The Devotee

(Consider this a completely optional epilogue.

The story ended in the last episode. But I couldn't resist tying up loose ends. Because that's what novels do. And with over 124,000 words, there were quite a lot of loose ends.

Also, Edith had to finally tell Ida her story of doing something stupid.

I have grown fond of Edith and Ida. I want to write more stories about them, maybe driving around in a carriage, solving financial crimes and having lots of sex.)

*

Epilogue

From the diary of Ida Plank:

25 December 1905

Well I ave kept a diary after all.

I am writin this in bed in Edith's room in Curl House.

Its Christmas Day night. Tomorrow is Boxing Day.

Edith is next to me asleep.

She has a little scar between her eye brows, and a smaller one at her hair line, and one on the side of her head but the hair is almost grown over it.

Shes so lovely. My lovely Edith.

So I found love too.

Oh but oo knew? Dorothys 'fiancay Henry' is not a bloke, she is Henrietta, and she is an old friend of Edith. Wot are the chances! Dorothy didnt want to tell me cos she didnt realise I like women. We ave had dinner with them a few times. Henrietta is very nice and funny, and she makes Dorothy very appy.

Speakin of appy, Mr. C and Kate have set a date. His mum and dad were a bit wary at first, and so were hers come to think of it, but nobody oo meets Kate can not fall a bit in love with her, and Mr C is a good sort really. I know I shouldnt be proud of er becos its not like I am why Kate is ow she is, she is just nicer than I am. But I feel proud.

Mr and Mrs F ave been charged with assault, in Mrs F's case 'occasioning bodily harm'.

Isabella has taken a job in Mr Squires house, workin with Mrs Hill and the gardener Mr Stone. Shes more cheerful now she as to do somethin for a living.

Dear Edith. She ties herself in knots tryin to do right by people. At the same time she wants to go with what she feels. So she sometimes does very silly things.

Like divin in front of a bullet to save me.

I sez to her the other day, Why didnt you just shove me into the pool, I was right next to it and you were on the other side of me, and you wouldnt ave got hit in the head.

She thought about this and sez, I couldnt push you into a pool Ida.

I sez, But the bullet would have missed us.

She sez, But it would be a horrible thing to do.

I sez, Well not really if it meant not gettin shot.

She burst out, Oh look I wasnt thinking.

I sez, Never mind it was still lovely of you, and I gave her lots of kisses.

We are spendin Christmas with Mr Squire, EF and I, an Kate and Mr C., an H. It as been lovely.

Mr Squire is very nice but we did ave a bit of a funny moment.

We were unwrappin presents this mornin and e gave me somethin. I unwrapped it and it was the book. Idylls of the King.

E sez, I believe this is yours.

I was very touchd but I sez, O sir, I dont think so. I cant take this.

E sez, but I gave it to you.

I opend it up and e had written in it. Again. In pen.

'To Ida Plank from Lionel Squire, 25 December 1905, for her to read and enjoy.'

I looked up.

Sir I sez, I really think you should keep it. It was given to you. And look what happend when you gave it to me. It should be yours.

And I gave it back to him. He lookd a bit sad but e xcepted it. I didnt ave the heart to tell im Im more of a Browning person.

But then e did something lovely god bless im.

E sez, Very well if you are sure. I did get you something else, though. I was going to get you a slide rule, but Edith said you dont really need one.

No not really, I sez. I mean there wonderful but there not right for my job.

So I got you this, he said. It came out this year. Our newest classic.

He give me another book shaped present and I open it. Its a big fat blue book with golden decorations. I look at the spine.

It sez, POETICAL WORKS OF R. BROWNING. At the bottom of the spine it says 'Oxford'.

O Mr Squire, I sez. Bless you.

I open it up and its got all the good stuff.

He smiles and sez, Edith tells me you are more of a Browning person anyway.

I met Mr Squires friend Mr Scope. Quite witty. Not sure about him. E is nice to EF but think he dont know what to make of me. E is workin away at his new novvel. Wouldnt tell us wot its about but he sez it will be a lovely surprize.

H is is mostly er usual self but she aint tryin anythin on with Edith and me, cos she can see were tight now, and aint foolin around anymore.

She seems a bit in the dumps. She sez a sad thing before dinner.

We were in the drawin room (whys it called that? Nobody does drawin in it) and we were avin these little crackers with Ardenns patay (EF sez that I dont want to know wot this is made of, cos if I knew, I wouldnt eat it, so I dont ask, but it aint alf nice), and champain, and I was with EF, and Mr C was there with Kate, and H lookd around and sez, It is lovely to see how you have all found each other.

Be nice if it had happend without all the drama, I sez.

Oh, I love drama, she sez. Id love to write an operetta. But I cant find someone to write with.

Wot did you say they had to be like, EF sez. The person you would fall in love with. We talkd about this, you and I.

Yes, H sez. They would need to be beautiful, and passionate, and love litritchur, and have a talent for drama, and love music, and I think they should also have to love me, and want to live with me in a pleasure dome, that we should build with the richs we should earn from the operetters we should write together, and servants would wait on us, and we should make love all day long, xcept when we are hard at work.

An she smile at us but looks sad, like this is someone she shall never find.

I sez, Funny you should say that.

*

From the diary of Edith Fawcett

Friday 22 May 1908

Well, tonight was not the least challenging evening of my life.

I have let this diary lapse for some time, having been busy with other things. But I am picking it up again.

The February 1906 general election resulted in a landslide victory for the Liberal party, under the late Mr Campbell-Bannerman. The seat for Southwich, which was being defended by Mr Freehold's replacement, was lost to the Liberal candidate, Mr Merrill. Mrs Webb was very pleased.

Mr and Mrs Freehold were released from prison after only two years, disgraced and bankrupt. Their estate was seized by their creditors. They are now separated. Mrs F has gone back to live in her parents' home. Mr F has emigrated to the Transvaal Colony. Edwin, who was withdrawn by his parents from Oxford because they could no longer afford to pay his tuition, served six months for threatening behaviour, and is now working as a clerk. He is chastened, and may yet become a decent man.

Ida and I do not get to enjoy every evening together.

I still spend a great deal of time at Curl House, to be present for Mr. Squire, while Ida has assumed more responsibility at the L.S.E. Her writing has improved dramatically, and she is now deputy head computer, under Dorothy, for the entire research section, who she treats rather like the younger sisters she never had, even though she is younger than most of them.

So she must be in London, while I am in Kent, and we spend weekends together, and every weeknight that we can. It makes our hours together more precious. We share a small flat in Queen's Road, that Mr Squire was able to buy with the profits of a Collected Edition of his works, that I negotiated with his American publishers: he lets us live in it, in return for a peppercorn rent.

In addition, Ida and Dorothy and Henrietta have persuaded me of the justness of the suffragist cause, so I spend some evenings making pamphlets, and writing letters to editors. 'Suffragettes' is what the papers now call us. I am not a natural-born bomb-thrower, but I mean to see our cause fulfilled.

And I still have my pistol. I take regular target practice with Mr. Page, who is a firm friend; all our nonsense is quite behind us. Ida tried out the pistol herself, but her poor eyesight means that she is a quite appalling shot, and, not wanting to do anything she is bad at, she grumpily declared it a 'waste of b--y time'.

In 1906, the suffragist cause obtained the support of Mrs Webb, who had, for obscure reasons of her own, not previously been in favour. But she is now with us.

Last night, Ida and I were at the theatre. It was a glittering occasion.

It was the premiere of a new operetta by one of our finest living composers, Hilda Cotton, and her artistic and life partner, the young poet and writer, Charlotte Napier.

The new operetta is almost assured of success, for two reasons.

One is that, since Miss Cotton and Miss Napier were introduced to each other by Ida, they have been madly in love, and the artistic partnership they quickly formed has absolutely ignited.

They have already written two highly successful operettas, with books by Miss Napier and music by H. Miss Napier writes very witty lyrics, and constructs fine and engaging plots, and H's settings of them are highly popular.

The other reason is that their new operetta,The Devotee, is an adaptation of a tremendously successful novel,Wave Manor, by Gilbert Scope.

Wave Manorwas published in 1906, and immediately became a bestseller, on account of both its sensational subject matter and Mr Scope's skill at telling a gripping story, which for once was marginally deeper and more moving than his usual frivolous and slightly hysterical melodrama.

Mr Scope's novel is about a handsome, noble, idealistic young poet, George Graph, whose friendships are entirely with men, the supremest of them being a very intense friendship with a distinguished artist, Emmanuel Lord. The action of the novel takes place entirely in Mr Lord's sumptuous country home, Wave Manor.

Fairly early on, Mr Graph tries to confess to Mr Lord that he has deep feelings of friendship for him (Mr Scope had to workterriblyhard to get around the censors, at this point) but Mr Lord rejects him, gently and with great dignity, and in such a way that the average reader, rather than be repelled by such Uranian goings-on, would feel sorry for them both.

However, also on the scene is Mr Lord's secretary, Edna Piper, a passionate if rather silly and erratic young woman, with a degree in for some reason geology, and she offers herself to Mr Graph, and the two have a torrid affair, which is marked by Mr Scope's remarkable ability tosuggestall sorts of intense and perverse activity between them, without actually spelling anything out in the kind of carnal detail that might bring an action from the Crown.

Towards the end of the book, Mr Graph, feeling like he is being held back artistically by Miss Piper's lures and appetites, calls a halt to the affair, and nobly breaks it off with her. Miss Piper reacts at first by attempting suicide, and then by accepting the redemption of Christ, because these are apparently the only possible courses of action open to a woman turned down by so noble a man as Mr Graph; and in a final meeting, she leaves Mr Lord's employ, says a dignified farewell to Mr Graph, which takes no more than a couple of pages, and goes off to be a Carmelite Nun.

Mr Graph pays lachrymose tribute to her self-sacrifice, and then decides to devote himself to his art on a higher and more demanding level than before, which, in his case, means that he starts writing glum poems that contain words like 'crepuscule', 'precipitate' and 'gasometer'.

Mr Scope sent Ida and I a copy ofWave Manor. I read it first, with mounting horror and something close to nausea, and then passed it on to her.

However, I was both wounded and strangely reassured by the fact that, when Ida read it, she found itabsolutely hilarious.

One evening in the flat, before one of our all too rare dinners together, I was in the parlour disconsolately reading poetry, when she came in from our bedroom clutching the book.

'Did you and 'e...?' she said, grinning all over her face.

'What?' I said.

'Well,' she said, 'maybe I'm wrong, but the way it reads, it sounds like you and 'e...'

'It sounds like we what,' I said through clenched teeth.

Ida struck a dramatic pose and read from the book.

'"Impaleme upon theswordof your desire"!' she said. '"Penetratetheseatof my bein' with your darkest an' most animal lust! Redeem my mostfundamentalshame with theforceof your virility!"'

She lowered the book and beamed at me.

And then winked, broadly.

'Are you asking if Gilbert Scope and I...'

'Yes,' she said. 'Oh, please tell me that you did.'

'Oh, god,' I sighed.

'Oh, Edith,' she said, and she came over and flung her arms about me. 'I'm so proud of yer.' And she kissed me passionately. I have to admit that that did become a rather memorable evening.

Still, I had to endure the publication ofWave Manor, and its success, and the reviews talking about how it was either a new level of insight in Mr Scope's work, or else a descent into either appalling and obscene sensationalism (The Tablet) or religious sanctimony (The Clarion), depending upon the reviewer. None of this did any harm at all to the book's sales, which climbed and climbed and climbed.

And I had to face Mr. Squire.

The first time I met him, after I knew for certain that he had read the book, was on a Monday morning, when Ida and I had had our customary, bittersweetau revoirfor the week, and I had taken the train down to Curl House.

I arrived at the house at half past nine, and as I was taking off my coat, Mr Squire emerged from his study and greeted me with his usual warmth.

'How is Ida?'

'She's very well, and sends her love.'

'Good, good,' he said. 'We must start to spend a little more time in London, so you can see her more often.'

'Oh, that would be wonderful,' I said.

There was an awkward silence.

'I finished Mr Scope's novel last night,' I said.

'Ah,' he said. 'So did I.'

We looked at each other in silence for some moments, and then he merely raised his hand, placed it on my shoulder, gave me a small smile and a sympathetic pat, and then went past me to the library.

And that, blessedly, was that.

When Ida realised that I was profoundly embarrassed byWave Manor, she was sympathetic, but she was also wise. She sat me down, and took my hands in hers, and looked at me frankly.

'You know,' she said, 'everyone 'oo knows you a bit, looks at you and thinks: lovely Edith, very clever, very nice, very sensible, a wonderful secret'ry, and a very fine person.'

'Thank you,' I said, blushing slightly.

'But those of us 'oo really know you and love you,' she said, 'which is me, an' Mr Squire, an' probably H...'

She paused, thinking.

'Yes,' I said.

'An' some of your friends,' she said, 'such as 'Enrietta, an' Dorothy... and well I suppose Mr Page...'

'Yes, I see,' I said, feeling a little got at.

'An' I think probably also your parents,' she said, 'oh, an' Mrs Hill, an' Janet, an' Isabella, an' Miss Napier...'

'Please get to the point,' I said doggedly.

'Well,' she said, 'like I said, those of us 'oo really know you and love you, know that you are a bit of a goof.'

'How does that help,' I moaned. Ida smiled at me.

'Because apart from those of us 'oo really know you,' she said, 'anyone else 'oo's met you, which is most people 'oo've met you, would never think you're like Edna. Because she's not just a goof. She's a right prawn.'

'What's the difference?'

She thought for a moment.

'A goof don't wear 'is galoshes, 'cos 'e don't want to put 'em on,' she said. 'A prawn don't wear 'is galoshes, 'cos 'e don't want to get 'em wet.'

'Ah,' I said, and began to feel better.

'Anyone can be a bit of a goof, my love,' she said fondly. 'You 'ave to work really 'ard to be a prawn.'

I accepted that there was something in this, and I rolled into her lap, and took my kisses, and reflected how lucky I am in my lover.

However.

After the vogue forWave Manordied down, I was quietly relieved. But then the Cotton/Napier team announced that they were turning the entire thing into an operetta.

Mixed feelings, dear diary.

I was delighted that H had found apparently lasting love in Miss N. I find Charlotte by turns amusing, interesting and annoying, but they fit together like a key fits a lock, and I know that I am partly motivated by jealousy, in that Ida took Charlotte to bed before Ida and I fully repaired our broken bond, and dedicated ourselves to each other.

Still, I felt that I was about to be depicted, all over again, as a woolly-minded, sex-mad imbecile. And it was with these thoughts on my mind that I dined with Mr. Squire, one night, a week before the premiere, away from Ida, who was in London.

Mrs. Hill and Janet and Isabella had done a splendid job, as ever. (Isabella is vastly improved, now that she has escaped her awful family, and slipped down from the anxious lower-upper class into domestic service. She has lost her airs, acquired a deal of good sense, makes truly excellent clear stock, does wickedly funny imitations of everyone in Mr Squire's circle, including him and me, and is a dynamic presence in the local amateur dramatics.)

But I was not aware how silent I was, as I ate my chicken Marengo. Mr Squire noticed, and gently but firmly demanded to know what troubled me. I explained that it was the operetta, and that I did not wish to be remembered as the original of the silly girl inThe Devotee, orWave Manor.

Mr. Squire's opinion was that I would not be. He was quietly brutal about both works, confident that they would not be remembered for long. I felt a little bad for Mr Scope and H and Miss N. to hear his politely devastating opinions about their craft; he admitted to much preferring H's earlier instrumental work to the sensational operettas.

'Why did you want to work for me?' he said.

'I wanted to help a great artist make great art.'

'Well, I don't know if you get to do that,' he said, 'but you have been invaluable to me.The Beginningshas sold more copies than my last two novels. And I could not have written it, had you not kept encouraging me to go on. In your own peculiar way.'

I had to laugh at the memory of my own mortifying 'encouragement'. ButThe Beginnings, the memoir that he dictated to me, has been very well received, which is very gratifying, and we are now almost at the end of the next part,The Apprenticeship. And the Collected Edition, which is coming out bit by bit, is selling handsomely.

'So,' he said, 'do not resent Gilbert and Hilda and Charlotte. I think you will be remembered for works that last, that you helped make, longer than you will be remembered for works that could be soon forgotten, that you helped inspire. And perhaps, one day, you will write something that posterity will read, with pleasure and instruction.'

'I should be content to have helped you,' I said.

'You have,' he said. 'And you helped Mrs. Webb, and her movement, and you helped Mr Casaubon, and Kate Morley, and Gilbert, and Hilda, and Charlotte. And you helped Ida.'

I was much moved.

'I'm still going to look like an idiot, though,' I said.

He gave me a melancholy smile.

'Forget it, dear girl,' he said sympathetically. 'It's entertainment.'

Mr Squire suggested that he, Ida and I travel, together, to the premiere, and take a private compartment on the last train back to Curl House afterwards, since the following would be a Saturday, and neither Ida nor I had work commitments. We were very happy to accept his generosity.