by Anna Larner
“Here.” Georgina arrived at Molly’s side and handed her a mug of coffee. “You’re not foolish. Edith’s story, in so much as we know it, is truly heartbreaking. Please have a seat.” Georgina gestured to the sofa. “You’ll be pleased to know I saw sense and relegated the law journals to my father’s office.”
Molly nodded. She couldn’t even muster the smallest of smiles as she forlornly patted the sofa cushions into life. She glanced at the floor. Joyful indoor picnics felt a world away. “It’s just the cruel injustice of it all that upsets me.”
“Yes, I get that.” Georgina waited for Molly to take her place before sitting next to her with her legs casually crossed and her body turned towards Molly.
“Thanks so much for the coffee.” Molly blew across the hot liquid taking several grateful sips.
“My pleasure.” Georgina’s smile, warm with affection, seemed to mirror her words.
Molly wanted to kiss Georgina and to feel her body pressed close to hers again, but somehow it didn’t feel right. It was almost as if it would be disrespectful to Edith to do so. It would be like they were flaunting their freedom to love as if they did not care.
Instead Molly reached for Georgina’s hand and held it tightly. “Thank you for standing in a murky graveyard with me.”
“Well, I’ll be honest and say that wasn’t quite what I’d imagined for our weekend.” They both laughed only for their laughter to soon be replaced by a silence that felt reverential and contemplative.
Georgina stared down at her coffee. Quietly and a little tentatively she then asked, “If it doesn’t upset you to say—”
“How did I find out?”
Georgina nodded. “Did it have something to do with the gap in her writing?”
Molly turned herself further towards Georgina, settling herself to explain, “Yes. Once I realized that none of the obvious explanations entirely accounted for it, well, it triggered something for me.”
“Yes,” Georgina said with a tone focused and intense. “I’ve been thinking about it too. It seemed out of character for such a woman to just stop her work, her calling even.”
“That’s exactly what I thought. Although in truth when I returned to the records office I had no idea where to begin or what I hoped to find, so I began with what we knew already.”
“Makes sense.” Georgina took a sip of her coffee.
“So I thought about what we’d seen that had struck us as important, even if we didn’t know why. I thought about the inscription on the painting revealing Edith’s declaration of love, and then of course we have the revealing note in her logbook written as she was sketching Josephine. How passionate she seemed.” Molly looked at Georgina whose expression was one of absolute concentration. “This led me to think about Edith’s prayer book and how in contrast her words seemed so desolate. It was that prayer, in fact, that unlocked everything.”
“Yes, I remember it well.” Georgina set her mug beside her on the floor.
“Well, in the prayer Edith had said that she was grieving and it hurt to write. So I made the not unreasonable connection that Edith might have been grieving over the fact that Josephine had become engaged, given the timing of her wedding to William. Edith would have felt that she had lost Josephine.”
“Yes.” Georgina shifted in her seat slightly with her hand still clasped around Molly’s. “That’s a reasonable explanation in light of everything we’ve found.”
“So I asked myself, had Josephine stopped writing because of grief too? Had she lost someone? It didn’t fit that she was mourning over giving up Edith because her writing had continued before and after she had married.” Molly paused to take a deeper breath. “So I went to the register of burials and found the records for July 1834. That was the month before she stopped writing. I expected perhaps to find a Brancaster, a much loved relative…” Molly’s words choked at her throat. She took a sip of coffee. Georgina held her hand tighter. “I couldn’t believe, I refused to believe almost, what I saw. I even checked desperately to see whether there was any note, any sketch, anything from Edith after this date that would suggest I was mistaken. But no. Nothing. I hunted amongst Josephine’s later work for an EH, for any sign of her. She had gone.”
Georgina briefly closed her eyes. “That’s heartbreaking.”
“I simply didn’t want to accept it. I even wondered whether there was a possibility that the Leicester Chronicle would have a death notice for that date that indicated somehow that it wasn’t our Edith. But rather than contradict my findings, it simply served to confirm my worst fears. For I found two notices related to the passing of an Edith Hewitt. One, presumably from her family, was just a cold line of facts. But then another from a Charles Brancaster—”
“Brancaster?”
Molly nodded. “Josephine’s father. I took a photo. Here. It’s a bit fuzzy.”
Georgina read aloud, “It is with great sadness that we discharge this duty to notify of the death of our dear colleague and friend, Miss Edith Hewitt. Notes of condolence to be received by Brancaster and Lane, Solicitors, New Street, Leicester.” Georgina sighed heavily. “So no question of doubt then?”
Molly shook her head. “To be honest I feel really stupid to be so surprised because I knew Josephine married. I’d guessed, given Edith’s passion for Josephine, how utterly heartbroken she would have been. How vulnerable that heartbreak would have made her both in body and soul. So given this, I’m not sure what I expected.”
“You couldn’t have expected her to die so young.” Georgina gazed out to the square before looking back at Molly and asking, “Did it say how she died?”
Molly stared at the mug resting in her lap. “Influenza. Infectious disease would have been rife at this time. Flu regularly killed, particularly the young and the vulnerable.”
Georgina’s hand slipped from Molly’s and she pressed her fingers flat against her lips. “Poor Edith,” she said quietly as if collecting her words in her palm. “But then I don’t suppose a broken heart can be given as a cause of death or, for that matter, betrayal as the weapon that struck the fatal blow.”
Betrayal? Georgina’s words were so strong and anger clearly simmered beneath them. Was this about Edith at all? Was she thinking of her mother perhaps? Molly rested her hand on Georgina’s arm. “We still don’t know if Josephine betrayed Edith.”
Her attempt at offering solace by finding perspective only seemed to inflame Georgina’s anger. She looked back at Molly with sharp questioning eyes and cheeks newly flushed. “But the facts speak for themselves, don’t they?”
Molly shrugged. “I guess in truth we don’t have that many facts about Josephine and Edith’s relationship. All we have is the reasonable interpretation of evidence.”
“You sound like a lawyer.” Georgina stood and went to the window, resting her shoulder against the glass, and fixed her gaze to the view outside.
“Do you know what upsets me the most?” Molly said. “It’s the gravestone. I keep thinking about it and in particular the unforgivable absence of any sense of Edith and of her achievements and of her true nature. Add to that her name omitted from her painting of Josephine and the all but buried public record of her brave campaigning. Her love, her talents, and her passion, hidden, invisible. It’s like she never mattered. Like women like her never mattered.”
Georgina looked back at Molly.
“Well she does matter. Her story matters.” Molly’s cheeks stung with a rising anger. She thought of Evelyn brushing the suggestion of displaying Edith’s watercolour away, dismissing Josephine and Edith’s story as a distraction from the narrative the museum would tell and from the story that would be remembered. The preference yet again of the patriarchal voice. “I should have fought even harder for her. I gave up too easily.”
Georgina frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“At the museum, on Thursday. I should have somehow insisted. I should have rung you straight away. You would have put things right in a blink. I’m such a
coward. And it’s cowardice that always does the most harm, isn’t it?”
Georgina returned to sit with Molly. “You’ve lost me. What happened Thursday?”
“Evelyn has selected The Hunt for the Wright room in place of Edith’s portrait of Josephine. I tried to advocate for it by explaining that it had hung in your family home alongside the other paintings for as long as you can remember, and that it must have meant a lot to your father, and how much it means to you.”
Georgina continued to frown and gave an uncertain, “Okay. What did she say?”
“Something ridiculous about the portrait representing Josephine’s history and that it will only serve to distract and derail your father’s own story. Which is just nonsense, isn’t it?”
Georgina didn’t say anything. Her eyes flitted over Molly’s face, and yet her expression had become distant as if her thoughts had settled elsewhere.
Molly sat further on the edge of the sofa with her body tense and rigid and with the sense of injustice refuelled with the discovery of Edith’s death. “What’s more, she is adamant she won’t change her mind. She shut me down by saying she’d taken everything into consideration. She said I wasn’t to reopen discussion with you on the matter, and that you would understand curatorial decisions rested with her. But how can I not mention it? Not after today. So can you help? We both know Evelyn will do anything if you particularly insist.”
Georgina refocused her gaze on Molly. “Molly—”
“The only thing is, though, we need to somehow find a way of it being your idea and not coming from me.”
“Molly.”
“Hum?”
“I’m sorry, but the thing is when you mentioned your plan to display the portraits, I assumed you meant the bequeathed pieces. And I don’t recall now that you mentioned Edith’s painting specifically.”
“No, but I did say that we could display them as they had been hung all those years, and that of course includes the watercolour.” Why hadn’t she been clearer and sought Georgina’s approval for Edith’s painting to be in the Wright room before now, so the run in with Evelyn could have been avoided?
“I’m sorry for any confusion,” Georgina said. “And I understand why you would want Edith’s painting to be displayed in the Wright room. It’s just…”
“What?”
Georgina frowned. “It’s not that simple. I’m not in a position to make decisions relating to Edith’s painting. Not at the moment anyway.”
Molly looked down. “I see.” She didn’t see. The painting belonged to Georgina. Didn’t it?
“Molly?”
Molly looked up.
“What I’m trying to say is,” Georgina continued, “as you know the portrait wasn’t included in the museum bequest, but it also hasn’t been mentioned in my father’s will. Something just doesn’t feel right about the painting being forgotten. So I am not comfortable to gift Edith’s painting or temporarily lend it for display, at least not at the moment.”
Molly said, “That’s okay, we can work around that uncertainty. You could add to the exhibition label Lender unknown. It’s not unusual. A good number of the items in the museum we have no clue who gifted them.”
“I don’t know Molly. I’m not sure that feels right either.”
Molly’s heart ached in her chest. You don’t know? I don’t know—it was the phrase Erica always used whenever Molly had an idea that was contrary to hers, any idea that was hers, it ended up feeling like. Eventually Molly’s confidence had ebbed away, the worth of her suggestions and her values undermined with every I don’t know.
“Molly?” Georgina searched Molly’s face as she placed her hand warm on Molly’s arm.
“I’m still confused,” Molly said with a more defiant tone than she had intended.
Georgina’s cheeks flushed. “Okay.”
“You seemed as upset as me by what we discovered about the painting. In fact, at times more so. I thought you would care about telling Edith’s story. You said yourself that she was found now. To display Josephine’s portrait with Edith credited as the painter and to tell of Edith’s love for Josephine and of her untimely death will spark debate, and—who knows?—other Edith’s may be searched for and found as a result. Hidden histories will be uncovered.”
“Molly—”
“You see, Evelyn is opposed to this debate taking place. She wants nothing to distract from her vision which seems to me a sanitized, generic reading of your father’s history with the focus entirely on the artworks.”
Georgina’s cheeks flushed deeper and her brow became furrowed as if she was confused or cross or both. “You know I care about Edith. But you must understand—in addition to the unresolved issues surrounding the painting, I have to think of my father and try to imagine what he had hoped for the Wright room and how he would wish to be remembered. He has faced such controversy and such public speculation into his private life at the hands of my mother that to actively provoke debate once more at the mention of his name…I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I can see where Evelyn is coming from.”
Molly felt sick. In that moment she struggled to grasp what she should feel and what her reaction should be. I thought you felt the same as me. I thought…A panic of confusion began to stifle her and pressed the breath from her lungs.
“Molly?”
Molly nodded vigorously. “I understand. Absolutely.” She didn’t understand. And what was worse, she’d thought she had understood. It felt like the rug had been pulled from beneath her. Had she assumed too much about Georgina? Had she so badly wanted Georgina to care about what she cared about that she had imagined her to be someone she wasn’t? But then everything about her had felt so right.
“If I could help, I promise I would. I’d do anything for you, Molly. You believe that, don’t you?”
She didn’t know what to believe any more. “I’m sorry, I’m not feeling great. I’ve found this morning a bit too…so I think it might be best if we postpone this weekend.” Molly quickly looked down at the sight of Georgina’s perplexed expression.
“Can I get you something?” Georgina said, panic at the edge of her voice. “Some lunch perhaps? It might help you feel better.”
Molly stood and reached for her coat and bag. “That’s very kind, thank you, but I think I need to go home.”
Georgina stood to face Molly. She looked as confused as Molly felt. “Of course, if you’re sure.”
She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of anything.
Georgina silently followed Molly to the door.
Molly pulled on her coat. Finding the strength to summon her calmest, most professional voice, she said, “I meant to ask if you would feel able to give a speech at the opening of the Wright room. It doesn’t have to be very long or anything. Evelyn and perhaps even I or Fran may say something too.”
Georgina’s voice wavered as she said, “Yes, that’s fine.”
Molly nodded, her lip aching at the bite of her teeth.
Georgina took a deep unsteady breath. “I’m very sorry again for the confusion over the painting.”
“Yes, me too.” Molly was unable to meet Georgina’s gaze. “Goodbye then.” Molly opened the front door and stepped out and down the steps and through the gate, briskly walking towards Daisy May.
Molly felt like everything had shifted. For all that had felt certain was now unknown and all that was once unknown had been heartbreakingly revealed.
* * *
Georgina sat on the bottom but one step of the hallway stairs. She focused on the pattern of the tiles, noting the discoloration here and there of the grouting and the slight wear of the patterns faded by years of the tread of people arriving and departing.
A thin shaft of light pierced the glass pane at the top of the door, falling in lengths onto the floor, slicing the black and white tiles into mosaics of grey and lighting the tips of her shoes. She closed her eyes and pressed her hands over her ears, determined not to listen to the sound of Daisy May’s engine star
t or to imagine Molly disappearing around the corner, gone from her.
She’d had such hopes for their weekend. She had imagined Molly at the door, smiling, and then in her arms, kissing her again. Laughing, tipsy, sprawled out on the sitting room floor, their legs entwined and their hearts tangled up in each other. She had imagined the scene with such clarity, that now she wondered whether it had happened.
But no. Edith had happened. She had died and so had the joy in Molly’s eyes. Molly had always seemed so in control and professional when it came to the painting and their research. Edith’s death had obviously asked too much, and then the confusion with the watercolour…the questioning hurt in Molly’s eyes. But what could Georgina do? She had to think of her father. And there was so much uncertainty around the painting. Molly said she understood. But then if Molly had understood why couldn’t she look at her? And why did she leave without looking back? Why would anyone leave without looking back?
Was this how it would always be? Molly leaving and Georgina left alone with a sickening, fearful sense that she had somehow disappointed and hurt her without meaning to. Was this because Molly was not the one for her? Had Georgina in fact been right all these years—there would never be a one for her.
She stood and numbly went into the sitting room. She sat in her father’s chair with her head in her hands. The leather felt so cold to the touch that it seemed to drain her blood of its warmth. She shivered. The room had never felt colder or emptier of life or more full of grief.
Chapter Twenty-three
With only a week to the opening, everyone was so busy that a steady purposeful hush had fallen on the museum. Fran and Molly spent more time in the Wright room than in their office and far more time at work than at home. Evelyn had not given Molly an inch of free rein or time to herself in the last few weeks. They had not spoken again about Edith’s painting but an unspoken rub remained implicit in the sharpened spike of Evelyn’s voice and in the unnerving fix of her eyes. Molly knew she had gone beyond debate to questioning Evelyn. She had crossed the line and now it felt like she stood alone in no man’s land, staring out at a threatening horizon.
