘Dearest, what is it?’ she asked going over to him and putting her cool hands on his brow.
He flinched at the touch of her hands.
‘What is it, Fred?’ she repeated, alarmed. ‘Are you unwell?’
He roused himself with difficulty. ‘I’m tired, Ellie. Just had a busy day, that’s all. I mean to retire early tonight.’
‘Would you like some supper brought to your room?’
‘No. I’m not really hungry. I thank you, my love.’
She continued to look at him with sad, questioning eyes that bored into him.
I am unworthy, was what Fred wanted to say to his wife. I am unworthy to be touched by your pure, lovely hands.
He had just returned from Sue’s chambers and despite scrubbing himself so clean that his skin still tingled with the rawness of it, he felt foul inside himself. Every time he was with her, he secretly scrutinised the woman for any telltale blisters or pustules that might give away some foul disease. He became more and more terrified of the idea that he could pass something terrible onto his innocent wife. He had heard of such things happening when men went whoring. Why did he desire those awful things he still allowed Sue to perform? Why? It was bestial of him.
Loretta Proctor Page 24