Poppy (5 page)

With a little sigh of pure happiness Poppy ran an enormous bath and poured in half a jar of rose-scented bath salts—courtesy of the hotel management—took off her clothes, and sank in. After half an hour she was still lying in the bath, her fair skin beginning to take on the appearance of a prune, not knowing that on the other side of the door her husband was going through agonies of embarrassment, envisaging her drowned but not having the courage to call out to her or—God forbid!—open the door.

It was with great relief that Freddie began to hear her move about at last. He fortified himself with several glasses of champagne—also courtesy of the management—and settled himself to wait patiently.

When Poppy at last appeared he suggested they first have a bite of luncheon and then take their stroll.

Two hours later, dazed with food and overlong immersion in a too-hot bath, Poppy dreamily took his arm as they turned through the turnstile and walked along the pier.

How thrilling to see the water sucking and surging so far below! The town was thin of company, but a few mashers turned around to eye “the handsome widow,” for Poppy had changed from her wedding outfit and was dressed from head to foot in black, that being still the only color she could afford at the secondhand-clothes shop.

Freddie began to feel amorous. He knew that his friends and relatives would come down on him like a ton of bricks when they learned of his marriage, but for the moment he did not regret it. He was well and truly in love with Poppy and could not quite believe he had secured the prize. Freddie was no snob himself, but he was sensitive enough to be aware of the snobbery of others, and sometimes the picture of his uncle’s formidable presence rose to haunt him. But at that moment, flushed with food and wine and sea air, he wanted to rush Poppy back to the hotel and into bed.

He pulled tentatively at the ends of his waxed mustache. “I say, Poppy…” he began, when he suddenly heard his name being called and swung around with a feeling of trepidation. Then his face cleared. It was only Boodles Hunter and his friend Sniffy Vere-Smythe.

“Wot yer doin’ ’ere, old cock?” cried Sniffy, who prided himself on his mock cockney.

“Just taking the air,” said Freddie, smiling. Two pairs of masculine eyes bored into Poppy’s, and then turned their inquiring gaze upon Freddie.

“I say, old man,” said Sniffy plaintively, “what about an introduction?”

Freddie hesitated a fraction, and then presented Poppy. “My wife, Mrs. Plummett,” he said.

“Blimey!” said Sniffy. “Cor stone the crows.”

“’S right,” said Poppy cheerfully. “We’ve bin and tied the knot terday.”

“I say, you do that awfully well,” said Sniffy in surprise. “That cockney accent.”

Poppy became aware for the first time that Sniffy had been putting it on, and she blushed red. Sniffy was a mild, vacuous young man and his friend Boodles was squat and square with a face that looked as if it had been carved out of mahogany and just as mobile.

“Pity you’re tied up,” said Boodles gruffly. “Splendid game lined up. Baccarat,” he added, his voice dropping to a whisper.

Love fled from Freddie’s soul to be replaced by a hectic gambling fever.

“I say,” said Sniffy hurriedly with a sympathetic look at Poppy, “newlyweds and all that. I mean to say…”

“Oh, Poppy don’t mind,” said Freddie breezily. “Little woman will want to take a nap, eh!”

Poppy, who was beginning to feel sleepy with food and fresh air, gladly agreed to return to the hotel.

Freddie eagerly began to question Boodles about the game, and Sniffy fell in step with Poppy.

“Feel guilty, Mrs. Plummett,” he said awkwardly. “Don’t feel old Freddie should leave you.”

“I don’t mind,” said Poppy cheerfully, although she made an effort to modify her cockney accent. “It’s all right, reelly. Does Freddie play cards much?”

“Oh, no!” lied Sniffy quickly. “Only from time to time.”

That afternoon, Poppy slept heavily and did not awaken until the light was fading over the sea. She scrambled hurriedly from bed and dressed quickly, and then went into the sitting room. No Freddie.

She bit her lip, suddenly feeling small and gauche surrounded by all the lonely magnificence of the Brighton Palace. The hotel was very quiet.

Poppy drew up a chair to the window and stared out at the sea until she could see it no longer as night fell.

As the evening wore on and there was no sign of Freddie, Poppy began to become angry. Certainly she had made no bones about her reason for marrying him, but he ought to at least have spent the first day with her to keep up appearances. And he had professed to be head over heels in love with her.

She was just about to call it a day and go to bed when the door opened and her husband sidled in. He looked shamefaced and nervous, and Poppy’s angry words died on her lips. Did she not herself feel nervous at the thought of consummating this strange marriage?

“You’re late,” she said mildly.

“Sorry, darling,” said Freddie with a weak smile and a pathetic attempt at his old jaunty air. “Not used to being married, you know. Shall we go to bed?”

“Yes,” said Poppy, blushing. “Give me a little time ter change.”

After a quarter of an hour Poppy sat up nervously in bed in a severe white linen nightgown—courtesy of the secondhand shop and thrown in free since she was a good customer—and called to her husband.

Freddie marched across the room and into the bathroom without saying a word. A faint aroma of gin floated after him. He seemed to be away a very long time. When he at last appeared he was attired in a long flannel nightgown.

“What’s that on your face?” cried Poppy.

“A mustache binder,” mumbled Freddie, standing on one foot and then the other.

“Oh, take it off,” said Poppy, laughing, made bold by his timidity. “I mean ter say, ’ow can I kiss you?”

“Oh, yes, that,” muttered Freddie, but he removed the mustache binder and put it on the bedside table and climbed into bed.

“Aren’t you going to put out the light?” asked Poppy nervously.

“Oh, drat.” Freddie climbed from the bed, turned down the gas, and scuttled across the floor and climbed in again, where he lay rigid as a board, flat on his back.

Well, one of us’ll have to do something
, thought Poppy. She leaned over on her side and put her arms around him, feeling for the first time how thin and almost adolescent his body was.

Freddie began to kiss her feverishly, and Poppy kissed him back as enthusiastically as she could, although his mustache tickled and one of his toenails, which needed cutting, was scratching against her bare leg. After this had been going on for quite some time and Poppy was beginning to feel heartily tired of it all, Freddie found courage to unfasten the front of her nightgown. He seized one of her breasts and began to knead it furiously, which enticed not one hormone in poor Poppy’s tired body. She was just about to complain when, with a glad cry, he threw back the restraining bedclothes, hitched up her nightdress, and covered her voluptuous body with his skinny one.

Nothing happened.

Poppy, lying with her nightgown over her face, knew that something was wrong. Ma Barker’s premarital talk rang in her ears: “
Sometimes, there’s some o’ them can’t get it up at furst. ’Ave to be kind, that’s wot
.”

But when Freddie at last flung his long, thin legs over the edge of the bed and sat staring into space, Poppy could not understand why he did not
say
anything. He merely sat there, his face expressionless, gazing in front of him.

In Cutler’s Fields if you were happy, you laughed, if you were sad, you cried, if you were angry, you ranted and raved or struck out. But Poppy could only guess that Freddie’s code of manners was different. It was only later that she learned that in Freddie’s world it was considered vulgar to give way to emotion.

Poppy, however, with age-old instinct and generosity, felt she should make the first move. “I’m so frightened and nervous,” she said quietly, stroking Freddie’s thin back, “that I’m enough to put any man off. It’s all my fault. Don’t worry about it, Freddie dear.”

Then Freddie turned around and looked at her, his weak eyes alight with love and gratitude. “Oh, you’re a trump, Poppy,” he murmured, taking her in his arms and laying his head against her breasts. “You’re too good for me. The thing is, Poppy, it’s not just us. It’s—it’s something else terrible that’s worrying me.”

“Tell us, there’s a love,” murmured Poppy, cradling his head in her breasts and rocking him gently as she was accustomed to rock away the fears of Josie and Emily.

“I’ve—I’ve lost all the money,” said Freddie in a low voice. “I’m stuck, old girl. I can’t pay the hotel bill.”

Poppy continued to rock him, although her heart seemed to stand still. She had thought of Freddie as a tower of strength—he who could treat headwaiters so casually.

She did not have Freddie’s rigid code of manners, but she did have the indomitable spirit of a certain type of East End Londoner, and also a boundless compassion for the frailties of fellow human beings. A picture of a tall, imposing man with white hair flashed for a moment across her inner vision: a man to take care of a woman, a man who would not lose all his money on his wedding night.…” She thrust the image ruthlessly away.

“Now, then, Freddie dear,” she said gently. “Wot did you do before? It’s ’appened—happened—before, ’asn’t—hasn’t it?”

“Yes,” mumbled Freddie. “But dash it all, I wasn’t married.”

“Go on,” said Poppy gently.

“Well,” said Freddie. “I just sort of walked out without my luggage… sort of.”

“And didn’t they take you to court?”

“No… er… my uncle sort of sorted things—doesn’t like stains on the family escutcheon, and all that.”

Poppy mentally bade farewell to her meager trousseau.

“We’ll do that, duckie,” she said, cuddling him. “Now go to sleep.”

And Freddie did, as easily and consciencelessly as a small child, while Poppy lay staring into the darkness and fighting off the wave of sadness and loneliness that threatened to engulf her.

No longer did Emily and Josie run along the golden sands of her mind. As a pale dawn light filtered into the overly ornate bedroom, Poppy began to wonder if she had made a serious mistake in leaving the stage.

A vision of the squalor of Cutler’s Fields flashed across her mind, and she found to her surprise that she was heartily wishing herself back there.

Freddie was blithe and refreshed by morning. No qualm of conscience seemed to smite him as he walked calmly out, whistling, with Poppy on his arm.

“Fine day for a stroll, sir,” said the desk clerk, smiling, and Freddie waved his cane by way of salute and said he hoped there were shrimps on the menu for luncheon. Then as if suddenly thinking of it, he turned to Poppy. “You know what, darling,” he said. “I think we might take a spin along the cliffs. Here, fellow, see that my car is brought round.”

To Poppy, their wait on the marble steps of the Brighton Palace seemed to go on for hours and hours, although it was, in fact, a matter of minutes.

She kept expecting to hear a harsh voice crying out, “Pay your bill now, sir!” But soon enough the car was there, and Freddie took the wheel. After a few dreadful coughs and jerks the motorcar started, and soon the hotel faded behind them.

The weather was raw and cold, and Poppy shivered in the open car, praying it would not rain.

“Where are we going?” she shouted at last above the noise of the rushing wind.

“To my uncle’s,” yelled Freddie.

“The duke,” whispered Poppy through pale lips, but Freddie did not hear and had already begun to sing as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

One large tear rolled down Poppy’s cheek. To Freddie, abandoning one’s clothes was of little moment. He might have been a snake sloughing off its old skin. But for Poppy, it was giving away all the love and stitching of Cutler’s Fields. What sacrifices had old Ma Barker had to undergo to supply those pink satin ribbons for the underwear?

“Won’t be long,” shouted Freddie, oblivious of her distress. “He’s got a little place near here.”

Poppy relaxed slightly. “Little place” did not sound so bad. And they would only drop in for tea or something, and they would soon be on their way.

But her heart misgave her when Freddie cheerfully tootled his horn outside a tall, imposing pair of wrought-iron gates and a lodge keeper came running out to open them.

“Morning, Giles,” called Freddie. “The duke at home?”

“Yes, Master Freddie,” said the lodge keeper, touching his cap. “He’s entertaining a house party.”

“Good!” said Freddie breezily. “Then he won’t mind two more.”

“Freddie!” cried Poppy desperately as the motorcar putt-putted its way decorously through a large estate. “We can’t stay. We ain’t got no togs.”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Freddie airily. “Uncle’s got plenty, and his mother’ll find you something.”

“Oh,
Freddie!
” wailed Poppy. “I’m scared!”

Freddie stopped the car and looked at her in amazement in the sudden silence.

“Not you, Poppy!” he said wonderingly. “I would have said you weren’t scared of anything.”

Poppy bit her lip, but Freddie’s eyes were slightly watery from the cold, and he looked exactly like little Emily pleading for some treat that Poppy could not afford.

“I’m all right,” she said, and he flashed her a radiant smile. “Though what they’ll make of me I dunno,” she added in an undertone that Freddie did not hear.

The drive wound its well-ordered way through a thickly wooded estate. After several miles they emerged from the woods and found themselves in full view of Everton, the Duke of Guildham’s “little place.”

“It’s larger than Buckingham Palace,” moaned Poppy in despair. And, in this, she was right.

Everton had been built by the Plummetts, one of the small group of families who ruled England during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and had much more power than the king.

They approached it from the northwest, where its splendid facade was reflected in the still water of a vast, ornamental lake and set against a background of trees, hazy with the light-green foliage of early spring.