Walking in Pimlico (14 page)

One autumn evening, wearing my very new suit, I shake off the couplings of the day, and claim the streets. With each stride and rasp of heel upon stone, Yates emerges, and I leave my other self behind. I feel his energy, as though I grow flesh and sinew, and with it a confidence that stands me upon tiptoe. I round the corner and sidestep a gaggle of girls, who look after me and whisper to one another. I don’t hear what they say, but I do hear their laughter, and I know they are talking about me. They watch me admiringly as I stride on, a little aloof and very much pleased. I am well turned-out. My wardrobe now is small but of the best quality I can afford. In the past I have practised economy and bought shirts of inferior quality, but they chafe my skin, particularly at my neck where I am unused to having a tight collar. But now, having softer linens, though they cost me dear, makes a deal of difference, and I am hardly aware of the collar other than to make me hold my head erect. Likewise, I find I must have my boots well made and the leather soft, otherwise I cannot stride out as I want, and this, almost above anything else, gives me the greatest pleasure.

I relish my possession of the streets! No more downcast eyes, no more hurrying and scurrying, no more yearning to dawdle by a shop window or watch a handsome carriage and its occupants go by but not daring to. I long ago realized – how quickly I realized! – that James Yates could spend five minutes or five hours on a street corner and no one but whores and beggars would remark him. Freedom has become an addiction, and I indulge myself and protect it fiercely, for it has been hard won. I stride the streets. I ensure that my boots are heeled and capped with steel so that I can hear myself, rasping across the cobbles or snapping sharply on granite. I measure my pace, and drag my heels so that I beat double-time. I tip my hat and incline my head, and I know that gentlemen imagine that they know me, and ladies wish that they did!

I am making my way to the Constellation Concert Rooms in
Whitechapel where, I am told, there are to be seen bawdy representations of what Baron Nicholson called ‘Sapphic amorosa’. I have heard that the Baron himself might attend, though I find that hard to believe, since he is rarely seen abroad these days, and certainly not in Whitechapel. I am striding out – I use that word because it seems to me to summon up all I feel when I am taking the streets – and the streets are wet. I sidestep rubbish, for I do not wish to have my new boots dirtied. I could, of course, take a cab, but I am in the mood for walking.

I ponder this as I traverse the streets, stepping out at a brisk pace, and allowing my stick to beat time as I go. I take such intense pleasure in this simple activity! So intense that I frequently recount it to myself as I lie in my frowsy bed in Guests’s or Moses’s or whatever lodging house I am currently staying in. (I change house frequently. Whoring raises suspicions, and keepers of lodging houses are notoriously inquisitive, and have no compunction about breaking into a room and ransacking possessions.) It often seems like some fantastic enterprise or expedition when I am lying in a thin, cold bed, but when I am, as now, in the place, in the street, with James Yates, it is as real as this policeman or that city clerk.

It is a strange thing, but I find my thoughts and the routes which they take are quite different when my legs are in breeches and boots. I demand rather than request. I am altogether more forthright. And I am happy to have James Yates’s company. We enjoy the sights and sounds of London in her evening gown, dressed for the supper room, or in the shape of the late clerk wearily trudging home. We sniff the rich scent of dinners plated and served, and observe, if we care to halt awhile, white-aproned waiters balancing aloft plates of potatoes and rich pies or chops, running with gravy, eagerly awaited by the hungry diners. We can pause and peer into windows and watch and capture the scene. We can
taste
the scene, relish the moment. We can, above all, stop and stare. I understand
now the terrible liberation of men! Their absolute freedom to observe and contemplate! I stand, we stand, James Yates and I, watching, drinking in moments of companionship in supper rooms and ordinaries, the little intimacies of friendship between men on a street corner or an omnibus. We absorb the intervals of handshaking and back-slapping, of thumb-squeezing and hugging, relics of masculine intimacy of which we were unaware. We store them up.

We have the leisure to watch and understand in the street and through the window.

We are watchers and lookers.

We are mesmerized.

Miss Marweather – Springwell

Steppingstones
Northamptonshire

Dearest dearest Phyll

The place is Springwell in Derbyshire. I am to travel up with a servant as far as Reading and John is to meet me there. And then on to Springwell where we stay at the George, I think. For three weeks. Mama says that the waters are beneficial – and John is convinced that the air will relieve me of my melancholy.

I am so longing to see you, my best, my dearest friend, for I have dresses to show you, and gossip to tell you about the Miss G——and Mr W——which you will simply die to hear. They will be in Springwell I am sure, and it will be such fun. Perhaps we will both have husbands by the end of the season!

With love and love and more love

   
Your

      
Helen

Here was the much looked-for note that summoned me to Springwell, a sleepy spa, ‘a veritable place of pilgrimage’, where
Helen would soon be. Having lost her portrait (that precious memento and its lock of golden hair and its silly note), the thought of not seeing her again or, even worse, catching a glimpse of her in a London street and being unable to approach her, forced my resolve to settle for a few weeks in Springwell. And, I may as well confess it, I had formed a strong attachment for Helen (perhaps born out of our separation) that occupied my imagination ferociously. I thought of her constantly, with an ardour and a desire that were quite new to me. Let me be frank, I loved her passionately, dwelt upon her image, preserved it in my imagination, retraced our conversations and pondered, with obsessive attention, upon what was said. I contemplated concealed meanings, and conjured up intimate moments in an attempt to descry the deeper connection that I was sure Helen also felt.

Her arm through mine, a kiss upon the cheek, a whispered confidence I wove into a fantastical romance, in which Helen had been signalling her devotion to me, and I, all innocence, had been unaware! Only now, as I read and re-read her letters and dwelt upon our conversations, did I fathom her true meaning. She was in love with me, was attempting in her girlish way to have me understand and return those expressions of affection. And up to now I had failed completely. The more I contemplated our conversations and scoured her notes, the more convinced I was. And the more determined that I must see her and let her know I now realized that my feelings were in accord with hers. Where this fine romance would end I did not care. I would journey to the ends of the earth with Helen Shovelton, would endure hardships and privations and still count myself fortunate to be with the woman I loved! This and much more I was eager to disclose to her, if only she would come to me.

In my darker moments, waking early in the morning to a damp, grey dawn, I convinced myself that Helen would not come, and I began to open her letters with a trembling hand. If all my efforts to
remove to Springwell had been in vain – this was an agony I could not contemplate. For I deserved my reward! In London, I had lifted my skirts ten, twenty times each day, and was in danger of becoming known as a common trollop rather than a lady of liberated inclinations! My skin was looking dull, and it was an effort to be constantly amusing. More troubling was that I had begun to hear talk of James Yates. In corners of Leicester-square, in the dark walks of the Cremorne, his name was frequently mentioned, and whispers also of who was he? What was he? His girlish looks – certainly, this was how he was described – were noticed, though never criticized. But he was a phenomenon, a fad, and it was a good thing that he had dipped out of gay society for a season. I heard stories that he was out of town. He was in the country. His mother was ill and needed her boy at her bedside. (This latter was approved of, and did much for his reputation as a gentle and devoted son.)

So, after weeks of late nights and shabby mornings, my purse was at last full for I demanded more than a penny from
my
gentlemen for their pleasures. I packed a trunk, hired a dour-featured woman called Gifford, who had been the gate-keeper at Walhalla in Leicester-square, as general factotum and to complete the appearance of refinement, and took a room at the George in Springwell, a down-at-heel though genteel house overlooking the Parade and the river. Springwell was shabby and dull, a fourth-rate watering hole squeezed in at the bottom of a lofty gorge. Along the length of the Parade were crowded countless lodgings from which mamas and their single or ailing daughters hunted for husbands or took the waters. Here were military families and minor clergy, widowed mothers and their children, all respectable but not wealthy. In their thin muslins and home-trimmed bonnets, the daughters of dead clergymen and career soldiers affected disinterest in the sons of factory owners and merchants, while their mothers consulted one another and drank tea.

When I could contain my anxiety about seeing Helen, it was a relief to sit quietly and observe the comings and goings on the Parade. Slender girls with their stately mamas, bristling soldiers resplendent in their crimson uniforms, the drab doctor, the invalid, the governess and companion, all passed before me. I thought I was quite adept at discerning not only class and occupation but also disposition and inclination simply from a gentleman’s walk or the way a lady carried her sunshade. As days ran by, I amused myself by noticing the changes in Captain Boldstride – from his arrival in Springwell, the bold swagger, chest pouting, head thrown back – to a less bullish demeanour, and finally reduced to a sinking, slack-shouldered fellow, given to spending hours watching river fowl, or leaving the Old Pitcher tavern by its back door. What caused this change? He was unlucky in love I hazarded, or at the races, or simply suffered under the thrust and pull of Springwell society, a reflection in miniature of the larger world beyond. Thankfully (otherwise the view from my window would prove too depressing), the reverse in fortune also occurred, little scenas in which the drab daughters of distressed clergymen’s widows, slight, mouse-like creatures, with downturned eyes and smiles that hardly dared creep on to their lips, were suddenly transformed, and on the arm of a poor but upright bank clerk became gay and frivolous, whence their laughter rose to my window like lark-song.

From my vantage-point, as I scoured the comings and goings of Springwell’s transient population, seeking out Helen’s face, I conned another language. For if dress and bearing spoke loudly of rank and wealth, then glances and secret smiles whispered of love and longing. In less than a week I was fluent in the language of the heart. I could translate the love affair, dalliance, the promised couple, but also the intrigues, those who hid their desires from overbearing guardians and arranged covert liaisons. I could detect the briefest of amorous glances and the slightest and seemingly
innocuous touch. Here displayed on a public stage for all to see, if they would, was forbidden love. Helen and I were not alone! Not that I observed any romances quite like ours (though perhaps the loving looks that passed between a pair of lady’s maids were telling), but there were many moments of secret passion that gave me heart.

Neither were the energies and inclinations of James Yates excluded from the satisfying panorama of humanity daily displayed on the Parade, though I confess it was with more mixed emotions that I contemplated the young men in all their varieties. It was the assurance of the officers that I envied most, but the swells, as fashionable as this dull place could muster, were also in evidence, particularly when the sun shone and they displayed themselves to their best advantage. While I still envied their poise and elegance, most of all I craved their freedom. Not only did they possess the street with their long strides and square shoulders, but the street bowed to them. It was not just their swagger, nor their privilege to bellow at servants and tradesmen, or stroke the cheeks of a chubby maid. Neither was it simply their costume, which I always admired, the brilliant uniform, tight breeches, soft leather boots. It was what these separate and collective elements embodied – freedom and authority. And, of course, with James Yates, I had tasted this heady wine.

One morning, having sent Mrs Gifford out on an errand that I hoped would take her all day, and left to my own company, my attention was taken by a gaggle of young women, and their coquettish encouragement of the strikingly turned-out militia, all shining boots and buttons. They were a noisy company, for the periodic bellow of male laughter penetrated even to my window seat in the George, and I wondered what had amused them. But the moment’s dullness was suddenly, startlingly relieved when, the group of young women parting, I saw her.