Billie sniffed. ‘One would think any man would hasten to hand over a sick child, especially such a man as Humphrey Doran.’
‘Adele has a full time nurse,’ said Karen shortly, her calm tone belied by the despair in her eyes.
Billie looked disapproving, then dove into her purse and produced a daintily wrapped parcel, thrusting it into Karen’s hand.
‘Here. Open it quickly, then. I want to see your face.’
Karen undid the ribbon ties with some curiosity. Billie presented her with the oddest gifts at times – when she remembered to give anything at all. It might be a black pearl from a Sultan’s hoard, or just as easily a better form of mousetrap. One never knew.
No one watching would have realized that Theodore Sampson’s exquisitely arranged gallery had shuddered and heaved beneath her feet. The tremor started as a pulse in Karen’s brain, spreading and vibrating along the nerves, juddering through her body to explode in full-blown seismic shock. Her nerveless fingers opened and let the parcel drop.
Billie caught it before it hit the floor. ‘Mon Dieu! That is no way to treat a treasure such as…’ She stopped, seeing her niece’s glazed expression. ‘What is it, child! You have the look of one who sees a phantom.’
Karen blinked, and the gallery walls settled back into place. She took a deep breath and let it out again, slowly. ‘Give it to me, please, Billie.’
The exquisite frame fitted into her palm. It was a miniature about the size of a matchbox, showing a gentleman in a high collar and cravat, his dark locks artfully wind-blown, his square-chinned face quite unbelievably handsome, although arrogant, too. The green-gray eyes were vividly alive. In fact, the intensity of that painted gaze unnerved her to the point where she had to close her fingers to hide from it.
She said waveringly, ‘I rather think I have seen a ghost. I know this face. I’ve seen it… him, before.’
‘It is possible. A man who could afford to commission a very good miniature could well have had a full-length likeness done by someone like Lawrence, to perpetuate the family line. It was the equivalent of a portrait photograph for the times. Perhaps you have seen him in the National Portrait Gallery.’
Karen let her chatter on. But she knew by the look on Billie’s face that she’d given herself away. Her fingers tightened on the miniature as though she wanted to crush it.
She laughed shakily. ‘It’s all right, Billie. I’m not going all fey on you. Of course I’ve seen a similar portrait some time in the past. I might even have seen a living person who looks like this. It’s very beautiful.’ She opened her fingers. The frame, wrought silver vine leaves around a square piece of ivory, had cut into her skin, almost drawing blood.
Billie shrugged. ‘If you would rather have something else…’
‘No!’ Karen’ clutched the miniature to her, her attitude both possessive and protective. ‘It’s a wonderful gift. Where did you get it?’
Billie’s uneasiness was evident in her abrupt speech. ‘I saw it in a small shop in Islington. I bought it because it pleased me.’
‘What shop? Was it a dealer; a jeweler; an antique store?’
‘How should I recall? It was months ago. Really, Karen…’
‘Think, Billie! What other sorts of things did you see there?’
A hand came out of nowhere and plucked the miniature from her grasp. ‘My word, this is a nice piece. Where did you find it?’
Karen lunged at Theo, practically tearing her treasure from him. ‘Please! Give it back. It’s a birthday gift from my aunt.’
Theo, who had looked as if he might take offence, brightened. ‘Your birthday, too? Why didn’t you tell me? This calls for a toast.’ He raised his voice. ‘Everyone…’
‘No, Theo!’
‘Everyone, take notice. This is an occasion for a double celebration. Our latest artistic luminary is also celebrating her birthday. Please, take up your glasses and join me in wishing her great happiness for the coming year. And then, dear friends, having captured your attention, I have a few words I should like to say on the subject of Miss Courtney’s promising career.’
Trapped once more in Theo’s inexorable grip, Karen twisted about frantically to call back to her aunt, ‘Come tomorrow, please Billie! I’ve got to talk to you. Twelve o’clock all right?’
‘I will be there.’ Billie lowered her tone to a mutter, so that only a passing waiter heard her add, ‘Be sure that I will be there to discover more of this mystery I have made.’ Becoming more French by the minute, she sniffed at the proffered glass of champagne, clearly classified it as inferior, and promptly left.
Karen thought she had herself well in hand. The shock of seeing the miniature, and its curious effect on her had lessened as she gave her attention to others; while her naturally solemn expression had the advantage of hiding her thoughts admirably. She answered questions as well as she could, parried impertinences and longed for the evening to end.
Due to Theo’s insistence, his staff worked in a smoke-free environment – for the good of the valuable works on the walls, not human lungs. Of course, he could hardly apply the rule tonight, not without giving offence to certain clients. Karen had an unreasoning fear of fire, although she usually managed to conceal her reaction when matches and lighters flared. Tonight she closed her eyes whenever a flame was briefly lit and endured the discomfort of smoke breathed upon her, as no doubt others endured in the cause of sociability.
However, she was totally unprepared for the accident. It happened so easily: a man imbibing champagne too heavily and waving his cigarette carelessly close to Theo’s cherished, specially woven gray silk draperies, fortunately in the foyer, not the main gallery – and suddenly a whoosh of flame went up to the ceiling.
Standing six feet away, Karen was transfixed with terror. Her surroundings melted away and she stood alone, facing her annihilation. The sheeting flame reflected in her eyes and burned into her brain. Something screamed at her to run, yet her shivering body would not respond. For an eon she stood and swayed on the spot, suffering the tortured paralysis usually reserved for nightmares. She couldn’t move, couldn’t cry out.
Then, as abruptly as it hit, the paralysis passed. Gulping in a huge breath Karen finally released the scream that had hovered, trapped in her throat. Arms outstretched she bored through the knot of people between her and the doorway and fled into the street.
Emerging beneath the canopy and gilded lettering that announced with quiet dignity that this was Sampsons of Bond Street, she plunged blindly into the traffic. Amid the melee of horns and shouts and squealing brakes she sped, blind to danger. Rebounding from the side of a stationary taxi, she reached the opposite sidewalk and kept on running and running until she had left the well-lit streets and entered an area of back alleys, some covered over like railroad tunnels, all paved in uneven stones. Her breath came in sobbing pants and her hair clung to her neck in damp strings. She staggered when her heel caught in a grate and tore the shoe from her foot, then ran on unevenly.
A shadow loomed in front of her and she swerved, avoiding the clutching hands, not hearing the beery voice demanding where the ’ell she thought she was going. Oblivious to the real world about her she ran from the pursuers in her mind. Even they were vague. She just knew they were there and that they represented total horror. She had to escape.
Alleys opened into roads, and she tore across a park, avoiding the lamp lit walks and gouging holes in the soft soil of a flower bed. Somewhere she lost the other shoe. Her feet had become an agony and fire burned in her chest. Yet still she ran.
Now she was in a square with a railed garden and gates that were locked against her. She shook the gates and leaned against them, gasping, then turned aside, looking for another way. More railings and a set of stairs leading downward. She staggered, rather than ran, to the top of a basement area. A well of darkness lay at the bottom. Hesitating for the first time, she tripped and fell, landing halfway down in a heap.
There they found her, bruise
d and drained of everything – energy, emotion, will. Totally on automatic, she let two fellow staff members lift her into a taxi and take her to the nearest casualty ward. She didn’t care about the scene she had created at the gallery, nor its possible repercussions. She didn’t know or care that she looked like the victim of an assault, with her dress and pantyhose torn from the fall, and her feet covered in blood. The person that was Karen Courtney had gone into hiding, deep within, too far to be recalled.
*
Karen spent the night in hospital under observation, and discharged herself early next morning. She worried that Dali might not have found himself any supper, despite his splendid record as a ratter. She also worried that she might miss Billie, who would have to return to Paris by an afternoon flight. But her overwhelming concern was for her daughter.
Very few people knew about her brief and disastrous marriage. She’d have liked to bury all memory of the event herself, save for its outcome, her little three-year-old daughter. Billie knew, and the lawyer battling to retrieve Adele from her English father’s clutches. This afternoon Karen had visiting rights to her child, and she was determined that nothing would spoil their time together. If he could, Humphrey would deny her even this cruelly abbreviated pleasure, but she didn’t believe he’d risk defying the court order.
Her handbag and keys had been brought in to the hospital by Theo, who had left a little note signifying his sorrow at her plight, and just mentioning that the fire had been brought under control before it reached the main gallery. She could, however, detect a note of pique mixed with curiosity.
She needed to avoid Theo for the next day or so – play sick, perhaps. The money she’d set aside for the court case, still several weeks ahead thanks to Humphrey’s maneuverings, had left her short; but there would be enough for her to pursue the matter of the miniature. She couldn’t have explained what drove her. Perhaps it was a need to cover over and forget the suffering every time she held her child in her arms knowing she’d soon have to part with her again.
How much she hated Humphrey for his sadistic enjoyment of the game he played with her. But even worse was the way he used Adele as his pawn. Somehow she would get her away from him, however long it took and whatever the cost. Meanwhile, there was the quest of the miniature to keep her busy. She’d start when the longed-for afternoon was over, as soon as she had to give Adele back.
She had thought about the painted ivory treasure last night, lying awake with the pain of her cuts and bruises, listening to patients wheezing and mumbling in nearby beds, the padded footsteps of staff, the whine of lifts and the clanking of trolleys that were an inevitable part of the hospital mosaic.
The miniature had stayed in her purse, in a bedside locker. She didn’t need to study it any further. The painted features came to mind clearly and distinctly, and so very familiar. Where? Where had she seen him? This problem now occupied her to the exclusion of everything else, even the terrifying recurrence of her fire phobia.
A part of her mind, a very small part, reminded her that she hadn’t had an attack like that in years. She should be concerned about it, and the fact that she might easily have killed herself in her headlong flight. Yet she’d closed off that small nagging voice. With so much else to think about, she must set her priorities and deal with them one by one.
Letting herself into the third floor attic that her aunt designated a hovel, but where Karen had created a comfortable haven at little cost, she heard Dali at the kitchen window making clear his displeasure in the disdainful way that cats can. She let him in, and appeased him with a breakfast of sardines. Refreshed by a shower, and dressed in her favorite painting gear she put on a Hayden Concerto disc, made coffee and settled into her own particular form of therapy.
Billie rang the bell promptly at twelve, one hand clutching her chest dramatically, as if striving for breath after climbing several flights of stairs.
‘Happy birthday, cherie. Could you not have chosen a more modern apartment with – Mon Dieu! Your face!’
Karen closed the door and steered her towards a huge puffy lounge chair that took up a good quarter of the floor space. The rest of the room had a Spartan quality to it, its main feature being makeshift shelves on bricks housing dozens of books. They overflowed onto the floor, stood in columns in the corners, peeped from beneath a coffee table and the one other chair. With a modern standard lamp squeezed behind the door, the room was full.
Pushing her aunt gently down into the couch, Karen said, ‘It’s a long story and it’s only a bruise. I’m going to grill you, Billie, so prepare yourself. Coffee or red wine?’ She headed for the kitchen nook, a mere blister in the outside wall divided off from the room by a counter crammed with papers, ceramic pots of pencils and brushes, an ancient mantel clock and other assorted paraphernalia. Tidiness was not one of Karen’s best points.
Billie called after her, ‘If you have acquired anything from me it is your palate. I will have wine. Also, the grilling will not be necessary. I have recalled the name of the shop where I purchased the miniature. Are you not pleased?’
‘Very pleased.’ Karen carried in the wine in an exquisite long-stemmed glass. ‘Come and see what I’ve been doing.’
She led the way to the next room, her so-called studio, where most of the sloping roof consisted of skylight. Apart from her workbench and easel the room was bare of everything but the light itself – a wonderful light that reflected and bounced off each wall, causing Billie to wince. All the same, she missed very little.
‘Why do you limp, child?’
‘That’s also part of the story I’ll tell you later. What do you think?’ Karen moved to her easel and peered at the new work, then stepped back again, making room for Billie.
There was silence for a time.
‘It is he, the miniature. The same eyes, moving, following… alive! This is something I do not understand.’
‘That makes two of us. Come on, Billie. I could do with some wine myself before plunging into all this.’
Karen picked up the miniature from the bench and accompanied Billie back to the living room. Her hand stayed steady as she poured more wine and took a seat opposite her aunt.
‘Sometimes I wish I smoked.’ Karen took a deep breath. ‘Of course, it’s nowhere near finished. I only started it this morning, yet you had no difficulty in recognizing the subject. I didn’t need the miniature to copy. I know him too well. But I don’t know how I know him. Until last night I didn’t know that I knew him. Can you follow that?’
‘Barely. You are saying that the miniature nudged your memory of this man. You do realize that he is not of our time? He is a Regency rake, a member of the beau monde in the years when Napoleon Bonaparte threatened to take over the western world. He must have died at least one hundred and fifty years ago.’ Her glance flickered over the stack of books. ‘With your immense library of history, I have no doubt you are far better informed on the period than I could ever be.’
Karen fingered the miniature, broodingly, then looked up. ‘He’s not someone I’ve met, someone who simply looks like him. That’s what makes it all so difficult. That’s why I must find the person who sold you the miniature and try to discover its background, its provenance, as they say. Billie, you’ve got to help me.’ She paused awkwardly. ‘I don’t ask you for much, do I?’
Billie held out a thin veined hand and, with just a slight hesitation Karen placed the miniature in it, saying with sudden passion, ‘I almost wish I’d never seen the thing.’
Billie studied the painted face, ran a finger along the line of determined jaw. ‘Yes, you know what you want and you take it. I have seen your type before.’ She took a card from her purse and handed it to Karen. ‘Here is the address. Now you will tell me what has been happening that you are bruised and limping, hein?’ Placing the miniature on the table between them she groped in her bag, her eyes never moving from Karen’s face.
Karen flopped back in her chair, the baggy cushions sagging under her s
light weight. She looked at the ceiling, where the paint had flaked, and smiled briefly at the thought that this was the first visit when Billie had failed to criticize the décor and the standard of her niece’s housekeeping.
‘Okay. Here it is. Last night I had a kind of hysterical fit and made a fool of myself. I ran out on Theo, and apparently got halfway across London before they caught up with me and took me to hospital. I bruised myself falling down some steps. The cut feet were a result of losing my shoes. I don’t know where I went. I just ran.’
‘Do you know why you ran?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Karen looked at Billie, in the act of lighting a cigarette.
As the flame leapt and lengthened into a brilliant shaft something shifted in Karen’s mind. She was on her feet instantly, trembling.
‘Put it out! Put it out!’ Her voice cracked and finished in a sob as Billie hastily dropped the lighter in her bag, throwing the unlit cigarette aside and grasping her by the arms.
‘Is that what happened last night? Was it fire?’
When Karen could only nod, she pressed her into her chair and stood back, waiting.
‘Dammit! I thought I’d gotten over all that.’ Karen thumped the chair arm with a fist, hard.
‘Over what? Tell me about it, cherie.’
Karen sighed deeply. ‘As a kid I had this constant nightmare, week in, week out. It was always the same – a holocaust, flames everywhere – and no way out. I kept trying to escape. There was something precious at stake. I was so afraid, not just for myself, but for someone else – I don’t know who.’ Her voice caught in her throat. She swallowed. ‘I always woke up just as the fire touched me and my flesh began to burn.’ She looked down at her hands, spread stiffly in her lap. ‘My hands came up in blisters, but they went almost immediately. God, I was terrified!’
Billie’s eyes widened, but she said nothing.
Karen looked up at her. ‘I hid all this, naturally. I didn’t want to be labeled a freak or attention-seeker. Things were hard enough as it was. Very few people guessed. By the time I was fifteen, just about when you took me over, it disappeared altogether. Well, almost.’ Her lips twisted in what might have been a smile. ‘I once accompanied a friend to a film festival showing that oldie where people were trapped in a burning skyscraper. I treated it as a test.’
Endless Time Page 3
