Under the Poppy (43 page)

Lucy

He said he’d have his answer whenever I would give it, he said he could wait forever and a day
If only you tell me true, Miss Bella-Bell.
There on the promenade, the whole world out for a Boxing Day ramble, the sun so bright, the breeze so stiff and cold—but I never felt it, my hands all tucked up in the muff he gave me: real ermine fur and a fine silver chain, like something Mme. de Metz might carry, what it cost him I daren’t guess! And how he smiled, when he saw how much I fancied it:
I wish I could make the world so for you,
he said.
Everything all cozy-like, and soft.

And then he asked me, just like that, us sitting there upon the little iron bench:
I know I haven’t much, but all I’ve got is yours if you’ll have me.
And I cried, I couldn’t help it, the tears just popped, and he hopped up like the bench was on fire, that made me laugh…. It was so lovely. It
is
lovely, to think that we might go on together, he and I, as man and wife.

And right here at the Blackbird, too, for I told him straightaway that, no matter what, I must have my little troupe, with this roof above our heads but
I’d not have it different,
he said.
We’ll sell our Pimm’s Chateaux in the lobby, won’t we?
And we both laughed, then, and I kissed him, right there on the promenade, and he held me tight in a way no man’s ever done, tucked up in his arm like I belonged there, like we were made to fit so. We could have sat that way forever. Forever and a day.

But I didn’t give my
yes
, then, though I knew it made him that sad, and puzzled-like, he couldn’t add the parts together, and whyever should he? I couldn’t myself. Only—things seem so gloomy now, the streets all ice like dead mid-winter, the children in a funk since our awful show, that we thought would be so wonderful…. The girls had strung up holly berries and green garlands at the entrance, as pretty as a church, and I had Didier piping away at “O Come the Faithful Shepherds” in his little shepherd suit, all the toff ladies cooing over how sweet he looked. Mme. de Metz was there, in the front row, she gave me a specially lovely smile. And every seat sold, the first time ever. We thought it would be a jubilee.

And then! Lines forgotten, exits bungled, strings gone all a-snarl, with Rosa wailing over her cracked-up crown, crying that Mickey broke it, and a nest of mice in the hay-box where the Infant Jesu was supposed to lie—Thank heaven Pimm was backstage, and Rupert, too, to try to bring the thing to a closing. We skipped the final singsong, Master Benjamin played them out with some waltz: not one he knew well, but the piano pedals were sticking in the damp, he did the best he could. If ever a show could go astray on all fronts—!

And Istvan, our Gabriel-angel, white mask and muslin and cut-paper wings—though he said he wouldn’t have the wooden horse, even if it ruined the title,
I’m no equestrian
—and such a distant humor, only Mickey had the pluck to nudge in close and ask him why but
It’s not for little ears,
he said, and tugged at Mickey’s, then mimed to find a penny in his hair, and tossed it to him to stop his questions. No answers for me, either, when I found those chopped-up puppet pieces, one I thought he had just finished, yet when I asked he only shrugged. He is not sleeping, most nights, off gaming or elsewhere, and wherever he goes, he goes armed. “Supping with the quality,” right, it’s that general he meant, who means him little good, I’m sure, though he saved us before. May be just to use us later…. And Rupert up and smoking, all pale with his headaches, or reading through that little red book—Oh, we are all wretched now, as if the tidings he brought as Gabriel are turning true:
Change is coming,
to the rich young man, Pinky in a turban and eyebrows and beard down to his belt, and Istvan with gilded hair and folded arms, as if he spoke the lines to two plays at once.
What we have sighted for is come upon us,
not like the birth of a Savior but the end of the world; with his shadow cast before him from a misplaced lamp, holly berries crushed and smeared like blood against the boards, the children dumb as sparrows when the hawk flies over—I’ve never been so glad in all my life to see the curtains close.

And afterward Istvan disappearing straightaway, none of us saw him go, even Rupert who looked everywhere, until Master Benjamin came to him and bade him stop, and go for supper with himself and Mme. de Metz. Arm in arm, out the door to their fine carriage, back so late I never heard him come in…. That Master Benjamin, he is so much like Istvan come again, yet when I said so to Pimm he only stared:
I can’t make that one out,
though it’s plain as a pikestaff to me. To Istvan, too, but that’s another thing he won’t discuss, cold as ice when I tried to broach it:
Leave it, Puss!
so sharp it brought me back to the days at the Poppy, how he used to snap that harsh at Decca. Decca and her lover’s eye…. I keep the goldfish in its own special box, the one it came in from the jeweler’s, and that tucked inside another, one that looks like nothing in particular, like it might have notions or buttons or such inside. It’s wise to do so, hide what’s treasure in what’s not.

Since that night the children have been absent, mostly, my girls coughing through their singing lessons, Didier crying when I ask him to play the flute. Only Mickey, and Pinky, are the mainstays, Pinky here this morning to take down the Christmas stars, still dangling up above there, I haven’t had the heart. He sat for a cup with me, the tea boiled too long but he drank it up, and tried to jolly me with gossip about the Twelfth Night dinner, feasting and wassail and the lords of misrule, but
I’ve seen a deal of those these days,
I told him,
may be a few too many for my taste. I’ll stop at home, I think.

Then I’ll bring you a taste of king cake, shall I?
bowing his way out past Pimm coming in and
If only they were all like that,
Pimm says, sitting down where Pinky was, pouring himself a cup,
one shouldn’t mind them half so much
….
Have you thought much more about my question, yet, Miss Bella-Bell?

And right back, blunt, I never meant to but it just came out:
No, I haven’t. But when I do I think may be I ought say no. For both our sakes.

Whyever? Say one reason,
his voice all flat, all the joy gone out of him; it was awful to see but I couldn’t stop:
Surely,
I said,
I’ll say two. First is, I come from nothing, Pimm. My father—I come from nothing, you understand?

What does that matter? I don’t care a whit, I
—

And I used to be a whore.

I had my hands round the teacup, the tea so hot but I never felt it, my hands were that cold, and my voice like someone else’s, hard and far away.
Did you never wonder how I came to be here, never married nor spoken for, with Mister Rupert and Mister Istvan? I worked in a house with them, fucking and pulling pud, I used to dress up when I did it. Costumes I still have now! May be I’ve got a bride’s dress tucked up somewhere, too!

He just sat there, face white and silent as a stone, until he reached past the cups, knocked the sugar bowl astray, and
Well what of it?
he said to me. He was gripping my hands, I was gripping his, like we were in a boat on stormy seas, trying to keep from going under.
We’ve all sold ourselves a time or two. D’you think I’ve always made my way ginning up little wooden houses? No one can ever make me think the less of you, Lucy, not even you yourself.

The room seemed to shrink, then, and I opened my mouth, but nothing came out, not one peep, until
Yes,
I said, all on one breath,
I will, then, Mr. Pimm. If you will have me then I will.

My name is Timothy,
he says to me, he had tears in his eyes, and
Tim Pimm,
I said, and we laughed, and I cried and cried, and he swept up all the spilled sugar and mopped up all the tea…. We’ve told no one yet, ’tisn’t time for that, and when it will be, whoever can say? First this winter must pass, and whatever blackness hides inside it. Then, in the spring, we shall see…. Missus Pimm, just think of it. Mister and Missus Pimm.

The city streets still wear their decorations, like a lady arrayed for a fête not of her choosing: wreaths the size of wagon wheels, branched evergreens and hanging fruit, frozen pears and apples to drop like lead upon the heads of passersby. The weather has been harsh, slicks of ice around each corner to send cabs astray and walkers stumbling, ankles sprained, umbrellas cracked, even the mayor’s wife toppling sideways on the steps of the Orphans’ Foundation, as she dispenses warm woollies donated by the Gracious Ladies’ Guild: whacking her velvet elbow so she wails, the orphans laughing with an open lack of charity that will send them to their beds without supper, to teach them the virtue of prudence if not compassion.

Now the city welcomes Twelfth Night with unusual fervor, as the finale of a strangely sorry Christmastide, in quarters both high and low. In the homes of the bourgeoisie, the round of visits and gifting come to a dutiful end, gin-wassails drunk and king-cakes eaten, while the street-corner whores hike their stockings and stuff their shoes with oiled paper, to try for one more night to keep the wet from seeping in, as their brothers the beggars crouch on the cathedral steps, rattling their croaker-boxes with a menacing air:
Penny for Our Lord, sirrah! Penny for Our Lord!
as if, should the pennies be withheld, Our Lord might come looking for them himself, and for their scrimpers, too.

And the beggars and whores and the bourgeoisie are all united in the wish that the true new year begin at last, the wheel turn and spin the gray stuff of slush and frozen horseshit, leaking roofs and stinking-wet wool, teething babies who scream and stingy tricks who balk at paying fair, into a sweeter landscape of spring breezes and yellow daffs, clean stockings, sleep, and the possibility of pleasure and ease, or, failing that, at least the first fresh casks of rum to lubricate their various discontents.

In the de Metz household, all are busy with the last preparations for the dinner: the tall white vases cleared of snow and pale with ivy, the stables readied for the carriages of guests, kitchens crowded with beef sent specially from the farms at Chatiens, sweating Portuguese cheese, candied figs round as eyeballs, and countless bottles of champagne,
le vin du diable, pent like embers banked for later fires. The old master and his wife have already arrived, and Helmut with them, to oversee the details of their comfort, a detail that Isobel accepts with outward calm, though the household staff notes that her temper is, these last few days, quite variable. The young master’s is the opposite, dreamy and distant and more inclined to drop tips, while he himself is the recipient of quantities of gifts sent by those who court his favor, and his father’s, to celebrate both his birthday and the holiday, Twelfth Night to be a double jubilee.

Now Madame and her raw humor sit in boudoir consultation with the glove-maker, a frail and ageless woman, her fingers small and cunning as a child’s to tug and adjust the dark kidskin, worked with gleaming silver thread, white lace, and tiny diamonds in a repeating pattern of roses, as if the wearer’s hands were plunged deep into ghostly flowers. When the knock comes, Isobel snaps “A moment!” as she reaches for the muslin pattern-glove, no one but the glove-maker allowed to see her hand as it is, not even Benjamin, who pops his head around the door before she has fully hidden herself, who sees her face instead and “Be at ease,” airily, “I haven’t come to peep at your claw—”

—until he sees her eyes, his own smile disappearing: “I am sorry,” bending to kiss her cheek in real contrition, as Isobel nods the glove-maker out to the hall. “Your dress is magnificent,” he adds, still in apology, dropping into the vacated chair. “You look a queen in that silver, you’ll be the queen of the ball.”

And himself less prince, now, than young king: no more Cupid’s curls, his hair cut very short and razored close, bringing Charlotte’s gush as they dined earlier
en famille
:
Why, you look so manly now, Benjamin!
with Isidore nodding approval at the new and formal suit, the new sense of purpose perceived as “The old man,” he says, restless to rise from the chair again, gazing out the window into the fitful moon and fog. “He says we’re to have a ‘discussion,’ tomorrow, he and I. Must I do it, Belle? What does he want?”

“I imagine,” says Isobel, keeping her voice even, “it concerns your majority. Or Adele Chamsaur, since he had asked,” commanded, rather, “that she be invited tonight.”

“
Merde,
” with a frown, chewing at the raw spot on his knuckle, and then he is gone, the glove-maker returning in silence to finish her task. Afterward, the new gloves lying like shed skin upon the white silk of the dressing-table, Isobel turns to her own task still unfinished, her response to Javier written a dozen times and a dozen destroyed, attempting to answer his own brief letter—
I cannot attend, but I shall be present in spirit
—meaning what? Already this night is the cusp of so much tumult…. She lights another cigarette, she pulls forward another sheet of plain foolscap—