She looked at the sheets draped over the chairs and thought, he must be using them as reflectors. And that couch is where I am to sit. Or lie, I suppose.
At length the photographer remembered her for long enough to hand her a mug of black tea which he fetched from a gas ring in the corner. Then he scuttled off and began rooting around in a stack of cartons. He still hadn’t looked her in the eye. She wondered why. Ben had told her that she was ‘a cut above’ his usual models, so perhaps that was it.
She perched on the edge of the couch and sipped her tea. She felt sick. She pictured the photographer’s dismay if she spewed tea all over the couch.
To break the silence, she asked what he thought about the new hand-held cameras. She had noticed that he favoured an old-fashioned view camera, with half-size plates and a sturdy tripod.
‘Snapshots?’ He snorted. ‘So now every Tom, Dick and Harriet fancies they’re a photographer. I tell you, if I wasn’t such an artist I’d be out of the biz.’ He scowled into a carton of plates. ‘Know a bit about it, do you?’
She told him about helping at Mr Rennard’s, and keeping up with developments in Camera and the BJP. Some of the tension went out of him, and soon he was telling her about the new flash powders he’d been trying out, and his hopes for panchromatic plates – the way of the future, dear, or it would be if it wasn’t so bloody expensive, pardon my French. For the first time he actually looked at her, and she saw that his eyes were pale blue, and bloodshot from the chemicals.
It struck her as bizarre that she was trying to put him at his ease, but it also made her feel a little better. So it was a shock when he suggested that she just pop off the robe and lie back on the couch, to get the feel.
She didn’t move.
He peered into the viewfinder. ‘It’s just a thought,’ he muttered, ‘but as the skin texture’s so delicate, we might go for a nice, soft, glowing kind of a look? Keep the light flat, pop a bit of muslin over the window?’
‘The’ skin texture. She appreciated the attempt at distancing, but it didn’t stop her breaking out in a cold sweat. She asked if she might have a towel.
‘Wouldn’t bother, dear. Bit of a gleam adds a certain something? All nice and pearly?’ He slotted a plate into the camera. ‘Now when you’re ready, we can just get rid of that robe. I thought we’d get those hands clasped, or the shaking’ll spoil the pics. And a bit of gauze over the face – sort of like a shroud? Be amazed how many of the gentlemen like that kind of thing.’
The girl in the tea shop asked Lettice if she was still feeling seedy, and Lettice replied that she was better thank you, and the girl nodded and hurried off to attend to another customer.
Lettice blinked at her cold tea, and wondered why God had forsaken her.
She had always done His will. Always. When Mama had said how can you think of accepting that Mr Fynn, he is scarcely a gentleman, Lettice had married him, for she had known that she was too plain to turn down the only offer she was likely to get. She had married him, for it was God’s will.
When Mama had cut them off without a shilling, and Septimus had cooled towards her, she had borne that too, for it was God’s will.
And when, after decades of silence, she had received a letter from Jocelyn – henceforth I have no son; you will oblige me by never receiving him or entering into correspondence – she had obeyed without question. For it was God’s will.
At the time she had been forty-one, and still happy – or still hopeful that she might be happy, if she became a mother. A few years later, all hope was gone. And somewhere along the way she had ceased to think about happiness.
Then one dark February morning, she had opened the letter from Rose Durrant.
The shock of it. To see that infamous name proudly scrawled in bold black script. Please forgive me for writing, but Ainsley is in the Sudan, and I fear for my daughter and for the little one to come, should anything occur while he remains overseas. Then the bald request: if ‘the worst’ should occur, would Lettice care for the children until their father’s return? Please, please send an assurance as soon as convenient.
Enclosed with the letter was a photograph of a beautiful woman seated on a chair, with a handsome, fair-haired man smiling down at her, and a lovely little girl on her lap. Look at me, said the peerless dark eyes. All my life I have been wicked. And see how God has rewarded me.
At that moment Lettice had seen her own life for what it truly was: a cramped existence in a mean little house where she spent weeks without speaking to anyone but the servants; a childless union to a vulgar, unfaithful man who had disliked her for years. Why had God allowed it? Where was the justice?
And what must she do about Rose Durrant’s letter? To respond would be to disobey the head of the family; but how could she ignore the plea of a woman in distress?
For a fortnight she had agonized. Then she had dashed off a curt response, seeking details of the lying-in arrangements by return.
She had never received a reply. Ten days later she had seen the piece in The Times. Gallant major slain . . . captain held, pending court-martial. She had overruled her husband’s objections and they had travelled to Scotland. Gallant major slain. She had been shocked, but also horribly soothed. God had spoken. The world was just.
She had been totally unprepared for the rage which had boiled up inside her at the sight of the children. She had stood beside the cot and stared down at that perfect infant and that huge-eyed, silent little girl. Rose Durrant had been given all this. Where was the justice?
Then it had come to her. This is the justice. These children before you were born to wickedness – but God has given them to you. Rose Durrant died because she was wicked. You have her children because you are good.
For ten years she had clung to that truth as to a rock. But now the rock was crumbling beneath her. God was about to cast her charges into the abyss. He was about to destroy everything she had fought for. It would be as if she had never existed.
All her life she had struggled to do God’s will, for He was the only one who had ever loved her. Now He had forsaken her. She didn’t know what to do.
She picked up her cup and frowned at it, and took a sip of cold tea. It tasted bitter, but it gave her strength. Surely there must be something she could do?
One thing is certain, she told herself. You cannot manage this on your own. You are only a woman. You are not supposed to manage things like this.
She took another sip of tea.
Yes. That is it. You are only a woman. You must find a man to take control.
Madeleine was still tasting bile when she let herself into the house.
On leaving the studio she had retched into the gutter until her eyes watered. Beside her, Ben had been puzzled and disappointed that his efforts had met with such a response. He had left her soon afterwards, and she had found her own way back to Wyndham Street.
Walking the pavements, she had felt as if everyone was staring at her. What did they see? Could they tell what she had just done?
The hall was dim and empty when she let herself in, and her footsteps echoed as she crossed the tiles. The furniture was gone, but darker patches on the wallpaper showed where it had been.
From habit she went to the patch where the looking-glass had hung, and started taking out her hatpins. She felt exhausted and nauseous. She wanted to go upstairs and curl up beneath the covers and think of nothing.
A rustle of skirts behind her made her start. To her alarm she saw that Lettice was sitting on the stairs. Her face was in shadow, but Madeleine could make out the gleam of her eyes. Her bony yellow hands clutched her knees.
Anxiety gripped her. ‘Is Sophie all right?’
‘Asleep,’ said Lettice.
Madeleine let out a long breath. She turned away, and took off her hat and smoothed back her hair from her temples. ‘Did you get the Lysol you wanted?’
‘No,’ said Lettice in a strange, toneless voice. ‘I had something else to do.’
‘What was that?’ said Madeleine mechanically. She wished Lettice would stop watching her and leave her alone.
With a stiff rustle of skirts Lettice rose to her feet. ‘Tell me everything,’ she said.
‘About what?’
‘About what you did. With that – creature.’
The hall was completely silent.
‘I saw you,’ said Lettice. ‘I followed you.’
‘That was underhand.’
‘I followed you quite openly. You were too involved with that creature to notice.’
Madeleine glanced down at the hat in her hand.
‘Tell me what you did,’ said Lettice. ‘Tell me the truth.’
Madeleine did not reply. Lettice didn’t want the truth. She couldn’t face the truth.
‘What’, said Lettice, ‘did you do?’
‘Nothing,’ she replied.
‘A lie.’
‘If you wish it, I’ll swear on the Bible.’
‘The Bible’, spat Lettice, ‘means nothing to you.’
Again Madeleine said nothing. Lettice was right.
Sophie appeared at the top of the stairs, balanced precariously on tiptoe to raise herself to the level of her splint.
‘Go back to bed,’ said Madeleine and Lettice together.
‘But—’
‘Bed.’
Sophie gave them a mutinous look and hobbled off.
Lettice waited till Sophie had gone. ‘For ten years,’ she said, ‘I have tried to make you decent. Respectable.’
‘But I’m not respectable,’ said Madeleine. ‘You made sure I never forgot that.’
‘You can seem respectable. You can pass for respectable among decent people—’
‘I don’t know any decent people. You never let me meet any. Except for Mr Rennard, and he’s a shopkeeper so he doesn’t count.’
‘So you blame me when you seek out the dregs? You blame me?’
‘No. No. I don’t know whom I blame.’
Lettice shook her head, and her horsehair ringlets swung. ‘You long for the dregs,’ she said between her teeth. ‘You ache and whine to be down there in the filth.’
Madeleine felt sick. ‘Is that what you think of me?’
‘How can I think anything else?’
Another silence. Lettice drew herself up. ‘I can do nothing more with you. Someone else must try. I have failed.’
‘What do you mean, someone else?’
Lettice hesitated. ‘There is a gentleman,’ she said. ‘A churchman. Your grandfather’s adopted son. You must apply to him for guidance.’
‘My grandfather—’
‘Did you hear what I said? This man is a churchman. He may be able to save you. If it is not already too late.’ She turned to mount the stairs, but Madeleine moved round and blocked her way.
‘My grandfather? What grandfather? Why didn’t you tell me this before?’
‘Because he doesn’t want you!’ spat Lettice. ‘He never wanted you!’ Her bony breast rose and fell. Her sallow cheeks were blotched with red. ‘Ten years ago,’ she said more quietly, ‘I felt it my duty to break a long silence. I wrote to him. Jocelyn Monroe. Your father’s father. Yes, you see, you and I are related after all. To my lasting shame.’ She paused for breath. ‘I thought it my duty’, she went on, ‘to inform him of your existence. He replied that he never wanted to hear of you again. He wished to know nothing about you. Nothing. Save only in the event of your death.’
It was Madeleine’s turn to sit on the stairs.
Lettice stood looking down at her. ‘His adopted son is a churchman. The Reverend Sinclair Lawe. You must go to him and confess all. I can do nothing more with you.’
Madeleine struggled to take it all in. ‘Where does he live?’
‘I understand that he has an address in Fitzroy Square.’
‘Fitzroy Square? But – that’s practically round the corner! Why haven’t you ever spoken of him? Called on him. Why hasn’t he ever visited us?’
‘Because it was my duty to keep you separate!’ snapped Lettice. ‘The head of the family commanded me to keep you separate. And that I have done.’ Her hand tightened on the banister. ‘Besides, I myself have never met the Reverend Lawe. Indeed I doubt that he even knows I exist.’ She paused. ‘As you very well know, my contact with my family was all but ended by my marriage.’
Madeleine was silent for a moment. Then she added, ‘This Reverend Lawe. What makes you think that he’ll see me?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘If my own grandfather won’t see me, why should his adopted son?’ She paused, then added with a curl of her lip, ‘Or are you suggesting that I should put on some sort of disguise?’
Lettice leaned over her, and Madeleine smelt her sour breath and the musty odour of crape. ‘Sinclair Lawe is a churchman,’ she hissed. ‘A man of God. Have you any conception of what that means?’
‘But Lettice, I can’t just—’
‘Go to him. Throw yourself on his mercy. I can do nothing more with you.’
Chapter Eleven
What does God want from me? wondered Sinclair Lawe in despair.
He took the nailbrush from the washstand and scrubbed his fingers till the water turned pink.
Why had he succumbed, when he had sworn that he never would again? Why had God allowed him to pollute himself?
As he reached for a napkin to dry his hands, his eye was caught by a flash of colour outside the window. He froze. The bathroom was three floors up, and not overlooked – and yet there, on the neighbouring roof, crouched a chimney sweep’s boy.
Breathlessly Sinclair took in the inhuman stick limbs and the vivid copper hair; the grotesquely blackened face. The creature had seen everything. Everything. How could he have forgotten to draw the blinds?
He shut his eyes, and when he looked again the creature was gone. And that was worse. Already evil gossip might be spreading about the Reverend Lawe.
He willed himself to be calm. He replaced the napkin on the rail and straightened his smoking jacket. He checked the bathroom to make sure it was in order, then went slowly downstairs to his study, and rang for Mary, and ordered a glass of hot milk. But he could not forget the apparition on the roof.
Perhaps it was some sort of sign? Perhaps God intended some great change in his fortunes? Oh, let it be so. His life had become intolerable.
Everyone was urging him to do the one thing that he never could. Even the Dean was becoming impatient. ‘Now that you have turned thirty,’ he had said at their last encounter, ‘I presume that you will shortly be delighting us with news of your engagement to an appropriate young lady.’
Then there were the constant invitations to dinners and receptions, where flocks of meek and marriageable young females did battle for his attention. And last but most powerful of all, the letter from Great-Aunt May. You must marry at once, she had told him with her formidable singularity of purpose. There must be no more delay. You are of excellent pedigree and ample means, with a promising career in the Church. Many eligible young females will compete for your attentions. Marry at once. If you do not, I cannot answer for the consequences.
She had no need to elaborate. If you do not marry and produce a son, ran the unwritten message, Fever Hill will never be yours. Your brother will find some means of worming his way back into the old man’s affections, and you will be disinherited. Do not delude yourself that it could never happen. Cameron may be an outcast and a recluse, but he lives in Jamaica. You do not.
Sinclair went to the window and drew back the curtain and gazed down into the street. The heatwave had broken the night before, and a fine rain was greasing the pavements and making the passers-by hunch beneath their umbrellas.
There was no answer to his dilemma. There could be no answer. To gain his inheritance he must marry – and yet he could never marry, for then he would be found out.
With a sense of weary compulsion he returned to his desk. On bad days, he might unlock the secret compartment ten time
s or more, and take out the little grey booklet and reread the familiar page. It was not that he needed to be reminded of the text, but that he needed to see the words. It was as if he still clung to some hope that this time he might derive a meaning less absolute than he ever had before.
Of course he never did. Plain Words to Young Men on an Avoided Subject was exactly that. If once a young man succumbs to the imbruted cravings of lust, and wastes his substance in solitary indulgence, the fatal habit is acquired. The clammy hand, the stinking foot, and the haggard countenance are all marks of that vice which – in extreme cases – must end in insanity and death.
Moreover – and here came the passage which had haunted him for years – should such a man be wicked enough to marry, he risks passing the dreadful malady to his wife. His progeny are born dead, or else exist only in brief suffering: not born into this world so much as damned into it by the wretch who gave them being.
He passed a shaky hand over his face. With such a secret, how could he marry? How risk exposure and ruin? He pictured the scene when the truth was laid bare. The outraged father-in-law summoning doctors and lawyers. Jocelyn’s face as he cut him out of his will.
At that moment he heard footsteps on the porch. A rap at the door. He sucked in his breath. The chimney sweep? He pictured the creature waiting on the doorstep, rubbing its blackened claws as it plotted blackmail.
When Mary announced ‘a lady’, Sinclair shuddered with relief.
‘A Miss Finlay,’ muttered the elderly parlourmaid, her tight lips betraying what she thought of idle young parishioners who couldn’t leave the poor young Reverend in peace.
But the girl whom Mary showed in was no parishioner. Sinclair would have remembered her, for she was handsome – although her features were too decided for truly feminine beauty.
Normally, he would have told her to make an appointment and sent her away, but there was something about her that intrigued him. She was in trouble; he could tell that at once. He wondered why.
The Daughters of Eden Trilogy Page 11
