Some instinct moved him to go up to the bed and feel beneath the pillow. His hand closed upon a little book, which he drew forth. It was a little pocket bible. He was surprised by this. Ellie had never seemed very bent on praying or reading out of the bible more than was considered right and proper.
A piece of yellowing paper fluttered out of the leaves and Fred bent to retrieve it. His heart suddenly constricted with pain as he recognised the Dillinger seal upon it.
With trembling hands, he opened up the almost crumbling paper and read the words…
Dearest, I am driven half-mad with grief after seeing you and learning how we have in some cruel manner been parted, kept away from one another. I am in despair! How could you marry another; desert me? We must meet one more time at least, speak to each other, renew our love. I know you still care. I see it and feel it, you cannot pretend with me. May I call on you tomorrow at 10 am after breakfast? It may be the only time available to me. You must allow me to come, you must!
He frowned. The words seemed peculiar, the undated paper old and tired, scarcely a recent note. Yet it was certainly from Lord Dillinger, the writing was similiar though a larger scrawl than his normal style, more fervent and hurried as befitted the feelings expressed. He had sent it to her a long time ago and for reasons of her own, she had cherished it. There was no mistake – it declared his love for Ellie. Yet, something seemed wrong. Fred found it hard to imagine Dillinger using such youthful and passionate terms. It was a mystery but it proved one thing. Ellie was not the pure creature he had always assumed her to be. She had had a dalliance with Dillinger of some sort and his worst suspicions were realised.
Chapter 32
It transpired that Mrs Tippy Winstone was expecting a child very soon, which went some way to explain the haste with which the young couple had married and moved out of those frightful lodgings by the docks. Fred had suspected something of the sort. He was glad because it meant that Henry was at last obliged to remove himself from that insalubrious area and settle himself down in a decent home with a pleasant young wife. Tippy had shaped up nicely and did her very best to conduct herself in a ladylike manner.
‘Gabriel and Lizzie are still stuck at Blackfriars, I hear,’ Henry informed Fred and Ellie when they came round to dinner one evening in the new abode. ‘He says he can’t find a suitable house round your way and so he’s renting both of the first floor apartments at Chatham Place and has made them into one. He’s far too fussy though I suspect the fault lies with Lizzie who claims she is always so unwell. Can’t think what the matter is with the girl. She was well enough to go to France, that’s for sure and seems to be forever gadding off somewhere or other. I consider it to be a crafty ploy to keep Gabriel in order. As for myself, I’m delighted to have found this beautiful house here by Chelsea Bridge. It has a fine view, is bright and cheerful and has no foul smells to trouble the baby when it’s born.’
‘I can’t believe you’re going to be a father,’ said Ellie with a smile.
Henry pulled Tippy towards him and patted her belly hidden now beneath the folds of a loose gown. ‘Well, I am – and delighted with the idea. Always been envious of you and Fred. You have a happy married life, lovely children and a pleasant home. You two seem to fall into a bed of roses by doing very little. You were born lucky.’
Fred smiled but in his guts, he felt a twist as if a hand had grabbed the entrails and was pulling them out.
Ellie also smiled but she too had inner reservations. She looked over at Fred and caught the look that passed over his face for a moment. Bending her eyes back to her plate, she became thoughtful.
Henry, however, was full of bonhomie and pleasure. This was Tippy’s first proper dinner party and he was delighted with the arrangements she had made. The meal she had ordered to be served was simple but substantial and well cooked. A good sirloin of beef and all its trimmings was brought in after the fish and soup and Henry felt happy to be able to serve so good a meat at his table these days. Tippy had brought him luck and his pictures were selling well. No need for either of them to be so frugal any more though Tippy knew well how to manage on little. But the days of nothing but boiled mutton bones for soup was well over now.
He stood at the head of the table with his carving knife and carved off thick, tender slices. The aroma filled the air in a savoury manner and his guests looked most appreciative. The room was filled with fresh flowers and the glass and few bits of silver sparkled. Tippy seemed to be taking to her role of housewife with gusto and the two servants they had engaged, a cook and housemaid, respected her orders without fuss. Henry considered he had made a very sensible and happy choice in Tippy. She, looking at her husband across the table, felt the same about him and reflected back his smiles and joy.
‘Tippy looks well, doesn’t she?’ continued Henry whose pride was bursting out in all directions. She did indeed look beautiful, her blue eyes bright and clear, her wanton golden locks pulled back now into a net at the nape of her neck as befitted a sensible matron-to-be.
‘Well, here’s to us all. Long may we prosper!’ said Henry raising his glass of wine and the others raised theirs too with varying degrees of enthusiasm.
After the meal, Henry showed Fred and Ellie over the house, which he was furnishing with miscellaneous items picked up in antique dealers’ rooms.
‘Mother gave us this cabinet. She said it belonged to my father,’ he said, ‘and that amazing old Chinese chest was something I picked up for a few shillings. Makes the place look interesting. Half the chaps I know are collecting blue china but Tippy doesn’t care for it so I haven’t bothered to look any out. Instead we like to collect silver when we can get it cheap. Tippy likes silver, don’t you, pet?’
‘It looks so pretty and shiny when it’s polished up,’ she said. ‘I used to hate to polish brass and silver when I worked in a big house as a youngster. Now I can ask the maid to do it.’
‘You can indeed,’ said Henry fondly, ‘you’ll never have to polish anyone’s silver again, dear heart. You’re a lady now and I want you to enjoy it for all its worth.’
‘You promised me that I would have my own maid one day and now I have,’ said Tippy contentedly. She looked around at the elegant, comfortable surroundings.
‘Sometimes, it feels like a dream,’ she mused, ‘that this home is all my own, that I have my dear Henry and soon will have my baby. Who would have thought little Tippy Jennings would one day live in such splendour?’
‘Does it make you so very happy, Tippy?’ asked Fred.
She looked at him for a long time, giving the question serious thought.
‘Mr Thorpe, it may sound like I just want all these comforts and material things,’ she said at last, ‘but I love my Henry, I really do. My happiness is being with him and I would have been content living in a hut. But all this is nice!’ she added with a merry laugh, ‘all this is very nice too!’
She turned to Ellie. Tippy considered Fred’s elegant lady to be miles above her in station. In vain, Ellie asked her to call her by her first name. Tippy could not bring herself to do so; it embarrassed her.
‘Mrs Thorpe,’ she said, ‘Henry and I would love you both to be godparents to our child. I hope you are agreeable?’
‘Why, Tippy, that would be a delight for us both,’ said Ellie and Fred concurred with a nod and a smile. ‘When is the little one due to arrive?’
‘In a month,’ said Tippy, unabashed at the thought that her wedding ring was scarcely two months old. ‘We have everything ready. Come and see how well we have designed the nursery. It’s all fixed up by my brother, Jimmy. He’s very good at woodwork and the like. If you ever need anyone to build you a nice piece of furniture, you ask our Jimmy.’
‘I’ll remember that,’ said Fred.
‘He is good,’ said Henry, ‘a real craftsman. I think William Morris may well take him on when he starts his new business venture into furnishings.’
While Ellie was upstairs, looking at the nursery arrangements,
Henry showed Fred the large, bright room that he had converted into a studio.
‘I want to show you the painting I said I would attempt. It is, I hope, to be my chef d’oeuvre – my masterpiece. Inspiration pours through me again and it almost feels as if the brush and the paint flow over the canvas without my conscious effort. Come and see.’
The painting was sketched onto the prepared white ground and several major portions already painted in detail. The canvas stood six feet tall and five wide, certainly the largest work Henry had attempted so far. Most of the figure leaning over a parapet was finished, all the hair and flesh tones done and the white drapery just beginning. The main parts of the background were now painted in also so that the effect of the finished picture could be easily comprehended. It was Tippy, in all her beauty, her golden hair streaming out in the wind as she leant there and gazed out over a choppy, fathomless sea. There was an immensity of falling space, a vertiginous descent from the precipice over which Tippy leant her slender body. It was almost terrifying, drawing the eye into the depths of those grey-green waters tossing a long, long way below. In the distance was a lighthouse and a ship, looking like a toy, bobbed far away in the distance yet steadily approaching the ragged cruel rocks before it. Though half-finished, the picture seemed to toss and move with the waves and the fierce wind that blew the girl’s hair as she anxiously watched the ship’s approach.
Fred was lost in admiration. ‘Come and see this, Ellie, ‘ he called and Ellie joined them now and all exclaimed on the design and admired the beautiful, careful brushwork, the sense of perspective and the colours that were forming under Henry’s hand.
‘This will make you famous, Henry,’ said Fred, ‘this is a luminous piece of work. Dramatic, unusual in its perspective… brilliant, just brilliant. I look forward to seeing it finished. By God, you’ll storm them with this!’
Fred felt downhearted. He had intended to set up a gallery with John Woolveridge in Knightsbridge. It was an idea that appealed to him greatly. He wanted to use it as a setting for all the jewels of art that his artist friends would produce. He also wanted to encourage Ellie to display her own paintings. She was developing an interesting and unique style, the themes mainly those PreRaphaelite favourites such as the Arthurian subjects and scenes from Shakespeare and Greek mythology. Lately she had made the move from ‘feminine’ watercolour to oils and was now painting large and complex canvases. This was something Fred had never managed to achieve and he felt great admiration for her unbounded imagination and the vast scope she seemed able to encompass. Her speciality was detailed drapery and architecture and yet her pictures always had a sense of otherworldliness about them that captured the eye and held it whilst appealing to the emotions as well.
Sadly, however, the deal had fallen through. Woolveridge, as Ellie had suspected, was not as reliable as one had supposed. He turned out to have massive gambling debts and was declared bankrupt. The fellow crept away up north somewhere in shame, never to be heard of again.
‘You always trust the wrong people,’ said Ellie, when Fred broke her the news, ‘I hope you haven’t lost too much money on this venture.’
‘Thankfully no, we hadn’t got as far as that although I had found some splendid premises that would have made a truly magnificent little gallery,’ sighed Fred, ‘but I don’t intend to give up. I shall see if anyone else can be enticed by the idea and has some capital to spare.’
‘I like to see you enthused. I’m sure you will find a suitable person at your club.’
‘I already have someone in mind, a man called Johnson, apparently very sound and with good business sense—’
‘Which you could do with,’ murmured Ellie behind her hand.
‘—and who has the same opinions as I have about the Royal Academy,’ he went on, frowning at his wife. ‘I want both your work and Henry’s work displayed at its best where people can see it, not miles up on the giddy heights of the Royal Academy walls where one has to lie on the floor to view those pictures hung near the ceiling. It’s nonsensical and unfair that all the usual, boring favourites get the best place to hang their work. The newcomers don’t stand a chance.’
Ellie was remorseful. ‘You’re so sweet, Fred, you really want to make my name as an artist and I thank you for that. Does it not make you regretful that you gave up painting yourself?’
‘No,’ he said decidedly, ‘I have no regrets, Ellie. Your work surpasses mine by a million miles. You are the artist. I am the admirer. I always knew in my heart that my talent lay in poetry rather than art. ‘
‘Yes, indeed. Your little book of poems is doing very well.’
‘The first two hundred sold out in a day,’ he agreed, ‘and Macmillan’s are about to do a reprint. You see, that is what gives me immense satisfaction. No, we have never been in competition, dearest, we both are creative in the ways that suit us best.’
‘Your recent poetry is very different, isn’t it?’
‘You think so? In what manner?’
Ellie looked at him for a long time before replying. Fred felt a flush rise on this cheek and a sudden sense of panic.
‘I feel,’ Ellie said slowly, ‘I feel that you have experienced pain of late which you won’t confide in me. It has matured you, deepened you as a man. Pain and suffering have always been the vat into which we must be plunged at some time; they can have a peculiarly cleansing effect on the nature.’
He remained silent. Ellie smiled and came over to him and kissed his cheek.
‘There’s no need to say anything,’ she said, ‘we all have secret places in our heart.’
She turned and left the room.
Chapter 33
… Behold, there is no breath,
I and this Love are one and I am Death
Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Death-in-Love
Sometimes Fred wondered if Henry’s dramatic new picture had grown from some inner sense of doom, a prediction of approaching disaster. On Henry’s insistence, Tippy had been taken to the Lying-in Hospital when her time approached. She had begun to bleed a little and he felt anxious. However, all appeared to go well and Tippy was delivered of a little girl.
‘We shall call her Eleanor, after you,’ said Tippy when Ellie called to see her.
‘I am delighted, dear Tippy, proud that I shall be Eleanor’s godmother.’
Tippy smiled and looked at the little sleeping bundle in the cot by her bed. The young girl’s face was drawn and tired. She had had a long and painful labour and her insides still felt mangled and messy. But she was happy that little Eleanor looked healthy and suckled well. She was tired but happy.
Ellie took her limp hand and held it for a while.
‘You really must rest,’ she said, ‘it’s been a hard labour. Next time will be much easier.’
‘D’you think so? I’m not sure I want a next time.’
‘We all say that! Thankfully all the pain and bother are forgotten and then it truly is much easier and also one knows what to expect, there’s not the fear of the unknown.’
‘I was afraid, I was. But I never told Henry. He would have worried so much.’
For some reason, Ellie remembered Henry’s painting at that moment. Though she had deeply admired it, she felt a strange sense of doom. She felt something catch at her heart.
‘I think he understood that you were afraid,’ she said, ‘he understood something. Henry is a sensitive man.’
‘He is – but he never said anything. Just as well, maybe, or I’d have been even more alarmed. Oh, Mrs Thorpe, I want to go home so much but the doctor insists I stay here for a little while longer,’ groaned Tippy. She looked around disconsolately at the rows of white beds, the grim-looking nurse with her stiff, starched cap and apron moving around the ward on silent feet. The regimentation of hospital life did not suit her.
‘You’ll soon be home with little Eleanor,’ Ellie said soothingly, ‘then you can run things your way.’
Tippy smiled and said with pride, ‘Henry’s engage
d a nursemaid. Isn’t that wonderful? My poor mother, she had no help, just had to manage everything by herself, all the children, the housework, everything until we girls got old enough to help out. I started off by cleaning all the boots, and washing the vegetables and peeling them when I was four! I’m so glad I haven’t got all that to think of. I wonder how she did it? My poor Ma. I don’t want lots of children like that even though we can afford things that Ma never had. My regret is that I couldn’t help her, give her some comforts in her life. She died when I was ten.’
‘I too lost my mother young,’ said Ellie, ‘but not so young as that. Poor Tippy!’
‘She was a good woman,’ said Tippy. ‘I loved her so much.’
‘And I loved mine. She was wise and beautiful,’ sighed Ellie, ‘my best friend. I miss not being able to share things with her.’
‘You’ve got me,’ said Tippy eagerly, ‘you can talk with me. That’s if you’d like to.’
She said this as if recalling how different their stations and education were in life and Ellie smiled and patted her hand.
‘Only if you start to call me Ellie.’
A little colour flushed into Tippy’s wan cheeks and she glanced down shyly, ‘I will – Ellie.’
‘That’s better. How can we be friends if you are so formal with me? Tippy, there’s no need. We’re both married, had children; we share the common lot of Woman. There’s no difference between us. Only the conventions and restrictions of society. Fred and I have never taken any notice of all that nonsense.’
‘I am grateful for that Mrs… Ellie… I am so grateful, so glad to have you as a friend. I’m really fortunate… my baby, my beloved Henry, my good friends… . so lucky… ‘
Tippy’s eyelids drooped and her head began to roll. Ellie held the young girl’s hand a little longer and as she saw her now fast asleep, gently slid her hand away and rose to go Just then the baby chose to wake and wail for its feed. But Tippy just went on sleeping and baby was obliged to wail till it also fell asleep again from sheer exhaustion.
Loretta Proctor Page 28