When he did come, I felt rather than saw him approach. It seemed to be not quite as dark, and a creeping light was breaking through the pitch of the room. He saw me stir, and his voice came in a whisper.
“Elizabeth, may I join you?”
“Yes, of course.” I pushed the covers back and was suddenly chilly, for I wore only a summer nightgown.
He smiled nervously in the half-light and covered me as well as himself. He lay on his side and looked at my face, not touching.
“You do not have to ask me. What time is it?”
“It is about four in the morning.”
Had I slept? I was not sure.
“But…”
“I find that I cannot sleep without you, Elizabeth.”
I reached my hand out from beneath the cover and touched it to his face, which felt slightly rough. He moved closer. His nearness made me quiver as if I were a girl of one and twenty.
“Then do not try.”
Later we woke, and I knew that it was late in the morning. I had a recollection of Hannah having come to my side of the bed, but I had indicated to her that we would remain. She would no doubt have been told by Fitzwilliam’s valet that his own bed had also been slept in, and so she would know that we had had a disturbed night. Tiredness was writ upon his handsome face, even in sleep, and I did not want him awakened. I curled myself in his embrace and enjoyed his warmth and smell. After some time, I felt a light kiss upon my temple.
“Good morning, Elizabeth. If morning it still is?”
“It is still the morning. Just a little later than you are accustomed to waking.”
He stretched and fixed his gaze on the canopy above.
“When I have been confined with the girls, or unwell, have you passed those nights without sleep, you poor man?”
He smiled and turned to me, his hand resting heavily on the side of my belly.
“No. I did not sleep well on those nights, but I did sleep a little. Last night was different. I went to my own bed, not out of consideration for you, Elizabeth, but to indulge my own pride. And, I suppose, because I was fighting against a fact I know to be true: that whatever ails me and whatever has occurred, you are the best person for my comfort.”
His candour confused me in an instant, but I did not want to lose the intimacy between us. I grasped his hand in mine.
“Is it Wickham? Are you grieved? I would not be surprised if you were, Fitzwilliam. You have known him all your life. And even though unpleasant things have happened, he is part of your story. It is not a wonder that you should be shocked by his early death. It is not disloyalty to Georgiana or unkindness to her. It is quite to be expected.”
My speech complete, I kissed his arm and listened to the silence. After a moment, he broke it.
“I am grieved, much more grieved than I ever would have thought. There was a time when I actually wished death on George Wickham but…well, it was a long time ago. I find that my anger has quite gone. The fact is that Georgiana is married to a suitable and respectable man and is happy. Apart from the unhappiness that was occasioned to her by Wickham’s attempt to inveigle himself with her, there were no real consequences. No. I am surprised to learn that I am less affected by that history than I might have been just last year or the year before.”
“Then what is it?”
He opened his mouth but spoke not. I rolled against his side, my bosom pressed against his hard, lean chest and my face close to his.
“What is it, Fitzwilliam?”
“It is you, Elizabeth. I saw how you looked when you learned he was dead and…I’m sorry, but it has tormented me.”
“How I looked? I…I was shocked, Fitzwilliam. Wickham was my sister’s husband, and he was young. She is young. Surely…”
“I know, but I also know that, when you and I first knew each other in Hertfordshire, you…well, you favoured him, Elizabeth. You favoured him above me.”
“But that was when I did not really know you. No woman, no person, knowing you properly could prefer him to you, you know that.”
“Yes, I do know that, but…well you must allow me my feelings, Elizabeth. Seeing you cry out to learn that he was dead, it took me back to a time that I wanted you and you did not want me. I could not bear it, and so I pushed you away. I know it was foolish, and I am sorry.”
I blinked and paused, the light in the room seeming suddenly too bright for comfort.
“I am sorry if I have not made you certain enough of me. But surely…surely, you do not doubt my love for you? We have been happy, have we not, these six years? How can you think that I—”
“Shh, Elizabeth. Do not distress yourself. I am not criticising you. It is with me that the fault lies. I am prideful, and well, sometimes, I am less secure in your love for me than I ought to be.”
His attempt to quieten me was not successful, for now I was cross as well as upset.
“Sometimes? What other times have you felt this, sir?” I thought of our three daughters, no doubt up by this hour, dressed, and breakfasted. “I love you completely and utterly, Fitzwilliam. How could you think that I do not or that I give you less than I should?”
With this, I stopped short, for I had not yet given him a son. Was that the heart of the matter? If I could give him an heir, would he stop doubting me? I burned with the injustice of it. As if he knew, he touched his hand to my forehead.
“Shh. That is not what I think. I know that you love me, and I love you. But…you are a sparkling person, Elizabeth. You are bright and amusing and beautiful and you charm the world. People—men—who meet you, admire you. I know they do. Sometimes, just sometimes, it wounds me. I did not expect to be revisited by the jealously that I once felt towards George Wickham, but last night, I was. I am sorry.”
My heart softened to see his earnest expression, and I could not be angry.
“Do not be sorry, sir.” I kissed his nose, and he laughed.
“I should write to Lydia and Mama directly I am dressed. But then I shall be at liberty, and the weather is fine. Are you too jealous and prideful to accompany your wife on a walk?”
“No, I would like that.”
“Should you like just me, or shall we take Anne and Emma? Frances shall be sleeping, and I leave her with Nanny, but Anne and Emma love to join me.” I smiled at the recollection of their running around me like puppies as I walk, their little legs carrying them many multiples of my own journey.
“Yes, let us take them with us.”
Thus, it was decided.
Chapter 5
London, 7 August 2014
Charlie had taken the Tube to Piccadilly Circus and regretted it. It was steaming hot at this time of year and stuffed to bursting with tired, sweaty office workers. He could have hailed a taxi, of course, but this way, he got a bit of a walk. Glancing at his watch, he was glad to note that it was already nearly half past seven. That was good. It didn’t do to be too early. He wanted to get a look at her—see what he was dealing with. He did not want to be the first person there and be forced into conversation with the woman. He knew about art; it wasn’t that. Art had come into quite a few of the cases he had worked on, and he could pretend he knew what he was talking about. No, he was not worried that he would be caught out. Nobody, particularly somebody who was not doing anything wrong, ever thought they had a private investigator on their tail. It simply wasn’t the kind of thing that occurred to people. For a moment, he struggled to justify why he was going there at all. What did he expect to find? What would she even know? He could not really answer those questions, which for him was unusual. Still, his instinct compelled him on. He just wanted to get a glimpse of her, see the lie of the land, and get the measure of the situation.
It was Simon who had found out about the exhibition, and as soon as he said it, Charlie knew he would be goi
ng. Poor, old Simon had been at it all day searching databases and online records to build up the Darcy family tree. It had been pretty easy to find the so-called “Pemberton sisters,” Evangeline and Clementine. Charlie rolled their names around on his tongue. He noticed, when looking at the fruit of Simon’s research, that their parents, David and Nora Pemberton, had both died on the same day five years previously and wondered what the story was behind that. He could ask Simon to find out, but did it really matter? It was the living Darcy descendants he was interested in.
“I just can’t find anything about this Clementine Pemberton, boss,” Simon had said that morning as Charlie arrived at the office. “There is just nothing. No Facebook. No Twitter. No nothing. It is like she doesn’t really exist. Maybe she is a nun in a silent order?” He laughed at his own joke, but Charlie could tell that he felt defeated by the search.
“Okay. Well, what about the other one?”
“Evangeline. Ah, well, now you’re talking. I found her easily enough. Artist, if you don’t mind. Studied at the Camberwell School of Art. Did a stint at art school in Paris. And guess what? She has only got an exhibition on in Cork Street this week! I couldn’t believe the luck of it. It runs for three days. Today is the first day. The gallery is open all day, but if you go along in the evening, they do drinkies. So can’t be bad, can it, boss?” He gestured his hand as if holding a glass of wine and smiled one of his “Simon” smiles.
“Great. I’ll go tonight.”
And so, there he was, pacing down Cork Street in the hazy heat of a London summer evening, wondering what he would find. The double doors of the gallery were open, and the pavement outside was crowded with men in chinos and young fashionable women, laughing and smoking. A girl in a red dress paused and appraised him as he approached, for which he smiled a polite smile but did not break step. There was a buzz of many voices coming from inside and permeating the street. There were a lot of people here. Some were serious men in tweed jackets and heavy framed spectacles. They furrowed their brows and said little, and Charlie thought they must be buyers. Then there were the hipsters in their low-slung jeans, their hair arranged in peculiar montages of colour and style. A couple of stragglers roamed around: women in suits and ballet flats, their smart heels sticking out of their handbags; an oldish couple in their Sunday best who shuffled around the room looking out of place; a guy wearing a trilby and looking overheated.
Later, Charlie reflected that he could never have been prepared for the first moment he saw her. A huge painting of ballerinas in unlikely colours formed the backdrop, and there she was. Her right toe tapped the wooden floor, and he noticed a tiny, gold chain around her left ankle. Her hair, which was the colour of acacia honey, was so thick he thought she might need a spoon to brush it. It was already half out of its ponytail, and he noticed that she moved her head around a lot when she talked. She was the right age, and everyone seemed to be addressing her. He knew that this was the girl. The gallery lights bounced off her creamy skin, and he felt a tightening in his throat. Unused to being disconcerted by another person’s appearance, Charlie got himself a glass of wine and did a circle of the room before approaching her.
There were a number of people surging around her, babbling and pecking one another on the cheek between hugs. Charlie decided that his only option was to abuse his height and move closer, gazing up at the ballerinas then over the top of her acolytes and down at her honey-blonde head.
“Miss Pemberton, I assume?”
“You assume right, but it’s Evie, please.”
He shook the hand she held out to him and was momentarily shocked by the soft silk of her skin against his. She looked at him expectantly, and he realised that, for the first time in his professional life, he didn’t have a plan or a false name at his fingertips.
“I’m Charlie, Charlie Haywood.” Did he detect some alarm in her? Her eyes, which his father would have called Dresden blue, flickered about uncertainly as she spoke.
“Well, welcome, Charlie Haywood. How did you hear about the exhibition? Have you been to the gallery before?”
Afterwards, he did not know what made him say it. Was it that he was nervous? Was it just the first thing that came into his head? Was it that he wanted to make her stay with him? He could not imagine.
“I’m a collector, Evie. And yes, I’ve been here before. Exhibitions in this gallery are always so well curated, and I like what they have done with your work. This is great. I really like this one in fact.”
He turned to the ballerinas, needing to look away from her.
“Oh, thank you. But that one isn’t for sale. It belongs to my aunt and uncle. If you were really interested, I could work up a proposal for a new work on a similar basis. I don’t know if you are into commissioning work, but if you were, that would be an option.”
“Thanks, I may well be.”
He cast his eye around the room, and in the heat of the evening and the hubbub of the laughing, drinking crowd, he began to get his native confidence back.
“So, what about this? What’s the story here?”
He nodded towards a small canvass with a purple cello in the middle of it, and Evie began to explain that she had spent time with orchestras and that there were a number of pictures in the exhibition in which the instruments were in full cry without their players. The ballerinas, it turned out, were the product of a similar stint with a ballet company in which Evie had been allowed to tag along and sketch during rehearsals. Charlie stared at the canvas and could almost hear the low moan of the instrument in his ear.
“I like it. I really like it. Evie, do you have a studio? Where do you work?”
“I have a studio in Fulham, just off Lots Road. The address is on my card. Do you want it?”
“Yes, I do want it.” He stared at her in that way that he had stared down at women many times before. He realised with a start that she didn’t welcome it. The skin on her beautiful face grew taut, she looked sideways, and her mouth pursed.
“Sure. I’ll just get you one.”
When she handed him the card, she did so at arm’s length, and she barely even smiled. The Dresden blue of her eyes looked away, but he wasn’t deterred. Charlie was not accustomed to giving up, and he wasn’t about to do so this time. His experiences had not taught him to doubt his abilities, and he continued.
“Thanks. I am around in Fulham sometimes, and I’d like to look in if that’s okay—see what you’re working on. I could pop in one afternoon next week if you’re free. Maybe we could get dinner after. I could treat you. What is the point in being in the art world if I can’t feed a struggling artist from time to time? How about it?”
“Erm…that is very flattering…Charlie…” He winced to think that she had to search around for his name. “But maybe not. I have only just met you, well…and I manage to feed myself most days.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I’m sure not. Thank you for coming, and I hope you enjoy the exhibition.”
She smiled and was absorbed into the crowd of interested parties. The fabric of her dress shimmied against the curve of her form as she moved away from him. He felt sweat breaking out under his shirt, muttered the most coherent goodbye he could muster at the door, and was gone.
His feet pounded the street on the way back to the Tube station. He could literally have kicked himself. He had completely screwed that up. He had spun her a ridiculous story, one that he would have trouble sustaining if he ever had to see her again. He had annoyed her. He had found out nothing at all about her apart from the fact that she had a studio in Fulham. He felt her card in his trouser pocket and imagined it like a razor blade slicing his fingers. He should have gone around the room studying the prices and working out from the stickers how many she had sold. He should have sniffed around to see if there were any other Darcy relations there. He had done none of it. Worse, he had
been brushed off by her. She didn’t hesitate. She just said “no.” His body was shaking with the aftershock of it.
What was he coming to? This, he decided, was a one off. A girl who took offence at being asked out to dinner was not a girl for him to trouble himself with. So what if she was beautiful. Ethereal. Interesting. He told himself these were characteristics to be found in many places. Evie Pemberton was a chippy one, and she probably didn’t even know anything that would be useful anyway. It was obvious that she had money—the fact that she was making a living as an artist with exhibitions in Central London and a studio in Fulham told him that. She probably didn’t even need her share of the Darcy Trust. It was stupid and pointless to have spent so much time talking to her. As for asking her out, he was just bored, and that is why he did it. First thing in the morning, he would get on Cressida Carter’s case, big time. Crazy Cressida could have the full glittering force of his efforts, no-holds-barred, all guns blazing. There was no reason for him to even see Evie Pemberton again. He passed this thought around in his mind for longer than was necessary.
***
Sometime later, Auntie Betty nudged a distracted Evie who stood behind the desk in the gallery. The party was almost over, and the guests that remained were still there because they were too drunk to go, not because they were serious customers. There had been a few sales, not that many. Evie watched the students having a good time, and she couldn’t begrudge them.
The Elizabeth Papers Page 4
