Friday's Girl Read online

  ‘My dear fellow, help yourself to supper, why don’t you?’ Alfred said, and seeing her embarrassment stepped in between Napier and Edith. ‘Help yourself to some of these delicious dishes, and allow your wife to finish her supper. You will, surely?’ he murmured.

  ‘Edith. Come home at once, won’t you?’

  Napier was speaking to her as if he was an officer and she one of his men, but Edith did not care.

  ‘No, Napier, I will not come home. At least not until I have finished enjoying myself.’

  ‘Well, at least come away from this open window, in that low-cut dress. First you insist on going outside in the middle of our dance together, and now you— You have been very ill, remember? Very ill indeed.’

  Edith had stared up at Napier, determined on continuing in the way she had begun the evening, in the way Celandine had advised.

  ‘It might be best not to mention my dress, seeing that you ridiculed it earlier, Napier,’ she told him, widening her eyes before nibbling at her pie.

  ‘Yes, perhaps best not to mention your wife’s dress, Napier, really you should not, if what she said is true.’

  Napier frowned at Alfred. ‘If you don’t mind, Alfred, I am talking to my wife—’

  ‘Yes, and so was I, Napier, my dear fellow, I was talking to your wife, but I was not talking to her as if she was a subordinate, I was talking to her as if she was a human being,’ Alfred said quietly. ‘Besides, I really think Mrs Todd should stay. If she leaves now, if she is the first to leave, your hostess will think she has not enjoyed herself, and that would be such a pity, because I think she has enjoyed herself.’ He looked at Edith for corroboration.

  ‘Alfred, will you allow me to talk to my wife?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  Napier led the bemused Edith to one side of the crowded room as if she was a naughty little girl. As she looked up into his face, his young wife realised with some satisfaction that she had never seen him so infuriated, not even when she distracted him when he was painting.

  ‘Edith,’ he began, clearing his throat and pressing his hands together before he began, a gesture which strongly reminded Edith of the Helmscote vicar about to preach. ‘I must make it clear to you, Edith, that I did not laugh at you – I laughed at the dress, because . . . because, well . . .’ he floundered, ‘well, because – being that it is so old-fashioned, Edith.’ He dropped his voice as if this was somehow shocking. ‘Being that your dress is so redolent of the olden days. You look even younger in such a wide crinoline skirt,’ he added, dropping his voice even further as if to look younger was also shocking.

  Thanks to the wine Edith managed to look interested although not startled by this information.

  ‘One of the reasons I wanted to paint you the moment I saw you was because you looked so young, and untouched. It was that more than anything that I wanted to capture.’

  ‘I don’t really want to talk about your painting, not tonight, Napier, if you don’t mind. No, what I would really quite like are some of those little patties over there.’ She nodded towards the supper table, not really caring that he looked startled at the decisive tone in her voice. ‘And then perhaps some jelly and a touch of cream. Fetch it for me, would you?’

  To his own astonishment and his young wife’s secret amazement, Napier meekly did as he was told while Edith seated herself on a cutaway chair, carefully setting her vast skirt to one side while Alfred settled himself on her other side.

  ‘While your husband’s back is turned, and the rest of the room is too busy choosing supper to notice, might I tell you how beautiful you are, Mrs Todd?’ he asked, his face a picture of innocence. ‘Your mouth so kissable, your eyes those of a beautiful tigress—’

  ‘You might,’ Edith agreed, deliberately widening her own eyes to match his in their innocence. ‘But at this moment I would really rather prefer to think of enjoying a wine jelly with Cornish cream.’

  ‘I am in love with you, Mrs Todd, and you know it.’

  ‘I know nothing of the kind,’ Edith said, still arranging her skirt in as decorous a manner as possible, while wondering briefly, and sadly, why she had not understood the ways of the world before, and why she had taken so much time to come to understand them.

  ‘All I know,’ she went on, ‘is that you have made my husband jealous, and I have made him angry, but nevertheless he is fetching and carrying for me, which is novel, to say the least.’ Then she added, louder, as she saw Napier returning from the supper table with plates piled high with food, ‘I think Celandine is right; married women should have the same rights as men, don’t you, Mr Talisman? Married women should—’

  Napier sat down beside Edith, staring at her. ‘I will not have you talking about such things with Alfred, Edith, really I won’t. Besides, you know nothing about married women’s rights, or anyone else’s rights for that matter.’

  ‘Napier.’ Edith glanced down at the plate he was holding. ‘Do you see what you are carrying?’

  Napier glanced impatiently down. ‘Of course. A plate of sandwiches for you.’

  ‘And what did I ask you for quite expressly, Napier?’

  ‘A plate of . . .’ Napier hesitated, frowning, unsure, but unwilling to admit his mistake.

  Edith sighed. ‘Patties. I asked you, Napier, for patties, not sandwiches.’

  She gave him a purposefully reproachful look, then stood up and went back to the dining table, leaving Napier with his plateful of sandwiches while she helped herself to some small pies. She returned to sit beside him.

  ‘What has happened to you, Edith? You have quite changed this evening. I don’t like it at all. It must be the dress. The dress has changed your personality in a way that is not at all agreeable.’

  Edith smiled, biting into her food with sudden appreciation. ‘You are right. It must be the dress, Napier,’ she told him. ‘They always say costumes from the olden days can turn you into something different. That and the wine,’ she went on. ‘It was lovely wine, it is lovely wine, isn’t it, Napier?’ She held out her glass and nodded back to the table. ‘Fetch me some more wine cup, Napier, there’s a good feller,’ she added, mimicking Napier’s manner so accurately that Alfred started to laugh.

  Napier breathed in and out a little like an impatient horse on a frosty morning. ‘Don’t you think you have had enough wine cup already, Edith?’

  ‘If I did,’ Edith said, imagining to herself that she was someone quite as haughty as her stepmother, ‘would I be asking you to fetch me some more, Napier?’ She stared coldly at her husband, acting out her part with verve.

  The astonishing thing was that it worked. Napier returned dutifully to the table and did indeed fetch her another glass of wine cup, after which they sat together eating silently, Napier sullen, Edith’s expression deliberately innocent.

  ‘I’m taking you home, after you have finished,’ Napier finally announced.

  ‘I have promised one more dance to Alfred – to Mr Talisman. He does dance so beautifully.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘No, really, Napier, I have.’

  She did indeed insist on one last dance with Alfred, and that, quite naturally, was the final straw, as Edith had hoped and prayed it might be, because she had hardly finished clapping her hands together to applaud the musicians, so that together with the other dancers she could show her appreciation of their playing, when Napier called for their carriage and they returned home, locked in each other’s embrace.

  ‘Don’t you ever dance with another man for so long again,’ Napier threatened her as he kissed her with long-suppressed passion in the back of the carriage. But as Edith responded most readily she could not prevent herself wondering, quite mischievously, what Alfred Talisman’s kisses might have been like.

  Now, Edith reached for her nightdress and her lace-edged wrap to make herself respectable, only minutes before Mrs Harvey, having knocked at the door, ushered in a delicious breakfast which her maid placed for Edith at the open window overlooking the g
ardens, and finally the sea beyond.

  ‘We’m be a glorious morning,’ Mrs Harvey said, smiling and nodding towards the window, but no sooner had she pronounced on the weather than she raised a hand to her lips. ‘’Tis a glorious morning, and I think I can see – I know I can see – look out there, Mrs Todd, look out there, if you have a mind to, will you?’ She turned and hurried back to the door, which had just closed behind the maid. ‘Mary! Mary!’ she called. ‘It’s happened at last. I swear to goodness they’re coming home. The men are back!’

  Mary rushed back into the room, twisting her apron between excited hands. ‘Never say so, Mrs Harvey, never say so!’

  ‘I do say it, Mary, I do. Look!’ Mrs Harvey pointed at the horizon. ‘If that isn’t a Lugger comin’ home, my name is not Tilly Harvey.’

  They both stared over Edith’s shoulder, momentarily oblivious of their guest’s concerns.

  ‘Didn’t I just say this is a glorious morning, Mrs Todd? I felt it in my water, I did really.’

  The two women hurried out of the room, leaving Edith with her breakfast. As she ate she thought of how much anxiety the women must suffer when their men were at sea, never really knowing what might have happened to them. She knew that the conditions in which the deep-sea fishermen lived were tough in the extreme, but if they came home with a vast catch life was momentarily eased for everyone at home. Not that Mrs Harvey herself wanted for much in the way of comforts, she being one of the luckier ones, what with her lodging house and a husband who ran a pleasure boat; but for her maid, Mary, who was less fortunate in her circumstances, she was sure it must be a relief to see her husband come home again.

  Mrs Harvey was back in the room again before too long, smiling, clearing the tray from the window sill, making everything straight, fussing over Edith, saying, ‘Sit down, sit down, this is my job,’ as she tidied and dusted.

  The result was that Edith sat at the window, too enthralled by the brilliant vista in front of her to be able to tear herself away and wash and dress. ‘The sea is so beautiful today.’

  ‘The sea is what it is, my dear, that’s what it is. It is what it is, as cruel as it is beautiful, as full of plenty as it can be empty as an old tin bucket pitted with holes. Still, today young Mary is at least made happy, with the return of her man. First, though,’ she looked over to Edith, ‘first she has to go and sit to your man, I heard say.’

  She neatly flipped up a corner of blanket and sheet while Edith allowed herself to stare at the blue of the sea, the sky reflecting in it in a turquoise and emerald mix that swirled in ever-changing patches. Napier had said nothing of making Mary sit to him, but then Napier had left so early in the morning, as was his habit, that he would not have thought to wake his wife, most especially not since they had both been awake half the night making love.

  ‘Of course, yes, I remember my husband saying.’

  ‘Yes, Mary and some other girls, they’re all posing out there, them and a heap of wet fish, apparently. Happy for ’em they’re going to have no rain. There’ll be no rain until this afternoon, the seaweed in the hall tells me.’

  She left Edith, who immediately started dressing as fast as she could. She did not know why but she could not wait to see what was happening out there on the shore, how the girls were being posed, and what sort of painting Napier had decided upon. But when she reached the beach, search as she could she did not find Napier, or Mary, or anyone. She only found Alfred.

  ‘I was looking for Napier.’

  Alfred looked deliberately puzzled. ‘Who is – I am sorry – Napier is . . . ?’

  Edith smiled at his teasing, and clicked her tongue. ‘My husband, Mr Talisman, Napier Todd, my husband.’

  ‘Ah yes, I remember now. You are a married woman. And yet.’ Alfred looked sly. ‘And yet last night, I would have said you were most definitely not a married woman, however large the ring you happen to be sporting on your left hand. While I was dancing with you, while I was talking to you, I would most definitely have said that you were so young, so fresh, so innocent, you could not possibly also be – married.’

  Edith stared at him, and as she did so the thought crossed her mind that Celandine might have betrayed her previous state of unmarriedness to Alfred, who was after all staying at the same house.

  ‘Well, you are wrong,’ she said, having finally rejected the idea that Celandine could have betrayed her. ‘I am married, Mr Talisman, very much so,’ she added, remembering how passionate had been Napier’s lovemaking, how deliciously tender he had been, how quite obviously versed in the ways of pleasing women.

  Alfred nodded, the expression on his face innocent.

  ‘You realise that I have fallen in love with you,’ he stated. ‘You do realise that? I love you, and I knew last night, the moment I saw you, I knew at once that I will always love you. And I know it again this morning. I have never seen anyone as beautiful as you, but that is not the only reason I love you. I love you because you are as innocent as the day, which makes me want to show you how I can love, how love can be, as it is meant to be. As you have never known it.’

  Edith stared at him. ‘Mr Talisman,’ she said, after a small intake of breath. ‘I know we enjoyed ourselves together last night, but this morning is another matter. This morning you are obviously determined on continuing with your nonsense, in order to embarrass me. I see that. And you must congratulate yourself, for you have succeeded very well in your intentions. I am very embarrassed. More than that, I am upset.’

  She started to walk off in the opposite direction, but Alfred called after her. ‘If you are indeed looking for your husband, Mrs Todd, Mr Todd is at Sheridan’s studio. They are sharing a life class together.’

  Edith turned. She was not so innocent that she did not know what the mention of a ‘life class’ implied.

  ‘I thought that was probably where he was,’ she admitted, smiling in a determined fashion, having let hardly a second elapse. ‘Mrs Harvey told me Mary is sitting to them. Poor thing,’ she added, ‘it is always so cold when one sits to a painter. I myself nearly died of it.’

  Alfred decided to take ruthless advantage of Edith’s hesitation, despite its being only a second or two, and quickly caught up with her.

  ‘Come for a walk along the coast with me,’ he urged her. ‘Napier and Sheridan will not be much company today, but we could enjoy a walk together, even if you are a married woman. That at least you will be allowed.’

  If Alfred had not been so handsome, his dark eyes so compelling, if he had not had a tall figure and long legs and an intense expression that seemed to be reserved only for her, Edith might have accepted his invitation, but as it was she merely stepped away from him, shaking her head.

  ‘I would love to go for a walk this morning.’ She did not attempt to keep the sudden sadness she was feeling out of her voice. ‘But I can’t. I told you, I am – a – married – woman.’

  ‘I love you, you know that, Mrs Todd, don’t you?’

  Edith looked up at Alfred and realised with an awful sense of shock that what he was saying was true. He was not it seemed, after all, flirting with her; he was telling her the state of his heart.

  ‘You can’t love me. What is more I won’t let you love me,’ she said, and made the mistake of stepping quickly backwards which meant that she started to lose her balance.

  He caught her quickly to him. ‘I don’t need your permission to love you, Mrs Todd. More than that, I don’t care for your permission. I only know that you have set my senses spinning. I love you as I have never loved before.’

  Edith pulled herself away from him, not flattered but shocked, only to turn and see Celandine coming towards them. She knew that she must have seen them, and the knowledge made her more than embarrassed, it made her mortified.

  ‘We were just practising a love scene from Shakespeare,’ Alfred joked as Celandine joined them, walking unevenly along the shore, the wind blowing her pale pink and white sprigged cotton morning dress and jacket.

>   ‘I am looking for Sheridan.’ Celandine looked distracted and sounded breathless. ‘I was told that he was sketching along the harbour, a bunch of girls with some fish, or some such, sketching with Napier. Have you not seen them, Edith?’

  ‘No.’ Edith looked down, unhappy and unused to the situation in which she was now finding herself.

  ‘Not another lost wife coming to find comfort in my Shakespearian tuition?’ Alfred asked of no one in particular. ‘I am meant to be doing a painting of Sir Henry Irving, you know. For the Garrick Club, I believe it is destined. But you ladies will not be allowed to view it, I am afraid. The Garrick Club, along with our dear prime minister, does not allow for female emancipation.’

  ‘Oh, fiddle the Garrick Club, Alfred, I must find Sherry. I have just had a letter from France. It is my mother. It seems she is taken very bad, and I must go to her at once.’ Celandine turned to Edith, reaching out to hold one of her gloved hands. ‘The letter is from my mother’s doctor. He says she may be in great danger and that I must come at once, but I can’t find Sherry to tell him, or even Napier.’

  ‘They are—’ Alfred stopped and somehow managed to look guilty as he caught Edith’s eye. ‘They are painting fisherwomen and a mound of fish, in some cove nearby. We were just about to go to find them.’

  ‘Were you? Were you really?’ The pressure of Celandine’s hand holding Edith’s was the only thing that betrayed her inner desperation. ‘In that case you must tell Sherry that I am gone to France. I have to leave now. There is a boat which I can catch if I hurry, within the next half an hour, Mrs Molesworth says. I am already packed. Please, tell Sherry—’ She leaned forward and whispered in Edith’s ear. ‘Tell Sherry I love him, won’t you? That I must go at once. It may even now be too late.’

  Edith nodded. ‘Of course. Can I do anything else to help you?’

  ‘No, I am quite all right. I have been to France so many times that aside from crossing the Channel, which is never pleasant, travel is never a trial to me.’

  She hurried away as Edith turned to Alfred. ‘It was very kind of you not to say what you knew to be the truth just at that moment. Not that it matters, of course. Celandine is as aware as anyone of the importance of the life class to painters, and their models clothed or unclothed mean little to them or her, I know.’