The Painted Face

by Jean Stubbs

  THE PAINTED FACE

  Inspector Lintott Mysteries

  Book Two

  Jean Stubbs

  To my brother Jake, whose affection for the French is as deep as my own, but whose knowledge of them is so much greater.

  With my love, and my thanks for sharing Paris.

  ‘Who has not painted himself a face?’

  Georges Rouault, French painter, 1871-1958

  Table of Contents

  AWAKENING

  PART ONE: CHILDISH THINGS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  PART TWO: REFLECTIONS IN A MIRROR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  PART THREE: FACE TO FACE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  PART FOUR: KNOWN FULLY

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  MORE BOOKS BY JEAN STUBBS

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  AWAKENING

  He could not sleep: walking the house, candlestick in hand, seeking comfort from possessions. Mounting the stairs, solitary and without answer, Carradine would have welcomed the shadow on the wall, were it not his own.

  Behind him lay the good living of cellar and kitchen, the gracious living of drawing-room and dining-room, the hushed living of bedrooms, the inner living of his studio. The gas globes on the wall were unlit, the dark was friendless. Up and up, into the attic where all that was safe and comprehensible had been folded and put away. Into the past, where a childhood was locked in trunks, shielded by sheets of tissue, secured by mothballs and lavender sachets against corruption.

  The skirt of his dressing-gown dipped in twenty years of dust. The candle-flame vaulted the familiar into the grotesque. His boyhood rocking-horse became a rippling stallion on the beams, the trunks were hunchbacks full of secrets, the empty birdcage a distorted prison.

  No time here, measuring his thirty-three years and pronouncing them void. No woman to torment him, except she who had spoiled all others for him, and was now dead. No unfulfilled canvases to make a mock of promise.

  He set down his candlestick on a parcel of old books, unlocked and flung open the lid of one brassbound coffer at random, wiping his hands on a handkerchief before shaking out her morning gown.

  Many summers ago Gabrielle had worn this at breakfast: a delicate affair of sprigged muslin which enhanced her arms and bosom. He heard her voice, courting even as it chided. Saw her mouth pouting or incisive; pretty hands hovering over china cups; black curls caught up by a ribbon. As he crushed the muslin to his face a ghost of her scent reached him. Gabrielle, his stepmother. A brief reign, miraculously given and unmercifully taken away. Gabrielle, whose image had been palely reflected in the stream of his temporary love affairs, ending tonight with the trauma of Evelyn Harrison.

  There are more ways of killing than by taking life. Nicholas Carradine, artist and gentleman, watched the cab bear off his victim, and experienced guilt and relief. Hands in pockets, shoulders hunched against the January rain of 1902, he took the steps at a run and slammed and bolted the front door behind him.

  His housekeeper, turning down the gaslight at the end of the hall, observed him quietly.

  ‘Will you be wanting anything more, sir?’ Mrs Tilling asked.

  Carradine was leaning against the door, eyes closed, palms flat against the panels, reliving that disastrous and unorthodox hour in the drawing-room with Miss Harrison. Now he straightened up, answered the question she had not asked.

  ‘I didn’t invite her to come here, Tilley. She really should not have come.’

  Carefully noncommittal, Mrs Tilling replied, ‘No, sir.’

  He had to explain, to excuse himself. ‘I mean, Tilley, to arrive unannounced, at this hour of night, and alone...’

  ‘Quite so, sir.’

  He paced the hall, thinking. She waited, hands clasped over the comfortable stomach of her black silk gown. Carradine was reviving.

  ‘Miss Harrison is an utterly charming and high-spirited young lady, Tilley. But then, London is full of charming and high-spirited young ladies — and their Mamas, of course. You don’t suppose, do you, that Mrs Harrison thought of this little escapade to force my hand? No, certainly not!’ Seeing her expression change from patience to shock. ‘Certainly not, Tilley.’

  He had lost her sympathy and sought to regain it.

  ‘The entire situation was a tragic misunderstanding on Miss Harrison’s part, you see, Tilley. No question of an unofficial engagement, or anything of that sort. Good Lord, if a man can’t pay a few compliments, dance a few waltzes, present a few nosegays…’

  His hazel eyes courted her: a direct appeal to her maternal instinct. Out of long practice she resisted.

  ‘On my honour, Tilley,’ hand on breast, mocking, beseeching, ‘I never met Miss Harrison except under conditions of absolute propriety.’

  ‘Oh, that I believe, sir.’

  ‘And I’m truly regretful that she misunderstood me, Tilley.’

  ‘I’m sure you are, sir. It’s caused you a deal of embarrassment,’ she said tartly.

  He put one long hand on her sleeve, humbled.

  ‘I know you’re cross with me, Tilley.’

  ‘It’s not my place to judge, sir.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be stuffy, Tilley! You know you’re the only person who can tell me the truth.’

  ‘If it’s the truth you’re wanting, sir — yes.’

  Carradine’s mobile face was wary, but he smiled nevertheless.

  ‘Come on, Tilley. Straight from the shoulder. You’ve jawed me ever since I was a little chap.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Mrs Tilling resolutely, ‘and that’s the problem, if you don’t mind my saying so. You’re no different now from what you were then, except in appearance. And still talking yourself out of scrapes. And you talk very nicely, and I’m sure you’re very sorry. Only, then it was broken china — and now it’s broken hearts.’

  He lifted his head slowly. ‘I don’t mean to hurt anybody, Tilley.’

  ‘No, sir. You don’t seem to mean anything. But remember, Mr Nicholas, that we’re judged by what we do — and what you do seems to go wrong.’

  He turned away, subdued. ‘God bless you, Tilley. Sleep well.’

  She nodded, switched the skirt of her gown into one capable hand, and used the other to help herself upstairs by means of the banister rail.

  ‘But I’m not a scoundrel, Tilley, am I?’ he called after her.

  She paused, sighing. What a child he was! ‘No, sir. You’re just downright unreliable — if that satisfies you. Now, I’m not going round the mulberry bush with you for half the night, sir, if you’ll excuse me. I have to be up early in the morning. And just talking never got anybody anywhere!’

  Through the femininity of Gabrielle’s morning gown Carradine conjured up demons. Evelyn, too, had been blessed with a profusion of black curls, a pointed cat’s face, a high vein of coquetry. While she played him dexterously he remained fascinated. When hope silenced, when love softened her, he had known it was time to withdraw. And in that ruthless and gentlemanly withdrawal she had, most unexpectedly and dreadfully, challenged him.

  Had Gabrielle ever wept and begged as Evelyn did? Had she ever abandoned herself before a man, as Evelyn had?
He could not believe it. Gabrielle’s fragrance was as elusive and enigmatic as herself. Her power made a nonsense of death. He could imagine her in no state except that of imperious possession. Evelyn had lost twice over: first by loving him, then by revealing herself as an anguished, discarded girl. On to the gasping truths, the threadbare proofs of his attachment, he had poured the oil of flattery. He might as well have tried to stop the sea from flowing.

  ‘I couldn’t have imagined your interest, Nicholas. I swear I did not. You said I was the dearest, sweetest companion a man could wish for...’

  ‘So you are, my dear girl. Far too good for me...’

  ‘You kissed me once, in the conservatory. Mama would kill me if she knew. How could I allow you, unless I believed...’

  ‘A momentary impulse on my part, and absolutely pure in its intention, I assure you. A homage to your beauty...’

  ‘But I allowed you to kiss me! No one has ever kissed me before. I feel so wicked, so low. I feel like one of those low women...’

  ‘Nonsense, my dear girl. I never for an instant ceased to honour and respect you. You are not compromised. Neither of us is compromised. No one shall ever know...’

  ‘But I wanted you to kiss me...’

  Oh God in heaven! The final revelation of a virgin heart. ‘My dear Evelyn, you always were an awful tease. Confess, now! You don’t mean a word of this.’ Clasping her fingers which were wet with smearing her eyes, her cheeks, of tears. ‘I wager that you and Mary Pedding have set this up between you to make a fool of me! You know perfectly well that you look even prettier when you cry.’ The stained face of defeat staring at him, incredulous. ‘I shall never forget those months of friendship. Here’s your cloak. The joke’s over and you’ve won hands down, indeed you have. And now you really must go before your parents find you missing. My housekeeper is the soul of discretion and won’t breathe a word about this escapade of yours. No, not another syllable. I adore you too devoutly to scold you!’

  Then at last she comprehended the hardness of his intent, beneath the raillery. She summoned up a little dignity, allowed him to escort her in silence to the cab, and at the window had the proverbial last word in a vehement whisper.

  ‘Mama did warn me. I should have listened to her. You may excuse yourself and pretend to yourself as much as you please, but you won’t alter the truth. The truth is that you are heartless and purposeless, and unworthy of any decent person’s affection or respect. Live with that knowledge, if you can.’

  ‘Blast all women!’ Carradine shouted to the rafters and envied his father who had been worthy of love and crowned by Gabrielle’s youth and beauty in his middle years.

  The dark attic, the small steady flame. The love such as he yearned for and had never attained. His father’s maturity, Gabrielle’s pretty condescension, their child Odette. And he, as a child, secure in all three of them, happy as he had never been since. They had left him forever, these beloved ghosts.

  Odette.

  ‘I was thinking, Madame, that the little boy might be jealous — being the only one for such a long time. But he’s as pleased as Punch with his new sister.’

  Jealous? Of this image of Gabrielle which could be possessed and protected as he could not protect her? Jealous of this demanding, adoring puppet? And he, Nicholas, suddenly the authoritative brother, suddenly somebody important, all his posturings admired and grown giant-sized in the child’s eyes.

  Among Odette’s wrapped dolls and toys he entered another Gethsemane. A hoard of exercise books, written and illustrated with a flourish by Nicholas Carradine, aged ten, for her personal pleasure. The rough cleverness of the drawings, their originality, the dash with which he had applied nursery crayons and watercolours, arrested him.

  ‘I was good!’ he cried aloud, and then to his absent visitor, ‘I was good. You can see for yourself. It’s all here!’

  ‘But promise is not fulfilment,’ the memory replied.

  The sound of cab wheels at midnight had alerted Carradine. Surely Evelyn had not returned? Cautiously, he lifted one corner of the drawing-room curtain, afraid of what he might see. But it was, praise be, a man whom he revered above most others, and doubly welcome because unexpected. Carradine ran down the stairs and unbolted the front door, alight with pleasure.

  ‘I had no intention of disturbing you, my dear fellow, at such an hour,’ said his visitor, ‘but I saw your light. I called this afternoon, but you were out.’

  ‘So Tilley told me, sir. But better that you should look round my studio without my hovering hopefully at your back. I hadn’t hoped to see you, and hear your opinion, so soon. Allow me to offer you some refreshment. I have brandy and cigars upstairs.’

  ‘No, no, thank you, my dear boy. No brandy. I’ve had enough already, Lord knows. My doctor would have a fit if he knew how much! No, no, not upstairs either. We can be comfortable enough in your hall for a few minutes. I climbed to your studio this morning, and my heart isn’t what it was.’

  The flesh was fragile, but the spirit and vigour were not. Suddenly light, Carradine clasped the old man’s hand and shook it warmly. Ushered him to a chair, trying to read his expression.

  ‘You saw the paintings, of course? You have come to humble me?’ Believing no such thing. ‘You have glanced rapidly and expertly at my work and decided to consign it to the flames?’

  The old man looked at him shrewdly. ‘Don’t gallop so!’ he advised. ‘You will gallop, Carradine!’

  ‘I know, I know. It’s a fearful fault of mine. Tell me, have I retrogressed?’

  ‘You know perfectly well you have not.’

  ‘Then have I improved, broken new ground?’

  His visitor pursed a pendulous underlip. ‘Nor that either.’

  Diminished, Carradine reached for his silver case and took out a cheroot. His hand shook slightly, but he continued to smile. ‘Neither better nor worse, you say, sir? What then? How? New styles, new subjects, new attitudes, and no difference?’

  ‘Not the least in the world, my dear fellow. But don’t take my word for it. There are other art critics. My opinion is a solitary one.’

  ‘You know the regard in which it is held, by me and by others. Tell me honestly what you think.’

  ‘If honesty is what you want.’ Shades of Tilley!

  ‘Come, sir. Straight from the shoulder.’

  Shades of himself! ‘You have a perfect genius for staying in the same place. Your technique is excellent to the point of facility. As it should be, considering the quality of your former teachers and your own application. You handle your paint in a delightful manner. You have a profoundly pleasing sense of colour. So far, so good. But you turn this very facility to disadvantage, by mimicking any fashion which catches your fancy at the time.

  ‘This afternoon, in your studio, I saw a fair selection of post-Degas, a couple of lesser-Manets, half-a-dozen near-Whistlers, and even the odd Fauvist! Keep well away from them, my dear fellow. They are painting from depths of which you know nothing at all! And the question I asked myself, as I searched in vain among this dazzling display, was — What has become of Nicholas Carradine, whose paintings these are supposed to be?’

  ‘He is here, sir,’ said Carradine with some arrogance.

  ‘I do not see him.’

  ‘Perhaps because you are not prepared to find him.’

  ‘Why should I have to? He should reveal himself. In my humble opinion, you are playing at being an artist. Playing skilfully and prettily, but playing. To put your position in society’s terms, you are having a love affair with art instead of a marriage. A love affair is a glorious thing — haven’t I known that, by Jove! — but it passes. The Lady Art, if so we may call her, insists upon connubial dedication until death does you part. You can fool a real life charmer, Carradine, but you can’t fool this lady — because she simply won’t have it!’

  Carradine’s face was a study in black temper.

  The old man, garrulous now in his obsession, continued, ‘You can’t cou
rt her and leave her. You might break your heart, but you’ll never break hers. You can’t deceive her, however subtly. She doesn’t care, you see. She has so many faithful suitors. She demands all of you, all the experience and knowledge you have gained in life, and then she might smile on you. Oh, she’s fickle, Carradine. Fickle and difficult, and quite irresistible. Give me a hand out of this chair, will you, my dear chap? I must be going.’ He tapped his opera hat smartly into place, and added with unconscious cruelty, ‘But the public will love them, and I’ll lay a bet you sell every one!’

  Carradine dared not accept this personal revelation on top of the other. Pride and pique must be set aside. ‘How do I begin again?’ he asked abruptly.

  His visitor pondered. ‘Perhaps you should ask yourself the questions I asked of my pupils. What is it I am trying to express? Who and what am I?’

  Carradine gave a short laugh. ‘They seem simple enough questions!’

  His visitor surveyed him long and coolly. ‘They require the utmost honesty and endeavour of thought, and take a lifetime to answer. You must commit yourself, Carradine, for better or worse.’

  ‘To art?’ Smiling, frowning.

  ‘And to life. Above all to life. One can live without painting, but one cannot paint without living.’

  ‘You spoke of marriage,’ Carradine insisted sharply, ‘but marriage is a lottery.’

  ‘Life is a lottery. Pay up and take your chance if you desire a prize. You may not get it, even then. You will never have it unless you pay with yourself first.’

  Carradine had not been able to sleep. The phantoms of Gabrielle and Odette, of his father, could not answer him. He lifted his candlestick and prepared to leave. The parcel of books stayed him: wrapped in brown paper, tied with cord, sealed in wax, as though someone had said This is done.

  He felt in the pockets of his dressing-gown and found a stick of charcoal, a safety-pin, a penknife, a lady’s handkerchief — he could not remember which lady.

  Protected from fading, the blue leather gleamed, the gold monogram GLC, Gabrielle Lasserre Carradine, glittered. The seven volumes were locked, but the locks were toys, easily pried open. He ruffled the pages of the top volume, as white and fresh now as twenty years ago, and read the final words.