Chapter Nineteen #2
‘They’re not from me.’ Ellen caught my eye in the mirror.
She jerked her chin towards an identical array on the table.
‘They’re mine. I’m not supposed to tell you who sent them, but I didn’t see the point of keeping it a secret.
Here,’ she twisted around and passed me a note.
It was addressed to her. ‘It explains everything.’
At once, my heart seized. I knew that handwriting – the ostentatious whorls, the elegant slope to the cursive. I sank into a nearby chair.
I send you some flowers – two crowns. Will you accept one of them, whichever you think will suit you best. The other – don’t think me treacherous, Nellie – but the other please give to Florrie from yourself.
I glanced at Ellen.
‘Keep reading,’ she instructed, applying more powder to her face.
I should like to think that she was wearing something of mine the first night she comes on the stage, that anything of mine should touch her. Of course if you think – but you won’t think she will suspect? How could she? She thinks I never loved her …
My face grew hot. I continued reading.
… thinks I forget. My God, how could I!
Aware of Ellen’s eyes upon me, I kept my head lowered even as my cheeks flamed, and my disloyal heart somersaulted.
Ellen knew all about Oscar. It was one of the many confidences we’d shared while away.
Not that my past amours compared with hers.
Why, Ellen had been married for the first time at sixteen, and had two illegitimate children to her artist lover, Edward Godwin, before she gained respectability for them and herself by marrying the actor Charles Wardell Kelly.
A bell sounded in the corridor. ‘Fifteen minutes!’ called Harry.
I had to move, resume my place with the other virgins.
I pushed my face into the flowers, shutting my eyes and inhaling their sweet fragrance and even sweeter memories. A part of me was so touched by Oscar’s gesture, but the other part of me wanted to slap his face with a glove, challenge him.
She thinks I never loved her …
What else was I supposed to think when he neglected me the way he did?
First, he gifts jewellery, a painting, and makes a sketch of me.
I shivered. I recalled how intimate that was, facing him in that small room, watching him watching me.
The way his pencil flew over the page, his eyes following the flow of my hips, my waist, my breasts, lingering on my lips.
It was as if with every stroke of his pen, he caressed me.
The moving pencil aroused fire; caused my breath to quicken and my insides to melt.
Jesus wept, if Oscar had sought to take me that day, I would have willingly lain with him.
And yet, for all that happened between us, spoken and unspoken, public and private, he’d left me with the humiliating task of explaining his absence, his silence, his indifference.
It wasn’t until Bram appeared that I could hold my head up again, laugh at my negligent once-suitor.
How dare Oscar try and second-guess me, tell Ellen, of all people, what I thought and felt.
For all I knew, he forgot me and, as for loving me, I was not Madame Blavatsky, capable of reading minds or seeing the future.
Anyway, he’d had plenty of time to see me since – to talk to me.
He loved me. My heart tilted. Once upon a time …
I folded the paper, wishing my hands wouldn’t tremble so. This was just typical of Oscar. Everything was a drama, including the stage debut of his former paramour.
‘I hope you don’t mind me letting you read that,’ asked Ellen, facing me. ‘I thought you should. Oscar had no right to put me in such a position, not that he’d see it that way,’ she said tenderly.
I planted a kiss on her cheek and, plucking a flower from the crown, pinned it to the inside of my gown. ‘I’m glad you let me. Mind you, I don’t know what I’ll tell Bram.’
‘Will it bother him?’ she asked. Her own husband chose to be wilfully ignorant about her relationship with Henry.
‘Not terribly, I shouldn’t think.’ Not at all was more likely.
He’d never shown any jealousy towards Oscar, or my past with him.
As far as Bram was concerned, Oscar failed where he succeeded.
Likewise all the other men who paid me outrageous compliments, whispered improper suggestions.
I had the strong impression Bram enjoyed their attempts at seduction, knowing I was more than capable of repelling them.
Their wasted interest in me reflected well upon him.
I placed the remainder of the floral crown carefully on the edge of Ellen’s dresser. ‘Are you going to wear yours?’ I asked her, nodding towards it.
Ellen laughed. ‘Not with this.’ Her hands swept her gown. ‘Lemon —’ she began as I reached the door. ‘Oscar and you … Do you …’ She paused and pressed her fingers to her lips momentarily. ‘I mean, do you love him … still? It’s evident he has feelings for you.’
I glanced towards Judith, who tactfully began to hum. I approached Ellen and knelt by her side, looking at her reflection. ‘Perhaps,’ I said softly. ‘Once. I thought I did. But then Bram came and now it’s no longer … I mean … I can’t …’
Ellen reached for my hand and squeezed it. ‘You don’t need to explain. Anyway,’ she said, releasing me and tucking a stray hair away, ‘you made the right choice, my dear. Trust me on that. Oscar …’ She pulled a face, half-grim, half-amused. ‘Well, let’s just say, he’s not really husband material.’
As I joined the other virgins, my inconstant mind wondered if I had made the right choice. Oscar might not be husband material, but was Bram?
It was late as the brougham drove away from the theatre, the streetlamps giving off a gentle glow, disguising the sullied snow banked up against houses and shops.
The traffic was scant. Cab drivers had either retired for the night, or were gathered under a lantern, smoking and gossiping, their breath opaque ribbons dancing with tobacco fumes.
A thinly dressed beggar shivered towards them, hands outstretched in supplication.
It was the third poor creature I’d seen, the last with two emaciated children in tow.
Bram tried to distract me from the sight of the wretches forced to wander on such a bitter night, drawing me close and whispering, reliving the night.
It was warm beside him, and he smelled of cigars and the satisfaction of a job well done.
I was still dizzy from the experience of being on stage.
The heat of the lights, the press of bodies, the throbbing power of the music, the deep, resonant voices chanting lines I repeated in my mind.
The hundreds of faces watching us in the weighty darkness, the excited whispers in the wings, the pushing, the peering, the running to make cues.
Seeing first Henry, then Ellen and the other actors transform from the ordinary folk I knew into something imperial and otherworldly the moment they stepped onto the stage, had been remarkable.
The deafening applause, the shouts of ‘Brava’ and ‘Bravo’ when first Ellen, then Henry, took their bows.
Bram was euphoric, recalling the comments we’d heard in the Beefsteak Room afterwards, the hearty congratulations given to both him and Henry, and to Ellen.
I lost myself in his descriptions, adding the praise I’d heard.
By the time we reached Southampton Street, we were both fizzing with excitement, joy bubbling within us.
Once home, we tried to be quiet but, in the manner of those who have drunk success, failed.
We laughingly shushed each other, pointing down the corridor towards George’s room and up to the maids.
I was about to enter my bedroom when, much to my surprise, Bram grabbed hold of my wrist and pulled me towards his.
It had been so long since he’d shown any interest in his husbandly duties, I initially wondered where he was taking me.
Ever since I’d been given a role in The Cup, our relationship had undergone an alteration.
Instead of being an audience to Bram’s life, I was beside him, and I relished that.
So, it seemed, did he. We’d discussed rehearsals, the set, the music; projected spectators’ reactions, admired Ellen’s acting or that of other players; we became a team.
Henry Irving’s name ceased to grate, as he too was part of our mutual project.
A small fire burned in the hearth, making a shadow-world.
Bram drew me to the bed and, as I stood in bewilderment, slowly unbuttoned my dress, helping me shiver out of it.
With great patience, he unlaced my corset.
Butterflies began to perform a ballet in my stomach; my mind was a battlefield of conflicting thoughts.
Who was this man? When I went to remove my drawers, he stayed my hand.
‘Leave them on,’ he whispered hoarsely.
Relieved he didn’t want me entirely naked, nervous he wanted me at all, I lay down and waited.
Bram knelt beside me, on top of the blankets and, using his considerable strength, flipped me over onto my stomach.
My face fell into his pillows. Before I could exclaim or reposition my legs, he pulled me up onto all fours, widened the opening in my drawers and entered me the way a dog does its bitch.
At first, I didn’t understand what was happening and, when I did, he was already inside, thrusting quickly, harder than I ever remembered, one hand on my back, the other holding my hair, as if I was a horse he was riding.
There was the crude slap of his flesh against mine, his bollocks swinging to hit my arse.
It was so carnal. My breasts jiggled and swayed.
I lowered my head, screwed up my eyes, wishing I could reach down and pleasure myself, kindle some desire.
I thought of Oscar’s flowers, his words. I loved her …