Becoming Belle Page 26

  Belle stood up. “These are for Isidor, Sara.” She indicated the parcel she had placed on the table when she went to the pond. “For Dory. Perhaps there is something in the package that would fit Mabel, too.” She smiled at the girl.

  Belle fished in her bag and tucked a brooch, which she had intended to pin to the boy’s shirt, under the top layer of paper. It would keep him safe, or so the woman at the bazaar had said. It was heart-shaped, golden, and no doubt Sara would keep it for herself. What did it matter? Beside the parcel, Belle placed the twist of coins for her son’s upkeep.

  “I thank you, ma’am.”

  Belle nodded. “I really must go now.”

  She looked down at Isidor, busily scraping the mud floor with the twig. He released a babble of sounds—mumu-dudu-mumu—and seemed to take pleasure in gouging the hard mud while he yapped to himself. No harm done, then. Surely no harm done. Belle rubbed her forehead as if trying to erode her shame. Why could she not just love the boy? And if that was impossible, why could she not let him go with ease?

  “Good-bye, Sara. Thank you for your help.”

  Belle stuck her parasol out the door ahead of her and opened it; she stepped out into the fragile Sussex sunshine. This, she decided, is the last time I will see this place.

  A REJECTION

  How was the boy?” Flo asked, plunging low to the right, the better to elongate her left leg. She kept eye contact with herself in the dressing-room mirror. “Is he now a hardy little fellow?”

  Belle fell in beside her and began her stretches; sweat rose on her forehead though she had only begun. “He’s as rough as his companions; he has become one of Sara’s savage brood.”

  “Well, you know what they say: ‘A wild goose never reared a tame gosling.’”

  Belle humphed. “I can’t see him ever making it in society.”

  “Isidor may be his father’s son, then. ‘Baron Loando’ did not last long in London. Seven years in Lewes for his trickery around the town.”

  “Quite.” Belle rolled her head in a slow arc, taking care to keep her shoulders still. “But enough of Weston, Flo, I truly never want to hear his name again. He’s my past.” Belle stretched her arms wide, then pushed them high over her head. It was good to feel the lengthening of her muscles, to switch the focus from her tangled thoughts to her body and the performance ahead.

  “And baby Isidor, what is he?”

  Belle sank into a plié and kept her gaze forward. She saw little Isidor, wet and shivering and accusatory. “He’s also from a time I wish to leave behind.”

  “But, Belle, he’s still your son.”

  “He’s Weston’s son, too,” she snapped, “and what is he doing about it? Enough, Flo. I said I don’t want to speak of it.”

  Belle sat and snatched up the poster which Mr. Harris had left for her to add to her collection. Her crowned head—her face a touch mournful, she saw—took up most of the page. The lettering was curlicued: “Drury Lane Theatre presents Lady Dunlo as the venerable Venus, Goddess of Love, in Yardley, Rose and Harris’s burlesque Venus; or, The Gods as They Were and Not as They Ought to Have Been.”

  “Mother played Venus,” said Flo, coming over to lay her palms on Belle’s shoulders.

  She put one of her own hands over Flo’s. “She did. And she was magnificent.”

  “Yes, she was.”

  “Mother is ill, you know.”

  “She won’t die of it, whatever ails her. The woman is made of Welsh flint.”

  “Welsh coal,” Belle said.

  “Daffodils,” Flo said, making her sister giggle.

  “Bloody leeks!” Belle hooted and they both laughed madly.

  “She’s the red dragon though, isn’t she?” Flo said. “You know, Seymour has never believed Mother’s childhood-in-a-castle story.”

  “Well, nor did we, by the by,” Belle said.

  “But you know Seymour—he loves to poke about, fancies himself a detective. Well, through some acquaintance in Wales, he found out that Kilvrough Castle was owned by a Penrice all right, but the man lived and died there without ever marrying.”

  “Seymour missed his true calling.”

  Flo gave a fond smile. “He is certainly fond of unearthing things.”

  “We’ve long suspected there was an amount of fancy behind Mother’s claims. Still, I almost feel sorry for her.”

  “I don’t,” Flo said. “Come, enough palaver, let’s get started.”

  The sisters rose as one to begin their voice warm-ups.

  “Mmmmmmmm,” they chanted. “Meeee, maaaay, moooo.”

  When their call came, Belle and Flo hurried along the cold passageways to the stage. As always, the wings were black as hell and they picked their way carefully so as not to snag a foot on a stray rope. The dark was absolute: it pressed on Belle’s eyes and skin. She was washed with that familiar preperformance tentativeness: part elation, part fear. Things were magnified suddenly; the shadows loomed and unnerved her. She was upturned by everything: William, little Isidor, the constant pluck and pull of life’s demands. Irritation coursed through her; and Flo’s breath, as familiar to her as her own, seemed suddenly to spurt as large as the spume of a whale and it increased Belle’s annoyance.

  “Stop breathing so loudly, Flo. You’re panting.”

  “I am not!”

  Belle’s cue—Vulcan waxing jealous over Adonis—had her leap to the stage first. She soon forgot about all upsets and Flo and the oppressive darkness of the wings. The footlights were as ardent as a dear friend’s welcome and, as Venus, she warmed up in their glow. Belle minced under the adoration of Vulcan and a small army of gods.

  It came to the moment where Mercury was threatened by Jupiter about the damage to his reputation by a newspaper article, if it were not contradicted.

  Mercury bawled, “Well, why don’t you marry the girl?”

  The house agitated with laughter and Belle turned to them and winked, acknowledging her own predicament. This made them cheer and whoop, and Belle, in the yellow haze of lights, felt suspended for an instant in a place of perfect peace. A stray thought flew: if only I could stay here forever.

  A DELAY

  A letter from William sat on the credenza in the hallway of Avenue Road. Jacob had placed it at the top of the pile and Belle snatched it up. She pulled off one glove with her teeth and broke off the seal. She walked up the stairs, pulling the pages out and unfolding them, hungry for William’s words. She sat on her bed and began to read.

  S.S. Orient

  February 2, 1890

  My darling Belle,

  By now you will know what has occurred and I must try to explain it to you, though I’m weak in limb and spirit today. You may be livid with me and you must certainly be mortally upset and I’m sorry for that. For my part, though I’m ill at present, I feel some amelioration of my anxiety about the whole business because I’m now one ocean closer to England and to you.

  Hong Kong

  February 10, 1890

  Some days have passed, my darling, since I began this letter. I’ve been bedbound and unable to hold a pen. I spent many hours on the voyage from Australia in my cabin in feverish half sleep, broken only by excessive chills; I couldn’t eat and as a result I arrived to Hong Kong weak from crown to rump. My depletion in mind, spirit and body is an encompassing disquiet, a giddiness in the limbs and brain that I can’t soothe. Onboard ship, my heat imbalances and jitters, I was certain, were caused by a bad conscience, nothing more. I didn’t like to meet myself at the mirror each morning, for my guilt dwelled like a spirit in my eyes. In sleep I could forget myself and the scratch of my nib on the divorce papers, but morning reflected my idiocy back at me when I stood to shave. Water. Badger brush. Lather. Fool. That was my daily ritual.

  Now I’m a little brighter, but I can’t unkink the huge gnarl of remorse over what I’ve done.
In one way I felt it was the right thing to do, the only course possible, for it would release you, Belle, and I, too, would be liberated—from debt. That is how it was put to me by Father, via Godley Robinson. The point was pressed hard on me and, in my weakened state, it did make sense.

  But I also want you, Belle, with my whole heart, that has never changed. Never have I felt more ardent toward a woman. You know this. I do so wish our letters didn’t skirr past each other, out of time, and that we could converse in a cohesive way. This inharmonious communication doesn’t help either my conscience or my malady. I do not even know when you will read these words and I so wish that they were with you now, so that you might somehow understand.

  I got worse in my sickness some mornings back, waking with nausea, a broiling fever and sweat excreting from my skin in torrents. A dream had startled me out of sleep. In this dream I stood in a cemetery and realized, for the first time, that the dead outnumber the living; while the thought formed, corpses burst from the ground like ripening bulbs. My overheated body and the residue of the dream fuddled my brain. I got up to pour a glass of water, but fell to the floor and found I was too stone limbed to regain the bed. The boy who attends me found me slumped on the rug and a physician was immediately summoned.

  “Malaria, as sure as eggs,” the doctor said. A disease of tropical lands, Belle, and I managed to contract it. Robinson has had to change our berths, for I can’t travel while in the grip of malaria which, the doctor says, is a singular illness that takes its leisurely time; apparently you may think it’s over and then, snap, it returns. I take quinine and total rest.

  The last few days I’ve lain marooned in bed, afloat on the fever, though I could sense the hubbub of Queen’s Road below my window, but it was a far-off, hushed hum that came and went. I could hear people speaking a coddle of languages; and my boy brought thin gruel, but a few spoons were all I could stomach. I will not tell you, Belle, the horrid intricacies of the illness and I probably shouldn’t mention either that Robinson cheerfully informed me this morning that quinine can paralyze a man. “It can kill you, too,” he said. (Be assured, I have no plan to die.)

  Today I’m calm. I’ve even found a slitch of hope to cling on to. I will return to you, Belle, and make right the wrong I’ve done. If you won’t accept my apology, I’ll harry you until you do. I’ll neither give in nor give up. I’ll fight for what I want and that is you, dear Belle, forevermore. Nothing endures, my darling, and soon I’ll be well and will return to you. “Consilio et prudentia,” Belle. By counsel and prudence we will get it all done and continue with our life.

  Your loving Dunlo

  Belle curled onto her side on the bed. William was ill and it was a serious condition. Malaria. She had heard her father say it decimated troops in the colonies. Would William survive it? Perhaps the letter was proof enough that he had rallied and thrived. How did he fare now that April was almost over? His letter was weeks old. Distress and worry simmered. Was William sincere, did he truly mean to come back and set things right? She held the letter up and read the last lines again: “Nothing endures, my darling, and soon I’ll be well and will return to you. ‘Consilio et prudentia,’ Belle. By counsel and prudence we will get it all done and continue with our life.”

  She supposed by getting “it all done” he meant the court case and that it would go ahead as soon as he was able to come home. It was, of course, unstoppable now. And every scintilla of their lives would be reported on by those Fleet Street daubers and picked over afterward by the whole of London. There would be no more slyness or hints about her private life: everything could be legitimately reported on and sized up from whatever angle the writer chose while he—the journalist—remained incognito. And Belle would just have to endure it.

  SUMMER 1890

  London

  AN ENCOUNTER

  When she beheld the back of William’s head in the Café Royal—it was he, she was certain—Belle’s first thought was how uncanny it is that even the rear aspect of one’s beloved is so familiar. Her second thought was that it was true, he was back, and yet he had not contacted her. His last letter had been contrite, he knew he had wronged her, but here he was, the full, de facto flesh of him across the room and he had not seen fit to let her know, in person, that he was in London. What fresh eccentricity was this? Belle’s gut twisted in confusion: she felt a surge of love for William, but twined about it like a serpent was deep annoyance. Still, she must get to him, she must see his face; maybe then she would be able to divine why he behaved in such contrary ways. With heart jolting, she galloped toward his table, where he sat alone.

  “William,” she said, putting her hand on his shoulder.

  Dunlo turned and, when he stood, she saw that he was rawboned and scraggy; he was swamped in his clothes, as if they belonged not to him but to a bulkier man.

  “Belle.” It was a solid, assured utterance, as if he had fully expected to see her there, as if they had arranged to meet. His eyes widened, but he did not reach for her.

  Her bewilderment grew, but she steadied her voice. “So, William, you are back. I heard it whispered but I didn’t believe it. I was so sure you’d come to me first.” How perplexing to stand before the man she loved—her very husband!—and yet to feel like an interloper. Did she not belong to him? Did he not belong to her? Belle wanted to put her arms out to him and have him enwrap her in his. Instead, her mouth formed into a thorny smile. “Your silence has been earsplitting, William.”

  “They forbade me to contact you since I got back, Belle. I dearly wished to.”

  Fury rose. “Who forbade you, William? A short note to tell me you were safely returned would have sufficed.” But it would not! Why did he avoid her person when his letters spoke of loyalty and love? “Really, William, a visit, no matter how brief, to let me see that you were safe and improved in health, would have been proper. People have no right to keep us apart. What say has anyone else in the communications between man and wife?” She bristled. “William, to contact me would have been the loving thing to do.”

  He held out his hands, not to touch her, it seemed, but to lay himself bare. “Lewis and Lewis, Papa’s legal people, they said it would not be wise to see you before the case—”

  Belle interrupted him. “Lewis and Lewis! And Papa himself forbade you, too, no doubt. And you obeyed him. He is, after all, your god.” William glanced away and Belle, following his gaze to the doorway, apprehended that he was not planning to dine alone. “Ah, the earl is here with you. And you don’t wish him to see me.”

  “I’m with my mama.”

  Before Lady Adeliza could return, and no doubt make a pantomime of ignoring her, Belle spoke rapidly to her husband.

  “William, I’m painfully flummoxed by you. Your letters say you love me, but your actions contradict it; I know not what to think anymore. You’ve done a terrible thing and now you compound it by ignoring me. What am I to make of you? How am I to believe the words of your letters that seemed so sincere?”

  William’s hand flew to his mouth and Belle was relieved that he at least was injured; he was capable of remorse.

  “I know I’ve done wrong, Belle. I know I continue to perplex you, but this will be put to rights. I give you my oath on that.”

  Belle could feel Lady Adeliza behind her without having to turn and see her. “You might leave us now, Miss Bilton,” the countess said.

  Her son stepped forward. “Mama—”

  “Good day to you, William,” Belle said, and she brushed past Lady Adeliza, avoiding the other woman’s gaze.

  The mirrored walls blurred as she moved toward the café’s door; she walked with care, keeping herself erect. Of course all eyes trailed her, but she did not glance to see who was staring. Salivating gossip hounds, every one of them. Belle’s heart pummeled her ribs. So, William gave her his oath. He would put it to rights. How exactly would he do that? Tears began to burn behind her eye
lids and she could feel the scald of her cheeks. She gulped back a sob and exited onto Regent Street. If life threw her one more obstacle or upset, she knew not how she would go on.

  Belle hailed a hansom, screeched “Avenue Road!” at the driver and got herself into the cab. She slumped in her seat and whimpered. Why did every damn thing in her life have to upend itself? Could one thing not go right? She daubed at her face with her handkerchief and put her hands together. Unaccustomed to prayer, she prayed anyway: “Dear God, please let William be true to his word. Please, I beg you, Lord. Amen.”

  A CASE

  Belle lifted her veil for a moment, the better to study William who sat at the other end of the solicitor’s bench. His return glance was sheepish but earnest, and they locked eyes for a beat. Belle’s heart bulged into her throat. She was angry with him still, and hurt by him, but there he was—handsome and big, the man she loved. Belle found she couldn’t be completely displeased with William; his presence moved her so. She wanted to go to him and climb into his arms; she wished they could get up and run from the courtroom, the two of them, run to some covert place where nothing might assail them.

  Belle smoothed the skirt of the new gown she had had made, a pink silk with white braid trim. Her outfit was a message to William: pink for love and white for her stainless state; she hoped he would divine that.

  The judge, Sir James Hannen, entered the court and people began to rise. Mr. Lockwood, Belle’s solicitor, nodded in her direction and she and Flo stood. When the judge was settled and the case announced, Mr. Russell, representing William, rose. He looked around the court, letting his gaze linger on Belle as he began to speak.