by Ella Carey
Laura felt her throat close over, tight.
“I’m sorry, but we did explain this at the time.” Ivan sighed, wiping his hand across his bald head. “I know the work was authenticated by your grandmother, a long-term client, and Professor Rivers also provided enough evidence in his biography of Adams to satisfy the bank of its provenance for the purpose of a loan. However, now we have everything that the professor assumed potentially thrown on its head.”
“Ivan—”
He held up a hand. “I’m sorry, but the painting’s provenance has been put into question by the leading twentieth-century British art gallery in the country. If the painting cannot be included in an exhibition at the Tate, then we should not be using it as collateral to fund a bank loan any longer. The questions raised immediately reduce the value of the work and therefore the value of the collateral of your loan.”
“But the claims are not proven beyond all doubt.”
“Yes, but now the painting’s validity is in doubt, and unfortunately, should you be unable to pay back the amount due, we have the right to acquire your grandmother’s assets.” Ivan pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his brow. “Relying on art as collateral is risky, but I never anticipated that something like this would happen. It hasn’t happened in all the years I’ve . . .” He stopped. “May I ask if you are quite all right?”
Laura shook her head.
“I can give you and your grandmother a little time to gather the funds. But the bank will want surety, I’m afraid. Prepare yourself. It won’t be long. I wanted to warn you right away. In fact, I didn’t want to let this day go without informing you of our position on the matter. It is definite. I’m sorry.”
Laura felt as if she were floating somewhere else.
“How long will we have?” she managed to say, but her words were a shadow of her normal voice.
“Not long. I can’t see them letting it slide. Once again, I am sorry.”
“Can you remind me of the portion of the loan that needs to be paid back?” She knew, but maybe, surely, she was wrong.
“It’s right here in the small print.” Ivan moved the agreement over for Laura to examine.
Laura leaned forward and read, “Fifty percent. Fifty thousand pounds.” She raised a shaking hand to her head. Even her parents did not have anything like those sorts of assets in the bank.
Laura fought the urge to be sick.
“Have you any questions?” Ivan asked. “I’m happy to give you further clarification. I am saddened for you, Laura. I know how much your music means to you.”
“Ewan Buchanan has no justification for his statement. I’ve already spoken to him, and he can’t even tell me his reasons for stating that Patrick’s painting is a fake. I need some time. I’m asking you for some time.”
Ivan blew out an audible breath. “I’ll try and stave off my superiors. But I have little hope that I’ll be able to do so for long. A month would be generous. Two weeks might be a more likely scenario.”
“Two weeks?”
Ivan stood up and reached out a hand. “Have you got somewhere you can go, Laura, someone you can be with?”
She managed to shake his hand. “No, I have students coming this evening. I have to teach.” But her own hand trembled. Laura stumbled out of the bank, threading her way through the crowded street. Her legs seemed to barely work. She moved like some strange shadow of herself down to the station and made her way to the Northern Line and home.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Provence, 1913
Patrick appeared at the front door of the chateau in Provence in a pony trap the day after he’d first met Emma. She’d hardly slept the night before and had risen early to play with Calum before his breakfast. Ambrose had offered to play with him this morning, and the nanny Emma had employed would see that her little son’s routine was all in place. Patrick stopped his horse and raised a brow at Emma, who stood ready on the front steps. Excitement blended inside her with anticipation and nerves in one heady, delicious blend.
“Borrowed the cart from my aunt’s groomsman,” he said, cheerfully patting the horse, clearly not bothered by the idea of driving about the fashionable Côte d’Azur in an ancient pony trap.
Emma eyed him from under the wide brim of her hat. She’d rolled the sleeves of her white lawn shirt up to her elbows as if she were a washerwoman about to plunge her hands into a basin of dirty clothes. She felt something flicker through her at the sight of the paint stains on his fingers, and she reached her equally decorated hand up to take his.
“I have to warn you,” he said, walking the horse on down the driveway out to the wide country road beyond, “Lady Thea Rose and her partner, Beatrice Connelly, are quite the pair of outright saphs. I hope they won’t shock you.”
“For goodness’ sake. It makes no difference to me. Surely you know that.”
She shot a look toward him and saw the way his eyes crinkled at the sides.
“Chocolates?” he asked, producing a box of elegant chocolate creams.
“You do make me laugh,” she said.
He held out the box with one hand while driving with the other. “Chocolate and insouciance are the perfect ways to deal with infidelity in a husband.”
Emma startled a little at his candor. Had he been studying her so carefully yesterday that he’d sensed what was going on with Lawrence, Oscar, and her? Or what had he heard?
“All you need to do is to remind yourself that you really don’t need him around,” Patrick went on.
“Your audacity on such a fine summer afternoon is unique,” she murmured, eyeing the tempting box of dark chocolates in a myriad of exotic shapes. A detailed description of each of them was imprinted on the lid of the wooden box. She chose a peppermint crème. “I am beguiled by your complexities.” That was not quite right. She was starting to fall for them . . .
Gently he reached out, taking the chocolate from her hand, his fingers brushing hers for the briefest, most delicious of moments. Emma opened her lips, and gently, he placed the chocolate on her tongue.
Emma almost swallowed the chocolate whole.
“What I don’t like,” she said, once she’d swirled the crème center into a small sliver in her mouth, “what annoys me in a man more than infidelity in a husband is a man who makes promises, then doesn’t keep them. It always leaves me wondering whether he ever meant what he said in the first place—whether I can believe anything he will say in the future.”
She allowed the sides of her lips to turn up when Patrick grinned.
“I try to deal with vagaries in men in the most reasonable way I can,” she explained. “Otherwise, we may as well get out dueling pistols. As I’m a pacifist, I resort to reason when dealing with them at all times.” Emma frowned at her sudden outburst. What had possessed her to say all that?
She reached up and held on to her hat.
Patrick stopped the horse, turning to her, his face more serious. He reached out for a moment, laying his hand on her arm, before turning into the silent country road that led on through the lavender fields.
He stayed quiet.
Emma felt heat stain her cheeks.
Finally, Patrick halted the pony when they came to another crossroad. “Talking of convention versus taking a more tolerant approach to things, Thea and Beatrice are a bit of a conundrum to me. Their way of life is entirely independent of the conventions back home, and yet, I find their house and garden fastidiously neat. It’s hardly bohemian in the way most of us live. I’m not sure why they live that way, but I can’t help worrying that by presenting an immaculate front to the world, they are trying to prove that they are not . . . what people say they are . . . in some way, obscene for loving each other the way they do.” His voice cracked.
Emma took a quick glance across at him, stopping herself from staring or showing her startled reaction to his close proximity on the little cart. Their shoulders almost touched, and she wanted to drink in the exquisite line of muscles in his arms. She felt a much stronger pull tow
ard him than the frisson of excitement she’d felt yesterday.
“It must be unfathomably difficult,” she said, wanting to acknowledge his struggles, without saying anything direct.
“At home, women are able to love each other and to live together in relative peace. They are not outlawed, but even still, there’s some judgment; it is far freer for them here in France to be who they are, to live and to love with still less condemnation. For men, it is almost impossible . . .” His voice trailed off.
Emma nodded. She wanted to understand and accept him for who he was, but here was the rub—she was sensing strong signs that he might be showing a real interest in her, and she wanted him to do so, despite all she knew about his romantic history.
“You know, you have the reputation of being somewhat exclusive yourself, Emma,” Patrick said, urging the pony on, shooting an amused glance toward her.
She felt her heart lift a little at the lighter tone in his voice, while it dropped at the meaning behind his words. “No!”
“Only socializing with your Cambridge friends? Looking down on any discussion other than the intellectual? Fleeing off to Bloomsbury? And you, in the middle of it, an artist . . . people see you as very exclusive indeed, Mrs. Temple.”
“I don’t classify myself as an intellectual, though,” she murmured. “Not at all. Not like the others.”
“Perhaps another artist in your close circle would be a welcome balance,” he offered.
Emma gazed sharply out at the sea on her left.
“I admire your confidence in striking out,” he went on, his voice still with that honeyed hush. “I’m intrigued by your determination to live on your own terms, no matter what.”
“I confess, though, that back in London,” she started tentatively, “I did find myself wanting to retreat from the world, not only in my life but also in art. I started experimenting with abstract forms—I suppose I wanted to break things up. I couldn’t see, for a while, explanations for any of it—the world, people, life after Frederick’s death. But out here, in France, it is different. The light and nature make the real world so astonishing that it’s something I want to be part of fully while I am alive. It’s something I want to paint. I’m not sure that abstraction is right for me after all.”
“I completely agree,” he murmured. “I played with abstraction myself for a while too—I’m still intrigued by collage. I keep coming back to realism but in a new, modern way. Do you know what I mean?”
Emma nodded. She was finding it impossible to view this discussion in the way she viewed the intellectual banter that she had been drawn to since the early days with Frederick. There was something far more intimate and personal about the way Patrick was addressing her. He really seemed to hear what she said and didn’t say.
“I want to bring a sense of constancy into Beatrice and Thea’s chateau,” he went on. “To soften their sense of isolation and to remind them that they are part of the ongoing nature of things. In the classical world, beauty and love were appreciated in different ways. People such as us were not always frowned upon as we are in our time. I’m interested in the truth that lies behind the mask they put on, and I want to inspire them to be confident in themselves. I worry that they live with such military precision.”
“The military . . .” Emma veered on to that conversational path, keeping her focus on the road ahead, even though her thigh was touching his, and she could lean her head on his shoulder if she wanted to. “Ambrose, Lawrence, and Oscar talk of nothing else but politics. Should there be a war, the government will require Ambrose’s financial expertise, Lawrence will most likely try to be acquitted from service, and Oscar, no doubt, will take on some helpful role in London.”
“I could never kill another human being.” Patrick’s words held such urgency that Emma felt her whole body respond as they approached the chateau. “I try to accept people as they are, entirely. I believe that if we all accepted others as they were, the world would be better for it.”
It might be what I have to do with you, she thought, or I will lose you. Another artist in our circle of friends would be . . . perfect; it would round things out.
Right then, he leaned across, and her breathing quickened before, suddenly, he dropped a kiss on her forehead.
The intimacy that she felt with him seemed so heightened that she could hardly breathe. “If I am a little exclusive,” she whispered, “it’s because I surround myself only with the people I like most. Yet sometimes, I feel alone.”
“You’ve made a little circle for yourself within your circle of friends, and you need someone who understands you entirely, who is there for you. I’m happy to do that.”
Emma took in the house beside the cart; her heart beat like quick fire.
“Beauty in nature is eternal,” he murmured. “That is why you are drawn to it. Love is also eternal. If you love your circle of friends, there is nothing wrong with that.”
“I’m glad we’ve got that sorted,” she whispered.
He smiled as he gently coaxed the pony to move on.
London, 1980
After her foray to the bank, Laura let herself into her little studio. She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around her body, which seemed, rather than being its usual conglomerate of feelings and thoughts and busyness and productivity, dead. As if nothing were left. On automatic pilot, she went over to the fridge, pulling out the two lamb chops she’d bought for dinner, striking on the gas on her stovetop, placing a pan on the hob. She prepared a salad, but then once her meal was ready, she thought she was going to be ill. She had half an hour until her first student for the evening would arrive.
Hopelessly, she gazed around the room, her eyes alighting on her violin in its case. She stood up, moving toward it, the need to play seeming overwhelming. To get away from the banality of this world—from money and vagaries and people and . . . everything. There seemed to be no hope of any answers. What sort of explanation could there be for this? None.
Once she’d taken out the beautiful Guadagnini, forcing herself not to think how she may not be able to pick it up in a month or two weeks or after however long the bank decided to take back her loan, she placed the mute on her violin. She raised the beautiful instrument to her shoulder and tuned up, thankful as always for the fact that she’d been given the gift of perfect pitch. She knew the moment she stroked the strings with her bow that she’d be able to play, even if she had only a short time tonight. As her instincts danced over the first movement of her adored Bach Double Violin Concerto, the opening notes seeming to hold such depth and power all at once, she realized that it was strength and beauty Bach displayed in his wonderful music, and those things were exactly what drove Emma in her life.
The more her violin swept over the notes, the more Laura came to know what she had to do. She may not have the answers yet, she may never find out whether Patrick painted that portrait or whether she would be able to go on doing the one thing she loved more than anything in the world, but she did know a solid truth: Emma was still alive, and Emma should not be pushed aside from anything. While Laura’s first instincts had been to protect her grandmother, to stop Emma’s heart from becoming even more bruised than it had been for years loving Patrick when he was not able to love her back in the way she needed to be loved, the fact was Emma was the one person who knew more than anyone else about this whole situation. What was more, Laura believed, like her grandmother, that people should not be excluded or judged or deemed to be unworthy because of their age or because of anything else.
She began the slow, lilting second movement, the notes drawing out in exquisite beauty, and in her head, the sound of the second violin’s voice sang along next to her.
She would take Emma out to Summerfield, and together, they would both look at the painting.
The simple truth of Bach’s theme carried her away to another place. She leaned into the music. Her violin sang. The second movement always sounded to her like a lone lark telling a story of loss, of
love, of people who sought something more beautiful than was found in this world, while at the same time, sadness in the music seemed to encompass something that was gone, never to come back. The way the notes hung in the air also called of uncertainty. Perhaps some things were never meant to be told. And maybe there was a beauty in that.
The last note lingered as if it held all the mystery on this earth. All that remained when she stopped playing was silence, tarrying like haunting questions.
She forced herself to sit down and eat the food she’d prepared. She would be logical, as Emma always was—or as Laura always perceived her to be. For sometimes, what we think we know about others may only be correct in our imaginations, but perhaps our imagination gives the truest interpretation of the world. Laura had to help her grandmother see that what they had all believed for so long was its own fact. And the only way to do that was to take Emma out to Summerfield, to go and look at The Things We Don’t Say and allow Patrick’s work to speak for itself. And then, Laura would get the woman who she honestly believed knew and loved Patrick better than anyone else in this world to confirm that the work was definitely his own.
The following morning, Laura gazed out of the taxi that they’d caught from the train station in Lewes as they approached the serene South Downs; the line of high hills sat behind Summerfield, protecting the old farm from the wild weather that blew in from the nearby south coast. She’d telephoned the caretaker to tell him they would be visiting today. He was going to be working on the farm and would not be able to let them in, so Laura had Emma’s own key safely in her handbag. Emma sat in silence beside her. She seemed to have retreated into her own world ever since Laura told her about her meeting with Ewan Buchanan. Laura knew better than to probe.
Laura clasped her hands in her lap. The local taxi driver seemed to have picked up on their contemplative mood as they made their way up the rough, isolated track that led to Summerfield. She hardly heard Emma as she thanked the driver and paid the fare; Laura’s eyes raked over the old farmhouse as if in hope that it would give her answers instead of all these questions that life was throwing at them right now.
