A Mad, Wicked Folly (23 page)

I SHOULD’VE WRENCHED
myself away and left. But my
hands flew up and found their way to the back of his head,
and I leaned into the kiss, lacing my fingers through his
hair. A little sound left him, and his lips opened with mine.

I didn’t care how scandalous it was to be kissing a boy
in his own flat. I didn’t care that I was engaged to another.
The way he felt against me, the hardness of his chest, the
strength in his arms that pressed me to him, and how
he smelled overcame any sense I had. The city noises of
horseshoes ringing on cobbles, workmen shouting, and
motorcar horns blowing faded into the background. All I
knew was Will.

The next moment we were on his bed, kissing each
other as though we would die if we stopped.
I could not get enough of him, and it felt as though he
could not get enough of me. His kiss grew more urgent. His
fingers tightened around my waist and pushed me back
until I was lying beneath him. Will’s mouth left mine and
fell against the hollow of my throat, and his lips trailed
down from my neck to the top of my bodice. I could feel
his breath flutter under the lace of my chemise, like gentle
shivers on my skin. He’d seen me undressed in Bertram’s
drawing, but I wished him to see me, my body, and not a
charcoal rendering of it.
My hands ached to touch what I had drawn for so long,
so I pulled his shirt free of his trousers and ran my hands
over the muscles of his back, tracing each curve and dip
as if my fingers were a paintbrush and his body my canvas. “Vicky,” Will murmured, and the way he said it, so
desperate and adoring, made something clench inside me.
Edmund never made me feel this way.
Edmund
.
Edmund!
His name clanged around inside my head, and I reached
for the last shred of sense I possessed. I braced my hands
against Will’s shoulders and shoved him away from me.
Will let me go, startled. His face was flushed, his hair
mussed. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
I jumped up from the bed. “I have to go.” I grabbed the
Lancelot drawing and went back to the table to collect my
things. I shoved the sketchbook into my art satchel, throwing pencils on top and cramming loose papers in. I swung
my satchel over my shoulder and spun around, nearly
bashing my face on Will’s chest, he was standing so close.
I backed away.
“Vicky . . .”
I should have told him that the kiss was a mistake and
why, but heaven help me, I could not. I gripped the strap of
my satchel. “I have to be somewhere.”
“I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry, Vicky. Honestly,
I didn’t bring you up here to do that. Let me walk you to the
Underground.”
We walked in silence back to the station at Praed Street.
I felt stripped naked, my emotions raw. My lips still tingled
from his kisses; my skin yearned for his touch. Once Will’s
hand brushed the back of mine as we walked, and I drew
it away quickly.
We stopped in front of the Underground entrance.
People bustled all around us, but I felt we were the only
two standing in the street.
“I’ll meet you Thursday week, then?” He sounded
unsure. “By the boathouse in Hyde Park again?”
“I can’t. It’s the Women’s Exhibition in Knightsbridge.
I promised I’d draw portraits in the art stall.” I had been
disappointed to give up a day with Will, but now I was
relieved. I stared at his mouth, thinking of how I had just
kissed it, how I had felt his body against mine. It felt wrong
to be standing in the street feeling this way. Did the people
walking around us sense it?
“Oh,” he said. “The Thursday after, then?”
I just ducked my head and walked down the steps to
the platform. I did not turn around to see if he was watching me.
On the Underground train back to Piccadilly, the clicking of the tracks and the noise from the engine seemed
louder than usual. A man sitting near me must have tipped
half a bottle of bay rum cologne over himself, and the scent
made my stomach churn. What had I done? No matter how
much I tried to rearrange what had happened in my mind,
the simple fact was that even though Will had kissed me
first, I had been only too happy to kiss him back. And I had
let it go on for so long, let it go so far. If I hadn’t stopped,
how far would it have gone?
What kind of person was I to do such a thing when I
was engaged to another? Was my father right? Was I, like
other females, overly emotional? Was I wanton and tawdry like everyone thought I was? Out to have a mindless
fling with my muse, like some male artists did with their
models? This was why female models were held in such
disrepute, after all. Why so many artists were considered
louche. People assumed an affair was the next logical step.
I pulled out my sketchbook and looked at the drawing
I had done of Will working. And in that moment, I didn’t
see him through an artist’s eyes, mentally placing a border
around him, thinking of how the light would reflect best
off his features, and how I could portray him. I saw him for
real, as the person he was: stubborn, kind, full of a sense of
fairness and integrity.
Then I knew: this wasn’t just a passion I felt for my
model. My feelings about him had nothing to do with how
his looks inspired me; he was far more than a muse. With
every stroke of pencil and crayon, I had drawn Will into
my heart.
I was in love with him.
My fingers clenched on the edges of the sketchbook.
Will and I could never be friends. I could never see him
again. I had to end it. Another kiss like that, and I would
give my body to him with no hesitation. He already had my
heart. I had to take it back. I had to.
But the thought of never seeing Will again, of never
talking of writing and drawing and laughing with him, or
kissing him again, filled me with grief. I couldn’t help it; I
burst into tears, right there on the Underground. I tried to
stop crying, but it was like trying to push back the tides.

ONCENTRATE ON MY
art. That was the solution
to the problem of Will and Vicky. I knew it was.
And I was grateful to have somewhere to direct
my mind to when Sophie, Lucy, and I headed to
the Women’s Exhibition the day after it opened to volunteer. Sylvia’s grand mural was finally completed and hung
in place at the Prince’s skating rink in Knightsbridge. The
rink was huge: a vast and cavernous space that had hosted
the figure skating events of the Olympics last year. The
ice had been removed in February, and now events and
bazaars were held in it.

Sophie turned in a slow circle, taking in the vast ironand-glass ceiling festooned with banners in the WSPU’s
colors. The spring sun cast rays of light through the rink.
The Aeolian Women’s Orchestra sat on a platform in the
middle of the rink, tuning their instruments.

The twenty-foot-long murals covered the walls of the
rink, looking for all the world as if they had been painted
in situ and had always been there, just as Sylvia hoped. The
winged angels looked down at the crowd, giving the space
a mystical air. The woman sowing seeds with doves over
her head and thistles at her feet took pride of place at the
middle of the hall, and the design I’d helped with, of the
woman reaping the rewards, was directly across.

“She must be exhausted,” Lucy added. “I don’t think
she slept much in the last few days.”
“This is what you’ve been working on, Miss Darling?”
Sophie said.
I pointed. “That’s my design.”
She looked at me in wonder. “It’s so beautiful.”
“Thank you, Sophie, but I didn’t complete her. Another
artist did.”
The fact that I hadn’t been there at the end rankled.
I had gone back to the mural at the beginning of May to
help one more time and to collect my reference letter from
Austin, but I could find no time to help finish. I pictured
all the artists filling in the final colors, stepping back from
the work to admire it, and celebrating with a bottle of
wine. I imagined them at the exhibition supervising the
installation, sitting together on the skating rink’s floor, and
absorbing the beauty of the work, exhausted but happy.
Meanwhile, I had probably been practicing my court curtsy
at Miss Winthrop’s or choosing the right color drapes for
the sitting room or inquiring about the health of Georgette
Plimpton’s spaniel again, as I’d never worked out anything
else to say to her.
Never again. I would never let that happen again.
Fifty stalls had been set up, and in them women were
setting out farm produce, confectionary, books, and postcards. The millinery stall was filled with wide-brimmed
hats, cloches, and straw boaters, all trimmed in WSPU
colors. Others were in the adjoining stall readying the
posters, badges, and jewelry for sale. There were several
stalls from regional WSPU branches throughout the country selling local fare such as Yorkshire parkin and Kentish
cherry pudding.
Close to the entrance, where no one could miss it, was
an exact replica of a Holloway second-division prison
cell, where the suffragettes were commonly held. Next
to it was a replica of a first-division cell where the suffragettes, as political offenders, should have been held. A
suffragette stood in prison garb, an ill-fitting green wool
gown with a long apron tied at the waist, and a white cap
on her head. The whole outfit was marked with arrows
to denote prisoner status. Three times a day, a former
prisoner would offer guided tours showing the public
the difference between the way female and male political prisoners were treated. Although their protests grew
from the same types of political unfairness, the male
prisoners were allowed to keep their dignity; the female
prisoners were not.
Lucy laughed. “That’s Vera. Talk about game for anything. She’s been in the clink lots. This must seem like
home to her.”
“Costs a sixpence to get in,” Sophie said, digging into
her purse. “Come on, Miss Darling. Let’s have a look.”
“I’ve seen it in real life,” Lucy said. “I’m off to help at
the jewelry stall.”
Sophie and I paid our admission to the suffragette, and
she opened the iron door to the first-division cell. It was a
small bedroom with a rug on the floor, blankets and pillows on the bed, and books on shelves.
And then we crossed through to the second-division
cell. It was tiny, about four paces across. There was a small
wooden stool to sit on, and a shelf in one corner was only
large enough to hold an earthenware dinner plate and mug.
The bed stood about four inches off the ground and was
maybe two feet wide. The mattress looked full of lumps.
The cell was dark and foreboding.
“I admire the women who volunteer for this,” Sophie
said. “I don’t think I have the courage.”
“Neither do I, Sophie,” I said.

I READIED THE
art stall, setting out easels and preparing
the space for customers who could commission painted or
sketched portraits from us. While I waited for customers, I
sketched the prison cell.

At that moment a man approached the art stall holding
the hand of a little girl and requested a sketch of her. I put
my pad down and crossed to the easel.

“Sit here.” I pointed to the chair we had set up. “You must
sit very still and not fidget. Do you think you can do that?”
The little girl put her thumb in her mouth and stared up
at me, big brown eyes wide as saucers.
Her father laughed. “She’s a shy one, miss. You won’t
get much out of her.”
I smiled at her father, but I felt sad. I could not picture
my father bringing me to such a place when I was a child.
I couldn’t even remember ever holding his hand. My father
had certainly never looked upon me with pride like this
man did his daughter.
I stood behind the easel and began to sketch. The drawing was nearly completed when I happened to look up
across the hall to the entrance, and my fingers squeezed so
hard that I snapped the pastel in half.
“Something the matter, miss?” the father said, frowning.
“I . . . no. I need to be somewhere.” I took the picture off
the easel and handed it to him. “No charge for the portrait.
I’m sorry I couldn’t complete it. Perhaps you’ll come back.”
I was babbling like a fool. I had to get out of there before I
was seen.
Because coming down the aisle were two men. And
one of them was Sir Henry Carrick-Humphrey. Edmund’s
father.
“Come on, old chap,” the other man said to Sir Henry.
“We need to be getting on.”
“Look at this nonsense,” Sir Henry replied. “Do they
think selling hats and cakes will get them the vote?”
They were coming toward the stall, and so I didn’t wait
about any longer. I left, moving as quickly away from them
as I could. I went outside and walked to Hyde Park. I sat on
a bench near Rotten Row, where the gentlemen and ladies
rode their horses along the path.
Sir Henry could have seen me so easily. He would
have told my father, and I would have been sent to Aunt
Maude’s house to wait for my wedding day—or not have
had a wedding day at all. I could almost smell the scent of
boiled cabbage and beef tongue, the eau de cologne that
permeated Aunt Maude’s house.
Still, I was ashamed of myself for running away from
Sir Henry and leaving the exhibition. I was a rabbit-hearted
girl down to my toes.

SUFFRAGE ACTIVITY SETTLED
as soon as the exhibition
drew to a close so as to let the peaceful efforts of the event
sink into the minds of the people and the government.
The Pankhurst family scattered. Sylvia, exhausted, went
to Kent to paint and recover. Christabel left for Germany
for the summer to restore her own health. Their mother,
Emmeline Pankhurst, sent Harry to Fels Farm in Essex to
work the land while she toured the north to gain support.

As for me, I never went back to see Will again. I wrote
him a letter explaining that I couldn’t meet him any longer,
that it had become too difficult to sneak out of the house. I
sent the letter to his flat along with the story illustrations
I had finished. Ending things with Will was a worthwhile
sacrifice, because for all Will meant to me, he could not
send me to art school. I hadn’t set out to find love; I’d set out
to become an artist, and that was exactly what I needed to
do.