Sleep, Pale Sister

14

It was hot inside the tent and what light there was came from a small red lamp on the table in front of me. The gypsy was sitting on a stool, shuffling her pack of cards, and she smiled as I came in, beckoning me to sit down. For a moment I hung back; surprised that she was not the woman who had danced, but an older woman, a scarf drawn over her hair and a thick layer of kohl outlining her tawny eyes. Something covered in black cloth stood on the table beside the lamp and as my eyes lingered upon it, trying to decide what it was, ‘Scheherazade’ indicated it with one strong, still-beautiful hand.

‘The crystal ball,’ she explained. Her voice was light and pleasant but accented. ‘I have to keep it covered or it loses its power. Please cut the cards.’

‘I…Where is the girl who danced?’ I asked hesitantly. ‘I thought that she would be telling the fortunes.’

‘My daughter,’ said the gypsy curtly. ‘She and I work together. Please cut the cards.’

She handed me the pack of cards and I held them for a moment. They were heavy and looked very old, with a shine to them born not from grime but from much respectful handling. I gave them back with reluctance, for I would have liked to look at them more closely, and she began to spread them in a spiral pattern around the table.

‘The Hermit,’ began Scheherazade. ‘And the Ten of Wands. Oppression. This man speaks of virtue, but he has a shameful secret. The Seven of Cups: debauch. And the Nine of Swords: cruelty and murder. I play the Lovers, but they are covered by the Knave of Coins. He will bring you joy and despair, for in his hands he bears the Two of Cups and the Tower. But who is here, riding atop the Chariot? The High Priestess, bearing the Ten of Swords, which spells ruin, and the Ace of Cups, great fortune. You will trust her and she will save you, but the cup she offers is filled with bitterness. Her chariot is driven by a Knave and a Fool, and beneath her wheels lie the Ace of Wands and the Hanged Man. In her hands she brings Justice and the Two of Cups which spells Love, but hidden inside the cups are Change and Death.’ She paused, as if she had forgotten that I was there, and spoke softly to herself in Romany.

‘Is there more?’ I asked after a time, as she seemed lost in thought.

Scheherazade hesitated, then nodded. She looked at me for some time with an unreadable expression, then she stepped towards me, kissed me quickly on the forehead and made a sign with three fingers of her left hand.

‘You have a strange and magical destiny, ma dordi,’ she said. ‘Better to look for yourself.’ And she carefully unwrapped the crystal ball from its black covering and pushed it towards me.

For a moment I was unsure of where I was; the ball reflected the light so that I had the illusion of being out of my own body looking downwards. The scene was familiar, stylized like the figures on the Tarot: a girl sitting at a table where a gypsy watches over a hand of cards. Suddenly I was light-headed, almost dizzy, overflowing with unreasoning laughter, but feeling dislocated somehow, as if struggling with lost memories.

When shall we three meet again? I said to myself, and I laughed aloud, uncontrollably, as if in recollection of some wild and ridiculous farce.

Then a depression, as abrupt as the hilarity, seized me, and I was close to tears, the image of the crystal blurring before my eyes. I was afraid, disorientated and without memory of what had frightened me, looking into the clouded surface of the crystal and trembling.

Scheherazade was singing gently, almost idly under her breath:

‘Aux marches du palais…

Aux marches du palais…

’Y a une si belle fille, lonlà…

’Y a une si belle fille…’

I tried to stop myself from falling out of my body towards the crystal, but the pull was too strong. I could no longer feel my limbs, no longer see beyond the clouded surface where, at last, some of the cloud was beginning to disperse. Scheherazade was singing softly in a rhythmic, lilting voice, three notes rising and falling compulsively. As I followed the coaxing beat I found myself leaving my body without effort, my senses warping, spiralling out of control. I allowed myself to drift, guided by the sound, and was conscious of drifting through the darkness right out of the tent and high into the air like a child’s balloon.

From far away I heard Scheherazade’s voice, gently coaxing: ‘Shh, sshhh…that’s right. See the balloons. Watch the balloons.’

Vaguely I wondered how she could have known what I had been thinking, then remembered, with a childish, absurd delight: she was Scheherazade, Princess of the Mystic East. I giggled.

‘Sleep, little girl,’ she whispered. ‘It’s your birthday, and there will be balloons, I promise. Can you see them?’

They were drifting around me, all colours, shining in the sun. I nodded. From a great distance I heard my voice in sleepy reply.

I saw the tent from above, saw Mose sitting on his stump, heard the pedlars selling their wares.

‘Hot gin’erbread’ and ‘Ribbons and bows’ and ‘Liquorice laces’. I smelled the mingled confusion of hot pies, candyfloss and animals. I hovered, directionless, for a few moments like some fairy-tale sky-ship, then I felt myself being drawn gently down towards a scarlet tent across which was stretched a banner which read: ‘happy birthday marta’. All around the banner were strings of balloons, and I thought I could hear music from inside the tent, the music of a barrel-organ, or maybe a child’s clockwork toy. I began to float down towards the tent.

As I touched the ground I realized that the sun had disappeared. It was cold, and the bright banner had vanished; in its place I saw a small, tattered poster, advertising:

The Gallery of the Grotesque!

A most Admirable Display of

Murderers, Monsters

and Freaks of Nature Depicted in Wax

I felt myself moving towards the tent-flap, my elation dimming rapidly. I had begun to feel cold, with a dull, sickly chill which pulled me from my delightful dream of flying into an earthy darkness. I saw the tent-flap open by itself and, although I struggled, I was not able to escape the malignant attraction of that opening. I could smell stale straw, kept for too long out of the sunlight, the musty reek of damp old clothes and the sharp scent of wax; and as I entered the tent, and my eyesight began to adjust to the darkness, I saw that I was alone and that all around the sides of the tent-which now seemed very much larger than I had first thought-were placed wooden pens or enclosures, housing the life-sized exhibits. I wondered why I had felt such a sensation of dread as I first entered; these figures were wax, their limbs held together with horsehair and whalebone, their clothes glued on to their bodies. The blood was red paint; even the gallows in the famous hanging scene had never been used for a real execution. But I was suddenly convinced that they were all real, that Burke and Hare in the corner were waiting there just for me, assessing me greedily from under thin masks of wax…

I moved backwards, angry at myself and my childish, unreasoning terror, and cried out aloud as I ran straight into the exhibit at my back. Even in my discorporate state I felt a moment’s tension as I touched the wood of the pen, and I whipped round to face the thing behind me. An enclosure of wire and planks surrounded a still scene; tacked on to the wood was a sign which read:

THE HERMIT

Please do not touch the exhibits

I moved a little closer, squinting against the troubling light, and saw that the scene was a tiny bedroom, like a child’s, with a narrow bed covered with a patchwork quilt, a small stool, bedside table and a couple of coloured prints of the type I had had when I was a girl. There were flowers on the bedside table, marigolds in a glass jar, and by the bed a small stack of wrapped presents. Beside the open window a bunch of balloons swayed in the draught.

But why had I thought it was dark? The light was streaming in from the window on to the bare floorboards; evening light which reflected a warm rosy radiance on to the bright little room. A man was sitting on the side of the bed, no doubt to say goodnight to his little girl, who was in her nightdress, a stuffed toy frozen in one hand. She looked about ten, long black hair hanging down dead straight around a solemn, pointed face. The man’s face I could not see, as he had his back to me, but I could guess at a certain heaviness of build, a square jawline, a stiffness in the posture which I found faintly familiar. I moved forwards curiously, wondering vaguely why this comfortable domestic scene had been included in the Gallery of the Grotesque.

As I moved, the girl’s head snapped towards me and I jumped back with a stifled scream. The girl froze again, her eyes fixing me with a stare so intense that I found it difficult to believe she was merely a thing of wax and horsehair. Reluctantly I stepped forwards again, angry at myself for having been startled so by a piece of machinery; at the London Waxworks there had been similar devices, triggered by pressure on a plate in the floor, enabling the exhibits to move as the onlookers passed by. I found myself scanning the floor for the concealed plate.

There! As I passed a certain point she moved again, turning her head towards the man with a fluid, boneless movement that could surely not be mechanical. Her hair fell across her face and she brushed it back with a nervous little gesture, the other hand clenching at the thick cotton of the nightgown. I was suddenly convinced that despite the misleading term ‘exhibit’ these were real actors, playing out some ghastly charade for my benefit, and I was suddenly angry at my nervousness, angry but, at the same time, filled with a dreadful sense of predestination. I knew what I was about to see as if it were a memory from my own past and, impelled with a growing sense of urgency, I touched the wire which separated me from the scene and called urgently to the child.

‘Little girl!’

The child did not react but moved warily towards the bed. I raised my voice.

‘Little girl! Come here!’ I heard my voice rise shrilly, but the child might as well have been clockwork. I tried to call again, but found myself moving instead right into the enclosure and into the scene. Suddenly I began to feel dizzy; half falling, I reached out towards the figure of the little girl as if to ask for help…

And I was ten once more, ten and coming to see my mother, as I did every Sunday. I loved my mother and wished I could be with her every day, but I knew it wasn’t possible; Mother had work to do, and didn’t want me in the way. I wondered what her work was. I liked Mother’s house, so grand and full of pretty things-elephant statues from India and hangings from Egypt and carpets from Persia, like in the Thousand and One Nights. When I was grown up, maybe I could come and live with Mother all the time, instead of at Aunt Emma’s-except that Aunt Emma wasn’t my aunt at all but a schoolteacher, and she didn’t like Mother very much. Not that she said anything, but I could tell from the funny face she used to pull when she said ‘your poor mother’, as if she had just swallowed cod-liver oil. Mother would never give me cod-liver oil. Instead she always let me eat at the table with her, instead of in the nursery with the babies, and there would be cake and jam and sometimes red wine with water in it.

Sometimes the pretty young ladies who lived in the house with Mother would come down and talk to me; I liked that because they were always so kind, giving me gingerbread and sweets, and they always wore the most lovely dresses and jewellery. Aunt Emma must never know about that; years before, when I was still a baby, I had let something slip, and she had been terribly angry, saying, ‘Surely the woman has no shame, allowing a child into that place, and with those abandoned creatures!’ I tried to say that they weren’t abandoned, that they had plenty of company every day, but she was too angry to listen, so now I don’t say anything at all. It’s safer that way.

But tonight Mother said that I would have to go to bed early, because she’s expecting company. I don’t mind; I sometimes pretend to go to sleep and then, when she thinks I’m in bed, I creep down and watch the pretty ladies and the guests through the gap in the banisters. I’m very quiet; no-one ever sees me. Well, hardly ever. Not till tonight.

He was very kind, though, the gentleman; he said he’d not tell Mother. He didn’t even know Mother had a daughter at all and he seemed surprised, but he was very kind; he said how pretty I looked in my nightgown, and that, if I was a good girl, he’d come and put me to bed and tell me a story.

But now I’m not so sure. He looks funny, staring at me like that, and I wish I’d never asked him here. He frightens me. I said, ‘What about my story?’ but he didn’t even seem to be listening. He just keeps looking at me in that funny way, and suddenly I wish Mother were here. But if I call her she’ll know I was out of my room…Now he’s coming forwards, with his arms held out; maybe he’ll just give me a goodnight kiss and leave me alone.

‘Like mother, like daughter,’ he whispers as he pulls me towards him, but I don’t understand what he means. He smells funny, salty, like the river after the rain, and his mouth is very cold. I try to push him away; I don’t understand why, but he frightens me-he’s kissing me the way grown-up men kiss ladies.

I say ‘No’ but he just laughs and says ‘Come here’ and some other things I don’t understand. He’s so strong that I can’t move my arms to push him away; I’d like to bite him but I know he’s Mother’s guest, and I do so want Mother to love me and to want me to live with her for good. I don’t want to be a baby. But I can hardly breathe; I try to say, ‘Stop, you’re holding me too hard,’ but the words won’t come out. Suddenly he pushes me on to the bed; he’s so heavy on top of me that I’m afraid he’s going to squash me, and he’s beginning to take off my nightgown; this time I manage to give a little scream, but he puts his hand over my mouth. I begin to struggle; never mind about being a baby, I don’t care if Mother finds out, I don’t care if Aunt Emma…I manage to get my teeth into his hand and I bite down hard; he tastes horrible, of sweat and perfume, but he swears, and lets go. I take a breath and scream.

‘Mother!’ He swears again and slaps me hard across the face. I scream again and he grabs me by the neck. He’s cursing all the time, saying ‘Bitch bitch shut up bitch shut up shut up…’ but my face is against the pillow and I can’t breathe. My head is so tight, like a balloon. It feels as if it’s going to burst and I can’t scream, I can’t breathe, I can hardly move with him on top of me and I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe. He seems to be moving away, so far away into the distance, and I can hardly feel the pillow over my mouth, hardly taste the starch and the lavender scent in the thick linen. In the background I can hear Mother’s voice calling me:

‘Marta?’

Then nothing.

15

I was beginning to become impatient; she had been in there for long enough to have her fortune read a dozen times, and I was the one who was going to have to pay the gypsy bitch when she finally did come out. I was getting cold, sitting there with nothing to do, so I got up and walked into the tent.

For a moment I was disorientated; the tent seemed cavernous, filled with the reflections of torches like some dead Pharaoh’s pyramid. Then, as my eyes adjusted, I realized that it was after all just a small tent, strewn with the usual trappings of the fairground charlatan, the sunlight streaming in through the tent-flap on to the array of gilt and paint and glass, showing it to be just that. Effie did not flinch as I threw back the tent-flap, but remained sitting with her back to me, her head hanging loosely to one side. Of ‘Scheherazade’ there was no sign.

The suspicion of foul play crossed my mind at once, as I leaped to Effie’s side in one step. I shouted her name, shook her by the shoulders, but she was limp as rags, her eyes open but blank. I cursed and lifted her from her chair, carrying her outside into the sunlight, where the noise I had made had already attracted a small knot of curious onlookers. Ignoring their bleating I laid Effie on the grass and, after having checked that she had no visible injury, I tipped out the contents of her purse to look for the smelling-salts. Some woman screamed in the background-I suppose the bitch thought I was robbing the unconscious lady-and I snapped a vulgar rejoinder which made another woman gasp faintly and reach for her own smelling-bottle. An officious type with a military moustache demanded explanations while a vapid youth suggested brandy, but failed to produce any, and a female with dyed hair attempted to compete for attention by having an unconvincing fainting spell of her own. Oh, the scene was high vaudeville, all right; someone had already summoned the constable and I was beginning to wonder whether it wasn’t time for Mose to take a bow and leave when Effie’s eyes suddenly focused sharply on mine with an expression of horror, and she screamed, a high, demented wail of unreasoning terror.

At that moment the constable arrived.

A babel of voices greeted him: a woman had been robbed; the man here had been attacking the poor lady in broad daylight; she had had a fit; one of the animals in the wild beast show had escaped, frightening the ladies-it shouldn’t be allowed…I saw the constable’s eyes light up as he reached in his pocket for his notebook.

Effie managed to sit up with my help and was rubbing her eyes confusedly.

‘It’s all right,’ I shouted above the din. ‘I’m the lady’s…husband. She fainted because of the heat.’ But I could tell that the tide of popular opinion was against me and, foreseeing the necessity of lengthy and unpleasant explanations at the police station, wondered again whether I should not simply disappear now while there was still time and confusion enough to do so. As for Effie, she’d be all right; after all, she was in some way responsible for the situation; if she hadn’t screamed in that idiotic way I should have been able to carry it off well enough. As it was she made me look like a rapist. Besides, there was Henry to think about. I had almost made up my mind when I became aware of a female figure at my side, and a crisp, familiar voice rang out over the hubbub:

‘Marta, dear, are you all right? I told you not to exert yourself so much! Here!’ I caught a glimpse of a pair of narrow, bright eyes levelled at mine and heard her whisper fiercely, ‘Be quiet, you idiot! Haven’t you done enough?’ I moved aside dazedly, and she took my place beside Effie, holding a smelling-bottle and uttering coaxing words.

‘Fanny!’ I said blankly.

Again the hiss. ‘Shut up!’

‘Now, Marta my love, can you stand? Let me help you. Hold on to Mother, now. That’s right. That’s my lovely darling.’ Still holding the bemused Effie by the waist Fanny turned on the constable, who was by now looking decidedly confused.

‘Officer,’ she said sharply, ‘perhaps we might ask you to do your duty and disperse this…this herd before they alarm my daughter any further?’

The constable hesitated; I could see him wrestling with his dwindling self-assurance, still suspicious, but intimidated by the stronger personality.

‘Well?’ Fanny demanded impatiently. ‘Must we be importuned by these vulgar onlookers? Is my daughter an exhibit to be stared at?’ With a superb and righteous fury she turned on the crowd.

‘Go away!’ she commanded. ‘Go on, move! I said move!’ A number of people at the edge of the scene began to shift uneasily and drift away; only the military gentleman held his ground.

‘I demand to know…’ he began.

Fanny set her hands on her hips and took a step forwards.

‘Now look here…’

Fanny took another step. Their faces were nearly touching. She whispered something, very quietly.

The military gentleman jumped as if he had been stung and moved away hurriedly, pausing only to look back over his shoulder at Fanny with an expression of almost superstitious alarm. Then she joined us again, a smile of sublime unconcern on her face.

‘That, officer,’ she said, ‘is how it is done.’ Then, as the constable seemed dissastisfied, she continued: ‘My daughter has a delicate constitution, officer, and is upset by the slightest thing. I warned my son-in-law not to take her to the fair, but he would go against my advice. And because he is most ill equipped to deal with a young lady in her condition…’

‘Ah?’ said the constable.

‘Yes. My daughter is expecting a child,’ said Fanny sweetly.

The constable blushed and scribbled something meaningless in his notebook. Struggling to maintain his dignity, he turned to Effie.

‘I’m very sorry, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Just doin’ my duty. You are this lady’s daughter?’

Effie nodded.

‘And this gentleman’s wife?’

‘Of course.’

‘Would you mind giving me your name, please, ma’am?’ Effie flinched almost imperceptibly. I noticed, but did not think the constable did, so quick was her recovery.

‘Marta,’ she said, continuing in a stronger voice, ‘Marta.’ And, turning towards Fanny with a smile, Effie put her arm around the older woman’s waist and began suddenly, inexplicably, to laugh.

Fanny Miller had been a part of my life for years, and I respected her as I have done no other woman. She was ten years older than I, good-looking in a heavy kind of style, with a razor-sharp intelligence and a masculine, devouring ambition. Like myself, she was a Jack-of-all-trades; her mother was a country girl turned Haymarket slut and had given Fanny to that oldest of professions by the time she was thirteen. Four years later the mother was dead and Fanny was on her own, all teeth and claws against the world into which she had been thrown. She was avid to get on and, in the years which followed, she learned how to read, to write, to pick pockets and locks, to fight with a razor or with her fists, to make medicines and poisons, to talk like a lady-though she never quite lost her mother’s West Country burr-and drink like a man. Above all she learned to despise men, to ferret out their weaknesses and use them, and soon enough she was able to graduate from selling herself to selling others.

Fanny had earned her money in a dozen ways, both honest and dishonest: by singing in the vaudeville, by telling fortunes in a travelling fair, by selling fake rheumatism cures, by blackmail, by theft, by fraud. When I met her she was already in charge of her own establishment, with maybe a dozen girls in her stable. Pretty, all of them; but none of them could have competed with Fanny. She was tall, almost as tall as I am, with strong, rounded arms, broad shoulders and rolling curves all free from corsets and stays. She had bright amber eyes, like a cat’s, and a profusion of brassy hair which she wore in a complicated knot at the back of her head. But Fanny wasn’t for sale, not at any price. Foolishly, I insisted-there’s a price and a line for every woman, or so I thought-and she struck at me just like a cat, the arc of her ivory straight-razor leaping towards me with a fluid grace, deliberately missing me by half an inch. She was quick-I never even saw her pull the razor from her pocket-and I still remember the way she looked at me, snapping the wicked blade shut again and returning it to her skirts, saying, ‘I like you, Mose. I really do. But forget yourself again, and I’ll take your face off. Understand?’ And all that without a tremor in her voice or a quickening of the heart.

Sometimes I think that if Fanny Miller ever had a heart she must have left it along the way with all the rest of the useless flotsam of her life; certainly, by the time we met, she was steel through and through. I never saw her falter. Never. And now she had returned, my personal daemon, unchanged but for a streak of grey in her luxuriant hair, to take in hand my little crisis.

I was not altogether pleased, although Fanny had undoubtedly saved me from some unpleasantness; I suppose I simply don’t like being indebted to a woman. Besides, I was already running my own masquerade with Effie, and it disturbed me that Fanny knew it; she was the type to turn every situation to her own advantage, and I did not like the almost instinctive way in which Effie had clung to her, almost as if she were indeed Fanny’s daughter. However, I said nothing until we had left the green and were back on the Islington Road where I could hail a fly and be off before I had to give any tedious explanations. I glanced at Fanny, still arm-in-arm with Effie, and cautiously began to search for my role.

‘A long time since we last met, Fanny,’ I said idly. ‘How are you faring nowadays?’

‘Come-day, go-day,’ she replied, with a smile.

‘Business?’

‘I’d say business were fine.’ Still the smile, mocking, as if she knew she was hiding something from me. Turning to Effie, she levelled the smile at her, their faces intimately close. ‘You’ll excuse me, miss, if I alarmed you back there,’ she said cheerfully, ‘but I could see you didn’t want the commotion, and I guess you might not want anyone to recognize you.’ A knowing, sidewards glance at me. I shifted uneasily before it. What did she know? What game was she playing?

‘Our guardian angel,’ I commented, trying to keep the sourness out of my voice. ‘Effie, this is Epiphany Miller. Fanny, this is Effie Chester.’

‘I know. I know your husband well,’ said Fanny. That made me start, but Effie did not react.

‘Oh, modelling,’ she said. She was still staring at Fanny with a kind of stupid intensity and, for the first time, I found myself out of all patience with her. I was about to make a sharp comment when she roused herself abruptly.

‘Why did you call me that?’ she asked.

‘Call you what, my dear?’ said Fanny comfortably.

‘Marta.’

‘Oh, that? It was just the first name which came into my head.’

I’m damned if I knew what her game was. I could see no reason why she should want to befriend Effie, who was as unlike her as a woman can be, nor why she should invite us to her house; but she did and, despite the black looks I levelled at her, Effie agreed. I was beside myself; I knew where Fanny lived; she had a house in Maida Vale, near the canal, consisting of her own rooms and the lodgings of the dozen or so girls who lived under her protection-not the kind of place I wanted to be recognized in with Effie, unless I wanted all my careful liaising with Henry to be wasted.

‘Really, Effie, I think we should be getting you home, don’t you think?’ I said pointedly.

‘Rubbish!’ answered Fanny. ‘It’s only three o’clock. There’s plenty of time for a cup of tea and a bite to eat.’

‘I really don’t think-’

‘I’d like to come,’ interrupted Effie with a defiant look in her eye. ‘If Mose wants to leave now, let him. I’ll come home presently.’

Damn her impudence!

‘I can’t let you jaunt about London on your own!’

‘I won’t be on my own. I’ll be with Miss Miller.’

Miss Miller be damned! I could see Fanny was enjoying the whole scene vastly, and so I was forced to hold my tongue and accompany them both. Dealing with Effie could wait. I’d make her pay later.

16

I could tell that Mose was annoyed that we had encountered Fanny; he dragged his feet, scowled, made impatient gestures and made it clear that he wanted us both to be gone as soon as possible. I could understand why: despite her spirited performance at the fair, Fanny had soon abandoned her high tone and, although her clothes were of excellent quality, there was in the richness of the mulberry velvet dress, the matching plumed hat and the rope of baroque pearls around her long neck, more than a suspicion of the adventuress. I knew what Henry thought of women who dressed, walked and talked as she did; but, if anything, that only added to her attraction.

For there was an attraction; I’d felt immediately drawn to Fanny. As soon as I set eyes on her I felt that there was some secret in Fanny, some bold message writ in her flesh for me to read, and, as I walked beside her, I was sure that she had recognized something inside me as I had in her.

Fanny’s house was on Crook Street, quite near the canal, at the intersection of four alleys which led out from the house like the points of a star. In that part of town there were a number of old Georgian houses, once very fine and fashionable, now receding into shabby-gentility, some derelict, with the rags of ancient curtains hanging at the toothy mouths of their broken windows, others fresh painted and spotless as the false fronts of a theatre backdrop.

Fanny’s house was larger than the rest, built of the same soot-grimed London stone, but respectably clean, with bright, heavy curtains at the windows and pots of geraniums on all the sills. In that neighbourhood the house stood out with a kind of countrified incongruity. The door was painted green, with a bright brass knocker and, at the doorstep, sat an enormous striped ginger cat, which mewed when we approached.

‘Come in, Alecto,’ said Fanny to the cat, opening the door, and the big tabby rolled her boneless weight silently into the hall. ‘Please…’ Fanny gestured for me to follow, and the three of us-Fanny, Mose and I-entered the house. I was struck immediately by the scent; something like sandalwood and cinnamon and wood-smoke, a scent which seemed to come from the furniture and the walls all around us. Then there were the flowers, great vases of them, crimson, purple and gold, on stands in every corner. Tapestries in jewel colours hung on the walls and rich rugs covered the parquet floors.

It seemed to me that I had been magically transported to some Aladdin’s cave; in this setting Fanny, as she unpinned her hat, took off her gloves and loosened her hair, was a beauty of awesome, mythical proportions, a giant Scheherazade with no hint of the Haymarket now in her appearance or her bearing, a creature entirely at ease. She guided us through a passageway and past a great sweeping staircase into a cosy drawing-room where a fire had already been lit. Two more cats rested, Sphinx-like, before it.

As I slid into one of the huge, overstuffed armchairs I slipped momentarily out of my body and saw myself, alien in this warm and sensual setting, as pallid as a creature from beneath a stone, and I almost screamed. As the world focused again I saw Mose’s face looming towards me like something seen in a fishbowl and I drew away in a kind of inexplicable loathing, with the room spinning about me like a crystal ball and his eyes locked mercilessly into mine.

‘Dear girl, you look ill. Drink this.’ I clung to Fanny in desperate gratitude as she handed me a drink in a brass goblet; it was warm and sweet, like wine punch, with a distinct aroma of vanilla and allspice.

I tried to smile. ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I…’

Mose’s voice, sharp with suspicion: ‘What’s that?’

‘One of my own recipes,’ answered Fanny lazily. ‘A restorative, that’s all. Don’t you trust me?’

‘I…feel much better,’ I said, realizing with some surprise that it was true. ‘I…I’m sorry I…’

‘Nonsense!’ Fanny’s tone was crisp. ‘No apologies in this house. Henry may like that kind of foolish submissiveness, but I can’t conceive of anything more tiresome.’

‘Oh!’ I was for a moment unsure whether I should laugh or take offence at Fanny’s bluntness; and she had called my husband by his Christian name. And yet, there was a certain rightness in the way she responded to me, a warmth in her familiarity which, in spite of myself, I welcomed. I laughed uneasily and drank the rest of the restorative in one draught. The cats, a white one and a thin brown tabby, left their places at the hearth and came to sniff the hem of my skirts, and I reached out cautiously to stroke them.

‘Megaera and Tisiphone,’ said Fanny, indicating the cats. ‘They seem to like you. You’re honoured-they don’t usually get on very well with strangers.’

I repeated the names, ‘Megaera, Tisiphone and Alecto. What strange names. Do they mean anything?’

‘Oh, I have a liking for ancient mythology,’ said Fanny carelessly.

‘May…may I call you Fanny?’ I asked.

She nodded. ‘Please do. Don’t stand on ceremony with me,’ she advised. ‘I’m old enough to be your mother, though not as respectable, no doubt. Have another drink.’ And she refilled the goblet and handed it to me. ‘What about you?’ She turned to Mose, who had been sitting in the only straight-backed chair in the room, looking like a thwarted child. ‘You look as if you could do with a drink.’

‘No.’

‘I think you should,’ insisted Fanny lightly, ‘if only to mend your temper.’

Mose forced himself to grin sourly and accepted the proffered glass. ‘Thanks.’

‘You don’t seem very pleased to see me,’ said Fanny. ‘Doubtless you now have a reputation to uphold. And yet I would never have thought that Henry Chester was your tipple, Mose dear. You must be getting respectable in your declining years!’ Mose shifted uneasily and Fanny winked at me and smiled.

‘I am, of course, forgetting your new position as Mr Chester’s sponsor,’ she added. ‘Fancy you and Henry becoming friends. I vow you’ll be quite sober before the year’s out.’

Abruptly she turned to me. ‘You’re so pretty, my dear,’ she said. ‘What a tangle you have yourself in, with Henry Chester on the one side and Mose on the other. Scylla and Charybdis. Be careful: Mose is a villain through and through, and Henry…well, we both know Henry, I hope. You can be my friend. It would infuriate them both, of course-men have such odd notions of propriety! Imagine Henry’s astonishment if he knew! But Henry sees no further than his own canvasses. Even in those eyes of yours, so deep and clear, he sees nothing.’

Her tone was light, her words a shoal of bright fish spelling meaningless patterns around me. The tabby jumped on my lap, and I was happy at the distraction it offered, allowing my hands to move idly in the cat’s fur. I tried to concentrate on what Fanny was saying, but my head was spinning. I took another drink to clear my head and, through the veil of unreality through which I perceived the world, I was aware of Mose watching me with an ugly look on his face. I struggled to say something, but my grasp upon drawing-room manners was weak, and instead of the polite comment I had intended I said the first thing which came into my head.

‘Is this a bawdy-house?’ For a second I froze, appalled at what I had said, then I felt a hot blush sweep me from head to toe. I began to stammer, spilling my drink across my skirts, almost in tears. ‘I…I…I…’

But Fanny was laughing, a rich, deep laugh of the kind you might expect from a genie in a bottle. For a moment I was aware of her looming over me and I lost all grasp of scale; she was a giantess, terrifying, awesome in her rich velvet robes, the scent of musk and spices from her generous flesh overwhelming me as she took me in her arms. I could still hear her laughter as the world stabilized around me and my hysteria receded.

‘You’re quite right, my dear,’ she said with a chuckle. ‘How refreshing you are! “Is this a bawdy-house?” Mose, the child’s a treasure.’ I shifted, my face against her shoulder, protesting.

‘You’ve given her too much punch. She’s not used to it.’ Mose was still disapproving, but I could see that he was smiling in spite of himself. Nervously, through half-shed tears, I too began to laugh.

Suddenly, a thought struck me and, made reckless by the alcohol in the punch and the hilarity of my unshakeable hostess, I voiced it: ‘But…you said you knew my husband,’ I said. ‘I…Was it modelling?’

Fanny shrugged. ‘I’m not his style, my love. But from time to time I can find him someone who is. Not always for modelling, either.’

‘Oh…’ It took some time for the implications of what she had told me to settle into my mind. Henry was unfaithful to me? After all his posturing and preaching, Henry had visited Fanny’s house in secret? I was not certain whether to laugh or scream at the bitter farce; I imagine I laughed. To think that during all those years when he was my hero, my Lancelot, he was creeping to her house in Crook Street like a thief in the night! I laughed, but there was a bitterness in my laughter.

Mose, too, had been taken by surprise. ‘Henry came here?’ he asked incredulously.

‘Often. He still does. Every Thursday, just like clockwork.’

‘Well, I’ll be damned! I’d never have thought that the old hypocrite had it in him. And he goes to church every Sunday, the devil, and proses and preaches as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth! What’s his taste, Fanny?’

Fanny smiled scornfully, but I cut off what she was about to say. Suddenly I knew the answer already.

‘Children,’ I said in a colourless voice. ‘He likes children. He sits me on his knee and makes me call him Mr Chester. He-’ I stopped, feeling sick, and broke into an ecstasy of sobs. For the first time I had voiced some of my hatred, my shame and disgust and, as I clung to Fanny Miller, drenching her mulberry velvet with my tears, I felt an inexplicable sense of release.

We talked for some time, Fanny and I, and I learned more of the story she had begun to unfold. She had met Henry-or Mr Lewis, as he called himself to the other visitors-many years ago, and since then he had been coming regularly to her house. Sometimes he would sit in her parlour and drink punch with the other guests, but more often he avoided the rest of her ‘company’ and went off with one of the girls-always the youngest and least experienced. He usually came on a Thursday, the day he supposedly went to his club.

I listened to this account of Henry’s betrayal with an almost indifferent calm. I felt as though all the world had collapsed around me, but instinctively I hid it, holding out my goblet recklessly to be refilled.

‘Don’t drink any more of that,’ said Mose irritably. ‘It’s getting late. Let’s get you back home.’

I shook my head.

‘I’d like to stay here for a moment longer,’ I said with assumed calm. ‘It will be hours before Henry gets back from his studio-and even if I am late, he’d never guess where I had been.’ I laughed then, with a bitter recklessness. ‘Maybe I should tell him!’

‘I hope that was an attempt at humour,’ said Mose, with a dangerous calm.

‘I’m sure you do.’ I heard the brittle note in my voice and tried to adopt Fanny’s light, confident tone. ‘But then, you do have an interest in Henry’s continued goodwill. After all, you’re seducing his wife, aren’t you?’

I saw contempt and anger in his face, but was unable to stop. ‘You have an odd notion of propriety,’ I added. ‘I dare say you think a man can get away with any crime, any betrayal, as long as appearances are safeguarded. I don’t suppose it matters at all to you whether I suffer or not.’

‘You’re overwrought,’ he snapped coldly.

‘Not at all!’ My laugh was shrill. ‘I expect you to know all about pretence-after all, you’re an expert.’

‘What are you talking about?’

Suddenly I was no longer sure. For a moment I had felt such overwhelming rage that I had allowed it to overflow…but at this moment the rancour seemed not to be my own but someone else’s-someone much braver and stronger than myself…some stranger.

What had I wanted? It seemed nebulous now, like the vestige of some dream, dissolving into nothing as I awoke.

‘I…I’m sorry, Mose: I didn’t mean it. Please, let’s not go so soon.’ My voice was pleading, but he was not moved. I saw his blue eyes narrowed into slits like razors and he turned away rather abruptly, his voice icy.

‘You knew I didn’t want to come here,’ he said. ‘I came for your sake. Now, leave for mine or, by God, I’ll leave without you.’

‘Mose…’

‘Try to have a little understanding, Mose my dear,’ said Fanny in her mocking tone. ‘Effie has had rather a rude awakening, wouldn’t you say? Or would you rather have had her kept in blissful ignorance?’

Mose turned to both of us with an ugly expression. ‘I won’t let two whores give me orders!’ he spat. ‘Effie, I bear with your tears and tantrums. I was the one who almost got arrested today because of your hysterics. I love you as much as I have ever loved any woman, but this is the outside of enough. I won’t be defied, especially not under this roof. Now, will you come home?’

Two whores. The words sank like stones, silently into the darkness of my thought. Two whores…He reached for my arm to steady it and I knocked his hand aside. The cat hissed wildly at him and sprang out of the chair to hide under the dresser.

‘Don’t touch me!’

‘Effie-’

‘Get out!’

‘Just listen to me a moment…’

I turned to him and looked at him flatly. For the first time I saw the lines of tension around his mouth, the cold blankness at the back of his eyes.

‘Get out,’ I said. ‘You disgust me. I’ll get home on my own. I never want to see you again.’

For a moment his face was slack, then his mouth twisted.

‘Why you impudent little-’

‘Get out, I said!’

‘There’ll be a reckoning for this,’ he said in a soft and ugly tone.

‘Get out!’

For an uneasy time he was frozen, his arms folded defensively, and in some way I sensed that he was afraid, as if some lap-dog had suddenly learned to bite, and the knowledge of his fear was rapturous in me, so that the sickness receded, elation flooded my body and some savage voice in me sang bite, bite, bite, bite, bite…Then he turned with a shrug and left the room, slamming the door behind him. I collapsed, all my triumph dissolving into wretched tears.

Fanny let me cry for a minute, then, very gently, she put her arm around my shoulders.

‘You love him, don’t you?’

‘I…’

‘Don’t you?’

‘I think so.’

She nodded. ‘You’d better go after him, my dear,’ she told me. ‘I know you’ll be back. Here…’ And, lifting up the tabby, who had returned to sit next to me as soon as Mose had left the room, she placed it in my arms. ‘Tizzy seems to like you. Take her with you-look after her and she’ll be a good friend to you. I can see in your eyes what a lonely thing it is to be married to Henry Chester.’

I nodded, holding the cat tightly against me.

‘Can I come and see you again?’

‘Of course. Come whenever you like. Goodbye, Marta.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I said, “Goodbye, my dear”.’

‘I thought you said…’

‘Shh,’ she interrupted. ‘You go now, and remember what I said. Be careful.’

I looked into her strange eyes and saw nothing there but reflections. But she was still smiling as she took me by the arm and pushed me gently out on to the street.

17

The bitch. The bitch! Bitches, both of them. As I made my way back to my own lodgings seething with the injustice of her treatment of me, I nearly resolved to abandon the whole thing, to leave her to her Puritan husband and good riddance to them both. Or maybe a nice little anonymous letter, packed with intimate details…that might put a few pigeons in with the cat. That would teach her. But behind my anger there was unease. It was not simply a question of revenge, was it? No. It was the fact that I had been wrong about her, that the Ace of Wands had proved himself a Fool of the first water, that I had underestimated my little Eff, that I had been utterly, indubitably wrong in thinking that I had her under my thumb…And she had chosen to defy me in front of Fanny, Fanny, of all people!

Well, if she wanted Fanny, I’d give her Fanny. The right word in Henry’s ear and he’d divorce her like a shot. What? You don’t believe it? A few selected details and he’d not bear to look at her again. She’d be penniless, with no-one to turn to-don’t think her mother would have her back after the mess she made of the fine marriage she had arranged. Vulgar? Yes, let’s be vulgar. Alone and penniless, I said; and with no-one to turn to but friend Fanny. She’d be filling a room for her in a month, along with the other girls. And all I had to do…Well, maybe I’d do that when I tired of her. But for the moment I still wanted the chit. She was a stunner, after all, and besides, the news that she did have a bit of spirit was not altogether unwelcome. But Fanny!

That was what hurt.

Oh, she came back quickly enough. I knew she didn’t have the character to stand up to me for long, and I wasn’t surprised when she came running out of the house a couple of minutes after I had left it. It wasn’t her silly little hysterical outburst which bothered me, but the way she and Fanny had joined together against me, almost instinctively, like members of some secret sisterhood. We drove back to Cromwell Square in silence, she watching me warily from under the brim of her bonnet, I staring straight ahead, immersed in my bitter thoughts. By the time we reached Highgate she was sniffling furtively and I was feeling much better.

Never mind, I thought, Fanny wouldn’t be there to influence her for ever. Once Effie was mine again I’d frighten her a bit, make her cry and the whole episode would be forgotten. For a while, anyway.

For a day or two I played a cool game. I missed our meetings in the graveyard and I let her hear me drive past the house as I returned from the studio. At the end of the week, Henry invited me over to dinner and I stayed aloof, talking a great deal about art and politics to Henry and almost ignoring poor little Eff. I noticed that she was rather pale and that she sometimes looked at me anxiously, but I ignored that and continued monstrously cheerful for the rest of the evening, drinking deep, laughing loud and yet allowing her to guess at my broken heart. Kean could not have acted the part with more virtuosity.

For some reason Henry seemed out of all temper with Effie. On the rare occasions she hazarded a comment on some subject at dinner he showed himself impatient and sarcastic, tolerating her simply because I was there. If I had not been present, I am certain that he could not have been in her company without starting a quarrel. I pretended to notice nothing, deliberately failing to catch her eye.

Over the meal Henry again voiced his desire to see Effie model for the figure of the woman. ‘But,’ he said, ‘I really wanted a dark model. I think a fair-haired model would lack substance in this type of canvas.’ He hesitated. ‘Of course, Effie could sit for the basic outline, the position and the face,’ he said. ‘And I could paint the hair from some other model.’ He seemed to consider this for a time. ‘I dare say that might be the answer. What do you think, Harper?’

I nodded, studying Effie appraisingly, to her obvious discomfort. ‘I noticed a fair down by the Islington Road,’ I said innocently. ‘Likely you could find some gypsy girl with the right kind of hair who could sit for you.’ Out of the corner of my eye I saw Effie wince at the reference to the fair, and grinned inwardly.

‘I want to make a start on the woman’s figure as soon as possible,’ continued Henry. ‘For the present the weather is cool enough but when the heat of high summer comes, Effie’s health suffers if she has to sit for hours in the studio.’

Effie stirred restlessly, picking up her fork, then laying it down without touching her food. ‘I thought…’ she said, almost in a whisper.

‘What is it?’ His impatience was palpable. ‘Speak up, girl.’

‘I thought you said that I didn’t have to go to the studio any more. My headaches…’

‘I said that you were not to go there when you were ill. You are not ill, and I don’t see why I should have the expense of a model to bear, along with all our other expenses, when I have you.’

Effie made a vague, aimless gesture with her hands, as if to ward off the suggestion.

‘And, as for your headaches, there’s nothing there that a little laudanum could not cure. Come now, Harper,’ he said, turning to me with renewed good cheer, ‘I’ve a damned fine claret in my cellar today. You shall have some and tell me what you think of it.’ And at that he turned and left us together. No sooner had the door closed than she was on her feet, her eyes swimming and her hands clapped to her mouth. I knew then that she was all mine again.

‘Meet me tonight, Effie,’ I whispered urgently. ‘By the Circle of Lebanon at midnight.’

Her eyes widened. ‘But, Mose…’

‘If you care for me, be there,’ I hissed, narrowing my eyes at her. ‘If you’re not there I’ll take it that you don’t-and believe me, I’ll live.’ Though I was still grinning inside I manufactured a sneer and looked away as Henry walked in again, just on cue. Effie turned her face away, white to the lips, and I wondered for a moment whether she really was ill. Then I caught her watching me, and realized that she was simply playing another of her games; oh, believe me, Effie wasn’t the simple little innocent you all thought she was; none of you saw through to the dark, hidden core of her heart. Effie made fools of us all in the end. Even me.

18

Before I met Mose I never knew how bleak my life was; now that it seemed I might lose him, I felt I might go mad. My memory of what had provoked the quarrel at Fanny’s house was so vague that I felt as if it had happened to some other girl, someone assured and strong. I waited for Mose in vain in all our usual meeting-places and I spent hours at the windows watching the street-but he did not come. Even my poetry was no consolation to me then; I was restless, twitching like a cat, unable to spend more than a minute or two at any occupation so that Henry swore that I was driving him out of his mind with my constant fluttering.

I took laudanum, but instead of calming my nerves the drug seemed to induce a kind of dim paralysis of the senses, so that I wanted to move but could not, wanted to see, smell, speak, but could only sense the world through fantasies and waking dreams.

Tabby made chocolate and cakes for me which I would not touch; irritably I snapped at her to leave me alone and immediately regretted it. I put my arms around her and promised to drink her chocolate. I was only tired, I didn’t mean to snap; surely she knew that? She smelled of camphor and baking and, shyly, her hand crept up to stroke my hair. I could almost have imagined myself back at Cranbourn Alley again, with Mother and Tabby and Aunt May baking cakes in the kitchen. I clung to her sleeve, shaking with loneliness.

Henry believed that I was feigning illness to avoid modelling for him. My headaches were the result of idleness, he said; my embroidery was neglected; I had not been seen in church on a weekday for over a sennight; I was wilful and ill-tempered, stupid in my vague responses to his questions, ridiculously awkward with guests. He disapproved of Tizzy, too, saying that it was ridiculous that I should bring in a stray cat to the house without his permission, childish folly to let it lie on my bed at night or in my lap by day.

As if to prove to me that no concession would be made to my imaginary illness, Henry invited guests to dinner twice in a week-though this was an unusual occurrence as a rule-the first time a doctor named Russell, a friend from his club, a thin, clever-faced little man who looked at me with odd intensity from behind the wire frames of his spectacles and talked at length about manias and phobias; the second time Mose, his eyes hard and bright, his smile a razor’s edge.

By the time he set me that dreadful ultimatum my nerves were so ragged, my loneliness so intense that I would have done anything to win him back to me, whether he loved me or not.

Very likely you think me a feeble, contemptible creature. I do myself, I know. I was quite aware that I was being punished for my brief revolt against him at Fanny’s house; if he had wanted to see me he could easily have done so by day, or at least in his rooms; no doubt he thought that the cemetery at midnight, with its shadows, its prowlers, was the ideal setting for the scene of cruel reconciliation I was to share with him. Guessing this, I could not help hating him a little in some hidden part of my heart, but the rest of me loved and wanted him with such a bitter longing that I was prepared to walk into the fire if he asked me to.

Leaving the house was easy; Tabby and Em slept under the roof in the old servants’ quarters-Edwin had his own cottage down the High Street and stopped work when night fell-and Henry slept deeply as a rule, going to bed quite early. At half past eleven I crept out of my room, shielding the candlelight with my hand. I had taken care to wear only a dark flannel dress, with no petticoats, so that I would be silent in the passageway, and so it was in almost total quiet that I drifted down the stairs and into the kitchen. The keys were hanging by the door and, holding my breath, I took the heavy housekey, opened the door and slipped out into the night.

Tizzy was sitting by the door and wound her way around my ankles, purring. For a moment I hesitated, reluctant to leave, feeling oddly comforted by the cat’s presence and half inclined to bundle her in my cloak and take her along. Then, inwardly chiding myself, I pulled the hood of my cloak over my head, shivering, and began to run.

I saw few people as I made my way up Highgate to the cemetery; a child running from the public-house with a pint of ale in a pitcher, a beggar woman wrapped in a ragged shawl wandering listlessly from door to door. At the corner of the street a group of men passed me, smelling of ale, talking in loud voices and clinging to each other as they made their way home. One of them shouted something at me as I ran past them, but they did not follow me. As the streetlamps became wider spaced I tried to merge into the darkness, and after about ten minutes I found myself in front of the great black shape of the cemetery, sprawling against the glowing London sky like a sleeping dragon. It was very quiet, and I was conscious of a quickening of the heart as I moved towards the gates. There was no sign of the night-watchman, and no reason for me to delay, but I stayed fixed to the spot for some time, helplessly watching those gates with the same morbid fascination I had felt as I watched the flap of the red tent open, that day at the fair.

A fleeting memory awakened at the thought, and I imagined those thousands of dead sitting up at my approach, their heads poking out of the stony ground like clockwork toys. The image, there in that thick darkness, was almost too much for me to bear, but remembering that Mose was waiting for me barely a few hundred yards away gave me courage; Mose was not afraid of the dead, nor even the living-he positively revelled in stories of the grotesque and terrifying. He had told me the tale of the woman buried alive; of how she had been found suffocated, her stiff hands clawing the air, her face only a few inches away from the surface, her fingers worn down to the bone as she had tried to dig her way out. And in the year of the cholera epidemic the dead were so many that they had to be buried in mass graves, unmarked and covered with quicklime. The corpses were so numerous that the heat of their decomposition had driven some of them to the surface, where they had been discovered later by two lovers in the cemetery, four heads sticking up out of the ground like huge mushrooms, stinking of death. Mose knew how much I hated his stories; I think that was why he told them, to make fun of my weakness; and I had never before thought how much cruelty there was in his laughter.

The darkness here was almost complete; there were no gaslamps in the cemetery and the moon was a poor, shivering thing, casting a dim corpse-light on to the stones. The scent of earth and darkness was overwhelming; I could pick out the trees by their smell as I passed them: the cedars, laburnums, yews, rhododendrons. From time to time I stumbled against a broken stone or a stump, and the sound of my footsteps terrified me even more than the dense, threatening silence. Once I thought I heard footsteps somewhere behind me and I shrank behind a vault, my heart’s pounding shaking the whole of my body. The footsteps were heavy and, as I remained motionless in the black shadow, I thought I could hear the sound of someone breathing, a thick asthmatic sound like a bellows.

I was almost at the Circle of Lebanon now, with only the long alley of trees to navigate before I reached its safety, but I could not move, sick with terror. For an instant my sanity spiralled away into the night like a shower of confetti; I was left in a timeless wilderness, horribly far from the light. Then, as my power of thought returned, I felt the world stabilize a little. I slipped to my knees, feeling my way along the side of the vault with fingers which had suddenly become miraculous points of sensation. Silently I crawled. As the footsteps moved closer I froze again, straining my eyes in vain for any sign to identify the intruder. I felt mud and water seep through my skirts, but flattened myself against the ground regardless, pulling my hood over my hair so that its whiteness should not betray me. The footsteps came closer still; now they were almost upon me. I held my breath, tasting eternity. The footsteps had stopped. Glancing over my shoulder like Orpheus, in spite of myself, I saw a man’s shape against the dim sky, impossibly huge and menacing, his eyes two points of brightness in the eye of the night.