Pea Soup
The vile Mr Wolfson has a new wife. But why did she say yes?
Mr Henry James Bartholomew Wolfson resembled a baboon that had somehow worked out how to do up buttons and secure cufflinks. A great octogenarian dollop of a man, he laboured chinlessly over a cigar at his club in Belgravia, his lazy eye following the derriere of every waitress in the room. Much could be remarked upon about Mr Wolfson and his notorious character, and very little about his natural appeal to women. All women, that is, apart from Miss Jenny Penshaw.
It had been a wet, cold May morning outside the little church by the Coburg Hotel when Mr Wolfson had stumbled out of his suite, as usual, from his nocturnal horizontal affairs, into the clasped arms of our heroine. She was a pretty little thing, around twenty, with wild blonde hair and flushed pink cheeks. “Oh sir,” she had lisped, staring at him as if for all the world he was Adonis, “Forgive me, but I can tell you are a thoroughly Christian gentleman. A church-going, godly, man, sir.” This was, dear reader, quite remarkably inaccurate.
“I don’t do charity,” Wolfson had slurred, doing his best not to fall into the gutter. His head hurt. She stroked his arms, shaking her head slowly. “Oh I don’t want for nothing, sir,” she whispered, “I just feel such a deep affinity to you, sir. Such-” she paused, staring into the one eye that met her face. “Such great affection.”
“I don’t have any money, nor title,” he said bluntly. “Spent it all. Lost the house, so I sleep at my club.”
She smiled as if he’d just recited blushing prose. “Oh good sir, how could I ever think about something as tawdry as money,” her gloved hand tracing his gravitationally-challenged jowls, “When God Almighty himself has seen to join me with such a kind, handsome face. I am sure after such tragic hardship you deserve nothing but the milk of womanly kindness.” Flattery, if coupled with bemusement and lust, bloomed beneath his struggling waistcoat.
“Tell me, oh Romeo,” she whispered, licking her perfect rosebud lips. “What is the name of this angel that has captivated my poor, little heart?”
“Wolfie,” he said, sniffing and wiping his nose on his cuff. “Or Henry Wolfson. Mister. Used to be barrister, but a judge had me disbarred after I had a tipple and couldn’t find the front door for the Old Bailey.” Jenny shook her head at this, pulling a handkerchief from her purse to dab her watering eyes with.
“Oh, so very cruel,” she said, “imagine ruining a kind, honourable, handsome young man’s life, just like that.” His chest swelled with pride at this, so much so a button flew off into the street. “I’m eighty-two,” he aired, proudly.
“No,” Jenny gasped, “I just don’t believe it. You mustn’t tease me sir. I wouldn’t have said you’re a day over forty.” Given that the remarkably wrinkled and hairless Mr Wolfson could have plausibly had a career as Methuselah’s Great Uncle at a county fair, this would be understood as a fantastical lie or delusion on the part of Miss Penshaw.
It will surprise you no end, I am sure, beloved readers, that Miss Penshaw became Mrs Wolfson two weeks later at Fulham Registry Office. He had reasoned, rather pragmatically to his cronies at the announcement, that a marriage would at least save on whores and housekeeping. Miss Penshaw had peered meekly out from under her hat, only raising her gaze to stare lovingly at her grotesque groom. “I don’t need no fancy wedding,” she had simpered to him that evening, sticking a passionate tongue down his decrepit throat, “I only need you.” With a lust tempered only by his thirst for spirits and efficient approach and stamina in bedroom gymnastics, Mr Wolfson enjoyed a thoroughly physical beginning to their marital bliss.
“She’s after his money, of course,” the receptionist had sniffed, “That man has months before he’s due for an appointment with a coffin maker.” The registrar shook his head. “He lost it all on whores, horses, and liquor,” he said, bemused. “The man has a Welsh cottage, a set of rooms at The Coburg, and a pension, and that’s the lot. She’d be better off with a parish vicar.” Mr Wolfson, as it will not surprise you to hear, did not have any internal doubt or discussion about what had been his appeal to the delectable, sweet-natured, enthusiastically Christian Miss Jenny Penshaw.
“Darling Wolfie,” Jenny purred one evening, setting down a fresh bowl of bright green pea soup, “This is a soup I used to make my dear good father. It would mean everything to me if we could set ourselves to having it on Fridays, just to remember him by.”
“As long as I get me gin,” Wolfson had sniffed. He always seemed to have a perpetual cold, a thin stream of mucus running down to his chin. “Serve whatever you like, old thing.” Jenny beamed at him, planting a warm kiss on his walnut of a bald head. Removing his teeth, he slurped down his supper, watched on by his adoring young bride.
Friday came around again, and with it another bowl of green pea soup, wolfed down by a similarly satisfied Wolfie. Then another, and another, and another bowl, only this time, Jenny seemed a little less delighted at her elderly husband’s healthy appetite. Wolfson beamed toothlessly at her, a splatter of soup sliding down his jaw and back into the bowl. “Fetch m’ gin then, girl,” he said, licking the mucus from his nostrils. “And m’ cigar. And clear this all up.” Jenny stood to her full height, smiling thinly, marching the bowl back into the kitchen.
The following Friday, the soup looked greener than ever, quite an unnerving shade that resembled the wallpaper. But Wolfson picked up his spoon, licking his gums gleefully, and set about his supper. Jenny stared at him, her face hard. “You’re quiet tonight, my girl,” he said, his left eye twitching as it always did when he was enjoying himself. “You know, you’re getting fat for someone who never joins me for m’ soup.”
Jenny kept staring, a strange hatred visibly bubbling in her pupils in a way that had never been allowed there before. “I’m just surprised,” she replied, coldly, “that a man of your years can have such a taste for quite so much of it.” Wolfson raised his spoon, licking it with his long yellowing tongue.
“It’s good soup,” he sniffed, grinning. “You do know, don’t you m’dear, that I have instructed my solicitors to leave the jewellery from my mother to my aunt. And the cottage to my nephew. And indeed, the bonds I quietly inherited m’self last year, as I am certain a kindly gentleman had informed you of at the bank in May, to that boy also. All you’ll get, m’dear, is the warmth of my loving memory. The memory of our blessed union.”
Jenny stared at him, enraged. “Finish your soup,” she spat. “The law says I get half.”
“Did I ever tell you,” Wolfie said, guzzling down more of the ferociously green liquid. “About the time I spent stationed in India as a young man?” Jenny’s eyes didn’t move from the spoon.
“Well,” he said, through a mouthful, “Me and the lads realised that we were somewhat unpopular with the natives, see. Oh you might think they’re simple, but they’re cunning little devils, I’ll tell you. Even the serving folks. So one day, one of the bastards was talking about putting poison not in the food of the sahib, oh no, we’d just make ’em eat that to check it wasn’t rum, but on the glass. So we’re cleverer, see. It’s obvious it’s the rat poison, right: no taste or smell. We set about secretly building a tolerance in ourselves, all the whitefolk, against arsenic.”
Jenny stared at him, her face ashen.
“Don’t look so down, girl,” he said, “I’m not accusing you of anything. You are fortunate enough to have me to dote on and care for for many, many, many years to come.”
