Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Uncle Conrad was in a fractious mood over dinner. When Jenny enquired what was bothering him, he put down his cutlery and steepled his fingers.
‘I paid a visit to Mr Walters today. I like to call in on my businesses unannounced on occasion. It ensures my employees are always working as I wish.’
He frowned and Jenny grew tense, wondering what he had discovered.
‘Walters’ sight is afflicted, and he has been concealing the fact from me. I’m exceedingly vexed.’
‘Oh dear, the poor man,’ Jenny murmured.
‘Poor man, indeed. But more to the point, poor me. If he becomes incapable of working, it means I will need to find someone else to manage the shop.’
‘I’m sure you won’t,’ Jenny replied, slightly taken aback by his self-concern. ‘It should be a simple enough matter to remedy.’
‘What should be a simple matter?’ Uncle Conrad looked first puzzled then suspicious, and Jenny realised her blunder. She should know nothing about the cause.
‘To replace his spectacles?’ she offered, thinking quickly. ‘Or is it an infection? You said “afflicted”, which suggested to me that it is something that can be cured. Of course, I don’t really know anything about something so complicated.’
She tossed her head and gave a silly giggle, despising herself for acting so foolishly. Uncle Conrad appeared to ponder what she had said, then nodded.
‘His spectacles are not at fault. He has cataracts. The lens in the eye becomes clouded and obscured. There is an operation that can remove them.’
Jenny didn’t bother to explain that she was familiar with what cataracts were, relieved that her uncle had accepted her explanation.
‘That’s fortunate, isn’t it. Then I’m sure it won’t be too long before he is healed.
’ She rang the bell for the maid to take their empty plates away.
She had only half eaten her Dover sole, but was in a hurry to be going out.
‘I shall pay a call to Mrs Walters soon and see if there is anything I can do to help.’
‘You’re a kind girl, but I doubt it. Walters was always a stubborn man and would not even accept my proposal to join me in business, even though I proposed loaning him the capital he needed and I would have granted him favourable interest rates.’
‘Fancy that,’ Jenny soothed, though privately she didn’t blame Mr Walters. Her uncle’s idea of favourable rates might be very different to his.
They passed the remainder of the meal in companionable silence, then Jenny ensured Uncle Conrad was installed with his art materials (today’s subject was a bowl of dried bi-coloured petunias and a selection of equally desiccated moths) and his tincture.
He’d never again been able to capture the vibrant freedom that he had when he’d taken the adulterated batch, and she almost considered giving him a measure to help prompt his creativeness.
As she made her way to Miriam’s lodgings, she considered what a pity it was Miriam had refused to use it, too, because Jenny was certain it would produce some startlingly good work.
The story of her father’s descent had been heartrending, and Miriam’s plea for Jenny not to become involved with opium still weighed on her conscience.
Really, though, once Miriam realised that Gwen’s tincture was entirely benign, she would surely begin to see the appeal.
She sighed heavily, knowing that she was likely deluding herself.
Miriam was in excellent spirits when Jenny arrived. She was wearing a smart royal-blue coat with slightly out-of-date wide sleeves and a hat with artificial cherries and leaves pinned around the brim.
‘Come and see your portrait,’ she commanded, slipping her hand into Jenny’s and pulling her to the easel, which held a large piece of paper pinned to the board.
The charcoal sketch Miriam had done on Jenny’s previous visit was now half painted.
Jenny recognised herself reclining in the position that Miriam had sketched her in, except Miriam had turned the old chaise into a Grecian- or Roman-style marble bench with curled ends and Jenny was draped in a chiton, like a caryatid or a Roman empress.
It slipped off her shoulder in the accepted, classical manner to almost fully reveal her right breast. It was Jenny’s face, but she had been turned into a figure from the classical world.
It was the most beguiling thing she had ever seen, and she’d never considered herself beautiful before.
‘I had to add some details from my imagination,’ Miriam said, grinning wickedly.
Jenny tightened her hand in Miriam’s. From the easel, her eyes reached out with a sense of longing that she hadn’t realised she had revealed.
‘I love it. You’re so clever.’
‘It’s the best thing I’ve painted for months. I think I shall exhibit it,’ Miriam said. She let go of Jenny’s hand and walked closer to the painting. She picked up a pencil, adding a couple of lines around Jenny’s mouth. The lips became a shade sultrier.
‘I’ll call it Sappho at Rest, and I’ll sign it with a false name, so that the world thinks it was painted by a man.’
Jenny frowned. ‘You shouldn’t have to do that.’
Miriam shrugged. ‘Maybe one day I won’t, but until then I’d rather sell it under a man’s name than go hungry. We all have to do what we can, and the price I’ll get for it will be higher.’
‘Price?’ Jenny raised her brows. ‘You’ll sell it.’
‘Of course! It will go for a decent sum, and my savings are running low.’ When Jenny continued to frown, Miriam took her hand. ‘I don’t need to keep it, when I can see you as often as I please.’
‘That’s not what I meant.’ Jenny reached out and touched the face on the canvas. ‘This woman is me. I don’t want to be hung in a stranger’s home and have them looking at me when I’m not decently dressed.’
Miriam laughed. ‘If that’s what worries you, then I’ll change the hair colour and her features a little, so that she isn’t your twin. Will that make you happy?’
‘I suppose so. I’m being silly, aren’t I?’
‘A little.’ Miriam kissed her cheek. ‘We’d better hurry, or we’ll miss the start of the performance and I want to see the man who swallows knives.’
They were spending the evening at the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly. It was by far the furthest Jenny had ventured in the evening, but she’d seen a poster listing the variety of acts and, feeling rich, hadn’t been able to resist buying two tickets almost immediately.
After alighting from the train, Jenny and Miriam walked arm in arm through the streets, joining other pedestrians tightly wrapped in coats that weren’t quite warm enough for the late evening breeze, and hurried along the dimly lit pavement.
Jenny had worried that their covert relationship might be obvious, but there were plenty of other women walking likewise and they were respectable enough not to be mistaken for streetwalkers, so no one paid them any notice.
They took seats in the gallery at one side – the only ones they could afford.
The evening was one marvel after another and Jenny was hard pressed to say which was her favourite element.
Dancers swirled and twirled in dazzling costumes, a magician allegedly from the depths of Hindustan took to the stage, his hands a blur of motion as he wove enchantments over a woman dressed in a rainbow of gauzy veils and lifted her into the air by the power of his mind alone.
The final act was called ‘The Opium Eater’.
The stage lights turned red and the audience murmured with excitement.
Jenny’s lips twitched in amusement as a slender figure emerged from the shadows of the wings, clad in red from head to toe, with a long, black moustache that reached to his waist. He produced a small vial, its contents shimmering in the soft glow of the gas lights.
Jenny turned to Miriam, who was sitting bolt upright. She took Miriam’s hand and squeezed it gently. ‘We don’t have to stay,’ she whispered.
Miriam squeezed back. ‘Thank you, dearest, but I don’t mind.’
Under the cover of the dimness, they continued holding hands, to Jenny’s elation. If only there was a world where they could do this without secrecy.
As the performer uncorked the vial, the scent of violets wafted through the air.
It was a clever illusion because the scent could not possibly have reached so far.
The orchestra began to play a low, throbbing rhythm.
The Opium Eater lifted the vial aloft, tilted his head back, and allowed the contents to fall into his open mouth.
He breathed out a long plume of white smoke.
His body stiffened, then he fell to the stage.
Some members of the audience cried out in panic, but as soon as he had fallen, he leapt back up and began to perform a series of agile acrobatics.
Leaping, balancing on his hands, contorting himself; striking and holding poses that seemed impossible.
Miriam was laughing and gasping in astonishment along with everyone else and Jenny’s spirits rose. Perhaps her aversion to opium was lessening.
As his act came to an end and the lights went up, Jenny stared around her.
To her surprise, she recognised a familiar face.
On the level below theirs, in one of the private boxes to the side, sat Miss Salisbury in the company of a gentleman of her own age.
He was clapping enthusiastically. On the wide ledge in front of them was a champagne bucket.
Miss Salisbury looked splendid, though also so unlike herself that Jenny thought at first she had been mistaken.
Miss Salisbury’s hair was piled high and ornamented with a small hat trimmed with a net veil that concealed only her forehead.
Her ears sparkled with diamonds, and she wore a vermillion dress with an indecently plunging neckline that was barely concealed with a thick, fur stole.
She held a pair of long-handled opera glasses in one white-gloved hand, while the other rested on the thigh of her companion – something that would not be visible to anyone on the lower levels but which the cheap seats could see perfectly.