Authors: Sally Beauman
I didn’t know what the Red Flag was, and Maman wouldn’t tell me, but I knew red was a danger signal. I hated those bandages. I hated my budding breasts. I wanted to slice them off and be an Amazon. They were like a malignant growth, and I knew, if they grew any more, my princeling days were numbered. No more doomed boys for me—and then what would I do? I loved my doomed boys. I practiced their deaths; I died so
well
—everyone said so.
When Maman learned she was to play Desdemona, her mood changed instantly; overnight, a transformation! Out came the sun, the clouds lifted, Maman’s eyes sparkled again and all the courage I loved and admired returned to her. I forgot about my bandages, and all my other petty selfish concerns. I heard her lines again and again; we practiced the “Willow Song” in the blue dusk of Plymouth Sound September evenings.
She has a premonition she’s going to die, don’t you think, Maman?
I said, and Maman frowned at the sea beyond the St. Agnes windows, and said,
Perhaps, Becka. Maybe, my darling
.
I watched Maman die again and again. She would lie back on Millicent’s black horsehair chaise longue. We would imagine the murdering husband, imagine the ways he killed: stifle or strangle? Shakespeare doesn’t make it definite; Maman thought
stifle
. “Which is better, Becka?” she’d say. “With my head at this angle, or that one?”
And those strange speeches Desdemona has
after
she’s apparently been killed—when the audience thinks she’s dead and gone and silenced forever. Those speeches obsessed Maman. She felt she should give a small premonitory flutter of her hand, then rise up very suddenly and speak. It must take them by surprise; it would be a true coup de théâtre. “I shall give a wild cry,” she said. “
My
Desdemona won’t die quietly—she’s always played wrongly, Becka. I
know
she’d fight back. This is a woman who defied her father and ran off with a blackamoor. She isn’t some milksop, she’s a woman of spirit, and that’s why the Moor loves her.”
It made me desperately sad. I agreed with everything she said, and I hadn’t the heart to tell her. None of this would happen; Sir Frank wouldn’t countenance it for a second. He’d elbow Maman into an ignominious, invisible death no matter what she did; he’d interpose his body between her and the audience; he’d clamp the pillow on her mouth midspeech if necessary, and he’d
drown her out
. Maman’s low voice didn’t carry much beyond the front three rows of the stalls anyway. What hope did she have, with Sir Frank center stage, in the shaft of the limes, going at it with that terrible, magnificent male voice, full throttle?
So I watched her die again and again, and my heart bled. The clock was ticking, ticking on the St. Agnes mantelshelf; she had four months to live and neither of us knew that. A black marble mantel
and a black marble tomb. No rehearsals prepare you for what death’s actually like, my darling. When that change came to Maman, when she went through that door and it slammed in my face…dear God, it was horrible. No miraculous golden words, no tender gestures, just incoherence and ugliness. It happens so
fast
. It turned me to stone; I couldn’t move or think. It was Danny who closed her eyes and stroked the sheet over her.
Don’t do that
, I said. I said,
Who’s that crying, Danny—I can hear a baby crying
. And Danny said,
Hush, hush—there’s no baby, what makes you think that? It’s you crying, dear—just you sit with her quietly for a while, then I’ll take you downstairs. Someone special’s waiting to see you
.
I
T WAS MY DEAD
D
EVLIN FATHER, DEAREST, BACK FROM HIS
underworld. But I’m ahead of myself. There was an interim—and it’s the interim that I promised you we’d step into.
Imagine a murky tunnel; it’s four months long. At one end of it is my mother, St. Agnes, and a theater still lit by gas-jets; at the other, my father, and a house too far from the sea, called Greenways. In the background, pulsing away, is a war we’re supposed to win by Christmas, but don’t. All the women in the company have started knitting, knitting, mufflers for our brave boys at the front, and all the eligible men are talking tactics and recruiting officers.
Maman died wildly, with wild cries, at the
Othello
first night, and I think Sir Frank never forgave her. Danny and I sat side by side in the audience; Danny’s clockwork whirred, and she shed tears when Desdemona was silenced. For those tears, I forgive her for much that happened afterward. I held her hand: I was afraid for Maman. I had cramps in my stomach; my head ached and I felt dizzy with nerves. I was bleeding, I discovered in the second interval. Was this the Red Flag? I wiped the blood off and went back to my seat. I wondered if I’d bleed to death, and how long that took. Who’d die first, me or Desdemona?
The following week, it was
Henry IV, Part 1
; Orlando Stephens was playing Hotspur—he was born to play Hotspur, in my opinion. He was a dashing, sweet, hotheaded fool. He had a million ideas a minute, and none of them sensible. Maman and I were in the audience that night; we went backstage afterward to see him, and, still in
costume, standing at his dressing room door, Orlando announced he’d joined up that afternoon. Maman went white to the lips, her eyes rolled back in her head, then she fell to the floor in a dead faint. Orlando gave her brandy to drink; I ran to fetch sal volatile. When I came back, she was in his arms, being called his “sweet,” being told he’d write every day without fail. A promise Orlando kept for less than two months:
Food for worms, brave Percy
. He died at the first battle of Ypres, that November.
So, what was the meaning of
that
scene, my darling? I was such an ignoramus then; I didn’t really know where babies come from. I was still putting clues together, and my understanding was imperfect. But I have the double vision that comes with age now: I have hindsight, second sight—look at the chart and I score a perfect 20/20. Now I’m carrying a child, just as she was, so I ask myself, Was Orlando, younger than my mother by twenty years, the father of the baby I didn’t even know she was expecting?
It’s possible, but there are other possibilities, too. Sir Frank had always felt a tendresse for Maman, and she
had
been promoted recently. There had been other men, from time to time, who had admired Maman, who liked her “pretty ways,” and to whom she responded. Maman
was
headstrong; she was vulnerable to men’s interest and flattery; without a second thought, without caring how dangerous it might be, she followed where her heart led her.
I love her for that generosity of spirit, but she was not a good judge of character, and she trusted too easily. Dear Maman! She remained an innocent until the day she died—far more innocent than I was. But then I’d learned my lesson years before on a beach in Brittany. I
always
knew that men were the enemy.
O
NCE
O
RLANDO HAD LEFT THE COMPANY
, M
AMAN’S
strength declined rapidly; she fainted twice in the wings. I knew that my wiles and Sir Frank’s gallantry wouldn’t protect her from the wife’s yellow jealous cat eyes much longer. When the season ended at Plymouth, and the company made ready to move on to Bristol, the crisis came. A shamefaced Sir Frank explained that takings were down yet again, and economies had to be made; bearing in mind my mother’s indisposition, and my unfortunate tendency to grow….
“Dear Lady, I fear we must part,” he said, shifting from foot to foot in the St. Agnes front parlor. “In view of my indebtedness to you and to Missy here, if you will permit…” He reached his hand into his waistcoat pocket.
“I will
not
permit!” Maman cried, those two scarlet flags of color mounting in her cheeks. “Frank, you are a dear good man, but I couldn’t.”
We were broke, no savings, and I wasn’t so scrupulous. I followed Sir Frank out, and bending down from his great height, he kissed me on both cheeks, called me “Missy” one last time, begged me to write, and gave me the waistcoat check. Written with a flourish: Pay to Mrs. Isabel Devlin the sum of ten guineas.
The check bounced, and Sir Frank never answered the letters I sent, but I don’t hold that against him. He was a fraud, but he was also a hero (and
they’re
thin on the ground, my darling, as rare as unicorns). We managed without that money anyway. There was a week’s kerfuffle at St. Agnes, much toing and froing and whispering behind doors; there was an atmosphere of malaise, panic, and hopelessness. Doctors came and went; Millicent and my mother were thick as thieves, but Millicent was old by then and didn’t know what to do, I could tell. Maman wept into that scrap of a lace handkerchief of hers—and I was excluded.
I walked Marine Parade and looked at warships. I talked to the gulls. I couldn’t help, all my offers of help were rejected. “You’re just a child, dearie, and your mother doesn’t want you worried,” Millicent said—but I knew that wasn’t true. I wasn’t a child anymore; I wasn’t a woman, either. I couldn’t be a doomed boy. I had no function, no gender, no identity; others were making decisions, making arrangements, the females were rallying, I could sense it—and meanwhile I was trapped in a hinterland; I was down there with the unborn and unbaptised, in Limbo.
The next thing I knew, Danny had arrived. She was taking charge—and how she relished it! Danny’s always been drawn to crisis; she flies to it the way iron filings fly to a magnet. Suddenly, she’d given up her position, was back at St. Agnes, and was ordering everyone around, me included. Maman was quite seriously ill, she said; she needed a rest cure; all the doctors were unanimous: She’d been overworking, and her nerves were strained from fatigue and fretting
about my welfare. Maman needed to rest and build up her health for a few months. It was possible Danny might be able to get her into a convalescent home she knew of; if so, Danny would be going with her, she wouldn’t dream of leaving her side. Meanwhile, such excitement, a sanctuary had been found for me. Just for a while, a few months, until Maman was quite recovered, I was to stay with Maman’s sister, Evangeline, in her beautiful house, St. Winnow’s.
Evangeline had been to see Maman the previous day, it seemed, when I’d happened to be out shopping with Millicent. It was all arranged, there was nothing to worry about. My aunt would pay any nursing home fees; meanwhile, it would be a great opportunity for me. St. Winnow’s was a fine establishment; I would move in the best circles, and no doubt pick up all kinds of useful instruction from those two fine young ladies, my cousins Elinor and Jocelyn.
Such an arrant lie. Danny’s eyes slid away. I stared at the aspidistra in its brass pot; I dug my bitten nails into my palms. My
aunt?
My
cousins?
They’d ignored my existence since the day I was born—for nearly fourteen years, they’d ignored me. Evangeline had made Maman feel like a pariah. I knew what this lie was hiding: I was being bundled away from some terrible truth. What was it, was Maman dying?
I left Danny there, talking to the walls; helter-skelter up the stairs to the new room where they’d put Maman. She was lying in bed, blue shadows under her beautiful eyes; that cunning locket was around her throat; Tennyson’s
Complete Works
lay on the counterpane. I flung myself across her, and Maman held me tight; she stroked my black Devlin hair; we were both crying.
“Darling,” she said. “I love you with all my heart. You know that, Becka. You’re the only thing that matters to me, and I would never lie to you. I promise you, I’m not dying. I’m not seriously ill. I just need to rest for a while—we’ll be together again in just a few months, my sweet, I swear to you.”
Fait accompli. Dispatched to St. Winnow’s. There, no one explained to anyone who I was. I was just a relation, one of the tribes of Grenville connections. I was camouflaged by vagueness. They walled up my mother, brick by brick; they entombed her in reticence. Maman must never be mentioned; her name was never uttered except by Evangeline, and then only when she was alone with me.
I’m sure they’d never have taken me in, had straitlaced Sir Joshua not been away for months, making a tour of foreign shipping yards. I was put in a cold attic room, and forbidden to speak to the servants. Everyone in this house was half dead; they were dying of anemia. I was expected to sit, to take tea, to sew, to modulate my behaviour, alter my way of speech and reform all my attitudes. I mustn’t wear my hair loose. I mustn’t face the air without gloves, and a hat, an umbrella or a parasol. I mustn’t walk alone anywhere, except in the garden. I mustn’t run or raise my voice, and I should speak only when spoken to.
Dearest, I started dying inside. My heart shriveled. Danny sent twice-weekly bulletins and said Maman was too weak to write. Only my anger kept me going.
No one was unkind, exactly. They kept me in the cage, and they fed me regularly—no red meat, though! They put their hands through the bars and stroked my fur and remarked on my odd habits and appearance. I was a very exotic little beast, a
chien mechant
—and they were wary. Who bred this little bitch, with her doubtful pedigree? I might bite the hand that stroked and fed me, look how I snarled, look what sharp little teeth I had! Careful, careful: I might shame them all by some sudden unspeakable bestial barbarity.
What fools! I could mimic them and their milksop ways inside a week. I could do their accents and their gestures within a day. I could speak their language if necessary. And when Evangeline saw that, she grew a little bolder and a little bolder. I was allowed outside the kennel occasionally.
First, Elinor, the elder and sharper of my cousins, took me out on the leash. Elinor was not living at St. Winnow’s, she was training to be a voluntary nurse, a VAD, at a hospital in Exeter; on one of her rare visits, she took me to Kerrith, and when I didn’t disgrace her in the shops or streets, took me to a house called The Pines, to call on her friends, old Mrs. Julyan, and her soldier son, Arthur. “He’s a fine man,” Elinor said, striding briskly up the hill. “Two days’ leave from his regiment. His wife’s expecting their first child. I must inquire after her.”