A Mad, Wicked Folly Read online

  “But they might! Maybe . . . maybe we could simply give the whole thing a miss. Make an excuse that I’m unwell or something?”

  My mother looked as if I had asked her if I could cease breathing air. “Every young lady of quality has a debut to announce her coming-out to society. If you don’t have a debut, you’ll soon know what it is to be a social outcast.”

  I didn’t mind parties—in fact, Lily would soon be home and most likely be at many of them, which would give me a chance to see her again—but this inevitable season of parties heralded the beginning of my life, as far as Mamma was concerned. There was more to a debut than balls and dresses. The reason for debuts was marriage.

  Debutante balls reminded me of animals being driven to Smithfield Market for slaughter. The executioner might have set down his ax, but it was only to sharpen it.

  Until a girl was brought out, she was invisible. Seen but not heard. She was only to speak in social settings when spoken to, and the response to any questions should be kept to single syllables. The best thing a girl could do before she was brought out into society was to become one with the wallpaper. I was already starting out with a blot next to my name.

  “There’s no guarantee now that you’ll receive an invitation to be presented to the king along with all the other debutantes,” my mother went on.

  Even I thought this unfortunate, as I would have welcomed the chance to see inside Buckingham Palace. I’d heard there were a Rembrandt and a Vermeer hanging in the Picture Gallery. But only the crème de la crème were invited to meet the king. The fortunate debutantes each year started out with a presentation at the king’s formal drawing room. The rest of the pack were considered second-rate. Mamma herself had not been a debutante; however, when she married my father, Mrs. Plimpton took Mamma under her wing and transformed her. Mrs. Plimpton had arranged for Mamma, then a newly married woman, to be presented to the king when he was the Prince of Wales. My mother was such a socking success that she and Papa climbed straight up the social ladder with barely a pause.

  “I can’t tell you how humiliating that will be for your father. If the palace discounts his daughter, then what hope does he have to be considered as a supplier?”

  I pretended to be vastly interested in Mamma’s new rug.

  “I have sent a letter to the Lord Chamberlain, putting your name forward for presentation,” she went on. “The summonses come out in mid-May, three weeks before the next presentation. That’s not much time to unpick this mess you’ve made. Between now and then, you must be the picture of contrition and innocence. The first thing to do is to get you involved in a charity. I’ve chosen for you to join the Friends of London Churches. You’ll start this Saturday afternoon at St. Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square. The charity will be helping the ladies to organize prayer books and hymnals.”

  Mamma could not have chosen a more boring charity for me. “Is this the reason you called me in here, Mamma? To discuss balls and lady’s maids and charities?”

  Mamma looked at me in silence for a moment. “No. As I said, finishing school is out. So the next best choice is to see you settled. I think a steadying hand would do you a great deal of good, and your father has agreed. He has arranged a match for you through an acquaintance at the Reform Club. Sir Henry Carrick-Humphrey’s younger son, Edmund.”

  And there it was. The final blow. My head was rolling down the steps. The solution to the pressing problem of Victoria and her bad behavior was marriage. My parents would also be able to wash their hands of me for good. I would now be my husband’s problem.

  “So soon? Why?” I asked, stunned that my mother had put such a scheme into action so quickly, especially before my debut.

  “I think it’s best we strike while the iron is hot. Marriage will show you are respectable. We’ll announce your engagement formally the day after your presentation to the king. Before then we’ll make sure word gets round that Mr. Carrick-Humphrey has shown interest, which will put the idea in people’s minds that you are presentable. The sooner you’re married, the sooner we can have this whole business behind us.” Mamma pointed at the bellpull hanging by the mantel. “Ring for tea, Victoria.”

  I stood up and tugged the brocade fabric, my mind struggling to make sense of everything my mother had heaped upon me. I had met Edmund Carrick-Humphrey at our Christmas party two years ago. I could not imagine a more toneless creature. He was totally devoid of emotion, and his countenance lacked any joy or zest for life. Had he not been wearing a striped suit, his very blandness would have faded his person right into my mother’s beige drapery. “But why him?”

  “Edmund Carrick-Humphrey is eager to join your father at the plumbing works, as he has a very strong interest in the business,” Mother replied. “His father also has connections within the king’s household, which will help patch the damage you caused with Sir Hugo.” She looked at me pointedly.

  “So this is a business arrangement?”

  Mamma flicked her fingers. “A portion of the business will be your dowry. Nevertheless, such a union would be very fortuitous for both families, particularly in light of the fact that your brother has removed himself from the business. Your sons will inherit, and your father’s legacy will be assured. You should be happy you have any prospects left, my dear. A scandalous woman is not something most men would want, but Edmund Carrick-Humphrey has agreed.”

  “Oh, how jolly lucky for me,” I said. “If my pickings are so thin on the ground, then why not leave me to find my own way? Surely I have sense enough to be able to choose my own husband, Mamma.”

  She clucked her tongue in disapproval. “I can quite imagine the sort of husband you would end up with. I’m sure you’d go the way of Joan Hollingberry. Her poor parents are so humiliated. A clerk! Fancy that. He doesn’t even possess a tailcoat. Comes to dinner wearing a tweed jacket, as though dressed for a country shoot! No. Your father has worked very hard to rise from nothing, and he’s not about to see his efforts go to waste over your passing fancies.”

  Papa had started out as a foreman in a pottery business in Lambeth, but he had anticipated that the flush toilet would be in high demand in the years to come. With money he’d saved, he purchased a small concern that made pressed-clay toilets. He sank every penny he had in a design he invented called the dreadnought, which prevented smells from coming back into the room. He’d forced himself to live a meager existence until the business began to pay. He didn’t marry my mother until he was thirty-two. She had been the pressed-clay kiln owner’s seventeen-year-old daughter. My father was immensely rich, more so than the many aristocrats who looked down on people like my parents, but Mamma liked to pretend that we weren’t parvenus ourselves, still wet from a lower-class pool.

  “I don’t have passing fancies—”

  “I beg to differ. This art-school desire of yours is a five-minute wonder, my dear. Here today and gone the next.”

  “It is not—”

  “I’ll hear no more about it. We will be entertaining Sir Henry and Lady Carrick-Humphrey, their daughter, and Edmund, who is home visiting from Oxford University, tomorrow evening.”

  “And if I say no?”

  “If you say no, then you will make a life with my aunt in Norfolk.”

  “With Aunt Maude?” My voice squeaked in alarm. My widowed great-aunt lived a near hermit’s existence in Norfolk. The house was dark as pitch and cold as death, and she detested art, books, and joy of any kind. Worse, she owned four smelly old Yorkshire terriers that piddled on the carpets, shed hair everywhere they walked, and bit everyone but my aunt. Every time I visited, my mother bade me read the Bible to her aloud. Aunt Maude always chose the passage about Jezebel, smiling smugly at me all the while.

  “Yes, she has need of a companion—someone to read to her and fetch her things and such. Don’t look like that. You’re lucky we are giving you a choice, Victoria.”

  “It�
�s not much of a choice!”

  “I am sorry, but you must lie in your bed as you’ve made it. Your father is not a man to deal with when he’s been thwarted, as your brother can attest. He has no stomach for nonsense. He is not prepared to support you if you don’t marry. He has a horror of spinsters.”

  “So I either marry a man I don’t know or like, or go live in deepest darkest Norfolk, shut away like a cloistered nun never to be seen again? Times are different now, Mamma. Women can marry for love. It’s not like in your day.”

  “How would you live if you do not fall in love, then?”

  “Other women work.”

  “Not women of your standing. No one would hire you. And no one in polite society will accept a woman who earns her own money. Should you like to be a charwoman and scrub outhouses? Because that’s the life you will have.” She looked up, and her eyes softened. “I am in agreement with you. I should not like to live a lonely existence as someone else’s companion. Can you not see how I am trying to protect you from a life of penury and loneliness?”

  “But if I was allowed to go to art college, I could earn my own living!”

  “Who put that idea into your head? Those ridiculous bohemian artists in France? What makes you think you have the talent to earn a living as an artist? Who do you think you are? How preposterous . . .” Mamma stared down at her sewing. For a moment I thought she was going to cry. But then she picked up her scissors and angrily began to rip out the perfect stitches that outlined a bouquet of sweet peas.

  Her lack of faith in me, in my talent, hurt. I couldn’t bear to hear any more. “I don’t care for tea, Mamma,” I said faintly. “I don’t feel at all well. May I be excused?” Not waiting for her answer, I stood up and left the room.

  Mamma’s words followed me, floating over me like a dreary cloud, as I trudged up the stairs to my room. Who put that idea into your head? . . . What makes you think you have the talent to earn a living as an artist? Who do you think you are? How preposterous. Preposterous. Preposterous.

  When I reached my room, I threw myself on the bed and screamed into my pillow for all I was worth until my throat ached. I wanted to weep with rage and humiliation. It was as if that awful little whisper inside of me had been given a voice, and it was my own mother’s. Just thinking about it set it off: If your own mother doesn’t think you have talent, then who does?

  Mamma was right. Who did I think I was? How ridiculous it was of me to think that I was not like other girls. What a jest! I was exactly like other girls. And like other girls, my life was not mine to call my own; rather it was one that would be handed over to the next responsible party as soon as possible.

  I heard a creak of the floorboards. I jerked my head up and saw our maid, Emma, in the doorway, shifting her weight from foot to foot. “I’m sorry, miss. I didn’t mean to bother. But you have a letter.” She held a silver salver in her hand.

  “That’s all right, Emma.” I sat up. Another story of mad behavior to report to my mother. That’s what I got for failing to close the door.

  Emma crossed the room and held the salver to me. I took the letter and Emma bobbed a curtsy, turned round, and scurried out, the ribbons of her white cap and apron trailing behind her.

  I recognized the penmanship, the broad loops and swirls made with such confidence, the pen pressing just a bit too heavily. The letter was from Bertram. Thank goodness! I tore the envelope open eagerly and unfolded the page.

  My Dear Vicky,

  I just received your letter. I’m sorry you were punished for posing, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. I only hope the penalty wasn’t too harsh.

  I apologize for not replying to your letter swiftly, but the spring light was too good to miss and the lads and I went off into the countryside to paint. Étienne tried to find a goat so we could take a stab at replicating Hunt’s The Scapegoat, but all we could find was an old donkey, and he wouldn’t keep still long enough to let us draw one whisker!

  As far as your letter of reference goes, one from me wouldn’t do you much good, as I never completed the course. Monsieur Tondreau would be the better choice, but he left just after you did to visit his sister, who is ill. I don’t know where she lives. Étienne says maybe Paris but he isn’t certain. Monsieur might be back in a month or

  so, but that’s probably not soon enough for you.

  In any case, I wish you well and hope we’ll meet again someday. I enclose a little gift for you.

  With fond regards,

  Bertram

  Bertram’s gift was the sketch he had done of me on the day I posed.

  In the drawing, I sat on a chair on the artist’s dais, with one leg tucked under the other, leaning forward with my elbow on my leg, my chin in one hand, looking out at my fellow artists. The expression he had drawn on my face was one of contentment and strength. Did he really see me that way?

  I dropped my head against my pillows and stared out at my room. My mother had not yet turned her redecorating attention here. It still had the same dark, fanciful furniture of my childhood; drawings and paintings I had made through the years festooned the doors of my wardrobe. Pinned onto the corner of a pastel sketch I had done of a fishmonger’s cart was the RCA leaflet. I should just throw it in the rubbish. Throw it all in the rubbish. But I couldn’t bring myself to.

  A chance for a different life. Just a chance was all I asked. If I got into the RCA, maybe my mother would see I had talent to be an artist and talk my father round. Maybe, just as with Freddy, Papa would think my art success was his own making.

  But how could I get near the RCA to apply when my mother had me on a short lead, like a dancing bear in a circus?

  Then I swung my feet to the ground and sat up. Heart thudding in my ears and hope shooting through me like quicksilver, I fetched my art satchel from my wardrobe and slung it over my shoulder.

  My mother might have forbidden me to walk out the front door.

  But she had said nothing about the window.

  Five

  Darling residence, wisteria vine, second-floor window,

  Thursday, eighteenth of March

  MAYBE CLIMBING OUT the window wasn’t such a brilliant idea.

  I clung to the ancient wisteria vine and tried not to look down. A branch under my left boot snapped, and I scrambled against the wall. The trellis creaked. Of course, I had timed my climb out of the window badly and now my skirt was caught above me on my bedroom-window latch, frillies on show for all the world to see if they cared to look up.

  I stifled a whimper and reached up to pat around the window ledge, trying to find the end of the skirt. I had to do something quickly, or I could possibly hang there forever with the breeze whistling round my underthings.

  I yanked on the garment as hard as I could until it ripped. I hoped it wasn’t too badly rent. It wouldn’t do to pitch up at the RCA with my skirt in tatters.

  I climbed down as far as I could and then jumped the rest of the way. The impact with the ground caused me to stumble and I sat down hard.

  That was when I saw our gardener, Harold, with clippers hoisted midchop over the privet hedge, his mouth open wide in bewilderment.

  “Oh!” I said from my seat on the ground.

  “Afternoon, Miss Darling,” he mumbled.

  Blast! How long had he been there? How much had he seen? The look on his face told me he had seen everything. His ruddy, weather-beaten features were even redder than usual. His glance traced from me to my window, where a long streamer of lace hung out, billowing in the wind.

  I looked at my skirt missing its wide lace edging.

  I didn’t care about the skirt, but I might as well have left a calling card for my mother telling her exactly how I had escaped.

  With as much dignity as I could muster, I struggled to my feet, waved at Harold, and ran.

  BY THE TIME I reached a busier street where I cou
ld flag a cab, I was panting like a hound, and my side ached. I found a hansom cab and directed the driver to the Royal College of Art.

  The school was housed at the back of the Victoria and Albert Museum, accessed through a side entrance on Exhibition Road. In the anteroom, honored paintings from former students hung from floor to ceiling. I stopped to scan the paintings, and my eyes lit on one I hadn’t seen before that looked inspired by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

  The PRB was a small group of Victorian artists famous for painting women from myth and story. Waterhouse, the painter of A Mermaid, was an inheritor of their legacy. I admired them so, and I longed to paint like them, but I wanted to portray men in myth and legend instead of women.

  This painting before me appeared to be inspired by John Everett Millais’s Ophelia. Millais, one of the PRB founders, had portrayed Shakespeare’s character floating in her watery grave, but in this one, the painter had chosen to depict the doomed Ophelia running toward the stream. He had beautifully caught the movement of the devastated girl and the light that fell upon her hair.

  I stepped closer to the work to inspect the brushstrokes. The sunlight streaming through the trees was filled with so many different colors. It was astonishing. How did he do that? This painting illustrated perfectly the reason why I had to attend the RCA. I wanted to know what this artist knew.

  Footsteps came from the back of the room. I turned around to see a balding man dressed in a morning suit and spectacles walking quickly toward me. He looked annoyed, as though I had interrupted him in some important task. “We aren’t open for viewing today, miss.” He held his hand out toward the door. “If you’ll just come back on Saturday, we’re open to the public from morning to teatime.”

  “No, no. I . . . I’ve . . .” My face blushed hotly. “I’ve not come to view, although the paintings here are extraordinary. I’ve come to inquire about the application process. And the scholarship,” I hastened to add, seeing the growing look of disinterest on his face. “I’m just inquiring as to when I can submit my sketchbook. I, uh, have it here if I can submit now.” I fumbled for it in my art satchel, and held it out to him. To my dismay, my hand trembled. “Um . . . what do I do?” I broke off. I sounded so daft, and not at all like the sophisticated artist I wanted to appear.