"Sleep, Pale Sister" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harris Joanne)

16

I could tell that Mose was annoyed that we had encountered Fanny; he dragged his feet, scowled, made impatient gestures and made it clear that he wanted us both to be gone as soon as possible. I could understand why: despite her spirited performance at the fair, Fanny had soon abandoned her high tone and, although her clothes were of excellent quality, there was in the richness of the mulberry velvet dress, the matching plumed hat and the rope of baroque pearls around her long neck, more than a suspicion of the adventuress. I knew what Henry thought of women who dressed, walked and talked as she did; but, if anything, that only added to her attraction.

For there was an attraction; I’d felt immediately drawn to Fanny. As soon as I set eyes on her I felt that there was some secret in Fanny, some bold message writ in her flesh for me to read, and, as I walked beside her, I was sure that she had recognized something inside me as I had in her.

Fanny’s house was on Crook Street, quite near the canal, at the intersection of four alleys which led out from the house like the points of a star. In that part of town there were a number of old Georgian houses, once very fine and fashionable, now receding into shabby-gentility, some derelict, with the rags of ancient curtains hanging at the toothy mouths of their broken windows, others fresh painted and spotless as the false fronts of a theatre backdrop.

Fanny’s house was larger than the rest, built of the same soot-grimed London stone, but respectably clean, with bright, heavy curtains at the windows and pots of geraniums on all the sills. In that neighbourhood the house stood out with a kind of countrified incongruity. The door was painted green, with a bright brass knocker and, at the doorstep, sat an enormous striped ginger cat, which mewed when we approached.

‘Come in, Alecto,’ said Fanny to the cat, opening the door, and the big tabby rolled her boneless weight silently into the hall. ‘Please…’ Fanny gestured for me to follow, and the three of us-Fanny, Mose and I-entered the house. I was struck immediately by the scent; something like sandalwood and cinnamon and wood-smoke, a scent which seemed to come from the furniture and the walls all around us. Then there were the flowers, great vases of them, crimson, purple and gold, on stands in every corner. Tapestries in jewel colours hung on the walls and rich rugs covered the parquet floors.

It seemed to me that I had been magically transported to some Aladdin’s cave; in this setting Fanny, as she unpinned her hat, took off her gloves and loosened her hair, was a beauty of awesome, mythical proportions, a giant Scheherazade with no hint of the Haymarket now in her appearance or her bearing, a creature entirely at ease. She guided us through a passageway and past a great sweeping staircase into a cosy drawing-room where a fire had already been lit. Two more cats rested, Sphinx-like, before it.

As I slid into one of the huge, overstuffed armchairs I slipped momentarily out of my body and saw myself, alien in this warm and sensual setting, as pallid as a creature from beneath a stone, and I almost screamed. As the world focused again I saw Mose’s face looming towards me like something seen in a fishbowl and I drew away in a kind of inexplicable loathing, with the room spinning about me like a crystal ball and his eyes locked mercilessly into mine.

‘Dear girl, you look ill. Drink this.’ I clung to Fanny in desperate gratitude as she handed me a drink in a brass goblet; it was warm and sweet, like wine punch, with a distinct aroma of vanilla and allspice.

I tried to smile. ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I…’

Mose’s voice, sharp with suspicion: ‘What’s that?’

‘One of my own recipes,’ answered Fanny lazily. ‘A restorative, that’s all. Don’t you trust me?’

‘I…feel much better,’ I said, realizing with some surprise that it was true. ‘I…I’m sorry I…’

‘Nonsense!’ Fanny’s tone was crisp. ‘No apologies in this house. Henry may like that kind of foolish submissiveness, but I can’t conceive of anything more tiresome.’

‘Oh!’ I was for a moment unsure whether I should laugh or take offence at Fanny’s bluntness; and she had called my husband by his Christian name. And yet, there was a certain rightness in the way she responded to me, a warmth in her familiarity which, in spite of myself, I welcomed. I laughed uneasily and drank the rest of the restorative in one draught. The cats, a white one and a thin brown tabby, left their places at the hearth and came to sniff the hem of my skirts, and I reached out cautiously to stroke them.

‘Megaera and Tisiphone,’ said Fanny, indicating the cats. ‘They seem to like you. You’re honoured-they don’t usually get on very well with strangers.’

I repeated the names, ‘Megaera, Tisiphone and Alecto. What strange names. Do they mean anything?’

‘Oh, I have a liking for ancient mythology,’ said Fanny carelessly.

‘May…may I call you Fanny?’ I asked.

She nodded. ‘Please do. Don’t stand on ceremony with me,’ she advised. ‘I’m old enough to be your mother, though not as respectable, no doubt. Have another drink.’ And she refilled the goblet and handed it to me. ‘What about you?’ She turned to Mose, who had been sitting in the only straight-backed chair in the room, looking like a thwarted child. ‘You look as if you could do with a drink.’

‘No.’

‘I think you should,’ insisted Fanny lightly, ‘if only to mend your temper.’

Mose forced himself to grin sourly and accepted the proffered glass. ‘Thanks.’

‘You don’t seem very pleased to see me,’ said Fanny. ‘Doubtless you now have a reputation to uphold. And yet I would never have thought that Henry Chester was your tipple, Mose dear. You must be getting respectable in your declining years!’ Mose shifted uneasily and Fanny winked at me and smiled.

‘I am, of course, forgetting your new position as Mr Chester’s sponsor,’ she added. ‘Fancy you and Henry becoming friends. I vow you’ll be quite sober before the year’s out.’

Abruptly she turned to me. ‘You’re so pretty, my dear,’ she said. ‘What a tangle you have yourself in, with Henry Chester on the one side and Mose on the other. Scylla and Charybdis. Be careful: Mose is a villain through and through, and Henry…well, we both know Henry, I hope. You can be my friend. It would infuriate them both, of course-men have such odd notions of propriety! Imagine Henry’s astonishment if he knew! But Henry sees no further than his own canvasses. Even in those eyes of yours, so deep and clear, he sees nothing.’

Her tone was light, her words a shoal of bright fish spelling meaningless patterns around me. The tabby jumped on my lap, and I was happy at the distraction it offered, allowing my hands to move idly in the cat’s fur. I tried to concentrate on what Fanny was saying, but my head was spinning. I took another drink to clear my head and, through the veil of unreality through which I perceived the world, I was aware of Mose watching me with an ugly look on his face. I struggled to say something, but my grasp upon drawing-room manners was weak, and instead of the polite comment I had intended I said the first thing which came into my head.

‘Is this a bawdy-house?’ For a second I froze, appalled at what I had said, then I felt a hot blush sweep me from head to toe. I began to stammer, spilling my drink across my skirts, almost in tears. ‘I…I…I…’

But Fanny was laughing, a rich, deep laugh of the kind you might expect from a genie in a bottle. For a moment I was aware of her looming over me and I lost all grasp of scale; she was a giantess, terrifying, awesome in her rich velvet robes, the scent of musk and spices from her generous flesh overwhelming me as she took me in her arms. I could still hear her laughter as the world stabilized around me and my hysteria receded.

‘You’re quite right, my dear,’ she said with a chuckle. ‘How refreshing you are! “Is this a bawdy-house?” Mose, the child’s a treasure.’ I shifted, my face against her shoulder, protesting.

‘You’ve given her too much punch. She’s not used to it.’ Mose was still disapproving, but I could see that he was smiling in spite of himself. Nervously, through half-shed tears, I too began to laugh.

Suddenly, a thought struck me and, made reckless by the alcohol in the punch and the hilarity of my unshakeable hostess, I voiced it: ‘But…you said you knew my husband,’ I said. ‘I…Was it modelling?’

Fanny shrugged. ‘I’m not his style, my love. But from time to time I can find him someone who is. Not always for modelling, either.’

‘Oh…’ It took some time for the implications of what she had told me to settle into my mind. Henry was unfaithful to me? After all his posturing and preaching, Henry had visited Fanny’s house in secret? I was not certain whether to laugh or scream at the bitter farce; I imagine I laughed. To think that during all those years when he was my hero, my Lancelot, he was creeping to her house in Crook Street like a thief in the night! I laughed, but there was a bitterness in my laughter.

Mose, too, had been taken by surprise. ‘Henry came here?’ he asked incredulously.

‘Often. He still does. Every Thursday, just like clockwork.’

‘Well, I’ll be damned! I’d never have thought that the old hypocrite had it in him. And he goes to church every Sunday, the devil, and proses and preaches as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth! What’s his taste, Fanny?’

Fanny smiled scornfully, but I cut off what she was about to say. Suddenly I knew the answer already.

‘Children,’ I said in a colourless voice. ‘He likes children. He sits me on his knee and makes me call him Mr Chester. He-’ I stopped, feeling sick, and broke into an ecstasy of sobs. For the first time I had voiced some of my hatred, my shame and disgust and, as I clung to Fanny Miller, drenching her mulberry velvet with my tears, I felt an inexplicable sense of release.

We talked for some time, Fanny and I, and I learned more of the story she had begun to unfold. She had met Henry-or Mr Lewis, as he called himself to the other visitors-many years ago, and since then he had been coming regularly to her house. Sometimes he would sit in her parlour and drink punch with the other guests, but more often he avoided the rest of her ‘company’ and went off with one of the girls-always the youngest and least experienced. He usually came on a Thursday, the day he supposedly went to his club.

I listened to this account of Henry’s betrayal with an almost indifferent calm. I felt as though all the world had collapsed around me, but instinctively I hid it, holding out my goblet recklessly to be refilled.

‘Don’t drink any more of that,’ said Mose irritably. ‘It’s getting late. Let’s get you back home.’

I shook my head.

‘I’d like to stay here for a moment longer,’ I said with assumed calm. ‘It will be hours before Henry gets back from his studio-and even if I am late, he’d never guess where I had been.’ I laughed then, with a bitter recklessness. ‘Maybe I should tell him!’

‘I hope that was an attempt at humour,’ said Mose, with a dangerous calm.

‘I’m sure you do.’ I heard the brittle note in my voice and tried to adopt Fanny’s light, confident tone. ‘But then, you do have an interest in Henry’s continued goodwill. After all, you’re seducing his wife, aren’t you?’

I saw contempt and anger in his face, but was unable to stop. ‘You have an odd notion of propriety,’ I added. ‘I dare say you think a man can get away with any crime, any betrayal, as long as appearances are safeguarded. I don’t suppose it matters at all to you whether I suffer or not.’

‘You’re overwrought,’ he snapped coldly.

‘Not at all!’ My laugh was shrill. ‘I expect you to know all about pretence-after all, you’re an expert.’

‘What are you talking about?’

Suddenly I was no longer sure. For a moment I had felt such overwhelming rage that I had allowed it to overflow…but at this moment the rancour seemed not to be my own but someone else’s-someone much braver and stronger than myself…some stranger.

What had I wanted? It seemed nebulous now, like the vestige of some dream, dissolving into nothing as I awoke.

‘I…I’m sorry, Mose: I didn’t mean it. Please, let’s not go so soon.’ My voice was pleading, but he was not moved. I saw his blue eyes narrowed into slits like razors and he turned away rather abruptly, his voice icy.

‘You knew I didn’t want to come here,’ he said. ‘I came for your sake. Now, leave for mine or, by God, I’ll leave without you.’

‘Mose…’

‘Try to have a little understanding, Mose my dear,’ said Fanny in her mocking tone. ‘Effie has had rather a rude awakening, wouldn’t you say? Or would you rather have had her kept in blissful ignorance?’

Mose turned to both of us with an ugly expression. ‘I won’t let two whores give me orders!’ he spat. ‘Effie, I bear with your tears and tantrums. I was the one who almost got arrested today because of your hysterics. I love you as much as I have ever loved any woman, but this is the outside of enough. I won’t be defied, especially not under this roof. Now, will you come home?’

Two whores. The words sank like stones, silently into the darkness of my thought. Two whores…He reached for my arm to steady it and I knocked his hand aside. The cat hissed wildly at him and sprang out of the chair to hide under the dresser.

‘Don’t touch me!’

‘Effie-’

‘Get out!’

‘Just listen to me a moment…’

I turned to him and looked at him flatly. For the first time I saw the lines of tension around his mouth, the cold blankness at the back of his eyes.

‘Get out,’ I said. ‘You disgust me. I’ll get home on my own. I never want to see you again.’

For a moment his face was slack, then his mouth twisted.

‘Why you impudent little-’

‘Get out, I said!’

‘There’ll be a reckoning for this,’ he said in a soft and ugly tone.

‘Get out!’

For an uneasy time he was frozen, his arms folded defensively, and in some way I sensed that he was afraid, as if some lap-dog had suddenly learned to bite, and the knowledge of his fear was rapturous in me, so that the sickness receded, elation flooded my body and some savage voice in me sang bite, bite, bite, bite, bite…Then he turned with a shrug and left the room, slamming the door behind him. I collapsed, all my triumph dissolving into wretched tears.

Fanny let me cry for a minute, then, very gently, she put her arm around my shoulders.

‘You love him, don’t you?’

‘I…’

‘Don’t you?’

‘I think so.’

She nodded. ‘You’d better go after him, my dear,’ she told me. ‘I know you’ll be back. Here…’ And, lifting up the tabby, who had returned to sit next to me as soon as Mose had left the room, she placed it in my arms. ‘Tizzy seems to like you. Take her with you-look after her and she’ll be a good friend to you. I can see in your eyes what a lonely thing it is to be married to Henry Chester.’

I nodded, holding the cat tightly against me.

‘Can I come and see you again?’

‘Of course. Come whenever you like. Goodbye, Marta.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I said, “Goodbye, my dear”.’

‘I thought you said…’

‘Shh,’ she interrupted. ‘You go now, and remember what I said. Be careful.’

I looked into her strange eyes and saw nothing there but reflections. But she was still smiling as she took me by the arm and pushed me gently out on to the street.