‘Could I also have some mineral water?’ Gabby asked the waiter.
She bent and got Nell’s catalogue out, and handed it to Mark with the photos that Nell had given her of the dates and times and process of the actual restoration. He was fascinated.
‘I guess I should have, but I never realized the amount of work in restoring paintings. This is a wonderful painting to see, even if it should prove a false lead.’ He stared at the face. ‘Very beautiful, and yes, so very like our figurehead.’
‘What did you find in Devon?’ Gabby asked.
‘Well, I told you about the Welland graves, didn’t I? Well, by chance I was talking to the curator of a gallery in Manchester at a university dinner they had arranged in Exeter for me. He was interested in my research and when I showed him some photos of Lady Isabella he mentioned how Italian she looked. I told him she had been carved in Cornwall by Tom Welland and he suddenly said, before I could tell him any more, “Maybe she is a Vyvyan. They are an old Cornish family who go back to Doomsday.”’
Gabby nodded. ‘It’s a very Cornish name. There are a few in the telephone book, all spelt differently. Some are still landowners.’
‘He told me what we already knew, that one of the Vyvyans married an Italian, but he also mentioned her portrait had been painted by Bernardo Venichy before her marriage. She was quite a beauty. It came to the Manchester Gallery in the late sixties when the exhibition moved there from London. But he has no idea where it is now.’
‘Perhaps we will discover this afternoon.’
‘Hopefully.’
‘But the gallery might only know about the painting, not about the family it belonged to.’
‘That’s very possible. But I have learnt, over the years, that one thing tends to lead to another. You can sometimes gather little scraps of information which don’t connect, then suddenly it all begins to make a whole and you are able to piece a life together. With lots of little gaps, of course.’
‘You must be very patient.’ Gabby smiled at him.
He held her eyes. ‘I am very patient when I want something.’
Mark’s contact at the gallery was a young woman called Lucinda Cage. Gabby liked her immediately. At first she seemed more interested in Nell’s restoration technique than in the painting they were there to discuss.
‘I used Nell Appleby as part of my thesis on medieval colours. She was a brilliant detective, you know. I reckon she knew nearly as much as an analyst. I went to a lecture she gave once. She was brilliant; utterly passionate about her work. My tutor used some of her restoration techniques as an example of how to conserve.’
Gabby glowed with pride. Dear, self-effacing Nell, who never blew her own trumpet.
‘I’ll tell her, she’ll be so surprised.’
Lucinda turned to Mark. ‘I’ve been looking up some files and asking colleagues about this painting of Helena Viscaria. As you know, it was found in the early sixties in a bad state. A great deal of the damage had occurred by storing or hanging on a damp outside wall. It was brought to us by a David Tredinnick in 1961 with a view to selling after renovation.
‘Nell Appleby undertook the restoration and when it was finished I gather there was some family problem with selling to us. Various members wanted to keep it in the family. After the Venichy retrospective it was loaned to us on a permanent basis. It travelled round the regional galleries for about eighteen months then returned here.’
She looked at Mark and Gabby. ‘I’m really sorry to tell you that it was bought by a private Italian art collector and taken back to Italy in 1989. We do not know whether he had any connection with her family or just wanted to acquire the painting.’
‘What was his name?’ Mark asked.
Lucinda glanced down at her file. ‘A Signor Alfredo Manesco.’
‘The opera singer?’ Mark seemed surprised.
Lucinda shrugged. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t a clue.’
Mark laughed. ‘Of course you haven’t. You would have still been in nappies.’
Lucinda blushed. ‘Not quite. If you come this way, I’ll make a cup of tea.’
Gabby suddenly saw that Lucinda found Mark attractive. Then immediately thought, Well he is, so most women will.
For some reason this dampened her spirits.
As they had tea, Lucinda asked Gabby if Nell still worked. ‘We could do with her up here. One of our restorers has just gone on maternity leave early because of health problems.’
‘Nell still restores, but in her own time. She’s sort of semi-retired …’ Gabby smiled. ‘I’m not sure you could lure her out of retirement.’
‘I was only joking, really.’
‘Gabby is restoring the figurehead of Lady Isabella,’ Mark said.
Lucinda stared at her. ‘Oh, sorry, I am thick. I never listen to names. I didn’t realize you were the same person.’
‘No reason why you should,’ Gabby said easily.
As they left, Lucinda asked, ‘Are you going all the way back to Cornwall tonight?’
‘No,’ Gabby said. ‘Tomorrow.’
‘Have you got ten minutes?’
Puzzled, Gabby glanced at Mark. ‘Yes, of course.’
Lucinda led the way into the gallery and along some long corridors to a small back room. She pointed to a portrait of a young boy sitting with riding whip and a spaniel, with a river and trees behind him.
‘Tell me what you think?’
Gabby went closer. She was appalled. The painting had been brutally cleaned with little concession to its age or original paint. The boy’s face had been over-cleaned, so that it seemed to lack expression. The trees behind him, which should have been cleared of yellow varnish, had been left. This really should never have happened. It was a complete mess.
Lucinda was watching her face. ‘Thank you, Gabrielle. You do not need to say a thing. Is it irredeemable?’
‘Did it come to you like this?’ Gabby asked. ‘I can’t believe anyone here could be responsible. Lucinda, its value has possibly been reduced by this restoration. Surely no one untrained had a go, did they?’
‘It came to us from a private collector. He had it cleaned by a restorer who came to him recommended. The collector brought it to us in tears.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ Gabby said. ‘He should not be allowed anywhere near a painting. No, it isn’t irredeemable. A good restorer could undo some of the damage, but not all, I’m afraid.’
‘Thank you for confirming what we’ve already been told. Would you mind not mentioning this to anybody? And Gabrielle, may I have your phone number?’
‘It’s all very cloak and dagger. Perhaps your little councillor’s brother struck again!’ Mark was trying not to laugh as Gabby scribbled down her number.
The afternoon was dark as they left the gallery and people were pouring to the tube station. Mark managed to hail a taxi. He turned to Gabby inside the cab.
‘Would you like to go to your club to shower and freshen up? Or could you bear to come and see this house of my aunt’s that I’m going to be renting all next year for my sabbatical. I’m dying to show someone, it’s bang on the river and I’m very much in love with it.’
‘I’d like to see it.’
‘Then, if you don’t feel I’m monopolizing you, I could bring you back to the club and wait around in the bar for you? You needn’t hurry, I’ll be quite happy. I have hundreds of daughters, I’m used to waiting. Then I can take you to supper.’
‘There is a great little French place within walking distance of the club,’ Gabby said. ‘Nell and I go there sometimes.’
‘Perfect. We’ve got the day sewn up then.’
‘I didn’t realize you were going to take a sabbatical over here.’
‘I’ve only just stopped dithering and, encouraged by my English publisher, made a definite decision.’
They smiled at one another, and then turned to look at London sliding by.
Chapter 19
The wind battered the long stalks of ope
ning daffodils so that they lay on the banks and borders with their heads bowed like a defeated army. Apart from the relentless rain spattering and running down the panes, the house was deathly silent.
The heart, the very core of the household was gone. Vanished in the moment it took for a horse to rear. Isabella waited and waited for her father to call her to him, for them to comfort each other, but the door to his study remained firmly shut.
She was overcome by shock and sudden shaking fits. Her teeth rattled and her limbs jerked. She could not get warm, and Lisette, Helena’s maid, her own eyes red with weeping, put her to bed and lit the bedroom fire.
The doctor came up to her room and gave her a powder, told Lisette what she already knew, that Isabella was in deep shock. Isabella could hear the doctor and Lisette whispering at the door and she cried out, ‘Where is Papa? I want to see Papa.’
The doctor came back to her bedside. ‘Isabella, sleep now. Your father is grieving too. You will see him later. Now close your eyes and sleep.’
Isabella fell into a nightmarish half-sleep. The same scene played over and over in her head. Mama somersaulting over her horse’s neck and lying as Isabella first saw her, motionless on the ground. Her head … her head … Isabella squeezed her eyes tight against the recurring image.
Lisette lit a small lamp and brought a bowl of warm water and gently washed Isabella’s face and hands, weeping as copiously as Isabella until the two embraced so that they did not have to look upon each other’s reddened faces and swollen eyes.
‘Papa blames me for Mama’s death, does he not, Lisette?’
Lisette, busy with Isabella’s pillows, replied, ‘Your father is grieving, Isabella. He is in shock, as the doctor told you. He cannot face anyone.’
She could not meet Isabella’s eyes and Isabella knew then it was true, her father did blame her, and yet he had not even come to her and asked her what had happened.
Isabella went over and over the sequence of events in the days that followed Helena’s death. They left the boatyard. She was in front, Mama behind her. If she had ridden with or behind Helena? If she had dismounted when she reached the bottom of the cliff path? If she had waited? If she had turned sooner on the beach and ridden back towards her mother?
Over and over, back and forth she went, reliving that morning of their ride. Eventually, fearing she would go mad, she left her room to go and find her father. She found him in the library with his agent. It was early in the day but he was already drinking.
He stared at his daughter blankly when she burst in. Before he could speak, Isabella said, clasping her shaking hands in front of her, ‘Do you blame me for Mama’s death, Papa? Is this why you will not see me or let me tell you what happened?’
Her father poured more whisky into his glass. ‘I do blame you, Isabella, for the cause of the accident lies with you. Your mother never rode to the cove on her own. I understand you rode ahead of her, despite being the better rider. The fact is, had you been less impatient and waited for your mother, her horse would not have bolted and she would be alive now.’
Isabella was stung, flushed with misery. ‘It was because my horse was exciting Mama’s that I rode on ahead. Mama asked me to. I am sorry, Papa, that you think I am to blame …’
She bit her lip. She did not want to cry in front of her father.
‘You do not think you are to blame, then, child?’
Mr Trovorrow, the agent, standing with his back to the fire, stirred uneasily at this. Isabella did not answer. Young as she was, she was aware that her father must blame someone.
Trovorrow cleared his throat. ‘Sir, there has been a tragic and shocking accident. No one is to blame, surely? Horses are unpredictable beasts.’
Isabella’s father opened his mouth as if he was going to be rude and then thought better of it. Isabella turned and left the room. There was no point in talking to her grieving and angry father when he had been drinking.
She walked through the hall and out of the front door. She walked down the steps to the drive and kept walking. She felt light and disembodied. There seemed no one to turn to. Had she caused her mother’s death? Was her father right?
She turned, dwarfed against the vast chestnuts that lined the drive, and looked back. She had always hated this view of the house, neither softened by scarlet creeper nor the shutters Helena told her all Italian houses had, which framed a house softly like eyelids as well as keeping it cool.
So many empty rooms, and now dust covers would soon hide her mother’s possessions. Her father had locked the door to Helena’s rooms and she could not even go there to smell her mother’s scent, touch the silver brushes, sink into the folds of her bed and breathe her in. Helena was lost to her forever and Isabella did not know how she could bear it or where she could turn for release from this unremitting pain.
She turned as she heard a trap coming up the drive and saw two horses pulling a cart. She moved aside to let it pass, but it stopped beside her and Ben Welland got down from the cart. He took his hat off.
‘Miss Isabella. The family are sad and sorry to hear about the accident to thy mother.’
He twisted his hat and met her eyes and held them steadily.
‘Thy mother was a good and beautiful woman.’
Isabella was overcome, for the carpenter was the first person to openly speak of Helena. She stood in the drive trying not to weep, nodding her head vigorously. The man went to the cart and lifted a piece of the tarpaulin.
‘I thought this would bring thee comfort, lass, for it was thy mother’s birthday present to thee.’
Under the tarpaulin lay the beautiful chest of drawers. Isabella touched the wood. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Oh yes. I thank you, Mr Welland.’
Lying in bed that night Isabella could see the dark shape of the chest and smell the faint scent of polish. She could remember her mother’s lovely face admiring it. For the first time since her mother’s death she felt comforted. She would have this one piece of furniture all her life and it would always remind her of Helena. This was her mother’s last birthday present to her, and Isabella thought, I will hand it on to my child and so it will go on, Helena’s chest giving pleasure to child after child down the years.
The following day they had a private service for the family and the household in the small chapel in the garden. They buried Helena with all the other Vyvyans in the family crypt. The small chapel was packed with estate workers and their wives, the women openly crying. Helena had seemed to these poor and hard-working people so different from the English aristocracy. She had been warm and young and approachable.
Daniel Vyvyan was of the old school. He was respected, but he had no idea of their daily lives; of their illnesses, tragedies or poverty; of their hopes and dreams. It would not occur to him that they had any, beyond being employed, having a roof over their heads and enough in their pockets on a Friday night for a pint.
It was Helena, and sometimes Isabella, who knew that a sick child had died, or a family were in debt, or a husband too long down the mines had consumption. It was Helena who had taken food or vegetables and persuaded her husband to let the gardeners cultivate a small field for their own use to sell on to other workers.
Daniel Vyvyan sat directly in front of the coffin, his face stiff and grey with loss.
Isabella sat in the same pew, but far from her father as if they were people from a separate family. Lisette, watching that straight little back, knew suddenly that she was the only person who could take care of Isabella now. All thoughts of a life out of service must fade.
Daniel shared a drink with his workers in the courtyard to receive their condolences. Isabella, watching from her window, saw Ben Welland and his family among them. Tom’s fair head stood a head taller than the others.
When everyone had gone, Isabella sat on the window seat looking out. A mist hung over the lake and a Cornish mizzle, light but drenching, blew in fine curtains across the drive.
What will happen to me now? I neve
r imagined a life without Mama. I never thought about growing up without her. It feels as if I have lost both parents at once. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.
Two days after the funeral her father called her to him and told her he had decided to send her to cousins over on the Helford River. They had agreed to educate and finish her with their own three girls and then … Daniel obviously had no idea what would happen after that.
‘Papa, are you punishing me? I hardly know my cousins or my aunt. Why are you sending me away from my home? Am I to lose everything?’ Her voice broke.
Her father looked at her for the first time since Helena died.
‘Isabella, of course I am not punishing you. Without your mother you will be lonely. Lisette is the only female you talk to. I am going to travel and possibly visit your mother’s relations in Italy. I do not want to leave you alone in this house.’
‘I could come with you. I could look after you, Papa. Please, please let me come with you. I could see my Italian cousins, my aunts, please … please, Papa.’
She watched her father’s face close.
‘Do not make me go away. I would rather stay with Lisette here than go to strangers.’
‘I am sorry, child,’ he said, closing the subject. ‘I am doing the best thing for you, believe me. You will see this later.’
‘I only see that you cannot bear to have me near you,’ Isabella cried and turned and ran from the room.
This was true, but not for the reason Isabella believed. She was so like her mother in looks and character that Daniel did not want to be reminded daily of something precious he had lost. A beautiful and clever woman he loved, but took for granted. The knowledge of her value, witnessed by the grief at her funeral, bit and gnawed at his innards. He had to escape this.
However, he decided Lisette must go with Isabella to keep her company. He took his daughter’s cold little hand in the hall.
‘Isabella, I will write. You will be well looked after …’ He hesitated. ‘I was not myself … after the accident. Of course it was not your fault. Forget my words, I did not mean them. In no way are you to blame. Will you forget them?’
Another Life Page 13