by Jean Stubbs
Gabrielle, who had intended her to leave anyway, accepted her resignation with effusive regret and promised to give her the best of references.
‘For she is very good, your poor red Miss Bell,’ she explained, handing Odette to Nicholas as he sat cross-legged on the fourposter bed. ‘I do not hate her.’
‘She hates you,’ said Nicholas truthfully, ‘and I know why.’
He had grown in more than stature under Gabrielle’s six-year reign. His adoration of her was absolute, but the early, clinging, speechless worship had changed into companionable awareness. She treated him as she would treat any attractive and intelligent young man, and he responded with perception.
‘I am damaged to hear it,’ Gabrielle cried, and he grinned at the expression. ‘Tell me why she hates me, Nicki. Do not spare me!’ Knowing it would be a compliment.
‘You’re fishing for praises, Mama. Don’t wriggle so Miss!’ As Odette tried to free herself and fall among the tissue paper and ribbons. ‘Poor old Bell! What a rotten life for a woman, teaching other people’s beastly children and never having a home of her own.’
‘But you are not beastly, Nicki. I teach you to be charming. Perhaps it is the charm she hates. The beastliness she would comprehend!’
‘You’re a fearful cynic, Mama.’
‘I am a realist. I shall fight this Marlborough of yours, nail and tooth. They shall not turn you into a dull dog who knows nothing of women. I set myself against them!’ And she laughed superbly, and rumpled his hair. ‘Ah, but forgive me. You do not like that, now you are older.’
‘Papa is not a dull dog,’ said Nicholas, disquieted.
She divined that the statement was really a question, and dismissed it with a gesture.
‘All rules are broken, Nicki. But he did not go to Marlborough, and that is why,’ and she smiled as Walter knocked tentatively at the open door. ‘That is why he is so kind,’ with a kiss that delighted him, ‘so generous, so nice, so good to us all. What is the matter, my heart?’ He had mounted the stairs to have a firm talk, and found himself at a loss as usual.
‘Miss Bell says she is leaving, my love.’
Her hands flew to her cheeks. ‘I know, I know,’ she cried, ‘and I am desolated. But we shall give her a good letter to take with her, and she will be happy. Do not worry, because I shall teach Odette and then you do not have to pay the wages.’
‘But poor Miss Bell seems to be very upset, my love.’
‘We are all distracted to lose her, but I teach Odette. Bijou! Petite! Chérie! Say to Papa what Mama has teached you.’
The child slid from Nicholas’s arms, ran to her father, and was swung to his shoulder.
‘No, no. Stand up very tall and say the English poem for Papa!’
‘No. I shall stay here and whisper it to him.’
‘You’re tickling my ear, Miss,’ said Walter, bewitched, ‘and that’s a French poem with some lines missed out. I may not be fluent, my love, but I know that much!’
The child flung back her head and laughed, preening before the admiring circle of faces.
‘Oh, you are a bad one,’ Gabrielle mourned. ‘Papa will not trust me, but,’ and she hung on his other arm, beseeching, ‘I teach her three verses from The Charge of the Light Brigades, because you like it.’
Nicholas and his father exchanged a smile.
‘There was only one Light Brigade, my love, but I’m sure it sounds even better in the plural.’
‘So!’ said Gabrielle, pouting. ‘We fail utterly.’
‘Not failed at all, my love,’ cried Walter briskly, confounded by the pair of them. ‘I think that’s splendid, absolutely splendid. You don’t want Nicholas here while you’re packing, surely?’
‘But why not? He is amusing Odette. And now, my dear one, please to go away because we are busy. I shall buy Miss Bell something very beautiful in Paris. Do not let us talk of her any more. I am too sad. Do not let her know how much she has made me sad. I wish us to be good friends.’
‘No, certainly not. Certainly not. Well, well...’
He made his way downstairs, having accomplished nothing and feeling that the governess had been a little unreasonable.
Berthe closed and locked the last trunk, and disappeared. Gabrielle walked up and down the room, hands clasped behind her head, thinking. Nicholas held Odette’s fingers away from his face.
‘That’s Odette,’ the child observed, finding her reflection in his eyes. ‘Two of her all at once. Tell me a story about two Odettes.’
Nicholas had never discovered why a command from either his stepmother or half-sister should bring him to instant obedience, whereas a natural pride resisted orders from all other quarters.
‘Once upon a time there were two awful pickles,’ he began, teasing.
‘Not nice. Not a nice story. I want a nice story.’
Gabrielle turned and watched them indulgently. Suddenly it occurred to Nicholas that he was leaving this wholly feminine world behind and the masculine one seemed harsh and austere. His self-possession deserted him. He stared at his stepmother, horrified.
‘I say, you won’t half miss me!’ he cried, riven. ‘I’ve a jolly good mind not to go.’
Odette ceased to plague him, aware that his mood had changed. Gabrielle rustled towards him and touched his cheek. None of them said anything. Then Nicholas set the child carefully on the bed, swung his legs to the floor, and tried to whistle as he walked out.
‘My friend,’ Gabrielle said quietly. ‘One moment.’
He would not look at them, pausing by the door, head bent.
‘Cherish the wound in your heart,’ she commanded, speaking in her own language. ‘It’s good to feel so deeply. Don’t betray yourself for what people call security. Don’t be afraid to break rules. And remember us, always.’
He lifted his head then, seeing and treasuring the two faces together. Seemingly fragile, vulnerable, dependent, they wielded a power that had set a mark on him for life.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘Mr Nicholas going to public school made a deal of difference, both to him and to them, sir,’ said Mrs Tilling. ‘Old Mr Carradine thought the world of his son, though he was never one to show his feelings — except where Madame was concerned. He might have had a ring in his nose, the way she led him. Meaning no disrespect. Still, he didn’t want them all gallivanting off to Paris and taking Mr Nicholas with them, the minute he came home for his holidays. So they waited, that spring of 1882 until he went back to school, and then the master saw the three of them on to the boat train at Victoria. Sometime in the May, sir. Yes.’
Walter Carradine had aged considerably over the past eight years, and the difference between himself and his wife was so marked that they appeared to be grandfather and granddaughter. He and the housekeeper had done everything they could to ensure the travellers a comfortable journey. A picnic basket, complete from cold capon and white napkins to Malvern water and china cups; a little pile of ladies’ periodicals for Gabrielle; the guard handsomely tipped to keep an eye on them and their baggage. Now he stood at the carriage window feeling solitary and inadequate, hat in hand.
‘Take care of Madame and Mam’selle, Berthe,’ he said in French, though the maid’s English was now fair enough under Mrs Tilling’s tutelage.
Berthe, preferring silence, nodded briskly and held up Odette to be embraced. Neither of Walter’s womenfolk ever failed to rouse his love and his pride. Tenderly, he brushed the small cheek with his moustache. Reverently, he kissed Gabrielle’s extended hands. She was wearing a deep blue travelling costume, trimmed with black braid, but the child as usual had been clad in white, from bonnet to buttoned boots. The only flashes of colour were her coral necklace and a narrow gold chain bracelet, from which swung a gold heart.
‘My cordial regards to your parents, my love,’ said Walter to his wife. ‘And don’t forget to telegraph me immediately you arrive in Paris.’
‘But of course. And I shall write also, my dearest.’
&
nbsp; She made a favour even of common courtesy.
‘I shall miss you both,’ he cried involuntarily.
‘And we shall be desolate without Papa, shall we not, mignonne,’ Gabrielle demanded of her daughter, who clasped her arms round his neck in answer.
He seemed grey and leaden beside their glowing good health.
‘Until we meet again, dearest Walter,’ Gabrielle said softly. ‘You know I would not leave you if Maman’s heart was not unsure?’
‘No, of course not, my love.’
Madame Lasserre’s heart had been the excuse or concern of her family for twenty years, though it would eventually outlast all of them.
The guard blew his whistle and swung down his green flag smartly. The station roof filled with steam. The train lurched.
‘Take care!’ Walter called. ‘Take care!’
The two sweet faces together, the gloved hands waving. White against lambent blue, and behind them Berthe’s watchful black figure. He stood for a few moments, looking after them. Then set his hat slowly on his head and walked away.
‘It could have been two strangers coming back, sir, less than a month later,’ said Mrs Tilling. ‘Mr Walter spoke for both of them, what bit he told me, but Madame said nothing for weeks. I ran the house like I always did, and saw she wasn’t disturbed. She kept to her bed a great deal.’ Sitting up against the lace-edged pillows, exquisite and empty. ‘Mr Walter just said that the little girl had died in a train accident on the Continent. Well sir, it’s a dangerous place to take a child, to my way of thinking. He said Madame had been too shocked to attend the inquest. And he wanted Mr Nicholas to be spared as much as possible, being so fond of Miss Odette, and we should say she’d died of a fever and Berthe had gone home. It was understandable. So the boy was told that, and asked not to talk to Madame about it, along of her being upset.’
‘He specifically said that Berthe had gone home, Mrs Tilling?’
‘Well sir, that’s what we were to tell Mr Nicholas. But Mr Walter never actually said she had. Only, the little girl wouldn’t be travelling without her nurse, would she? And if Berthe had been alive she would have come home with Madame. They were very close. So I took it she died on the train with Miss Odette. Nobody ever mentioned her again. All the pictures and photographs in the house were put in the attic. But Mr Nicholas had them out after his father’s death. The clothes and toys and books are still there. I put moth balls with the clothes. It was as if the child had never been. Those were Mr Walter’s orders, for Madame’s sake. And if you’d seen her, sir, you would have understood why.’
‘And you never told Mr Nicholas the truth as he grew older?’
‘There was no cause for that, sir. The child was dead, wasn’t she? The truth could only have pained him.’ Her good-natured face was troubled. ‘And I must say, sir, as I don’t know what good the truth has done him. Worriting over what’s past and gone, and getting you to rummage up a lot of old memories for nothing but heartache.’
‘Did Mrs Carradine die of heartache, ma’am?’
‘Twenty months later, sir. She never recovered her spirits, and she never went back to France. Oh, she took up the reins again, as you might say. Gave her orders and looked through the account books and that. It was like talking to a stranger. There was no more entertaining or theatre-going. Mr Walter just came home at six, as usual, but I don’t think they exchanged a dozen words the whole evening. Not that she was unpleasant or cold. She even seemed to cling to him, a bit pathetic-like. She’d sit with her hands in her lap, like this, for hours. And she’d look at him from time to time, almost timid. But she’d no cause to fear him. He was as gentle with her as another woman would be.’
‘Did the boy not cheer her up, being fond of her, ma’am?’
‘He got closer than anybody, I must say. They tried to make life more natural for him than for themselves. He’d play draughts and backgammon and cards with her, and tell her his news. But she wasn’t really interested. She’d lost interest in living, sir, and that’s the truth. She caught a cold the following January and didn’t fight it. It developed into pneumonia, and she was gone. Then there was just poor Mr Walter, and Mr Nicholas in the holidays.’
‘Would you call father and son close, ma’am?’
‘They had an affection and respect for one another, sir, no doubt of it. But Mr Nicholas lived in a world of his own and Mr Walter never understood that. When the old gentleman died Mr Nicholas gave up the wine trade and went in for art. There seems to be nothing of his father about him, except a kind nature. I never knew his mamma, poor soul, so I can’t say if he resembled her, but I doubt it. He belonged to Madame more than most sons belong to their own mothers. He belonged to her more than he should, sir, in my opinion. And dead or alive she’s never let go of him.’
‘He’s been engaged twice, he tells me, ma’am.’
‘Lovely young ladies, sir, as God is my witness. Oh, he’s fast enough to fall in love, but he won’t stay in love. There’s two well-known families in the best society, and connections of both, that’ll pass him in the street without so much as a good-day. He can’t seem to settle.’ She was wondering how much to say, but decided on silent loyalty.
‘Mr Carradine said as much to me, of course,’ Lintott remarked easily. ‘He mentioned his work, too, though that’s a bit beyond me. I don’t know it at all — though my good lady had his name off, without so much as by your leave!’
‘Well sir, he’s never satisfied with anything. I think he painted Miss Lucy lovely, and so did a great many people. But he gave all that up in a year or two and did things different as he said was better. And still he’s not satisfied. If you’d like to take a look at his studio, sir, it might explain more than I can.’
Carradine had tried all manner of pictures on them, in all moods and seasons, in a nostalgia of paint and pastel. It was the nostalgia that had captured the public. People preferred time held fast, rendered harmless, to time strange and unknown. Through Nicholas Carradine, in those first years, they had clutched their childhood to them, remembering the best that had been or that should have been. Lintott himself warmed to the sunlit beaches and tucked bloomers, the cold rush of waves and fragile shells; canaries in cages, fires behind brass-railed guards, faces pressed to winter windows, boot-tracks in the snow; November pyres, lamplight and nightlight and evening prayers. Carradine had painted security. Safe in a communal past, the viewer tended to lose detachment and to wallow. Oh, the artist delineated precisely, impeccably. He painted from the heart, but it was a heart in thrall, a heart immobilised inside a childhood dream.
‘Then he broke away entirely, sir, and I was a bit sorry for it, to tell the truth.’
Heavily influenced, though neither Lintott nor Mrs Tilling could have known this, by Whistler. Symphonies in white, with hints of decoration in the Japanese style. Nocturnes, but never without people, of moonlight on water, of fireworks against a velvet sky, of shadows mysterious and exquisite.
‘Although they were really pretty,’ said Mrs Tilling. ‘You have to admit that. But they didn’t tell a story. I do like a picture to tell a story.’
Then the Expressionists had taken their toll. Splendour of pigment, a sweeping brush, planes of colour, wilful distortions of form. And still, at the centre, that preoccupation with the ideal woman though he delineated her with savagery.
‘I didn’t like any of them!’ said the housekeeper.
Nor did Lintott. But he recognised a wild design, a restless striving after solution, which had been manifest in Paris.
Finally, and sadly, a picking here and there among all these attempts, pleasing no one. The craft shone through, and something else.
‘Mr Sickert was particularly good to Mr Nicholas,’ said the housekeeper. ‘The master would take anything from him in the way of criticism. Not that I was eavesdropping, sir, it’d only be if I came into the studio or the drawing-room with refreshment. They’d be talking, with perhaps two or three of Mr Sickert’s pupils listening to t
hem — as if it was a theatre.’
‘Why aren’t your figures doing something, my dear Carradine? Let them misconduct themselves, if you please, but let them do something!’
‘Why can’t I walk about in your pictures? Why is nothing exciting happening?’
‘At least, you don’t maul your paint!’
‘And sometimes Mr Sickert would come out with peculiar suggestions. I never knew whether he meant what he said. Once I asked Mr Nicholas, and he said he did!’
‘Get another studio, my dear fellow. This is far too respectable. Somewhere mean and forbidding would be just the ticket. The sordid is a great source of inspiration.’
Dandy facing faultless dandy over the port and walnuts.
‘Have you ever dressed up as a tramp, Carradine. Do try it. It’s my idea of heaven. Of course, people will think you a rummy old bloke, but what an insight you get!’
‘Elegy in Green, my dear chap. What a title! Why not I threw it up in the Channel?’
Then they would rattle off a music-hall favourite, in riotous duet, on the grand piano.
Mrs Tilling flung up her arms in remembrance, and shook her head, smiling. ‘I didn’t know what they were on about, most of the time, sir. I only know that Mr Nicholas talks to me now and again. He said the other week he was in Purgatory. That’s a Catholic expression, meaning neither one thing nor the other. He don’t know what he wants, sir, and that’s the truth.’
‘And the same in his private life, I understand, ma’am. Did his two fiancées resemble the late Mrs Carradine at all?’
‘One did, one didn’t. When I met the second young lady I thought, “Well, here’s a change!” For he favours dark-haired ladies, and she was fair. It’s as if he tried to — wrench himself out. But it made no difference. He wasn’t suited in the end, the more’s the pity. And he’s a great ladies’ man — and some of them aren’t ladies, either, if you’ll excuse me. Models, he calls them. I know my place, but I won’t have them downstairs — while they last. Madame taught him his ways. He knows just what to say to any woman, high or low. He needs to meet his match, but he don’t pick his match. He goes for these little simpering things as can’t answer him back.’
