Messenger of Truth

by Jacqueline Winspear

  Piers sipped from the cup of water, then began to describe the final bid to change his son’s mind. He had come to the gallery on the eve of the exhibition when everyone had left, knowing that he was the only person who had any knowledge of the paintings and knowing that success in his plea was imperative. Entering by the front door—left open by Stig Svenson—Piers saw his son was on the trestle and, wanting to face him, rather than look up at him—a desire that Maisie understood immediately, though Piers would not have been able to explain his motivation—he went to the stairs leading to the landing and was soon on a level with his son. Still agile, Piers had climbed over the railing and onto the scaffolding so that he could press home the importance of his request. Nick began to turn his back on his father, going about his work as if he were not there.

  Piers Bassington-Hope sobbed as he continued. “I had seen, then, the cold refusal in Nick’s eyes. He infuriated me. After all, how could he be so indifferent, so oblivious to what he was doing? I could not help myself, I could not—”

  Georgina handed her father a fresh handkerchief, which he pressed to his eyes. “I am so terribly sorry.” He shook his head, then went on. “I—I could not help myself. I raised my hand and struck him across the cheek, then again with the back of my hand. I struck my own son.” He swallowed deeply, placing a hand on his chest once more in a bid to control his emotions. “Then the trestle began to move. We both became unsteady, barely able to stand upright, then…then…Nick turned around and swore at me, and I—I lost control of my senses. It was as if I were blind. I could not see, could only feel this…this welter of anger that rose up from my feet and exploded in my head. I felt my hand connect with the side of Nick’s face, then I reached out to grab hold of the scaffolding, anything to steady myself. Then Nick was gone. It happened before I could stop it. One second he was there, a look of complete disbelief on his face.” Piers looked directly at Stratton. “I had never raised a hand to any of my children, Inspector. Never.” He was silent for a moment. “Then Nick was gone. Before I could reach out, before he could gain a foothold, he was gone, the barrier broken as he fell. And I heard a terrible, terrible thud as he hit the stone floor.” Piers Bassington-Hope leaned sideways, moaning, as if he would collapse. A police constable stepped forward to support him.

  “When did you know your son was dead, Mr. Bassington-Hope?” Stratton spoke with a steady voice, neither soft nor confrontational.

  Piers shook his head. “I thought he might cry out, might get up and begin to berate me for challenging him. I wanted him to shout at me, to argue, to yell—anything but that silence.”

  “So, you left the gallery?”

  Piers looked up, indignation evident in his eyes. “Oh, no, no. I rushed to his side and I…I knew he was dead, could see the life gone from his eyes. So I held my son in my arms until…until his body was cold.” He explained that it was only as dawn broke that he panicked, his thoughts now of his wife and daughters and the anguish they would feel upon learning that Nick was dead. The last words he spoke before Stratton brought the meeting between Georgina and her father to an end were, “He was my son, Inspector, my son. And I loved him.”

  NICK BASSINGTON-HOPE’S FINAL exhibition at Svenson’s Gallery took place in early February 1931, with a select group of family and friends invited to preview an event that was also a memorial to the artist, who—as Svenson made a point of telling everyone who came—would be remembered as an interpreter of both the human and natural landscape. There were those who were surprised to see Piers Bassington-Hope escort his wife from the Invicta motor car that drew up outside the gallery, and as guests entered, Harry Bassington-Hope, at first tentatively, then with more confidence, lift his trumpet to play the heartrending lament he’d composed after first seeing the work his brother had named No Man’s Land.

  Duncan and Quentin arrived together, furtively nodding an acknowledgment toward Maisie, who had helped broker their freedom with a full description of the events she had witnessed at the barn on Romney Marsh and a statement to the effect that she considered them “tea boys” in the diamond smuggling operation. Alex Courtman stepped into the gallery and joined his two friends, then looked around the room as if searching for someone. He saw Maisie, raised his hand to greet her, only to have his attention drawn to the door: Randolph Bradley had arrived, his shining American Du Pont Merrimac Town Car eliciting gasps from onlookers as it pulled alongside the entrance to the gallery. Bradley made an entrance wearing a stylish English double-breasted suit, and Maisie saw just a hint of disapproval from Nolly when he approached her sister, who gave a half smile as she raised a cheek to be kissed by her lover. Soon Harry leaned back, pressing his lips into a piercing final note and the low murmur of those gathered ceased as Stig Svenson climbed the steps onto a plinth, beside which was the cord that, when pulled, would open the thick, blood-red velvet drapes to reveal the completed No Man’s Land.

  Svenson pressed a white handkerchief to his eyes as he stood behind the lectern to address the guests, who edged forward to hear him speak.

  “Thank you, all of you, for coming today. As those closest to Nick, I know you would not have missed this opportunity to view No Man’s Land before the work is available to a broader audience, as it most surely will be in the future. It was no secret that Nick’s most fervent wish was for a bequest to a public institution, and I am proud to announce that Mr. Randolph Bradley has most generously purchased No Man’s Land as a gift to the Imperial War Museum, in perpetuity.” There was a round of applause during which Svenson cleared his throat, holding a hand to his mouth for a second before speaking again.

  “We all knew Nick. We all knew that he journeyed to the very edge of convention in his quest to tell the truth of what he saw, of what he felt in his very soul, with his skill as an artist. You’ve seen his early work, seen the Flemish villages, abundant landscapes, the murals, works of utmost complexity, and every one marked by an acute sense of place, or perhaps an appreciation of love, of hatred, of war, of peace. He was a man of and beyond his time, a man of sensitivity almost crushed by the weight of his experience in the years 1914 to 1918. This piece is, perhaps, his most telling. It is a work of art that will leave not one of you with an opinion steeped in the gray mist of ambiguity. Be prepared to hate it, be prepared to love it, but do not expect to leave untouched by the message of Nicholas Bassington-Hope.”

  It seemed as if everyone in the room held their breath at the moment when Svenson turned to the pulley and drew back the drapes concealing the masterpiece sought since the night of the artist’s death. As silence followed the collective gasp, Maisie opened her eyes, for she had closed them when Svenson reached for the cord. No one uttered a sound. She had seen the complete work in the days leading up to the opening, yet none of the impact was lost with familiarity, in fact, as the artist intended, at every viewing another scene seemed to come to the fore, giving rise to a new emotion.

  The segment that had stemmed Billy’s desire to see more when they first visited the lock-up formed the base of the exhibit. Each and every face was clear and distinct, the artist achieving a level of detail reminiscent of the masters he’d studied in Brugge and Ghent. Three large pieces—the anticipated triptych—formed the next level, and were deliberately shaped to resemble the stained glass windows of a grand cathedral. The column to the left mirrored part of the scene below, the soldiers’ expressions even clearer now, filled with fear, terror and determination as they marched forward. Then the magnificent giant centerpiece that had every person in the gallery transfixed. Maisie felt as if she were part of the scene, as if her feet were caught in the mud and blood of No Man’s Land, and she were close enough to reach out and touch the ground upon which men had fallen.

  The scene depicted required no explanation. A cease-fire had been called, and, as was the custom, stretcher-bearers from both sides had been sent forth to bring back the living, while others toiled with shovels to bury the dead. Soldiers brushed shoulders with those against
whom they had fought, and every man knew that it was not uncommon for friend to help foe commit a countryman to the earth. There was much for the battle-weary to accomplish as the guns would be alive with shells and bullets before too long and men would be marching upon one another’s trenches with bayonets fixed, intent upon killing before death could claim them. Nick Bassington-Hope had seen that moment, had recorded the instant when two infantrymen, one British, one German, had come upon their own, the dead having fallen to the ground next to each other. With mud and blood smeared across their faces, exhaustion writ large in eyes that had looked into the furnace of hell, the soldiers had reacted with instinct and, instead of taking up arms, in that terrible moment had reached toward each other for comfort. And there they were captured in time, almost as if a camera had been used, rather than oils. The men were kneeling, locked in a raw embrace, one clutching the other, as if holding on to that other human being was to hold on to life itself. The artist had caught, in eyes, in mouths, in lines across foreheads, in white-knuckled hands, a depth of grief, a futility that came when man recognized man, not as an enemy with a gun, but as a reflection of himself. And it was clear to anyone who knew the family that the British soldier offering succor to the German was the dead war hero Godfrey Grant.

  Noelle had already seen her brother’s work. Without faltering, she had stood in front of the painting, recognizing now why Piers had sought to protect her. Maisie remained with the woman, as her eyes moved from the center panel to the one on the right, the panel that spoke the truth of her husband’s death. Nick Bassington-Hope could never tell his sister that her husband was murdered, that he was tortured, then shot, by the very men with whom he had served. The gentle Godfrey, who had turned to his enemy and seen, instead, his brother, had made his way back to the British front line, to a silence in the trench that was broken only by taunting. He stood next to men who, afraid of what it meant to see the enemy as human, instead saw a foe in their fellow man. His life ended with the letters LMF scrawled in blood across his forehead. LOW MORAL FIBRE.

  With his brush, Nick had told a story no words could recount. The two final pieces, triangular-shaped segments to the upper left and right of the triptych, designed so that the collection of paintings would form a rectangle when displayed together, revealed something of what he had come to sense as a pilgrim in the wild places that healed him, that before there was barbed wire and trenches there were verdant fields and thick green forests, and, after the battle, so the grass would grow again, the land belonging not to man, but to nature, to love. No matter what claim there might be on this soil or that, the artist knew it all to be no man’s land.

  While some moved forward to study the pieces in detail, others, including Piers and Emma Bassington-Hope, moved back to view the work as a whole. No one spoke, there was no discussion of light or depth, of a brushstroke here, the use of a palette knife there. Maisie recalled something that Dr. Wicker, the expert who had been so helpful at the Tate, had said in response to a question: “With a true masterpiece, there are no words required. Discourse is rendered redundant. That’s why the work of a master transcends all notions of education, of class. It rises above the onlooker’s understanding of what is considered good or bad, or right and wrong in the world of art. With the artist who has achieved mastery, skill, experience and knowledge are transparent, leaving only the message for all to see.”

  Maisie remained in the gallery for just a few moments longer, then left to return to her office, for she wanted to complete final notes on the written report she would hand to Georgina Bassington-Hope when the time was right, along with her bill. She bid good night to the two policemen in plain clothes who waited by the door to escort Piers Bassington-Hope back to the cell where he awaited trial on a charge of manslaughter. Though the detective sergeant held a pair of handcuffs, they would most likely not be used until the prisoner stepped from the motor car upon arrival at their destination. As Maisie emerged from the gallery into the freezing night and made her way toward the MG, she realized she was glad to be leaving.

  LATER, HAVING COMPLETED her report, Maisie leaned back, put the notes in an envelope, tied the two strings together to seal the flap and placed the envelope in her drawer. Trusting time to be the most efficient editor, she would check the notes in a few days, then the closing bill would be calculated for presentation to her client when they met. In the days that followed, she would undertake the process she referred to as her “final accounting,” a period of time during which she visited the places and, where appropriate, the people she had encountered as she worked on a given case. It was a method learned in her apprenticeship with Maurice Blanche, and one that had served her well, enabling work to begin on the next investigation with renewed energy and insight.

  Before leaving the office, Maisie completed an overdue task, that of writing a letter of thanks to Dame Constance Charteris at Camden Abbey. She acknowledged the referral that had brought Georgina Bassington-Hope to her door and gave a brief description of the outcome. The Bassington-Hope family had been through a tumultuous time: shock, sorrow, regret and anger—at both Piers and Nick. There had been arguments and compassion, alliances had swung back and forth, then the family had come together to support the patriarch, even though true forgiveness eluded them, for now. She described the way in which the trial had brought Noelle and Georgina together, perhaps with more understanding than before. In her letter, Maisie suggested that Dame Constance might be seeing Georgina again soon, and added that she herself would love to visit in due course.

  She drove home at a low speed, taking special care in the nighttime smog. Making her way past Victoria, she turned, on a whim, toward Belgravia. She was soon parked outside 15 Ebury Place. Houses on either side of the Comptons’ mansion showed signs of life, with lights in upper windows, perhaps a door opening to reveal a butler showing a visitor out into the night. But the house that had once been her home reminded her of an old, old woman gone to bed early because even a short day was long. There were no lights, no signs that a family was in residence. Without closing her eyes, Maisie thought she could hear the voices that echoed back and forth when she was young, of Enid cursing, of James gamely stealing biscuits when he came back to England to go to war. She could hear Mrs. Crawford, Mr. Carter and, as the years sped by in her mind’s eye, she imagined the staff who were new to the house and to her when she had come back, this time to live upstairs. It occurred to her that the ritual of her final accounting was rather like closing up a house, for wasn’t she checking each room before securing the door, looking out of a window to recall the view and then moving on? And wasn’t there always a new case, a new challenge, something fresh to ignite her appetite for excitement, just as there was now the flat in Pimlico? She smiled, took one last look at the mansion, pushed the MG into gear and began to slip away, back toward her new home.

  MAISIE TRAVELED TO Dungeness the following day, parking the motor car close to the railway carriages that had been Nick Bassington-Hope’s home. Already a FOR SALE sign had been set up, nailed into a thick stake that had been hammered into the ground. She walked alongside the carriage and cupped her hands around her eyes so that she could see inside. Just a few pieces of furniture remained, enough to make the property seem welcoming when another soul came looking for a windswept retreat.

  The sun shone, though the air was crisp, and as she was dressed for a meander along the beach, with a woolen thigh-length coat atop walking skirt and boots, gloved hands and a cloche set well down to protect her ears, she set off, pulling up her collar as she turned away from the carriages. On toward the lighthouse she tramped along, pebbles scrunching underfoot as she made her way past fishing boats pulled up onto the shingle. Nets had been emptied and left in neat piles, and gulls wheeled down from overhead as fishermen gathered in twos and threes to gut the fish or mend their nets. There was no sign of Amos White, and though the men raised their heads, then muttered together as she passed, she smiled and continued on her way. With the
sting of salt on her cheeks, her eyes smarting against the chill wind, Maisie was glad she had decided to walk, for she loved the water, loved to be here, at the boundary of sea and land. What had her friend Priscilla called her just a few months ago? A mudlark! Yes, a mudlark who found treasure on the beach, though the banks of the Thames were a far cry from this. She stopped, drawn to the edge of the water, so that waves almost, though not quite, reached her shoes as they crashed into the shore.

  The sea lapped even closer, though Maisie remained in place, her hands holding her collar to protect her neck. It’s because it’s the beginning, and also the end. That was what she loved about the place where the water met the land—the promise of something fresh, a suggestion that, even if what is happening now is to be suffered, there is an end and a beginning. I could sail away on that beginning, thought Maisie, as she turned to leave.

  Driving through Hastings Old Town, she knew she risked seeing Andrew Dene, but knew too that it was important to bid her own farewell. The MG was too conspicuous to drive down the street where he lived, so she parked close to the pier, then walked back toward Rock-a-Nore. She watched day-trippers and even stopped for a cup of strong tea served by a fisherman’s wife at a beach-side hut. It was when she turned, ready to go back to her motor car, that she saw them, a couple running across the road toward the East Hill funicular railway. They were laughing, hand in hand. Though her breath caught in her throat, Maisie was not saddened to see Dene with a woman, a woman who seemed so at ease in his company, no shred of doubt upon her face. Knowing they had eyes only for each other, she watched the funicular ascend to the top of the hill, then whispered “good-bye” as she walked slowly back toward the pier.