A Mad, Wicked Folly

by Sharon Biggs Waller

  He sighed. “I won’t bite.”

  The rain fell harder. He stepped closer; this time I did not move away. I shivered. It was cold, and my silk coat was not lined. I could almost feel the warmth radiating from him. He smelled lovely, like wool and green grass. And despite my anger, I could not help but feel pulled toward him. I didn’t understand how I could feel angry and attracted to him at the same time. Maybe it was because I yearned to draw him. When the Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti first laid eyes on Lizzie Siddal, he became obsessed with painting her. Maybe this was what one felt when one met a potential muse.

  “Well, where do you live?”

  I hesitated. Potential muse or not, I had to work out what to do with PC Fletcher at the present moment. And then I realized how I could prevent another scandal from reaching my parents’ ears. “With my brother and his wife in Pimlico.” The lie tripped easily from my mouth.

  “Pimlico?” He sounded doubtful.

  “Yes, Pimlico! What’s so odd about that?”

  He looked at me with that hard expression again, as if he couldn’t bear to be standing next to me. “Right then, Victoria Smith from Pimlico.” He said the words with a sharp beat. “Best be on our way.”

  “If you don’t mind, I wish to go back to Parliament first.”

  “I do mind, actually.”

  “Fine then, I’ll go on my own.” I made to leave, but he grabbed my arm.

  “Oh, no you don’t. I have my orders to take you home, and home is where you’re going.”

  I tried to twist my arm away, but his fingers were locked on.

  “Who is to know?”

  “I’ll know!”

  “P.C. Bumptious.” I whispered the insult under my breath but made sure he heard it.

  “Bumptious?” he said, his voice rising. “I’d rather be bumptious than a liar.”

  Anger swelled inside me. “Who’s a liar?”

  “You are.”

  “Me? A liar? That’s rich. You’re the liar. You could have told the truth right away and let me loose. But no!” The words bubbled out of me in a stream of rage. There was no holding back. “You’re just like that Catchpole, aren’t you? Treating women like objects . . . things to be pulled about from pillar to post.” I took a shaking breath.

  “For your information, I couldn’t have let you go,” he said. “That’s for the judge to decide. And believe me, you’re not worth me getting the sack.”

  “I don’t care. I’m going back to Parliament!” I pried at his fingers, but they were like iron. “You’re hurting me!”

  He loosened his grip, and it was enough to jerk my arm away and run. I heard him swear. I had a little head start as he dealt with the umbrella, but then he was running behind me. I sped up. There was a crowd standing outside a pub underneath an awning just ahead. Maybe I could lose myself in the clutch of people and then cut away. He wouldn’t know which way I went, and then I could return to Parliament.

  But just as I reached the pub, a hand snaked out and wrapped around my waist, nearly jerking me off my feet.

  “Who you runnin’ from, treacle?” A tall, burly man stared down at me, a cigarette clamped between his teeth. A strong smell of unwashed body wafted from him. He looked down the pavement and saw PC Fletcher. “Ah, a copper, eh? You a pickpocket?” He looked me up and down. “Dress nicely for a thief, I’ll give you that.”

  “Just let me go!” I pulled away, but I had lost my head start. PC Fletcher caught up and grabbed my wrist.

  “Try that again and I will shackle you, right here in the street, with everyone watching, and then haul you back to the station.”

  My eyes fell upon the manacles hanging from his belt. I swallowed.

  The burly man laughed. “Need some help, lad?”

  PC Fletcher scowled at him. “You can move on!” The man leered at me once more and then returned to his friends. Fletcher returned his attention to me. “Do I have your word, Miss Smith, that you won’t try to escape again?”

  I wanted dearly to kick him in the shins and run, but I knew I would not get far. So I kicked a rock instead, sending it winging across the street. “Very well! You have my word.”

  PC Fletcher released me with an exasperated sigh. Rain poured in a stream off his helmet. “You are an impossible girl,” he said.

  “So I’m told.” I could feel the rain dripping off my nose.

  “What’s at Parliament that’s so important?”

  “The prime minister, a bunch of MPs, quite a lot of lords.”

  “Oh, ha-ha. It’s your sketch pad, isn’t it? I saw you drawing.”

  “Yes, and I asked you to pick it up for me. In that police van. Did you not hear me?”

  “I heard you. It’s not the business of the Metropolitan Police to look after things for doers of crimes.”

  “I’m not a . . . a doer of crime, and you know it!”

  “Besides, I’m sure it’s long gone now, so you can forget about it.” He seemed to take quite a lot of pleasure in saying this.

  I noticed a bruise had begun to bloom on his chin where my forehead had struck him. Good. I hoped it gave him a blinding headache for days.

  “Besides, what’s so important about it?”

  “I don’t expect you to understand the value of art. It’s not a subject dullards and buffoons would be interested in,” I said.

  “Now see, that’s where you’d be wrong. I find the illustrations on the Guinness beer adverts most inspiring.”

  “That’s very funny,” I said, not finding his sarcasm amusing in the least. “Why can’t you just be a gentleman and take me to Parliament so I can find it?”

  “Sorry, but no.”

  PC Fletcher put his umbrella up again, and we walked the rest of the way to Pimlico in silence. I dearly hoped my brother Freddy was home. He’d go along with my story. I was sure PC Bumptious would insist on delivering me right inside the door, and if Freddy’s wife, Rose, received us, she’d tell him the truth about me and then some.

  My hand fell against my empty satchel, slung across my chest. Freddy would take me back to Parliament to search for my sketchbook.

  I couldn’t help but look at PC Fletcher sideways out of the corner of my eye as we walked. He was handsome in a distracting way. Too handsome for his own good. Or mine. I caught him looking at me the same way. He grinned at me smugly and I flicked my gaze to the front.

  I decided that my artistic senses had terrible taste in muses.

  Eight

  Pimlico, residence of Frederick Darling,

  12 Eccleston Square

  WE TURNED DOWN Warwick and rounded the corner to Eccleston Square, where my brother lived. I had been right: the constable shadowed me right up the steps to my brother’s maisonette.

  PC Fletcher dropped the knocker against the door. While we waited, I removed the WSPU pin and dropped it into my satchel. I caught him watching me.

  “What?” I said.

  “Nothing.” He let out a little laugh and then muttered something under his breath.

  It took all of my will not to shove him off the porch. I imagined him landing right in the prickly bushes.

  The door opened. My brother’s maid of all work stood there. “Oh, Miss Darling.” Her eyes widened as she took in PC Fletcher in all his law-abiding glory.

  “Who is it, Becky?” a voice called out. Blast! Rose.

  Becky stood back and let us in. “Miss Darling, madam. And she’s got a police constable with her.”

  Rose swished into view. Rose. A painfully soppy person if there ever was one. How my fun, handsome brother got saddled with her I shall never know. But there it was. And now she was expecting their second child. My mother, who adored her, had to threaten me with dire consequences or I would never visit her of my own accord. I’d sit there leaning over my teacup listening to the gr
andfather clock in the hall tick down the minutes as my mother laughed and nodded in all the right places, her face a picture of contentment, ever so grateful to have at least a daughter-in-law who was so reasonable, so domestic.

  Rose pursed her lips together, looking as though she had bitten down on a wasp and sucked on a lemon at the same time. “Victoria. Your mother has been ringing constantly, asking your whereabouts. For the life of me I cannot understand why you continue to get yourself into such mischief.” She looked at PC Fletcher. “She’s naught but a troublemaker. You have no idea.”

  Oddly, PC Fletcher said nothing.

  “Auntie Vicky!” a little voice chimed. Charlotte, my six-year-old niece, came running down the hallway, adorable in a pink frock with a candy-striped pinafore. Charlotte had inherited Freddy’s cheeky expression. It made me laugh sometimes to see some of his looks echoed in Charlotte’s childish features. I knelt down and hugged her. She wrapped her little arms around my neck and pressed her nose against mine. “Auntie Vicky, will you draw me a picture?”

  “Not today, dearest,” I said.

  She stared at PC Fletcher, her eyes enormous. “Who is that?” she whispered.

  “That’s a police constable,” I said.

  PC Fletcher bowed. “How do you do?” he said in a very formal voice.

  Charlotte giggled. “Can you draw me a picture?” she asked him.

  “The police constable’s busy, darling. Come along now,” Rose interrupted.

  And then, thank heaven, Freddy came into the hall. “Go into the sitting room with Mummy, sweetheart,” he said. Rose took Charlotte’s hand, frowned at me, and then drifted into the parlor. My brother turned to me, his eyes full of reproach. “I told Mother you’d turn up soon enough.” He held out his hand to PC Fletcher. “Frederick Darling.”

  “Darling?” PC Fletcher said. “I thought your name was Smith.”

  “We have different fathers,” I said quickly.

  My brother glanced at me sideways, but thankfully he let the comment pass by. “Well then, PC . . . ?”

  “Fletcher, sir.”

  “Is my little half sister in some sort of trouble?”

  “Not exactly, sir. Bit of a misunderstanding is all. She was caught up in the arrest of some suffragettes.”

  “Suffragettes?” Freddy’s gaze cut to me.

  “Yes, sir. I was tasked to bring her home.”

  “Oh!” Freddy laughed. “Poor sod. I don’t envy you.” He reached into his jacket, pulled out a little silver case, and drew out a card. He handed it to PC Fletcher. “Here’s my card. If there’s anything I can do to repay the favor, please do not hesitate to ask.”

  PC Fletcher looked at the card. “Darling and Whitehouse Publishing. You do the tuppenny novelettes, then?”

  “Why, yes. You’ve heard of us?”

  “Never miss an issue.” PC Fletcher glanced down at the card again and then slid it into his pocket. “I’d best be going.” He touched his hand to his hat and then looked at me; a smile lifted his lips. “Good-bye then, Miss Smith.” He held out his hand. I crossed my arms, and his hand hung there in the air unshaken. He pulled it back. “Well, then. I guess that’s it. Best of luck to you.”

  Freddy showed him out. And then he rounded on me. “What the devil, Victoria? Smith?”

  “I didn’t want him to know my real name.”

  “Of course; I should have known!” He sank down on a bench in the hall. “You’re in enough trouble as it is. Now you’re mixed up with the suffragettes? I knew you’d go there.” He lifted his hands and let them drop into his lap. “This really takes the biscuit. I don’t understand you, Petal. You have a lovely life but you do insist on creating trouble for yourself.”

  I loved my brother dearly, but he just did not understand what it was like to be told what to do from sunup to sundown. His life was his to call his own.

  “You had a lovely life too,” I said with a pointed look.

  His face reddened. “It’s not the same. And don’t change the subject. I want you to stay away from those suffragists.”

  “What’s so wrong with what they are doing?”

  “Don’t tell me they’ve converted you already?”

  “So what if they have? Don’t you think women have the same right to vote as men do?”

  “It is not a question of rights; it’s a question of understanding. Women know naught of politics!”

  “That might be true of some, but not of every woman, surely! I’m positive there are men who know naught of politics. And if a woman wished to be informed, she’d only have to read a newspaper or two—”

  “I’m not going to have this discussion with you. You show up here dripping wet and in the company of a constable and under an assumed name after haring about with suffragettes. What am I to do with you?”

  “Just don’t tell Father about the suffragettes . . . and the constable.”

  Freddy rolled his eyes. “And what am I to say? Honestly, Vicky! The things you ask of me. You deserve to take your punishment.”

  “If you care about me at all you won’t tell.”

  He heaved a very exasperated sigh. “Very well.”

  “And make sure Rose doesn’t tell either.” I leaned against the wall. “You’re the only one who speaks to me, Freddy. Father won’t even look me in the face.” I traced a finger around a lilac printed on the wallpaper.

  Freddy stood up and came over to me. He put his hand on my cheek. “I know it grieves you, but in time it will ease. Just remember, no matter what, I’ll always be on your side. Come along, let’s dry you off and get you home.”

  Freddy hailed a cab, and before we made for home, I asked him to send the cab driver to Parliament so we could look for my sketchbook. We got out, and from a distance I caught sight of something that looked like my book. But then my heart sank. It was just an old box lying on its side.

  My sketchbook was not there.

  I searched around on the ground and saw the crushed remains of my graphite pencil where Lucy had chained herself. The pavement was littered with rubbish; the street sweepers had not been through yet.

  Someone must have taken my book.

  We climbed back into the cab, and the driver clucked to his horse. I leaned my forehead against the window and watched the scenery go by. The rain fell harder, filling the streets with puddles and giving the buildings a gloomy cast. The pavement was a sea of bobbing umbrellas.

  I wondered who had taken my book. I pictured one of the men in the jeering crowd ogling my work, turning the pages with his grubby hands, perhaps using the paper to light a fire to cook sausages over.

  I felt a pain in the pit of my stomach. I had nothing to submit.

  The book was gone; I had to accept that, so I tried to think of a way to replace half a year’s work in five weeks. Still life I could probably do in the garden at home, but figure drawing was out. I needed a model for that. An undraped model, preferably. There were women’s art programs in London that my mother would approve of, but they gave mostly beginner classes, focusing on watercolor for decorative paintings to hang in one’s home. The thought of painting a subject suited only to matching a sofa made my artistic sensibilities cringe.

  Freddy finally broke the silence. “Petal, you have to stop this headstrong behavior. Mother says you climbed out a window.”

  “Yes, well, maybe if I were given a bit of freedom, I wouldn’t have to resort to climbing out windows.”

  “She said you refused to consider the marriage proposal.”

  I shrugged.

  “I’ve met Edmund Carrick-Humphrey. He’s a bit aimless, but most are at his age. He’s a very nice chap, all in all.”

  “I don’t give a fig if he’s a nice chap. I don’t want to marry him. I’m not ready for marriage yet. I have things to do first.”

  “You’ll need mon
ey to do those things you say have to do. You’ll have money when you get married.”

  “I doubt Papa will settle on me, Freddy.” Although there was a tradition of bestowing an inheritance upon one’s daughter after marriage, it wasn’t in my father’s nature to hand over a socking great wad of cash. Especially not to me.

  “You haven’t thought it all the way through, have you, Petal? Carrick-Humphrey comes from a wealthy family. You want to go to that college of yours so badly. Who needs Dad’s coin when your husband has coins aplenty?”

  Maybe it wasn’t such a terrible choice. I wouldn’t have to compete for a scholarship.

  “And from what I know about the fellow, he’s not the sort who would care what you did.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I had a word with him at the Reform Club last week. Do you think I’d let my little sister marry a bloke without vetting him first?”

  “What did you say to him?” I said, feeling somewhat heartened, yet anxious at the same time. Suddenly Mr. Carrick-Humphrey’s opinion seemed immensely important.

  “I told him you weren’t the type of girl to sit around a house kicking your heels, and that you wanted to go to college.”

  I gripped his arm. “What did he say? Tell me, Freddy!”

  “He laughed and said—and I quote: ‘What a corker of a girl.’ So I think you have to little to worry when it comes to Mr. Carrick-Humphrey.”

  I sat back in the carriage’s seat and thought about it. If what Freddy said was true, a marriage to Mr. Carrick-Humphrey would get me out from under my parents’ thumbs and into a home of my own. And into a life of my own. Lessons at the art college began in September, so I would have to be married as soon as possible.

  A little tingle sparked inside me, setting a glow of hope alight. I had a little over a month to get work together. I could do it. I was sure I could do it.