Beautiful Lies (32 page)

A woman came to stand beside her. Maribel moved a little to her right, not taking her eyes from the painting. A tousle-headed Cupid leaned down from the branches of the tree, holding out the apple to Eve in a plump fist. Magnificent in her nakedness, Eve gazed back at the infant, her hand extended, her expression dazed with love, oblivious to Adam and his admonitions. Around the apple their fingers touched. In this way, Rubens seemed to be saying, Adam is expelled from Paradise and every man after him, shut out by the impregnable intimacy of mother and child.

The woman beside her was standing very close, her breathing shallow as a spaniel’s. Maribel felt a shimmer of irritation.

‘Peg – I mean, Maribel?’

Maribel turned. The woman was Edith, one hand over her mouth. Her eyes were very round. She bounced a little on the balls of her feet.

‘I can’t believe it!’ she hissed in a stage whisper. ‘I saw you in the other room but I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. What are you doing here?’

‘Edith.’ Furtively Maribel glanced about. The man in the homburg was gone. In the frame of an open doorway she could see an elderly couple conversing in the adjacent room, a guard in uniform staring slack-jawed at the floor.

‘Are you here alone?’ Edith asked.

‘With a friend. I should go.’

‘Must you really?’

‘She might come back at any moment. It would not do to have to explain.’

‘No. No, of course not. I can’t believe you’re here. Who would have imagined?’

‘Goodbye, Edith.’

Edith’s mouth snapped shut and her shoulders sagged.

‘You’re right, of course. Goodbye, Peggy. I mean, Maribel. Sorry. It is only that I . . .’

Maribel hesitated. Then she leaned forward and gave her sister a fleeting kiss on the cheek.

‘It was nice to see you, Edith,’ she said.

‘I am here with Ida.’

Maribel froze.

‘I thought she needed cheering up, getting out, you know, well, she’s been so gloomy lately, one can’t seem to snap her out of it, but the silly thing only went and dropped her gloves. A brand-new pair apparently. Well, of course when I saw how upset she was I said I would buy her another pair, Horace wouldn’t mind, he wouldn’t ever have to know, but she got quite angry with me about it, I can’t think why, and she stormed off. I imagine she went back to the entrance hall to see if anyone has handed them in. Perhaps this is her now.’

Flustered, she glanced over Maribel’s shoulder. Maribel pressed her hands together, her eyes on the parquet floor. Her heart was tight as a fist. A double-chinned matron bustled past, a pale young girl trailing three paces behind her.

‘Eyes ahead, Eugenia,’ the matron commanded. ‘There is nothing for us in here.’

The parquet was in need of a polish. Abruptly the thought of seeing Ida filled Maribel with panic. It was too sudden, too soon. She was not ready.

‘I have to go,’ she said.

‘May I tell her I saw you? I mean, I know it is supposed to be a secret but –’

‘Goodbye, Edith.’

She fled. She found Charlotte seated on an upright chair in the atrium, her hands crossed demurely over her swollen stomach and her eyes half closed. She blinked sleepily at Maribel.

‘Dearest, whatever is the matter?’

‘We have to go.’

Charlotte frowned, hauling herself awkwardly out of her chair.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

‘Of course. I need some air, that’s all. Come on.’

‘I’m coming, I’m coming. Hang on a moment. I have to fetch my umbrella.’

The cloakroom attendant was an elderly man with a luxurious white moustache. Maribel shifted from foot to foot as he took Charlotte’s ticket, enquiring after the exhibition and lamenting the inclemency of the weather. When at last he brought the umbrella she had to stop herself from snatching it out of his hands.

Outside the rain had grown heavy. Beneath the arches of the Academy Charlotte paused to raise her umbrella.

‘Wait,’ she called to Maribel. ‘You will get soaked.’

Maribel turned impatiently.

‘Then hurry up.’

The shallow stone steps were greasy with rain. In her haste Charlotte lost her footing and fell heavily. She cried out, a sharp yelp of shock and pain, her bag and umbrella tumbling from her grasp.

‘Charlotte!’ Maribel exclaimed, stricken. Snatching up her skirts she flew to where Charlotte lay sprawled across the steps, her right arm bent awkwardly to one side. Her face was very white. She tried to raise her head.

‘My arm,’ she whimpered.

Maribel nodded, kneeling beside her.

‘I know,’ she said, stroking her hair. ‘Just don’t move, darling. You mustn’t move.’

‘The baby –’

‘Oh God, Charlotte. It’s not coming, is it?’

Charlotte shook her head and gasped, her face tightening with pain. Rain spangled her hair, her skirts, her pinched face. Maribel cast frantically about her. The courtyard was deserted, the rain falling in broad sweeps. Beside her Charlotte whimpered and closed her eyes. Maribel felt the panic clotting her chest.

‘Help!’ she cried. ‘Somebody, please help!’

The rain sighed and thickened. It was growing dark.

‘Don’t move,’ she whispered to Charlotte. ‘I’m going for help.’

Charlotte whimpered again. The angle of her arm was sickening. Maribel stroked her forehead, her hand trembling, and scrambled to her feet. Stumbling a little she ran to the door of the Academy, flinging it open. It was bright in the lobby, the gas lamps lit. The old man in the cloakroom looked up.

‘Fetch a doctor,’ she cried. ‘There’s been an accident.’

‘An accident? What kind of accident?’

Maribel turned. In the lobby two ladies stood close together, their faces shadowy beneath the raised hoods of their cloaks. The one who had spoken held a furled umbrella. Her hands were bare. The other was Edith.

‘She needs a doctor,’ Maribel said faintly. ‘She fell. On the steps. She’s pregnant. I think she may have broken her arm.’

‘Is someone with her?’

It was Ida. She looked no different than she had at ten years old. Perhaps there were lines about the mouth, a faint dustiness to her skin, but it was her, her heart-shaped face, her freckled nose, her bright brown eyes with the flecks like pollen around the pupils. There was no mark upon her to show that she had borne a child, that she had lost a child. She was barely more than a child herself. Maribel stared at her sister and she wanted only to fall into her arms, to weep, to kiss her precious face and stroke her hair and breathe in her Ida smell until her lungs burst. She had never held Ida, except during a performance. In those days they had neither of them had much time for caresses.

Maribel shook her head.

‘There’s nobody,’ she whispered. ‘Please come.’

Ida nodded, raising her umbrella to the cloakroom attendant.

‘A doctor at the double, if you please. You have brandy? Then once the doctor is summoned, please fetch it and bring it out. Edith, come with me.’

Edith nodded, her mouth open, as Ida followed Maribel out into the rain.

‘You have not tried to move her, I hope?’

‘No.’

On the stone steps Charlotte had closed her eyes. Her lips were white, her breathing shallow. Bundling up her skirts Maribel sat beside her, taking her good hand in hers. It was damp and very cold. She set it against her cheek and tried not to pretend that it was Ida’s.

‘Hold on, darling,’ she said, the tears spiking in her throat. ‘Just hold on. The doctor will be here any moment, I promise you.’

‘Is she all right?’ Edith asked in a loud whisper. ‘Is it a concussion?’

‘She has fainted,’ Ida said briskly. ‘And she is extremely wet.’

‘I have salts,’ Edith offered and she slipped her hands inside her cloak, fumbling with the clasp of her bag. Ida shook her head.

‘It is the pain. She is better off as she is. Are those hers?’ She pointed to the bag and the umbrella at the bottom of the steps. ‘Bring them here. And Edith? Open this.’

She had always been practical, Maribel thought, even as a child. She watched as Ida handed Edith her own umbrella and unfastened her cloak, laying it over Charlotte like a blanket. Underneath the cloak Ida wore a paisley shawl, pinned with a brooch. She undid the brooch, carefully sheathing the pin before slipping it into her pocket, and rolled the shawl into a pillow which she slid beneath Charlotte’s head. Charlotte stirred, whimpering quietly. Ida murmured re assurances as she took the two umbrellas from Maribel and Edith, propping them against the steps to create a canopy. ‘You’ll get wet,’ Edith said.

Ida shrugged and handed Maribel Charlotte’s bag. She did not look at her.

‘My arm is not broken,’ she said.

Maribel hugged the bag on her lap and gazed down at her friend’s damp, white face, the tails of hair plastered on her forehead. Her breathing was shallow and capillaries sketched faint purple lines in the translucent skin of her eyelids.

‘She will be all right, won’t she?’ she asked pleadingly.

‘The doctor will be here soon.’

‘And the baby?’

Ida crossed her arms across her chest, rubbing briskly at her upper arms with the palms of her hands.

‘That is a matter for the doctor.’

Maribel looked up at her sister. Drops of rainwater clung like lace to the brim of her ugly brown hat.

‘I’m so sorry, Ida. About what happened.’

Ida did not answer. They waited in silence. After a time Charlotte’s eyelids fluttered and she moaned softly to herself. Very gently Maribel stroked her face, her hair, and still the doctor did not come.

‘Where is that fool with the brandy?’ Edith said after a while. ‘I can’t imagine why it’s taking so long.’

No one answered. Edith pleated the edge of her cloak between her fingers.

‘Immediately, that was the instruction,’ she went on. ‘An ignoramus could not have failed to grasp the urgency of the situation. A doctor, then brandy.’

It was quite dark now. The gaslights in the courtyard fringed the rain with gold.

‘Perhaps I should . . .’ Edith said, gesturing towards the lobby.

‘Yes,’ Ida said. ‘Why don’t you?’

‘I think I should.’

Nodding firmly, she bustled up the steps. Across the courtyard a figure in a dark slick coat hurried, an umbrella held aloft. Then he vanished. Maribel smoothed Charlotte’s hair from her forehead.

‘It won’t be long now, dearest,’ she murmured. ‘The doctor is on his way.’

She stroked Charlotte’s damp cheek with a curled finger. Charlotte closed her eyes.

‘I think she’s fainted again,’ she said.

‘Bloody doctor,’ Ida said, scowling into the darkness. ‘Where the devil is he?’

Immediately Maribel was in the orchard at Ellerton, Ida beside her crossly rattling the bucket of pony nuts for the fat little Shetland that hid when you called it.

‘Oh, Ida,’ she whispered, swallowing the lump in her throat. ‘You have no idea how much I’ve missed you.’

‘I told that idiot doorman that we needed someone straight away. I couldn’t have made it plainer.’

‘When Edith told me you were in London – forgive me.’ With the back of one hand Maribel brushed away the tears that spilled from her eyes. ‘It’s just – Oh, Ida, your baby. I’m so very sorry. I wish I’d had the chance to meet her.’

Ida made a strangled noise. She bent down, busying herself with the umbrellas.

‘Ida, look at me, please. If you knew how many times I wished I had taken you with me . . .’

For a moment there was silence. Maribel held tight to Charlotte’s hand. Then Ida exhaled sharply.

‘Peggy, please –’

‘We were going to have a house in Regent’s Park, do you remember?’

‘Were we? Mother always did say we children talked a lot of nonsense.’

‘I didn’t think it was nonsense.’

‘No. Well.’

Abruptly there came the sound of voices. The door opened, spilling light into the darkening night.

‘I have him,’ called Edith triumphantly. ‘I have the doctor.’

Ida raised her hand.

‘Over here,’ she called. Then she knelt down next to Charlotte, two fingers feeling for the pulse in her wrist. ‘The doctor’s here now. Everything’s going to be all right.’

‘Write to me,’ Maribel whispered and she folded her card into Ida’s free hand. ‘Promise you’ll write to me.’

Ida did not reply. Gently she adjusted the shawl beneath Charlotte’s head. Then, smoothing her skirts, she stood.

‘Goodness me, Doctor,’ she said. ‘I thought you’d never come.’

C
HARLOTTE LAY IN BED
, propped up with pillows, her arm in its casing of plaster of Paris set on a velvet cushion by her side. She was pale with a bruised look about the eyes, but the doctor had assured Arthur that she was as comfortable as could be expected. She had broken the radius, he explained, one of the two bones which ran from elbow to wrist, and the break would take some weeks to heal. Morphine pills would ease the pain. As for the baby, it was quite unharmed.

‘She is to rest,’ Arthur said, wagging a finger at his wife. ‘Do not let her tell you otherwise. There will be no sledding down the staircase for a month or two.’

Charlotte held out her good hand to Maribel.

‘Dearest,’ she said.

‘Look at you.’

‘I know. The children call me the Egyptian mummy.’

‘Perhaps if you were to paint the cast it would look more cheerful?’ Arthur suggested. ‘Something uplifting. Florence Nightingale with her lamp, perhaps, or the dying moments of Admiral Nelson. Ursie is longing to try out her new watercolours.’

‘Please make my husband go to his office,’ Charlotte said, pressing Maribel’s hand.

‘Do you hear her, Maribel? She would have me thrown out of my own home!’

‘You know quite well you want nothing more,’ Charlotte protested. ‘You maraud around a sickroom like a tiger in a zoo.’

Arthur smiled.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘But I shall be home in time for tea.’

‘You are the dearest man in the world but you shall do no such thing. I know how busy you are at present. We shall manage very well without you.’

‘In that, Mrs Arthur Charterhouse, you are sorely mistaken. We have great plans for your entertainment, the children and I. If you cannot come downstairs then it is our considered opinion that downstairs will have to come to you.’ He kissed her tenderly on the cheek. ‘Take care of my wife, Maribel.’