Nobody ever questioned that I am Mrs. Grimsby here. I have had to be careful, always, every day, watch every step I take, every word I speak.
But I am used to it. And I always liked being a woman. It always came naturally enough to me. I am better at being a woman than most women I know. And I am certainly better at being a woman than at being a man.
I am Nathaniel’s wife here.
It is the first time in almost two years that we meet someone who knows what I was before, and what I still am, and I am scared. What will Henry see? What will he treat me like? Like a whore? Like a comical female impersonator? Can he accept me as his old friend’s chosen one, no questions asked? It seems too much to hope for. I am just a whore after all. I have nothing at all. No name, no fine manners but what I picked up here and there. I can’t imagine that this man with his great house in Chelsea will think much of me.
Nathaniel does. But Nathaniel is something else. There is nobody in the world like him.
When the pony trap trundles up the hill to our gate, I am almost sick with apprehension and then I am almost sick again, with astonishment and disbelieving relief when Henry sweeps me into a sort of brotherly hug, and then kisses my hand, like a proper lady.
“Gabrielle,” he whispers. “It is a pleasure.”
“And you,” I say, almost voiceless with nerves. “Come in.”
It is a little while before we go in, however. There is an inordinate amount of luggage, a portmanteau, two suitcases, a rather dainty looking hatbox, and about twenty heavy crates that must be piled in the porch until we can sort them out.
“Those are for you,” Henry says to Nathaniel, who is obviously as puzzled as I am. “And this,” he says, handing me a slim envelope, “is for you. A small token of my affection.”
As Nathaniel shows Henry to his room, so he can change and refresh himself, I open the envelope, standing alone in the middle of the silent dining room. I can’t read very well, but well enough to make sense of the newspaper cutting that slips out of it: it is the obituary of Lord Christopher Stanbury.
When Nathaniel comes down again, alone, he frowns. “Is everything all right? Darling, you look wholly pale.”
I pass him the cutting, and his eyes go wide as he reads.
“My God. Well, I am not going to cry for him.”
“Me neither. In case you wondered.”
He makes a face at that. But then he looks uncertain. “You know that means that we—that you—could go back to England, if you like.”
“Why would I? There is nothing for me there. Nothing at all. Only bad memories.”
“Only bad memories?” he asks kindly, and I smile at him.
“One or two good ones also. But they are all of you, and you are here. I don’t want to go back there.”
Interestingly enough, I know with absolute certainty that it is the truth, even if I have been bored here, at times, when Nathaniel was busy down at the port, painting marinas. And yet, I suddenly know that I don’t want to leave.
“Are you sure? I know it’s a little dull here. For you. And also. You would be safe now there. If you would like to, you know, live on your own.”
He says it like he’s drawing a rib from his chest. His eyes are wide and crazy, and empty, like an abyss is opening under him as he speaks.
I look at him like I never saw him before. I blink, astonished.
I drop the empty envelope on the floor and take both his hands in mine. “Is that what you think?”
But right then Henry comes down the stairs like a ton of bricks, and I have to turn and smile.
****
Dinner is a chaotic, bohemian affair, as it usually is in this house, with Amelia disappearing mid-meal to go home and the rest of the dishes carried in and out by me or Nathaniel, while Henry exclaims in delight at each thing he’s fed, as well he may. Amelia, perhaps in an attempt to be forgiven for her tendency to run after the sheep boy, has outdone herself, shopped the best that the market had to offer and laid out a menu worthy of the mayor’s house, dumpling soup, noodles with river herrings, fresh salad, pike in garlic marinade, stuffed duck, three different kinds of cake, and a fruit salad to close.
It’s hard to believe that less than two years ago I almost starved to death. Now I must take care not to overeat, or I’ll never fit into my fine black dress again.
She has promised more culinary wonders for the next days, including what she calls pastissada de caval, the traditional local horse stew. That makes my two fine gentlemen look a bit green around the gills. If they had eaten some of the things I ate in Whitechapel they would not be so delicate.
Still, even Henry is impressed.
“This girl … this girl is a pearl, a jewel. Eighteen you say? And that pretty? And so talented? By God, Nathaniel, let me take her to London with me! I will marry her if you insist!”
Eventually I leave the two friends to their banter and their reminiscing. There are few things more tedious than listening to old schoolboys going on about stuff that happened twenty years ago, a thousand miles away.
I don’t particularly feel like “retiring”, like a good lady. I am just exhausted, and full of a sort of sorrow. By the time Nathaniel comes up to bed I am deep asleep. When I wake up some time in the dark and find his warm body close to mine, I hug him tight, despite the heat of the night.
****
The next day we all three walk down to the village early in the day. Nathaniel is still painting his marina, and Henry and I watch him working for a while before going off for a stroll along the lakefront, towards Punta San Vigilio. Henry draws my hand in the crook of his arm, and I shoot him a slightly surprised look.
“So,” he says after a while, “How are you two love-birds doing, really? Are you quite happy in your little bower? I asked Nathaniel, of course, and all I get is an ecstatic stare, and something I didn’t quite catch, Shakespeare by the sound of it. Give me some kind of rational answer, be a good child.”
“Very happy,” I say. I try to keep calm. Nathaniel loves me. Nobody can take that away from me, not even his rich old friend. He is studying me intently under the brim of his straw hat.
“Quite happy? Really? Gabrielle, may I ask you something? As a friend?”
“Of course.”
“Do you love him?”
“Yes. Yes, I do, very much.”
“Do you, really?”
“Yes.”
He looks shrewdly at me, and finally smiles.
“I am happy to hear it. I truly am. For both of you.” He pats my hand like a sort of gallant uncle, and finally I relax a little, feeling like I just passed some difficult test.
“You know,” I say, slowly. “There was a time, in London, and even later, when I loved him mostly because he loved me.”
He shrugs. “There are far worse reasons for loving a person, my dear.”
“Yes. I suppose so. Still, it feels … ungenerous. Now, looking back. And you?”
“Me?”
“Why do you love him?”
“Come again?”
“Oh, don’t play coy with me. It takes one to know one, and you, sir, are as queer as I am. All that flummery about the cook. I know a smokescreen when I see one.”
I can’t help laughing at his confusion. But if we are to be friends now, we might as well talk frankly.
He finally shakes his head, looking away, towards the dark cypresses on Punta San Vigilio.
“I love him because he’s the genuine article, you know? He lives for his art, and what’s far, far more remarkable, his art lives for him. It’s all real to him, you know? He finds the magic where you or I would have seen only a tree or a weed, or, forgive me, a whore. Half of that magic comes out of him, but he doesn’t know it, I think. He has this … vision. He’s not one of the great prophets, maybe. We are all small men living in paltry times. Rossetti might have been one of the great, mark my word. Mad as a March hare, of course. The good ones always are. Even so, Nathaniel … he sees things in ways th
at you and I don’t. I never had that. I wanted to, but I didn’t. And he has it. I always tried to shelter him, to give him a place where he could just create. You could say I create vicariously, through him. A small achievement perhaps, but I do take pride in it. Years ago, we traveled together, you know? He was always leaving things everywhere.”
That makes me smile. He still does it, when he’s really taken up by a painting.
“His keys, his jacket, his hat,” adds Henry, but fondly. “Even his damn shoes. What sort of man forgets his shoes? Admittedly that was summer, in Greece. It was always warm. I ran after him with his things, all the time, so he didn’t have to worry about them. Just so he could go on painting and drawing. Seeing his visions, and putting them on paper, for the rest of us.”
“Do you hate me?” I ask in the silence that follows.
“What? What? Why?”
“Because he came away from England for me. Away from you, and everything. And because I am … not posh. I am not like him, or you. I can’t even read, almost. And because I am … the way I am.”
“My dear, my dear. No. I hope I am a little more enlightened than that. And you too have something I never had.”
“Which is?”
“A perfectly delicious arse, to begin with, and everything else to match, if you don’t mind me saying so. I saw the pictures, you know? But no. The thing is, you fire him up. I see the way he looks at you. But more importantly, I see the way he paints you. You didn’t bring him away, my dear. You brought him back. I can assure you, I could not do that. Because, among other things, unlike me and you, Nathaniel is certainly not queer. Except for you.”
“You think so?” I ask, genuinely curious. I was never sure of that.
“Oh, yes, I am fairly sure.”
“Fancy,” I say, impressed, and he gives a small snort of laughter.
“You do know about Eleanor?”
“Who’s Eleanor?” Nathaniel doesn’t talk about his past a lot. Neither do I. Perhaps we should.
“She was this girl he painted for some years… He claims to this day that he didn’t love her. Of course, he did, poor confounded soul. He loved her, and would have married her, if he had had any common sense. But he didn’t. He has plenty of sense, but not of the common sort. He didn’t want to mix up heart and art. He might have done the same mistake with you. He’s a bit of an idealist. Good thing he had to come and rescue you. Snapped him out of his fantasies a little, which is a good thing.”
He shakes his head, rather amused, I think. But then he goes serious again.
“I thought I had lost him, you know? He was locked in a place where I couldn’t reach him. I thought that he’d do himself a mischief soon or late. I have been afraid for him, you know? Very afraid. And you brought him back. And I love you for it. I truly do. And as for the reading, and all that, what’s stopping you from learning, now? Nathaniel will be only glad to teach you. Don’t be too proud to ask.”
I pull a face, then, and he pats my hand again.
“He will never blame you for not being posh. I don’t think he cares at all. I think he sees things on a different plane entirely. And let me tell you, I have known girls of excellent families with not a tenth, no, not a hundredth of your class. It’s not all in Nathaniel’s head, you know? You really are a stunner. But there’s nothing wrong with improving yourself, as they say. It sounds rather revolting, I agree. But why not? You have a fine brain in there, I am pretty sure of that, and you have a chance to do something with it. Most whores don’t get that. I am sure you know it better than I do. Why not take it? You’d just be standing in your own way.”
I frown, and make a sort of growling noise and then, despite myself, I give him a grudging, rueful smile.
“That’s the spirit,” he says. “But you will be good, now, won’t you? You will not make him unhappy?” he asks, earnestly.
“I have no wish to make him unhappy.”
“Good. Because I’d be very angry. And you don’t want to see me angry.”
“No indeed. When you artistic, poetic types get angry you don’t do it by halves.”
“We never do anything by half.”
“I noticed,” I say smiling fondly at him, and he smiles back.
It is a beautiful, beautiful walk to Punta San Vigilio and back, and I seldom enjoyed it so much.
****
Nathaniel
The crates, as it turns out, are full of books. All of my old books, and a number of new ones, at least new to me, that Henry picked up in London and Paris.
How can any grown man be so overcome by being reunited with a Keats so battered that half of Hyperion slips out of the binding as I lift it from the box, a Tennyson so worn out that the front cover hangs loose by a thread, a Paradise Lost so often thumbed that its old pages open of their own accord at a favorite line, like an old friend, “…with submiss approach and reverence meek,—As to a superior nature, bowing low,— Thus said: “Native of Heaven (for other place—None can than Heaven such glorious Shape contain)…”?
“You must have some bookshelves made,” says Gabrielle, walking up behind me, jolting me out of my reverie.
“Really? Must I?” I say turning to look up at her from where I sit, on the ground, by the open crates and the books scattered in tottering piles all over the floor of the corridor.
“Yes,” she says, coming to lay her hands on my shoulders. Then she ruffles my hair, as if it’s not ruffled enough all the time, and bends to kiss me. “I will not have books scattered all over the floor of our house.”
She looks at me with a particular intensity in those incredible eyes, and I am left speechless.
“Dinner is ready, by the way,” she adds, kissing my lips again.
We walk into the dining room together, to be joined by Henry. It’s only later, when Amelia has left, that Gabrielle asks Henry about Stanbury.
“Well, the official version is that he had an accident while loading his gun,” says Henry, shooting her a glance over his wine glass. “We all know about that kind of accidents, however.”
She nods.
“And,” says Henry very slowly, “there are rumors, in some circles. Very nasty rumors.”
We both wait in petrified silence.
“There was this very pretty boy who was found in Pinchin Street, last April. Found dead. Well, let’s say, most of him was found, and not very pretty anymore. Oh, there was no connection of course. But, of course, that’s the sort of scab the police might not want to scratch too deep. Stanbury was very close to some very exalted personages, after all. Still. There’s some who wonder. The killer hasn’t been found, but there have been some people brought in for questioning. And, well, Lord Stanbury was not always quite as discreet as he liked to think. It was no secret that he liked to find his pleasures in rather dodgy places. He thought his night trips to the East End were his secret. But they weren’t.”
I feel sick. Gabrielle looks close to tears, or to vomiting, or both.
“I apologize. Hardly dinner table conversation. I am sorry.”
“No, I asked,” says Gabrielle weakly. “Jesus Christ. That boy might have been me.”
I take her hand over the tablecloth, and hold it tight, and she holds tight to mine.
“Well, thank God it wasn’t you, my dear,” says Henry, refilling her glass and his, and then mine. “Cheers.”
We do utter a somewhat tremulous toast and drink, but even as the talk moves to less dreary subjects Gabrielle still holds my hand, until we get up to clear the table and lay out cake, and a bottle of grappa, the local brandy. It is so strong that whisky feels like small beer in comparison, and it puts some heart back into all three of us.
Later I go up to bed, a little after Gabrielle, and find Gabriel instead.
“Hey,” he says.
I can tell he’s Gabriel by his voice, mostly.
He’s sitting naked in bed, smoking a cigarette, surrounded by a spread of drawings everywhere, as if a westerly gale had just taken
a portfolio by storm.
As I go to sit on the edge of the bed, in the candlelight, I realize it’s my earliest drawings of Gabrielle, the ones I made in Dartrey Road, and left in London when we escaped in a hurry. Henry brought all my old drawings together with the books.
“Can you believe this happened?” asks Gabriel slowly, between two puffs of smoke.
“That what happened?” I ask, picking up one of the sketches. It is one of the very first, when I still was trying to understand the depth and intensity of those eyes, and the incredible lines and volumes of those eyebrows, the way they cast mobile shadows on the eyelids. The drawing looks inept to me now that I know all this so much better. But it was the opening of my life, of my future. Or so I hope.
“Can you believe that you found me. And you saw me. A whore. In the dark, by a gaslight, in that fucking fog and rain we had all the fucking time.”
“You shone out to me. I’d have seen you anywhere,” I say, caressing his hair, tucking it behind his ear to see his face.
“And I didn’t. See you. I was so damn thick.”
“Well, admittedly, there is not much to see, in my case,” I say, putting my head on his shoulder, to look at the drawing he’s holding.
“Of course there is. You dummy. But I only noticed because you made these.” He waves his slender hand in a sweeping arc, encompassing all the images of Gabrielle that surround us like a staring crowd. “It was incredible. It still is. I was nothing to anybody, just a conveniently packaged butthole and a pair of clever hands. And then you come along, and you turn me into this … magical being. And somehow, even after coming to know me, you still believe that I am this pure, mystical creature.”
“You are. To me. It’s wonderful. It’s a little scary. It’s like you are the only thing that’s really alive to me,” I say, softly, and he finally turns away from the drawings to look at me.
“And do you really think I’d want to go back to England? Or anywhere? Without you? Without this?”
“I don’t know. I just wondered, a little. If you just—if you just stayed because there was nowhere else for you to go. I hoped it was not the case. But I was not sure.”
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