Victorian Taboo

by Bryn Colvin

  “Has she become your lover?”

  Gabriel paused, considered, and then burst out laughing.

  “Justin, you are so conventional.”

  Herbertson’s intellect agreed with the notions of sexual freedom and challenging social convention but his heart was full of pity for the dying Jenny. It was evident that there was no appealing to the artist’s sensibilities. Seeing a cab, Herbertson took the opportunity to bid Gabriel goodnight and retreated in the direction of his home. Waterburn turned from the River Thames and walked up past St. Paul’s Cathedral, along by the old London wall and into Smithfield’s, where he had his latest lodgings and studio.

  Climbing the stairs he heard Jenny coughing. He did not know how to cope with a dream that was fading. Gabriel had fallen in love with an image. The beauty was still there. In fact Jenny had a pale, wan exquisiteness that he would love to capture in a portrait.

  It was the reality of illness, the awfulness of life, and in this case, death, that made him shudder. Gabriel told himself he was being shallow. Even suspecting this of himself did not alter his need to be part of a living flower, not a dying rose. He wanted Belle because she would not make him face his own mortality.

  He went into the small front parlour. The landlady had banked up a blazing coal fire. It made the room oppressively hot for late summer. Jenny sat on the sofa, shrouded in a blanket and looking frozen. Gabriel kissed her forehead.

  “How are you today, my love?”

  “You mustn’t worry, Gabriel, I’m quite comfortable. Mrs. Ottershaw has made me a mixture of balsam of tolu, morphia and a little brandy to make it more palatable.”

  “And do you feel better for it?”

  Gabriel’s question was part of a ritualised game. They both knew she had little time, but pretending meant they, for different reasons, were not obliged to confront the inevitable. Gabriel sat by Jenny and put his arm around her.

  “Shall I tell you where we will go in the autumn, my love?”

  “Please do, Gabriel.”

  More words games and shared illusions.

  “I am told, by Herbertson’s wife, that the air in Switzerland has marvellous curative properties. We will climb to the top of a mountain and you will be better, my sweet darling.”

  “That will be nice, Gabriel.”

  Jenny closed her eyes. She had resolved what to do. It did not involve going on a trip to the Alps. When Gabriel next went out for the day she would pack her bags and go back to her own lodgings. Then, God willing, she would try to get work in the theatre again. She must set Gabriel free. She believed in him, in his work, and the beauty of his art. He had blessed her with a most perfect love, but she could not burden him with her illness or let him become a pauper in trying to care for her. She knew he could not stand to watch her dying, and so intense was her passion for him, that she resolved not to inflict such horrors on him any longer.

  It had not come as a great surprise. She had known for months that she was unwell but had not guessed the seriousness of it. It almost seemed like a relief, to know that all the trials of living would soon be hers no more, to know that she would not face hunger or loneliness again.

  Her life had been a grim one, transformed by a few brief years of glory on the stage, a few brief hours of happiness in the arms of her lover. She had never truly believed that any of it could last. Better, she thought, to die now when she was young and beautiful, than watch it all slip away from her. Her thoughts turned then to dwell on Sir Jasper. Would her pride let her ask him for help in her final weeks?

  Chapter Seventeen

  Policemen made Brendan nervous. Perhaps it was the uniform. He had seen enough of English officialdom, backed-up by force, in his native Ireland. When the bailiff came to evict the tenants from land belonging to English owners, there stood the soldiers to make sure the law was carried out. A law made in England, which the Irish saw as a foreign country. He supposed it was more than just the presence of the law unsettling him.

  Ever since the events at the Crystal Palace, he had been waiting for retribution. Sean was not the sort of man you crossed and Brendan knew he had been an utter fool; handing over all the details of Caroline’s household and habits and only then deciding to break faith with his countrymen. There had been countless better opportunities, but to blacken their eyes in so public a place was certainly going to have a price. The prospect made him nervous and he wondered just how dearly his sentimentality might be going to cost him.

  On this particular occasion Brendan carried the note from his mistress, Mrs. Caroline Terrington. It was for her frequent visitor, Sir Jasper Akenfield, and he was to deliver it to the Houses of Parliament. O’Shea knew what was in it. He disliked Sir Jasper and was half tempted to throw the thing away. The man was too civil and unctuous. He paid court to Caroline and was polite to her staff when she was in earshot, but Brendan saw beyond the smiles. He recognized the masculine expression of lasciviousness and could guess what the two-faced man had in mind for the maids. The thought of the oily politician getting his hands on Caroline was enough to make Brendan feel sick.

  O’Shea stopped. “Caroline’s house! Caroline’s body, for that matter,” he muttered to himself. “You’re a bloody Irish servant, Brendan, and here’s you referring to the mistress as ‘Caroline’. You’re nothing to her and best not forget it.”

  “What are you saying, my lad?” Brendan looked up from his reverie. It was the policeman.

  “Just reminding myself of my duties, officer.”

  “And what might they be?”

  “I have a note to give personally to Sir Jasper Akenfield, the Member of Parliament for Polchester.”

  The policeman straightened his stiff collar and collected his dignity.

  “Look, young man, I’ve been on the gates here for almost five years. You don’t have to tell me who these good gentlemen represent. Know every one by sight. Now let’s see this here letter, my lad.”

  Brendan handed him the note, and resented being referred to as ‘my lad’. The English were a bloody arrogant nation. Just because their ships and traders had put their capitalist foot on a quarter of the globe, every single one of them thought they were God’s chosen people.

  “Fine, young man. Go up to that man in the black morning suit and ask him to take you to the central hall. You’ll wait there whilst Sir Jasper is paged.”

  Brendan nodded in a surly fashion and walked to the next English Mandarin, this one being a man old enough to be his grandfather and looking ridiculous in a frockcoat and tall black hat. For the Blessed Mary’s sake, the man is only a messenger, Brendan sighed to himself.

  He was told to be seated and watched the throng of people in the hall. Not one was a woman. Half the population were not in evidence. Brendan wondered about that. As much as he hated the English, he could not bring himself to believe that females should have no say in the country’s affairs. There were too many people who could not vote and you still had to have wealth and status before you got any say. They might call it democracy but, as Brendan saw it, it was just old-fashioned monarchy done up like a bawd. In a free Ireland it would all be better, he promised himself.

  “O’Shea, I shall be with you in a few moments.”

  He looked up to see the pompous Sir Jasper approaching him. The Member of Parliament made no effort to go directly to Brendan, so the footman made no move to stand up. Instead, he watched as Akenfield dallied with a group of his cronies and wished he could have sent the politician into the arms of Sean and Terrance.

  “New Chancellor of the Exchequer made a good speech,” one of them said.

  “Mr. Childers will never be a match for our Mr. Gladstone,” another one replied.

  “Our Prime Minister is no longer in the first flush of youth,” Sir Jasper offered, “He needs to concentrate on running the country, that is why he gave up the finance portfolio.”

  Akenfield turned and strolled over to Brendan.

  “Well, O’Shea, they tell me you have a
message for me?”

  Brendan stood reluctantly.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  He handed over the note.

  “Good day, Sir,” Akenfield called to a man strolling purposefully across the hall.

  “Earl Granville, the Foreign Secretary,” he confided boastfully to Brendan. The footman forced a smile.

  “So, what do we have here?” Sir Jasper read the note.

  “Jacobean glass, wheel-engraved with a rose and oak leaf,” he said aloud. “Do you know what this means, O’Shea?”

  “Yes, Sir Jasper. Mrs. Terrington knew your interest in fine glassware and saw these in Burlington Arcade whilst out browsing this morning. She said that they were rare and you, as a collector, would be interested.”

  “You have a fine understanding, O’Shea.”

  “Only repeating what the mistress told me, Sir,” Brendan said, but thought the man was condescending.

  “Good man. You have a fine mistress. Perhaps one day…” Sir Jasper let the thought remain in his head.

  “Will that be all, Sir?” Brendan was anxious to be out of his company.

  Sir Jasper dismissed the footman with a wave of the hand. It hardly seemed like an important message to him but Caroline had been peculiar of late. Women, he thought, had no sense of priority or understanding of business.

  Out in Parliament Square two men tried to appear nonchalant as they idly threw a few breadcrumbs to the pigeons. Sean O’Neil had hatred in his heart. He saw Brendan O’Shea as a traitor to the cause and had been following him all morning. He had been hoping for the shady venue of a public house to exact his revenge. This certainly was not the ideal place, there were police crawling about, but his anger would brook no delay. As Reardon pretended to look at a statue, O’Neal used his shoulder as a rest, brought up a rifle and took aim.

  Brendan reached the gates of the Houses of Parliament. The policeman nodded to him.

  “Hey, O’Shea,” Sir Jasper called and came rushing out. “I have a reply for…”

  The whistling noise sounded so innocuous. As Brendan turned to go towards Sir Jasper, the bullet meant for him struck the policeman. The man died with a look of total surprise on his face.

  * * * *

  “Does that calm your troubled brow?” Lotte said, as she leaned across and stroked her long index finger over Jasper’s chest. She sat up in the bed, stretching her arms above her head. The sight of her naked breasts sent a delicious shudder through his body, reawakening the lust, which had only just been satiated between the noble lady’s legs.

  “Not again, Jasper. I have guests coming soon and I do not think it is good etiquette to receive them in my bed with my lover in attendance.”

  She teasingly tapped his penis, and then rose gracefully to dress.

  “Do you think the bullet was meant for you, my darling Jasper?” The Duchess asked as they finished tidying themselves.

  “All Members of Parliament have enemies,” he answered.

  “But you, Sir Jasper, have many irate husbands who have cause to hate you,” she smiled.

  “Talking of husbands, Lotte, where is the Duke?”

  “He has gone on another Grand Tour with his chums. In truth, he finds Italian young men more of an attraction than the treasures of Venice or Rome; but come, we must assume respectability and meet my guests.”

  “Is it to be anyone I know, Lotte?”

  She stopped as they got to her boudoir door, straightened her hair, and turned to her lover.

  “Sir Henry Brakepointe has made an enormous fortune from digging gold out of the ground in South Africa. Where money is concerned you are always interested, but his wife will have assets to make you salivate, my sexual lion. She is a young French filly Sir Henry acquired in Paris. From what I hear, he knew nothing about her previous career in Montmarte–although everyone knows about it now, of course. Half of society will not even invite her to dinner. You, no doubt, will appreciate her charms without too many scruples.”

  “But Lotte, I have you,” he protested.

  “Jasper, I am a sophisticated and intelligent woman, not a butterfly who is content to flutter in a simple field of yellow flowers. I want to taste all the nectar of the landscape.”

  He tried to speak. Lotte raised her hand in an imperious manner.

  “I am not possessed by these ridiculous conventions. If you want to indulge your animal passions with whores, and even in the marriage bed of Caroline Terrington, then I will not object. If men can feel the need for many varieties of love, why not women? Do not look shocked, Jasper.”

  Lotte opened the door and walked down the corridor.

  “You had better take the servants stairs and appear in the drawing room separately from me, Jasper. I am sure you know all about creeping around back stairs after young maids.” She laughed softly and assumed the grace of a noble lady.

  Their arrival in the drawing room was timely. No sooner had they assumed the dignified repose of two friends than the butler announced the arrival of Sir Henry and Philomina Brakepointe.

  “Sir Henry,” Lotte enthused, “such a pleasure to see you again. Ascot was the last time, was it not? And this must be your beautiful wife…we have heard so much about you, my dear Philomina.”

  Sir Jasper smiled at the wonderfully delivered remark, so innocent yet so full of suggestions.

  “Are you acquainted with Sir Jasper Akenfield? He is such a good friend to both myself and to my dear Duke. He has served us well with his many talents.”

  This time it was too much. Sir Jasper developed a coughing fit to hide his smirk.

  “Dear me, Sir Jasper, you must take care of yourself. No doubt you have already heard about the dreadful incident outside of Parliament?” Lotte said, turning to her guests.

  For the next hour she regaled them with every conjecture that had grown up in response to the shooting and every other snippet of gossip on the London scene. Jasper nodded and joined in with the occasional word. He found it difficult to take his eyes off Philomina. She was dark of hair, eyes and complexion, and inclined Jasper to perceive her as a Romany soul masquerading in respectability. The contrast with Lotte was considerable. The latter was a lady of pale skin and exquisite perfection, showing nothing of her hidden passions. Philomina, in contrast, oozed wantonness. Every movement gave promise of hot climes, warm thighs, and soaking sexuality under the stars of a foreign land.

  “Sir Jasper?” He realized Lotte was talking to him. “Is that convenient to you?”

  “Sorry, dear Duchess, what were you saying?”

  “Sir Jasper, you must take care of yourself. This shooting incident has made you quite distracted. I was taking up Sir Henry’s kind offer to promenade to the Park and watch the Royal Guards march from the Palace.”

  “That sounds a capital idea,” he staggered a reply.

  “Yes, but would you be able to entertain Philomina in our absence? I do not want to further strain your damaged nerves.”

  “What?”

  “I knew you were miles away; the shock, no doubt, is still affecting you. Dear Philomina is feeling delicate after the journey from Paris and wishes to rest. Can you stay with her for a few hours while Sir Henry and I catch up on all the news?”

  Sir Jasper gulped and tried to maintain a nonchalant manner.

  “She is safe with me.”

  “I am sure of that, Sir Jasper. No man in London could be better at teaching a young continental lady the ways of an English gentleman.”

  Lotte got up and put her arm in that of Sir Henry.

  “Mind now, Sir Jasper, you tell our French beauty all about the dominant position you occupy in our lives.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The day was so hot and close that merely to be still and breathe outside was enough to exhaust a person and render their clothing sodden from sweat. The Elizabethan manor of Ipsley offered some coolness in the heat of the day, but even so, the temperature discouraged all physical exertion, at least any activity that required the par
ticipants to be fully clad.

  “Do you like the view?”

  Frederica’s window looked out over the estate’s parkland and gave good view of a nearby folly. It was a charming scene, and Amelia thought as much, but rather than say this, she turned.

  “I prefer the view within the room.”

  Frederica’s bed was draped in silks and everything seemed soft and tactile, but this beauty was nothing compared to Frederica’s sleek form, elegant in a summer dress.

  “It is a view much improved by your presence.”

  They had arrived on the previous night, weary from travelling through the heat and in no state to do anything more than sleep. The tension and anticipation had been dreadful; there had not been so much as an opportunity to kiss. Now, with the full heat of the day gripping the surrounding countryside, they had time for themselves. Caroline was ensconced in one of the cooler parlours dabbling in a little embroidery, while Charles and his guest Alfred Bellingham were in the billiards room playing a languid game.

  “It is too hot for clothing,” Frederica said, “I think it would be much cooler to be unconfined and rest upon the bed awhile.”

  She turned, presenting her back to Amelia.

  “It would be a shame to spoil our privacy with the presence of a maid. Would you help me?”

  Amelia’s fingers trembled as she began to undo the small buttons that ran down the back of Freddy’s dress. The garment slipped away easily enough, to reveal delicately embroidered corsetry. Amelia had not unlaced a corset in years, but it was easy enough to slacken ties and remove the stiffly whale-boned item. Frederica’s skin was as pale as ivory. Amelia unpinned the bun of silken hair and watched as the dark snakes of locks fell over her companion’s bare shoulders.

  Even though Frederica should have been able to manage the rest unassisted, Amelia knelt, slipping off light shoes, rolling down her stockings and, finally, sliding her undergarments down so that the dark-haired beauty could step from them. Amelia looked up, taking in the full glory of Freddy’s naked form, from her smouldering eyes to her pert breasts with their prominent nipples, down to the curve of her stomach and the shadow beneath it.