The Dress Thief

by Natalie Meg Evans

  But Serge was asleep, his arm slung across her stomach, and she was afraid to wake him.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  It was done, the civil ceremony, the church ceremony and the party that had lasted two days. Christine was the Duchesse de Brioude and had gone away with her husband to honeymoon by Lake Geneva. That was his gift. Rhona had wanted the newly-weds to go to London. The dowager duchesse wanted them at her château in Haute-Loire. Jean-Yves’s intervention had offended both ladies, but Christine’s gratitude made it worthwhile.

  And she was safe. Whatever was pursuing him would not touch his family.

  ‘Papa, wait. I want to come with you.’

  Ninette was scrambling to catch him up. He was on the path that led through the castle’s outer wall to the river. It was a steep incline, constructed from centuries of broken masonry. He had intended to follow the riverside walk into Kirchwiller town and hadn’t imagined anyone might join him. The ladies of his family took their strolls on boulevards and were not known for their solid footwear.

  ‘My dear, you’ll turn your ankle. If you want to take the air, have Pépin drive you to the public park. I’m sure your mother would enjoy it. Ferryman will squire you.’

  Ninette swayed from side to side like a child. ‘Papa, what happened to Grandmother’s pearls? Why didn’t Christine wear them for her wedding?’

  She’d asked the question at breakfast too and he’d ducked it. Well, no more ducking. ‘I sold them.’

  Ninette looked so appalled he wondered if he should have kept up the diplomatic pretence that the jewellers had lost them. Staring down at the river foaming between iron-red boulders, he murmured lines by the English poet Cowper: ‘He is the freeman whom the truth makes free.’ Then to Ninette he said, ‘The pearls had a fine orient, were well-matched and they paid for Christine’s wedding. Otherwise she’d have worn a second-hand dress and gone away on a bicycle. I hope when it’s your turn, we can dig out some other precious trinket.’

  When Ninette cried, ‘They were an heirloom!’ he thought, How like Rhona she’s become. The Ninette who used to be my favourite would have laughed and said, ‘Bien, Papa, let’s sell the castle.’ In fact, he’d misled her. He’d sold the bulk of his remaining Banque d’Alsace shares to pay for the wedding, while the pearls had repaid the loan he’d taken out to satisfy his black-mailer’s most recent demand. If the pig came back for more … Well, there was no more. He could sell a tranche of land here, but his steward had put paid to hopes of high returns. Prices in the region had dropped – people were worried about the German build-up over the border. Local landowners were selling off property and stockpiling gold.

  Advising Ninette to watch her footing on her way back to the garden – a polite way of dismissing her – Jean-Yves edged down the path and followed the river to where it flowed beneath a medieval bridge. From there he climbed to Rue du Pont, Kirchwiller’s main street. A sustained uphill walk lay before him.

  Thirty years ago Rue du Pont had been called Brückenstrasse – Bridge Street – but the cobbles were the same even if the name had changed. So were the timbered shops and houses, though the paintwork was faded. Every roof had its customary stork’s nest, busy with hatchlings. Storks brought luck, it was supposed, which suggested Kirchwiller’s were not doing their job. One clear change was apparent though – at the dawn of the century his parents had owned the only motor vehicle in town. Now he saw a dozen parked alongside rustic carts.

  *

  Jean-Yves turned up Rue des Avocats and into the shadowy Rue des Ecrivains, stopping at an impasse, a dead-end alley just wide enough for two men to walk abreast.

  As he walked up it, his leg throbbed. A splinter of shrapnel in his femur made itself known whenever he stood for any length of time, as he had often these last days. He counted the right-hand doors and stopped at one with a rusty spyhole. Fitted a key into the lock.

  In the empty attic that had been Alfred Lutzman’s studio, he leaned against the stove to get his breath, then twitched violently. Right here, Lutzman had fallen.

  The day Lutzman died, 21st December 1903, Jean-Yves had come to collect a portrait he’d commissioned. He was late because heavy snow had fallen, and the chauffeur had been reluctant to let him take the Mercedes out. Jean-Yves had insisted, but it had been so cold that day, it took fifty turns of the crank to get the engine started. Jean-Yves had come shivering up these stairs feeling intense sympathy for Lutzman. How could an artist work in this temperature? His paints must go stiff, and as for sitting for a portrait … intolerable. His own portrait had been sketched out at the castle, Jean-Yves posing before a blazing fire. Lutzman had brought it back here to finish.

  People said Lutzman was mad because he painted in wild, dancing colours. What you thought was flesh was not one colour, but minuscule flecks of scarlet, green and blue. Some people called it a form of trickery, sinful even, but what did the fat burghers of Kirchwiller know? If a painting didn’t look like something they saw in church or on top of a tin of chocolates, they thought it came from the Devil.

  He’d commissioned Lutzman because of his radicalism. The picture had been intended as a surprise Christmas gift for his mother, his first truly independent act since he’d succeeded to the title of comte a year before. Célie Haupmann had done her best to spoil the surprise of course. She’d always got between Jean-Yves and his mother, disturbing their quiet moments, telling tales. That afternoon had been no different. As he’d waited in the great hall for the chauffeur to finish battling with the crank handle, she’d sidled up to him, smirking. ‘Off to pick up your secret picture? I think your mother knows already what her Christmas present is going to be.’

  ‘Because you’ve told her.’

  ‘We could play a game, try to guess who the painting is meant to show. The one your friend Lutzman did of the mayor looked like a squashed monkey.’

  ‘Because the mayor looks like a squashed monkey.’

  She’d followed him out into the snow, angry at his refusal to be riled. ‘She’ll hate it. Madame la Comtesse hates modern painting.’

  He’d told her that, on the contrary, if she cared to step into her mistress’s writing room, she’d see several Lutzman landscapes on the wall. After that, he’d ignored her, crunching to the garage where the chauffeur had finally got the Mercedes engine to catch. Haupmann’s voice chasing him –

  ‘Doesn’t your fine painter have a servant who can bring the wretched thing over? Have you turned into an errand-boy, saving a Jew the trouble of a walk in the snow?’

  Actually Lutzman did have an assistant, a cheerful, stocky young man who’d proved himself handy for lugging easels and paintboxes up to the castle. Young Raphael Bonnet would watch his master at work, mix his paints and wipe his brushes and was occasionally allowed to fill in a detail or two. And yes, Bonnet was supposed to have delivered the finished painting several days ago, but he hadn’t. It was Christmas Eve in three days and Jean-Yves had run out of patience.

  In Lutzman’s studio, Célie Haupmann’s scorn ringing in his ears, he’d found the artist at work on a landscape. His own portrait stood on another easel, unframed and unfinished. So sticky, paint came off on his fingers. Not a chance of its being ready in time. Disappointment had slammed him and he’d turned on the artist. ‘Are you not capable of a simple commission, man?’

  Lutzman had blinked, then said in a voice without inflection, ‘It is a portrait, mein herr, not a cake. It is complete when it is complete.’ Was that triumph in his raven eyes? They seemed to say, I have what you need, so for once I have power over you.

  A cord had snapped in Jean-Yves. ‘Have you never heard of Christmas, damn Jew?’

  Wicked words. Bitter words, because he knew that Haupmann would taunt him when he arrived home empty-handed. He hadn’t planned what happened next.

  *

  Thirty-five years on and he was finally going to make his confession. He knelt under the skylight, the sun hard upon him. ‘I killed a man and have tried to m
ake amends. I have given my life to make good. Let me be forgiven.’ He kept his eyes shut, reaching into the silence for an answer. For absolution. ‘End my punishment.’ Downstairs, a door clashed. Footsteps, then a high voice: ‘Papa? It’s me. Are you there?’

  His heart pitched violently. He lurched to his feet and staggered to the wall for support.

  ‘Papa?’

  A child rushing upstairs to see her father. She would find a corpse. He must stop her … His vision fractured, every muscle in his chest twisting. He fell to his knees again.

  ‘Papa? Oh God …’ Ninette was beside him. ‘Papa, are you ill?’

  He heard a male voice and realised that Ferryman was coming up after her. He rasped at his secretary to fetch water from the kitchen. When Ferryman came back with an old tin mug the cramp finally lessened. The water tasted foul.

  ‘Lucky we found you, monsieur,’ Ferryman said as he helped Jean-Yves downstairs. ‘A neighbour saw you go in. Thing is, there’s an emergency at the castle.’

  Ninette took over. ‘Mme Haupmann tried to get out of bed and fell. The nurse couldn’t lift her, so had to call for the doctor. Haupmann’s burbling on about you being –’ his daughter began to laugh – ‘a murderer.’ She gasped as the laughter caught in her throat, doubtless from shock. ‘Sorry, I’m so sorry, but you should have seen their faces.’

  *

  The doctor doubted Haupmann would last the night and offered to take her to hospital. ‘For convenience’s sake. Mme de Charembourg wishes it.’

  ‘You spoke to my wife?’ Rhona had been nowhere near Haupmann since they’d arrived for the wedding.

  The doctor looked a little uncomfortable. ‘I have, Monsieur. Madame sent for me, while you were being fetched. Understandably your lady doesn’t wish for a death to take place here so soon after your daughter’s wedding. She feels it would be …’

  ‘Inconvenient? I think it would be cruel to move Haupmann now and surround her with strangers. Let her pass quietly here, tended by her nurse.’ Jean-Yves ushered the doctor out. He told the nurse to get some rest, saying he would sit with the invalid for an hour or so. At the bedside he held a glass of water to the yellowish lips and said conversationally, ‘I went to Lutzman’s studio today, Mme Haupmann. I owned up to my crime, spoke the words out loud and asked God’s pardon.’

  The nurse had put a rosary into Haupmann’s hand. The beads ticked restlessly as the housekeeper absorbed his words. She muttered, ‘They were behind with their rent. His wife reckoned if you liked your picture, you’d let them off. That’s how Jews think – money and what they can get.’

  He stood and walked to the other side of the room, her poisonous words testing the limits of his charity. He stopped to look at a framed print of the Virgin and child, which aggravated his mood further. Mary looked more like a Swiss milkmaid than a girl of Nazareth. Straightening it he said, ‘I have lived three decades torn from the company of God for a crime I committed. Your spiteful words sent me to Lutzman’s house with my pride stirred. You must admit the part you played.’

  The silence, broken only by the stubborn click of beads, unseated something in him. He strode back to the bed and grabbed the string. It broke and beads bounced to the floor. ‘You’ve never killed a man, have you, Madame? But your hatred and bitter prejudice have incited others to act. All your adult life you’ve pulled people’s emotional strings and stood back with a smile on your face, enjoying the consequences. Confess it.’

  ‘No reason to.’

  ‘My mother gave you money to bribe the local chief inspector – Kern. You asked him to erase all trace of my visit to Lutzman’s studio. He was diligent – he had Danielle Lutzman arrested, kept in a solitary cell so she couldn’t incriminate me. She nearly went mad, separated from her child. Later Kern filed a report saying itinerant thieves did the killing. Neat, but there is always a reckoning. Kern took hundreds of thousands of francs from us, and bought himself a fast car. He crashed it into a tree on a bend by the river.’

  ‘Didn’t know Kern.’

  ‘He and his wife came here for dinner once a month, right up until war broke out. Drop the pretence, Madame. Make your confession.’

  Haupmann’s lips cracked with the effort of speaking. ‘Your mother loved you so much.’

  ‘I know. She helped wash away my crime, but I wish I’d had the guts to face it –’ a movement made him look up. ‘Rhona? How long have you been there?’

  ‘Long enough. Is it over?’

  ‘We should send for the priest.’

  Rhona raised an eyebrow. ‘And give the Abbé a taste of her rambling goodbyes? I can’t think that’s wise.’ She came to stand beside him. ‘What you were saying just now—’

  ‘Not here,’ he interrupted.

  ‘Actually this is probably the safest place. Am I to take it you’re guilty of a mortal sin?’ She might have been asking about the weather, or what he’d like for lunch.

  Not trusting himself to speak, he crouched down and picked up Haupmann’s scattered rosary beads. A moment later he heard the gentle creak of the rocking chair beside the fireplace. Rhona was rocking, her eyes half closed. In the country, she threw off Parisian chic. Out came the tweed, the cable-knit cardigans. She was less brittle here.

  She yawned. ‘Is guilt why you make such a fuss of the little tart who works for Javier? I know she’s something to do with this place and what went on here.’

  ‘I don’t want to discuss it, and I certainly don’t want a quarrel. Not with poor Haupmann forced to listen.’

  ‘I doubt she’ll be telling tales, Jean-Yves.’ The chair creaked back and forth. ‘Very well,’ Rhona sighed. ‘Since you won’t talk to me, I’ll tell you what I know. A year or so after the war finished, I had our London chauffeur follow you on one of your trips out. You were always so secretive, pretending you were going to your club in town, but you always headed off in the wrong direction. So I had you followed. I thought you had a mistress, you see. Well, we’d been ten years married. It seemed possible.

  ‘The chauffeur tailed you to Wandsworth, to a squalid road. I went there a few days later. I knocked at a narrow little house and said I was the health visitor. The stupid woman who lived there invited me in, even though I had no bag and no badge. She gave her name as Lutzman. I asked if she was related to an artist of that name, as we had some paintings by him in our home. I must have a sympathetic manner because, after a few false starts, I got her life story. She said she’d never told anybody so much about herself. Your name came up – she admitted she’d sometimes taken money from you.’ Rhona imitated a high, Germanic voice; ‘“I tell him always Mathilda and I need nothing, but when he is gone away there is money in a drawer or on the table. He is the reverse of a thief.” I’ve never forgotten that phrase – reverse of a thief. You’re a do-gooder by stealth, my noble husband.’

  Rhona fell silent and Jean-Yves suspected she was seeing herself back in Danielle’s dingy London parlour. He knew it when she said reflectively, ‘There was a brat in the room and I remember it watching me, sucking its thumb, and all I wanted to know was where its mother was and was it yours. I asked the woman about Mathilda and she started crying. Mathilda, I deduced, had died giving birth … that brat is yours, isn’t it? You paid for its schooling.’

  ‘Yes, I paid for Alix’s schooling. Who told you?’

  ‘Now then …’ Rhona closed her eyes, pretending to think. ‘Receipts in your desk drawer, I seem to recall. Thirty pounds a term to Kingswood Place, Hampshire. Imagine my feelings, my husband paying for a beggar’s education while refusing his own daughters their chances.’

  He stared at her, prepared to believe that last comment was a joke. No, she seemed utterly in earnest. It had always baffled him, her ability to fashion the universe to suit herself. ‘I never refused Christine or Ninette anything – the best schools, horse-riding, music tuition, Italian lessons, deportment, finishing school. And now driving lessons. What did I deny them?’

  But Rhona wasn’t list
ening. ‘So, is Alix yours?’

  He considered his reply. ‘She is not your concern.’

  ‘Is that the classically educated way of saying “she’s my bastard”? I intend to know, Jean-Yves.’

  ‘There is only one person entitled to ask that question: Alix. And until she asks, I will say nothing.’

  An annoyed shrug answered him. Rhona had stopped rocking. ‘You and the girl’s mother … you were lovers? For how long? Where did you meet?’

  He sighed. His instinct was always to close down these conversations, but now he thought, Why go on denying it? ‘I’d known Mathilda since she was a child. I met her in her father’s studio in Kirchwiller.’ Over the corpse of her father, but that was a detail he would not share. ‘I helped her and her mother move to London, and kept in touch with them. Yes, I helped support them. Mathilda charmed me, but I assure you my feelings were entirely brotherly and I saw relatively little of her during her childhood. Then war broke out. Unknown to me, she enrolled as a nurse and we met in France, behind the lines, when she was assigned to the casualty station near Arras where I was recovering. She was twenty-two.’

  ‘This was all by chance, I suppose?’

  ‘You don’t imagine anyone could plan assignations amid that chaos? I emerged one day from a blur of sleep and morphine to find her smiling down at me.’

  ‘And smiled back, even though you were married to me? Even though I was waiting at home, terrified for you every minute?’

  Jean-Yves felt a wave of pity. Rhona, rocking again in her chair, hands clasped so tightly the bones showed, had once been the entirety of his desires. The sum of his dreams. ‘I smiled back and we met again, after I was sent home to that sanatorium in south London. She’d been sent back too and was working there.’