Fin almost burst out laughing. She was so self-possessed, it was extraordinary. ‘Lord Arnwell, that is all’, indeed! Such insouciance was quite admirable.
Drusilla’s eyes almost popped out of her head. “Lord Arnwell! How could you possibly know him, still less be on corresponding terms with him? The poor man is quite insane and never leaves his house.”
“He does not, but Hercules — the dog, you know — got over the wall into the Shotterbourne grounds and I was obliged to follow him, and so we came upon the marquess there. We met him many times, until I fell out with him last week. You will excuse me, I am sure, but I must write a note in reply. I shall not be above five minutes.”
Fin ardently wished he had his sketchbook in his hand to capture the look of astonishment on Drusilla’s face. Yet it would not be of the slightest use, for he could not do it justice. Such a priceless expression! Not only did Miss Oakes know Arnwell — ‘We met him many times!’ Astonishing woman! — but she had actually fallen out with him. A governess falling out with a marquess! It was deliciously amusing, but all his curiosity was aroused. What subject could arise between them to cause a falling out?
Buckley came in, to encounter the full force of Drusilla’s outrage.
“She is acquainted with Arnwell?” he said in bewilderment. “Yet she never said a word.”
Miss Oakes returned and handed her letter to Bagnall to be conveyed to the Shotterbourne groom.
Drusilla turned on her at once. “What did he say? What was the quarrel? Are you to see him again? Is he as mad as people say?” Her tone was sharp with disapproval. A governess on friendly terms with a marquess upset all her ideas of social order, and distressed her beyond measure.
With a dimpled smile, Miss Oakes said, “He seems sane enough to me, if a trifle eccentric. We quarrelled about his lordship’s treatment of Mr Godfrey Buckley. I believe it to be quite wrong to banish his heir from his presence and wilfully to destroy his inheritance, and all because of something Mr Buckley’s father did. It is ungenerous and unchristian, and so I told Lord Arnwell, and thus am banished in my turn.”
Buckley made her a florid bow. “I am greatly obliged to you, Miss Oakes, for speaking on my behalf. It is gratifying that our brief acquaintanceship should affect you so powerfully as to risk the wrath of so great a man. I commend your courage, madam.”
She looked startled. “Pray do not feel any obligation, Mr Buckley. My objections were more in the general than the particular. I should have said exactly the same had I never met you, as anyone would, I am sure. For any man to treat his heir so is contemptible. My acquaintance with you was only instrumental in raising the subject with his lordship, which revealed to me the full extent of his malice. I could not stay a moment longer once that was known to me.”
He bowed, looking not at all displeased.
“But what did the letter say?” Drusilla said impatiently.
Fin watched as Miss Oakes hesitated then turned her clear eyes on him. “Lord Finlassan is my employer and therefore has the right to read my correspondence if he wishes. Do you so wish, my lord?”
“Certainly not. You are of age, and may correspond with whomever you please, Miss Oakes. Let us not keep the horses standing any longer, shall we? Ladies? Buckley?”
“By all means,” Buckley said smoothly. “May I, Miss Oakes?” As he offered her his arm, he looked as smug as a mouse-filled cat.
As their procession got underway, Fin discovered that there were advantages in conveying the ladies in an open carriage. After overnight rain, the roads were not at all dusty, so riding behind the barouche gave him a good view of the occupants. In the rear-facing seats, the two girls whispered together excitedly, their heads bobbing this way and that to catch sight of every interesting feature. In the forward-facing seats, Drusilla’s expensive bonnet nodded constantly as she rattled away to Miss Oakes, maintaining the conversation almost single-handedly.
As for Miss Oakes, her head remained still, but the long strings of her straw bonnet danced in the breeze. Those ribbons enchanted him with their gay delight in their freedom. They were as free as their owner, doing the job they were required to do but with a lively independence. He had never known a governess quite like Miss Oakes, whose humiliating background should make her the most subservient mouse, yet she was far from it. Buckley had spoken of her courage, and that was true, but her manner held more than courage. There was a natural dignity to her deportment. She was perfectly self-assured in any company, just as if she had every right to be there. One could take her to London or any of the fashionable watering places and, to those who knew nothing of her history, she would pass muster anywhere as a lady.
Ashbourne was much the same sleepy little town he remembered, nestling amidst rolling hills with the River Dove shimmering through them. They left the barouche and horses at the Green Man, where the best parlour had been reserved for their use all day, and then made directly for St Oswald’s Church, two men from the inn lumbering in their wake with the box of painting equipment.
“The inside first,” Drusilla said. “There are some fine monuments to be seen.”
“It would be better to begin our paintings at once,” Fin said. “The monuments may be viewed when a convenient break occurs.”
“We have been looking forward to seeing the Boothby monument,” Miss Oakes said. “May we look at it while you choose a prospect and have the easels set up, my lord?”
“The Boothby monument,” he said thoughtfully. “I had forgotten that. By all means let us look at it.”
The beauty of it took his breath away, as always. How many times had he seen the sleeping girl, carved in cold marble yet so lifelike, and yet every time he was moved almost to tears by it. The two girls gazed at it in awe, and Miss Oakes walked slowly around it, the better to admire the sculptor’s art, while Drusilla, never moved by anything, intoned the history of it, names and dates and facts, and translated the inscription.
“So sad,” Juliana said softly.
“So beautiful,” breathed Margarita.
“Indeed it is very sad, but then children die all the time,” Drusilla said briskly. “Heaven knows what her parents paid for this, and yet it did not change anything. It is unhealthy to grieve to excess. One mourns and then moves on with one’s life.” She cast Fin a fulminating glance as she spoke.
“You have no soul, Drusilla,” he said, and stalked outside to set up the easels.
11: St Oswald's Church
For a while, all was peaceful. A spot in the churchyard was settled on, the easels put in place and the painting got underway. Buckley generously took Drusilla away to the far side of the church, whence their voices drifted back occasionally but did not trouble him. Drusilla had a good heart, Fin reminded himself, even if her manner was abrasive sometimes. At least, he found her manner abrasive. She was easier to take when Giles was with her, for then they talked to each other and needed no attention from him.
After a while, Drusilla ceased to exist. The governess, the girls, the occasional wagon or horseman passing on the road… they all disappeared. There was only the church before him, and the image of it appearing minute by minute on the paper before him. His hand chose brushes, dipped them, carried the colour to the paper, dabbed and swept and dotted and blended, but his mind was on shapes and outlines and tones and shadows. Shadows were difficult, yet he thought he had captured them well, for once.
A clock struck the hour, bringing him back to himself. The girls’ easels were abandoned. Only Miss Oakes remained.
“Where did everyone go?” Fin said.
She gave him her mischievous smile. “They left some time ago. Juliana and Margarita were hungry, so Lady Drusilla and Mr Buckley have taken them to the inn for some food.”
He saw now that Miss Oakes had moved her easel so that she faced a little away from the church. He frowned.
“What the— I mean, what are you painting?”
“Come and see,” she said, looking slightly conscious.
Whe
n he saw her work, he raised his eyebrows, bemused. Her subject was not the church but the grouped artists, the two girls chattering together and Fin himself—
“Do I truly look like that?”
She nodded, blushing.
“Now, why are you embarrassed?” he said. “The execution is good, but I look so… so scowling and black-humoured.”
“No, no! Intense, that is all,” she cried. “When you paint, your concentration is absolute. I wish I could do that.”
“Do not wish it, Miss Oakes. It is not an ability I would wish on anyone, for it arises from… circumstances I try to forget by shutting out the world.”
“You mean Lady Juliana,” she said matter-of-factly. “Lady Drusilla said that you brought her here when you were betrothed. She thought that was why you ran out of the church earlier.”
He had to catch his breath before he could reply to such plain speaking. “Not… not for that reason, no.” A long pause, but he composed himself and went on, “I did bring her here… Ashbourne… Dovedale. Ah, Dovedale! Juliana… Juliana loved Dovedale more than anywhere else in the world, and the whole of the Dove River. Up in the hills, that was where she was happiest. We went there often to paint, side by side, as I hoped we would for the rest of our lives. I brought her to St Oswald’s only once, and she looked at the Boothby monument and told me that one day we would have children of our own just as beautiful.”
He fell silent, and after a moment Miss Oakes said to him, “Those are good memories to have. You need not fear them.”
“The bad memories are the ones I fear,” he said, his voice sounding harsh in his ears. “Two days later I went away to London and she stayed here to supervise the decoration of our house with the architect. I never saw her again. She left me a letter, that was all. The bad memories far outweigh the good.”
“It is better to have memories, good or bad, than to have none at all, and at least you have had the great joy of loving and being loved in return, even if her affection for you did not last.”
“Oh, she never loved me,” he said, and he could not suppress the bitterness in his tone. “It was an arranged marriage, did you not know that? I thought the servants might have told you the whole story.”
“I do not gossip with the servants,” she said with dignity.
“Of course you do not. I beg your pardon, Miss Oakes.”
“Nevertheless, I should be glad to hear the whole story, if you are willing to share it. I have found that a painful past may be alleviated somewhat by speaking of it openly.”
He could not resist a wide smile at that. “It is impossible to believe that your cheerful demeanour hides a painful past, Miss Oakes.”
A shadow crossed her face, but she said nothing, and he did not like to pry. He hesitated. For thirteen years he had spoken to no one about Juliana. Drusilla and Giles, separately and together, had tried to persuade him to talk about her, but he never had, hiding himself away in his studio and shutting out the world utterly.
Yet this strange governess was different. She had arrived in his life as the storm he had painted that night, sweeping away his solitude and dragging him into the real world again. She was his muse, perhaps, inspiring him to new artistic endeavours, but she also felt like a friend. More so than Drusilla or Giles, that much was certain.
For reasons he could not articulate, he wanted to tell her everything. So he dragged his painting stool nearer to hers and began.
“It all arose after we fell out with Lord Arnwell after the fire,” he said. “He would have nothing to do with us, but when the Dulnains—”
“Wait — you fell out with Lord Arnwell? The Warboroughs, not the Buckleys?”
“Correct. You did not know that? I see I must go right back to the beginning. The three families — the Warboroughs, the Buckleys and the Dulnains — have been connected for a long time, the Warboroughs and Buckleys as neighbours, and when Arnwell married Alexandria Dulnain, he drew that family into the friendship also. My Aunt Isabella and Uncle Giles both married Dulnains, albeit distant cousins.”
“Aunt Isabella,” she murmured. “I have not heard of her before. Aunt Isabella and Uncle Giles.”
“There is Aunt Geraldine, too. She and Aunt Isabella had the joy of bringing out Drusilla.” He laughed. “Poor Drusilla! How she hated all that business — the gowns, the balls, the stammering young men whose only interest was her rank and dowry, and mostly the dowry, it had to be said. She was very unhappy. I cannot find it in me to blame her for giving it all up, but the aunts still reproach themselves for what they see as their failure to secure her a husband. And then there is Uncle Percival…”
He stopped, suddenly reluctant, but Miss Oakes’ great dark eyes were fixed on him, so with an effort he continued. “Uncle Percival was Arnwell’s secretary. By the time of the fire, he had been with him for about ten years, had steered him through the difficulties of claiming the title and dealing with Lambert Buckley’s rival claim — you know about that? Good. Arnwell depended utterly on Percival, and there was never the slightest trouble between them. But then… then came the night of the fire. It was to be a huge celebration. The battle for the marquessate had been won, and the succession was secure at last, for there was a son, Oswald, born that year after five daughters. Cause for rejoicing indeed. So for Lady Arnwell’s thirtieth birthday, there was a grand dinner and then a ball at Shotterbourne, with fireworks at midnight and every imaginable delight. Everyone was there — all the Dulnains, all the Buckleys, except Lambert and his brother, of course. Giles was back from Southampton and ordained by then, so he was there. And Percival was there, too.”
He paused, pondering. So long ago! Nineteen years, and he had been only a boy of thirteen, having to listen enviously to the talk of the preparations, and watching his parents and Uncle Percival go off in the carriage that night. Later, he had gone up to the attics, found a window with a view towards Shotterbourne, and watched the spectacle of the fireworks lighting up the sky. Not long afterwards, the carriage had brought his parents home again. Not Percival, though. He had stayed on to help in the card rooms and the supper room, and to do his duty by the wallflowers.
Fin had crept away to bed at that point, and when he awoke the next morning, the sky was full of smoke…
Taking a deep breath, he went on, “The ball was a great success, everyone agreed. By four or five in the morning, most of the guests had departed and the family had gone to bed. Just a few determined card players still huddled around the table, for there was money to be won. It was Percival who raised the alarm — fire in the family wing. Arnwell and the remaining guests and servants ran there but the whole wing was alight, the central stairwell carrying the flames and smoke to the upper floors. Arnwell ran up the service stairs to try to reach his wife, but the fire was too fierce. He pressed on, too distraught to see the futility of it and it almost consumed him, but the butler and a footman dragged him out, half dead. Well, you have seen him, you know to what lengths he went to reach his wife. His efforts were in vain. She was gone and all the children, too, and several of the servants — the nursery maids, the governess, the Negro boy who slept on the landing. And Percival was gone, too.”
“In the fire?” she said, but he could see from her face that she suspected the truth.
He shook his head. “That was what everyone thought at first, that he had tried to help and himself been consumed by the fire. No bodies were ever recovered, for the fire was too fierce. The roof collapsed, and the ruins burned for days, leaving nothing but ash, and Arnwell was too distraught to permit anyone to dig around for remains. Poor fellow! They say that the grief has sent him quite mad, and no reasoned argument can reach him, so all stays just as it was. No one could say for sure who had died, but anyone missing was presumed dead, Percival among them. He was accounted a hero. But then…”
Again he stopped. So long since he had talked of these matters! And to speak so dispassionately, as if it had happened to some other family, to different people alt
ogether, as if it were not his family, his uncle who had betrayed everyone.
“Then?” she prompted, sympathy in her face.
“Then it was discovered that twenty thousand pounds had been taken from the safe.”
“Oh! And that was Percival?”
“He was the only person, apart from the marquess himself, who had a key. Arnwell was very ill after the fire, but once he recovered somewhat from his injuries, the lawyers needed some documents from the safe and the loss was discovered. Only Percival could have taken the money, and it must have happened during or after the fire because that room had never been unattended since earlier that day, when the ladies’ jewels for the evening were removed from it. The money had been there at that time, and servants and guests had been in the room ever since — until the fire.”
“So while everyone was frantically fighting the fire, Percival crept in and stole the money when the safe was left unattended.”
“That is what everyone believed — or worse! Perhaps he had even started the fire himself, that it was no accident. Most people supposed it was merely a theft gone wrong, that the fire was meant to be a small distraction that got out of hand.”
“It seems… such an unlikely thing for a man to do,” Miss Oakes said thoughtfully. “Percival had a good position, a trusted position, which no doubt paid well enough.”
“Very generously, and Arnwell rewarded him well for his efforts to secure the title. He had an allowance from Father, too.”
“So why would he want to steal?”
“That is exactly how Father reasoned, too,” Fin said. “He said that Percival was too honourable, too loyal to Arnwell’s family and his own ever to do such a thing, and he must have died in the fire.”
“Then how did he account for the missing money?”
“Ah, that is the question, is it not? Someone stole that money, and if not Percival, then who was it? And how did he get hold of the key?”
She frowned, pondering the question seriously. “It makes no sense either way. There is no reason for him to steal money in the first place, and even if he had planned such a scheme, starting a fire in the family wing is madness. Where did he keep the key? I could imagine a situation where he might throw aside his coat in the urgency of the moment, and someone might find it and take advantage.”
The Painter Page 12
