The Crimson Bed (37 page)

    '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 Pre-Raphaelite 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 other-worldliness 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 engaged 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.

Fred was in his study and Ellie busy upstairs with the children when an urgent knock came at their door early on Tuesday morning. Henry Winstone's man Joseph stood on the doorstep. The maid, alarmed by his haggard and distraught look, ran to fetch the master.

    'What is it, Joseph? What's happened? For God's sake, sit down. You look as if you've been up all night!'

    'I have, sir and I'm dry as a bone,' the man said, sitting down in exhaustion. He was not a young man and he had run up the steps too fast from the cab. He began to cough so much that Fred offered him a glass of soda water, which the fellow drank back with relief.

    Alarmed, Fred watched the man, saw the quivering of his hands and prepared himself for bad news. His mind ranged swiftly over all possibilities as he waited for Joseph to compose himself. By now, Ellie, having been told by Mary who the unexpected visitor was, had left the children with their nursemaid and run downstairs. She entered the study and looked from one man to another in apprehension. Joseph rose on her entry but she motioned to him to sit down again. His face was white as a sheet.

    He informed them that Tippy Winstone had died at two-thirty that morning from puerperal fever.

    'Mr Winstone, he sat up with her all night, he did. He tried all he could to save her but she'd been going downhill fast since she come home from that hospital. I never trust them hospitals, no one comes out alive, I swear to it. Me first wife went that way and I knew the signs so Mr Winston told me to fetch Doctor Ormerod but he couldn't do anything for her. Poor Mr Winstone, he's that grieved, Mr Thorpe! He sent me over to fetch you all. I've a cab waiting outside now. He said you must come over right away, sir. Please do, he's so grieved, I hated to leave him.'

    'Surely he isn't alone with her?' said Fred.

    'No, sir, her sister and her Pa are there too. The sister's looking after the little 'un right now. They fetched a wet nurse too from somewhere. Bawling her little eyes out she is, poor wee mite, and her father doesn't even hear her, pick her up to comfort her. He's just sitting holding his wife's hand and he won't move, won't talk. He's in such a state. You must come, sir, you must! He frightens me, that he do. I'm scared he'll top himself.'

    'Tippy dead!' said Ellie bursting into tears, 'it was only the other day that I was with her and she was laughing and seemed so much better. Come Fred, we must go at once. I'll ring for Mulhall and tell her we are going.'

As Joseph had described, Henry was still sitting by his wife's corpse in a state of numbed shock. Ellie came and sat beside him and looked down at poor, pale Tippy lying there, her earthly pain over at last. Ellie put her arm around Henry and sobbed quietly, feeling enormous sorrow over this sweet, tender life cut so short. Henry turned and held Ellie tightly against his body as if seeking comfort from the living.

'Ellie, oh, Ellie!' he sobbed, the tears coming at last, 'why is

God so unkind to me? I loved her so much and was so glad to make her comfortable and happy after her hard life. Why must she go, why do the lovely ones go and all the fools remain?'

    'I have no answer to that,' sighed Ellie,' except that sometimes I think Hell is here on earth and those who no longer need to remain here are taken by God to Heaven. They've served their time or they have come to help us more sinful mortals on our way. That is my belief.'

    Henry looked up, wiped his eyes and gazed once more upon his lost wife. ' I would believe she was in Heaven, for she was an angel. I agree that Hell and the Devil are indeed here on this earth – as the heretic Cathars used to affirm. It comforts me to think she's in a better place but oh, Ellie... how lonely this mortal Hell will be for me now without her!'