A Trace of Deceit

by Karen Odden

  So he is without parents, too, I realized with a jab of sympathy. “I’m sorry.”

  He gave a quick smile of acknowledgment. “When did you know you wanted to paint?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t remember, honestly. I took it up mostly because Edwin did.”

  “Are you happy at the Slade?”

  “Now I am.”

  He gave me a curious look.

  “It was difficult when I started. I wasn’t sure I belonged.”

  “Did you ask to attend?”

  “Not at all.” I took a sip of tea, and the mild warmth slid over my tongue. “One day, my father informed me that he’d set aside money for Edwin to attend art school. But it seemed Edwin would likely end up—”

  In an early grave was what my father had said, but the words caught in my throat.

  “Not going,” Mr. Hallam supplied tactfully.

  I nodded. “My father paid the fees less as a kindness to me than as a spiteful gesture toward Edwin. But still, it was tuition, and I took it.”

  “Did he not see your talent, then?”

  “Not really,” I replied and set down the cup. My father had never shown more than a cursory interest in my painting. Later, when I was at the Slade, I was grateful for it. Unlike Edwin, I had the freedom to fumble my way forward without having to report every comment Mr. Poynter made about my work the first term.

  “Well, clearly someone recognized your ability. They admitted you.”

  I smiled. “I’ve a feeling there weren’t many women applying for positions. Plenty of the male students feel we’ve taken spots that might have been given to other men—and they make it abundantly clear.” I sighed. “In a way, I can understand their point. I certainly wasn’t as well prepared as most of them, and I was too tentative at first. But being with the other students has helped.”

  He took a moment to absorb that. “When did your brother begin to paint?”

  This was more the sort of question I was expecting.

  Yet I remained silent because I knew my answer would be only the beginning of a story that I wasn’t eager to retrace.

  After a moment, he set down his cup and eased back in his chair. “It isn’t always a comfortable thing, asking these questions,” he admitted. “It’s awkward, on both sides. But I’ve found when trying to understand how something like this happens, often the best place to begin is a man’s habits, including his earliest tendencies and the sorts of incidents that shaped his mature character.”

  Character.

  That word flew like an arrow to the part of my brain that held memories of my father. I could hear his voice in my head as clearly as if he were beside me, speaking in my ear.

  Something must have shown in my expression, for Mr. Hallam leaned forward with a questioning look. “What is it?”

  I shook my head. “My father used to talk about character. He told Edwin that his was weak and unfixed.”

  He frowned. “That’s rather severe. How old was Edwin?”

  “Ten or eleven, I suppose.”

  He gave a snort and poured more coffee from the pot. “I’m glad character isn’t fixed by then. I was sullen and selfish at that age.” He took up his cup. “People change.”

  “Edwin certainly did.” And—though I didn’t say so to Mr. Hallam—therein lay the problem. The different versions of Edwin’s character were like a palimpsest, paintings laid one over the other, with vestiges showing through. I had a few early memories of Edwin laughing and impish and bright-eyed. Later when he and my father were in regular rows, Edwin was often resentful or despondent. And then came the day Edwin left for school, his despair etched upon his face, starkly white against his coppery curls. In the background hovered my mother in tears, my father with his mouth curled in disdain—

  Mr. Hallam’s spoon clinked against the cup as he stirred in milk. His countenance was composed and patient, but I reminded myself he was looking for usable information, not this murk of memories and feelings, and I fought down the sadness that lodged like a stone in my throat.

  “What was he like as a child?” he asked quietly. “Sometimes it’s easier to begin there.”

  Yes, those early memories were set in purer, bolder colors, not muddled by all that came later. I folded the napkin into a tidy rectangle and smoothed it in my lap.

  “My mother always said we were opposites,” I began. “Even as an infant, I was docile while Edwin was restless and colicky. He outgrew that, of course. I don’t remember much of our time in Gloucester, but Edwin was already beginning to draw. One of the earliest memories I have is of him when he was six years old. It was spring, and Mother, Edwin, and I had been outside in the garden.” I paused, recollecting the sight of my small hands against the dark brown dirt, the box of delicate pale green seedlings, and the feeling of being terribly pleased because Mother had praised me for digging holes that were just the right size.

  Mr. Hallam set his cup down in its saucer; the sound recalled me to the present and nudged me to continue.

  “We’d spent most of the afternoon out of doors. Mother had removed her hat, and Edwin had sketched her kneeling at the edge of the garden, her sleeves rolled to her elbows, her hair in wisps across her face.” I paused as I realized I didn’t remember my mother that day so much as Edwin’s drawing, which I saw later. “At last we came in for tea. Mother and I were upstairs, for we hadn’t realized my father had come home. And then we heard Edwin crying out.”

  Mr. Hallam looked a question.

  “My father had seen the sketch,” I continued, “and he asked Edwin who’d been to visit. Edwin told him no one, and that he’d sketched it himself. My father didn’t believe him and punished him for his lies and conceit.” I swallowed, remembering Edwin’s cries of pain, audible through my bedroom door. Peculiarly, I remembered the moment as if I were the object of someone else’s view: I was sitting motionless on the floor, my hands frozen in place over the buttons on my doll’s dress, with those delicate pearl buttons the only bit of brightness in the scene. My lips were parted in surprise and fear, my round cheeks were soft and childish, and my eyes were wide open in silent alarm. Then the memory shifted: I was back inside myself as I heard my mother’s door opening, her footsteps racing down the stairs, and her voice crying my father’s name.

  “But he wasn’t lying.” Mr. Hallam’s voice broke into my thoughts.

  “No,” I said. “To be fair, there was no reason to think Edwin could do such a thing. So far as my father knew, Edwin had never drawn anything before.”

  “Clearly he had.”

  “Yes. I found his first sketchbook among my mother’s things after she died.” I poured another cup of tea and dropped in some sugar. “To this day, I don’t know why my father was so angry at the thought of someone visiting while he was away. But he stormed out of the house, and when he returned that night, Mother insisted that Edwin had drawn it, and as proof asked him to sketch my face, which he promptly did, in front of my father, so he could see for himself.” I still remember being called to the parlor to sit for it and my fear at my father’s scowling, skeptical face—until Edwin finished, and I was allowed to slide off the chair.

  Mr. Hallam’s expression was watchful. “Did your father admit his mistake?”

  I still felt the sting of his injustice. “No,” I said shortly. “My father wasn’t that sort. But afterward he told Edwin things would be different.”

  “Why was that?”

  “My father believed if a boy was given such a talent by God it was a sin to squander it.”

  “He was a religious man?”

  “Yes, although not by profession. He was a clerk at National Provincial Bank. But sometimes he’d use religion to bolster his point.” A note of anger edged into my voice. “Father told Edwin it was his responsibility to fulfill whatever role God had planned for him—and by extension, it was my father’s responsibility to make sure Edwin did so.”

  A look of understanding crossed his face.

  I chose
a scone and broke off a piece. “Edwin’s first tutor was Mr. Worley, who came to our house in Gloucester, but it wasn’t long before he told Father that Edwin was unusually talented, and he should hire someone better suited. At about this time, a new position with the bank in Bishopsgate became available for my father, so we moved to London, and he hired Mr. Black to tutor Edwin in the usual subjects and Mr. Devlin for painting and drawing.”

  Mr. Hallam handed over the butter plate. “How old was Edwin at the time?”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Seven or eight.”

  “Did he like these new tutors?”

  I paused in my buttering to remember. “Yes, I think so. Especially Mr. Devlin. He was a kind man, and patient, so long as he believed we were attending to him and doing our best to follow instructions. But like any teacher, he became annoyed when Edwin was inattentive or stubborn or sulky, or made excuses for why he hadn’t finished his work.”

  “You said we,” he interjected. “‘So long as he believed we were attending.’”

  “I was allowed to sit with them during the lessons. We didn’t have a governess, and I think my parents thought it no harm for me to learn.”

  “I see.” He, too, chose a scone and spread a piece with butter. “And did Edwin develop his talent?”

  “Tremendously, but as Edwin improved, Father became more demanding, wanting him to spend hours every day working. He’d obtain commissions for Edwin to execute and insisted that he spend his leisure time in museums, copying the masters. But Edwin hated museums, and being dragged about, and being directed all the time. Eventually he began to resist my father’s demands.”

  “When was this?”

  “He was eleven. Mr. Devlin’s wife took ill, and he took her abroad, so my father decided Edwin should go away to a school with a proper art teacher.”

  I remembered that day vividly. Father had taken Edwin into the parlor to tell him that he would leave the following month. Edwin emerged with a white, set face and his shoulders rounded in dejection. He ran along half a dozen streets to a small green, and I followed, eventually finding him with his back to one of the elms. His hands, so steady with a paintbrush, were trembling as they plucked apart one leaf after another, down to its veins. He didn’t say a word, and I sat beside him and rested my head against his upper arm, not knowing how to comfort him. At last he stopped rending the leaves, sighed, and put his arm around my shoulders. We sat together for some time, the breeze stirring the branches overhead into a gentle sibilance, until we heard the church bells tolling the hour for dinner. I felt Edwin tense beside me, like a deer preparing to run, and my heart plummeted as I realized what Edwin’s absence from our house would mean for me. “I don’t want you to go,” I whispered, and he made a sound of accord. Then he stood, brushed off his pants, and put out his hand to pull me up.

  “What was the name of the school?” Mr. Hallam asked.

  “Tennersley,” I replied. “It’s a few hours north toward Birmingham. The art teacher was well known and admired. But Edwin didn’t like it much, and he began to play truant. Once he jumped on a train and made it all the way home. Of course Father was furious and took Edwin straight back the next morning.”

  “Was Edwin homesick?”

  I poured more tea. “I don’t know. He came home at the breaks, but he didn’t seem particularly happy to be back. And each time, he seemed less his usual self, less interested in the things we once did together. I suppose some of that’s natural,” I said deprecatingly. “He was older and having such different experiences. A boy that age doesn’t want to play games with his sister. But he just seemed so . . . withdrawn. He’d vanish for hours or lock himself away in his room with his books, though I sensed he wasn’t studying.”

  “How long was he at school?”

  I added sugar and stirred. “Until he was almost sixteen. That’s when he ran away for the last time. He returned to London and for a while he stayed with a friend whose mother took in boarders—”

  “Do you remember the friend’s name?”

  I frowned, trying to recall. “I’m sure I heard it. It was something common, I think. White or Waters, perhaps. Felix might know.” I paused, hoping the memory would become clear, but it didn’t, and I shook my head. “Eventually Edwin ran out of money and returned home. But by then he was profoundly . . . altered.” I heard my voice change, and I took a few sips of tea before I continued, “He would barely speak to me, or to my father. The only person he seemed to listen to was my mother, and even she had very little influence. Father still gave him a small allowance and tried to help him find commissions, but Edwin stayed away longer and longer, sometimes disappearing for weeks at a time. I know he found occasional work as a copyist, and he apprenticed at a gallery for a while where he learned the finer points of restoration. But he was gambling and—and visiting opium dens, and eventually he fell into debt that he couldn’t pay off. He began borrowing money in my father’s name and then couldn’t come home to face him. So he found rooms here or there, wherever he could. Every few months, he’d come back, full of apologies, promising to change—but then, he’d vanish, and . . . well, after a few years of this, my father was ready to abandon Edwin to his fate, though my mother always held out hope.”

  His expression changed, as if he’d fit a piece of a puzzle into place. “Is that why when we told you that he was gone . . .”

  I nodded. “I expected he’d simply run off again.”

  “I see.”

  “And then he became involved in the forgery scheme, and went to prison—and when he came out, he said he was reformed for good.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  I dropped my gaze to my half-empty cup. The tea was a diluted ochre, and the cup was cold. “I don’t know. Felix says the change was sincere. I . . . well, I was reluctant to trust him.”

  “Understandably.”

  I set the cup back in its saucer. “Tell me, Mr. Hallam, how does this sort of thing help you learn why Edwin was killed?”

  His shoulders shifted. “I don’t know, exactly. Sometimes the old details fit together with new ones and . . .” His voice faded, and he shrugged apologetically. “I don’t mean to be evasive. Every investigation is different. But usually putting events in sequence—with names, dates, and so forth—helps us construct the truth. It’s simple, but then again”—a quick smile—“Nell teases me that I work better in straight lines.”

  It wasn’t how I thought of truth, but I could see what he meant.

  Slowly, I turned the cup clockwise in its saucer so the handle disappeared and appeared again. “Assuming Felix is right, what is your guess about how the painting was taken out of the Pantechnicon?”

  “I’ve no idea,” he said frankly. “Believe me, I’ve been assembling a list of potential scenarios, as well as questions for Mrs. Jesper.” He finished his coffee and pushed the cup aside. “One possibility is the painting destroyed in the Pantechnicon was a forgery.”

  I started. “You mean the real painting and a forgery had been exchanged before it was deposited? Perhaps at Lord Sibley’s house?”

  “Or someone could have switched them afterward, inside the Sibleys’ room at the Pantechnicon.”

  “That’s possible,” I allowed. “Although the forgery would have to be very good for the exchange not to be detected. But why would someone bring in a painting only to remove it again? Wouldn’t that raise the guard’s suspicion?”

  “I don’t think so. Someone could have changed his mind,” he replied. “Mr. Pagett told me he often spent hours in the Sibleys’ room, sorting the paintings, placing them side by side as he determined what to hang on his walls and where.”

  I could imagine that.

  “And while an inventory is maintained for each room,” he continued, “the description would likely be brief—something less specific than the one in the auction catalog. So if the inventory listed merely ‘French portrait of a woman,’ one painting might plausibly be mistaken for another. Of course, all
those written records were lost in the fire.” He spread his hands. “I know Felix is certain it’s the original, but if Mrs. Jesper’s painting were a forgery, how could you tell?”

  I smoothed my napkin again and laced my fingers on top of it. “The difference can be something as minute as a variation in the shape of the signature or the placement of it. Merely a quarter of an inch to the right or left can give it away. But Edwin would say the signature is easy to mimic. It’s more difficult to reproduce the precise way a painter wraps the canvas around the bars, and the length or weight or roundness of the brushstrokes, or the tone of the painting.”

  He looked dubious. “That sounds rather intangible.”

  “I suppose, but even a layman can usually detect the difference when the two are side by side.”

  “Hm.” He shifted in a way that suggested he was growing uncomfortable in his chair. “I don’t imagine that situation arises very often, unless it’s someplace like your brother’s studio.”

  His words sparked a memory. “Actually, I know where we could find something of the sort.”

  His eyebrows rose. “Available for public view?”

  “Oh, yes. It’s in the open.” I placed my napkin beside my plate. “Would you like to see it?”

  He glanced at the clock on the mantel, rose from the table with evident relief, and deposited some coins by his saucer. “Please.”

  I led him to Trafalgar Square, past the lions and Lord Nelson’s Column, up the steps, and between the Grecian pillars of the National Gallery.

  This was one of my favorite places in all of London. It became my daily refuge, particularly after Edwin was back in London but no longer living with us. His conspicuous absence from our home brought out the worst in my parents and swamped us all in a muddy silence. It shaped the resentful pinch around my mother’s mouth, the way she stirred the sugar into her tea with painstaking attention so she never had to meet my father’s gaze at the breakfast table. It provoked my father’s clenched hand around the neck of the whiskey bottle as he sat alone in the parlor with his Bible, his pencil jabbing at the margins beside certain lines.