Elijah’s Mermaid (23 page)

‘His wife is quite mad. There’s no doubt of that.’ Samuel’s curt statement took me by surprise.

I rapidly came to Pearl’s defence. ‘She wasn’t like that a few months ago. It’s him . . . can’t you see? It’s Osborne Black. Oh, Freddie . . .’ I turned to my uncle then, my words coming fast and rambling. ‘We have to do something to help. Pearl looks as if she is in Hell and I’m sure she knows more than she dares to
say . . . and she thinks Osborne Black will put her away. She mentioned an asylum. She mentioned a Mrs Hibbert. She said Mrs Hibbert would help her.’

Freddie inhaled very sharply. Samuel Beresford went on, ‘Lily, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to upset you. But what option would any husband have but to seek some form of medical care. It’s more than apparent that Pearl is ill. Why, all this talk of Chiswick House! I went with my mother when I was a boy. We attended a garden party there. It is a private residence. Most certainly not an asylum.’

It was then I recalled the letter, when Elijah had also mentioned that place, the house surrounded by glorious grounds in which Osborne Black’s latest painting was set.

Could Pearl be deluded, after all? I felt confused and agitated. I said, ‘I don’t know about that, but I find Osborne Black far
too
rational. I find it most peculiar that having employed my brother to work with him in his very own house he now displays so little concern as to Elijah’s whereabouts.’

A quick pause for breath to regain my composure, and then I told Freddie every word of what had been said in Dolphin House, all about Pearl’s wailing distress, and that clicking automaton that had filled me with such an ominous dread, almost believing it might be alive, mocking us, mocking Pearl’s despair – at which I glared at Samuel. ‘I dare say that such observations will now cause you to question
my
sanity!’

He did not give an answer. Uncle Freddie looked stony faced, a vein at his temple throbbing fast when he lit another cigar, creating yet more of that choking fug, at which Samuel rolled the window back down, and as we re-entered the city’s streets the freezing air that blew back in was not as fresh as it could have been, a dense swirling fog, gritty, yellow and grey, and a taste that was almost sulphurous, that stung in my eyes and burned my lungs. Samuel Beresford was coughing again, a handkerchief pressed against his face, but that could not disguise his wheezing breaths.

‘Dear chap . . .’ Now Freddie was all concern, his cigar
thrown out of the window. ‘When we get back to Burlington Row, I’ll have the maid bring a kettle up . . . get you inhaling some steam in those lungs. We’ll soon have them clear and working again.’

But such an offer was not taken up. By the time we arrived in Burlington Row Samuel Beresford was all but recovered, saying that he must return to the office, a meeting he’d planned now overdue.

With the office standing opposite he did not have very far to go, but I felt a vague sort of yearning inside, a wish that he could have stayed a while – that we had not argued over Pearl – that I had replied when he said his goodbye, when his hand extended, seeking mine – when I deliberately looked away, though I did sneak a glance when he turned from me, to make his way across the street, all too soon lost in the drifts of fog that obscured many other houses around, encroaching yet more with each moment that passed, so that by the time Freddie had trudged up his steps and jangled his keys to unlock the door we might be the only souls on earth.

Before we went in, Freddie glanced at me. ‘Samuel seems to be rather fond of you.’

‘Oh . . . do you think so?’ The observance surprised me, suddenly wondering,
Could it be true?
But then I quickly dismissed such thoughts, still finding myself to be outraged at Samuel’s condemnation of Pearl, my response very curt and certain. ‘Well, I’m not so sure that I care for him.’

To this, Freddie gave no more reply, merely arched one knowing brow when he ushered me into the warmth of the hall, and there, with that bundle of clothes in my arms, with my eyes strained and itchy, my throat dry and sore, I said I would go to my room to rest, at which Uncle Freddie only urged, ‘But you must try to eat something, my dear . . . at least let the maid bring a cup of tea.’

I nodded, simply to placate him, for Freddie looked exhausted too, his voice croaking and tense when he called up the stairs, ‘If you need me . . . I’ll be in my sitting room.’

‘Will you write to Papa?’ I looked back down from the landing rail and thought again about Pearl Black, when she’d stood above us in Dolphin House. ‘Will you let him know how things go on? I know he will be worrying, and waiting for news of my return.’

‘Of course.’ I’m sure Freddie’s smile was forced. ‘I’ll send Augustus a telegram. I’ll assure him you’re perfectly safe . . . with me.’

In the bedroom I dropped that bundle of clothes on to the rug before the hearth. I went to stand at the window and peered between the undrawn drapes, looking through swirling drifts of fog at the house on the opposite side of the street. Faint yellow glimmers of gaslit rooms were shining through cracks in the shutters below. The upper floor was in darkness – though I could have sworn that through the gloom of whatever room must lie behind, a man’s pale face was staring out – straight into the one in which I stood. Was it the ghost of my father? Or was it Samuel Beresford? Whatever my previous indignation, my heart began to race as I lifted my hands against cold glass, where my breaths formed a misting gauze of lace which, when I had smeared it clear again, revealed that my eyes had been deceived. But for the trailing fingers of fog that spread and dissolved before my eyes, that window was devoid of life.

With a heavy sense of loss in my heart I made my way back to the chair by the hearth, where the atmosphere was close and warm from the fire that burned so high in the grate, and soon rendered sleepy and listless by that, I stared a long time at Elijah’s things, the muddle of fabrics at my feet. Not much to show for the loss of him. Reaching forward and snatching at one of his shirts, I pressed it hard against my nose, inhaling sweat and turpentine, the same fragrance I’d noticed on Osborne Black, but without the stench of rot that had permeated Dolphin House. I sniffed and sniffed at that cloth in my hands like a dog in search of a lingering trace that might lead to
my brother’s whereabouts. But the clue I needed was not found there.

Next, lifting the stack of papers, rubbing in vain at the stains of red paint, once the ribbon’s knot had been released I flicked through every letter I’d sent – which numbered a great many pages. And there was the sketch Elijah made when I had been sitting beside the stream, a young woman whose eyes were moist with tears. But then came the pages I had not expected – some photographic prints of Pearl, all steeped with a decadent mystery, even those where the edges appeared to be cracked, curling away from the paper’s edge, so fragile the collodian when it coated the glass of the negative. But within every frame was the model’s perfection, and I could not begin to look away from that glamorous, mesmerising spell. I might have been back in the tent in Cremorne, knowing myself the unwanted voyeur yet lost in the magic of monochrome shadows.

Below those sepia photographs were a number of sketches Elijah had made: scratched inky flowers, insects and leaves, and as more of the stiff white pages turned, again and again I saw Pearl’s face. Pearl’s eyes. Pearl’s hair. Pearl’s nose. Pearl’s mouth. Pearl’s hands. Pearl’s breasts. Pearl’s strange webbed toes, even that other more intimate part which looked like an oyster in a shell, or the opening bud of a fragile rose – that left me ashamed and shocked to see.

But then, I had never been meant to see. As my fingers traced the lines he’d made I saw my brother’s love progress. Its first manifestation was delicate, shy, the stroke of his nib light and tentative, but those later portraits, they were more knowing; strikingly bold and passionate. And there, at the very back of the pile, I found the words he had written down – that formed a kind of story – a story Elijah had never told in the letters sent back to Kingsland House. It began with a tale of forbidden fruit – though even that word ‘began’ is a lie, for it had started long before, when a boy saw a girl, in a tent, in Cremorne.

ELIJAH’S DIARY

A person unacquainted with the process, if told that nothing of this

was executed by hand, must imagine that one has at one’s call the

Genius of Aladdin’s Lamp. And, indeed, it may almost be said, that

this is something of the same kind. It is a little bit of magic realised
.

William Henry Fox Talbot on the Art of Photography

September 12th 1870

A pineapple – Ananas sativas. What an exotic thing it is! Freddie says it is ripe. I should eat it soon. But how to begin, with those spiked green leaves, the rough scaled plates of its armoured skin. Tomorrow, if Osborne spares me the time, I might try to make a photograph to capture the essence of this fruit. A photograph that is formed as art. A still life like a sepia painting. If only a picture could capture its smell; sweet, and yet oddly acidic
.

How strange that I’d never seen one before. I wonder what Lily would think of it? I long for my sister’s company. So often I look at that sketch I made, that last day when we sat beside the stream, but I would not think to invite her here. Osborne Black is an inhospitable man. Still, Freddie insists she may go to him. He asks after my sister most earnestly, and both of us wished she’d been here today. How Lily would have smiled to see how brazen Freddie was when he plucked that little pineapple as if Kew Gardens were his to own and then, after making a bow to a scandalised couple strolling past, to set the fruit on top of his head, concealed within the very hat that he had doffed and then replaced. He insisted that’s what all the best fellows did – ‘My dear boy . . . you should
know that President Lincoln used to keep all his letters and documents beneath his stovepipe hat
.’

The hat Freddie chose to wear today was a thing of history itself; the tallest concoction I’ve ever seen, and only he could pass it off with such a swaggering nonchalance. He does have some odd eccentricities. Those occasions when I have left Dolphin House to visit with him in Burlington Row he has come down to breakfast in monogrammed slippers, still wearing that old red tasselled cap. To be honest, he looks ridiculous, like some decadent Turkish potentate. But then, he clearly has ‘the knack’ when it comes to attracting the female sex
.

One evening he took me to Wilton’s, a dubious East End music hall, a place that might generously be described as having a varied clientele. I’d never been anywhere like it before. Such a clamour of bodies. Such heat they gave off, and the smell of the place. Sweat and perfume and alcohol. The shouting. The laughing. The fug of cigars. The sparkle of mirrors set around which reflected, not only the audience, but also a huge crystal chandelier, beneath which, in the flaring of the limes, I was as dazzled as a hare when caught in the beam of the poacher’s lamps. But a glass or two of Freddie’s ‘phizz’ did somewhat alleviate my nerves, soon admiring the glints of light that caught on the balcony pillars around. Very finely made of brass they were, like sticks of sugar-barley twist. I wished I had my camera to capture such a scene, though Freddie frowned at that remark. He said we were there for fun, not work, and pointed up to the stage near by where a monocled swell was walking on, beginning to sing some bawdy song. Freddie was having the best of times, joining in with the chorus – calling to other acquaintances, or raising his glass to some women who blew kisses down from the balcony, one leaning so very far forward that her breasts dangled loose from her bodice. ‘’Ello, Freddie,’ she screeched, ‘ain’t sin you in a while. Fancy a suck on me bubbies tonight?
’

I had the impression they’d met before
.

Very soon, she appeared at our table and perched on Freddie’s knee, suggesting many indelicate things. I fear he was
disappointed to see my lack of interest. But all that I could think about was that afternoon we’d spent in Cremorne. A child with tawdry yellow curls, with crude daubs of paint on a knowing face. I was not inclined to follow his lead and, to be fair, when he saw my reluctance he sent that ‘lady’ on her way, concentrating instead on the ‘tableau vivantes’ then being paraded across the boards — naked women who posed as if made of stone
.

One – Botticelli’s Venus – was stood in a papier mâché shell, with two or three nymphs crouching down in the pit, shaking twists of blue satin, like rippling seas. The next display was Lady Godiva, naked white legs astride a white horse, though those squeaking wheels set in the hooves could have done with a little oiling. In places the stuffing was poking out. A more moth-eaten sight would be hard to find, and the audience seemed to think the same. Like pandemonium it was, all that whistling, hooting and booing. But Freddie insisted the acts would improve, one particular singer he wished to see being hailed as the very next Jenny Lind. She came on in due course and trilled out some popular aria while the audience whistled and clapped and stamped, whipped into a frenzy all over again. And Freddie was equally impressed, saying he must interview the girl (who could not have been more than sixteen years) to appear in his latest magazine, one devoted to stars of the London stage, a world in which Freddie seemed quite at ease, until someone new appeared at our table to whom he extended a chiller response, his smile fallen into a sullen grimace through which he simply stated, ‘You!
’

The ‘You’ gentleman tipped his hat and replied in a lilting London drawl, ‘Indeed, it is I, Mr Hall. I spread my net very wide these days. Catch all manner of bits and bobs that way
.’

He proceeded to make himself at home, pulling up a chair and sitting down, expressing how sorry he was that Freddie had not been content with his wares, taking it as a personal slight that his very best whore had been sent away. He asked, ‘Has my friend’s personal preference changed? Is Cock Alley not to your taste these days?’ At that he gave me a lascivious wink, and while awaiting Freddie’s reply spent several tortuous moments arranging the folds
of his overcoat, which was made of black velvet and very long. His whole persona was quite unique. He had straw-coloured hair held back in a ribbon, hanging halfway down his narrow back. He had the most distinctive moustache, the hair on his face unusually fine, like silk ribbons those tusks drooped each side of his jaw. Added to that were his pursed rouged lips, and the frothings of lace at his collar and cuffs, and the flaring waistcoat beneath his coat, embroidered with mermaids, flowers and shells, all of which rendered his style to be that of some antique dandy conjured up from a bygone century. It transpired that he also had a taste for certain sorts of literature, suggesting that Frederick Hall might like to renew his professional interest in those ‘special publications which were always in such demand with the punters’. At that he leaned forward, appearing more earnest, elbows propped on the tabletop, the palms of both hands pressed together hard and the fingers steepled, as if in prayer. And that was when I noticed his nails, most being well over an inch in length, some tips being filed as sharp as knives, the others jagged where broken off. And above that most unnerving sight his clear blue eyes were narrowed to slits, which caused the thick layers of powder he wore to flake and split where wrinkles creased when, while awaiting Freddie’s response, he made a sly sideways glance at me. ‘You must tell me the name of your pretty young friend. Is he another protégé, a new writer employed by Hall & Co.?
’