Fragile Blossoms

by Dodie Hamilton

  Luke Roberts is not easy to love. Today she’s not even sure she likes him. God alone knows why he is here. In early days he was a lover both sensitive and wild. That he pretty soon cooled off is because he was asked for what he could not give, his heart. He loves Julianna, as does Evie, one woman desired by many. It’s more than three years since they lay together in that bed and yet burned into Evie’s memory as a defining moment. Desire for Julianna, to kiss and to hold and to make her scream with pleasure, was always there even on the steps at Cambridge. There is that of Ju-ju that makes a person want to touch as with caressing a gorgeous animal. It’s what the gifts are about, Bertie’s rubies and Eve’s furs. In the slip of silk and satin the mind proposes undressing the beloved. It sees diaphanous chiffon slide down a creamy thigh and the mouth drips to follow. Julianna walks into a room and that same need is reflected in every eye, male and female, which is why, knowing it can’t be returned, sweet often turns to sour. The morning of the opera the need to express love was strong. Evie couldn’t hold back and Julia, who is afraid of greedy love, turned tail and fled. Had Evie toed the line there would have been no falling away, there would be friendship but friendship built on a lie.

  Evie’s not good with lies. It’s why she gets on with the likes of Lolly Dupres. There is no lie. Lolly loves men and women with same equal disinterest. She shares many beds when visiting London and goes away singing, her body restored and her heart intact. Evie forced the issue with Ju-ju as she forces the issue with Luke Roberts. It’s as though her soul cries out, ‘bring me love, Lord, but then for God’s sake take it away.’ Male or female who cares if the bed is clean, the arms compassionate, and when they leave they leave quietly.

  As far as sex is concerned Evie is the opposite of Freddie and male the antithesis of desire. Where she adores soft Luke is hard, and where silken flesh conjoins with breast he is muscle and bone. She did think she might soften his tough exterior but found the only tender underbelly was hers. Now he combs his hair with his fingers and dons a jacket, a dark jacket, sober and industrious, chosen by him and paid from cash in his wallet, none of your cherry red velvet cutaways beloved of Milady. From her upper floor sitting room overlooking the west of London Evie stares out over rooftops and wishes him and his sober jacket away, affection begrudged is a damnable bore.

  ‘Are you returning to Norfolk?’

  ‘Not for a day or so. I’m in Harrogate tomorrow. The hotel is in need of major overhaul. Albert and his crew has been there a couple of weeks already.’

  ‘You have done well in the latter years. Your name is known throughout the country and respected. In terms of men like Robert Scholtz don’t you think your success is in some degree due to an association with me?’

  ‘I do and I am grateful.’

  ‘But not grateful enough to stay?’

  ‘That wouldn’t be gratitude! That would be me using you and I’ve done too much of that already.’

  ‘One is never used until one thinks one is. I hope that Freddie and I shall still be a welcome acquaintance with you and your family?’

  ‘Of course! I would hope you know that to be so!’

  ‘Mille grazie, one takes what one can.’ Anger licked Evie’s skin. ‘You are very calm and composed, Luke, and insultingly so. Such an association, so long of sleeping in the same bed and drinking from the same cup one would hope for a little less head and a lot more heart.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to insult. Talking leads to shouting. I agree with Sir Hugh, the least said the soonest mended.’

  ‘An unwillingness to communicate has been your position throughout our association except in Rome when you said more than enough.’

  ‘You communicated for us both with your teeth.’

  ‘Oh you hold that against me do you?’

  ‘I don’t hold anything against you but neither can I forget.’

  ‘Well you do bear a scar and scars are difficult to disprove. I must learn to be less vigorous when chewing. You didn’t say a great deal at Long Melford.’

  ‘Would you have heard me if I had?’

  ‘Probably not.’

  ‘Words wound. I didn’t want to add to your pain.’

  ‘My pain?’

  ‘Yes yours! You hurt a lot of people, Eve, that evening. You were cruel. You said things purposely to wound and in so doing wounded yourself.’

  ‘Did I wound you?’

  ‘You did.’

  ‘I didn’t hear you yelp.’

  ‘Before Rome I learned to yelp quietly.’

  ‘You have suffered then as well as gained in business and wealth?’

  ‘Eve, please! Let’s not part bad friends.’

  ‘We were good friends then before the Borghese?’ Evie threw out her arm. ‘Oh don’t answer that! Go if you must! I shan’t beg! As for the séance and debacle that followed I don’t know why people were so wounded. I only said what was true.’

  ‘True to you perhaps but not to everyone.’

  ‘Truth is truth. There can be no deviation.’

  Head on one side he regarded her. ‘You can’t believe that, not with what you know about poor Freddie.’

  ‘Poor Freddie?’ Evie turned to stare. ‘What do you mean poor Freddie?’

  ‘He has suffered.’

  ‘As have we all! If by poor Freddie you’re referring to his sexual predilection I’ve always known. I have been with him since the day he was born. I’ve watched him grow and shared his struggles. I never once condemned him but neither did I urge him to seek his true nature. To live like that and be happy isn’t possible while hawks like Queensberry hunt his kind. Freddie’s no Oscar Wilde. He doesn’t have the veneer. It’s why Bella happened. He thought to correct what he saw as sin. Poor Bella, I do regret her.’ Evie sighed. ‘But I ought not to call her so. I’ll do as Ju-ju says and give Susan her name.’

  He shouldered his bag. ‘I must go.’

  ‘Wait a moment! I want to ask you how long you’ve known about Freddie.’

  ‘Since the day we met.’

  ‘What, back in the Nelson?’

  ‘Even so.’

  ‘Good heavens! And you sat for him naked! I am astonished. I felt sure you didn’t know. ’

  ‘Most men know. It’s instinctive.’

  ‘Do you not feel awkward?’

  ‘I do not. His feelings trouble him more than they trouble me.’

  ‘I doubt your father would think that way.’

  ‘I don’t know what my father would think. I know what Albert would think but that’s Albert and not me. Did you think I’d be some other way then, maybe take Freddie out on the street and punch his nose.’

  ‘It crossed my mind.’

  ‘Then you don’t know me. If a man is decent with me I’ll be decent with him no matter what others say. I’m in no position to judge his choices. As for the painting you know I never sat for him naked or otherwise.’

  ‘I know. I was only teasing. One is allowed to tease even though it falls on deaf ears. Have you seen the painting and how his imagination conjures you?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘And when you do what will you see?’

  ‘I imagine he does what you do, glorify. You are Freddie are magicians. You make Princes of Paupers and Palaces of the common world.’

  ‘Glorify?’ Evie nodded. ‘Yes I suppose we do. It’s a mistake for which we both pay. You never did sit for me. Why is that?’

  ‘You never wanted me to sit. Let’s face it, Eve, you never wanted me! It’s Julianna you want. ’ He bent and kissed her cheek. ‘It’s why I’m here. I’m closest to her you can get.’

  Luke Roberts left and another hole appeared in the house. That evening wishing to be alone Evie cancelled the trip to the Belgravia and a lecture by the Theosophist, Annie Besant. Religion, Spiritism and the like is all very well but you can have too m
uch of a thing. The séance on Friday was both wonderful and terrible. The gentleman who condemned Freddie for washing his linen in public was right to do so. Victorian Society is supported by a simple but rigid code, by all means have your secrets but keep them secret!

  Lord, what a shock to hear that song issuing from Leonora’s mouth! It made the hair on Evie’s head rise. It was an odd sitting altogether, right and yet not. Before the Bella denouement there were messages from spirit for Julianna and for Luke. Yesterday when Luke arrived from Norfolk looking worn and tired Evie enquired of his message, the odd verse that made him tremble. He said it was from the past and of no particular interest.’ When she pressed, he said it was from a lady he met when he was a boy. Sick of heart Evie had continued to bait him, what lady and was she vixen to his wolf. White of face he’d turned. ‘A female wolf is known as a bitch. You being familiar with the state, Lady Carrington, I thought you might’ve known.’

  She will miss him. Life in Russell Square didn’t suit him. Constant upheaval, the servants their usual spiteful selves, her temper and silly shouting, it went against his Northern stoic grain. It made life with Evie seem louche, or as Sir George would say sinful.

  Sinful was father’s critique of her work and behaviour. These days he seldom comments, he’s old and of course Sidney and his Iron Horse-shit put an end to insults. Charlecourt, the family home on the Downs, is in need of repairs. Sir George and Lady Iphigenia are the same. Sidney’s money keeps them ticking over thus these days Evie is not so much a sinful slut as a beloved daughter.

  Oh, the difference money makes! The power it wields! It is the alchemic formula that softens and redeems. During the years they were together Sidney’s dollars removed many a stain. Alas there are those stains that can never be removed and certain sins along the likes of ‘thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife’ that can never be redeemed.

  Freddie’s sin was to be born different and then to try proving otherwise. When he came to confess, pouting and chewing his cane, ‘I’m in trouble, Evie, I’ve done an awful thing, ‘ her first thought was that he’d given way to sexual yearnings and was to be put in jail. Aware of his penchant for boys she couldn’t imagine what was to come and that the tragedy would lead to so many others.

  It is dark now street lamps alight and lamps glowing in windows across the way. Though late many of the larger stores are open and hansom cabs, their side-lamps twinkling and horses blanketed against the cold grow busy with Christmas trade. How foolish to sit moping. I should go to the studio and paint. These days she has a reluctant muse, with the recognition of Freddie’s talent her own has faltered. She regards the Fauns as her best work. They are back now in Russell Square. She had them removed from the National. There have been offers, one very good offer from Robert for his Gallery in New York. The Palace also made an offer, more prestigious but as with all things Majestic niggardly purse-wise.

  ‘I dare say HRH will have them in the end or I’ll do as Freddie does and break them to pieces with a carpet beater.’

  The clock ticks and Evie sighs: I should’ve gone to the lecture, better that than staring at nothing and regretting the loss of a lover. Luke was not so much a lover as a mountain to climb. So reluctant, not once in all this time did he approach her with a kiss, she was always the instigator. As with other men he expressed pleasure in sex yet might have been in another room. That’s the way of men. They have no need to be adored only to acquire the right receptacle. ‘Love is sentimental hogwash,’ Sidney said. ‘If the woman is wet and willing she don’t need to adore me. You don’t adore me, do you, Milady C? You never have. If I can manage you then I can manage anyone. ’

  Sidney was a good lover. Stout and aging he wasn’t always able to rise to the occasion but always took care of her needs. First seen she thought him a pussy-cat and that she’d be safe. It’s why she accepted him, that and the need to get away from Charlecourt... and his money, of course. Sidney liked women. In Rhode Island and in Boston, their second home, he attended all of Evie’s soirees. A room filled with gossiping women and a loaded tea-trolley and he was happy. An unlit cigar in his hand and Miss Fancy, the Pomeranian, under his arm he’d circle the room. The ladies loved him. He’d bend and whisper and giggle. They would giggle with him. Freddie maintained Sidney was one giggle away from batting for the other side.

  Poor Freddie! Was he born a bugger or caused? It was Freddie’s nurse, Mable Goldsmith, who alerted them to danger. She wrote to Sidney. ‘I wish you’d come, sir, and take young Freddie to be with his sister. He’s not a happy boy and not wonderfully loved by his Papa.’

  How dreadful to read those words.

  ‘I knew it,’ Sidney had raged. ‘That place was wrong for you and it’s wrong for that boy. We must go back and get him back. ’

  They’d tried before to bring him to Rhode Island. Evie tried every day before leaving for America, Freddie only a baby and mother frail she asked that she might take him. Father would have none of it. ‘He is the Honourable Frederick Erasmus Carrington. He is to inherit my name and not that of a tradesman. Your brother, God bless him, stays under my roof where I can govern his future.’

  So it was Freddie remained behind with father, a cruel man, dark and savage, and on whose lips even a blessing becomes a curse.

  Three in the morning and Evie is awake. She thinks of Long Melford and how she shouted and society looking on. She’d dearly like to apologise to Julianna but can’t bring herself to do it. It was Luke that made her so angry, his hand on her elbow restraining a mad dog. Julianna should not have interfered! If she’d left things alone it is possible Bella and her baby might still be alive.

  If Evie could turn back the clock it would be to the night of the opera and the moment Julianna, her beautiful eyes puzzled, asked why Bella couldn’t go to Norfolk, what harm would it do? Evie wanted to tell Julianna of the harm that had been done long before Bella came into their lives, terrible harm, dark and wounding, that caused another death. The summer of 1879 Evie was pregnant. She was happy, if a little surprised. Sidney was delighted and made so many plans. He said if it’s a girl she’s to be named Jenny after his sister who died.

  The baby was born dead the cord about its neck. How Sidney wept. He’d stood bottom of the bed tears rolling down his cheeks. ‘My little girl,’ he sobbed, ‘my Jenny.’ Sidney had wrapped the tiny form in a blanket and carried it away. Baby Jenny was buried the following week Evie too ill to attend. Her parents wired their regrets.

  Father never liked Sidney. He thought him crude. Mother adored him. Once when they visited he picked peaches fresh from the veranda and glistening with sugar. ‘Eat them now, Lady Effie, while your eyes are still popping. They’ll taste so much sweeter.’ Never leave for tomorrow what you can enjoy today was his creed. Finding joy in all things he planned for the morrow.

  Two babies died Bella’s baby and Evie’s. They will never know life, never laugh and sing, but they will never weep. Freddie thinks it’s his fault Bella died. He said so yesterday on the telephone. ‘You were wrong to blame Julianna but right to blame me. It’s my sin. Please don’t add to it by saying I’m like father.’

  Evie is sick of the word sin. It was father’s favourite word; ‘You are a sinful girl, Evelyn, you know that, don’t you, a sinful slut!’ He would say that and more while unveiling his cock prior to plunging it into any of the orifices belonging to the slut. She once asked Luke, ‘do you think this sinful?’ They were in bed, she staring at the ceiling and he with his eyes closed.

  ‘What exactly?’

  ‘You and me unwed and twined about one another?’ He was a long time answering, so long she’d heaved up on her elbow. ‘You need to think about it?’

  He’d shrugged. ‘Maybe in the back of my mind I do think it a sin.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s what my mother would think.’

  Nanette Roberts has a strong hold on her son. She is one of the reasons he
decamped today. Evie tried building bridges to Bakers End but her heart wasn’t in it and so the bridges collapsed before they were swung. Not that it matters! Daughter-in-law to a brewer was never her ambition. Luke was never an ambition. He was as he said a surrogate, his love for Julianna, and the loyalty seen in his eyes, Evie wanting for her own.

  ‘Poor Freddie!?’ Strange Luke should describe Freddie so and with affection or something akin to it. With the séance a family closet was unlocked and ugly skeletons stirred, so many in that closet the door should have been barricaded. One skeleton is hidden away right at the back of the closet. Sidney knew of it as does Evie. It will stay in the closet. She will never tell!

  Evie knelt on the padded window seat watching a footman carry his aged mistress through the snow. She doesn’t know her neighbours. Faceless people they come and go as do post-men and milk carts. When she was here Mrs McLaughlin would speak with them. Freddie liked Mrs Mac. He said he always felt safe with her. Sad that she had to leave, sad too that news of Bakers End can no longer be bought with thirty gold pieces. One misses certain faces about the house. Mrs Mac, though smelly, was loyal. Bella was a sweet girl. Freddie saw her as a playmate with whom he might share a dolly and play a Make a Baby Game. ‘I never thought it would happen,’ he’d said, his eyes round and startled. ‘We only did it once.’

  When Freddie told of Bella being pregnant Evie panicked. She should’ve managed it better, and arranged for the girl’s removal instead of hoping the problem would go away. Fly away Peter, fly away Paul, she had hope Bella might run home to mother but noblesse oblige rich in love and passion to her chewed finger-ends the girl died never giving Freddie away. That is love and not the pale affection offered by Julianna Dryden. Freddie sees her as the ideal. He said for her he could change his ways. Luke Roberts is in love with Julianna as is Stefan Adelman. Why? What can they see in a woman who loves from the mind rather than the heart? Mister Wolf seeks the passion of his kindred, blood and claws ripping at silk. Julianna was wed to a Don Quixote scholar who tilted at Egyptian hieroglyphs and gave her a mute son so that she might hide behind walls and simulate passion with an aging German doctor. It will take an earthquake or a great tragedy to wake her.