Grahame, Lucia Read online

  My belated recognition of the true nature of Sir Anthony’s feelings struck me with the force of a blow.

  How well he had hidden them. Never could I have guessed, during all the hours he had devoted to me, that he had borne the weight of an unspoken desire as strong—no, stronger—than that which had flared up so suddenly in me.

  Or could I have?

  Yes. As I reviewed the entire course of our friendship from this new point of view, I was forced to acknowledge, with wonder and humility, that almost from the beginning every action of his had bespoken a generous and loving heart.

  His plans to spend the previous summer in Paris, of course, had been made before he knew me, but he must have been taken with me immediately. That was why he had pried me out of seclusion—at least as much seclusion as a woman who has to earn her living may allow herself—and drawn me back into the very heart of life. And not into the hectic and superficial life of pleasure-loving society, where so many people hide their private disappointments. No, those leisurely afternoons in the Louvre had drawn me out of the isolation of my purely personal regrets back into the whole tender and terrible drama of human existence to which art bears witness.

  What a context in which to be gently guided toward an acceptance of my own losses!

  My imaginary rivals—at last I could admit that this was how I regarded them—the shrill, horsey English girls, the satin-gowned, high-bred, ivory-skinned little angels of the Faubourg St.-Germain—they had never existed.

  The hours Sir Anthony had spent with me were not those he could spare from his pursuit of a suitable bride, but those he knew I could spare, given the demands of my work.

  I had become his reason for loving Paris. I was the piece of Paris that he longed to possess.

  I thought of the showing he had arranged for Caylat and of my obstinate blindness to the full significance of the event. I was the woman he’d worn upon his arm; he had made a public demonstration that day not only of his regard for the painter but of his regard for me.

  Yet his deep, innate courtesy which had endowed him with so much tact and sensitivity, not to mention that severe, Roman sense of honor, had kept him silent, and still did.

  Humbled as I was, I was very far from elated to discover that I was loved by the man who had so captured my imagination.

  I knew what his silence meant.

  We had both been playing with fire. He knew it as well as I did, and he knew that nothing could come of it.

  His respect for me was almost palpable. Even now I was still convinced that he would never insult me by making me his mistress; it would have cost me my livelihood and my independence. I might have lived in less grim surroundings and worn prettier clothes, but after his desire had been satiated, what would become of me? I could never return to my life of modest respectability. I would have to find another protector or be dependent upon him for the rest of my life, like an aging nanny whose services were no longer needed but who was kept on a pension out of consideration for all she had done in the past.

  No. He would never put me in that position.

  And marriage was out of the question.

  I could not forget his vague allusions to his “responsibilities” in England.

  Surely he had some kind of family there, although I knew none of its members, beyond Lord Marsden. But inevitably there would be the usual ancient traditions to carry on.

  When he married, he would be obligated to select his bride from the same proud caste: a lady who could be presented at Court, who would do him credit in the ballrooms of Mayfair, in the drawing rooms of Belgravia, and on the hunting field, a lady who could never attract malicious gossip about her dubious lineage or her raffish friends, a lady who could give him the requisite son—the most compelling reason for an English landowner to take a wife.

  Anything less would be a slap in the face not only to the society from which he had sprung but to his family.

  And Sir Anthony, I was sure, placed a very high value on ties of blood and familial affection—his comments about the Salomons were proof of that.

  Under the weight of all this knowledge, I felt my heart would break. Not for myself, of course. I had come to terms long ago with the impossibility of it all.

  No, I assured myself, it was for Sir Anthony, bound as he was by his own strict code, that my heart ached.

  I knew that it was far more difficult for a man, with passions so much wilder and harder to bridle than anything a woman could feel, to refrain from acting on his hungers. This imbalance of nature was something my grandmother had impressed upon me; she’d said it was woman’s only real source of power.

  And yet he had refrained.

  What was I to do with all this new and daunting knowledge?

  If I had subscribed to the same principles that Sir Anthony seemed to embody, perhaps I would have found a way to end our friendship. I might have claimed that I had taken on more students and that they left me no hours of leisure at all. I might have pretended, improbably, that I had been censured by my friends and Frederick’s for having flouted the etiquette of mourning and had been brought to realize the error of my ways. It would be awkward but not impossible to break the connection completely. Even if Sir Anthony suspected that the reasons I gave were specious, he would understand and respect the impulse behind them.

  But I could not give up his friendship. How could I exile from my life the man who had reintroduced me to all the little pleasures I had thought were lost or blighted forever?

  He had given me happiness—a quiet, undemanding happiness, very different from that which I had known with Frederick, but a true happiness, nevertheless.

  How could I turn my back on it now and sink into a gray and tedious life of duty and self-denial?

  I could not do it.

  If Sir Anthony were truly suffering, surely he was free to extricate himself. All he had to do was to claim that his vague responsibilities were calling him home to his odious, beloved England. Permanently. One day he surely would.

  Thus ran my thoughts, as I tried to unravel the snarl of my emotions.

  What they amounted to was this: I did not want a life in which Sir Anthony played no part. I could not give him up altogether, whether or not it would have been wiser and kinder to both of us to have done so.

  But I could not put this to myself quite so baldly. That might have obliged me to examine my heart more honestly and to recognize not only that I was already half in love with Anthony Camwell but also that I was very far from loving him enough to sacrifice my own small portion of happiness for his sake.

  Instead I gave a great deal of thought to what was in Sir Anthony’s heart and as little as possible to what was in my own.

  He was back in England now and had told me that he would be unable to return to France for some time. Perhaps the lengthening intervals between his visits were his way of trying to loosen the unacknowledged bonds between us.

  Rather than applauding the judicious intent I attributed to him, I seethed with impatience. Now that I had at last penetrated his careful facade, how I yearned to see him again! The awareness that both his desire and his restraint were stronger than my own, made the prospect both terrifying and thrilling. We were walking a tightrope, from which we must never allow ourselves to fall. Yet what could ever satisfy us short of the final reckless plunge?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It was during Sir Anthony’s absence from Paris that I received a note from one Marcel Poncet. He was an art dealer, he said—although I had never heard of him— and had acquired some paintings of Frederick’s which he believed might interest me, although he understood that my purse was very thin.

  I thought it kind of him to acknowledge my circumstances. This was not the first time a few of Frederick’s minor works had found their way back onto the market, and even they were always far beyond my means. Monsieur Poncet’s thoughtful note, however, implied that if I had a particular interest in those he possessed, perhaps an arrangement of periodic p
ayments could be worked out. I knew my financial situation would not allow such an extravagance, but I replied with a note in which I agreed to meet with him anyway, for I was curious to discover which of Frederick’s patrons had either tired of his works or fallen upon hard times.

  The door to the little shop was locked when I arrived. I rang the bell.

  When the pale-eyed man with graying yellow hair opened the door to me, I choked back a startled gasp.

  He smiled.

  “So we meet again, Madame Brooks. I hope you have not brought your knife.”

  I did not take the hand he offered.

  “I can have no business with you,” I said coldly, and stepped back onto the pavement.

  He moved into the doorway.

  “Au contraire, madame. I think you will find you have some very urgent business to attend to here,” he said, fixing me with a keen gaze. I hesitated, unable to step forward or retreat further as I struggled to assess what threat he could pose to Frederick’s memory.

  No, it was impossible. I turned and started to walk away.

  “What shabby dresses you have taken to wearing of late, Madame Brooks,” he went on smoothly. “Golden fetters are far more becoming—and conceal your beauty less.”

  Then I began to understand him.

  I turned back.

  “You have seen that painting?” I whispered through frozen lips.

  “I own it. And four others.”

  Around me I could still hear the slow clopping of the hooves of carriage horses, a ripple of birdsong, the soft chatter of a pair of lovers who strolled down the pavement arm in arm, yet my world had darkened and narrowed down to this man, this doorway.

  “You look ill, Madame Brooks. Perhaps you will step inside.”

  There were several little armchairs in the front room of the shop. I sank down upon the edge of one.

  “Well, you had better let me see them,” I said expressionlessly at last. I was reluctant to follow him toward the back of his shop, but if I were about to be blackmailed, I supposed I ought to assure myself that he really had the goods. No doubt I would be paying for them for a long, long time.

  He led me to a dusty back room.

  Yes, there they were—all five of them.

  I took in the display with only the briefest of glances, then turned away.

  Sitting opposite him once again in the front room, I strove to remain coolheaded.

  “Have you a receipt for what you paid for those?” I asked after a while.

  Poncet took a sheet of paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and handed it to me. There was Frederick’s bold signature and the date. It was the day before his body had been found in the river.

  “Do not think too badly of your husband, Madame Brooks,” said Poncet gently. “He wished only to protect you from the continual harassment of your creditors. He assured me that he would buy these paintings back from me within the year. You were in no real danger. But it has been more than a year. And of course his death has increased the value of these works immeasurably.”

  I absorbed this silently. Then I asked, “Has anyone else seen them?”

  “No one but my daughter. And that was merely because she was thoughtless and unlocked a door which she had been told to leave shut. She is at an age when the young tend to be self-righteous and cannot smile at the ways their jaded elders sometimes choose to amuse themselves. She was, to put it mildly, appalled to stumble upon this other aspect of the refined Madame Brooks. But she will not speak of it to anyone.”

  “What do you want from me?” I asked wearily.

  “It is not my wishes, Madame Brooks, but yours that we are here to discuss.” The dealer smiled. “I know the market for paintings of this sort. It is my speciality. A number of wealthy gentlemen keep private collections like this for their own entertainment. I can think of one Englishman in particular who will be astounded by what I have to offer and who is able to afford it.”

  I swallowed the last remnants of my pride.

  “If you are referring to… the baronet,” I said haltingly, having found myself unable even to speak Sir Anthony’s name under such distasteful circumstances, “I beg you, Monsieur Poncet, do not offer them to him.”

  My voice trembled somewhat. I could not bear to think of the chivalrous baronet’s regard for me crumbling as violently as it must, were he to ever see these paintings.

  “How could I refuse the appeal of such a lovely woman?” said Poncet. “No, I do not think it will be necessary for me to approach the baronet in order to realize the full value of what I have to sell.”

  I was so relieved to hear this that, although his tone was not as reassuring as his words, I barely noticed the peculiar emphasis he had given the latter. Still, I could not bring myself to thank him for his willingness to spare me the ultimate humiliation.

  “Very well,” I said, and rose to my feet to leave. He still held all the cards, but he had agreed not to use them as I most feared. Now I wanted only to escape from the shop and to have nothing more to do with him.

  “One moment, Madame Brooks,” he said. “Perhaps you are not acquainted with my methods of doing business. When I have works like this in my possession and am preparing to dispose of them, I make sure that it is widely known. There is always a great demand for well-executed paintings of this sort, but I must confess that the quality of these is far beyond anything that has ever before passed through my hands. And I have never encountered a case where the artist was so famous and so immensely talented or where his subject was a woman so well known and so well respected. You cannot imagine how many gentlemen will spring at the opportunity to come to a showing such as the one I arranged for you today. It will be well publicized and well attended, I can assure you, and the setting, of course, will be far more accommodating than this poor little shop. Most of the gentlemen who will attend the sale will do so, no doubt, purely to amuse themselves. But there will be a number of serious buyers and they will bid against one another for each of these splendid portraits.”

  He paused to let me savor the hideous prospect, and then continued.

  “That was my original plan for disposing of these paintings, but it occurred to me that you, as the widow, might also have an interest in them, and, if so, that you might be grateful for this opportunity to avoid having to confront the… enthusiasm of the gentlemen you will otherwise be bidding against…. You do not seem appreciative, Madame Brooks.”

  I did not respond. So the sale of the paintings would be a circus—not a discreet, private transaction between himself and some harmless, hoary old seigneur doddering about in a moldering chateau and trying to rekindle the sensations of his rakish youth.

  “I know your situation is difficult at present,” Poncet went on. “That is why I am prepared—at no little sacrifice, I must say—to make you a special offer. A modest but regular monthly payment from you will keep these paintings a secret between you and me—at least until you are in a position to pay for them in full.”

  “And how do you imagine that I could ever pay for them outright!” I inquired with a sharp, bitter laugh.

  “Oh, I think you’ll find a way,” said Poncet suavely. “And, in the meantime, the slightest monthly token will prevent matters from coming to a head.”

  But the amount he named, when I pressed him to be specific, was staggering, far more than I could earn from the lessons I gave. And if I failed to meet his terms, the resulting scandal would surely deprive me of even that precarious livelihood. I could imagine the kind of “pupils” who would come to me once the paintings had been unveiled, and what they would expect from their “French lessons.” I wanted time to think.

  “There is absolutely no way I could meet your demands in my present circumstances,” I said at last. “Would you consider accepting one payment immediately, as proof of my good faith, and giving me… perhaps six months to work out something else?”

  How I hated to have to bargain with him! And I had no idea what the “something else
” might be. But I was desperate for time.

  “I might consider that,” he said, like a cat playing with a mouse. “Tell me what you think you can do.”

  I made some rapid calculations in my head and finally named a figure which I felt confident I could manage to come up with if I were to part with two or three of my grandmother’s treasures.

  “I could have a draft for you by the end of the week,” I told him.

  “That will buy you three months,” he said. “No more.”

  “Four,” I said, feigning a firmness that was a complete sham. I had nothing with which to influence him; I held no cards at all.

  “Ask me more sweetly, Madame Brooks,” he said. “Soft words and tender smiles can work wonders on a man. That is a lesson I think you will need to learn rather quickly.”

  I struggled to swallow my revulsion.

  “Could you give me four months, please, monsieur,” I whispered at last with a tremulous attempt at a smile. But tears of furious impotence stung my eyes.

  “Three and a half,” he conceded. “And only because you have asked so nicely. I regret that I cannot afford to be more lenient, but that ought to give you adequate time to arrange your affairs… if you take to heart the lesson I have given you. I will expect the next payment—the first of those you will make to me each month—at the beginning of October.”

  It was already the middle of June.

  I stumbled homeward in a daze. The young American lady, who presented herself promptly at four for her lesson, at last ventured to remark that I did not look well at all.

  “I am so sorry,” I said, forcing my horrible preoccupation to the back of my mind and rousing myself to greater efforts. I spent more time with her than usual that day, to compensate for my inattentiveness at the outset of the lesson.

  But at last I was alone and able to reflect upon my grotesque predicament.

  How had I failed to realize that the paintings were gone? That was simple. I had not gone into the depths of that jumbled closet where they ought to have been for months. Since Frederick’s death I had scarcely opened the door. Now the mystery of how he had flung off the last of that terrible burden of debt was solved. And I had told myself that he must have finally enjoyed a long overdue streak of luck at the gaming tables!