Walking in Pimlico (15 page)

Helen.

She was standing directly in front of the hotel, looking up at the window, and she met my eyes with a directness that was as breathtaking as it was familiar. We stood in each other’s gaze and I did not want to move just in case that movement should be misunderstood and she went away. I had to go to her and so, holding my breath and telling myself that this silly act would keep her there, I dashed outside.

As I came out of the hotel, she was looking earnestly down the Parade, and I was glad, for had I met her eyes again I am sure I would have cried out her name. As it was, I crossed the road, sedately under the circumstances, and was able, for the benefit of anyone watching, to maintain some façade of decorum. She was far more adept at concealment than I, for she betrayed no sign that she had seen me at the window, and instead would have convinced the most acute observer that she was surprised. This was all the more remarkable given that our letters had been preparing for this meeting for weeks. But how glad I was that I had conned the secret language of love, otherwise I would have missed, in the ordinary pleasantries we exchanged, the true meaning of these expressions.

‘Miss Shovelton.’ (Helen.)

‘Miss Marweather.’ (Phyll. How glad am I that you are here!)

‘How unexpected.’ (I hoped you would come, Helen! Oh, how I have longed to see you!)

‘You look very well.’ (Phyll, how glad I am that you are here!)

‘Is your brother here?’ (I have read your letters over and over, Helen.)

‘Yes. He’s just greeting some old friends.’ (Letters are a poor substitute.)

We sat together in an ecstasy of pleasure! Just to be beside her again, to inhale the subtle scent of her body, to feel the warmth of her knee pressing against mine, was so affecting that I could hardly
bear it! The busyness of the Parade was silenced, and there was no one in the world but we two.

She took my hand – hers was so tiny, encased in a white glove – and looked into my eyes, saying, ‘Where are you staying?’ (I have imagined this moment – and more.)

‘At the George.’ (I can hardly bear to be so close to you.)

She gasped. ‘Here? How splendid!’ She looked down at our two hands and smiled.

I thought it was a knowing smile, and I understood completely.

‘What a happy coincidence. I did hope you might be able to, but rooms are so difficult to find.’ She clapped her hands – just like a child. ‘What fun! Just think, Phyll. We can be such close friends once more,’ and – I hardly dare write it! – she licked her lips, and then parted them in such a provocative way that I hardly knew whether to laugh, or kiss her pretty mouth there and then! Fortunately, the arrival of John Shovelton saved me from the dilemma. So tall, elegant, amiable. Every mother of an eligible daughter counted him as their closest acquaintance. He was a doting brother, though I am sure mothers and daughters envied Helen unreservedly, but since they also knew that Mrs Shovelton was an invalid and could not leave the family home and that John regarded it his duty to ensure that Helen enjoyed all the social pleasures to which she was entitled, he simply rose higher in general estimation. During the season the Shoveltons visited Scarborough and Lytham, and their house in London, and out of season they came to the spas, quieter places such as Springwell. In between (and, I think, whenever invitations were extended), they were to be seen, the most attractive brother and sister, at minor country houses. This is where I had first met them, at the country house of Lord and Lady Sanders.

I had passed, for a while, as the orphaned daughter of Lord Ardagh and Clonmacnois. (There were so many supposedly Irish
landlords among the floating aristocracy that I thought one more dead lord would never be questioned, and in fact he served me well for almost a year.) I lived by moving between houses and palaces, by invitation, and appealed most strongly to those fatherly nobles whose ancient lusts were satisfied by a sad face and a pale bosom across the breakfast table. I had enjoyed Lord Sanders’s hospitality (and his none too furtive gropings) for six weeks before Helen arrived, which was when my world was changed for ever. There was an instant understanding between Helen and I. Our eyes met across the dinner table, our fingers touched at cards, and we both knew. We conversed, kissed briefly (on the cheek), linked arms and held hands. And all under the noses of twenty-three house guests and a watchful brother! Of course we also walked up hill and down (the Sanderses were energetic walkers) and sang silly songs and acted as nymphs in a little entertainment. But the closer we grew, the more adventurous we became in the subtle arts of deception. Indeed, the necessary secrecy of our liaison was both frustrating and exciting. We came to enjoy it.

One afternoon, secluded on a window seat, while the rain beat down and the other guests were reading and dozing and playing some interminable game of cards (we both hated cards), Helen begged me to recount some little incidents in my early life. This shook me with its suddenness and, as if to encourage me, the little pet told me of her own schooldays with an ugly governess and the music teacher who would lay his hand upon her knee while she played a fugue. What could I tell her? My mind raced as she chattered on about parties and acquaintances, of idyllic summers and cosy winters with friends, cousins, aunts and uncles. What could I say? Tales of the Nichol, perhaps. Stories of ratting and dog-fights, cuffs and kicks, of ‘uncles’ whose intimacies did not stop at a kiss upon the cheek or a hand upon the knee. Of sweltering summers and freezing winters, of blue jack cholera and scarlet fever. If I told
her how I had clawed my way out of my childhood, she would not have understood even if she had believed me, and what then would have become of our perfect friendship?

So, almost without thinking at all, I wove a tapestry of tales remembered from books and penny papers. Not the cheap and inky ‘bloods’ which I rescued from the sacks in my father’s yard or stole from under the counter of Mr Dalby’s shop in the Mount, for my first primers were of thieves and cut-throats, and my fairy tales of Spring-Heeled Jack and Dick Turpin. No, I was selective, if sensational, and Helen smiled encouragingly as I described my first kiss, a lingering and passionate one, bestowed upon Margaret, our cook’s daughter (and the object of my first passion), when I was nine years old – recited, almost word for word, from
Mallora, the Witch of the Dark Vale
. And as I gained confidence I told her how I explored the sleeping body of my cousin, Jane, who moaned in slumbering delight under my caresses (loosely adapted from
The Wretch of the Far Dark Mountains; or, Lust and Greed
); my first moment of exquisite passion (Helen’s eyes lit up at this) when I was twelve, riding
à deux
with Isabella, an Italian neighbour, who, on feeling me tremble behind her, stopped the horse, turned around and kissed me full and long, and bit my lip so that it bled, calling me her
bambina sangua
(stolen from
The Wicked Girls of the West
and
Diamond Fanny and her Ruby
).

I was clever at describing this world of forbidden pleasures and, from the expression on Helen’s face, utterly believable. She was entranced by my ‘confessions’, begged me to tell her more and of course, because I wanted to keep her close to me, I obliged. Stories of intrigue with the kitchen girls of our country house, with my French governess, my dressmaker (all decanted from those vile books) stirred Helen’s feelings and produced blushes in her cheeks. She held my hand and prompted me when I hesitated.

I too was struck by the novelty. Those stories, which had only
aroused my curiosity and kept me amused as a child, now pricked my imagination, particularly if I substituted Helen’s face and body, and began to imagine the milky whiteness of her skin, her voluptuous curves and contours (she was no skinny whippet of a girl!) in the shape of governess or housemaid. The abandon that these fictional women exhibited I thought I recognized in Helen, for could she not be reckless and wild? What pent-up emotion was simmering beneath the composed girl who casually took my arm, and kissed my cheek?

We were in constant danger of detection, though this, of course, was an added sensation. The servants, I am sure, were suspicious (servants always are). And Helen was never discreet in her demonstrations of affection for me. John Shovelton doubtless believed that we were merely silly girls, who walked arm in arm, and sat close together whispering and giggling – as all girls do. Certainly, he regarded me as a sister, playfully attending to my whims, and indulging both of us with his gay wit. He took my hand and called me his ‘other sister’ and was so happy in our society that he included me in as many of their visits and excursions as was possible, much to the irritation of the mothers and daughters who harboured designs upon this handsome, eligible young man.

Of course, when the Shoveltons announced their intention to remove to their family home, my heart broke, only to be mended the instant I was told that I might accompany them. There followed Arcadian weeks in which Helen and I discovered our true and undying love. Days full of sunshine and warmth, days spent walking in the woods and evenings by the fire. It seemed as if they would never cease, that I had found, at last, the place where I was perfectly happy.

The crisis came sooner than I had expected (though from a perfectly predictable quarter), when I was surprised by the kitchen girl suddenly entering my room and locking the door. She had the
momentary advantage and, grasping me by the shoulders, pressed me against the wall, pushed her face into mine, and declared that she ‘knew Old Nichol-street and Mr Banks and his “spit” [myself]’, and unless she had ten shillings in her hand within the hour, my word, wouldn’t she tell some tales! It was as surprising as it was galling, for though it was unlikely that our paths had crossed (we were, after all, in deepest Northamptonshire), her white skin and lank hair, her dog’s breath and rough hands did give her that unmistakable stink of the Nichol, and those few details she volunteered confirmed to me, a native of that region, her origins.

But I would not simply bow to her demands, and so when she confronted me an hour later with a sly smile and an open hand, I allowed myself the full vent of my feelings, noisily expressed, and in terms she well understood. And, as if she needed it, a fierce blow across her silly face with the flat of my hand was a reminder that I was in earnest. She gasped and was inclined to yell, but another blow, which sent her reeling, brought her to her senses. I reminded her that, since I came from the sewers, I knew very well how to deal with sewer rats. That if she opened her mouth and my name was upon her tongue, I would serve her out. And that if she truly believed I
was
a child of the Nichol she would know what that might entail.

She seemed cowed after my threats and cuffs, and, after all, she had been well schooled in St Giles’s lessons! But this over-stuffed dumpling had more guile than I gave her credit for, and in spite of my efforts she tattled to the kitchen maid, who gossiped to the cook, who ran to the housekeeper, who bent the ear of Mrs Shovelton, who called me to her bedside – and gave me notice to remove myself from her house immediately.

I protested. I denied everything. I said that it was a kitchen maid’s spite and invented reasons why she might malign me so.

Mrs Shovelton listened and then put her finger to her lips.
‘Please, please, no more. Let us have no more of this. And certainly no more pleading.’

She motioned me closer and I obeyed, reluctantly.

‘Miss Marweather, if that is indeed your name, you will leave my house, the town and the county by this time tomorrow,’ she said, in a voice low and pleasant, as though she were giving the cook her orders for dinner. ‘If I find you within twenty miles of this house, I will inform the magistrate and have you arrested. As a thief. Or a harlot. Or anything I choose. You have, I think, credentials in these occupations, so I could select any. Or all.’

When she looked up at me, her eyes were cold and blue.

‘I do hope I make myself clear. Even before I knew such of your history as I do now, I was aware that you are not what you pretend to be. What you imagine you are. You have a certain refinement, but it has been acquired by observation and not breeding. That will not do. I think you are probably digging for gold. But not in my house, and with my daughter. You have also upset my household. You have abused my servants and, I think, taken pleasure in it.’

She paused.

‘Yes, please do consider the many occasions on which you have cuffed a servant or ill-used my maid.
I
have noticed them, if my daughter has not. I wonder what she would say? And what explanation you would give? Something picturesque you endured yourself, no doubt? In your interesting past?’

I was taken aback by her perceptiveness, and wondered when she had had the opportunity to see me enjoy those secret torments, for I could not deny the pleasure I took in abusing those whose existence depended upon their silence, and I had never stopped to consider why. But evidently Mrs Shovelton had.

‘I have heard what the girl has said, and have made enquiries about you, and while I cannot but admire your tenacity in attempting to drag yourself out of the mire into which you were
born, I reiterate, you will not use my house and my family to do so.’

I tried to protest, but she interrupted me very swiftly with a dismissive wave of her hand.

‘Do not think you can manage me as you do the others. You are less of an adversary for imagining that you can. You’re a cunning young woman,’ she added. ‘I might have grown to like you had you not contemplated fingering my daughter.’

She continued, unsmiling.

‘No, I won’t reveal any of this conversation to Helen or John, and my housekeeper is the emblem of loyalty. You have probably suffered and I am not quite the monster you imagine me to be. Unless you force my hand. And then, believe me, I will send you back to whatever rat’s nest you came from.’

She had the floor. Even from her bed, the old woman owned the moment, and I was like a mouse before her. Once again, birth and privilege and power held sway! She rang a bell and I was ushered swiftly and firmly from the room and, by the stroke of noon, from the house.