That Summer: A Novel

by Lauren Willig

  Her latte tasted like ash.

  She’d been an idiot. And she didn’t know how to fix it. Although apologizing might be a start.

  Her father checked his watch. “I have a panel in five minutes. But if you want me to stay…”

  Julia rose, brushing the crumbs of someone else’s scone from her skirt. She hoisted her bag up from the banquette beside her.

  “No, that’s okay.” She brushed her cheek against her father’s, in what passed between them for a hug. “There’s someone I need to go see.”

  London, 1850

  When a week had gone by without word, Imogen sought out Gavin’s studio.

  She had kept vigil all that night, waiting for a sign that never came. A soft snow began to fall by morning, blurring the outlines of the summerhouse and the ground around it. If Gavin had come for her, there was no sign of it; the paths were all shrouded in snow, converted to a horrible, uniform sameness by that smooth, white blanket.

  Arthur had found her outside, her hair starred with snowflakes, and insisted that she come inside and be warmed with a hot toddy, instructing Anna to see to it. True to his avowal of the other night, he kept close to Imogen for the next few days, reading aloud to her from the paper, insisting she go upstairs to rest, sending Anna on useless errands for extraneous shawls and undesired pots of tea.

  She mustn’t be moped over Evie’s departure, Arthur told her; he was there to make sure of it.

  And Imogen smiled and said thank you and secretly wondered whether Arthur’s mission of mercy was quite so merciful or something else entirely. In her frustration she wondered whether it was a deliberate attempt to keep her from Gavin: Arthur’s appearance in her room at the critical moment the other night, his constant presence by her side for the next three days. With Arthur, it was always so hard to tell. His countenance was as bland and genial as ever it was; he thanked her courteously for alleviating his pain at the loss of his only child and trusted that they would be a comfort to each other.

  It would have made Imogen feel guilty if she hadn’t been so madly worried.

  Did Gavin think she had abandoned him? Surely he must know better than that. She had been by the window again by fifteen minutes after the appointed hour. Clocks varied; watches slowed. If he had been there, at all, surely she would have known, have seen.

  If he hadn’t been there …

  That was the demon that haunted her nights and nipped at the edges of her consciousness by day. The age of highwaymen was over, but there were still footpads who lurked on the fringes of London’s poorer areas. Every day, there were men clubbed or stabbed, dredged from the river or found sprawled in an alley, denuded of valuables. Gavin would have been carrying a substantial sum in coin, more than most laborers saw in a year, or even two.

  It needn’t even have been a footpad. The roads had been slick and icy. What if Gavin hadn’t been able to find a hackney? What if he had decided to walk the long way to her? All it would have taken would be one false step on a patch of ice to send him plunging into the unforgiving currents of the Thames.

  His continued silence filled her with fear. If he were alive, if he were well, he would have come to her.

  Perhaps he was ill. So many fell ill at this time of year. He might be lying alone in his studio, in the grip of fever, too ill to even think to pen a note. Imogen clung to that faint hope: a fever, a broken leg, a note that had gone astray.

  It wasn’t until the fourth day that Arthur finally went away to town, on business that, he said apologetically, could not be avoided. Looking at him, remembering what Gavin had told her, Imogen couldn’t help wondering what the business might be.

  But that was beside the point. Arthur was gone; she was free, at least for a few hours. She slipped out of the house and walked down to Half Moon Street, where she was able to hire a hack. Out of the habit of caution, she had him drop her several streets away from Gavin’s studio, although mingled anticipation and apprehension mounted higher in her breast the closer they came, until she thought she might choke with it.

  She had never been to this part of London without Gavin before, and even then only twice before. It seemed different without him, the buildings in worse repair, the streets dirtier, the calls of the street criers louder. Blundering her way to what she thought was the right street, she passed a woman leaning by a streetlamp, her bosom half-bared, the exposed skin tinged a faint blue with cold.

  Imogen clutched her own pelisse closer around her and hurried on, trying to remember the number of the house on Cleveland Street, trying to not to slip on the frozen bits of refuse and offal that littered the street.

  She discovered it at last, a narrow building with peeling paint that might once have been better than it was. The door downstairs was unlocked. Imogen let herself in and began to climb the stairs, those same narrow stairs she had climbed with Gavin, clinging to the rail, going faster and faster, as fast as her skirts and her corsets would permit.

  She knocked, quietly at first, and then louder. The sound echoed through the narrow landing, as hollow as the grave.

  The door was locked; she rattled and shook the knob in vain.

  “Hey there!” A face peered up at her from the next landing down, a woman, gap-toothed and slatternly. “Who are you and what do you want?”

  With heavy, huffing steps, the woman made her way towards Imogen, peering at her with narrowed eyes, as though Imogen were a wormy cabbage in a market stall. Keys clanked at the woman’s waist and she brought with her a distinct reek of gin.

  Imogen clutched her reticule with both hands. “I was looking for Gavin Thorne. About—about a commission for a painting.”

  The woman paused halfway up the stairs, leaning on the rail. “You’re too late, then. Thorne’s cleared out.”

  The words rang hollowly in Imogen’s ears. “Cleared out?”

  “Cleared out, run out.” The woman’s wrinkled face was a picture of disgust. “Left me two weeks’ rent on the table and not so much as a by-your-leave.”

  “Did he—did he leave any mention of where he might have gone?”

  The woman set her arms akimbo. “Didn’t I just say ’e didn’t? If I’d a known that, I could have sent his things on.”

  Necessity won out over pride. “Might I—might I take a look?” Imogen asked tentatively. Hastily she fished in her reticule for a coin. “I will compensate you for your trouble.”

  The sight of gold decided it.

  “Come along,” said the woman ungraciously.

  Huffing at the effort, she made her way up the rest of the stairs, pushing past Imogen on the narrow landing. The paint on the walls was peeling in long strips and the floorboards creaked ominously beneath her feet.

  Unlocking the door with one of the keys at her waist, she shoved it open. “Go on,” she said. “Look your fill.”

  Imogen glanced at her, but she showed no sign of going away. Her solid bulk filled the doorway, arms crossed and feet planted firmly in the door.

  “You are very kind,” Imogen said, and walked into the room, feeling like a person in a dream, everything familiar and unfamiliar all at the same time.

  The blue gown still hung over the makeshift screen at the side of the room; the pile of pasteboard crowns and dusty velvet doublets occupied their usual place, but the sketches were gone from the table and the easel where Tristan and Iseult had rested stood lonely in the middle of the room, its supports empty.

  The side of the room that Augustus Fotheringay-Vaughn had occupied was cleared out down to the last speck of dust, but that, Imogen knew, was to be expected; Gavin had told her that he, Fotheringay-Vaughn, had cleared out in a huff.

  Imogen took inventory of Gavin’s things, as well as she remembered them. His paints and palette were gone, only a few dried remnants left behind. The traveling easel was gone as well. It looked, in fact, as though he had packed as he had said he would, to leave with her.

  Behind her, the landlady took a surreptitious bite of the coin Imogen had han
ded her. Finding it satisfactory, she said expansively, “The room where the gentleman slept was through that door. You might want a look in there as well.”

  In that same trance-like state, Imogen opened the door. She had never been in this room before; some strange relic of delicacy had kept Gavin from bringing her into his bedroom. They had made love in the meadows, on the floor of his studio, but never in his bed.

  The room hardly justified the term. It was a tiny closet of a space, with little more than a camp bed, a chamber pot beneath it, a washstand to one side, and hooks on the wall for his clothes. There wasn’t much left, just a forlorn nightshirt hanging from a hook and a forgotten piece of shaving soap on the washstand.

  Imogen returned to the studio, where the landlady was jangling her keys.

  “Do you know when he left?” Imogen asked. Her hands felt very cold inside her leather gloves.

  The landlady shrugged. “Last time I saw him was four—no, five days past.”

  Imogen felt as though there were a fist slowly squeezing inside her chest, pressing tighter and tighter. Five days ago, Gavin had packed his things, just as they’d planned, and come to meet her. Come to meet her and never arrived.

  “And if I’d known the trick he meant to play me then—” The landlady broke off. “But, no. There was someone moving around up here two nights ago. So he can’t ’ave left till then.”

  “Two nights ago?” Imogen looked at her in surprise. “Are you quite sure?”

  “Clomping around proper, he was,” said the landlady, with righteous indignation. “Makes it hard for a body to sleep.”

  Imogen pressed a hand against the wall to steady herself, her mind reeling. “Are you sure it was Gav—Mr. Thorne in the studio?”

  “’Oo else would it be?” the woman said. “’Ooever it was ’ad the key.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Herne Hill, 1850

  Imogen felt the baby stirring inside her as she left the studio.

  She paused on the steps, her hands against her stomach. Before, she had thought she felt a fluttering, but this was something firmer. She could feel the child pushing against her, struggling for space.

  “You’re not coming over ill, are you?” said the landlady suspiciously.

  “No,” said Imogen hastily, and continued her descent, holding carefully to the rail, feeling the child in her womb move restlessly, as if it could feel her distress. No, she wasn’t ill. She was terrified, not for herself or for her child, but for Gavin.

  If he had left, as he said he would, on the Saturday night, where was he? Nothing short of foul play would have stopped him coming to her; she was sure of that.

  Someone moving around in the studio, the landlady had said. Someone with a key.

  A memory of Augustus Fotheringay-Vaughn as she had last seen him in the orchard flickered before Imogen’s eyes, his elegant manners abandoned, his lips drawn back with anger. There had been something feral about him, something brutal.

  Despite the warmth of her pelisse, Imogen found herself shivering, shivering with a cold that came from within.

  Augustus Fotheringay-Vaughn had a key to the studio. There would be no benefit to his hurting Gavin, not now that Evie was safely married to Ned Sturgis, but Imogen wasn’t sure that mattered. Kingdoms had toppled and wars had been fought, all in the name of revenge. She had shamed Fotheringay-Vaughn in front of Evie, had ruined his plans. The means with which she had done so had come straight from Gavin.

  Yes. Imogen imagined Fotheringay-Vaughn would be willing to kill to protect the fantasy he had built around himself. There mustn’t be that many people in London who knew about his true past. And now that Gavin was gone …

  The word hit her like a blow. “Gone.” She hadn’t let herself believe it until now. He had only been delayed. Misplaced. She had harbored romantic visions of finding him in his studio, wracked with fever, of bathing his burning brow and kissing his sweat-damp hand.

  Cleared out, the landlady had said. Run off.

  Somehow, Imogen got herself into a hack and gave the driver directions, fighting with herself, trying to come up with other theories, other solutions: Gavin had fallen ill on his way to her; he was in hospital somewhere, too weak to remember his own name. Or he had found it expedient to remove to an inn before making another attempt at departure; there was a note that had gone astray, a communication to her that would arrive tattered and belated.

  Perhaps he had seen Arthur’s light in her room and decided to wait for another night. That would explain the sound of someone moving around in the studio. He might have gone back and stayed the night. He might …

  As the carriage rocked on the uneven ground, Imogen’s optimism faltered. It had been four days. One day she could imagine, or two, but by now Gavin would have made sure to bring her word. Somehow.

  The image of the empty easel in the center of the studio haunted her. Gavin had said nothing about bringing it with him. But it would make a piece of Fotheringay-Vaughn’s revenge, if that was his object. Dispose of Gavin and ruin her. He would sow their fields with salt and triumph over their destruction.

  Wild plans fomented in Imogen’s brain. She would call on Fotheringay-Vaughn, confront him—but to what end? She remembered that smooth, sneering face. He would deny it all and silently laugh at her behind it.

  She had no recourse.

  Imogen paid the driver, slowly mounting the steps to the front door of the house she had hoped never to see again, the house that felt less like a home and more like a gaol. The weather was much as it had been when she had arrived as a bride all those years before, gray and dripping. She felt that she would never see the sun again.

  But this was absurd! Imogen rallied herself, fighting against the dragging sense of despair that threatened to envelop her. She owed it to their child, if nothing else. Gavin’s friends, his fellow artists, one of them might know something, might have heard something. She could quiz them discreetly, pretend she was interested in a change in her portrait.

  Anna opened the door to her, breathless from running up the stairs. Imogen handed her pelisse, gloves, and bonnet to Anna, scraping her feet on the drugget that had been placed over the floor to protect it from winter mud.

  Arthur’s face appeared in the hall. “Ah, there you are! If I might have a word with you in my book room?”

  “Yes, certainly.” Imogen maintained her composure, hoping any redness about her eyes would be ascribed solely to the wind. Her skirts dragged heavily around her legs as she followed Arthur down the hall.

  “You wished to speak to me?” she said as the study door closed behind her. Her face felt like a mask. She wanted nothing more than to seek the privacy of her own room, to think and pace and plan. Under her petticoat, the baby kicked and kicked again.

  Unexpectedly, Arthur took both of her hands in his. She was too surprised to draw them away. “Isn’t it time that these jaunts to London ended?” he said gently. Imogen looked at him dumbly. “Jane has told me about your”—he gave a little cough—“interesting condition.”

  Imogen’s mind was whirling. “Jane takes a great deal on herself,” she said tartly.

  Arthur led her to a puffed and tufted settee, seating her with the care he would have employed on an elderly duchess. “She means well.” He flipped back his coattails and seated himself beside her. “And she did well to tell me.”

  Through the fire screen Imogen could feel the warmth of the fire scorching her face. She turned in her seat, trying to find the right words. “Arthur, I—”

  “Hush.” Arthur raised a hand to stop her words. “No more. It was, I confess, lowering to hear such joyous news from Jane’s mouth instead of yours, but the result is the same no matter the messenger. When are we to expect the happy event?”

  “May, I think,” said Imogen automatically. “Or June. But, Arthur—”

  “I should quite like another little girl,” said Arthur musingly. “Not that one could ever replace Evie, but it would be very nice to hear chi
ldish laughter in the house again, don’t you agree, my love?”

  Imogen looked at him full in the face, at the fine lines around his blue eyes, at the sagging jowls beneath his carefully cultivated whiskers, at the face she know so well and had never really known at all. A collector, a patron of the arts, a doting father, a distant husband. She had lived with him for a decade, and in this moment she wondered if she knew even less of him now than she had when she was sixteen. He was a cipher to her.

  Surely Arthur must realize that this child, this happy event, was no part of him. If he did, this was a generosity beyond her comprehension of him.

  Generosity? Or self-preservation? a nasty, suspicious part of her mind whispered. Better to claim the child than acknowledge himself a cuckold, with a wanton wife.

  Imogen found herself missing Gavin with a sudden soul-deep sense of loss. She wanted him with her so very badly, his arms around her, his cheek against her hair, not this awkward interview with Arthur in a study that was stuffy from the heat of the fire and the water dripping around an ill-fitted window.

  This was all wrong.

  But she was here and it must be got through. Imogen knotted her hands together. “Arthur,” she said steadily, “there is something we must address.”

  The expression with which he regarded her was kind and—was it her imagination?—just a little bit pitying.

  “Must we?” He covered her hand with his, such a very different hand from Gavin’s, the fingers soft and well manicured, the veins on the back beginning to knot with age. “My dear. If this is about that other business, let us hear no more of that.”

  Imogen looked up at him in surprise.

  Arthur smiled at her gently. “After all, that is all done with now, is it not?” Bracing his hands against his knees, he rose from the settee, looking down at her, still smiling that same smile, a smile that made the skin on the back of Imogen’s neck prickle. “There is nothing to stop us from being as we were.”