Beautiful Lies (40 page)

‘Mrs Elliott? I am home.’

Maribel blinked sleepily. Ida stood in the kitchen door. She wore a plaid coat with brass buttons and the same ugly brown hat she had worn to the Academy. Her freckled face was pink from the cold. She sighed as she peeled off her gloves.

‘Please tell me the sweep is almost done,’ she said. ‘It must be colder in the hall than in the street.’

Mrs Elliott cleared her throat, jerking her head towards Maribel.

‘Hello, Ida,’ Maribel said, the smile swelling in her, pulling at the corners of her heart, full to bursting with the warmth of the kitchen and the pinkness of Ida’s cheeks and the sweet warm smell of jam tarts baking.

Ida gaped.

‘I am so very glad to see you,’ Maribel said softly.

Ida’s hands twisted her gloves into a rope.

‘Mrs Elliott,’ she said without turning round, ‘perhaps you might check on the dust sheets in the front parlour.’

‘I’ve already done it, ma’am.’

‘Then perhaps you might do it again.’

Clashing the pots in the sink Mrs Elliott glared at the clock on the mantel.

‘Them jam tarts’ll need taking out in a minute.’

‘I’ll take care of the jam tarts.’

Mrs Elliott sucked the insides of her cheeks. Then she wiped her wet hands on her apron.

‘Three minutes past,’ she said. ‘Or they’ll burn.’

Ida nodded, her neck hardly moving. There was a stiffness about her, a held-in quality, as though her back hurt. As Mrs Elliott pitched out of the room, closing the door behind her, Maribel rose to her feet.

‘Ida,’ she said, holding out her arms. ‘Oh, Ida.’

Ida took a step backwards and her round cheeks hardened into corners. Maribel reached out and touched her arm but Ida shook her off.

‘What in God’s name are you doing here?’

‘I brought the Red Indian. Didn’t your husband tell you?’

‘No.’

‘I can’t believe I’m here. After all this time. You look just the same.’

‘What is it that you want from me?’

‘To see you. To talk to you. Ever since I found out you were here, in London –’

‘It’s not enough for you that your husband is to go to prison? You want to drag us all down with you, is that it?’

‘Ida, don’t. Listen to me. Let me explain. I said something to your husband –’

‘How dare you? How dare you come here? This is my house.’

‘The Indian was ill. I – I thought we could talk.’

‘About what, Peggy? There’s nothing to say.’

‘Ida –’

‘Please go.’

‘Ida!’

‘How shall I explain it to my husband if you are still here when he gets back?’

‘He already knows. We agreed that I should stay.’

Ida’s face was white.

‘What did you say to him?’

‘Nothing. At least nothing about us. I thought we might tell him together. He took my carriage. I said I would wait.’

Ida put her hands over her face. She did not speak. ‘I can hardly believe it,’ Maribel said. ‘You, married. I think perhaps I thought you would be eleven for ever.’

Ida was silent.

‘I’m glad for you. He seems a good man. I should like to tell him, if he is to be trusted. He can be trusted, can he not?’

Ida gave a little cry, her hands hard against her face. When she took them away again Maribel could see the white imprints of her fingers on her forehead.

‘Get out of my house,’ she said and the words were hard and unexpected as a slap.

‘Come on, Ida,’ Maribel protested. She laughed shakily. ‘Don’t be like that.’

‘Get out of my house. Get out and don’t ever come here again.’

‘Don’t say that. You don’t mean it. How can you mean it?’

Anger shrivelled Ida’s face like salt, shrinking her eyes and pressing black lines around her mouth.

‘Why did you come here, Peggy? Have you not disgraced us all enough?’

‘Oh, Ida, I never meant –’

‘What does it matter, what you meant? All your life, you have done exactly what you wanted to and left others to pay the price. The scandal when you left, the whispers and the nudges and the way that people looked at us in church and in the street, as though we were infectious, contemptible – but why should you trouble yourself about that? You thought us all beneath contempt yourself, you never pretended otherwise. You were the special one, the bright shining star. The rest of us were ordinary. You could not be expected to concern yourself with us.’

Maribel stared at Ida. She sounded like Edith, like Lizzie.

‘Ida, it wasn’t like that. I had to get out. I had to. If I had stayed –’

‘They wouldn’t let me go to school.’

‘Oh, Ida. I didn’t know.’

‘Well. You never asked.’

‘I tried to write. I wanted to. I thought of you all the time. It was only –’

Ida closed her eyes, shook her head. Then she reached up and unpinned her hat.

‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘I don’t care about any of it. I don’t care about you. I just want you to go away. To go away and never come back.’

The hat was made of felt with an upturned brim and a bitter-chocolate ribbon fastened in a rosette. Ida touched a damp fingertip to the rosette, brushing away a smut, and set the hat on the dresser. She did not look at Maribel. Instead she undid the brass buttons of her coat. The buttons were stiff and she grimaced as she forced them through the buttonholes. When the coat was undone she took it off, folding the arms inside the lining and laying it over the back of the rocking chair. Then she opened the door. She stood in the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest.

‘Goodbye, Peggy.’

Maribel bowed her head.

‘You are right,’ she said quietly. ‘I thought I was a star. Ellen Terry and Sarah Bernhardt and Lillie Langtry rolled into one. I went to the stage door of every theatre in London. I thought if they could only see me –’ She stared down at the table, at a knot in the wood like a staring eye. ‘One part. One part in a year. A theatrical career of thirteen words. I sold myself to a man I did not care for because he promised to make me famous, and afterwards, when he had tired of me, I sold myself to any –’

‘Stop! I don’t want to hear it.’

‘I had a baby. They made me give it away. I’d never told anyone until –’

‘That’s enough!’ Ida cried, banging the flat of her hand against the pine dresser. And then again, more quietly, ‘That’s enough.’

Maribel swallowed and the tears fell unchecked down her cheeks.

‘Ida, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean – you were never like the others. You always understood. That’s why I want you to know all of it. All of my mistakes. I want to show you how sorry I am for what I did, that I was wrong about so many things. I hurt you and I never wanted to. Ida, I thought I’d lost you. Now that I’ve found you I – don’t send me away. I love you, Ida. Tell me it is not too late to set things right.’

She reached out, placing her hand over Ida’s. Ida stared at it. Then very slowly she slid her hand away.

‘But it is,’ she said. ‘It is too late.’

‘Don’t say that.’

Ida turned away.

‘I don’t want you here. Please leave now.’

‘Ida.’

Ida glanced at the clock and frowned. Snatching up a dishcloth she yanked open the door of the range, releasing a rush of acrid-smelling smoke, and snatched out a tray of tarts. They were burned, blistered with black scabs, the pastry scorched to charcoal around the edges. Ida dropped the tray into the sink. It was only as she turned that Maribel realised that she was pregnant.

‘I asked you to go,’ Ida said. ‘I won’t have you here when my husband gets home.’

‘But I can’t go. The carriage –’

‘Then take a cab. Take the Underground train. Fly for all I care. Just go.’

‘Ida, please. Don’t do this. I am your sister.’

Ida shook her head. She did not seem angry any more, only tired.

‘Edith is my sister,’ she said. ‘Hester and Lizzie and Maude are my sisters. Not you. Not any more.’

‘You can’t choose your sisters. We agreed that, remember?’

‘I didn’t choose. You did.’

Maribel was silent. Ida bit her lip. Then she looked at Maribel, directly at her, for the first time.

‘I am happy,’ she said quietly. ‘Don’t take that away from me too.’

A
T
E
DWARD’S TRIAL THE
visitors’ gallery was packed with his supporters. There was a ripple of attention as Maribel entered the court and, escorted by Mr Morris, made her way to her seat. She carried herself very upright, her chin thrust out like the prow of a ship. Charlotte had made her promise she would wear her black walking costume, a dress Charlotte deemed suitably penitential for the occasion, but Edward did not like her in black. Instead she wore a dress she had bought in Paris the previous winter and had altered to suit the season’s fashion, a striking bronze silk with a high neck and puffed sleeves that emphasised her narrow waist and suffused her pale skin with gold. Her dark hair was carefully dressed and the pearls around her neck gleamed. In the dingy police court she shone like a lamp.

Charlotte had sent her apologies. Arthur had argued that, with her arm in plaster and the baby coming, a public gallery was no place for her, but the truth was that he considered Edward’s conduct indefensible. So did Charlotte, come to that, but Maribel knew that she would have come all the same if Arthur had not forbidden it. Maribel did not blame her. She did not want to make things worse between the two of them. Nor did she want Charlotte there if Charlotte was not unequivocally on Edward’s side. Irrational as it was, she clung to the hope that, if she could only crowd the courtroom with enough of Edward’s supporters, so that the very air was charged with their faith and determination, the power of their will might just force an acquittal.

Maribel took a seat in the front row, between Mr Morris and Mrs Marx Aveling. She did not know Eleanor Marx Aveling well but she had made her acquaintance in the months since missing her lecture in Fitzroy Square and she knew what everyone knew, that she had been her father’s favourite and had helped him with the translation of
Das Kapital
into English, and that she was not married to her husband, who already had a wife. They nodded at one another without smiling and Maribel noticed the bandage on Mrs Aveling’s right hand, the heavy eyebrows that looked as though they had been drawn on with a burned cork. Mrs Aveling had marched with the others to Trafalgar Square. Although she had evaded arrest, she had been injured badly enough to be taken to hospital. Edward admired her. He was also of the opinion that a little of her went a very long way.

Mr Morris took a book from his pocket. His whiskers were wild and he appeared to have slept in his suit. Opening the book he slid a stiff white invitation card from inside its front cover.

‘Thank you for asking me,’ he said, smiling at her, and she smiled back, the queasiness in her stomach easing a little. She was glad then that she had sent them, that she had not allowed Charlotte to talk her out of it.

Mrs Campbell Lowe
At Home
Bow Street Police Court

She had sent the cards to everyone she could think of, including all the newspaper editors in London. Mrs Besant had remarked approvingly upon her drollery and several of Edward’s friends from the SDF had applauded her disdain for the English legal system. Henry, Edward’s brother, had hugged her and asked whether there would be dancing. As for Edward’s mother, she had raised an eyebrow and asked if it had been Edward’s idea. It was Maribel’s impression that Vivien rather wished it had been her own.

‘But, dearest, why?’ Charlotte had protested. ‘Aren’t things difficult enough? Making light of the arrest can only provoke the party further. It might even make things come off worse for Edward.’

‘I am not making light of it.’

‘Then what are you doing?’

‘I am trying not to be afraid.’

It was the truth. The visiting cards made her feel braver. It comforted her that she could be the kind of person who made such a gesture, who might countenance the prospect of her husband’s imprisonment without fear or, more shamefully, shame. There was something else, though, something more important which she only partly understood herself. By sending out the cards, she pledged herself unequivocally to her husband and to his cause. She would not attend her husband’s trial as an observer, an outsider, but as a participator. The invitation cards declared her collusion. It was as close to the dock as she could get.

The intensity of her feelings startled her. Throughout Edward’s parliamentary career she had always remained peripheral, detached. It was not that she disagreed with his politics. She was as distressed as he by the plight of the poor. She was sickened by the wretchedness of the slums, the poisonous factories, the half-lives of those compelled to labour at ill-paid and back-breaking work until they dropped from hunger and fever and exhaustion. When Edward talked of a nation whose greatness was defined not by the power of its capitalists, or by the size of their fortunes, but by the education and refinement of its masses, by the universality of enjoyment and the absence of poverty, she felt a tightening in her heart, like a fist clenching. It was just that there had never been any comfort for her in politics. She had no faith in Parliament and hardly more in the impassioned crusade of the grass-roots Socialists. At those meetings she had attended it had struck her forcefully that the speakers were not the advocates of the very poor. Yes, the Socialists called for the relief of the distress of the unemployed, and vehemently, but they would have it relieved according to the gospel of Socialism or not at all. They would rather the destitute starved than filled their mouths with the bread of capitalist charity. They were floored again and again by the ignorance of the indigent masses, their inarticulacy, their lack of curiosity, their torpor, and afraid of them too, of their squalor and their territorialism and their brutishness. They talked of the plague of evil bred by poverty, the degradation of humanity, the retrograde evolution that was turning the slum-dwellers of the East End back into savages. The problem with the Socialists was not that they wanted to transfigure the structure of society. It was that they wanted to transfigure the poor.