That Summer: A Novel

by Lauren Willig

  “Arthur is working,” Imogen managed. Some remnant of pride prompted her to add, “I don’t believe he wishes to be disturbed.”

  Jane gave her a pitying look. “You should be in bed,” she said, and calmly opened the study door.

  Imogen only heard Arthur’s words of appreciation: “Tea! Just what I was wanting!” before the door closed behind Jane, leaving Imogen on the wrong side.

  Herne Hill, 2009

  “What a horrid place.” Natalie’s cut-glass tones cut through the atmosphere in the room, reducing it to just a room, old and unused.

  “It is a little dank,” admitted Julia. Or a lot dank. The dust had clotted and clumped into a brownish haze. She wondered how the portrait would look after a cleaning, whether brightening the colors would somehow brighten the mood of it. She doubted it. It wasn’t anything in the palette but something in the woman’s face.

  “A little?” Natalie raised her perfectly manicured brows. “I don’t think anyone’s been in here since before Thatcher. Aunt Regina always used the other room, back there.”

  “Yes, I saw it,” said Julia absently. She pointed to the fireplace. “That portrait—who is she?”

  “Goodness, that hair.” Natalie stood back to squint at the painting with a practiced gallery goer’s stare. “Was she auditioning for a spot as Princess Leia?”

  “That was the look at the time.” Julia prowled around the base of the painting, looking for a plaque, a date, a signature. The curved and gilded frame was stubbornly uninformative. “Mid-nineteenth century?”

  “I shouldn’t be surprised,” said Natalie noncommittally.

  The woman had smooth wings of hair parted in the middle and coiled on the side and a dress with a high-buttoned basque.

  “Eighteen-forties, maybe?” Catching Natalie looking at her, Julia shrugged and said brusquely, “It’s the hair and the dress. Who do you think she is?”

  “An ancestress, I imagine. Otherwise I doubt she’d be on the wall. One of the ancestrals was a collector of sorts, but anything good was sold off ages ago. At least, that’s what my mother says.”

  There was a slight edge to Natalie’s voice when she mentioned her mother. Or maybe the edge had more to do with the family treasures being sold.

  “Your mother was my mother’s cousin?” said Julia, trying to get the family tree into order. She remembered what her father had said, back in New York. “Caroline?”

  “Yes.” Natalie didn’t seem interested in pursuing that line of discussion. She nodded to a portrait on the far wall. “Do you think that’s your portrait’s father on the wall over there?”

  On the far wall, over a faded sofa upholstered in rose and cream silk, hung a portrait of a man whose features were muffled in an exuberant display of facial hair, from bristling sideburns to even more prominent whiskers. The ginger of his hair was liberally streaked with gray and the buttons of his jacket strained over his waistcoat in proper prosperous middle-class Victorian fashion.

  He had been painted in his study, or in the artist’s fantastical re-creation of one, with his hand resting on a stand on which a vividly colored Book of Hours lay open, the pages looking as though someone had just turned them. Julia would have wagered money that it had been painted by a different artist; the draftsmanship was impeccable, but there was something mannered and flat about it. If there was any character in the man’s face, she couldn’t find it.

  Julia glanced back at the woman, her smooth face and haggard eyes.

  “Or her husband,” said Julia. “They married them young back then.”

  “What do you mean, ‘back then’?” asked Nat, dropping onto a droopy, silk-upholstered sofa. A cloud of dust rose into the air, and she batted at it, coughing. “Half of my friends are dating fifty-year-olds. My mother says—” She broke off, lips compressing.

  Julia perched on the edge of a chair that seemed to have fared slightly better in the dust department. “Trust me, the New York dating scene isn’t much better.”

  “Are you seeing anyone?” asked Natalie.

  “I’m between men at the moment.” Technically true, if slightly misleading. She had gone on a few dates since losing her job, mostly at the instigation of her college roommate, but none of them seemed to last long. “What about you?”

  Natalie shrugged her thin shoulders, looking down at her pricy shoes. “A few contenders, no one in particular at the moment. Frittering away my time, Mum calls it. As if it were that easy!”

  Julia kept her voice dry. “Mothers do say the most charmingly helpful things, don’t they?”

  Not that she would know.

  It had been the right thing to say. Natalie’s face broke into a genuine smile. “God, yes.” Impulsively she leaned forward. “Would you like to go get something to eat? There are a handful of places not far from here—and we could get out of this wretched house.”

  At the mention of food, Julia’s stomach growled loudly. “I think the last time I ate was somewhere over the North Sea.”

  Natalie hauled herself up from the couch, shaking dust off her extremities. “It’s not exactly an oasis of civilization, but we should be able to find something to feed you.” Glancing back over her shoulder, she made a wry face. “If I’m being honest, this house gives me the willies!”

  Julia rescued her shoulder bag from where she’d dumped it in the front hall, then, on second thought, dug out her wallet instead. No point in lugging everything out with her. This was, after all, home base for the next few weeks.

  Sticking her wallet in her jeans pocket, she looked up at her cousin. “The willies?”

  Natalie shrugged. “Just—you know. Shall we go?”

  She already had one hand on the doorknob. Julia glanced back over her shoulder through the open doors of the drawing room, at the beautiful, tortured face of the woman in the portrait. She’d take another look later. Without Natalie.

  “Sure,” Julia said, and dug Aunt Regina’s keys out of her pocket. “Let’s get some dinner.”

  FIVE

  Herne Hill, 1849

  Arthur hadn’t told her that there would guests for dinner.

  Imogen paused in the doorway of the drawing room, her skirts belling gently around her legs. The sound of voices alerted her even before she approached, male voices, raised in spirited conversation, interspersed by Evie’s high, lilting laugh, a little too high and a little too lilting. Male company wasn’t something they had often, not in the quiet house on Herne Hill.

  It was Evie who saw Imogen first, her pretty young face lighting up. Breaking off her conversation, she raised a hand in greeting to Imogen, and the two men to whom she had been speaking turned with her. One was tall and fair, with a carefully maintained mustache. He was dressed in the height of fashion in a tight-waisted frock coat and a waistcoat of a dull but expensive fabric. The other was shorter, with long, waving locks, a buff coat, and a cravat knotted in a tight bow at the neck, the very caricature of an artist.

  There was another man in the back of the room, in quiet conversation with Arthur. His back was to Imogen; all she saw was close-cropped dark hair.

  They must be more of Arthur’s protégés. He collected people as he did manuscripts, trading them off when he grew bored.

  Imogen felt a moment of malicious amusement. Three male guests for dinner, and none of them announced. Jane must be down in the kitchen, cajoling Cook into stretching the soup and shredding the hens into timbale. The table would be unbalanced, but Arthur never cared for things like that. Jane did, but Jane would never naysay Arthur. Jane was, Imogen had realized years ago, quietly and painfully in love with Arthur.

  And Arthur was simply Arthur, imperturbable and entirely self-absorbed.

  Belatedly aware of his wife’s presence, he turned, holding out a hand to her. “Imogen, my love. Come and greet our guests.”

  What a misleading word, that our. It pleased Arthur to pretend that she had some role in the household, as gracious chatelaine, if nothing else. It masked the fact t
hat her only task was to be ornamental, to smile at him with the feigned echo of the love she had once believed she bore him.

  Sometimes she thought back with astonishment to that sixteen-year-old girl she had been, poor, naïve sixteen, still dreaming of knights in shining armor, convinced that Arthur was the embodiment of all her maiden dreams.

  The years had been kind to Arthur, but there was no disguising the fact that he had broadened and settled into comfortable middle age. His once ginger hair had faded in parts to gray; the whiskers she had once found so dashing had grown bristled and bushy. He looked more and more like the portrait of his father that hung above the mantel, a prosperous merchant with a merchant’s mind, smug in the constant counting of his treasures.

  Of which she, for some reason, was one, acquired and cataloged like the porcelain in the cabinet or the books on the shelves.

  She supposed it was better than being a pensioner in her uncle’s home. That was what she told herself, and there were times when she even believed it.

  Arranging her paisley shawl more securely around her shoulders, Imogen moved gracefully across the room, taking her husband’s proffered hand, letting him tuck her arm through his. Arthur liked to show her off, she knew, just as he liked to display the Book of Hours in the study, or the fifteenth-century triptych in the hall. Outside, it was dark already, the early dark of February, but the firelight reflected prettily off the purple poplin of her dress, picking out the richness of mother-of-pearl buttons and silk braid.

  “Gentlemen,” she said, her smile nicely calculated to include them all, while marking no one in particular. Over the years, she had become very good at playing Arthur’s hostess, at showing the face he wished for her to show. “Welcome.”

  “We are now,” said the man with the wild dark curls, flashing her a smile intended to be dangerous. Imogen couldn’t help but be amused by it, the dash and bravado of it all, a little boy playing at Casanova.

  “My love,” said Arthur, leading her forward like a visiting dignitary, “I should like to present to you Mr. Rossetti.”

  The man with the careless cravat and the tousled curls pressed his hand to his heart.

  “Mr. Fotheringay-Vaughn.” Blond and elegant, the second man essayed a languid bow. He had cultivated the look of perpetual ennui that went with his tightly tailored waistcoat and carefully tied cravat.

  “—and Mr. Thorne.” That was the third man. He inclined his head in greeting but made no move closer. He put Imogen in mind of a jungle beast, quiet and alert. “They have come to visit our collection.”

  There was no need to specify which collection; there was only the one that counted, Arthur’s medieval objets d’art, carefully selected and enlarged over time. Imogen could see lying open on the card table Arthur’s pride and showpiece, her father’s Book of Hours.

  “You must have a powerful love of antiquities to venture out on such an inclement day,” said Imogen lightly. The rain had been hissing and spitting down all day, the sky the color of sleet, the ground an unappealing blend of mud and slush. “Are you also collectors, then?”

  “Call us admirers, rather,” said Rossetti. His teeth flashed in a smile. “We haven’t the tin. Our pockets are to let.”

  The blond man, Fotheringay-Vaughn, looked pained. He fingered his expensive enamel watch fob. “Yours, perhaps.”

  Thorne made no response. Alone of the three, he stayed clear of the female presence, withdrawing with Arthur to the table by the window.

  “These gentlemen are all artists, Mama.” Evie hastened to fill the gap. “They have come for inspiration.” She spoke the final word with touching conviction.

  “And have you found it, then?” Imogen asked.

  “Most certainly,” drawled Fotheringay-Vaughn. His eyes were on Evie, frankly admiring.

  Evie’s cheeks went pink, her eyes as wide as saucers.

  Imogen looked pointedly at Arthur, but Arthur was deep in conversation with Thorne, their heads bent over the Book of Hours as Thorne sketched something in a notebook with a quick, sure hand.

  Not that Arthur would be any use; Imogen had warned him, time and again, that he was keeping his daughter too close, that she needed to be allowed to try her charms on the inoffensive sons of neighbors, under the watchful eye of half a dozen earnest mamas. She would be an heiress when the time came. Not a great heiress, not the sort who made waves in society and elicited articles in the Illustrated London News, but she would have a tidy enough sum to bring to her future husband. Especially for an artist with pockets to let and expensive taste in watch fobs.

  Kept close as she was, Evie was likely to be easy prey for the first plausible fortune hunter who came her way.

  As you were, my dear? Arthur had chucked Imogen under the chin and laughed a little laugh to show that he was joking.

  The idea, of course, was risible: the fortune was his; she had been all but penniless when he married her. Jane had certainly remarked upon it often enough. And yet … And yet. Imogen wondered if the arrow had fallen quite so far from the mark as he had intended. He might not have married her for money, but she had been gulled by him all the same, had, in her naïveté, believed him something quite other than what he was.

  She was determined that Evie shouldn’t make the same mistake; when Evie married, it should be for some form of real and lasting affection, not on the strength of a compliment and an illusion.

  Sometimes Imogen thought that those years in the schoolroom with Evie were all that had kept her from packing a bag and slipping out a window in the middle of the night. Their lessons had been no great success. Evie would never make a scholar; she hadn’t the interest or the dedication. She had a facile, if shallow, intelligence, but she made up for it with the exuberance of her affection.

  Evie was the closest to a child that Imogen was ever likely to have, and Imogen wouldn’t let her throw herself away on a scoundrel.

  “Goodness, how interesting,” said Imogen loudly. “It is so seldom one gets to see real artists at work.”

  She crossed carefully between Evie and Fotheringay-Vaughn, sliding her arm through her stepdaughter’s, ranging herself between them. She was taller than Evie by half a head; if she didn’t entirely block her stepdaughter’s view of the older man, at least she impeded it.

  She squeezed Evie’s arm affectionately. She was so slight, so unprotected, her Evie, as unaware of the vagaries of the world as Imogen had been. In its own way, Herne Hill felt as far from London as Cornwall.

  “You must tell me more of your visit,” Imogen said to Rossetti. “Was there anything in particular in my husband’s collection that you came to see?”

  “Anything!” said Rossetti, with a sweeping gesture. “Everything! It has been a revelation.” The word must have pleased him, because he repeated it. “A revelation! I had seen the works of such painters before only in crude, printed copies. To see the originals…”

  “Was a revelation?” Imogen provided with a hint of a smile.

  “Like a heavenly vision,” said Rossetti extravagantly. “Did you know that in all of our National Gallery there is only one work painted by an artist prior to Raphael?”

  Fotheringay-Vaughn rolled his eyes.

  Imogen found Rossetti’s enthusiasm rather charming. Had she been like that once? Yes, a very long time ago, when she had thought she would help Arthur in his work and they would immerse themselves in medieval manuscripts together. Such a utopian vision and so very far from the life she now led. The study door had been courteously but firmly closed to her. “I must confess. I was unaware of that. There are several lovely Reynolds, however.”

  “Sir Joshua Reynolds!” Rossetti was deeply indignant. “Sir Sloshua, more like! His meaningless rules have stifled generations of English painters. There is no life in his paintings, no color. Do you know that he has decreed that all landscapes must be painted in shades of brown?”

  Imogen felt her lips relax into a smile. “I fear that does seem to be the color of our countrysid
e at present.”

  “Yes, but think of May!” said Rossetti passionately. “Think of the sun gilding the fresh, green grass and the roses unfurling their first velvet petals. There is a world of color and light just waiting to be captured on canvas.”

  Despite herself, Imogen was moved by his words. “I am sure that if anyone can, you shall, Mr. Rossetti,” she said.

  “Not if the Academy has its way,” said Mr. Rossetti darkly.

  “The Academy does its best.” It was Thorne, who, with Arthur, had come to join them. Imogen didn’t miss the warning look Thorne sent his friend. “I wouldn’t say ill of them.”

  His voice was deep and rich, with the hint of a regional accent he made no attempt to hide, the vowels flattened, the consonants soft. He was older than his peers, closer, Imogen imagined, to her own age than Rossetti, who looked to be scarcely older than Evie. The sun had burned Thorne’s skin brown and etched lines on his lean face.

  Imogen found herself intrigued by what it was he wasn’t saying. “What would you say of the Academy, then, Mr. Thorne?”

  “Oh, Thorne is one for painting, not for talking,” said Rossetti merrily. “He believes in saving his breath to wield his brush. He leaves the grand manifestos to the rest of us.”

  “Have you a grand manifesto then?” asked Evie breathlessly. The question was for Rossetti, but her eyes were on Fotheringay-Vaughn.

  “This lot do,” said Fotheringay-Vaughn indolently. He fixed his gaze on Evie. “My only creed is to paint beauty where I find it.”

  That, decided Imogen, was quite enough. Leaning down to put her mouth to the girl’s ear, she murmured, “Evie, dearest, would you go and see what’s keeping your aunt Jane?” She deliberately made her voice droll. “I should hate to think she’s been kidnapped by Cook.”

  “Yes, Mama.” Evie always made a point of calling her mama.

  For a moment, Imogen fought against a wave of bleak despair. What was she to do when Evie was gone? Well, she would face it when she faced it. She just needed to see Evie happily settled, with someone who appreciated her for her many excellences of spirit, not for the money Arthur had settled in the Funds.