The Crimson Rooms (19 page)

Having waited a moment for the counterargument, which was not forthcoming, I offered my hand. When he made no move, I climbed the stairs anyway, very slowly. His will stretched against mine and I knew that he wanted to come to bed but was unable to rescue himself. In the end, I hung over the banister and whispered his name repeatedly until I saw the glimmer of a reluctant smile. This time, when I reached for him, he allowed himself to be lifted into my arms. I picked him up clumsily, surprised by his sudden, willing weight, and had to maneuver him until his legs were properly hooked around my waist. And it was like Eastbourne again, the waves breaking, the sun shining. His chest was pressed to mine, his arms clasped firmly about my neck so that his breath was in my hair as he twisted a loose strand absentmindedly around his finger. The smell of him, the green, lovely perfume of Edmund, James’s child, sang in my blood.

When we reached the room he shared with Meredith, I set him down and helped him to undress, folding his still-warm clothes but resisting the temptation to press his shirt to my face, protecting his modesty by bustling across the landing to run water into the basin, holding the towel as he washed his hands. Then he nestled within the crook of my arm, as Jamie used to, while I read to him from the Brothers Grimm, the copy won by me at Sunday school in December 1902 and so well-thumbed that the back cover had nearly dropped away from the spine. In went the thumb again, Edmund’s head fell back against my shoulder, and I read into the fluff of his hair. Once, toward the end, I kissed him, though he didn’t appear to notice. It seemed to me that my lips had been starved of kisses all these years and that as I read I felt my lost self unfurling a little more, not just the sister but the mother I had never been, though my voice didn’t falter: “And when the wolf came to the brook he stooped down to drink, and the heavy stones made him lose his balance, so that he fell, and sank beneath the water . . .”

I would have sat like that, though the awkward angle made my back ache, until Meredith’s return—no, longer, until morning. Forever. But Edmund curled gratefully onto his side when the story was over, then rolled back and murmured: “We never said any prayers.”

“Does your mother say prayers?”

“Oh, yes, we say prayers every night.”

“What kind of prayers?”

“She has beads and we touch them. We always pray for my father. We ask Jesus to look after all the young men who died in the war.”

So Meredith was a Roman Catholic like her parents, on top of everything else. In any event, I did not feel equal to praying with Edmund, since my worship these days was limited to occasional attendance at church when I raged at the banality of addressing a God who patently hadn’t listened. “Shall we leave it for tonight, as it’s so late?” I stooped to kiss his hairline, between brow and cheekbone.

“Mommy says we must never be too tired to pray because God is probably never too tired to listen to us.”

I noted the
probably
and smiled. Trust Meredith to put in a caveat. However, I pressed my hands together, bowed my head, and dutifully recited the “Our Father,” which seemed to satisfy him.

Then I kissed his forehead again, switched off the lamp, and went downstairs, my feet sprung with joy and triumph, only to find that a bowl of tepid celery soup awaited me in the dining room, where the others sat before their already empty bowls.

“We couldn’t wait any longer,” said Mother, glancing nervously at Prudence.

“I’m afraid I had to point out once again that it is unhealthy for a household to be dictated to by the whim of a spoiled child,” said Prudence, adjusting her knife and fork on either side of her mat.

Min was already at the door, bearing a tray laden with the next course. Nobody spoke while she cleared the bowls and laid out the casserole dishes. Grandmother, as usual, seemed largely oblivious to the poisoned atmosphere, though she occasionally raised her head as if to catch the currents in the air. I helped myself to potatoes and waited for the next salvo.

“She goes out without a word of explanation,” hissed Mother the instant Min was gone. “No wonder the child is upset when his mother would give no indication of what time she’d be back. And she’s asked me for money. She says she has nothing to live on and must have an allowance.” I ate a few mouthfuls, hungry despite the significance of the occasion: money being discussed at mealtimes. “Prudence and I agree that she is quite impossible. It’s as if she’s come with the deliberate intention of living on us. Well, there’s no more money—no matter how deserving she is—and that’s that.”

Mother, when roused to anger, tended toward petulance rather than effectiveness. She was better suited to acquiescence. In her heyday, she had charmed most comers, especially male, through her upward glances and winsome smiles. She could meet a dozen of Father’s colleagues in an evening and remember every one of their names; inquire, as if she knew them intimately, after their wives and daughters; suggest birthday gifts; make witty critiques of concerts and plays; and leave not a heart untouched by her tenderness. Mother, after all, was the daughter of a successful and rather daring actress: Ibsen was often mentioned in the same breath as Clara Fielding—Grandmother’s stage name. This somewhat risqué fact was overlooked, even perhaps envied by Father’s colleagues, because Mother was beautiful and had a white, pillowy bosom.

But now the men weren’t here and there was no one to save her except that poor substitute for husband and son: me. “Prudence says this has all gone on long enough. Meredith seems to be running rings around us,” she added. “I know she was James’s . . . and we must . . . But her expectations are entirely disproportionate.”

Prudence cut a cube of braised steak into quarters and raised a segment to her lips without bending her spine a notch to meet it. “In my view, her sudden coming is very irregular. I suspect she has something to hide.”

“But don’t you love Edmund,” I cried, “don’t you want to keep him here with us? I would pay any amount to make that possible.” Grandmother’s neck shot forward as she craned to hear what had roused me. “Grandmother,” I enunciated, “don’t you love Edmund being here?”

“Oh, I do. He’s a dear little boy. So intelligent and polite.”

“No,” said Mother suddenly. “I won’t put up with that woman just because she’s Edmund’s mother, whatever anyone says. It would be different if it was just the boy, I accept we have a duty to him. But I cannot manage with her in the house.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask
Manage what?
but Prudence said: “I fear for your mother’s health, I really do. In my view this is putting intolerable strain upon us all.”

“Will you speak to her, Evelyn? Tell her we have no money.”

I ate a meager bowl of semolina pudding and jam while pondering my next move. The situation was complicated by the memories of Saturday’s conversation with Meredith on Beachy Head, and Edmund’s arms about my neck as we climbed the stairs.

When Meredith came home,
I was already preparing for bed, but with a brisk knock she burst into my room, decked out in strings of red beads and a long coat embroidered with multicolored flowers. She reeked of smoke and alcohol, her eyes were shining, and she dropped a bulging carpetbag in the doorway. Her slender little ankles were exposed and her shoes were pointed, with wide straps. I, on the other hand, was wearing an ancient nightgown, so well-washed that it was gray rather than white, and my large feet were bare.

“Look at you,” cried Meredith, “straight out of a painting by Millais or Rossetti. You ought to be floating in water with your hands pressed together on your breast. If that judge could see you now, a voluptuous nymph rather than a bluestocking in a gray jacket, how surprised he’d be. But, incidentally, I have come to tell you what a sensation you were in court this morning. Everyone was talking about you in the foyer afterward. Were your ears burning? I was so proud to know you.”

“I was horrified by what happened, actually,” I said.

“Horrified? But why? You were lancing a boil. Don’t you see, that beast of a man was exposed for the senseless bigot he really is.” She kicked off her shoes, jumped onto my bed, tucked her feet under the sheet, and fell back on the pillows as if fully intending to stay awhile.

“That poor woman, Leah Marchant, is in prison tonight because of me,” I said, dragging my hairbrush through tangles with such force that the hair crackled.

“Oh, yes, but I don’t suppose it matters that much. I was talking to a friend of hers called Mrs. Sanders and she said at least being locked up would keep Mrs. Marchant away from the bottle another night—since she lost her children she’s been drinking heavily apparently. Your ears must have been burning, we both said how much we admired you and how brave you were. Do you know, as I was watching you I really thought to myself: This is a historic occasion, I am witnessing practically the very first time that a woman in England has stood as an advocate in court. But listen, you are not alone in making history. This evening I attended my very first art class.”

She sprang up and unpacked various items from her bag. “I went along to the art school in Chelsea and they had no vacancies, at least not for beginners, but they did have a notice board filled with cards written by teachers offering classes and I found one in Bloomsbury. The teacher, who’s called Hadley Waters, was gassed so he’s very thin and wheezy but he studied at the Slade and has his own studio where the classes take place, and he happened to be holding one this evening so he invited me to join it as a tryout. He didn’t even charge me and his class turns out to be just what I’m looking for. There are five other pupils with very mixed experience, including another beginner like me. We experimented with perspective and the human form. I’m so happy.”

A clutter of paints, brushes, and boxes piled up on the floorboards until finally a sketch pad emerged, which Meredith held to her chest with both hands. Thus displayed was the drawing of a female nude seated on an upright chair with her back to the artist but her head turned so that it was as if her name had been suddenly called. Thankfully, all but the side of her breast and the cleft of her buttocks were hidden from view.

Though I knew virtually nothing about art, I could tell that Meredith had flair. With minimal strokes of charcoal, she had depicted living curves, not to mention a distinctly hoydenish glint in the model’s eye. “It’s because he worked at the Slade that Hadley Waters has the confidence to allow a mixed class to tackle nudes. I’m so relieved. The last thing I needed was to spend months drawing flowers or some such. I particularly wanted bodies, whole, healthy bodies, having been a nurse, you know.”

She perched on the side of the bed and held the drawing at arm’s length, then darted across the room, propped it against the wall, and gave it further scrutiny. Her ability to confound me was quite extraordinary. Somehow the fact that she had made such a proficient drawing of a strange woman wearing no clothes made it impossible for me to raise the subject of funds. And then she cried: “I forgot the most important thing of all. We have been invited to a party. You and me. In Kew, wherever that is. Actually on the river, Hadley says. Can you imagine, I go to one art class and I come home with a party invitation? Hadley says we must go because he thinks everyone will be there, including Augustus John and that the house where the party is to be held is itself a work of art.”

“A party? We can’t go to a party given by strangers. We won’t know a soul.”

“We’ll know each other. You can be quite sure that I only agreed to go if you were invited too. It’s a fortnight on Thursday.”

“Oh, dear, I’m sorry but I think there’s a concert at the church that night which Mother would like me to attend.”

“That’s all right, we’ll go on to the party afterward. It probably won’t start until terribly late. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am—it was my dream back in Canada to find a world of culture in London and now I have, and so easily. Hmmm, would you smell the inside of my bag? Don’t you just love it, oils and linseed? I feel like an artist already. I’m sorry that I had to rush off this morning, by the way, before I had a chance to tell you how brilliantly you performed, but I had so much shopping to do.”

“Meredith. Forgive me asking, but how are you able to afford all this?”

She sat back on her heels, let her hands drop between her knees, and gazed up at me. “I still have a little of the money my father gave me. He was as generous as he could be.”

“Mother says you spoke to her today and asked for an allowance.”

“Oh, yes. I did. Perhaps I should have waited until you were home but I’m eaten up with anxiety about how Edmund and I are to manage and I thought the best way would be to bring it all out in the open. Unfortunately the job I went for yesterday was not quite right so I shall have to try elsewhere. I found Doctor Stopes surprisingly conservative on some matters, notably the question of marriage. She and I didn’t exactly see eye to eye. So you see, until I do get work, I must have some money to live on.”