˜°˛.

˝˝
higher in canada

The story of the exotic wife of an aristocrat who is

not what she seems, set against the backdrop of the drawing “A stirring and seductive novel.”
— Economist
rooms and emerging tabloid culture of Victorian London

L
 . For Maribel Campbell
Praise for Clare Clark Lowe, the beautiful bohemian wife
of a maverick politician, it is the
“One of those writers who can see into the past and help us feel its texture.” year to make something of herself. A self-
 HILARY MANTEL proclaimed Chilean heiress educated in
Paris, she is torn between poetry and the
“As a storyteller, Clark is endowed with verve and intelligence, but her
new art of photography. But it is soon plain
larger gift, dazzlingly in evidence throughout . . . her fine novels, lies in
that Maribel’s choices are not so simple. As
the originality of her imagination. She gives us a world that feels alive and
her husband’s career hangs by a thread, her
intense, magnificently raw.”
real past, and the family she abandoned,
 NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
come back to haunt them both. When the
CLARE CLARK is the author of three “Powerful . . . Clark’s commitment to historical color is notorious newspaper editor Alfred Webster
highly acclaimed historical novels: The matched by the dramatic arc of an engrossing story.” begins to take an uncommon interest in
Great Stink, Savage Lands (both longlisted  WASHINGTON POST Maribel, she fears he will not only destroy
for the Orange Prize), and The Nature of Edward’s career but both of their reputations.
Monsters. She writes regularly for the New “Clare Clark writes with the eyes of a historian and the soul of a novelist.” Inspired by the true story of a politician’s
York Times and the Washington Post and  AMANDA FOREMAN wife who lived a double life for decades,
lives in London. Beautiful Lies is set in a time that, fraught
with economic uncertainty and tabloid
scandal-mongering, uncannily presages our
own.
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

Jacket illustration © Chris Coady/NB Illustration

Jacket illustration © Chris Coady

Jacket design by Anna Crone at www.siulendesign.com

Author photograph © Juliana Johnston

FICTION
HARVILL SECKER
Random House
20 Vauxhall Bridge Road
$26.00 higher in
c an ada
isbn 978-0-15-101467-5
London SW1V 2SA
www.rbooks.co.uk
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HARCOURT
www.hmhbooks.com 1175520 

Clark-BeautifulLies_mech.indd 1 7/19/12 10:23 AM

 
Beautiful Lies

Clare Clark

houghton mifflin harcourt

boston • new york
2012
 First U.S. edition

Copyright © 2012 by Clare Clark

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book,

write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company,
215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

www.hmhbooks.com

First published in Great Britain by Harvill Secker in 2012

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Clark, Clare.
Beautiful lies / Clare Clark. — 1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-15-101467-5
1. L ondon ( England) — History — 19th c entury — Fiction. I. Ti tle.
PR6103.L3725B43 2012
823'.92 — dc23
2012023346

Printed in the United States of America

DOC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
 1

T
he room was dark. In the gloom it was possible to
make out a three-legged stool leaning drunkenly
against a wall and, on an ancient tea chest, an unlit
stub of candle jammed in a ginger beer bottle. Otherwise it
was bare, save for a heaped-up pile of sacks and dirty straw on
which a small child was sleeping. His elbows poked through
the holes in his shirt and the soles of his bare feet were black.
Above him the ceiling was criss-crossed with sagging lines of
laundry.
The silence was thick, constricted, as though the room held
its breath. Then, very slowly, a hand insinuated itself between
the tatters on the washing line and a dark figure leaked into
the room. His face was obscured by a greasy wide-brimmed hat,
its shallow crown dented and scuffed. His shoulders were
stooped, his whiskers wild and grey. Instead of a coat, he wore
a grimy flannel gown that trailed its frayed hem along the floor.
He glanced around him, his eyes flickering from side to side,
before, silent as syrup, he slunk across the room, his fingers
dancing before his face as though he counted coal smuts in the
air.
Beside the tea chest he hesitated, fumbling in his pockets.
There was the rattle of a matchbox and then the scrape and
flare of a match. Shadows leaped from behind the lines of laundry
as he lifted the candle to his face. Beneath the snarl of his
eyebrows his sharp eyes flickered like a snake’s. As for his nose,

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 it swept from his face like the buttress of a great abbey, the
hook arching away from between his eyes before curving in a
wide arc towards its tip, a point so sharp it might, if dipped in
ink, have done duty for a nib. Although the bridge was narrow,
the fleshy parts of the nose around the nostrils appeared almost
swollen, rising from his cheeks like tumours, the nostrils beneath
slicing the polyps in two thick black lines. His skin was a sick-
ening grey.
The old man reached into the straw and pulled out a small
brass-cornered chest. Unlocking it with a key on a string around
his neck, he raised the lid. For a moment he simply stared.
Then, plunging his hands inside, he drew out handfuls of
treasure, bringing them up to his titanic nose as though he
might inhale them, the glistening chains of gold, the vivid
jewels in scarlet and chartreuse and cerulean, the milky ropes
of pearls.
Immediately there was a commotion from behind the washing
lines. The sleeping child started up in fright. Scrambling to his
feet, he ducked beneath the laundry and was gone. Before the
old man could scrabble his treasures back into the chest there
emerged from behind the curtain of laundry a strange lopsided
beast. Its back was humped, its white face crowned with curled
horns. Emitting a strangled bleat the beast raised its hoof and
jabbed it towards the old man, who cringed, the backs of his
hands pressed to his eyes. The creature wheeled around, the
sharpness of the manoeuvre almost breaking its back in two,
and buried its face in the laundry.
A footman entered the room. Resplendent in scarlet livery
and a white wig, he snapped his fingers at the old man, who
grudgingly surrendered his treasure. The fanfare of a lone
trumpet sounded as a small round lady made her stately entrance.
Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun and topped with a
large golden crown that threatened to slip over one eye. Pinned
to the blue silk sash that she wore over one shoulder was a gold

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 brooch as big as her fist. Though unnaturally small for a lady
of her advanced years, her substantial girth coupled with the
imperiousness of her expression more than made up for any
deficiency of stature and she brandished her sceptre as though
it were a bludgeon. The footman bowed. There was no mistaking
her. It was without question the Empress of India, Her Majesty
Queen Victoria herself.
The old man whispered something to the footman. Hurriedly
he stepped forward and presented the treasure chest to the
Queen. She received it with stately froideur. Then, unable to
contain her glee, she grinned at the villainous old man. He
winked at her and blew out the candle.
Abruptly the darkened room was filled with light. The Queen
curtsied, her skirts held wide. Then she clapped her hands.
‘Well?’ she demanded, jumping up and down. ‘Can you guess?’

Maribel glanced over at Edward as the Charterhouse children

began excitedly to shout suggestions. He stood with one elbow
propped on the corner of the mantelpiece and one long leg
crossed over the other, a faint smile on his lips. Behind him a
housemaid quietly drew back the curtains. The weather had not
improved. The wind rattled the window sashes, sweeping the
rain across the terrace in veils. Beyond the lawn the sodden
trees huddled together like cattle.
‘Treasure? Chest? Hide? Steal?’
‘Gold!’
‘No, look, he’s pointing at himself. It’s him. The first syllable
is him.’
‘Old man?’
‘Thief ?’
‘Crook?’
‘We’re getting warmer. A particular crook, then.’
Charades had been Arthur’s idea, of course. Ordinarily,

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 released from the strictures of their London lives, his children
behaved at Oakwood like animals returned to the wild, coming
into the house only to eat and to sleep, but it had been a miser-
able Easter, the wettest anyone could remember. Confined
indoors, they had relied heavily upon their father’s passion for
parlour games. In the afternoons, when in other years there
might have been croquet or riding or an outing to the beach at
Cooden, Arthur gathered the entire party together in the
drawing room for frenzied contests of Hunt the Slipper and
Blind Man’s Buff.
Several of his games were so outlandish that Maribel could
only assume that he invented them on the spot. The previous
day, the party swelled by several neighbouring families invited
for luncheon, he had insisted upon playing something he called
Poor Pussy, in which one of the players was required to crawl
on all fours among the assembled company, miaowing piteously.
The other participants were then obliged to declare ‘Poor Pussy!’
with the gravest of expressions. Any player whose mouth so
much as twitched was seized upon immediately and set in turn
on their hands and knees. The Charterhouse children had
demonstrated an alarming aptitude for the sport and had
frowned grimly at one grovelling victim after another, until
Arthur in a fit of impatience had taken it upon himself to be
Pussy and had wound himself around his children’s legs, rubbing
his head against them and purring with the combustive power
of a steam engine until they wept with mirth.
‘So like Fagin but not Fagin.’
‘He’s pointing at his nose.’
‘Nose?’
‘Hook?’
‘Jew?’
‘Jew is right!’
‘Jew? That’s the word?’
‘Not the whole word, you silly. The first syllable.’

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 ‘How many sybabbles are there?’
‘Three, of course. Don’t you ever listen?’
‘Not to you or I’d die of boredom.’
From across the room Edward caught her eye and smiled.
Maribel smiled back and straight away she thought again of the
letter hidden in her writing box and the smile tightened over
her teeth. To distract herself she fumbled in her bag for her
cigarette case. Edward had bought it for her in Mexico City just
after they were married. The soft silver was scratched now, the
initials on the small raised plaque at its centre almost rubbed
away.
She struck a match and inhaled, sucking in the shock of the
harsh Egyptian tobacco. Beside her on the chesterfield little
Matilda wriggled restlessly, pressing her small fingers into
the buttoned cavities of the upholstery. Arthur disapproved
of Maribel smoking, of course, but then she disapproved of
charades, and Arthur had never paid the slightest heed to that.
In Arthur’s world only fast women smoked.
‘What words begin with Jew?’
‘Juice. Juice begins with Jew.’
‘Juice is only one syllable, silly.’
‘Don’t call me silly! Mama, he called me silly.’
‘Sneak.’
‘Now he called me a sneak!’
‘Hush now, both of you,’ Charlotte soothed. She held out her
hand to Kitty, who glared at her brother before crawling trium-
phantly into her mother’s lap. ‘Let’s think. What other words
begin with Jew?’
‘Jupiter?’
‘Juvenile delinquent?’
‘Judica.’
‘Jew-what?’
‘Judica,’ thirteen-year-old George repeated, rolling his eyes.
‘Passion Sunday to you ignorami.’

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 George had only been at Eton half a year but already he had
learned enough disdain for a lifetime. Bertie, who was to join
him the following year, stuck out his tongue behind his brother’s
back.
‘It’s not that, is it, Papa?’ Kitty asked.
The old man shook his head firmly. His nose wobbled.
‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘It’s a word you all know.’
‘Papa!’ Queen Victoria hissed, poking a finger into his ribs.
‘You’re not supposed to talk.’
The old man gurned guiltily, clamping his lips between thumb
and forefinger. The children laughed. Beside Maribel Matilda
squirmed. Then she tugged at Maribel’s sleeve. There were
dimples at the bases of her fingers where the knuckles should
have been.
‘I’m four,’ the little girl whispered confidingly.
‘Goodness,’ Maribel murmured. Her accent was neither
French nor Spanish but a husky tangle of the two that a certain
type of Englishman found irresistible. ‘Very nearly grown up.’
‘How old are you?’
‘How old do you think I am?’
Matilda looked thoughtful.
‘Are you seven?’ she asked.
Maribel smiled distractedly. The letter had come that morning.
Alice, their maid, had had the post sent on to Sussex from
Cadogan Mansions and, as she had every morning, Maribel had
flicked through it idly in the breakfast room, her only thought
a faint hope that the milliner had not remembered her bill. The
shock of the familiar handwriting on the envelope had caused
her to spill her tea on the tablecloth. Arthur had called her a
butterfingers and had the maid bring an infant mug with a
spout.
‘What came after the Nose Man?’ Kitty asked her mother.
‘That animal, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, but what is it?’

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 ‘A horse?’
‘It has horns!’
‘So it does. A cow, then?’
‘A sheep?’
‘Now we’re getting warmer.’
‘Like a sheep.’
‘A rabbit?’
‘A rabbit is nothing like a sheep, you clodpoll.’
‘I is not a clodpoll.’
Maribel took a last drag of her cigarette and stubbed it out.
Mopping at the spilled tea with her napkin she had apologised
to Charlotte for her clumsiness and slipped the letter into her
pocket without opening it. Upstairs she had pushed it beneath
the envelopes in her writing case and hidden the case at the
back of the wardrobe, and still she had not been able to rid
herself of the throb of it, the relentless thump of its pulse in
the pit of her stomach.
‘You’ve been very quiet, Maribel dearest,’ Charlotte said,
smiling at her. ‘Have you already solved the mystery?’
Maribel blinked.
‘The animal,’ Charlotte prompted. ‘Can you tell what it is
meant to be?’
‘Goodness. I – is it a llama?’
Matilda giggled.
‘Llama,’ she said. ‘You say it funny.’
‘Tilly, hush!’
Matilda frowned.
‘Well, she does.’
‘That’s because Mrs Campbell Lowe is from Chile where
llamas really live and therefore, unlike a little English girl,
knows exactly how to say it right. Come on, we must put our
thinking caps on. An animal with horns.’
Maribel fiddled with the clasp of her cigarette case. She did
not know how Charlotte managed always to sit so placidly amid

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 the commotion, a contented smile upon her lips, her arms
open to any child who might skid up to her, breathlessly relating
their father’s latest escapade. Charlotte was always there to
laugh at the childish jokes and kiss better the bumps of those
who had been knocked down in the rush, rummaging in her
sewing box for foil-bright chocolates. Sometimes she read aloud
as the children tumbled like puppies around her, her voice sweet
and steady amid the hullabaloo. In all the years Maribel had
known her she had never once seen Charlotte lose her temper.
Beside her little Matilda swung her legs sulkily, kicking at
the wooden trim of the chaise with the heel of her boot. Thump.
Thump. Maribel pressed a hand against her forehead. She was
suddenly impatient with herself, with her uneasiness. It was just
a letter. As soon as this wretched game was over she would go
upstairs and open it.
‘How about a goat?’
‘They’re nodding.’
‘That was a goat?’ George said. ‘It looked more like an ass
to me.’
‘That’s quite enough, George.’
‘Not goat. Another word for goat.’
‘Is there one?’
‘How about nanny?’
‘Oh my! Boiling hot!’
‘Billy?’
‘Billy!’
Onstage, the four-legged creature whooped.
‘Billy’s right!’
‘Jew-Billy,’ Kitty said, puzzled. ‘What’s Jew-Billy?’
‘Jubilee!’ Bertie shouted triumphantly. ‘That’s what Ursie was
with the crown. The Queen’s Golden Jubilee!’
‘Jubilee, of course, how clever you all are, my darlings. Well
done, well done!’
The motley band of performers took a bow before wriggling

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 through the audience to receive their kisses from their mother.
Arthur pinched the lapels of his grimy gown between his thumbs
and forefingers and grinned at Edward.
‘Any wipers for me, my dear Dodger?’ he asked.
Edward raised an eyebrow. ‘What a big nose you have,
Grandmama.’
‘Papier mâché. I fear the entire day nursery is now upholstered
with the Times.’
‘You know, it’s a great shame you don’t go to more trouble
with these things.’
Arthur laughed.
‘This was nothing. If Theo had had his way it would have
been Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. With real horses.’
Impatiently Kitty tugged on her father’s sleeve.
‘Is it our turn now, Papa?’ she demanded.
‘Tomorrow, Kittycat,’ Arthur said, lifting her into his arms.
‘Perhaps we might even persuade Mr Campbell Lowe to take a
part.’
Edward shook his head.
‘Not this time, I’m afraid. I have to be back in London by
noon.’
‘Isn’t the House in recess?’
‘I have meetings.’
‘No peace for the wicked, eh?’
‘Not if I have anything to do with it.’
Behind them Theo and William had taken two of the sacks
and were having a sack race between the piano and the window
seat where Beatrice and Ursie quarrelled half-heartedly over a
tangle-haired doll. A nursemaid came in and took Clovis for his
bath. Charlotte kissed his toes as she handed him over, shaking
her head at the black soles of his feet.
‘Heavens,’ she said. ‘Did your father rub you with coal?’
Clovis extended a starfish hand and she blew him a kiss. Then
she reached over and touched Maribel’s arm.

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 ‘Where are you going?’
‘To my room. There’s something I need to do.’
‘It can wait, surely? I’ve hardly seen you all day.’
Reluctantly Maribel settled back on the sofa.
‘Must you go back tomorrow?’ Charlotte asked. ‘I am not
nearly done with you.’
‘I must. Edward is to address some Fabian Society dinner
tomorrow night and I have promised to go with him. It will be
perfectly ghastly, of course.’
‘I thought the Fabians were rather a spirited lot.’
‘They were once. Before they became Fabians and stopped
reading novels and going to the theatre. Now they just wear
solemn expressions and argue about strikes and slum
clearances.’
‘The situation is so awful. I suppose at least they’re doing
something.’
‘But that’s just it. They don’t do. They talk and talk and talk
while trying to exceed one another in glumness and the ugli-
ness of their dresses. Oh, Charlotte, when did everyone get so
political?’
‘Dearest, your husband is a Member of Parliament. They are
supposed to be political.’
‘If it were only them I might be able to bear it. But it’s all
of London.’
‘Then thank your lucky stars you are buried in the depths of
the country where Socialism is yet to be invented. Forget the
Fabians. Stay here and talk to me about poetry.’
It was a tempting offer. Though a great number of their
friends were writers and artists and composers, nobody in
London seemed to talk about poetry any more or painting or
music. Instead promising playwrights and eminent poets
exchanged grim stories of the sufferings of the match girls in
Hackney and the coal miners in Yorkshire. Conversations, which
had once drawn deeply upon intuition and imagination, had

10

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 become lists of statistics: slum populations, mortality rates, hours
of schooling, pence per hour or per gross. The Irish question,
universal suffrage, free secular education, trade unions, prison
reform, the minimum wage and the eight-hour working day.
They lectured, protested, organised meetings, argued for revolu-
tion, and bemoaned the exasperating ignorance and passivity
of the English working man.
Naturally Maribel did all of these things too. No one knew
the arguments better than she did. She lectured and protested
and organised and she tried to be glad, because the cause was
just and good and it was what all their friends were doing. But
for all that she couldn’t help resenting it, just a little. There
was no beauty in politics. It was all business.
‘Stay,’ Charlotte coaxed. ‘The Fabians will forgive you. One day.
Or a week. I don’t have to be back in London until next Monday.’
There was a loud shriek from the end of the room. Arthur
was chasing the little ones with handfuls of straw that he
threatened to stuff down their necks. Ursie, her crown askew,
stood on a chair shouting encouragement while, by the fireplace,
Edward tossed coins with George and Bertie, who called out
their bets as the shillings spun in the air. In the corner behind
the piano William and Theo held Matilda by her ankles and
swung her backwards and forwards with such vigour that it
seemed certain she would fly. The little girl screamed with
delight.
Maribel smiled at Charlotte and shook her head.
‘If only I could,’ she said.

11

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