The Petticoat Men (55 page)

56

It was early summer when they came.

I was sitting on the steps like Mattie used to, only I had a little chair on the top step, just outside the open front door. It was so pleasantly warm and the sun just going down behind the other houses in Wakefield-street, my quiet time before the others came home wanting their dinner. Dodo was in her room lying on the red sofa we’d found for her; Billy and Tom had carried it home from the second-hand market behind Kings Cross and Mattie and Emily and I had covered it with soft red velvet. It was Dodo’s favourite thing in the world and it is where, now, she spends her days. She can no longer walk but she still entertains us all and marvels at human folly from her beloved newspapers and books.

I could hear Mattie and the children and Elijah from downstairs. Mattie was feeding them and Elijah was keeping order and there was a great deal of laughter. Three young children as well as making hats is no joke but you should see Mattie’s face; you might say three young children as well as making hats is no joke, but much joy.

When Elijah finally retired recently, past seventy – though Mr Gladstone was Prime Minister again by then and no talk of retirement from him – there was a clock presented, and both the Prime Minister and that Mr Disraeli made speeches in the Members’ Lobby. Dodo was carried up by the other doorkeepers and was sat by Elijah in a special chair of honour and her cakes were mentioned! And now they’ve came back to live with us at 13 Wakefield-street.

We had never heard anything more from, or even about, Freddie or Ernest except we read, only a few months after the trial, of the death of Mr Alexander Atherton Park, the Senior Master of the Court of Common Pleas. Poor sad old man. He was a casualty of the Men in Petticoats I think you might say. The only other thing we ever read about any of them ever again was when Lord Arthur’s sister died young, years ago, that pretty lady we saw being introduced to Ernest the night we went to see them acting in Clapham, before any of this happened, who Ernest said was the mistress of the Prince of Wales. There was a tiny half-hearted paragraph somewhere saying that Lady Susan Vane-Tempest, only sister of Lord Arthur Clinton, had died of rheumatic fever and was that Lord Arthur, seen at the funeral? So I suppose some journalist was hoping for scandal. But really the Men in Petticoats had been completely forgot.

So Dodo was on the red sofa, and I was sitting on the steps in the last of the evening sun when two gentlemen approached the house on foot. I would of course know Ernest Bolton anywhere, but the other man wasn’t Freddie.

‘Good evening, Mrs Stacey,’ said Ernest. He looked the same, but – older of course, it must have been more than ten years since we’d seen him I expect – and still like a woman in his features somehow, but – I was going to say ‘raddled’ but that would not be exactly fair. Worn, I suppose you might say. Still quite pretty, but worn – well we’d all worn in all that passing time.

‘Well well. Ernest Boulton,’ I said.

‘Good evening, Mrs Stacey. This is my brother Gerard.’

‘Hello, Gerard.’ He was almost nice-looking, in a more manly way; but not as striking as Ernest.

‘Good evening, Mrs Stacey. I have heard a great deal of you.’

‘I expect you have, Gerard. But it was all a long time ago.’

‘Gerard is my leading man these days. I had various leading men but they were all problems, and then Mama said, “Why not Gerard?” We toured with great success in America – did you hear?’

‘No. No we didn’t hear anything, Ernest. But that’s good. I’ve thought of you and Freddie sometimes, wondered how you were faring.’

Someone’s head had by now popped interestedly out of a window in the next-door house.

‘Could we – would you allow us to come inside briefly and speak to you?’

I looked at them carefully. ‘We dont have a single spare room in the house, Ernest. It’s mostly full of our rather large family.’

‘Not that,’ he said. ‘And also – I would like to show Gerard the house where we were – where we had happy times. If you didn’t mind.’ He didn’t look at me coyly from under his eyelashes, but almost.

‘All right, Ernest,’ I said. And I heard myself give an involuntary little groan as I stood, my blooming old bones.

Ernest showed Gerard the hallway, and the narrow staircase they used to sweep down in such excitement. I looked in on Dodo, she loved to have visitors, but she was asleep on the red sofa. Her clawed hands held a copy of the
Illustrated London News
to her breast. So I took them along to the back parlour: the old piano and the Joshua tree, both of them polished and shining, the way we always kept them still. Children’s voices and laughter echoed up from the downstairs kitchen but Ernest didn’t hear perhaps, or think about it. He looked about the parlour.

‘We twirled our gowns round here sometimes,’ he said to Gerard.

‘Where are you, my love?’ I’d left the front door open, Mackie would have seen the chair still there on the top step where I waited for him.

‘In the back parlour! We have visitors.’

Mackie did get a surprise to see Ernest, and Ernest to see him. He still looked like a fisherman, or a smuggler, Mackie, even though he was now the captain in charge of all the Gravesend ferries; he still had the beard and the long hair. Like Joseph the carpenter, someone once said long ago.

‘This is Gerard, Ernest’s brother. This is Mackie.’

They nodded to each other.

‘I’m glad you’re here,’ said Ernest to Mackie. But not coy; angry rather for some reason.

‘What are you doing these days, lad?’

‘We went to America for a while, Gerard and I – Gerard had talent for the stage, and though I say so myself, I took New York by storm!’ From his pocket he took some old newspaper clippings. He looked at them carefully, handed one to me. ‘It’s a poem dedicated to my talents. “Ernest Byne”, that’s what I called myself.’

ERNEST BYNE

Your airs and graces make us all

Believe you must be feminine;

Your acts, though you’re no
Harlequin
,

Do well deserve a
column, Byne.

‘Columbine, you see!’ said Ernest modestly.

‘I do see,’ I said. ‘I’m glad you’ve had success, Ernest. And what about Freddie?’

‘Nan! Nan! Nan! Nan! Nan!’ Children ran in, followed by Mattie and Elijah.

‘Blooming heck! Ernest!’ Mattie was so surprised she stood stock still in the middle of the room. She automatically put out her hand to seven-year-old Dorothy (after Dodo), and stared at him and the boys stopped their running and calling for a moment and stared too. After a moment she said: ‘We’ve got no rooms left, Ernest!’ but she said it with a smile.

‘No,’ he said, ‘we dont need rooms. This is my brother Gerard.’

‘Sit down, Ernest,’ I said. ‘What is it?’

He didn’t sit but he carefully took another of the old news clippings. It was to Mackie he spoke. ‘Last time I came here you accused me of not caring about old friends.’ He tossed his head just a little. ‘I didn’t mean to remember your words but I did, though I never thought to see you again. Anyway, it was said Lord Arthur escaped to France, or somewhere.’

‘He didn’t escape, lad. I helped put him in the coffin that the local man made.’

The room was silent. The children still stared, all shy at the visitors, big eyes looking out from the safety of their mother.

‘Where’s Billy?’ said Ernest to me at last. ‘Did he get his job in the Parliament back? We were found not guilty of anything!’

‘He’s a teacher, Ernest. With a wife who’s a teacher also. He didn’t want his job back in the end.’

‘I got mine back,’ offered Elijah. ‘The second day I was back, Members were coming crying to me with their problems as if I’d never been away! So it was all right, after all.’

And then we heard Billy and Emily talking together as they too came in the open front door.

‘In the parlour!’ I called.

‘Well! Ernest!’ said Billy, and he shook his hand and grinned at him, seemed really pleased to see Ernest after all this time. ‘This is Emily, my wife.’ ‘This is Gerard, my brother.’ And there was some rather embarrassed hand-shaking all round.

‘Go on, Ernest,’ I said. But I think I knew.

He simply handed the newspaper clipping to Mackie. Mackie winked at Billy before he read it, for now Mackie could read to us as well as anyone. I had loved to see them with their heads together evening after evening and books on the table and now Mackie reads to me sometimes.

But then the smile was gone. He read it out.

FREDERICK WILLIAM PARK, an Englishman. Died Newark, NJ, 29 March. Several years ago he entered the dramatic profession under the name of Fred Fenton but he never rose above small business. He was at one time at Fifth-Avenue Theatre. His remains were sent to Rochester, NY, where he had made his residence for some years, and were interred in Mount Hope Cemetery 2 April.

And then the room was quite silent as if some of us could hear kind Freddie laughing and rustling down the stairs in one of his satin gowns. I looked at Mattie’s face. I wished Tom was here also. She held Dorothy very tightly to her against her apron.

‘How did he die?’ said Mattie. ‘Were you with him, Ernest? Did he have friends in America? He was only your age, Billy.’

Ernest shrugged. ‘He was ill,’ was all he said. And then he turned back to Mackie. ‘You once accused me,’ he said again, ‘of not caring for my friends and living a life without caring. You know nothing of our lives, or what we might die of, but I remembered what you said. I’ve been carrying it around with me for over a year, I kept it for Mattie really, but I’m glad you are here.’ And he tossed his head as if he didn’t care at all.

‘I’m sorry about your friend,’ said Mackie. ‘I remember what he said to us that day you came.’

And I could see Freddie sitting there with his hands quite still on the piano as the notes died away and saying he was sorry for our trouble and I who
never
cry felt tears in my eyes of all things, for it was me who had been hard on them, not Mackie, not really, and our lives had been so changed.

Into this silence Tom Dent walked, in his solicitor’s suit and with his shiny, open face. ‘Ernest Boulton!’ he said in amazement.

‘Tom Dent!’ said Ernest in surprise. ‘From Lewis and Lewis! Whatever are you doing here?’ but he saw my two grandsons run to their father. Tom looked across at Mattie, his dear shining face and she walked across to him at the doorway with Dorothy, stood close to him.

‘We met because of the trial, Ernest,’ she said simply.

‘Mr Park sent me here,’ said Tom. ‘He told me to ask for Mattie, and how glad I am that he did.’

‘Mr Park is dead in America,’ said Elijah.

‘Oh – oh I am so sorry,’ said Tom, shocked. ‘I’m so sorry, Ernest, I liked him very much. Did he get my letter? Telling him I was to marry Mattie. I thought he would be pleased, for he sent me here, to her, he sent me here on purpose, I’m so sure he did. I posted the letter to his father’s house in Isleworth.’

‘I dont know if he got it,’ said Ernest. ‘His father died soon after the trial. I – I didn’t see Freddie so much after that. He went to America before we did. And I hardly even saw his brother. He was never the same again, Harry – and he had been such
good fun
and’ – Ernest shrugged his still elegant shoulders – ‘fun! But – even though he was very fit and strong the treadmill in the prison damaged him too much. He died.’ Ernest shuddered slightly. ‘Freddie was – changed. We tried to work together again in America at first but—’ He shrugged again. ‘It was no good. He was too changed.’

I was looking at Mattie. She stood surrounded by her family and listened grave and pale to the conversation.

‘Freddie didn’t, after all, have your resilience, Ernest,’ I said and I remembered the day in court when I had thought that. Ernest was the tough one after all. And I saw that it was me had to make the final peace at this strange meeting. ‘Ernest, I was very hard on you both that day you came to apologise to us. It wasn’t Mackie, not really. I was angry at what had happened to our lives, especially Billy losing his position and Mattie – for her to be called a crippled whore because of you seemed unforgivable. But’ – I looked across at all the dear faces in the room – ‘other things happened after all.’