Ben shuts him up with a cuff. Robbie’s always pestering him to tell it, but he shouldn’t be gabbing to this lot.
Sophie goes, ‘I’ve never seen a picture of my mother. Cousin Lettice burned them all. But I do have a cabinet card of Miss Sarah Bernhardt, whom Maddy says Mama resembled. Although I’m not sure how Maddy knows that, for she says that she scarcely remembers Mama at all.’ A sideways look at her sister, like they’ve had fights about that.
Ben says to Madeleine, ‘This Cousin Lettice. She all you got left?’
She nods. ‘Mother died when Sophie was born, and Father was killed in the Sudan.’
‘What’s that?’
‘A desert in Africa. He was a soldier.’
Despite hisself, Ben’s impressed.
Sophie pipes up. ‘His name was Major Alasdair Falkirk and he came from Jamaica and deserted his young wife to run off with our mother. Her name was Rose, but that’s all we know.’
Madeleine keeps her eyes on the table, and Ben guesses she knows more than she’s letting on.
‘We’re not supposed to talk about them,’ says Sophie.
‘Why?’ says Ben.
Sophie shoots Madeleine a look. Madeleine gets up and puts her bowl in the sink and smooths back her hair from her temples. ‘We’re illegitimate,’ she says.
Ben don’t know what that means, but it’s plain that they think it’s the worst thing ever.
‘It means’, says Madeleine, ‘that our father never married our mother.’
‘Is that all,’ says Ben. ‘Can I have more soup?’
Madeleine and Sophie stare at him like he’s cracked.
So he gets hisself more soup. ‘Where I live,’ he goes, ‘you don’t get spliced. In fact, nobody does except toffs. Don’t you know that?’
Madeleine shakes her head.
‘Think about it. It costs at least sevenpence, and you’re prossing about all morning, and for what? Some bit of paper that says you can’t get out of it, ever.’
Madeleine is watching his lips like he’s talking Chinese.
‘Only toffs get spliced,’ he goes. ‘Cos only toffs got to worry about who gets the house and the jewels and that.’
She looks at him as if he’s said something deep, and in spite of hisself he’s pleased.
Robbie asks Sophie if she wants to play stick and goose, and she says what’s that, and Madeleine sends them out into the garden, calling after Sophie to put on her hat.
‘Proper garden they got,’ Robbie shouts down from the steps. ‘Grass and flowerpots and a tree.’
When they’re gone, Madeleine goes to the dresser and fetches a book and plonks it down in front of him.
‘What’s this?’ he says.
‘The Downfall of the Dervishes. It’s a Jack Hathaway adventure. We thought you might like it.’
He looks at the letters on the front and thinks, so that’s what s and h do to each other. Then he realizes she’s had that book waiting all along, like she knew he was coming. He hates that. He goes, ‘I never read the last one. Sold it. I’ll do the same with this.’
‘Do what you like. It was cheap enough.’
‘Cheap?’ he snaps. ‘Nothing’s cheap if you can’t pay for it. Don’t you know that yet?’
She’s leaning against the dresser with her arms crossed. ‘I don’t know anything,’ she says in a funny voice.
What’s she on about?
‘Sophie knows more than I do,’ she goes. ‘She’s amazing, she reads everything. I’m too stupid and undisciplined. Like my mother.’ She bites her lip. ‘I don’t even know the sort of things you know.’
You got that right, girl, he thinks.
She sits down across from him and puts her hands on the table. ‘You think we’re rich, but soon we’ll have nothing. We’ve got to sell the furniture to pay off the debts, and I’ll have to work to support us.’ She pauses. ‘Mr Rennard can’t afford to give me a job, and no-one else seems to want a photographer’s assistant. I can’t be a governess because I never went to school, and I can’t be a stenographer, I don’t know how. I could be a lady’s companion or a shop assistant, but that won’t keep the three of us alive.’
‘So?’ says Ben. ‘Why tell me?’
She looks at him with her big dark eyes. ‘I thought you might be able to help.’
He’s outraged. ‘Me? I don’t help nobody.’
‘Then why are you here?’
‘That was Robbie’s idea.’
She don’t say nothing. Just makes patterns on the table with her fingernail.
The answer’s as plain as the nose on her face, but she can’t see it cos she’s a toff. She can read but she can’t sodding see. They’re all the same.
After a bit he says, ‘You could make a fortune on your back.’
She don’t even blink. Not even pretend shocked. Just gives him this long, slow look, like she’s been thinking the same thing. Bit of a surprise, that is.
‘Cousin Lettice’, she said slowly, ‘would say that it’s in my blood.’
‘You what?’
‘That it’s what I was meant to do. Because of who I am.’
Ben don’t know about that, but all of a sudden he sees where this could go. She could make a fortune. If she was managed right.
He sees her and Sophie set up in a posh little villa in the Brompton Road, appointment only, if you please. They got a box at the Hippodrome and a proper carriage, and Robbie’s got a new suit of clothes, and Ben’s got a pair of boots with studs. And he’s their friend, and sees them every day.
Then he goes and screws it up. He says, ‘What about your family?’
She goes still.
‘If they’re in Jamaica, they’re rich, yeh?’ He knows that cos his brother Ryan was a docker before he got the con, and Jamaica means sugar barons and darkie slaves.
But she’s well narked. Shaking her head, with a face like thunder. ‘I’m not asking them for help.’
‘Why not?’
‘For one thing, I don’t even know who they are. Lettice would never tell me my father’s real name.’
‘Get out of it!’
‘It’s true. We never talk of him. I don’t know if he was a Fynn like Septimus, or a Monroe like Lettice, or something else entirely. And I don’t care. Why should I? It’s not our name. It’s nothing to do with us.’
She sounds like she’s told herself that over and over, to make it true.
He goes, ‘That’s not the point. Point is, they’re family. They won’t want a couple of by-blows mucking things up for them, so they’ll shell out a bit to keep you quiet. That’s the point.’
But she’s still shaking her head. ‘They’ve never done anything for us. Why should that change now? Why should I go begging to them?’
It’s his turn to get narked. ‘Oh that’s beautiful, that is! You say you’re broke, but you won’t do bugger all about it. Well, I can’t be doing with that. You got to help yourself, my girl, cos if you don’t, nobody does it for you!’
He grabs the book and yells for Robbie, and they’re out the door and up the steps, with Madeleine and Sophie standing in the kitchen looking shocked.
And what really pisses him off is that in among all them stewpans and knives and whatnot, he never clicked nothing. Not even a sodding spoon.
It’s the end of September but still baking hot, and the wind’s in the south, so there’s this choky stink of churchyards and the knacker’s yard down Garratt Lane. Ben’s on the bed with The Downfall of the Dervishes, puzzling out this bit about camels, when in she comes, Madeleine from Wyndham Street, right here in his place.
It’s horrible having her here. She’s all poshed up in that black dress of hers, with gloves and a hat and a bag and a sun-umbrella, and him in nothing but his kicksies, and Robbie just his shirt. But she don’t seem to notice. She looks all in, like she’s past minding things like that.
She gives Robbie a bag of cherries and his jaw drops and he’s off like a lamplighter into the corner, chom
ping away. And meanwhile Ben’s shoved the book under the bed, so she won’t see. He goes, ‘How’d you find us, then?’
She brushes that off. ‘Robbie told Sophie, then I asked around.’
She paces about and turns, and smooths her hair. ‘I did what you suggested, I tried to contact the family. I went to Septimus’s attorney. He wouldn’t tell me anything except that all this time it was the family that’s been paying for us, not Septimus. There was some sort of trust, but now there’s nothing left in it. No more money. The attorney said there were “irregularities in the accounts”.’
‘You mean, Septimus nicked the lot.’
She nods.
‘So? What d’you want me to do about it?’
She wraps her arms round her waist and takes these deep breaths like she can’t get any air. ‘Sophie has tuberculosis.’
Robbie looks up from his cherries. ‘What’s that?’
‘The con,’ snaps Ben. He starts picking at a scab on his knee. ‘So that’s that, then,’ he says.
She looks at him like she can’t believe what he just said. ‘It’s not consumption,’ she says in a shaky voice. ‘Her lungs are fine, perfectly fine. The doctor says it’s sort of – tuberculosis of the bones.’ She swallows. ‘Do you remember when she bumped her knee?’
He shakes his head.
‘The doctor says that was probably the – the lesion. I think that means where it started.’
He remembers that clean, smooth knee with the slightest of pink bumps. ‘How long’s she got, then?’
He hears her catch her breath. ‘In a sanatorium, with good food and sunshine and a special splint, she might get better, completely better. But if she isn’t treated soon – if the disease goes to her lungs – she won’t survive the winter.’
He flicks the scab at the wall. ‘Poor little cow.’
‘Don’t you dare call her that, Ben Kelly!’
He looks up and sees that the colour’s come roaring back into her cheeks.
‘She’s not going to die,’ she says between her teeth. ‘I won’t let her die.’
‘Oh yeh?’ he goes. ‘How d’you work that out? A fucking san? D’you know how much they cost?’
‘Twenty guineas a month,’ she snaps, ‘with three months payable in advance – yes, you see, I did think to find out, and in case you can’t do the sums, that comes to sixty guineas in all. And I’ll thank you never to use such language in my presence again.’
Sixty guineas? He can’t hardly breathe. Never guessed it’d be that much. ‘Well that’s that then,’ he says again.
‘No it isn’t. That’s why I’m here.’
He shoots her a look.
‘You said I could make a fortune on my back. Well that’s what I need. A fortune.’
He narrows his eyes. ‘So?’
‘Help me. Show me what to do.’
‘Leave it out.’
‘Do it for Sophie.’
‘Not for nobody I won’t.’
‘I’ll give you a cut on everything I make.’
‘Now you’re talking,’ he says.
Chapter Nine
The pure in heart do not become ill. Disease is a sign of moral turpitude: it comes from bad blood, unwholesome thoughts, and overseas. Lettice was never ill. God is never ill.
When Sophie contracted tuberculosis, Lettice was outraged. For years she had fought to make her charges respectable in the eyes of the world, and now this shameful disease was shouting their vice from the rooftops. Where was the justice?
All her life she had struggled to find the justice. She had borne her husband’s dislike because that was her punishment for marrying beneath her. That was why her family had severed all ties with her, and she with them. It was just.
She had borne her husband’s death and disgrace because that was his punishment for dishonesty and vice.
She had even borne her new-found poverty. She had watched in grim silence as Madeleine argued with the tradesmen and sold the furniture and paid off the debts until the money was all gone. And when the last servant was dismissed, she had withdrawn to her room: for, without servants, it would be impossible to answer the door. But Our Saviour was poor, so in a way she could see the justice in it.
All her life she had borne what Fate had thrown at her, because God is just. A decade before, He had given her two misbegotten souls to bring into the light, and she had done it. She had fought to impose her will on a stubborn and recalcitrant Madeleine and an independent and quick-witted Sophie. She had ensured that they grew up healthy, and knew the importance of concealing what they were.
Now all that had been swept away. Tuberculosis is the mark of vice. Lettice knew that. And the world knew it, too.
The doctor had known it when he had given her the news. The health visitor had known it when she had declared that the house must be washed from top to bottom in Lysol, and the child’s linen boiled and blued separately, twice a week. As if Lettice did not already keep an immaculate house!
She was still prickling from the insult as she dressed to go out the following morning. ‘Top to bottom,’ she muttered as she plunged the final hatpin into her bonnet. ‘As if we wallow in filth!’
She snatched up her gloves and reticule and her black crape walking-coat, and swept across the landing to the girls’ room.
They stopped talking as soon as she opened the door. Sophie lay in bed propped up against the pillows, looking furious. Madeleine was still in her dressing gown, her features suspiciously composed.
Lettice glanced from her to the dyed black walking-costume laid out on the bed. ‘You may not go out,’ she declared. ‘I am going out. You must stay with your sister.’
Madeleine studied her in that distant, contemplative way she had acquired of late – as if Lettice were no longer to be fought, but merely circumvented. ‘Mr Rennard’, she said, ‘is writing me a testimonial. I shall need it if I’m to get a position.’
Lettice wondered if that were true. ‘You can collect it later. I must go to Lampleigh’s for more Lysol.’
‘We still have two bottles.’
‘We need more.’
‘Mr Rennard said I was to see him at nine.’
‘You should have consulted me before making the appointment.’
Again that look. ‘I’m sorry,’ Madeleine said. ‘I’ll go next door and see if Mrs Somerville will sit with Sophie. Then we can both go out.’
Their eyes met. Madeleine’s were calm and resolved.
Lettice thought, I have become an obstacle. Is that all I ever was? Out loud she said, ‘You must not linger at Mr Rennard’s.’
Madeleine inclined her head. She was plotting something. Lettice could tell.
As she went downstairs, Lettice took a deep breath, and smelt the smoke of battle. You cannot, she told herself, allow yourself to be circumvented in this way. You must put a stop to this. You must find out what she is up to.
‘You’re going to see Ben, aren’t you?’ said Sophie when Lettice had gone.
‘No,’ said Madeleine.
In the looking-glass she caught sight of the sampler which Lettice had made her cross-stitch when she was twelve. Fornication Leads to Misery and Hell. Marriage Leads to Happiness and Heaven. What’s fornication? Sophie had asked a hundred times. I don’t know, Madeleine would reply. Something bad, I think.
‘You’re going to see Ben,’ Sophie said again. ‘Can I come?’
‘You know you can’t. Dr Wray said you must have complete rest.’
‘I had rest yesterday. And the day before.’
‘He means for months.’
‘But I can’t. How can I do that? I’m not allowed to read.’
‘I know. But I’ll read to you when I get back.’
In the distance the bells of St Mary’s struck the half-hour. She would have to hurry if she was to meet Ben at eight. She wrenched open the drawer and studied the piles of underclothes. In this heat the cambric combinations would be the coolest, but the silk chemise and drawers
were prettier. Would that matter? If she went through with it, wouldn’t she have to take everything off?
Her stomach turned over. She didn’t even know what ‘it’ involved.
Yesterday after coming back from Ben’s, she had stolen into Lettice’s room and sneaked a look at Dr Philpott. To her dismay he was silent on the details of what he called connexion – except to say that the wife must endeavour to think happy thoughts throughout.
She took out the combinations and pushed the drawer shut. Behind her Sophie plucked at the sheets, her face puffy and mutinous. ‘It’s not fair,’ she muttered. ‘I’m being punished and I haven’t done anything wrong.’
‘I know. It’s awful. I do know.’ In helpless silence she went behind the screen and dressed. Since Sophie’s diagnosis she had felt as if she were living on an edge: a hard metallic edge that swooped down into the cold, wrenching terror of loss.
How could lives change so fast? The month before, she had been contentedly photographing flowers in the garden, while Lettice was planning a trip to Maples to see the latest Electric globes, Septimus voting to ban Americans from his club, and Sophie composing a pamphlet on the plight of the Regent’s Park cab-horses. Now Septimus was dead, the money all gone, and her clever, garrulous, infuriating little sister was mortally ill.
‘Why won’t you say where you’re going?’ said Sophie.
‘I did. I’m going to see Mr Rennard.’
‘That’s just what you told Cousin Lettice.’
Madeleine did not reply.
‘You’re meeting Ben and Robbie. Aren’t you?’
‘Sophie—’
‘You’re meeting Ben and Robbie and leaving me out. You’re horrible. I hate you.’
She had been impossible ever since Dr Wray had fitted the splint two days before. A hideous device of steel hoops and bars covered in boiler felt, it encircled her left leg from the upper thigh to a couple of inches below her foot. A patten screwed to the other boot was supposed to even up the difference in heights, and Dr Wray had said that she must practise standing for five minutes a day, to get used to it. He had assured her it was easy. ‘He should try it,’ Sophie had muttered when he was out of the room. Then she had burst into tears. ‘It’s just frustration,’ she had stammered when she’d brought herself under control. As if she needed an excuse to cry.
The Daughters of Eden Trilogy Page 9
