Open Writing

Gentlemen still sent their cards backstage to Singing Jenny, even though she now returned them. She was surprised when she saw the name of Henry Frederick Simms.

Robert was away. Of course, he was away. If he’d been in town, Harry wouldn't have come here and asked to meet her.

"This one," she said to the waiter. "Tell him 10 minutes."

Beth checked her appearance in the dressing room and dabbed perfume behind her ears and in her cleavage to hide the smell of perspiration. There were those gentlemen who liked the aroma of a young girl's sweat but she didn’t think Harry Simms was here for that reason.

He was in box four and got to his feet when she knocked on the wooden jamb and pulled back the curtain. He bowed and said, "It's good of you to see me."

She inclined her head and sat in the chair he offered and he complimented her upon her performance and offered her a glass of brandy, which she declined. When he offered to summon a waiter to get her a suitable drink, she said no.

"You've invited me here to talk, not to drink, Mr Simms."

"Quite right, Miss Jenny." He resumed his seat. "Or is it Miss Pallister?"

She smiled and said, "This side of Layton, it's Jenny."

"A sensible arrangement." He sipped brandy, as if to allow himself a moment in which to organise his thoughts. "In fact, you strike me as a most sensible young lady, altogether."

Harry held her gaze and she realised that he was particularly good looking. She was immediately swept by a fleeting shame at acknowledging the fact and that, by agreeing to meet him, she might, in some way, be betraying Robert.

"I'm sensible enough, Mr Simms, to realise you've not sought my presence for the pleasure of my company. I take it that you wish to talk about your brother?"

He winced at the word.

"My father was his father and, therefore, we share a blood link. It is an accident of birth and I don't think either of us counts the other as brother."

Beth said, "Do you hate him?"

"He's an irritation but hate is too strong a word. I don't care that he buy friendships in the valley. I don't give a jot for his ambitions in that direction. But I do care about other considerations that are of a more delicate nature. I trust I can speak of them to you in confidence?"

Beth was surprised that he was being so direct. She nodded and said, "You can, indeed, sir."

"Perhaps you may already be cognisant of that to which I refer but I can take nothing for granted. If I have learned anything, in this life, it is to take nothing for granted." He sipped brandy and paused as if to find his way ahead. "Pardon me for being circumspect, but this is a difficult matter to discuss. Until now, I've spoken of it to no one and I'm taking a chance in broaching the subject with you.

"After all, you are a relative of ... my brother." He found difficulty saying it. "Your family has benefited from his return." He held up a hand. "I don't pass comment upon that. Your family has an enviable reputation in the valley. If there is good fortune to be had, they deserve as much as any."

He paused and Beth said, "Mr Simms, you are waffling."

Harry looked at the glass in his hand and put it on the table. He carried his breeding as easily as he wore his shirt. Harry Simms was elegant even when he was not trying. He was a gentleman, and that was not a comment upon his nature, but upon his birth and his upbringing.

Beth had seen him before, at a distance, but had never spoken to him. His name had been whispered throughout her childhood, in the way that the bogeyman was mentioned, but he didn't seem to be a bogeyman. The class difference between the brothers was obvious. Robert might also be a gentleman, but of a different quality.

She felt sorry for Harry, who seemed to be struggling for the right words with which to explain his dilemma. To help him, she said, "Does the matter of a delicate nature concern a friendship that Robert may have had in his childhood?"

He glanced at her with gratitude.

"It does," he said. "But describing it as a friendship is, perhaps, incorrect. I believe it to have been more of an infatuation which, during his absence in America, became a fixation. I can understand the infatuation. They happen in childhood. But it developed without prompting or encouragement and has become something far more sinister and unacceptable."

Harry licked his lips and stared intensely into her eyes.

"I believe Robert Dyce has woven a fantasy around my wife, attributing to her, affections that don't exist. Attributing to me, dark motives that exist only in his mind. As I said before, his personal ambitions in commerce or society don't concern me, but this fantasy is an affront to the honour of myself and my wife. I don't hate Robert Dyce, but I do despise him."

Until now, she had thought Robert's love for Jane Simms foolish, misplaced and immature; an infatuation, as Harry had said, but one out of which he would grow. Now she saw it from another perspective and understood why Harry thought it inexcusable. Robert's presence in the valley was a challenge.
Beth said, "Why does he hate you?"

Harry shrugged. "I am legitimate, he is not. The rest is speculation. Perhaps he bears a grudge because his mother was required to leave the hall after my father's death. But that was inevitable, she couldn't stay, and my father had seen to it that she had been provided for. It wasn't as if she was put out onto the street. Far from it. She walked straight into a very comfortable business.

"Perhaps he was jealous that I had position in society by right and he did not, the sort of position that might have legitimised his hopes regarding the young lady who had been his childhood companion. Undoubtedly, he felt aggrieved that he was never acknowledged publicly by my father. For the most part, he and I went our separate ways, but there's no denying there was animosity between us. He had the love of my father; I did not. And yet I had a place at table by right and he only by invitation, and then only when I was absent.

"I make no secret of the fact that I resented him, but he was an arrogant youth and easy to resent." He touched his cheek. "I gave him the scar. Did he tell you?"

"He told me. But not the circumstances."

"I whipped him."

"Why?"

Harry's thoughts turned inward. She thought he was not prevaricating but considering his answer, perhaps remembering the time and place of the incident.

"I wanted him to feel pain," he said, which was not what she had expected. His smile was deprecating. "He pushed me too far." He laughed without humour. "Even the scar was to his advantage. He wears it like a badge of honour. Gives him an air of mystery and danger. No doubt he used it well in America."

Beth smiled to try to ease some of the venom and embarrassment from Harry's confession and said, "It does rather suit him."

"He returned from America on my wedding day. A spectre at the feast." He said it bitterly. "His timing was immaculate even if his manners are not."

She said, "He didn't know you were getting married. The wedding was as great a shock to him as his presence was to you."

"I thought he'd planned it from spite."

"I can assure you, Mr Simms, the thought that you might marry Jane never crossed his mind."

He smiled grimly.

"And when he discovered that I had, it was simply another reason to hate me." He shook his head. "Listen to me. I am beginning to sound as sorry a creature as him. I shouldn't have come. I don't know what I hoped to achieve." He stood up. "I’m sorry for having intruded upon your time, but I fear the only direction this conversation is leading, is towards a maudlin self-pity and I will have none of it. I would rather call the rogue out than skulk in theatre boxes and bemoan my fate."

Beth said, "Don't go."

"This has no point."

"Sit down. It may have."

"You've been patient and gracious but ..."

"Sit down, Harry," she said, abruptly. He stared at her, surprised at the familiarity, and sat down. She shrugged. "Normal rules don't apply here. The other side of Layton, you may call me Miss Pallister and I shall address you as Mr Simms, but here, I'm Jenny and you are Harry. For God's sake, I’ve talked about you often enough with Robert to think of you as kin, and don't put your nose up at that fantasy."

He laughed. "I wouldn't dare. Jenny." He made a point of saying her name. "And I would think anyone who could lay claim to being kin to you would be fortunate indeed."

"That's better," she said. "There's nothing like a bit of flattery upon which to base a friendship."

"You move swiftly. From formality to kinship to friendship."

"Why not? We have Robert Dyce in common. A man about whom we share strong emotions."

Now it was her who sought his gaze and held it, defiantly.
"You love him?" he said, with slight incredulity.

"For my sins."

"Good God."

"I sometimes wonder."

"Then indeed we do share a complex situation. I freely admit I would not be displeased if he fell from his horse down Kilner Bank and broke his neck, but if he was to reciprocate your feelings that might be a simpler solution for both of us."

"Indeed it would."

"Is ...?" He stopped and tried to think of the correct words. "This is still a delicate subject and I fear I am about to waffle again ..."

"At the moment," she said, feeling more capable of leading the conversation than Harry was, "he has elevated his feelings towards Jane, your wife, to a spiritual level. I'm hoping this may develop in the usual manner of spiritual affairs and be thought about once a week on a Sunday. Unfortunately, he treats me as if I was still the girl he knew 10 years ago. He doesn't seem to have noticed I've become a woman. But, as the one infatuation wanes, I’m hoping to develop in him a second. For me."

As she finished her little speech, she was already having second thoughts about being so forward. But it was out now, and she would have to live by it. Besides, it was true.

"I wish you luck, with all my heart," said Harry. "And if he hasn't noticed you've grown up, then there’s something sadly wrong with him. You have a rare beauty, Jenny."

She blushed despite having heard it all before, for Harry said it with sincerity and they were sharing confidences, not bartering for favours.

He said, "You imply he no longer has ambitions regarding Jane?"

"Yes," she said, hesitantly.

"Unless, of course, I suffer a fatal accident," he said, with a grim smile. "But if he's accepted the reality of the situation, why is he still here?"

"He says he wants to improve life in the valley," she said simply. "I think he means it, but I also think he's lived a dream so long, he finds it difficult to give it up. That's why he's still here. To be close to his dream."

"And to annoy me."

Beth raised her eyebrows but couldn’t contradict him.

"His dream will fade," she said. "It was different when he was in America. A dream was something to hold onto in the wilderness. But not here. In time, it will fade."

Harry said, "You've given me hope, for no man can be so blind as to overlook what you can offer as an alternative to a dream." He smiled. "If you are successful, and your spell of infatuation works, would you leave the valley?"

"And take him far away from you and Musgrave Hall?"

"Yes."

"He's travelled, and seen how wide the world is, and I have a similar desire. With him or without him, I shall travel. Hopefully, we shall go together."

"To America?"

"Perhaps."

"I take it he still has interests there? With his partner. The small American?"

"Cosmo?"

"Yes." He smiled. "The handsome little chap with the colourful clothes."

"Cosmo is a friend, not his partner. Robert no longer has business interests in America. We could go anywhere."

"Australia?" said Harry. "He could find another gold mine."

Beth laughed and said, "I think you simply want us as far away as possible."

He sipped brandy and stretched his legs and seemed more at ease with her.

"I've travelled a little, myself," he said. "Around Europe. I was looking for a pot of gold, rather than a mine, but had no success. Perhaps I should try America. Was it San Francisco, he went?"

"A place called Red Dog," she said, and laughed. "The names of the mining towns are a scream. Stockton, I think, was the main town, but there was Skunk Gulch, named after an animal known as a skunk which, apparently, protects itself, when in danger, by emitting a vicious smell. Can you imagine? Naming a town after a smell?"

"I'll avoid Skunk Gulch. I shall go to Red Dog and dig out a fortune."

"You're too late. The fortunes were gone by forty nine."

"Ah. My brother told you this?"

"Yes."

"Then it will have to be Australia. Not that I shall do any mining myself. I'm afraid it doesn't appeal. But an investment, perhaps, might bring a fair return." He became reflective. "Strange, isn't it, that while I look to invest in gold abroad, he returns to invest gold in the valley."

"Jealous?" she said.

He raised his eyes and stared into hers.

"No. But I am angry. He's tried to undermine my life. I can be a patient man but there will come a time, if your wiles don't work, when my patience runs out and I shall call him to account." He smiled to ease the sudden tension. "Don't worry, Jenny. I have every confidence in your wiles."

**

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