The New Countess Read online

  It was the evening of 31st October. The Modern Idler had been pasted up and put to bed. It was a most satisfactory edition, with an article by G. K. Chesterton about Friedrich Nietzsche, concerning the ‘duty of praise’, which Minnie strove to understand as a concept – and which the Reverend Stacey did sometimes refer to on Sunday mornings. Chesterton surprisingly described the duty of praise as being ‘primeval’, using the word as compliment not insult, and then accused Nietzsche of being a ‘timid thinker’ for defining the übermensch as if he were an acrobat or an alpine climber, instead of what he should have called him, a ‘purer’ or ‘happier’ man. It had seemed most interesting to Minnie and she had made headlines of the article, hoping to create what Anthony described as a journalistic hare. Both Rosina and Diana had seemed singularly uninterested when she tried to talk about this conflict of ideas.

  ‘For Heaven’s sake,’ Rosina had said, ‘none of it affects ordinary life. Just do the pasting up. No one expects you to actually read the stuff. Oh and by the way, Minnie, I have just found this letter in my pocket. I’m ever so sorry. I was meant to post it but I got distracted and forgot all about it…’

  And she’d handed Minnie back the letter Minnie had written to her mother some weeks past. This was both vexing and something of a relief. It explained why Minnie had not heard back from Tessa. She had begun to worry that having heard her news, her mother had cast her off. But now she’d walked to Mount Pleasant and in person posted this second letter explaining everything, she could stop worrying. Well, she could, but she didn’t. Perhaps there was an explanation as to why Arthur was upon the stair embracing a blonde woman? She shouldn’t have run away as she had, without giving him a chance to explain. Perhaps he had been hurt by her lack of trust in him?

  She ventured the explanation to Anthony and he just laughed and said he knew Evelyn Braintree, and it was hardly likely.

  ‘Your husband and I shared a girl called Flora,’ he said, ‘in looks very like Miss Braintree, as it happens. But you knew all about that, I think. I’m not telling you anything new.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ said Minnie bravely, but it was hardly anything she wanted to remember. She had forgiven Arthur, Arthur had forgiven her. They had been equal; all forgotten, until this new terrible thing.

  She felt a new surge of upset and jealousy so strong it even blotted out thoughts of her children. No, she would never forgive him. The rage receded slightly. And how were Edgar’s little feet? Had Nanny relented and bought him new shoes for everyday? He’d had on his church shoes on Sunday, the ones that gave him blisters. But surely Isobel would notice; she loved the children; she would deal with Nanny Margaret. Isobel was being so kind; bringing the children with her all the way to Belgrave Square so Minnie didn’t have to go all the way down to Sussex to see them. Though it meant she didn’t get to see Arthur. She had the terrible feeling that if she did she would just melt into his arms and the horrible time would be over. But she couldn’t; she shouldn’t just let it go. If she did then it would happen again, and again, and it would kill her from grief. No, she must pay him a lesson.

  Minnie was alone in the house. Anthony and the girls had gone to see Lights Out at the Waldorf Theatre, a new play starring Henry B. Irving, not the Henry Irving, of course; they were running an obituary on old Irving. He’d died on stage in a Bradford theatre a week before they’d gone to press. His ashes were now in Westminster Abbey, the first man ever to be buried as mere ash in that august building. Minnie had been there last at the time of the King’s Coronation, in the Summer of 1902, walking beside Isobel behind a bevy of duchesses – past a box of royal mistresses – in a heavy velvet gown with an ermine trim, and wearing a diamond tiara which kept nearly falling off her bobbed hair. Was she really contemplating going into all that pomp and formality again? For love of a man?

  She became conscious of how silent the house was. The front room gave directly onto the street. It was quiet outside; by day it was thronged, by this time of night almost deserted. Inside there was a brisk fire and a comfortable sofa and wine to drink and Rider Haggard’s She to catch up with. She would take the evening off from worry and indecision.

  Tonight was All Saints’ Eve, October the thirty-first, the night the graves opened and the ghosts rode. There were certainly enough of them in this part of the city; Roman graveyards, Saxon graveyards, plague pits, gibbets, dungeons; remnants all of a gruesome past. Ghostly prelates were said to stalk St Paul’s, as Anne Boleyn walked the Tower, the Woman in Black the Bank of England, the baker’s boy Pudding Lane. It was all nonsense; ghosts were for servants, not intelligent, educated women.

  Chicago had a terrible history too: phantoms abounded there as here, revenants from massacres, battles, great fires, Father Damien walked quite openly: even Tessa swore she’d seen the ghost of a ragged soldier casually limping around at Confederate Mound.

  ‘And didn’t I see the ghost of Mrs O’Leary’s cow in Jack Kennedy’s tavern the other day?’ Billy had retorted. Chicago’s ghosts seemed less threatening, fit for a joke. Here in London they might drag you down with them into Hell. Though Anthony had reported that the Waldorf Theatre itself, newly opened, built on the site of an old flower market, was haunted by, of all things, the scent of flowers: hyacinths, lilies, roses. The smell wafted through the proscenium to the distraction of rehearsing actors. He’d laughed about it, and they’d laughed over the idea that perhaps it was the ghost of the great Sir Henry Irving, come to annoy his usurper son, Henry Broderick.

  Minnie shivered and told herself she was being silly.

  There was the sound of a key in the lock. The others weren’t expected back until midnight – the theatre, grateful for a good review, was asking The Modern Idler staff for a late-night supper. It was either an earthly intruder or the shade of Jack the Ripper, often reported in the environs of El Vino’s. She would not be frightened. She grabbed the poker, raised it above her head and stood facing the door.

  And Anthony came in.

  ‘My, aren’t you brave,’ he said.

  ‘It’s Halloween,’ she said, and lowered the poker. She felt very foolish. He always made her feel foolish and inadequate. Why did she want his approval so much? When she bent over her work and heard his footsteps on the floor behind her and his breath on the nape of her neck she waited for a kiss which didn’t come. It was absurd. She was a grown woman, not a silly girl. Back home she had had all the confidence in the world. Men liked her; she liked men. It was simple.

  Here everyone had another agenda: something unspoken that was going on. You could never even trust servants to be on your side. She didn’t quite trust Anthony. Rosina and Diana had shown themselves to be together in a way she didn’t quite understand. She had thought on occasion Anthony showed special affection for William Brown, Rosina’s publisher, who was an occasional visitor at No. 3, and for a boyish young novelist, Morgan Forster, who was trying his hand at literary criticism. But you couldn’t be sure. She didn’t herself mind in the least what went on, if men wanted to love each other why should they not: whatever it was they did was technically against the law, but here it made everyone so secretive and strange. It hadn’t seemed to matter any which way in Chicago; if you lived near the Water Tower, as she and Stanton had, it was no great surprise to see men holding hands. Like William Blake’s poem:

  Never seek to tell thy love

  Love that never told can be;

  For the gentle wind does move

  Silently, invisibly…

  What did it mean? No one ever told one anything. Women whispered stuff in one another’s ears. Her mother had lovers – she was quite open about that – but looked shocked and blushed if asked for information. Rosina had been quite informative about the aboriginals, though they were pagans and hardly an example; and Rosina’s husband seemed to have behaved in a very bizarre way. But Minnie was beginning to think that in spite of all her facts and figures Rosina tended to record what she wanted to see, rather than what was there.
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  I told my love, I told my love,

  I told her all my heart;

  Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears;

  Ah! she doth depart…

  In the meanwhile, actual first-hand experience for a woman was barred. You married one man and that was supposed to be all you ever knew, and pleasure kept to a minimum in case you were tempted to run off to find more. At least she had had Stanton the artist, except he was crazy, and when he showed her his variety of the love that never could be told – which oddly seemed to involve throttling her and himself – that was when she left. She wanted to live.

  Arthur was terribly polite and terribly affectionate and respectable. He made children rather than love. If she herself knew more, she could teach him and he wouldn’t have to go hunting after women like Miss Braintree, or the earlier one called Flora. She hated sleeping in a lonely bed. She wanted to lie next to Arthur and change his respectful love-making so he wanted to do it not just to have babies. And now Anthony was throwing his arms round her, more like a big brother, it was true, than a lover.

  ‘Oh you poor little thing,’ he was saying. ‘Poor little Minnie! Did you think I was Jack the Ripper? Out of the grave for his annual outing?’

  ‘I didn’t know who you were,’ she said. ‘You were meant to be at the theatre.’

  ‘I was,’ he said, ‘but I walked out after the first act. The others stayed. Such a tiresome, grim play. As soon as there was talk of a court martial, one knew from that moment on it was going to end in tears: downhill all the way. Much lovelier to go home and keep poor little Minnie company.’

  It occurred to Minnie that he had arranged the evening deliberately. Only three tickets had turned up, not the four he said he’d asked for. Of course Minnie would be the one to say, ‘Oh, you lot go, I’ll stay.’ And Anthony had arranged the after-show supper so the others wouldn’t be back until after midnight and here he was home at nine for three hours alone with Minnie by the fire. She’d been wrong about William Brown and Morgan Forster; Anthony didn’t belong with the Water Tower crowd at all. It just proved how wrong you could be. Also how ignorant you were and how much you needed to learn.

  She was sitting beside Anthony on the sofa. He had his arm round her shoulder, and it was creeping to the nape of her neck, and didn’t seem brotherly at all. He was reading Haggard’s She aloud to her. They were sipping wine.

  ‘He was altogether too good-looking,’ Anthony read. His voice was caressing and deep. It soothed her. ‘And, what is more, he had none of that consciousness and conceit about him which usually afflicts handsome men, and makes them deservedly disliked by their fellows.’ He broke off. ‘Do you think I’m handsome?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said without thinking.

  ‘I thought you did,’ he said. ‘Can I kiss the nape of your neck?’

  ‘I don’t think you had better,’ she said.

  ‘Time you did what you wanted, not what you ought.’

  ‘I can’t remember how.’

  He kissed the nape of her neck, just two gentle lips, but it sent a shiver through her which he noticed and made him laugh. She didn’t like him laughing that way, as though she were predictable. Well, perhaps she was. Perhaps all women were. That’s why men despised them.

  ‘You’re a Viscountess, after all, you can do as you like. You just have to stop being afraid.’

  ‘I never used to be afraid,’ she said. ‘I was ever so bold.’

  ‘It’s them,’ he said, ‘the Dilbernes. They’ve run you down like a clock. You need winding up.’

  He took his arm from over her shoulder and she felt unprotected and abandoned, but he was only going to the cupboard to bring out the opium pipe and the paraphernalia that went with it. She had seen the others smoke but had never tried it herself. She was a mother, not a wayward girl. The opium came from the pharmacist across the way; it was good for the nerves. He set up the brass tray, the little lamp, the pipe, a spoon, the water on the table in front of the sofa. She was so tired of doing the right thing. He showed her how to lean over and breathe in. She took a very little puff.

  ‘Coward,’ he said. ‘Cowardy, cowardy custard!’ He took a deep puff, held it in his mouth, turned her face towards his and put his smoky open mouth against hers and blew the vapour down into her lungs. It was an invasion, uncalled for. But it was a great gift, and she was pleased. It was there to be taken so she took some more.

  ‘It’s winding me down, not up,’ she said.

  ‘Go where it takes you,’ he said. ‘Watch the clock. Watch the pendulum. Keep your eyes on it. This way, that way, this way.’

  The clock was on the mantelpiece above the fire. She watched. It made quite small, quick movements, and needed concentration. The room was hazy with fumes. This way, that way.

  ‘You feel really happy and sleepy,’ he said.

  ‘I do.’ He gave her some more to drink. It wasn’t wine.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘The others will be back.’

  ‘Not for ages,’ he said. ‘Hours and hours. Probably not tonight.’

  ‘Why not?’ she asked.

  ‘They may have arranged to go off with friends in the cast. Drink up now.’

  She drank. There seemed to be two people inside her. One which wanted to believe him and another part which knew perfectly well what was going on. If her father turned up Anthony Robin was in real trouble. She wasn’t even married to him as she was to Arthur. Ah, Arthur. Arthur wouldn’t like this at all.

  ‘Close your eyes,’ he said.

  She did.

  ‘You can’t open them,’ he said. She tried and couldn’t. They were stuck fast.

  ‘How strange,’ she said. ‘I can’t open my eyes.’

  ‘Yes you can now,’ said the nice caressing voice. ‘Open your eyes.’ This time it was easy and she could see the clock. This way, that way.

  ‘What a suggestible little thing you are,’ he said. ‘It’s so very warm in here, don’t you find? Perhaps you should take off some more clothes.’

  ‘More clothes?’ she asked. She didn’t seem to have many left on. ‘Can I have some more of the smoke?’

  ‘It isn’t smoke,’ he said, ‘it’s a vapour. You have to be a bit careful of it, you can come to like it too much.’

  ‘More,’ she said. Her other self, the good wife and mother, kept waving at her from the other side of her being; a little stick insect, gesticulating. Isobel was there too, mouthing away, trying to remind her of something she ought to pay attention to. But here and now was so nice, and the sofa so soft, and Anthony was there on top of her, with no clothes on that she could see, all bare torso and muscle. Perhaps it was really Arthur? She wouldn’t mind if it was, but how could one tell? And everything was so familiar and so inexorable. Inexorable was a nice word.

  ‘Nice stuff, I know,’ Anthony said. ‘It makes a girl peaceful and pleased, and always very obliging. And a man can go on and on,’ he said, ‘and not be too fussy about where he goes.’

  It was the wrong thing to say. It was so rude. ‘Not too fussy’ – what did he mean? Because she was a married woman? Because she was over thirty? She was a peeress of the Realm. She had a tiara. She had been married in St Martin-in-the-Fields. She had two little boys, one of whom needed new shoes. She had a husband whom she loved. He would be really upset and unhappy if he knew where she was. She was waiting for him to rescue her. She sat up abruptly and pushed Anthony off. He fell on the floor and the tray overtipped and he hurt his shoulder. His thing, which had been urgent and questing, turned flabby and weak. What had she been doing? She felt sick and dizzy and very irritable.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said, ‘I think I have made some mistake. I am going to bed now.’

  She looked for some clothes so as not to have to walk naked to the stairs, but before she could find them Rosina and Diana came in, pink and rosy from a brisk walk home from the theatre on All Hallows’ Eve.

  ‘Oh, goodness me,’ said Rosina. ‘I told Diana we should come back and rescu
e you, but I see we’re too late.’

  ‘Oh Redbreast,’ said Diana. ‘It was a perfectly good play. It was very embarrassing when you walked out like that. And what are you doing with Minnie? I thought you were over all that.’

  ‘I am,’ said Anthony. ‘Forget it. Everyone forget about it. I’m just a little drunk. Slate wiped clean, all right?’

  ‘Slate wiped clean!’ they all said. Minnie ran for the stairs.

  What Happened Next

  …at Belgrave Square

  ‘Silly Minnie. High time she came back,’ his Lordship was saying to Isobel the very next day. He had got used to having Minnie around. He had been right about her; she had made fine breeding stock – glossy-haired, bright-eyed, cool-nosed and spirited – interested in affairs of State while others yawned, and an asset to the household, if rather quiet in company. Minnie deserved respect and consideration. She had given the family what promised to be a worthy heir and another son to spare. True, she had bolted, as any spirited creature will. She’d left her young behind, which was a great pity; now she just needed to be brought back promptly to the stable. Say what his wife might, children needed their mother, needed that more than good feeding and a proper education.

  He had lost his own mother when he was small and even thinking about it still made him sad.

  ‘Leave her to come back in her own time,’ said Isobel. ‘She’ll come to her senses soon enough. She’s not much of a mother, or she would not have left them in the first place, no matter how badly Arthur behaved. If he did, of course, though I think it was mostly in her own imagination. And Arthur says not. But she is still enough of a mother to come back.’

  He thought Isobel was looking exceptionally young and pretty and elegant, her pale skin slightly flushed and her eyes bright. She clearly enjoyed being a grandmother. Carmen was of the more luscious, fleshy kind: far nearer the animal than the spiritual; her skin a browny colour, her cheeks permanently red, her affections easy and her taste execrable; but her eyes were kind. No matter whom she married – as such creatures often did – she would never make a Countess, or even a Mrs Keppel. He remembered Flora, from a more distant past, and wondered if she had married: he remembered how the discovery of his liaison with her had upset Isobel, and reminded himself to be very, very careful indeed. Carmen would have to go, though probably not until after the New Year. One could keep such matters secret for a few months – after that, in his experience, they would probably surface. The King certainly knew that, so no longer bothered to hide his passing loves. But Isobel was not like the Queen Consort: she was not of a complacent turn of mind. Neither, it seemed, was Minnie.