index

The Unforgiving - Chapter One:

Sweetest Sugar & Bitter Dregs

‘Such delightful children, Edward!’

The scene is set. For an unforgettable occasion, perhaps – but perhaps not – there’s no way yet of telling. ‘Nothing ventured, Nothing gained!’ Drily Mrs Cathcart entertained the glib phrase her erstwhile husband would have uttered on occasions such as this. Not that there had ever been any occasions like this exactly; and surely, not in the whole history of the world could this occasion in all its uniqueness and indeterminacy ever be replicated, let alone exactly? Elizabeth Cathcart quibbled with herself inwardly as once she had felt obliged to quibble with her erstwhile husband; and husbands do not come more erstwhile than poor Henry now!

Poor Henry, indeed! What nonsense was this? She had eaten her fill. It was time to raise the subject. ‘Now or Never!’ She braced herself firmly, mentally crossing her fingers for luck, as any minute now – unless she herself were to make something happen – she would have to rise, thank the man for inviting her, compliment him on a most palatable tea and then ask him to summon in the parlourmaid with her cloak and gloves. And that, presumably, would be that; her host might accompany her to the door, but even if he did, it would be too late to speak. It must be Now or Never, and only the one chance: faites vos jeux! Mrs Cathcart cleared her throat and said out loud, with almost too much of a rush: ‘Such delightful children, Edward!’

Edward Glass inclined his head. He did not betray himself by either frowning or smiling. Had he asked this widow to call him ‘Edward’? He could not, in truth, recall, but the scene had undoubtedly shifted, the action was moving on fast. How readily and with what alarming zest this woman had entered into the spirit of their encounter! He watched her detachedly like a man at the theatre, but to his surprise he could not sit back and simply enjoy himself. He too was up there on stage, part of some performance that was even then unfolding, only too rapidly.

‘Oh yes, the children, yes!’

As a fellow-actor rather than a high-handed critic, Glass wondered at Mrs Cathcart who sat before him in his drawing-room, playing her tricky part with such fluency and poise that he almost conjectured whether there wasn’t, in fact, some script? But no, they had no plan to refer to, fall back on and, in the event of disaster, blame. No draughtsman in this drama to seek out and sack. He thought of those slapdash architects who, hastily scurrying with too much work, had buildings of four storeys actually under roof – the floors only held in place by temporary stays – before they decided on the layout of the interior or the style of their façades. Edward Glass, of course, did not work this way and yet here he was, and here also was Mrs Elizabeth Cathcart. Glass shifted in his chair. Yes, he admired a woman who knew so well what she wanted.

Mrs Cathcart paused, sipped at her coffee and, after a poignantly reflective smile to command his attention and engage his sympathy, she appeared to find the courage to resume. Her bravery in the face of such hazard was remarkable while her earnest, careful enthusiasm made her seem disarmingly vulnerable. The pitch of her voice was probably overdone, a risk he could see she must take. Edward Glass found himself, in spite of himself, willing her now to succeed.

‘Such darling little faces, all three of them, the same. So full of life – Stacia, Milla and Helen! Tragically motherless as I, once …’ (her voice fell modestly; he was startled then by the eyes she raised to meet his, sparkling bright in suspended frenzy. She was over the brink and brisk, almost businesslike) ‘… that is long past. They are the ones suffering now, poor darlings! How I long to help! If only I could assist in some way, Edward …’

Bravo, bravo! How could be match that? Out of habit, probably, he wondered if he would ever dare kiss such determined lips. Quickly he dismissed the thought, this was clearly his cue. But what were his lines, what was he meant to say?

The servants did what they could, but it wasn’t easy. Mrs Curzon, the elderly housekeeper, probably tried her best, but clearly the place and the children were too much for her without Sarah there. He himself, Edward Glass, Architect, could not deny that he was at a loss between these four walls, in this structure he’d bought but not built.

What, other than this, was to be done with three not-so-little girls, Stacia, Milla and Helen, the daughters of whom he found it impossible to think himself fond? The woman was trying to make it easy for him. She had said her difficult lines most convincingly. Glass sighed. This was not the kind of problem Edward Glass was used to. What fresh adjustments to the calculations or clever shift in the loadings could deftly solve this one? This was a wife’s province, these daughters, Mrs Curzon, this large dark house in unfashionable York Street – but Sarah had abandoned her responsibilities and left without notice, leaving him to it. He too would like nothing better than to get right away. But something would have to be done first. Prompt action was desperately needed before the entire construction crumbled completely, some new mainstay must be lodged in place without delay Yet still Edward Glass, the Architect, hesitated.

Belying her outward calm, Mrs Cathcart sipped noiselessly at her coffee-cup and giddily pictured the wheel spinning – how long must she endure this agony, what was the man thinking about? She gripped her only prop and tasted the bitter dregs fearing lest she snap off the delicate china handle and choke while holding her breath and not being seen to do so.

In his mind’s eye, Edward Glass saw an iron girder being fixed in a panic and with great difficulty across the dome of an over-ambitious cupola. It was raised, lowered, twisted and then bolted into position. It looked magnificent! As inspired, unelaborate solution that miraculously appeared afterwards to be a deliberate, flamboyant feature of the design. The girder had secured more than a cupola; where would his Reputation be now if that wretched cupola had cracked or toppled and his first extraordinary building had been, as it very nearly might have been, a complete and expensive disaster?

Instead, he had won the Illustrious Gold Medal, received from the alabaster hands of the Prince Consort himself. ‘The first of many I am, yes, confident in believing,’ young Prince Albert had politely prophesied in broken English. ‘Arcanum Arcanorum?’ he had been overhead asking an official: ‘I do not comprehend what is this Arcanum Arcanorum?’ It was a question Glass had enjoyed repeating, recounting the event, making much of the German accent: ‘I do not comprehend what is this Arcanum Arcanorum?’. He said it to himself. He’d repeated it mockingly when underlings asked him questions, or playfully when women tried, as women will, to extract promises and pin him down.

Poor Albert! The pale fellow from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha found England somewhat confusing. Obscure architects, using furtive noms de plume, confirmed his suspicions that it amused Victoria’s loyal subjects to club together and deliberately make life complicated just for the sake of it. Arcanum Arcanorum – the most secret of secrets, indeed! Prince Albert made no secret of his continual confusion. So many Royal sentences had begun ‘I do not comprehend …’ that if Albert had been a music-hall farceur this might well have caught on as his catch-phrase. As it was the young Prince looked the young architect straight in the eye and allowed him to overhear his question, ‘What is this Arcanum Arcanorum?’

Funny to think of those countless Albert Memorials Arcanum Arcanorum had later had a hand in. From civic bodies all over the Land there had come ardent entreaties: ‘Sir, Consequent on our Nation’s sad Loss … our dear Queen’s sorrow … our Beloved Prince’s demise … to be funded by Public Subscription … prominent City-site being sought … And who better …’

Who better, indeed? Edward Glass had been up-and-coming, the ‘genius of the future’ they’d said, needing a young architect to say it about, and Edward Glass was as likely as any. How full of himself this had made him! Other architects would have leapt at the chance (Albert, though German, had been popular, his decorated Christmas trees had caught on and the craze for Memorials was an opportunity to show off at the expense of a subscribing Public) but this ‘genius of the future’ had refused to waste his time and his talents on such politic trivia. The money on offer had been good though, so Edward Glass dashed off a drawerful of flimsy sketches in a careless confusion of styles: appropriate memorials to the Consort’s confusion, he’d laughed, signing his name with an expensive flourish and instructing an assistant to send them out on request. The accompanying invoices had received rather more care and attention. Young and brash though he’d been, Glass knew even then that no Artist can ever be sufficiently established in his field that he can afford to insult City Dignitaries with mean and paltry bills. The invoices were unflorid but quite unequivocal.

That was a long time ago. Few of Edward Glass’s Albert Memorials were ever actually built: the sketches had baffled the builders; the loyal Public had subscribed, but only enough to cover the cost of commissioning such prestigious designs. And yet the illustrious Gold Medal had indeed been ‘the first of many’. So it was the resplendent precarious cupola and not the re liable girder Edward Glass usually recalled whenever he thought about his first important success.

But now, sitting opposite Mrs Elizabeth Cathcart, a respectable impoverished widow, he remembered how that sturdy iron girder had saved him and how the Prince Consort’s subsequent demise had been a lucrative business for Glass & Co.

‘I do not comprehend what is this Arcanum Arcanorum? Glass said the old words to himself and, like a man at the theatre again, but one whose attention has wandered, he looked abruptly and guiltily back at Mrs Cathcart. He wondered how he came to be entertaining such a plain-looking specimen, but then he noticed the sorry way she was clutching her cup which must by now be empty. He seized a plate of fish-paste sandwiches and thrust it towards her.

Mrs Cathcart, aware she had already overstretched the proceedings and long since eaten that most personal of things, her ‘fill’, leant gingerly, gratefully forward and helped herself. If she had more shame she would rise, thank the man, compliment him on a palatable tea, etc, but instead she sat eating indigestible sandwiches in the hope that he might speak. She had no shame for she had no choice. It was Now or Never, though only she knew it.

Curious how the woman lingered, giving him time, pinning him down,. She had an artistry about her that a woman who relied on her looks alone would have lacked. A curious woman altogether. Curious too, Glass thought, how the housekeeper had decided sandwiches (sandwiches!) were called for.

He had deferred other things, not just the tiresome domestic chores Sarah had occasionally endeavoured to involve him in. It seemed to him sometimes he had spent his whole life deferring, putting off till later for fear that there might be nothing left, nothing more after. Deferring too the project he dreamed of, the building he’d one day set on this earth that wouldn’t be the compromise architects usually make between what they can imagine creating and the budget set aside for the job. This construction would disregard all the ordinances, conventions, regulations, costs, illustrious medals and implacable critics – petty considerations that fettered the imagination and tripped up and confined the fantastic. For once in his life, just once if need be – and as soon as possible - Arcanum Arcanorum would construct something true that soared deep from his hidden, most inner reserves. Glass thought how Sarah had left only this behind her, this inconvenience. If he were ever to be free to effect that masterpiece he must surely speak to Elizabeth Cathcart at once.

Edward Glass glanced out of the window. I know nothing about the woman, he thought. I knew little enough about Sarah.

Child-bearing, or rather child-loss (Sarah lost more children than ever survived), had altered the Sarah Edward had once known. William had been their first born. The long gap between him and the next surviving, Stacia, could be accounted for by a succession of coffins of varying little sizes. Sarah had steadily lost interest in life and then – wholly unlooked for – Stacia, Milla and Helen had arrived and survived. All girls, unfortunately, but each time Edward came home they still seemed to be in the house and then William had quarrelled with his father and gone away and Sarah Glass had taken to her bed. The little girls thought of her as ‘Poor Mamma’, someone Mrs Curzon ushered them into the dark to see, warning them to keep quiet and not to touch anything or cause a disturbance. Sarah lay in her airless, darkened room, unable to care whether the three girls lived or choked themselves into three more satin-lined coffins. She was unmindful also of their happiness, yet because she was their mother, but without enthusiasm, she ensured they were clothed correctly and sent to school. Lying in bed, propped painfully on cushions, she let them see the effort their continued existence caused her but she hid from them, as she hid from Edward, when he visited, the true weariness inside. A weariness beyond any weeping.

Edward rarely came and Sarah did not blame him. There was nothing to encourage him to come. They were strangers to each other, and when occasionally they met they had no reason not to exchange, or to exchange anything other than, a polite but meaningless greeting.

Sarah’s last illness was undramatic and not unwelcomed by her. Edward called one evening to say ‘Good Evening!’ but she responded with a deliberate, if constrained, ‘Goodbye!’ Her certainty, her quiet finality dawned on him afterwards as he stood beside their lively daughters at her funeral, Milla and Stacia giggling.

Theirs had not been the most fortunate marriage, Sarah had concluded, watching her husband walk from her room that last time. She no longer knew what she had once expected, but it had not been this: living alone in this joyless house with a permanent headache, an overbearing housekeeper (mentioning wills every time she had a relapse) and Stacia, Milla and Helen. When she looked at their eager young faced she knew life could only let them down. The thought of this worsened her worsening headaches and hastened her approaching death. As she unregretfully breathed her last, alone in the cold still hours of an unremarkable morning, Sarah Glass wondered briefly what would become of her three small daughters when even she, who had done so little, was no longer there.

Edward Glass lived for his work and for the great masterpiece he intended to produce one day. The rest of life, Sarah, their home, his other interests, were entirely incidental, and of this, unlike the configurations of his buildings, he made no secret. Sarah had been a loyal quiet wife. Her unexpected death was the only major inconvenience she had ever caused. She had been all that a wife should be. He had no reason to suppose Mrs Cathcart might not be the same.

It was Edward Glass’s turn to clear his throat: ‘Mrs Cathcart …‘

He had her attention; she nibbled at her sandwich, her free hand adjusting the modest frills of her widow’s white muslin collar. She was nervous but she was prepared. ‘Please,’ she pleaded with him fearfully, eagerly, silently: ‘Get it over with, rien ne va plus, Now or Never, once and for all!’

‘Elizabeth, if love is said to be the salt of life, we may surely called wedded love its sweetest sugar …’ A perfectly appropriate speech, and one he rather thought he had read in a book.

Elizabeth Cathcart had read the same book. In her nervousness she almost smiled at the peculiarity of this recollection. She had read the book on a bookstall, skimming its pages bemusedly – impoverished women like herself were surely the curse of all bookshops! The benign bookseller had watched her, resigned, until she’s felt uncomfortable beneath his silent gaze, put the book down and moved away. It had been a kindness, his saying nothing. It generally is. Elizabeth of late had become a recipient of and recognised such kindnesses clearly. People lent her books, sometimes she got to read other women’s magazines; the costume she was now sitting in had been borrowed from a friend. Well, not a friend exactly – women in her position did not have friends – an interested acquaintance then. Lent out of pity, so that the pin which held a big tuck, just under her armpit, dug into her flesh like a sharp and timely reminder. The borrowed dress had been taken in – though who was ever taken in? – and a widow’s white muslin collar discreetly tacked around the neck. She had wondered, standing at the bookseller’s counter while he said nothing and she skim-read the speeches, what sort of person would actually purchase such a book: Speeches for Any Occasion, was it? Speeches to Make when Speech Fails You, perhaps, or The Speech: that which is spoken Unforgettably on Occasions … You would have thought a clever man like Glass would not need a book to refer to, fall back on and, in the event of a disaster, blame. Was he so clever that he conserved his cleverness, whereas she must direct any cleverness she had towards this end? This ‘occasion’ she had made to happen? As unique and indeterminate as other occasions she had somehow brought about in the past. A past Edward Glass knew nothing about …

‘I am growing silently hysterical,’ Elizabeth warned herself sharply, sitting there being herself and yet also seeing herself sitting there; feeling the pin pricking painfully, and yet glad of the reminder. She looked down at her feet, at her shabby old shoes. He could not know that she knew he had learnt this speech from a book, but to doubt what Glass knew would be to underestimate the man and Edward Glass was obviously not someone to be estimated lightly. He spoke earnestly enough and presumably books of speeches were written to be spoken earnestly on unforgettable, otherwise speechless occasions such as this.

‘What am I letting myself in for?’ Elizabeth contemplated the question with rather an outsider’s interest since whatever the outcome it could not possibly be worse than the last time: ‘Henry James Cathcart, I thee take …’ What a silly romantic girl she had been! If what she was embarking on now was foolish or rash, at least her expectations were realistic and her circumstances desperate enough to warrant the risk. She could no longer remember what she had ever seen in Henry Cathcart, a smooth-tongued young man who’d certainly have scorned a book of speeches. He had been ready with his words – if precious little else.

She glanced up and saw how Edward glass was speaking straight to the wall behind her, the thin winter light from the window falling dimly across the concealment of his face. The day before, behind with her rent, driven by despair but bearing the infinite possibilities of this afternoon in mind, Elizabeth had stood on the landing and murmured something to the landlord’s wife: not a lie, but not altogether true. The landlord’s wife had gripped the balustrade and taken a decent step backwards, away from the edge of unpleasantness: ‘The Edward Glass? You?’ She had slightly altered her manner, for she had heard of the architect’s wife’s untimely demise, but she could not resist adding, in tones the trade had hardened her to adopt sometimes: ‘Well, Mrs Cathcart, I find that hard to believe, to be sure!’ Nevertheless the immediate problem of the unpaid rent had temporarily receded and here, those same circumstances that had driven Elizabeth Cathcart to regretful, wishful invention were even now being turned inside-out. No wonder she felt her self split in two, her old self watching as her new self took over.

Elizabeth fancied she saw a hint of her own difficulties reflected in this sad shuttered face before her and, though the fire blazed in the grate, she shivered. Which of them was more to be pitied, he speaking borrowed words or she in a borrowed costume, tucked and tacked?

Then the speech (which Elizabeth, having read it already, did not attend to and Edward scarcely heard himself making) petered out, such speeches having no natural conclusion and ending in books with a row of printed dots … The hearer may respond to a question-mark if she so chooses. Elizabeth duly chose. Elizabeth smiled.

‘Of course,’ she said and, as if to leave no room for doubt, she repeated herself: ‘Of course, dear Edward, I’d be delighted.’

Only too delighted. Fait accompli! There was a pause. Then Mrs Cathcart asked with wifely consideration and the new confidence to be expected of her: ‘Shall I ring for a fresh pot of coffee? You must feel thirsty …’

‘Thank you, er – my dear! I’m sure Mrs Curzon will be happy to see to it.’

While they waited for the housekeeper to answer the summons, Elizabeth Cathcart and Edward Glass looked calmly at one another. They were both exhausted but relieved that the heady performance was over; the wheel had stopped and yes, she supposed, she had won. The pay-out was evens – something unforgettable, but something they would neither of them choose to remember, had undoubtedly taken place.

‘I told you so!’ Elizabeth jubilantly clinched her inward quarrel as if with the erstwhile Henry. ‘Unforgettable, completely and utterly unique, as the wheel spins, as occasions go!’

‘As soon as possible, I think,’ Edward Glass said. Having made a decision, he was impatient to see it implemented for, like the like Sarah Glass before him, he wished to be gone from this house. ‘In fact, the sooner the better …’

‘Of course,’ Mrs Cathcart assented again. How the landlord’s wife’s disbelieving eyes would bulge: Mrs Edward Glass! She smiled at the man across the room, but if the distinguished architect saw her he did not particularly respond. She looked down at her shabby old shoes and resolved on the immediate purchase of a new pair. ‘The sooner the better, certainly.’