The Girl in the Picture Read online

  ‘Some of it,’ Philips conceded. ‘But not all.’

  ‘He signed my paintings,’ I told him. ‘He signed them and he sold them.’

  Philips looked shocked. ‘And he told you?’

  ‘I found out.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Philips asked.

  I shook my head. ‘I have no idea,’ I admitted. ‘Avoid Edwin? Apologize to Frances? Get married?’

  ‘Don’t stop painting,’ he said. ‘Promise me that?’

  I smiled at him. ‘I promise.’

  He nudged me gently with his elbow again. ‘I know you think you’re alone in this world and there is no one looking out for you,’ he said. ‘But you’re wrong.’

  I could marry Philips and we could start a new life miles from here, I thought. But I knew it wouldn’t work, not really.

  ‘I will be grateful to you for this as long as I live,’ I said. ‘Probably longer.’

  Philips slung his arm around my shoulder and dropped a kiss on my temple.

  ‘Come on then,’ he said. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  Chapter 55

  1855

  Frances

  15th Sep 1855

  Edwin has been in London for a week and I have heard nothing from him. I am not sorry, nor do I miss him. I have stayed indoors these past days, waiting for my bruises to fade and my swollen lip to go down. Agnes has been tending to me with such care and gentleness that at first I could hardly bear it. It has been so long since anyone touched me with anything other than anger that her kindly attention almost hurt.

  I have had no bleeding and the cramps in my belly have ceased. But in my heart I know my baby is no more. Edwin has taken that from me also. Agnes asked me how far along I was and when I told her, she looked grim-faced. I know she thinks I should have felt movements by now. She also thinks my baby is dead, though she has not said so much …

  Frances looked up from her diary as the doorbell rang; its loud chime clanging through the quiet house. She heard Agnes march to the door and low voices. Then there was a knock on the door of the drawing room where she sat.

  ‘It is Miss Hargreaves, Madam,’ Agnes said. ‘I told her you weren’t receiving visitors but she was very persistent.’

  Frances stood up – it was still quite painful to move even after a week of recovery – and forced a smile. Her heart was thumping. ‘Of course, Agnes,’ she said.

  Violet came in, slinking round the door like the kitchen cat. She looked at Frances, her eyes wide with shock and a tear trickled down her cheek.

  ‘I have come to apologize,’ she said. She looked thin and pale and even her vibrant hair seemed muted. ‘I have been foolish and made unforgiveable choices and I am so ashamed.’ Her voice shook and Frances felt a rush of sympathy.

  ‘Sit down,’ she said, pointing to the sofa. Violet sat and Frances lowered herself down next to her, more gently, and offered Violet a handkerchief. Violet patted her eyes. There was a brief, awkward silence as Frances thought about what to say.

  ‘If I know Edwin,’ she said eventually. ‘Believe me, I do. I imagine that you had very little choice, foolish or otherwise.’

  Violet reached out and very, very softly, touched the bruise on Frances’s jaw. ‘He did this,’ she said. It wasn’t a question.

  They stared at each other for a moment, then Frances pulled back her sleeve and showed Violet her bandaged wrist.

  ‘I answered back,’ she said. ‘He did not like it.’

  Violet shook her head. ‘I thought,’ she said. ‘Edwin said … I was wrong.’

  Frances watched as Violet finally put all the pieces of the puzzle together.

  ‘You tried to warn me,’ she said. ‘I thought you were telling me to stay away from your husband, but you were worried about me. You tried to tell me and I ignored you.’

  Frances took her hand. ‘I should have been clearer,’ she said. ‘But I was scared.’

  Violet nodded in understanding.

  ‘I was so focused on myself, I didn’t allow myself to hear what you were saying.’

  Frances stood up, wincing slightly, and went to the door. ‘No matter,’ she said. ‘I shall ask Agnes to bring tea.’

  She felt, strange as it was, almost happy that Violet had come to call. She realized how much courage it had surely taken. Despite such a strange beginning, she wondered if they could be friends. It was unlikely – who knew what would happen now. Frances doubted if Mr Hargreaves would allow Violet to continue her strange half-wild existence. And, truth be told, Frances had not yet decided what to do. Her need to get away was less urgent now there was no baby, but she still quailed at the thought of staying. She asked Agnes for tea, then returned to the drawing room and sat next to Violet once more.

  ‘Where is your father?’ Frances asked.

  Violet bit her lip. ‘Manchester,’ she said. ‘But I have had no word from him.’ She looked straight at Frances, her grey eyes clear and bright. ‘Does it make you angry?’ she asked. ‘Having no power?’

  Frances thought for a moment. ‘What makes me very angry,’ she said. ‘Is not being allowed to be angry.’

  Violet smiled a small smile. ‘Since Father went, I’ve been going out into the garden and screaming,’ she confessed.

  ‘Screaming?’ Frances said.

  ‘Loudly.’

  ‘And does it make you feel better?’

  Violet let the smallest of giggles escape her lips. ‘Not at all,’ she said.

  Frances chuckled. She liked this girl, despite the odd circumstances that had thrown them together.

  ‘Look at us,’ she said. ‘Both beholden to men. I am forced to await the return of a husband who beats me, and you are waiting for your father.’

  ‘Like Mariana,’ Violet said.

  Frances was confused. ‘Who is she?’

  ‘She’s a character in Measure for Measure,’ Violet explained. ‘And there’s a poem by Tennyson. She was waiting to be married but the boat carrying her dowry sank, so she waited and waited …’

  She looked embarrassed for a second. ‘There’s a painting of her, by Millais,’ she said. ‘I copied it, but changed her face. Instead of painting hers, I painted my own.’

  ‘Your own?’ Frances said.

  Violet nodded.

  ‘How clever,’ Frances said. She meant it. She envied Violet’s creativity. ‘Your talent could free you.’

  But Violet shook her head. ‘Father is making me a marriage,’ she said. ‘He’s talking to one of his employees about marrying me. I know he’ll agree. The business is worth marrying, even if I am not.’ Her voice had grown harsh and bitter. ‘And I will agree to the match, as soon as possible. Because …’ She paused and looked away from Frances, colour rising in her pale cheeks.

  ‘Because …’ Frances prompted, but she already knew what Violet was going to say.

  ‘Because I think I am expecting a baby,’ she said.

  Frances felt at once bereft and exhilarated. ‘When God closes one door, he opens another,’ she murmured.

  Violet looked blank. ‘The doors are all closed,’ she said, in a shrill voice. ‘I will marry John Wallace, and lie about the father of my baby, and I will never paint again.’

  But Frances was barely listening. ‘Violet,’ she said. ‘Could you pass me my diary? It’s there on the writing desk.’

  Violet gave her an odd look, but she stood up and handed Frances the diary. Frances held it in her lap, smoothing the brown leather cover. Then she looked up at Violet.

  ‘I have been planning to leave,’ she said.

  Violet put her hand to her mouth. ‘Leave?’ she said. ‘Where would you go?’

  Frances smiled. ‘Scotland,’ she said. ‘I imagined that would be far enough.’

  Violet still looked confused, so Frances continued.

  ‘I have money. Quite a lot of it, actually,’ she said. ‘And in this diary are all my plans. Train times, maps, a story to tell …’

  ‘You’ve done all this,’ Vio
let said.

  Frances nodded. She handed the diary to Violet. ‘Have a look – it’s all at the back, mostly. There’s a train timetable, and I’ve worked out when you’d have to leave here in order to catch the right train from Brighton.’

  ‘When I’d have to leave?’ Violet repeated, realization dawning on her pale, pretty face. ‘Oh no, Mrs Forrest, this is your plan.’

  ‘But it is you who needs it most,’ Frances said. ‘You have to think about your future. And your child.’ Her voice cracked a little as she talked about the baby, but she thought Violet – who was leafing through the diary – hadn’t noticed.

  ‘I cannot bear to think of you living in an unhappy marriage,’ Frances said fiercely. ‘Your creativity stifled, your talent hidden. It will not do.’

  Violet looked up. ‘Come with me,’ she said.

  Frances shook her head. ‘Two women travelling together alone would attract attention.’

  ‘Then come later.’ There was a gleam of life in Violet’s grey eyes once more as she plotted. ‘I could go – I could go soon, in the next few days perhaps – and get settled,’ she said, her words tumbling over each other. ‘I will tell my story – your story – and find a home. Then I will send you word and you can join me – you can be there for when the baby arrives.’

  She looked at Frances, her eyes wide with fear. ‘I’m so scared,’ she said. ‘I’m so frightened of being alone. I need you.’

  Frances felt enormous relief. This could work. She needn’t see out her days with Edwin, fearing his fists and his cold words. She could build a new life; forge a family from the ruins of her old one.

  ‘You could be my sister, come to help with the baby,’ Violet added.

  ‘Sisters?’ Frances said doubtfully, looking down at her neat figure and then at Violet’s rangy, long-limbed beauty.

  ‘Different mothers,’ Violet said, in a matter-of-fact fashion. ‘Should anyone be so rude as to ask.’

  Frances laughed. ‘You see how easily the lies come,’ she said. Then she paused. ‘I have no family. No one who would miss me, or who I would miss. But you have your father, Violet. What about your father?’

  Violet chewed her lip. Frances thought she looked very young.

  ‘Do you know when your father is due back?’ she asked.

  Violet shook her head. ‘It could be weeks,’ she said. ‘He often stays in Manchester for a month. He says the journey is so ghastly he needs time to recover.’

  ‘Then you have time to decide,’ Frances said. ‘Take the diary and read all my plans, see what you think. And, Violet, think about what it means to leave your father.’

  Violet nodded. She closed the diary carefully. ‘I will look after this,’ she said as she stood up. ‘Thank you, Mrs Forrest.’

  Frances stood up too, more slowly. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Call me Frances. If we are to be sisters …’

  Violet smiled at her, then pulled her close in an awkward embrace, much to Frances’s surprise.

  The younger woman spoke into Frances’s hair. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  Chapter 56

  1855

  Violet

  Over the next day or two, I read Frances’s diary again and again. I wrote lists about leaving and lists about staying, then I burned them. I wrote a letter to my father explaining how I felt I’d lost both my parents the day my mother died, then I burned that too. I wept for Frances, reading her accounts of Edwin’s beatings, and felt guilty that by taking her money and her plans I would be leaving her at Edwin’s mercy. Eventually, I went to find Philips. He was in the pantry, fixing a shelf.

  ‘Are you busy?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. He was holding nails in his mouth, so his voice was muffled.

  I stayed where I was, scuffing my toe on a mark on the floor.

  ‘Still here?’ Philips said.

  ‘Yes,’ I mimicked.

  Philips took the nails from his mouth and gave me a resigned smile. Then he went out of the back door into the garden and I followed him to a tree at the far end of the lawn. I went to throw myself down on the grass next to him, then paused. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this baby, if indeed there was a baby, but I didn’t want to harm it. I sat down in a more sedate fashion than I was used to.

  ‘I’m in a bit of trouble,’ I said to Philips.

  ‘When are you ever not in trouble,’ he said with affection. I shook my head slowly and his eyes grew wide.

  ‘Trouble,’ he repeated. ‘I see.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Well,’ I said. ‘I could marry John Wallace and pretend the baby is his, and live a respectable life.’

  ‘Marry me,’ Philips said in a rush. ‘Don’t marry Wallace, marry me.’

  I was tempted. But Father wouldn’t be pleased about that either, and knowing the contempt Philips felt for Edwin I wasn’t sure he would be able to love his baby as a father should.

  I took his hands in mine. ‘William,’ I said. ‘Lovely William. I wish I could marry you, but I can’t. You know that.’

  ‘I do know that,’ he said. ‘But we could make a life together.’

  I shook my head. ‘I love you for asking,’ I said. ‘But no.’

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘So what will you do,’ he said. ‘If you don’t marry?’

  I took a breath. ‘I could run.’

  Philips snorted. ‘Where would you go? What would you do?’

  I felt a rush of pride for Frances’s hard work and preparation. ‘I have some money and a place to go,’ I said. ‘I just don’t know how to leave Father. I’m all he’s got.’

  Philips was frowning. ‘Then don’t go,’ he said. ‘This is madness. A woman out in the world on her own? With a littl’un to think about?’ He trailed off. ‘This would break your father’s heart, Violet.’

  He was right, of course, I thought later. Father was prickly and set in his ways, but he loved me. Clutching Frances’s precious diary, I climbed the stairs to my former studio and put the diary in the cupboard where I’d hidden my version of ‘Mariana’. Then I stood for a moment in the middle of the room, imagining a life without art.

  I couldn’t. I couldn’t imagine a life where I didn’t draw. And that gave me hope. I could marry John Wallace and still draw – of course I could. And as for the baby, well there might not even be a baby. I still wasn’t sure and probably wouldn’t be for weeks.

  I went to bed that night determined to stay. I would repair my relationship with Father, I thought as I put on my nightdress, and I would make my marriage work. I would be a dutiful, loyal wife, and if I had to paint in secret then so be it. As I drifted off to sleep I felt calm and relieved. Everything was going to be fine.

  Two things happened to change my mind. The first was the sickness. I woke the next morning and lay for a second, enjoying the low autumn sun that shone through my bedroom window. Then, as I sat up, I was hit by a wave of dreadful nausea. I scrabbled under my bed for my chamber pot, then vomited violently several times.

  Mabel found me, quarter of an hour later, still hunched over the pot, pale and sweating, and I thought I’d never been so pleased to see anyone.

  ‘Oh, Mabel,’ I said.

  Mabel took the pot from me and smoothed back the hair that was stuck to my clammy forehead. ‘Ginger,’ she said. ‘My sister swears by it. She suffers terrible when she’s …’

  She stopped abruptly, and I was grateful she hadn’t voiced what we were both thinking.

  ‘Can you manage to get dressed?’ she said. I nodded. I found myself to be suddenly and inexplicably ravenous.

  ‘Breakfast is ready,’ Mabel said. She paused. ‘And there is a letter from your father.’

  That was the second thing.

  My dear Violet, the letter read.

  I am writing with good news. I have spoken at length with John Wallace and he has agreed to marry you. Violet, I know this is not what you wanted but I fear we must be practical. Without
a good marriage you will have no security, and my business will eventually have to be sold. This way, I know you will be cared for when I am gone.

  Wallace is a good man and a kind one, and I know will he care for you.

  There was more, about his business deals in Manchester, and then …

  We are to leave Manchester tomorrow and hope to be with you in Sussex within a week. I have written to Rev. Mapplethorpe to ask him if your marriage can take place the following weekend. I feel under the circumstances it is best to get things arranged as soon as possible.

  I felt sick again. I was sitting alone at the long dining table, where I’d eaten many meals facing Father in silence. I imagined sitting here in twenty years’ time, facing John Wallace, and knew without a shadow of a doubt that I couldn’t do it.

  I drained my coffee cup and stood up. I would go and find Frances straight away to put our plans into action. I swept out into the hall, without even pausing to pick up my hat and gloves.

  Philips was in the front garden.

  ‘Don’t do it, Violet,’ he said as I passed. I ignored him. I walked up Frances’s path and knocked, loudly, on the door, feeling Philips watching me the whole time. Agnes opened the door and showed me out into the sunny terrace where Frances was eating breakfast. She stood up when I approached, her face full of hope.

  I took her hand. ‘I have decided,’ I said. ‘I will go.’

  Chapter 57

  1855

  Frances

  Violet and Frances were laughing as they walked to the front door.

  ‘I’m just not sure I am a Florence,’ Violet was saying.

  ‘I will call you Flo,’ Frances said, giggling like a girl.

  ‘I may not answer,’ Violet said. She linked her arm through Frances’s. ‘I think we make fine sisters,’ she said. ‘Florence and Polly.’

  Frances felt like her whole life had shifted from despair to hope. She was still terribly sad about the baby but her friendship with Violet had given her a future to plan. They met every day to go over the details of Violet’s escape and how Frances would follow as soon as she could, and they were almost ready to put it into practice.