The Girl in the Picture Page 19
‘No, my darling,’ he said. ‘They sold for £100 each.’
I was light-headed. ‘Two hundred,’ I breathed.
Edwin was suddenly all business. ‘What I’m proposing is this,’ he said. ‘I will act as your agent. I will take your paintings to Laurence and other buyers, and sell them. I will tell the buyers that I am the artist but I will give you the money we make.’
I nodded slowly. ‘All of the money?’
Edwin ducked his head.
‘That was my intention initially, but on drawing up these contracts it became clear that the amount of work involved does mean I will have to take a small commission …’
‘How small?’
‘Twenty per cent.’
I pursed my lips. ‘Fine,’ I said. My voice was steady, but my heart was beating fast and my head was spinning. This was it. This was my way out. I could paint, carrying on as I had been up until now. I could even go along with Father’s plans to marry me off, if it came to it, as long as I could delay the actual wedding for a year or so. Then I could sell my work, build up some savings and, when the time was right, reveal myself to the art world.
‘And this would all be legal?’ I said.
Edwin nodded. ‘I’ll make sure the contracts are all in order,’ he said.
I held my hand out across the desk. ‘Then we have a deal,’ I said.
Edwin shook my hand efficiently. Then still holding my fingers he came round the desk and pulled me close to him. He pressed his lips to mine.
‘Darling girl,’ he said. ‘We are going to make a perfect team.’
Chapter 47
I was exhausted when I finally got home. I had shared Edwin’s carriage back from Brighton, which was a relief. He said he would tell Frances he’d seen me at the station and offered to accompany me home. If she asked, which she probably wouldn’t, he’d said. Frances showed little interest in his comings and goings these days, he told me.
I said a polite farewell to Edwin at the gate of his house, and walked the short distance home. I was eager to get back, strip off my dusty travelling clothes, and rest. I had a lot to consider. Edwin’s offer sounded wonderful. It sounded like the best chance I had to become an artist.
But something made me cautious. Had Laurence really misunderstood what Edwin told him about signing the paintings, or was Edwin – as Millais had said – spinning me a yarn? Plus, painting under someone else’s name wasn’t quite how I’d pictured my career and I wanted to be sure I was doing the right thing. Although, I thought, I didn’t really have many options.
The house was quiet when I arrived, with no sign of Mabel or Philips. I unpinned my hat and hung up my cape, then I went to go up the stairs to my room and stopped in horror as I noticed Father’s bags at the bottom of the staircase.
Father was home? When had he arrived? Did he know I’d been away all night? Had Philips told him my lie about my former governess?
Feeling sick with dread, I crept into the lounge, ready to face the music. But Father wasn’t there. He wasn’t in his study either. This was strange. Perhaps he’d been called away again, and not realized I was gone. I hoped that was the case.
‘Father?’ I called. ‘Father?’
Nothing.
Dizzy with relief, I went upstairs with my bag and threw it on my bed. I changed my clothes, washed my face, and climbed the stairs to the attic.
It was getting late, and I was tired and hungry, but I had an idea for a painting showing a scene from Romeo and Juliet and I was eager to get on with sketching out my plans while they were still fresh in my mind.
I reached up to loosen my hair from its tight roll and gasped in surprise as I noticed Father sitting, straight upright, in the middle of the chaise.
‘I should have married again,’ he said, as though my arrival had merely interrupted his train of thought. ‘I should have found myself a good woman, perhaps had more children. It would have done you good to have siblings.’
I took a step towards him. ‘Father,’ I said.
‘Where have you been?’ he asked.
I paused, wondering whether to lie. ‘London,’ I admitted. ‘To talk to an artist about my work.’
I braced myself for his outrage. Father was a good man, but he did have a temper when he was crossed. I was rarely on the receiving end of his rage, so when I was, I felt it keenly.
Father nodded. He looked up at me and with shock I realized he had tears in his eyes.
‘I’m sorry, Violet,’ he said. ‘I fear I have left you alone too long, let you run wild. My absence has allowed you to construct a fantasy world with your drawing.’ He glanced at the wall where my sketches and paintings were pinned. ‘No more.’
I was thrown. When I’d imagined Father discovering my art, I had never expected him to react in this way, so sadly.
‘I missed your mother,’ he continued. ‘I missed her so much. And work was a release. And by the time I’d stopped missing her so badly, you were grown and I thought you no longer needed a father.’
I let out a sob. I may barely remember my mother but I missed her greatly and I’d never really considered that Father had been bereaved too. I sat down next to Father and took his hand.
‘Father,’ I said. ‘I may be grown but I still need you.’
‘No more,’ he repeated. He looked at me as if he was seeing me for the first time. ‘There is still time to save this,’ he said. ‘To make amends.’
‘Father,’ I said. ‘You have no need to make amends, you …’
‘Not me,’ he said. ‘You. You must make amends for this shameful pastime. This flight of fancy. These ideas of art must end, now.’
‘Father,’ I said, urgently. ‘No, you don’t understand. This is special. This is what I want to do with my life. What I must do with my life.’
Suddenly Edwin’s idea seemed like my only way out. It wasn’t perfect, but I could make it work.
‘I have a plan to paint,’ I began. But Father held up his hand to stop me talking.
‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘No more. What you must do, Violet, is stop painting altogether. You must marry, and you must give up this ridiculous notion.’
He got up and walked to the wall of paintings. With a sudden burst of anger, he pulled down one of my King Canute sketches. I winced as though he’d hit me.
‘I will ask Philips to come and return this room to its former purpose,’ he said, pulling more pictures down and throwing them on to the chaise beside me. ‘I forbid you to come up here.’
My sadness turned to anger. I was incensed.
‘This room was full of junk and old furniture,’ I cried. ‘That was its only purpose.’
Father didn’t reply. He was staring at my sketches for Daniel – the drawings of Edwin without a shirt.
‘What is this?’ he asked. He turned round to face me, his face pale and a vein in his temple bulging. ‘What in the name of God is this?’
‘Daddy,’ I said. I hadn’t called him Daddy for years. My mind raced. What should I say? That Edwin was a patron of the arts, who volunteered to pose for me? That he was my sponsor. That we were in love?
Father pushed the picture into my face and I shrank back.
‘You have brought such shame on me – and worse than that, you have brought shame on the memory of your late mother,’ he said. ‘How could you do such things?’
His eyes were wild. ‘Who else has seen these pictures,’ he said. He didn’t wait for me to answer. ‘The servants,’ he said. ‘They cannot be trusted. I must warn Mr Forrest.’
I was confused. ‘Warn him?’ I said.
‘I must tell him the truth about your disgusting fantasies,’ Father almost spat out the words. ‘I must confess that my daughter has been drawing filthy pictures of a respectable married man. What a sinful imagination you have.’
Sitting on the chaise where that respectable married man had forced himself upon me many times, I would have laughed had anything about the situation been remotely funny.
With my spirit utterly broken, I let myself fall back on to the cushions of the chaise. I couldn’t look at Father, couldn’t bring myself to think about my shattered dreams, or Edwin’s shattered reputation – there would be no way he could act as my patron now. It was over. It was all over. I wondered how Edwin would react when Father told him and I feared his temper.
‘Here is what will happen,’ Father was saying. ‘I will go next door and tell Mr Forrest the truth about the drawings – better he hears it from me than some salacious rumour from a servant. In the meantime, I will ask Philips to destroy all this filth, and restore the room. Tomorrow I will travel to London where I will throw myself on the mercy of John Wallace and ask him if he would consider taking you as a wife. I will tell him the truth but explain you are remorseful and determined to live a good life. I trust that marrying into the business will be of enough benefit to him to allow him to overlook this …’ he gave me a look of such disgust that I felt sick ‘… this misdemeanour.’
I didn’t speak. It was clear to me, as it had never been clear before, that my life was not my own to live as I pleased but rather my father’s and, one day, my husband’s. For a second I envied Mariana, waiting for a husband who never came. At least she was beholden to no one.
‘And what am I to do?’ I said, unable to keep the venom from my voice. ‘While you are organizing everything?’
Father threw down another picture. ‘You will stay here,’ he said. ‘You will stay in the house and you will read, and sew and walk in the garden. You will talk to no one but the servants. You will trouble no one.’
He gathered up the sketches of Edwin. ‘I cannot look at you,’ he said. ‘Go to your room and stay there. I am going to call on Mr Forrest.’
Chapter 48
Present day
Ella
I was wandering round the house aimlessly. ‘Pootling’ Barb called it. Wasting time was what it was really. I was waiting for Dad to email me the information he’d found on Frances’s living relatives, and knowing him it was going to take a while; he wasn’t the most savvy chap when it came to technology.
It had taken Dad just two days to find Frances and Edwin’s marriage certificate, and the birth certificate of their son, Charles, from March 1856. It took him a week more to trace Charles’s offspring. He had three children, and the youngest – who was also called Frances – had one son. The son – our Frances’s grandson – had four children himself who were all still alive.
‘Dad,’ I said when he told me. ‘You are incredible.’
‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ he said, but he had sounded pleased. It was funny, I couldn’t help thinking, that I had been interested in Violet in the first place because her family background was so like mine, and now researching her story had helped to bring me and my dad back together.
We’d not talked about my outburst at the pub, but we were speaking regularly. I feared we were just papering over the cracks and maybe we were, but Dad was – I thought – genuinely interested in Violet. I wondered if Violet’s dad had been interested in her work, or what their relationship had been like. He must have loved his daughter very much to search for her the way he had.
Along with thinking about Violet, I’d had plenty of other work to occupy myself with while I was waiting for Dad to do his family tree thing. My agent had got back to me with feedback on my new Tessa story. She liked it – ish – but she said it felt like my heart wasn’t in it. She was right. After all, I was still spending all my time thinking and wondering about what had happened to Violet. Or talking to Priya about it.
‘It’s always someone close,’ Priya told me after I’d filled her in on the details of the crime. ‘People think strangers are the scary ones but they’re not. It’s the people you’re closest to you should be frightened of.’
I shuddered. ‘There was no one else,’ I said. ‘Just Violet’s dad. But he was away when it happened and then he spent his life trying to find his daughter. He can’t have been the attacker.’
‘Perhaps it was a stranger then,’ Priya admitted. ‘It’s not as common, but it does happen of course. Just a burglar who was disturbed. Or someone who was mentally ill, perhaps? Edwin was involved in the law, right? People bear grudges. Perhaps he’d done something wrong and someone was angry about it.’
It was frustrating going round and round in circles but it had all happened such a long time ago there was no easy way to discover any more about it.
So now I was waiting to hear from Dad about where Frances’s living relatives were, and I was getting impatient.
Gripping my phone tightly, in case a message pinged through, I trailed through the house and up to the study. It was quiet. The boys were at school and nursery, and Ben was at work. I perched on the windowsill and looked out to sea, watching a tiny speedboat bounce soundlessly across the waves. I checked my phone again. Nothing.
‘We’ve found Frances,’ I said out loud, imagining I was talking to Violet and completely aware how ridiculous that was. ‘Dad’s just emailing me.’ I waved my phone in the air, as a thought occurred to me. ‘Do you know what email is, Violet?’
There was silence. Of course. I slid off the window ledge and went to look at my whiteboard. Now as well as the self-portrait of Violet, I’d written the names of the victims – Violet Hargreaves, Frances Forrest, Edwin Forrest, William Philips – and what had happened to them – missing, injured, murdered, murdered. But staring at the names didn’t help me at all.
I sighed and walked over to the cupboard where I’d found the pictures, and flung open the door. I’d cleared it out now – there had been nothing else there that belonged to Violet as far as I could see – and the shelves were now filled with my things.
In my left hand, my phone buzzed. Surprised, I jumped and dropped it. It bounced once off the carpet lining the cupboard floor, and disappeared into the furthest corner, where the sloping ceiling met the floor.
‘Sake,’ I muttered, getting on my hands and knees. It was very dusty down here; I really had to bring the hoover up.
I felt for my phone in the dark shadows, and then as my fingers closed around it, I felt something else tucked under the carpet. I pulled my phone out and then wriggled on to my stomach and reached inside the cupboard further. I pulled back the carpet and revealed a leather-bound notebook. It was fastened with a clip and had pieces of paper tucked inside.
Intrigued, I picked it up and sat back on my haunches, brushing the dust from my knees. I turned the book over in my hands. Its pages were yellowed round the edges but I couldn’t open it to see what was inside.
Getting up with a grunt – exactly as Dad did, I noticed with dismay – I took the book over to my desk and found a paperclip. I straightened it out, stuck it into the clasp and wiggled it about, grinning as it released and sprang open. It was a diary; that was clear. It was filled with neat writing at the front and scribbled notes, rows of numbers, and lists of names at the back.
‘Is this your diary, Violet?’ I asked. I really was losing my marbles, talking to someone who’d been dead for more than one hundred and fifty years. The room stayed quiet, but my heart beat faster just the same – maybe this diary contained all the answers to the mystery.
I leaned back in my chair, opened the diary, and began to read.
And that’s where Ben found me, hours later, when the shadows were growing longer and the boys were laughing with Margaret downstairs.
I jumped when he came in, because I was so involved in the diary.
Ben looked at me with concern. ‘Are you crying?’
I put my hand to my eyes and found my cheeks were damp. I hadn’t even realized that I’d been sobbing as I read. ‘Oh, Ben,’ I wailed. ‘It’s so sad.’
Ben perched on the desk next to where I sat and took my hand. ‘What’s happened?’ he said. ‘Is it your dad? Is he okay?’
I bli
nked at him. ‘It’s not me who’s sad,’ I said. ‘I found Frances’s diary.’
Ben’s jaw dropped. ‘Here?’ he said in disbelief. ‘Why would it be here?’
‘I have no idea,’ I said. I didn’t care, really. The only important thing was that I’d found it and I’d read it.
‘Ben, you must read it,’ I told him. ‘Edwin Forrest was a horrible, violent man.’
‘Tell me,’ he said.
‘Edwin had been hitting Frances for years,’ I said. ‘He made her miscarry her baby.’
Ben breathed out. ‘So Frances wasn’t pregnant?’ he said. ‘I thought you read that in the police report? So who are these relatives your dad’s found?’
‘Oh no, she was pregnant,’ I said, realizing I’d not yet read Dad’s email. The one that had buzzed on my phone and made me find the diary. ‘Frances had lost a baby before because of Edwin. So, as far as I can tell, when she realized she was pregnant again, she planned to leave without telling him. She had it all sorted out.’
‘Brave woman,’ Ben pointed out. ‘Can’t have been easy to be a single mum in those days. Nigh on impossible I imagine.’
‘She was amazing,’ I said. ‘Look at this.’ I opened the diary at the end, and showed him the scribbled notes.
‘There’s a whole backstory here for her new life – her new name and everything. She’s even practised her new signature. There are train times, maps – looks like she was going to Scotland.’
Ben leafed through the pages, shaking his head in awe at the details they contained. ‘It must have been really bad for her to plan to do all this.’
‘She had a baby to think about,’ I said. It seemed straightforward to me. I knew I would do anything to make sure my boys were okay. ‘She had to keep her child safe.’
‘But she didn’t go to Scotland, she stayed in Sussex after her husband died,’ Ben pointed out. ‘And where does Violet fit in to all this?’
‘It’s pretty sleazy,’ I warned him.
Ben’s eyes gleamed. ‘Tell me.’
‘Edwin seems to have been a right old philanderer – prostitutes, women in London when he went on business.’ I paused. ‘And Violet.’