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By Root 2119 0

able to judge character: here was an honest man, who proposed a viable solution to the problem that tormented him. Frau Goldwasser and her child could return to South Kensington, and Prosper could protect them. He organised. The marriage could not take place in the Catholic village; he found a Swiss Protestant church in an Alpine valley and took rooms in the White Rose Inn. There was a wedding-party, of a kind. Griselda was visiting Florence, accompanied by Charles/Karl, Joachim Susskind and Wolfgang and Leon Stern. Of these, only Griselda knew Florence’s secret: the others believed she was suffering from nervous prostration owing to the pressure of work in Cambridge. Florence had a cream-coloured linen coat and skirt, over a rose-pink silk shirt, and a linen hat with a severe ribbon in a blushing pink. The bridegroom was unrecognisable in an old-fashioned frock-coat and complicated grey silk necktie. Joachim was best man, and Griselda attended the bride. At the last moment it was discovered that there was no ring for this wedding. Florence gave her mother’s ring to Gabriel, who gave it to Joachim, who remarked how elegant it was. They were married by a stolid pastor. Prosper gave his daughter to Gabriel, who put Prosper’s ring back on Florence’s finger and kissed her. Griselda wept. They all dined companionably in the White Rose. Griselda talked to Gabriel Goldwasser in German. His descriptions of the clinic, and the psychiatrists, made her laugh, with an uneasy pleasure. What was Florence doing? What was happening?

Nothing was happening, said Florence. Gabriel was helping out. She was now a respectable married lady.

There were many things Griselda could have said in reply, and she suppressed them all. Florence was relaxed and smiling: she had not relaxed or smiled since Dorothy had examined her. Griselda wanted to know what Gabriel Goldwasser really felt. Perhaps he was secretly in love with Florence? He appeared to be mildly friendly. Helpful. Smiling. Wolfgang Stern said patients often fell in love with their nurses. But the nurses were usually women.

42

In October 1908 the Ledbetter Gallery in St. James’s Street, Piccadilly, put on an exhibition of the ceramics of Philip Warren. Philip had been working like Vulcan all summer; idea after idea had risen to the surface of his mind, and taken shape under his fingers. Successive firings were successful. Prosper and Imogen, visiting, went into the studio that had been Benedict Fludd’s, and saw the work. Imogen said it needed a bigger space than The Silver Nutmeg, and Prosper said that Philip could be thought the equal of his master. He came back with Marcus Ledbetter, the owner of the gallery, who said this work must be seen.

Everyone was invited to the opening. Everyone included the warring factions in the Victoria and Albert, and also included the Todefright family, the Purchase House family, the Portman Square Wellwoods, August Steyning, Leslie and Etta Skinner and Elsie. Philip said to Imogen that he was sure Elsie would be too shy to accept her invitation but it was only right that she should be asked. He asked the ladies from Winchelsea and Dungeness, too. Elsie made herself a dress from a remnant of blue-black grosgrain, and a lace collar she found in a shop in Rye, which was old, and complex, and looked as though it was worth twenty times what she paid for it. She put one new blue silk rose on a plain hat and looked elegant. When she came into the gallery, which was hung with white silk and had black lacquered stands and shelves, Philip did not, for a gap of time, recognise her as his sister, and thought she looked unusually interesting. He was about, when he had come to his senses, to tell her this, but found she had turned aside to talk to Charles/Karl Wellwood. They were laughing together. Geraint Fludd was in attendance on his mother, who was looking fragile but beautiful. Griselda and Imogen both looked at him with curiosity and pity to see how he was taking what must have been a mysterious and sudden rejection. He was most elegantly dressed, and was