Beautiful Lies (37 page)

‘The Shawl Lady,’ Maribel said again. ‘Did she ever write?’

The tone of idle curiosity was more difficult to pull off the second time. Maribel could feel the perspiration under her arms. Charlotte frowned at her.

‘I told you, didn’t I? I am quite sure that I told you.’

‘You didn’t tell me.’

‘This is the lady who came to my rescue at the Academy,’ Charlotte explained to the other ladies. ‘She gave me her shawl so afterwards I naturally wished to return it but, like Cinderella and the glass slipper, I had no idea who she was.’

‘I hope you sent a footman to every house in the kingdom to find the girl it would fit,’ Mrs Norton asked.

Charlotte laughed.

‘Fortunately Maribel is of a more practical bent,’ she said. ‘We left my address with the Academy in case the Shawl Lady enquired. And she must have done, because she came to collect it on Monday.’

‘She was here?’ Maribel said.

‘Well, of course. I should have invited her here earlier if I had had any notion of how to find her.’

Ida had been here. She had been in Charlotte’s house. Maribel thought of her standing in the hall with its polished walnut table and its silver bowl of flowers and the thick curving banister with its coiled finial, and the thought of it changed the taste of the air. Maribel frequently visited on Mondays. If Edward had not been hurt she might have been here, might have sat on this yellow silk sofa and drunk tea with Ida out of Charlotte’s forget-me-not cups.

Except that Ida had always hated tea. Their mother had insisted that she learn to endure it, had considered the drinking of tea a social skill like needlepoint and playing the piano, but Ida had emptied her cup into a pot plant when Mrs Bryant was not looking. Was it possible, Maribel thought suddenly, that Ida had chosen a Monday for her call because she had hoped to find Maribel there too? The idea was fanciful, of course, for there was no way Ida could possibly have known about Maribel’s Mondays, but although she dismissed it as absurd, it left behind a residue of brightness, a faint golden gleam.

‘What kind of a person was she?’ Lady Brooke asked.

‘A doctor’s wife. Quite respectable, if a little patched and darned around the edges.’

Maribel fumbled another cigarette from the case on the table, striking a match, sucking the smoke down hard into her lungs. Like all exquisite pleasures, it was almost pain.

‘Was that sensible?’ Mrs Norton said. ‘I mean, giving out your address like that. She could have been anyone.’

‘Don’t be absurd. It was the Academy, not the Clapham Omnibus.’

‘They allow all sorts of people into the Academy these days.’

‘On the contrary, it turned out that we were practically acquainted,’ Charlotte said. ‘You’ll not believe this, Maribel, but it turns out that the Shawl Lady is none other than Mrs Dr Coffin!’

Maribel coughed so violently that Mrs Norton was obliged to pat her on the back.

‘The unfortunately named Dr Coffin, from the Wild West, the one the boys worked themselves into fits over? The Shawl Lady is his wife. Isn’t that marvellous?’

‘Isn’t it,’ Maribel said faintly.

‘She even apologised that it was her, and not her husband, who had been there to assist me. Apparently he is something of a whizz with broken bones. He once set a cowboy’s leg in the arena in the middle of a show.’

‘Buck Taylor!’ Mrs Norton declared. ‘That was the cowboy’s name, don’t you remember? It was all over the newspapers for days. The West London Hospital had to create a special waiting room because he received so many visitors.’

‘Buck Taylor,’ Lady Brooke agreed. ‘Wasn’t it said that if he died half the housemaids in London would die with him, of broken hearts?’

‘Then thank Heavens for Dr Coffin,’ Charlotte said. ‘It is hard enough to find good servants as it is.’

The ladies laughed. Maribel leaned forwards towards Charlotte.

‘The doctor’s wife,’ she said. ‘Did – did she stay long?’

Charlotte shrugged. ‘No more than half an hour. She seemed in rather a hurry.’

‘Half an hour?’ Mrs Norton said. ‘To collect a shawl? That is no hurry, my dear. I should think she took one look at the house and decided to hold out for a reward.’

‘I told you, she was quite respectable. We talked for a short time. I returned her shawl and, yes, gave her a small token to express my gratitude. Of course I did, she had been very kind. Then she went away.’

‘I don’t suppose she left you her address, did she?’ Maribel said. ‘It’s only – well, I should like to write to her too. To thank her. I should have made a terrible mess of things without her.’

‘That’s nonsense and you know it.’

‘All the same. You have the address?’

‘Actually, no. I never thought to ask her. She has her shawl back, after all, and I already have a rather good doctor of my own.’

Mrs Norton chuckled. Maribel stared into her teacup, trying to compose herself. The raw spot in her stomach burned and she swallowed a mouthful of tea. The liquid tasted sickly, too heavily smoked, like wood ash mixed with syrup. It occurred to her that perhaps she did not much like tea herself. Most certainly she did not like tea like this, thick with boredom and self-satisfaction and a fine puckered milk-skin of disdain. Maribel did not know how Charlotte, who was clever and witty and inquisitive and the dearest person she knew, could endure it. She thought of Edward, who only the previous evening had despaired to her of progress in the House.

‘Members of Parliament are no better than ladies at tea,’ he had raged. ‘Brought up from birth to skirt awkward issues, to leave unfortunate truths unspoken. Infinitely preferable to say nothing, to do nothing, than to display lack of breeding by embarrassing one’s fellow guests.’

Edward was no lady. William Morris, safely in exile on the remote Isle of Socialism, might berate him as too well mannered by half but Edward had never flinched from saying what he believed should be said and, in doing so, he had made himself as unpopular in the House as any Irish member. Now he faced gaol, because the genteel tea-sippers of Westminster were afraid that, if they gave so much as a heel of bread to a starving man, the wretched would rise up as one and take for themselves the wealth of the capitalist classes which their labour had earned.

The conversation had drifted, the Shawl Lady forgotten. Maribel squeezed the tips of her fingers hard between her thumb and index finger, turning them yellow, and prayed for the other ladies to leave so that she might talk to Charlotte alone. Charlotte poured more tea.

‘Will you be well enough to travel to Sussex for Christmas, Mrs Charterhouse?’ Mrs Norton asked.

‘I should go if I were three-quarters dead or answer to the children for the consequences. The Christmas rituals at Oakwood have been polished to a veritable gloss, right down to the order of the stockings on the mantel.’

‘How Arthur must love it,’ Lady Brooke said.

‘You have never seen a man happier. This year he is scheming to dress one of the barns as the stable at Bethlehem. There have been frantic letters for weeks about gaslit stars and the practicability of securing a newborn lamb in the middle of December.’

‘Do you remember the year he decorated the ponies with mistletoe and holly and had them led into the drawing room after lunch like Spanish mules, with all the presents in panniers on their backs?’ Lady Brooke said, shaking her head.

Charlotte laughed. ‘Neither my mother nor the carpet have ever truly recovered.’

Mrs Norton turned to Maribel.

‘Will you spend Christmas in Scotland, Mrs Campbell Lowe?’

Maribel contemplated Mrs Norton and something inside her broke open.

‘Not if my husband is in prison,’ she said.

Mrs Norton’s neck mottled red. She took a sip of tea, choking a little in her haste, and coughed, her fist pressed against her lips. On the mantel the Dresden clock chimed out the hour.

‘You must have read that he has been arrested for his part in Sunday’s protest?’ Maribel asked in the same conversational tone. ‘That he is to stand trial?’

‘Well, of course there has been some – in the newspapers and suchlike – a mention or two –’

‘Assault and unlawful assembly. Those are the charges, even though he was unarmed and attacked without provocation by a policeman who kicked him in the stomach and split open his head. It is most puzzling. Perhaps you can explain to me how an assembly can be deemed unlawful when the Home Secretary has no constitutional power to declare it so?’

‘Maribel, dearest –’

Maribel shook her head at Charlotte.

‘The
Times
has declared my husband a disgrace to the House of Commons because he upholds the legal right of ordinary men to protest, to speak and to be heard. And yet somehow they contrive to feel no shame at the disgrace that nearly half of men in this country are ineligible to vote. The disgrace that Members of Parliament continue to perform their roles unpaid and therefore the vast majority, when they trouble to attend the House at all, do so only to represent the interests of the privileged classes, that nearly one hundred men and women were taken to Hammersmith Hospital with serious injuries last Sunday because the House bestowed upon itself the power to declare a legal meeting illegal and brought in the Life Guards to drive their point home. My husband, a disgrace to the Commons? How dare they? It is the Commons that disgraces him.’

There was an uncomfortable silence. Then Lady Brooke cleared her throat, patting her chest with the tips of her fingers.

‘You have heard, I suppose, that young Archie Stanhope is to marry an American girl?’ she said, leaning towards Charlotte. ‘Pretty as paint and, oh, the pots and pots of money.’

‘Those American girls are a menace,’ Mrs Norton said, rallying. ‘Brandishing their dollars like farmers on market day.’

Maribel set her teacup back on the tray and stood. She was filled with a strange exhilaration.

‘Charlotte dearest, it has been such fun. I do hope I shall have a great deal more time for gay little parties of this kind once my husband is safely behind bars. Until then, I am afraid it is time I went home.’

E
DWARD WAS IN A
good mood. He whistled as he dressed for dinner and, when Maribel went in to him, he took her face between his hands and kissed her full on the lips. Maribel looked at him, at the sleepy contentment that softened his mouth and glowed like sunshine in his brown eyes, and she knew where he had been. She turned away, busying herself with gathering up his socks, the shirt that he had discarded on the floor.

‘Leave those,’ he said. ‘Alice will get them.’

‘It’s no trouble.’

She twisted the clothes into a ball, wanting and not wanting to catch the smell of him in that place, and dropped them on the button-backed chair. Edward leaned towards the mirror, fumbling with his tie.

‘Let me do that,’ she said. ‘So you had a good day?’

‘Not bad at all. I lunched with John Worsley which is always a pleasure. He is having a ghastly time with Webster, you know. The
Chronicle
board is positively up in arms.’

‘You look distraught,’ she said drily.

Edward grinned. ‘Webster is not a man it’s very easy to feel sorry for. I met with Hyndman this afternoon. There is to be another demonstration in the square this Sunday. It would seem that the Home Secretary has misjudged the mettle of the working man.’

Maribel thought of the press of protesters, the staves and the truncheons and the wild plunging of the police horses, and her stomach tightened.

‘Oh, Edward, surely you mustn’t – ?’

‘The conditions of my bail forbid it. Asquith made that quite clear.’

‘Thank heavens.’

‘It will be different this time. No one wants more blood.’

‘How can you be so sure? If Warren was prepared last time to mobilise the army –’

‘We can stop Webster from pulling any more stunts for a start. Hyndman and I are to meet with him tomorrow.’

‘With Mr Webster?’

‘Don’t look so horrified. Webster may be a publicity-infatuated blackguard but he remains one of the few supporters we have. He needs to be made to see sense, not just for our sake but for his own. The man’s in very real danger of losing his position.’

Maribel stared at Edward.

‘But you despise him.’

‘I despise a great number of people with whom I am obliged to cooperate.’

‘You are not considering his interview surely?’

Edward shrugged. ‘I don’t want to, God knows, but Hyndman thinks it might help. Certainly it would give us some leverage with the
Chronicle
.’

‘Edward, no!’

Her voice was shrill. He turned to look at her but before he could answer there was a knock at the door.

‘Yes?’ Edward said impatiently.

Alice peered into the room, her face creased with perturbation. Maribel took a deep breath.

‘Sir, ma’am, I’m ever so sorry to bother you but there’s a – there’s someone at the front door. He’s asking to see you, ma’am.’

‘To see me?’ Maribel said, glancing at the clock. ‘Are you quite sure it is not my husband he wants?’

‘No, ma’am. It is definitely you. He showed me – he has one of your photographs.’

Ruined Virgins and Other Vile Abominations. Maribel had a sudden image of Victor’s photographer in the red silk room, the pink tip of his tongue between his teeth, the livid scarlet of her rouged nipples. In several of the pictures he had draped the sheet over the curve of her hip so that she was covered only by her hand, her fingers tucked between her thighs.
He claims they are Art but Arthur says they are basically naked ladies.

‘A gentleman caller at this time of the evening?’ Edward said. ‘Bo, my dear, how many more scandals do you think we can withstand?’

Maribel tried to smile. Her hands shook and she clasped them together. This is it, she thought. This is where it begins.

‘Alice, it is past six o’clock,’ she said, fighting to keep her voice steady. ‘Please ask whoever it is to come back another time.’

‘I already tried that, ma’am. He wouldn’t budge. Just pointed at himself and at the floor. It didn’t seem as if he spoke English, if you know what I mean.’