Sons of Fortune (48 page)

She went to the place and almost sculpted the arm in the empty air. She had no idea how to go on; she had forgotten, even, why she had begun the story. The most of her was back there, twenty-two years ago, reliving the horror of discovering the arm, which had been shaken up there from the ravening jaws of a hungry boar. She stood with her own arms raised and frozen.

Boy came forward and gripped her elbow until she relaxed. She returned to them, smiling to show that it was a long time ago. “And little Dorrie,” she said, in the conversational tones of someone winding up a tale, “was bitten by rats the following week, took badly from it, and died.” She pointed at the far corner. “Over there.” She turned to Abigail with a smile. “And that is why, my dear, I shall not apologize if we seem excessively mercenary to you.”

Abigail tossed her head and stalked away back to the coach. The other children were glad of Nora’s smile; without it the story they had just heard would have been quite insupportable. Nora, now regretting having said anything, decided she would travel back to the station with the younger ones and cheer them up again.

The coachman looked at the open drain between the land and the common and decided they could not cross it. “Go on farther,” Nora told them. “I think there’s a big open space up the end there where you can turn.”

“Tell us some of those funny sayings you used to use,” Mather said when she was settled and the carriage was moving down toward the turning place.

It was a game they hadn’t played for years; she wondered if they would remember the dialect of her youth—the words she had taught them for fun.

“Down in merlygrubs?” she said.

“Depressed!” Abigail cried. She had always loved those northern words. The others all smiled in anticipation of her next question.

Nora was delighted they were taking to it so well; she had at once regretted telling them of Wilf and Dorrie. This would take the taste away.

“And a cat doesn’t purr, it…what?”

“It three-thrums!” Abigail giggled.

“Don’t answer them all, popsie,” Nora cautioned. “What’s a ne’er-do-well?”

“A shuffletoppin’,” Mather said with glee.

“I liked ‘glumpy and gloarin,’” Hester said. The memory was coming back to her. “That meant ‘sullen and staring.’”

She glanced at Abigail and giggled. Abigail pouted and stuck out her tongue.

“And feeling ‘wemmley and cocklety,’” Mather said. “What did that mean, Mama?”

“Sick and unsteady,” Abigail said.

“I didn’t ask you. Mama, tell her I wasn’t asking her.”

But Nora heard none of them for there, outside the carriage window, was the very hovel she had been telling them about—the last of the row of five. Those mounds in the field must have been something else, some earlier hovels. And another family must have moved into this one and kept it in some sort of repair; although it was now deserted, it still had a recently inhabited look about it. They all did. They were all pretty much as she remembered them.

A little way farther on they came to the turning place. On the way back she knew she could not simply drive past her old home, not having come all this way.

“Stop,” she told the coachman when they were once again level with the derelict hovels.

It was quite a while before the other, leading coachman realized they had stopped. Meanwhile Nora had descended alone and alone had walked into the place that had once been “home” to her and six others. The one-room homes of the very poor are almost interchangeable even when they are occupied. Deserted, only geography distinguishes one from another. The families who had lived here between her departure and this day had left no mark she could swear was not hers or her family’s. It was like stepping back twenty-two years. No! It was like eliminating those intervening years and having that terrible past come smashing through all the defensive tricks of time and memory.

The space that had held Wilf’s arm could not be safely mimed in empty, open air; for there was the very rafter where it lodged. Yesterday, as it were. And there was the exact corner in which Dorrie had complained of being “wemmley” and where she had lain, swallowing air and vomiting and turning her eyes up inside her head. Nora was appalled that those terrible images had such power over her still. Of all the regrets in her life, the chances denied to little Wilf and baby Dorrie were the deepest and most searing.

A hand slipped through her arm, making her start.

“You mustn’t fret, Mother.” Abigail’s voice. “It was so long ago. And you have all of us now, you know.”

She heard herself laughing! Not in humour. And certainly not at Abigail’s attempt to comfort her. But out of sheer relief at the truth of what Abigail had said. And how curious, she thought, that, of all her children, those words meant most to her when they came from Abigail’s lips—sharp-tongued, selfish, self-destructive young Abigail, who could yet be softer and more loving than any of them.

She squeezed her daughter’s hand. “I do,” she said. “Indeed and indeed, I do.”

They walked back outside. “I’m glad I came,” she added as they went back to the coach. “I’m sure it won’t haunt me now as much as before.”

Boy came running back along the lane. “I say, are you all right?” he called.

“I am now,” she shouted back. “Let’s all go and eat.”

It was a splendid lunch, in the directors’ buffet of the Manchester & Leeds at Hunt’s Bank. During the course of it Caspar told his mother that if all the Stevensons for the next five hundred years left his £460 untouched, it would be worth over ten million pounds and would yield nearly a quarter of a million each year!

When Nora laughed, as if she thought it were just a nice fancy, he swore to her that he would never touch the money. He would set the first example.

It was a promise he was to break the very next day.

They met up with the Thornton children—no Walter or Arabella this time—on the quayside at Liverpool. After they had all gone aboard and run along the corridors and up and down the companionways and round the decks, and been in their cabins, and swung the lamps in their gimbals, Nick winked at Caspar and sauntered upon deck. Caspar, of course, followed.

“Who has a tale to tell-oh?” Caspar said, grinning already with anticipation.

“I have a tale to tell-oh! A tale of tail.” He pronounced it “tayill” to make the pun clear.

Caspar rubbed his hands and leaned on the rail. They watched the nets full of luggage being hauled aboard.

“Tell me, Steamer, d’ye know what a Dipsas is? Or a Manticora? A Wyvern? A Simurgh? Eh?”

“Female grotesques, aren’t they?” Caspar giggled.

“Indeed, old son. And your humble servant is here to tell you of them. Oh, and more! You know I was in Paris last Easter.”

“You sent me a card.”

“So I did. Well, I think that before a fellow marries and settles down he ought to do those things he won’t be able to do so easily afterwards.”

“You! Getting married?”

“Course not. But there’s so many of ‘those things,’ don’t you know.”

They both laughed heartily.

The seamen began to lash the canvas over the open mouth of the luggage hold. The officer of the gangway looked at his watch every few moments. At last he called “All ashore that’s going ashore,” and the cry was taken up throughout the ship.

“Well,” Nick said. “Before I went, didn’t I overhear my mater telling Mrs. Cornelius about this strange house in Paris, in the Cours des Coches, where they keep half a ton of female grotesques. Wait! Having seen them, I revise that: a ton and a half of female grotesques, for gents whose taste for the normal has been dulled by overstimulation.”

Caspar, on cue, laughed and waited to hear more, begging for it with his eyes and wet lips.

“’Course that don’t apply to me. But since I don’t think I’ll ever succumb to overstimulation (quite the reverse—can’t get enough!), I thought this year’s as good as nineteen-hundred so why not; I’ll be dead of spermatorrhoea by then, anyway. So along I go to Cours des Coches and lo and behold! There it is. I tell you, my mater could do the best fem guide in Europe. Big, swell place. Lots of plush. Lots of gilt. But—les girls! Christ, you never saw such things. Things! All dressed up like little virgins and brides. One was a nun—well, you’d expect that, wouldn’t you, in a papist heaven like France. But you wouldn’t expect a nun with tusks and a big scaly bump on her forehead, would you! An elephant woman all in black. She couldn’t talk either—only go
hneuyrghhneuyrgh
, like a peke with asthma.”

“Did you shag her?” Caspar asked in horrified fascination.

“You wait!” He was so confident of Caspar’s interest now he did not look at him.

The last of the non-passengers went ashore and the seamen began to make the crane ropes fast to the gangway. Others went forward and aft to loosen the ropes and hawsers to the quayside bollards.

“There was one there I didn’t see at first. But when I did, I knew I had to take her. I’d waited too long.” He glanced briefly at Caspar. “Guess.”

“How can I!” Caspar laughed. “I’ve never been within ten miles of…”

“But you have of
her.
It was that slavey of yours at Quaker Farm—the one we watched Boy screwing. You remember! With the ghastly face and the splendid tits.”

Caspar felt every muscle in him go rigid. The gooseflesh on his arms rose against the material of his shirt. By supreme effort of will he managed to kill every sound or gesture that might distract Nick. Fortunately, Nick was now well launched and needed no question, nor even laugh, to prompt him into further revelation.

“As soon as I saw that loathsome half-face and remembered that glorious body I knew it had to be her.”

They tested the knots to the gangplank.

“She didn’t know me, though. Too drunk. Terrible stink of wine. It was all a bit of a washout, in fact. Too bloody weepy. As soon as I got into her she broke out in tears. The froggy fellow who runs the place said a lot of his clientele adore that and are willing to pay extra for it.”

The seamen on the quayside signalled that the knots were firm and the men at the steam winch took a bite on the capstan.

Caspar could stand no more of it. He’d heard all he needed to know. “How much money have you, Nick?”

“Wait! You haven’t heard how…”

“How much!” He eyed the coil of rope that had to be wound through before the gangplank lifted. It was dwindling fast.

“Two quid. But…”

“Give it me.”

“I say…”

“Give it me!”

Awestruck, Nick handed it over.

“I’m going to get Mary Coen out of there,” he said, already moving down the companionway. “Tell my mother what you’ve just told me. Twist it to suit yourself. Ask her for your two quid back.”

The rope was all gone. The strain was on the gangplank now. He wasn’t going to make it!

Then a cook came out and tapped one of the seamen on the shoulder—one who was holding the rope tightly bitten to the capstan. He let it go partly slack and the rope merely held its place, neither winding nor unwinding. Some kind of argument followed. Caspar leaped down the next companionway in two frog jumps. Then, without pause, he rushed out along the gangplank, which was by now being hauled up again, and jumped the eight-foot gap between the end of it and the quayside, landing in a sprawl.

“Hey, Steamer!” came Nick’s cry from far above.

Caspar looked up.

“She’s not worth it. But the elephant woman is!”

Caspar hated himself. How, he thought, loving Mary as he did, could he still laugh at Nick?

***

He had only enough cash to travel third to London—a nightmare of a journey on wooden seats. Fortunately third-class carriages were no longer open to the skies.

He arrived in Hamilton Place at dawn, forced himself to sleep until midday, drew out twenty pounds, caught the lunchtime train to Dover and was in Paris by eleven o’clock that night. Luckily it was at last possible for English people to travel in France without a passport, an item Caspar had, in any case, forgotten in his anxiety.

He paused long enough to book into a small
hôtel garni
in the Rue du Helder at fifteen francs, or twelve shillings, a day—which he thought extortionate but had no time to argue down.

At Hamilton Place he had borrowed his mother’s Murray and had since found Cours des Coches on the map tucked in the back-cover pocket. It was just over half a mile away, a cul-de-sac running west from the Rue de la Madeleine, just north of the Faubourg St. Honoré.

As he walked down the Boulevard des Italiens, toward La Madeleine, he decided he would have to pretend to be an interested client of this dreadful house. An outraged young lover would probably be left on the pavement. So would an employer seeking a runaway servant. Was 450 francs enough? He ought to have drawn out more perhaps. Too late now.

For the first time, he began to think of Mary. Mary as he loved her. Mary as she was last Christmas. Until now his mind had shied away from all those particulars; she had been almost an abstract—as if Nick had said “Your country is in danger.” He knew he had not dared to think of the real, particular Mary until he was this close to her.

And now that he was so close, now that he dared, a terrible foreboding overtook him. He remembered what Nick had said: “drunk…terrible stink of wine…crying all the time…customers like it.”

What sort of ruins was he going to pick up?

Did he care? He decided he did not. Whatever had become of Mary he would collect the bits and take her home.

Would he marry her? He wouldn’t have to.

But if that was the only way? It was hard for him to think of it. He would have to do all those things his mother cautioned against—leave Fiennes (where he was now following her advice to become the golden boy) and either finish his own education in Sheffield or be done with it and go out to earn his own—and her—living.

But if there was no other way? It would mean giving up four million at least. And, with Mary, he could never have any place in Society. It was giving up a lot.

But if there was no other way? He would. He did not decide it. He realized it. He was still a prisoner of her gentleness and her ghastly beauty. Besides, he comforted himself, a lot of people led very agreeable lives outside Society. Doctors, clergymen, teachers, lots of people with very successful small businesses. Their lives were probably a lot happier than those of people in Society.

The doorknocker on the house in the Cours des Coches took the form of a femal icthyogryph—as if to be a mermaid were not already deformity enough. It was a long time being answered. But the girl who came was both young and dainty. She held the door only part open, on a long chain.

“
Votre carte de visite, s’il vous plait, monsieur?
”
she asked.

“I beg your pardon!” Caspar gasped. Somehow he assumed that the last thing anyone would mention or ask for in such a place was an honest name.

“
Monsieur est anglais?
”

“Yes…er…je cherchez…je lookez for…”

She smiled prettily—and contemptuously. “Monsieur may speak English. Monsieur must comprehend that only gentlemen of refinement are admitted ’ere.”

Reluctantly Caspar handed in his card: Mr. Caspar Stevenson. Bang went half his strategies. The girl shut the door and silence fell once more.

After another interminable wait the chain was removed and the door swung open to reveal a portly man ravaged by ancient smallpox pits. “Welcome in, milor’!” he said with a bow. “César Calignani’s choice of female pulchritude is yours.”

“Lookin’ forward to this, what!” Caspar said as he came in.

They walked down a long, carpeted corridor. Caspar saw the names on the doors—the names Nick had listed. The walls were hung with gothic paintings of grotesque females in obscene situations; little niches held sculptures of a similar nature. Plush and gilt were everywhere.

“Some of our beauties cannot even waddle upstairs,” Calignani said. “These are their boudoirs.”

“That girl who answered the door…” Caspar began.

Calignani laughed. “You like that touch? You are a man of refined wit, sir, despite your youth. Yes, many of my visitors do not see the exquisiteness of it—as an act of the wit.”

His accent was better than his vocabulary.

They came to the centre of the house, a kind of large lounge full of sofas and ottomans where the choice was made. The pretty girl was ready with two glasses of brandy.

“My compliments, milor’,” Calignani said. “Our selection of
belle tournure
is at this hour somewhat diminished. Many of my choicest dainties have retired for the night with their ardent paramours. But”—he waved his hand around the dimly lighted room—“we still have the grandmother, the bald one, the little—tcha! It’s better
en français, oui: La Grand’mère, La Tête-chauve, La Minime, La Grasse-grasse, La Courbée, La Mère l’Oye…”

Caspar looked around the sorry collection of hopeful freaks with more pity than revulsion. “I have a particular taste,” he said. “I hear from a friend that you have a red-headed girl here, half of whose face is perfect, the other half completely…”

Calignani held up his hand. “
La Répandreuse, oui?
”
he asked.

“I don’t know her name.”

“Always she weeps.”

“Ah! Now that sounds like her.”

“
Hélas
,
monsieur, she is no more.”

It was a while before Caspar could say the word: “Dead?”

“No, no, no. She is no more here.”

His excellent English was obviously a patter that lasted only from door to lounge room.

“Oh!” Caspar’s relief was enormous. “Some other house?”

The man laughed. “For her? There is no other house but Calignani’s.”

“But where is she, then?”

“I cannot tell you that, milor’.”

“But you
do
know?”

“Of course I know.” Calignani looked at him suspiciously. Caspar dropped all pretence. “But please tell me,” he begged. “I wish to marry her. Truly I do.”

Something communicated directly from ardent youth to jaded old ruin. Calignani saw something there whose existence he had forgotten. His beady, avaricious eyes softened for a moment. “You cannot,” he said. “She is married now.”

“Who to?” Caspar was growing desperate.

“Of course I cannot tell you. He is a frequent visitor here. He is an aristocrat—enough!”

“Please tell me! All I want is to speak to her. I just want to be sure she is happy—please?”

Calignani looked around the lounge. “Nothing here will do instead?” he asked.

“Is she happy?”

“She loves music, hein?”

“I…yes, I think she did.”

“I am told she is often at concerts and the opera. They call her
La Veuve—
because of the dark veils, you see. ‘The widow,’ I think.” He spoke to a gilded Corinthian column, near Caspar. “You sure there is nothing here for you?”

Caspar knew he would get no more out of the man. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Too early.” The man chuckled.

Caspar looked at him in surprise. It was well past midnight.

“Forty…fifty years too early. We wait! What about Garence? Does she interest you?” He put his hand through the arm of the pretty girl.

Caspar looked at her. Of course she interested him! Any other night—any other time. “Tomorrow…or tomorrow,” he said.

Calignani tightened his grip on the girl. “Thank the good God for
l’amour
,”
he said, parading his relief. “I am lonely too, tonight.” He pulled the girl to him. She laughingly imitated a cat, purring and rubbing herself against him.

“I must pay you for my brandy,” Caspar said. “At least I must do that.”

But the man let go of the girl and swept Caspar back into the corridor. Caspar’s last glimpse of the girl showed the smile falling from her face like a discarded mask. “The women of this trade have a saying,” he told Caspar. “
Payer c’est oublier—
to pay is to forget. I will not let you pay, and then you remember this brandy, this scene, this house, many years. And when you are old and nothing excites anymore, then you think perhaps it’s time to come back to Cours des Coches. I am dead perhaps. These…
filles…
are gone. But
la service
it’s immortal.” He saluted and laughed. “You come back—oh, yes!” He took the empty brandy glass from Caspar’s fingers and pulled it away, level and slowly, as if a thread already united himself and the young man.