Fragile Blossoms

by Dodie Hamilton

  Face of polished bronze the maid, Dulce, had sunk down on her knees. ‘La, Mesdames, we are too late! Nothing can be done.’

  They were indeed too late, Julia and her pitiful endeavours and the doctor who, handkerchief to his nose, refused to go near Susan. ‘Work house girls!’ he’d sniffed. ‘What was it this time a knitting needle or bottle of gin?’

  Julia was outraged. Susan had suffered enough. There would be a Christian grave for her and her child. They would not be buried unsanctified.

  ‘How dare you speak so and her lying here?’ she’d snapped. ‘Susan miscarried but not through gin or any other foul object. Have a little respect for the dead.’ Callie Greville Masson had nodded. ‘Mother and child need a blessing not calumny to send them on their way. Do your office as doctor, sir, not a judge.’

  It was then in the general move downstairs that Julia saw Luke Roberts on the landing with Matty asleep in his arms. A strange moment, unearthly, she had looked into a source of light that quivered and shone. He was known and identified, mouth and eyes, the body, all seen through a million mirrors life-after-life. ‘What?’ her lips had formed a question. A finger to his lips he passed along the landing into Matty’s bedroom and there he’d stayed throughout that night, a watcher by the bed, boots pushed out and face in shadow.

  Around five Julia closed her eyes. When she opened them he was gone and Matty sleeping peacefully, the house again quiet.

  ‘Chi-chirrup!’ A bird in the roof sang.

  Matty looked up from his book. ‘A blackbird!’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Mrs Masson. ‘Do you like birds, Matthew?’

  He put his fingers to his lips, whistled, and returned to his book.

  Callie leaned close. ‘He is bright and reads well for a three year-old.’

  ‘He is almost four.’

  ‘Even so, he is clever child and sensitive. When you said you were bringing him today I worried how he’d take such an occasion.’

  ‘With the maids away I couldn’t leave him alone.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have been alone, no sir!’ Callie Masson hugged Matty. ‘I would’ve come. We’d have gone bird hunting.’ She looked at Julia. ‘I know a little about you, Mrs Dryden. Daniel told me how you met. I was due to come and make myself known, and then your maid came a-knocking.’

  ‘Thank God she did. You have been a great comfort to us all.’

  Mrs Masson shook her head. ‘It’s nothing anyone else wouldn’t have done. We are neighbours. We should take care of one another.’

  Julia’s tone was bitter. ‘I’ve heard that said before but it wasn’t meant.’

  The blackbird flew singing out of the door.

  ‘Lots of things are said but not meant,’ said Callie. ‘They say in the midst of life there is death. A blackbird sings and in midst of death there is life. It’s a way of looking at things.’ She twitched her hat. ‘This darn hat is killing me.’

  Julia glanced at the hat overtopping the wrinkled face. ‘It is a notable hat.’

  ‘It is a foolish hat. I bought it in Paris with such an occasion in mind and having outlived all my friends fetched it out today. Foolish!’ She nodded toward the coffin, ‘almost as foolish as that wreath.’

  A huge wreath of roses it had to be removed to allow bearers through the lych-gate and then again to navigate the nave. Now like Mrs Masson’s hat it hangs askew, green fern dripping like mildewed tears. Aware of the crest on the card accompanying the wreath Julia was silent.

  Mrs Masson snorted. ‘What was she thinking? Flowers to a maid she not so many weeks before threw to the wolves? Who in their right mind draws attention to such bad behaviour? One might as well have it printed front page of the Times.’

  Julia flinched. Thrown to the wolves! She felt so bad. It shouldn’t have happened. Tied up with her own life she hadn’t looked to Susan’s needs.

  Sensing discomfort Callie Masson reviewed her comment. ‘When I said wolves I wasn’t referring to you. I was speaking of the world at large.’

  It was Daniel Masson who told his mother of Susan’s mistreatment. The day after the tragedy he called at the cottage apologising, he said, for ‘springing out of the blue.’ He’d wanted to tell of his mother buying Greenfields but the opportunity hadn’t presented itself. ‘You left London all of a sudden.’

  ‘I had no choice.’

  ‘Indeed you did not! I remember that evening. I was there and witnessed Freddie Carrington’s bad behaviour. As for this unfortunate girl I’ve heard various stories from various lips and know what I believe. You did your best for her, Julianna. You were the only one who did. I hope you’ll rest easy on that.’

  Julia unable to talk about it he’d switched to John Sargent and the Art Exhibition. ‘You know he’s showing soon hereabouts?’

  ‘He sent an invitation. I did think to take Matty but now I’m not sure.’

  ‘Oh do go! I hear tell there’s to be a cinematic show and Ferris wheels and all kind of fun things for children. Matthew wouldn’t want to miss it.’

  Daniel had then offered a car should Julia decide to go to the exhibition. ‘We are neighbours now. I’d like to think you regard me as a friend.’

  Today her new friend sits with Stefan Adelmann and behind them Mrs Joan Taft, sister to Susan, to whom Julia sent news of the tragedy and a train ticket. Apart from the vicar there is only one other villager in attendance, Luke Roberts, sober in a dark jacket and stiff collar.

  The night of the tragedy Matty in the throes of sleep ran to fetch that man, an act of trust that both touched and alarmed Julia. ‘I don’t know why he came,’ Luke had said the following day. ‘I was shaken out of bed knowing he was coming. I dreamt it I suppose. I saw him and the dog and went to meet them.’

  That there is more to the event was evident in his frown and the way he worked his fist as though trying to keep a grip on mystery. Julia didn’t enquire. No one can ever question her of this man, not now and not ever. That her little boy trusted enough to run through darkness to find him, and that he loved enough to catch is enough. If there is more one day one of them will tell.

  ‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, the Lord bless and keep her, the Lord make His face to Shine upon her and be Gracious unto her and give her peace.’

  The service over Julia dropped lily-of-the-valley onto the coffin.

  ‘Those lilies were one of my little japes,’ muttered Callie Masson.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I’m your plant thief, Julianna. I am the one who’s been driving your good gardener crazy. I put baskets and other stuff over the wall by way of compensation for odds and ends stolen from you, and I took other plants to repay those stolen from me.’

  ‘Have I stolen from you?’

  ‘Not you, Julianna, some other person a long time ago.’ When Julia stared uncomprehending Callie grimaced. ‘I know. It hardly makes sense to me. I can only say at the time taking from your side of the wall felt like retribution.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Why would you? It’s a long and involved story. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.’

  ‘But you did mention it! What does it mean?’

  ‘It means I knew the people who lived in your house.’

  ‘The Newman sisters?’

  ‘Uh-huh. Justine Newman was a friend. When I stole from you I was stealing from her. At the time it amused me to sneak out the house and creep about like a crazy person. Meeting you now I see it for what it is, stupid. Anyway, that’s enough of that old nonsense.’ She sniffed. ‘Me and Matthew are gonna look at the baby cyclamen over yonder. One day when you’ve time and interest I’ll fill you in on the details but for now let me bite my tongue. At my age it doesn’t do to stare into open graves and speak of ancient rivalry.’

  Leaning heavily on a cane Callie moved away, Matty singing and whistling beside her. Desperate
for the day to end Julia stood gazing down.

  There was a cough at her elbow, Susan’s sister. ‘I need to be on my way.’

  ‘Thank you for coming.’

  ‘She was my sister. Just because others stayed away don’t mean I have to.’

  ‘No indeed. I thought Susan a very sweet girl.’

  ‘Did yer? It seems to me someone else thought the same.’

  ‘I’ll arrange for a cab to take you to the station. Do you have her things?’

  ‘If you mean the few bits in her room I left ‘em where they were. They were no use to her and they’re no use to me.’

  ‘Would you to take this letter? Susan meant it for your mother. It was dictated the night she died. She was anxious for it to be sent.’

  ‘I don’t know that I will take it. She was a worry to our mother from the day she was born. The times we’ve wept over her. A pretty girl, she’ll go far they all said. Look how far she went, a hole in the ground and a bastard child with her.’

  ‘Do take the letter! There’s money in the envelope, Susan’s wages.’

  The woman took the envelope. ‘Thank you for your kindness. It’s a pity she didn’t come to you then maybe this wouldn’t have happened. She was a worry but as you say a sweet girl. She was like one of them lilies you tossed down the hole picked when fresh and then cast aside.’

  Stefan is not well. Throughout the funeral he sat still and pale. At the graveside he almost fell, Daniel Masson supporting him.

  Julia went to him. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Indigestion.’ He patted his chest. ‘It is my own fault. The pigeon pie at luncheon was too tempting. Daniel has offered a bed at Greenfields but I cannot stay. I have appointments next week that are too pressing. If you will allow me to rest awhile, Julianna, I will catch a later train.’

  An hour later at the cottage he was no better.

  Julia was anxious. ‘You’re quite worn out. You shouldn’t have come.’

  ‘I had to. Knowing how things were for you how I stay away.’

  ‘You must rest.’ Julia took his arm and led him to the stairs. ‘In this moment I am the doctor. You must abide by my dictates.’

  ‘Nein, Julianna!’ He tried to smile. ‘Do not lay that curse upon yourself. One Sisyphus in this modern world is sufficient.’

  Stefan sat watching the light change through the loose weave curtain. The forecast said rain later. He should leave now before the weather worsens but he is tired. Perhaps if he lies down awhile he’ll feel better before going home. Home, where is that? He pays lease on the house in Bradbury and a pied a terre in Knightsbridge not far from his practice but they are not home. They are a convenience. His home was in Dresden close by Frauenkirche. Every morning church bells ring and scatter the pigeons that were once the bane of Karoline’s life. ‘Do not feed them, Stefan,’ she’d say. ‘They are parasites.’

  Pigeon pie is what he ate for luncheon. Indigestion he told Julianna. She knows it is more than that. She sees what everyone sees when looking at him, a heart bleeding. Saturday he was at a concert, Brahms Eine Deutches Requiem. In conversation afterward he said he’d like the last movement, ‘Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted,’ to be played at his funeral. A friend, grossly overweight and a drinker, said since the whole of the medical profession is on borrowed time they should recall the orchestra.

  What is borrowed time? In terms of three score years and ten Stefan has entered the last third. Maybe that’s it once passed that Watershed an Angel presses a button on a stopwatch and from then on time belongs to God.

  Rickard Adelmann, Stefan’s father, long gone, said we are only ever on loan. ‘Mitt Gott kanst du nicht handeln... wenn deine Zeit vorueber ist, ist es vorbei.‘

  When your time is up it’s up. There is no bargaining with God.

  Lying here breathing in starched linen and lavender another quote slips into his mind, physician heal thyself. Professor Stefan Willem Adelmann of the Universities of Gottingen and Berlin, honorary Fellow of the Royal College and consultant to the Queen, can’t do that. He’s done the things he should, taken Die Kur at Wiesbaden, washed in the waters, fasted, consulted quacks, but the clock ticks. Angina pectoris is the curse of the male Adelmann line, generations of fathers, brothers, cousins and uncles have all fallen clutching their chests. Blocked arteries is the layman’s term and good enough since blocked is what they are by hereditary trait and love of hog-roast. It’s likely when he does fall angina will be given as cause but in truth his hurts are legion. Devils plague his soul. He once made a mistake and his wife paid for it. Now only the Lord God and a passing drove of Gadarene swine can set him free.

  Julianna is right when she he shouldn’t have come but like her he feels responsible for the girl’s fate. It was he who brought Susan from the slum in Stepney. He had no trouble finding the address. He knows the area. A house there is familiar to him. 28, Beaconsfield Road is where he shares another life. It’s where once a week he goes to metaphorically exchange his button-boots for slippers and his stethoscope for pipe and tobacco.

  Peggy Gresham lives at number 28 with her sons Jim and Tommy. Stefan has been supporting Peggy since the spring of ‘94. To her he is someone to hug when lonely. To her sons he’s the foreign bloke who pays the rent. He knocks on the door. ‘Hello, ducks,’ she’ll say her good-natured face glowing. ‘Come in and I’ll make us a nice cup-of-tea.’ Stefan loathes English tea as he loathes the stodgy rice-pudding she doles out every time he calls but he likes Peggy. As for her sons they are pleased to see him and pleased when he leaves.

  A faceless person Peggy was char to his Knightsbridge house. In the spring of ’94 he found her bleeding into the sink her husband having broken her nose. That same spring the husband vanished. ‘Don’t worry about ‘im, mate,’ said the eldest son when Stefan enquired. ‘Go fill your boots! He won’t be troublin’ Ma again.’ Permission given, and the lads out the back door, Stefan did fill his boots, the bedsprings twanging. Hairy armpits and dimpled buttocks she’s no Rhine Maiden but she’s patient and once a week grips him between her knees and shakes his sorrows loose.

  Every visit to Stepney is the last. He tells himself he needn’t go again Peggy is comfort against the trauma of a sick wife. Any comfort is short-lived. Yesterday Karoline was particularly difficult. Whereas before it was only his food she disdained now she begins to refuse all food. It’s no use saying she doesn’t know what is happening, a part of her, the shining self behind the abstraction knows. She used to ask for him. Now she asks for Julianna. ‘Wo ist Frau Dryden?’ He says nothing. What can Julianna do than that hasn’t already been done?

  To say he was surprised by Julianna’s advances that day is to understate the case. Women are seeking votes and admittance to male bastion. Mrs Dryden never struck him as a suffragette. He saw modesty and liked it. Then suddenly, shockingly and delightfully, modesty had her hand on his thigh!

  Both women are lovely in their way. To compare would be to insult and yet so tender was Julianna’s embrace his heart thrashed as a caged bird. A memory of that time is locked in the dark reaches of his mind. Foot poised on a stool and a tumble of lace and a scarlet garter she stretches to remove her stocking. He trails his hand down her long curving haunch to a shadowy cleft and to warm, wet, darkness, and she shudders.

  The first touch of her hand on his flesh and manhood was stunned to silence Stefan too old and sad to respond to youth and beauty. ‘Forgive me!’ he’d whispered, ‘I am unable to give as you deserve.’ Her voice a throaty purr she’d closed him in her arms. ‘Close your eyes and let me be the one to give.’

  So it was in the first fumbling, his hands those of an ape, she led the way until a change so sweet he can only think it a gift from God. A door to the past opened in that cheerless house transporting him back in time. It was his wife he held, Karoline Kleinman of the silver hair and chipped diamonds eyes, and he the young and
strong Herr Doktor, newly minted and lately wed. They honeymooned in the bridal suite in the Hotel Vier Jahreszeitzen Kempinski. Naked but for a shift she undid her hair. An ardent and a powerful lover he was then and for an hour in Bradbury Julianna Dryden, and a mystical being, allowed him to be that lover again.

  Stefan woke with a start. He’d slept! A storm is blowing and thunder rattles the window panes. Cursing, he swung his legs over the bed. He must leave the house no matter how late. Julianna is alone. He mustn’t stay. Her acceptance in this village is difficult enough. He must not make things worse.

  When the door opened he was bending to button his boots. A softly glowing lamp in her hand and skirts whispering she entered the room.

  ‘Forgive me, Julianna. I slept.’

  ‘Good,’ she said closing the door. ‘I meant you to.’

  ‘Nein!’ he said anxious. ‘Do not close the door! I must not stay.’

  ‘Of course you must stay, at least until the storm subsides!’ She set the lamp on the table. ‘It’s raining cats-and-dogs out there. You’ll be soaked.’

  ‘Please be sensible. You are here alone.’

  ‘Alone?’ she smiled her beautiful face serene. ‘I don’t believe it’s possible to be alone in this house. I think the history of the world is encased between these four walls.’

  ‘Julianna! What are you doing?’

  One-by-one she took combs from her hair. ‘Oh!’ she shook her head. ‘That’s better! At eighteen one can’t wait to pin up one’s hair. God knows why!’ She unbuttoned her blouse. So many buttons it took forever and then her skirt.

  ‘We must not do this!’ he said. ‘As of this moment we are only speculation. Come the morning and we are fact.’

  ‘That’s alright,’ she said. ‘They’ll think ill of me no matter what I do. It’s vile out there. I wouldn’t send a dog out in this never mind a man, especially a man like you, my dear Stefan.’

  He peered through the gloom. ‘Julianna?’ he said hesitantly. ‘Bist do dass?’