Friday's Girl Page 34

  ‘Edith would be of deceiving you.’

  Napier walked off, not wanting to hear this last affirmation of his wife’s innocence.

  Sheridan followed him with a sinking heart. His sex were so stubborn. His sex were so sure of themselves. His sex were so quarrelsome. Really, it was no good mincing words – he despaired of his sex. He knew that he was right about Edith, and while he could never tell Napier that Celandine had encouraged Edith to flirt at Aunt Biddy’s party, he also knew that Celandine had acted from the purest motives. He walked out into the street. Despite the warmth of the day, London was at its best: the smart ladies and gentlemen in their carriages, the luncheon – such good wine and such good food . . . he had already started to miss her, damn it.

  They returned together to the gallery, where Sam was striding about, smoking a cigar and beaming from ear to ear, closely followed by a retinue of adoring female assistants.

  ‘Napier my dear fellow, this is your finest. Everyone has said so, before and after luncheon!’ He winked and nodded towards some expensively dressed ladies and gentlemen. ‘We have hooked them, my dear fellow, we have hooked some really big fish. Never mind that old Algernon Hollingsworth could not wait for you to finish and bought one of Leighton’s instead, never mind that. No, we have a ready-made audience, dying for your every painting. Dying for them, simply dying for them.’

  It was that word ‘dying’ that hit Napier amidships. Despite his outward demeanour, despite everything that he had said to Sherry at the end of luncheon, the walk from the hotel to the gallery had been murderous for him. Every step of the way, above the sounds of the streets, the carriages and the people, he could only hear Sherry’s voice insisting on Edith’s innocence.

  Supposing Sherry was right? Supposing Edith was innocent, and Alfred just a meddler? What would he do if Edith died? Women died in childbirth all the time. It was a commonplace. How would he live with himself if his baby was born, his wife died, and he subsequently discovered that he had falsely accused her?

  ‘Are you all right, old fellow?’ Sheridan stared at Napier, who had started to mop his brow.

  ‘Perfectly, thank you, Sherry. It is just a little hot in here, don’t you find, after the country, that is?’

  Sheridan leaned forward and whispered, ‘Napier. How can you feel hot when you know that it has never been known for Sam to light a fire, not in all the years we have been coming here. All those lady assistants of his over there’ – Sheridan nodded over to where they were busying themselves – ‘it is well known that they all have to under-dress in the thickest Highland wool, for once the public go home the place is an ice box.’

  Napier stopped mopping his brow. ‘How do you know that they have to wear wool, Sherry?’ he asked, sounding childishly curious.

  ‘Because Alfred told me. You know the Talisman – he never can resist a lady in a shop. He is notorious in Burlington Arcade, I tell you, quite notorious.’

  Sheridan wandered off to view other paintings, and Napier followed him.

  ‘Burlington Arcade, did you say? Alfred frequents Burlington Arcade? But who told you this? And what does it mean?’

  Sheridan nodded across to Sam, who was busier than ever laughing and talking the beau monde into spending more money than they wanted to at his gallery.

  ‘Who do you think knows more about everyone than they know about themselves – Sam Devigne. Alfred and he have been huggermugger since they were at school together. Ask Sam anything about anyone and he will tell you. He told me last time I came up to London. All the gentlemen love the Arcade, do they not? First they interest their wives in some little trinket, then they send them off down the Arcade, and then they slip into the back of the shop and meet some willing young lady. Et voilà, the wife is happy, and the gentleman is happy, and so they make their respectable way home. It is the way of the world – not mine but that of so many of the fashionable set who find it difficult to avoid temptation in any form, even on a polite shopping trip.’

  ‘Well, I dare say Alfred can do as he wants. He is unmarried, after all.’

  ‘Certainly, of course he can do as he wants . . . This is quite a fine painting, would you not say?’

  Sheridan tapped Napier on the arm because he was paying no attention to the work of his rivals, work that they were meant to be viewing, but Napier had the emotional bit between his teeth.

  ‘Alfred can do as he wants,’ he repeated. ‘I know he had a little brush with the Snape when he was staying at Helmscote . . .’

  ‘Precisely. He has little brushes everywhere, not just with canvases. That is all I am trying to tell you, that Alfred is a certain kind of man. Not one I would call a gentleman, but’ – Sheridan stood back and gave an admiring sigh as he nodded towards the painting in front of which they were standing – ‘but, gracious me, Napier, Alfred can paint, can’t he?’

  Napier was still paying no attention. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said, Alfred may not be a gentleman, but he can paint, can’t he? Look at this.’ Sheridan leaned forward the better to read the title of the painting. “Friday’s Girl”. How does the phrase go? Oh yes. Friday’s child is loving and giving, and so is Friday’s girl is she not?’

  They both stared up at the large painting. It was Edith, but not as Napier had tried to paint her, symbolising some false depiction of womanhood, rather as a young, vibrantly beautiful woman. It was Edith as Alfred had seen her, innocent and loving. Edith painted by a man who was clearly besotted by her.

  Sheridan stared from the painting to the subject’s husband and back again.

  ‘I think we have got to the bottom of this particular matter, my dear Napier, don’t you?’ he asked in a suddenly sombre tone as the excitement and emotion of the painting swept over him.

  Napier backed away from the canvas as if it was a person intent on crowning him, and then stood staring up at it.

  It was all too clear what the painting was saying. It was saying what he, in his conceit, had refused to acknowledge. He was about to speak, when Sam came up and stood between himself and Sheridan.

  ‘Your painting, Sherry,’ he told Sheridan, in delighted tones. ‘“Mrs Molesworth with Loelia and Pansy”. I can sell it ten times over! But my dear fellow, typical of you, you have forgotten to sign it!’

  Napier continued to stare wordlessly up at ‘Friday’s Girl’, oblivious, as Sheridan turned to Sam Devigne.

  ‘My – er – my painting? Don’t you mean “Women on the Shore”, Sam?’

  ‘No, no, “Mrs Molesworth with Loelia and Pansy”. Delightful, quite delightful, just what is wanted.’

  ‘What about “Women on the Shore”, though, Sam? And the others? “Fisherman and His Pipe”?’

  ‘Both delightful, of course, but a little too realistic for my clientele, Sherry, just a little too realistic. They want to think of fisherfolk as being a great deal more noble than you have depicted them, but “Mrs Molesworth” is just their cup of tea, really she is. You must sign it for me. Set the ball rolling.’

  Sheridan looked rueful, and sighed. Finally, having struggled momentarily with his feelings, he shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘It is not by me, Sam. It is by Celandine Benyon.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Celandine Benyon. A very talented woman to whom I happen to be married. I brought the painting to London on her behalf.’

  Sam sighed heavily. ‘By a woman, you say? Oh dear, Sherry. What a pity.’

  ‘A pity, you say?’

  It was Sam Devigne’s turn to shrug his shoulders. ‘Yes, Sherry. Men don’t want to buy paintings by women; not even women want to buy paintings by women. It is just a fact. Water-colours by friends may be hung in bedrooms, but not oils by women in drawing rooms. Women painters are not considered.’

  ‘Ridiculous!’

  ‘I agree, my dear chap, I agree. But no matter how many male painters admire feminine talent, the public regard a professional painter of the female sex somewhat in the same way as they regar
d an actress, and they don’t want them on their walls either!’

  ‘When I was in Paris—’

  ‘No, Sherry, no good trying to make a case for it. The French, the Germans, Europe in general, although America less so, do not feel that a woman with a painting talent should be encouraged. It is against their finest principles.’

  Sam’s eyes, as always, were full of mischief, but the tone of his voice was rueful. Finally he leaned forward and said in a low voice, ‘You could sign the painting, since it is by your wife. It would sell in seconds.’

  ‘No, I could not do that, Sam.’ Sheridan shook his head. ‘As a matter of fact I would rather drink hemlock. Celandine is a fine painter, and soon, if not today, she will be recognised as such. I know it.’

  ‘Put her name to it then, my dear fellow. What you will.’

  Sam patted him on the shoulder, and moved quickly off. Of course the painting would finally sell with a woman’s name on it, but not for the sum that it would have fetched had it been signed by Sheridan Montague Robertson.

  Edith had started to enjoy the even tenor of Aunt Biddy’s household. The slow routine suited her state of health. Neither Celandine nor Sheridan had been able to visit her recently, but this did not appear to her as being in any sense a desertion, for the truth was that while she was more than grateful to Aunt Biddy, she had managed to induce in herself a peace of mind that was by far the best thing for her condition. Or perhaps her condition had brought about peace of mind?

  Lately she had found herself thinking a great deal about her own mother, and wondering how it would have been had she not died. She liked to imagine that they would have sewn baby garments together, would have talked excitedly of the time when the baby would arrive, and what its sex might be. Most of all she could have benefited from her advice, and enjoyed her sympathy.

  ‘Mrs Todd?’

  Gabrielle stood at the door of the little sitting room, her worn old face flushed with confusion and anxiety. Her hand trembled slightly as she pointed behind her.

  ‘Outside there,’ she said, ‘is Mr Todd, and he is asking to see you.’

  Edith laid aside her sewing, and stood up. It was a moment that she had imagined many times, Napier come to see her, to fetch her, to tell her why he had cast her so cruelly aside, but now that it had arrived she wanted nothing of it. She could not believe it. She did not want to see him. All the cruelty and despair that she had suffered over the last months, all the nights awake and wondering, flooded over her, and she suddenly knew, with complete certainty, that she could not, would not, see him.

  ‘Tell Mr Todd, if you would, Gabrielle, that if he has anything to say to me, he must put it in a letter. Tell him I will not see him, not today, nor any other day.’

  Gabrielle nodded, her hearing suddenly perfect, and for a second it seemed to Edith that the older woman looked relieved.

  ‘Very well, Mrs Todd.’ The old maid paused by the door. ‘If I was you,’ she said, lowering her voice, ‘if I was you, Mrs Todd, I would take the back stairs, right away from him.’

  Edith nodded, and catching up her sewing she swiftly exited through the other sitting-room door.

  ‘For myself, I think I will call the mistress and Russo,’ Gabrielle went on, talking out loud to herself, and she too exited through the door to the back of the house, circuiting the other rooms until she found Aunt Biddy.

  ‘Go and tell him, by all means, Gabrielle, and I will position myself in the hall.’

  Gabrielle went, and, as she had suspected, Mr Todd, not content to be left on the doorstep, moved past her into the hall, only to be confronted by the imposing figure of Aunt Biddy dressed in one of her more elaborate crinolines.

  ‘Mr Todd?’

  Aunt Biddy’s voice was uncharacteristically cold, and her best and most cutting drawing-room manner was to the fore. It stopped Napier, as it was meant to do. He stared at her for a few seconds, as if he could not quite believe that it was the same Aunt Biddy at whose party he had danced.

  ‘Mr Todd, I will ask you to leave this house. You are not welcome here, as you must realise. As you should realise. Your behaviour towards your poor young wife has been reprehensible, and understandably she has no wish to see you. If you wish to communicate with her, do so by all means, but in writing.’

  Napier had been so involved in his painting, so involved with ‘Temptation’, that he had not had time, and perhaps before his confrontation with Sherry never would have had time, to take account of how his actions towards Edith had affected other people.

  Certainly he had taken account of what Sherry had said to him over lunch, and when he had seen Alfred’s painting of Edith the truth of Sherry’s words had come home to him at a fast gallop. Alfred, being unable to seduce Edith, had taken care to work Napier up into precisely the same state as he had obviously worked Edith, but finally it was his painting that had given him away. He had painted her looking as innocent, as kind and as loving as Napier now realised, in his heart of hearts, he must have always known her to be.

  Now, facing Aunt Biddy, the true realisation of the nature of his behaviour towards Edith came home to Napier. The expression in Aunt Biddy’s eyes told him that what he had done to his wife was unforgivable. The question that now remained was whether Edith felt the same.

  I do not look for you to forgive me, I only wish that I had not been so involved with ‘Temptation’. I saw neither to the right nor to the left of me, and seeing nothing I have, deservedly, been left with nothing. It was only when I saw Talisman’s finished portrait of you in London the other day that it came to me that he loved you. It is a portrait of such insight into your lovely nature that it made me feel shabby to a degree. I have been in hell ever since, and I dare say I shall remain there, again deservedly.

  Edith put the letter in her dressing-table drawer. Napier was right. She could not forgive him the hurt he had done her. Moreover, she would not forgive him: to do so would be bad for her, and much worse for him. She had been too hurt by him for too long. He would have to remain wherever his particular hell was, at any rate for the moment.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The unmistakable and strangely piercing cry of a newborn baby rang through the old house. It was as startling a sound as any that could have been heard in that particular establishment.

  Aunt Biddy heard it first, and reached once more for the sherry bottle. Downstairs Gabrielle and Russo heard it, and they reached for the port bottle. Upstairs Celandine reached for a glass of water and handed it to Edith.

  ‘He’s a beautiful, big, bouncing, bonny boy,’ she told Edith, and her smile had never been wider. ‘A beautiful big bouncing bonny boy.’

  Edith stared down at the infant, and then up at Celandine. ‘He looks just like his father,’ she said eventually, and although there were tears on her cheeks, her smile was such that both Dr Bellingham and Celandine could not help laughing with delight. In fact they all laughed. Not that Dr Bellingham knew of the complications preceding the birth, but he certainly knew joy when he saw it, and even more certainly he had never felt more relieved.

  ‘Thank you so much for everything you did to help me,’ he told Celandine as she followed him downstairs.

  ‘Is there someone who can come and help Mrs Todd with the baby, Dr Bellingham?’

  The doctor nodded. ‘I will send someone from the village. There are many women with nursing experience who will be eager and willing.’

  Celandine turned towards the drawing-room door, and pushed it open slowly. She suddenly felt so tired she could have collapsed. Once inside the room she realised that Aunt Biddy already had.

  She touched her on the arm.

  Aunt Biddy stopped snoring and woke up with a start, looking indignantly up at Celandine as if she had no idea who she could possibly be. ‘What is it? What is it, my dear?’

  ‘It’s Edith, Aunt Biddy. She has been delivered of a bonny, bouncing baby boy.’

  Aunt Biddy stood up, her crinoline swaying. ‘Well, I nev
er. I felt sure that the doctor would make nonsense of it all and we would be going to a funeral, instead of a christening.’ She walked unsteadily back towards the table bearing the now sadly depleted sherry decanter. ‘I felt sure of that,’ she announced. ‘Sherry wine, my dear?’

  Celandine shook her head. She glanced over at Aunt Biddy’s clock. She was meant to be back at Newbourne before nightfall and it was already five o’clock. ‘No more sherry wine, thank you, Aunt Biddy.’

  ‘Must wet the baby’s head, surely?’

  ‘No, thank you very much. I think it has been quite dampened enough already,’ she murmured, smiling. ‘I will go and make sure that Edith is quite comfortable, and then I really must return to Newbourne.’

  ‘What does the baby look like, my dear? If you know what I mean?’

  Aunt Biddy’s tone was conspiratorial, and of course Celandine knew just what she meant.

  ‘Just as a boy should. The image of his father, there can be no disputing that.’

  ‘Well.’ Aunt Biddy’s smile was triumphant. ‘Well, that is good.’

  On Celandine’s return Mrs Molesworth opened the door to her with a worried, disapproving expression.

  ‘We have a visitor, Mrs Montague Robertson, and not one I think you will wish to welcome, really I doesn’t.’

  Celandine stared at the sitting-room door, thinking at once that she knew who it must be. She went into the room fully prepared to find Alfred Talisman there, and then paused just inside the door, unable to quite believe whom she was actually seeing.

  ‘Why is Mr Todd here, Sherry?’ she asked in a cold voice, turning to Sheridan.

  It was difficult to say who was looking more guilty at being caught together – Sherry or Napier.

  ‘He is here,’ Sheridan said, ‘because I asked him to supper with us, Celandine. And where have you been? I was just about to become worried.’

  The moment was irresistible to Celandine.

  ‘I have been delivering Mrs Todd of a baby.’ She looked across at Napier’s instantly paling face. ‘Yes, Mrs Todd has been delivered of a fine healthy baby boy, and she is quite well, you may be delighted to hear.’