The Children's Book - A. S. Byatt [145]
Philip was glad to see Arthur Dobbin, one day when he was in Lydd, buying provisions. He told Dobbin that Fludd was “very depressed” and this appeared to be a result of the departure of Imogen for London. He asked if Frank Mallett might call. Dobbin cycled back to Puxty, and told Frank, who got on his own bicycle and went to Purchase House. Fludd was not in—he was out tramping in the Marsh again—so Frank was able to talk to Philip, who described Benedict Fludd’s frightening behaviour, and said that he was at his wits’ end, for he could not watch the potter all the time—that might drive him to further extravagances—and moreover, he needed to work, or the household would have no money. Philip said Fludd couldn’t abide to see a doctor—that was no good. Maybe Frank could talk to him. He added, on a sudden impulse, that Pomona was sleepwalking. “Mostly into my bedroom,” said Philip. “It’s embarrassing. I know what you think, but she is deep asleep, deep. Elsie won’t believe me, but you might.”
“The family puzzles me,” said Frank Mallett. “You and Elsie have saved it, so to speak. Major Cain may well have saved Imogen, but he has deranged the others. How is Mrs. Fludd?”
“I never know,” said Philip. He said “Sometimes I see her, when I’m trying to get Pomona back to bed. She comes down in a dressing-gown, with her hair down, and drinks brandy. She looks like a washboard.”
“A washboard?”
“Sort of crumpled and ridged. With no expression on her face.”
“To be truthful, I am a little intimidated by Benedict Fludd. I shall speak to him, of course. I shall also write to Major Cain.”
“I had hoped you might.” Philip frowned. “When he is working, he’s dangerous—pots are slow things, they need calm, they need ease—and he does everything at double pace. But he does it well at double pace, better than I ever shall, Mr. Mallett—he smashed a whole batch of good pots I’d made and painted—he swept it away.”
“He makes you angry?”
“No-o,” said Philip slowly. “I love him, in a way. But he puts the fear of God into me.”
Benedict Fludd grinned evilly at Frank Mallett, and said he had no need of his ministrations—yet. “I am not long for this world, young man, and I shall need you to shrive me. But you may as well keep away till then. I did not ask you to come here. I require solitude.”
“You are not alone in the house, Mr. Fludd.”
“And what do you mean by that? It is my house.”
“I came to visit Mrs. Fludd. And Philip Warren.”
“Oh, get out, before I throw something at you. I am in an evil temper, and best avoided.”
“It is hard on Philip.”
“I know that.”
When Prosper Cain received Frank Mallett’s letter, he was planning one of several visits to the Grande Exposition Universelle de Paris, which had opened, with many of its palaces and pavilions unfinished, in April. There was a political frost between England and France, owing to the Boer War. The Prince of Wales, who was president of the British section and had overseen the construction of the British Palace, had refused to set foot in Paris in 1900. Several loyal British exhibitors had withdrawn, but the Victoria and Albert Museum was in constant communication with the experts in the decorative arts in France, Germany, Austria, Belgium and other countries where the “new” art flourished and was on show. Prosper Cain was interested in the new jewellery, both the French work of René Lalique and the exquisite Austrian work of the new Wiener Werkstätte and Koloman Moser. He had travelled to the new Museum of Decorative Arts in Vienna, and was excited by Jugendstil there and in Munich. He was due to make an extended visit in June, and conceived the idea of taking Benedict Fludd with him, to see the new styles of ceramics, and to take him out of his marshy desolation for a time. Some of Fludd’s great bowls and slightly sinister vessels were on display in Edwin Lutyens’s British pavilion.
Cain went to Purchase House and tempted Fludd with the sight of some of his “Paradise” ware, intricately covered with birds, beasts, fruit, angels, and naked humans, which he hadn’t seen for twenty