There was a Taylor uncle in Bond Street, great-uncle Thomas. As shoemaker to the royal family he was better value still. There was nothing he would not reveal after two glasses of port. But only to friends and relations, within four walls.
“As my niece’s best friend, Mrs. Clarke, I can say this to you.” He could and he did, to the glee of the Grub Street scavengers. Rubicund, round, bald headed, with a nose like a parrot, his hobby was draughts by the fireside, with stomach well lined.
“Your move, Mrs. Clarke.”
“No, yours, Mr. Taylor.”
“You’ve missed it, I huff you. But what was I saying?”
“The Princess Augusta…”
“Ah! yes, in her boudoir. It happened at Windsor.”
“And no one discovered it?”
“The lady-in-waiting. She’s out of the country now, packed off and pensioned.”
“But who was the lover?”
“Ssh! Bend your head closer.”
Great-uncle Thomas was one in a thousand, rubbing his monstrous nose, with the draft-board set, but sometimes it crossed her mind that he had suspicions.
“Did you see the remark in last week’s Personalities?”
“No, Mr. Taylor. My brother-in-law, the curate, doesn’t take halfpenny pamphlets.”
“Curious, that the anecdote about the Queen should have got repeated. I asked myself this morning, who blew the gaff?”
Ah, who indeed! She set out the pieces and then let him win the game, to allay suspicion. He told her, en passant, that she should buy her shoes from him. Bond Street, number 9, close to Piccadilly.
“You charge too much. I couldn’t afford your prices. My husband hasn’t the money, Mr. Taylor.”
“But I understood from my niece that he lived upon his fortune?”
“A small annuity, left him by his father.”
“You must have difficulty, then, in getting by, with four children on your hands.”
“It isn’t easy.”
“Fond of your husband?”
“We’ve been married for eight years.”
He fiddled with the draftsmen and rubbed his nose. The hubbub in the Taylors’ parlor lent them privacy. She wondered what he was getting at with his questions. He pushed his first man forward, she followed suit. He hummed under his breath, then spoke in a whisper.
“It’s always possible to increase your income. A young woman like yourself, good-looking and smart. I’ve helped several of them, similar cases to yours. Don’t mention it to my niece, she doesn’t know.”
She doesn’t know what? Why was the old man whispering? Did he mean he lent money out at three percent?
“Very good of you,” said Mary Anne, “but I hate to be indebted.”
The humming again. The fiddling with the draftsmen, and a glance over the shoulder to see who was near.
“No question of that, the gentlemen pay the costs. It’s all a matter of accommodation. I have two or three reception rooms over my Bond Street premises. Discreet and silent, no possible fear of disclosure. Only the cream of society have the address. The Prince of Wales himself is among my clients.”
She had it now. Good God! Who on earth would have thought it? Old uncle Tom and a maison de rendezvous. She’d have to be pretty hard up before she tried it, but how amusing—no wonder he heard all the gossip. A shadow fell between them and the board. Little May Taylor stood with her hand on her shoulder.
“What are you both discussing so intently?”
“The price of leather. Your uncle says that when my present shoes start to pinch, he’d be pleased to fit me.” She rose from the board and curtseyed, meeting the old man’s eye. No harm in letting him know that she understood.
“I mean it, my dear,” he said. “You never can tell. Your shoes may start to pinch at any time.”
He handed her his card with a bow and a flourish.
“Thomas Taylor. Shoemaker to the Royal Family, 9, Bond Street, London.”
“You’ve printed it wrong,” she told him. “Shouldn’t it read, Thomas Taylor, Ambassador of Morocco at the Court of St. James’s? By the by, do you make to measure? Or do I have to take the first shoe offered?”
His small eyes gleamed, his large cheeks creased into folds. “My dear young lady, I assure you a perfect fit.”
His niece swung round in delight and called to her friends, “Mary Anne is going to buy shoes from uncle Tom.”
They all applauded and laughed and joined in the discussion.
“Take care, it will cost you something.”
“Frightfully dear.”
“Surely special terms for the family, uncle Tom?”
The old man hummed and smiled and didn’t answer. Nothing improper had been suggested, no harm done. He turned the subject to music, and to singing. Shoes were forgotten, and the end of the evening came. Mary Anne was escorted home, two doors away, by a Captain Sutton, late of the Grenadiers, and an Army acquaintance of one of the Taylor brothers. As he said goodnight he held her hand for a moment, and then, with an odd expression in his eyes, he asked her, “When, Mrs. Clarke, are we likely to meet again? In Craven Place or Bond Street?”
Was it a feeler? She shut the door in his face and ran upstairs. Past widowed Mrs. John, past the curate’s sanctum. Past the prayer books laid in rows for tomorrow’s service. Through the children’s bedroom, where the four lay sleeping, bland, unconscious, part of herself, dependent. Into her own room, to a sprawling Joseph. He’d missed the bed and fallen on the floor. She wondered that the curate hadn’t heard him. At least he had spared her the shame of fetching her from the Taylors’, had saved her from that sudden entry with stumbling footsteps, silence, followed by chatter to cover confusion and a good-natured Taylor brother holding his elbow.
She bent to turn out his pockets and found a shilling—he had three guineas when he left the house. Tomorrow there would be the usual excuses and apologies, a few games of hazard, drinks with a couple of fellows. She put a pillow beneath his head and let him lie.
Where was her scrap of paper and her pen? What could she feed the vultures with tonight? Nothing from Mrs. Western now for days. The last had been a baby at Devonshire House, body wrapped in a facecloth and found in a closet. Said to be the kitchen maid’s, but rumor had it… Anything new about Mr. Pitt? She racked her brains. Premier seen to stagger in the lobby. A couplet from Pope to give it a double meaning. Always remember the sting comes in the tail. She scribbled for twenty minutes, then closed her eyes.
No sound from the sleeping Joseph, except his breathing. A child cried once and was coaxed to sleep again, the blanket tucked in the cot, the pillow smoothed. No rest for her active brain but only conjecture.
The appraising, quizzical glance of Captain Sutton. “Craven Place or Bond Street, Mrs. Clarke?”
9
One week there was a return of hospitality. The Taylors came to the Clarkes, the object music. And the day before there was a note from Captain Sutton. “I ran into a friend of mine at noon, Bill Dowler, on the Stock Exchange. May I bring him along to dinner?” Answer, “Delighted.” It was one of those chance encounters that alter life.
Excited and on edge before the party, a demand from Joseph setting the evening awry, Mary Anne’s taut nerves demanded stimulation—and found it. A stranger in their midst, he sat beside her. She liked his looks, his blue eyes, medium height and fair complexion. The chatter of the other guests gave these two excuse for exploration. Badinage passed to agreement, agreement to understanding. The mood of the moment found them in tune. The result was a chemical fusing, disturbing to both. Here was a complication upsetting plans and scruples, this sudden advent of a man she liked too well. How must she deal with the danger? Desire, now dead to Joseph, quickened to Dowler. The one was all the other failed to be. Protective, not demanding; dependable, not weak; low-voiced, never strident. No shallow patter, boasting of what had been. Words were considered, thoughts were weighed, and afterwards expressed. Strength lay in those hands, an
d in those broader shoulders… She realized now too well her great mistake, the pseudo-polish that had caught her at fifteen. This was quite different.
“If we had met before, what would have happened?”
Said by a thousand lovers, and now said again. He was not forcing the pace but was quiet, reserved, fanning her flame still further, making her think—shocked by her own emotions, pride outraged—“I want this man. How do I set about it?”
What hope of answer, under the curate’s roof? There lay instant damnation. The trouble was Bill Dowler’s sense of honor—hence, possibly, his attraction. There would be no midnight prowls for him, nor creaking boards. If dinner was at five, he would leave at ten—agony for both, but honor saved. To compromise a woman was not done. The only son of fond and gentle parents, his code was theirs: fear God, and shun the devil.
A party to Vauxhall? Of course, delightful. But they went in a six, or even an eight, never in pairs. Shoulder touched shoulder, as they watched Punch and Judy; hands brushed against hands, pointing to Bruno bear; laughter was shared, and looks exchanged, and all the warmth of intimacy suggested. But what, at the turn of evening, did it bring? A jog back, four to four, in a chaise to Bayswater, when a curricle for two might have wrought wonders.
Hints, thrown by May Taylor, brought compassion and speculation to his eyes.
“Her husband’s a perfect brute, didn’t you know?”
“I guessed as much from Sutton. How distressing!”
Concern was in his voice and in his air of protection. But there was no flinging of caps over windmills, no attack—merely a couple of volumes of poetry, verses marked, a pat on the head for Edward, a doll for Ellen.
“If there’s anything I can do, will you let me know?”
Do? Good God! Did he think she was made of marble? Must she sit demurely, and bow her head, and endure? Or behave like the girls at Ham and tear daisy petals? He loves me, he don’t. He’ll have me, he won’t. This year, next year, sometime, never. And meantime, night after night, the sleeping Joseph, the wasting weeks, the high tones of midsummer.
It was Joseph himself, in the end, who forced the decision. Perhaps he had guessed, for all his blurred condition, that it was not only fatigue that turned her dumb; perhaps he had sensed what lay behind the yawn, the averted head, the implied resistance.
“What’s happened to you lately? Why have you changed?”
“Changed? What do you expect? Look in the mirror.”
No veiled reproaches, but a stab direct. The tone of disgust told him how far he had fallen, and he stared in the glass and saw his own reflection, a monster aping what he once had been. The features smudged, the whole complexion mottled. The dark eye narrow in the puffed, full face. The trembling hands, the bending, stooping shoulders. A twisted mouth, as if a bee had stung him. A wreck of the self long known, and not yet thirty.
“I’m sorry. I can’t help it.”
Shame came in the morning, with pity and clinging hands, a cry to be forgiven, a prayer for mercy.
“I’ve had no chance, no luck, the world’s against me.”
Talks with his brother, the curate, were no use. The solemn “May God in His infinite mercy give you peace” was followed by tears and a vow to behave in the future, but he knew too well in his heart that she despised him, and by afternoon no hope of salvation remained. One little glass to steady shaking hands, a second to restore the loss of pride. A third to lend a swagger to the step, a fourth to give the world a garish color. A fifth to trounce them all, to be God Almighty. A sixth to blot the brain and bring oblivion. At last a total loss, and the devils had him.
“It will take months of nursing, Mrs. Clarke. I have seen others recover, in this condition. But never, for one moment, can you relax. One drink, and the whole breakdown will be repeated. It is a burden to carry on your shoulders for a lifetime, especially with young children.”
The physician told her this in the curate’s study, where all of them held a family consultation—Mary Anne, the Reverend James and Mrs. John. At last the horror was faced and the fact admitted. No longer did they try to cover up or brush aside.
“You call my husband a dipsomaniac. I call him a drunk. If I am forced to choose between him and the children, I choose the children.”
The alternative was to be chained to his bedside forever, and at intervals put him to grass, like a bear with its keeper. A lumbering monster, padding, with lolling tongue. The children parceled out among relations, the girls to her mother, the boys to Mrs. John. The invalid and herself kept by the parish. She thrust the picture aside and turned to the curate.
“I’ve stood this for nine years, and that’s six too many. This all began before we left Charles Square and the final rot set in at Golden Lane. Better now, for himself and all of us, if he’d put a bullet through his head like your brother John.”
The curate begged her to postpone decision. Parables sprang to his lips about prodigal husbands and erring lambs and sinners that repented. “There is more joy…” he began, but she cut him short.
“In heaven, perhaps,” she said, “not on earth, to a woman.”
He reminded her of the marriage vow, and the ring she wore, and the blessing. For richer for poorer, as long as they both should live.
“With all my worldly goods I thee endow. He said that too, once, and he gave me nothing. Except infection, and because of it I lost a baby. Respect for your cloth forbids the sordid details.”
Shocked and aghast, they pressed her no further. The physician, a man of sense, was on her side. He advised withdrawal out of town, for a time at any rate. Rest… fresh air… a sedative to nerves. The husband to be left at Craven Place, a male nurse in attendance.
The curate wavered, hoist with his own petard. The prodigal husband was also a prodigal brother, and Joseph was Esau, without his mess of pottage. John had been driven to suicide, and Joseph must be saved; perhaps in time the marriage could be mended. But a young woman alone in the world, with four small children? Blushing, he forced himself to words of warning.
“Are you strong enough, Mary Anne, to withstand temptation?”
She wasn’t. That was the point. Temptation beckoned, and she wanted to yield and forget. She wanted to wallow.
“I can take care of myself, and the children also.”
No need to tell the curate of the note, already written but not yet dispatched, to be sent by private messenger to Dowler.
The bewildered children were bundled into a coach, and, with May Taylor and Isobel as companions, the little party set forth to lodgings in Hampstead.
“Where’s father? Is he sick? Why was he shouting?”
Young Edward was quickly silenced, and anyway the journey made a distraction. The cool sweet air of Hampstead was an antidote, and the Yellow Cottage, owned by a Mrs. Andrews, looked out upon Haverstock Hill and the budding heather. Joseph must be forgotten, lying in Craven Place with shuttered windows. The scene was now set for escape and for romance. Tomorrow would bring an answer to her note, or Dowler in person. She would say to him, “Why not stay? You can have May Taylor’s room, she’s got to go. She can’t be spared any longer from Craven Place. And Isobel—well, Isobel’s with the children. So good with Ellen, fretful in the night… Have you brought me books? I’m lost without books and music.”
Then, with the candles lit and the curtains drawn, a man would be a freak of nature if…? She lost herself in sleep and speculation.
Day brought disaster, not what she had planned. Mary Anne the second woke to a high fever, coughing, delirious. By afternoon a rash was on her face and chest. The little girl kept calling for departed Martha, Martha, who had quitted them now a year. Her mother, kneeling by her bedside, could not quieten her.
“I want Martha. Please get Martha.”
The child tossed and turned, the name was repeated. A doctor, summoned by Mrs. Andrews, shook his head. A bad attack of measles, very infectious. The rest would get it; there was nothing to be done. Cupping was
no use, warm milk the only treatment.
“Isobel, where does Martha live now?”
“At the same place, in Cheapside, isn’t it? A Mr. Ellis.”
“Go there at once with May. Take a hackney carriage. Don’t mind the expense, that doesn’t matter.”
“But how can you get her back, when she’s been gone a twelve-month?”
“Tell her I want her. She’ll come to me at once.”
Retribution. Agony. The glazed eyes on the pillow were no longer the child’s, but Joseph’s. The two merged into one, the husband, the daughter. Vainly she offered prayers to a Power offended. What have I done wrong that this should happen? Take my life in exchange, but spare this child.
Cold to the burning forehead, but no use. Minutes were hours, and hours eternity. Charles Square, then Golden Lane, a baby laughing. Something had gone wrong in marriage, but whose was the fault? And why must it bring this child to a burning pillow?
“I’ve come, ma’am.”
“Martha!”
She clung to her, weeping. There was hope in that rounded face, that stolid figure, in the shawl—a gift on parting—and the wicker basket, something so reassuring in her manner, the way she set the basket down, took off her shawl.
“What did you say to your master?”
“I don’t mind him. I told him my mother was ill.”
Bob Farquhar’s smile, Bob Farquhar’s wink of the eye.
“Here’s Martha, love. Here’s Martha come to look after you.” She knew the flight of panic, the sudden ease of the heart, cessation of all feeling save fatigue, aching fatigue rotting her as she stood.
She looked through the open door and saw Bill Dowler.
“What are you doing here?”
“I received your note this morning. I came at once.”
“My note?”
Everything was forgotten because of the child. The baited hook, dispatched from Craven Place, belonged to another time, to another era. The Yellow Cottage was a lazar house, not a hiding place for lovers.