The Girl In the Painting

by Téa Cooper

  Jane took off down the corridor, John hot on her heels, and skidded to a halt in the doorway to the auction room.

  Langdon-Penter stood, aggression oozing from every pore, confronting poor Marigold.

  ‘I’m not giving up. My future depends on this. What about the promise you made to Maggie?’

  ‘I don’t want you to give up, you know that. At least let the exhibition go ahead. Apart from anything else it might help cover the cost of the trip.’ Marigold pushed her pale hair back, her eyes blazing like chips of lapis lazuli.

  ‘For God’s sake, those paintings aren’t worth the canvas they’re painted on.’ He swiped his hand in a wide arc, narrowly missing Marigold’s head.

  With an ear-splitting crash, one of the larger paintings fell to the floor.

  Marigold moaned, sank down, back to the wall, knees pulled to her chest, her hands covering her head and her shoulders heaving.

  Timothy’s leap to protect her seemed well-rehearsed, because Langdon-Penter ripped his attention from his wife to his son. ‘If you, you lily-livered little snot, had done what you were meant to do, we wouldn’t be stuck in the middle of this godforsaken country town trying to get answers from a dead man.’

  A dead man? Michael? Answers to what?

  ‘Mr and Mrs …’ Jane took two steps but John’s heavy hand restrained her. ‘Let me go.’ She shook him away. ‘Someone’s got to break this up. Marigold shouldn’t have to …’

  ‘Stay,’ he hissed and dragged her back behind the door. ‘Right dodgepot, if ever I saw one. Wait a bit.’

  The picture of Langdon-Penter’s bony fingers cradling Michael’s favourite Waterford crystal tumbler flashed before Jane’s eyes. John was right. The man had made her flesh creep from the first moment she’d come across him at the national gallery. There was something about his self-assurance, his know-it-all manner and drawling accent that made her skin crawl.

  ‘Ó’Cuinn must have known something.’

  ‘Father, we’re beaten, admit it.’

  ‘You’re the one likely to be beaten. Your fault. No one else’s.’ Penter slammed his fist against the wall, sending several other paintings rattling and missing Timothy’s head by about half an inch.

  Marigold hauled herself to her feet. ‘Stop! The man is dead. We can’t do anything more.’

  Langdon-Penter stood, not a muscle moving, except for his piercing eyes. ‘We’ll see about that.’ His gaze switched between Timothy and Marigold, then he closed his eyes, his shoulders relaxed and a look of satisfaction settled on his face.

  ‘Timothy, help me pick up the painting.’ Marigold’s voice held a note of resigned sufferance, as though the scenario was all too familiar. ‘It will need repair.’

  As he hauled his mother to her feet, Timothy straightened and his eyes narrowed.

  A flush of heat stole across Jane’s face. He’d spotted her standing in the doorway.

  Caught, caught as surely as a yabby in a trap, eavesdropping. There was only one thing to do. Drawing on every lesson Elizabeth had ever taught her, Jane stepped into the room. ‘Can I be of any assistance?’

  ‘This is family business. Stay out of it.’ Timothy’s father took three steps towards her.

  She stood her ground. ‘What’s going on?’

  She could smell his lies from a hundred paces, no matter how much cologne or whiskey might dull the reek. Not only that, she hadn’t liked the way Timothy had sidestepped her questions about whether his father knew Michael. It hadn’t rung true. It was so disappointing. She thought she’d made a new friend, thoroughly enjoyed his company. From what she’d just heard she’d been taken for a fool.

  ‘Miss Jane, might be better if you head off home. I’ll sort this out.’

  She brushed John’s arm away. Nothing this side of Hades would make her walk away now. There was something afoot, something she didn’t understand. Loose ends dangled like frayed threads and every step led to the paintings on the wall, and from those paintings to Elizabeth and Michael.

  She straightened up. ‘Is there something I can help you with? Questions you need answered?’

  Langdon-Penter waved her away, his gaze flickering. ‘No problem. No problem at all.’

  Jane didn’t believe him for a moment.

  When Jane arrived home she went straight to Elizabeth’s room and tapped on the door.

  ‘Come.’

  She stepped into the room. Elizabeth sat in the chair by the window, the blue jar on the windowsill in front of her, running the red thread through her fingers.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Jane asked.

  ‘Much improved. I haven’t had any more of that rubbish Lethbridge keeps trying to pour down my throat. I’ve been thinking about your Mr Freud.’

  This was better, so very, very much better. She didn’t want to upset Elizabeth again, couldn’t fathom how to approach the subject of the argument at the auction house.

  ‘If the visit to the Tost and Rohu exhibition triggered my …’ Elizabeth’s lip curled a little as though loath to admit to her fragility. ‘… dilemma. What traumatic event does it stem from? It has to be something that happened to me before I came to Australia, before I was Elizabeth.’

  ‘That’s what we have to find out. I’m hopeful a reply will come from Gertrude Finbright soon. I don’t want to upset you, but can I ask another couple of questions?’

  Elizabeth inclined her head.

  ‘Did Michael know Langdon-Penter?’

  Elizabeth frowned and gazed out of the window. ‘He never mentioned him to me. I thought you organised the exhibition for his wife. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Something he said.’ Jane cleared her throat. ‘I overheard a conversation, not really a conversation, more of an argument. It sounded very much as though he’d come to Australia specifically to find Michael. He said his future depended on it.’

  ‘I doubt Michael would be very difficult to find. His name’s been splashed all over the national papers ever since he agreed to stand as a member of the Legislative Assembly, and there was a glowing obituary in the the Sydney Morning Herald, and The Age as well.’

  Which might account for Langdon-Penter turning up at the national gallery and then at Michael’s wake. ‘He seemed very annoyed not to have had the opportunity to speak to Michael again. In fact he was furious.’

  A flash of pain crossed Elizabeth’s face, making Jane regret sharing her thoughts. ‘Can I get you anything? More tea? Would you like your supper brought up here?’

  ‘No. I’ll come down, however I don’t want this discussed within earshot of Bessie or Lucy, understand? I won’t have Michael’s memory tarnished.’

  The following day, in a sudden flurry of dedication, Elizabeth decided the Benevolent Society books should be audited and so Jane hadn’t the opportunity to return to the auction house. She tried numerous excuses, none convinced Elizabeth.

  Time for one last try. ‘I have to go down to the auction house. The wages need to be done.’

  Elizabeth lifted her head from the ledger. ‘You did the wages two days ago. However, I’m sure that young man would appreciate some company.’

  The corner of her lip twitched, making the colour rise to Jane’s cheeks. Timothy Penter might not appreciate her company after she’d witnessed his father’s appalling behaviour. She was going to force it on him and get to the bottom of the story.

  Without giving Elizabeth a chance to make any further comments, she left and headed down to the auction house. She found Timothy wandering up and down the High Street, hands pushed deep into his pockets and his head down.

  Resisting the temptation to thump her hands on her hips and demand answers, Jane drew in a steadying breath. ‘Can we talk?’

  He grunted something that might have been an acknowledgement, so she led the way around the back of the auction house and upstairs.

  ‘It’s about yesterday, the argument with your father. There’s something I don’t understand …’

  A grim smile ghosted acr
oss his face. ‘I haven’t been entirely honest with you.’

  And if that wasn’t the biggest understatement, she didn’t know what was. She swallowed the string of questions hovering on her tongue. Perhaps she should let him go ahead.

  ‘Father had business with Ó’Cuinn.’

  ‘Quinn. Michael Quinn.’

  ‘Yes, he called himself Quinn but he was Michael Ó’Cuinn once. Father knew him from England.’

  ‘Knew him or knew of him?’

  ‘Knew of him.’

  She hadn’t misinterpreted the conversation the day before. ‘He came looking for him? Deliberately arranged the showing in Maitland?’ And Timothy had deliberately worked his way into her affections. Poor little orphan Jane blindsided because someone paid her some attention.

  The tips of his ears turned a painfully unpleasant shade of red.

  And her temper flared.

  Guilty as charged. It was his duplicity that disgusted her. He’d intended right from their first meeting to use her to get closer to Michael and she’d played into his hands, gone along with it.

  ‘Michael’s death ruined your plans,’ she said.

  ‘Not my plans, my father’s plans.’

  That made it even worse. Not even his own underhand plan, simply doing his father’s bidding.

  ‘Father had no intention of hurting you. He wanted the answer to a question.’

  No matter what he said, Jane couldn’t get past the fact that he’d used her, courted her—such a funny old-fashioned word, the kind Elizabeth might use. Not because he liked her, because he wanted something from her. How naive could she be?

  ‘Please let me explain,’ said Timothy. ‘I have something more to tell you.’

  ‘You have nothing to tell me other than the nature of the business your father had with Michael.’

  He shrugged and leant back in the chair, resigned. Not caring how much he had offended her.

  And then it hit her. ‘Do you know a Gertrude Finbright?’

  ‘I’ve never met her.’ He swallowed. ‘My father knows her. She’s an old woman, used to be the matron at some orphanage or hospital.’

  ‘Where?’ she snapped, heart pounding, waiting for the confirmation she knew would come.

  ‘Liverpool.’

  The Gertrude Finbright Michael had written to, without a doubt. ‘Brownlow Hill?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  So was she. ‘Brownlow Hill is the name of the place in Liverpool where Gertrude Finbright worked.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Or he wasn’t telling. All she wanted to do was storm out of the place, but she needed more answers.

  ‘What business did your father have with an orphanage in Liverpool?’

  ‘We’re trying to trace my mother’s sister.’

  The air stilled.

  Jane shook her thoughts aside. Assumptions proved nothing. She needed facts, tangible evidence. ‘You think Michael might have known something about her. Why didn’t your father ask him when we met in Sydney, at the national gallery?’

  Silence hung until he shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’ve got to be going. I told Father I’d meet him at the Pig and Whistle.’

  Without another glance Timothy made his way downstairs. The door banged behind him, ending their conversation, and her foolishness.

  How long she sat staring at the table she had no idea, but when she finally stood her leg had gone to sleep. There was a mountain of random facts that had to be logically sorted before she would have a solution. She must not jump to conclusions, and she couldn’t take her half-baked theories to Elizabeth, not yet. It simply wouldn’t be fair. She had to talk to Marigold and find out the full story about her sister. Timothy was no good to her, he’d only regurgitate what his father had told him, and she didn’t believe a word of it.

  Stuffing her notebook into her pocket, she wandered downstairs and into the auction room. As chance would have it, Marigold had the broken picture laid out on the table, a new piece of timber lined up alongside, the broken stretchers dangling loosely from her fingers.

  ‘Could you spare me a moment or two?’ Jane asked.

  It wasn’t until Marigold lifted her head that Jane regretted her intrusion. A large, purple-tinged bruise marred her cheekbone.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, so sorry. Is there anything I can do?’

  Marigold pulled a grimace and scuffed her hand across her cheek to brush away the remnants of her tears. ‘It’s nothing.’ She snapped the broken stretcher and tossed it aside.

  ‘Let me get you something for that bruise. Some witch-hazel, a cool towel.’

  ‘No, nothing. It’ll heal. What can I help you with?’

  ‘Timothy told me that you came to Australia to try and trace your sister.’

  ‘Yes, we did. We thought Michael Ó’Cuinn might be able to help us. He was the last person to be seen with the young girl we believed might be my sister.’ The woman’s bleached face, the colour of old bones, stared back at her. ‘We’d always thought she was stolen by the gypsies, until we received word a girl fitting her description had been taken in by the workhouse in Liverpool.’

  Jane pointed to a painting of a string of covered drays and carts converging on a picture-perfect waterfall.

  ‘Those are the gypsies,’ Marigold said.

  ‘Of course. We don’t see many in Australia.’

  ‘They’re a nomadic people and tend to return to the same place at the same time every year. This painting is called Tinkers’ Bubble. The spring flows through the woodlands; it ends in a small waterfall by the road. Bubble is the gypsy name for a waterfall. They camp by the spring every year and graze their horses. Unfortunately, if anything happens while they are in the area, they tend to be blamed—it’s always the gypsies.

  ‘They were there when my sister vanished. We searched, searched their camp, called the police. The entire village helped. We never found her.’ Her words poured out almost faster than the tears tracking her cheeks.

  ‘Every year, when the gypsies returned, Mother would haunt the woods, convinced she’d find her amongst the children. We even offered a reward. No one came forward.’ A harsh sobbing laugh, more like a groan, erupted from Marigold’s mouth and she pulled a handkerchief from her pocket.

  ‘Did you see them take her?’

  She shook her head. ‘One minute she was sitting under the apple tree in the front garden at home, trying to make herself a princess crown with daisies, the next moment she’d gone.’ Marigold dropped her head into her hands. ‘I don’t remember. Mother said I was sulking upstairs, jealous because there were no marigolds for my princess crown. I sometimes dream of her walking down the path to the village, holding someone’s hand.’

  ‘Whose?’ Jane snapped the question.

  ‘I don’t know. A boy, not a full-grown man—long, lanky and skinny. I can’t remember. I don’t know what’s the truth and what I’ve been told. There’s the painting; that’s my memory.’ She pointed to the picture next to the one of the gypsy camp. ‘Mother spoke of nothing else until the day she died. I was never enough. They’d stolen her angel.’

  ‘Do you think Michael might have taken her?’ The mood of the painting implied nothing meanacing.

  Marigold shrugged. ‘My husband had word from the workhouse.’

  A barrage of questions filled Jane’s mind. She opened her mouth to speak but the look on Marigold’s face restrained her. Just one more. ‘How old was your sister when she went missing?’

  ‘Too long ago …’

  ‘How long?’ Jane couldn’t control the edge in her voice.

  ‘More than fifty years ago.’

  ‘Be specific.’

  ‘The afternoon of August twenty-eighth, 1862.’

  ‘How old was she?’

  Marigold lifted her tear-stained face. ‘Four.’

  Cold fingers trickled down Jane’s back as the facts lined up. ‘How far is Liverpool from your home?’

  ‘About two hundred miles.’

/>   In that instant Jane fully understood. ‘You believe Michael kidnapped her and took her to Liverpool?’

  Marigold gave an embarrassed nod.

  Why would Michael travel two hundred miles to kidnap a child while Lizzie was still alive?

  The calculation didn’t add up, no matter how Jane manipulated the facts.

  Thirty-One

  ‘Good morning, Miss Quinn.’

  Elizabeth resisted the temptation to groan as Lucy poked her head around the door.

  ‘I’ve brought you some tea and toast. I thought you might prefer breakfast in bed.’

  ‘No, no. I’ll get up. What time is it?’

  Lucy put the tray down on the bedside table and drew back the curtains with a degree of relish. ‘Ten thirty, miss.’

  Ten thirty. How had that happened? She’d slept for over twelve hours, and without any of Lethbridge’s magic potion. ‘Very well, thank you.’ Not a suspicion of nausea or dizziness either.

  Lucy puffed up her pillows and settled the tray on her lap.

  ‘That’s all.’

  Relishing the refreshing scent of jasmine, Elizabeth poured a cup of tea and picked up a sliver of toast. Once she was properly awake she’d brave Michael’s study—she hadn’t set foot in there since he died—and see if she could find anything that Jane might have overlooked. Highly unlikely, the girl had a mind like a rabbit trap.

  She topped up the cup and reached for another piece of toast, and there sitting flat on the tray was an envelope, addressed to Michael Ó’Cuinn. Strange, she hadn’t noticed it before. The poorly formed writing on the cheap paper didn’t look familiar. Nor did the stamp. On closer inspection she discovered the letter came from England.

  She slid the knife under the flap and pulled out the single sheet.

  Dear Michael,

  The memory of you has stayed with me for many a long year …

  For heaven’s sake, she couldn’t read this. Was this Michael’s long-forgotten love she knew nothing of, or worse, some long-remembered love? She flipped the piece of paper over to look at the signature.

  Gertrude Finbright.

  The name was familiar. She sipped her tea. Jane had mentioned it. A decent night’s sleep played havoc with her memory.