‘Something else has happened, hasn’t it, Jimmy? Why would you do that?’
‘You see the eye on this one, my dear Owl! A goddamned painter’s eye, it is! Nothing escapes it. Rien de tout!’
And somehow, before Maud could say anything else, she was under discussion as an artist for the second time in an hour. Jimmy trotted out a little legend of his own devising, in which the eighteen-year-old model Maud Franklin, soon after her arrival at Lindsey Row, had happened to discover an album of Japanese prints. The detailed studies of flowers within had inspired her to such a degree, he claimed, that she’d picked up the brush at once, and displayed an obvious gift for it. Owl said that he would very much like to see her latest drawings; as did Miss Corder, who declared that Maud simply must visit her studio on Southampton Row, within the week if it could be arranged. The attention and encouragement flattered Maud to the point of giddiness. Her skin flamed radish red, perspiration stippling her brow. Frederick Leyland and the Amber and Black quite left her mind.
‘I haven’t done anything for a while,’ she said, as her glass was refilled, ‘you know, on account of – of being away and …’
They told her that she must reapply herself at the first opportunity. That it was her responsibility to humankind. To leave such a talent unused, they said, was an unforgivable waste. She had to paint.
Maud nodded, and sipped, and promised that she would.
*
Dusk was shading the grand bend of the Quadrant by the time they decided to eat. As always, Jimmy insisted upon everyone having the same, with him ordering: Homard en Croute, a favourite of his. Maud would have eaten this gladly, but Miss Corder’s sylph-like form, snaking against the table beside her, served as a stern admonition. She had to recover her own figure as soon as possible, so she picked at the little pie, trying to look like she was making a start on it, breaking a hole in the buttery crust and prodding at what lay beneath.
Owl’s serving, in contrast, was gone in moments. Noticing Maud’s reluctance, he offered and then engineered a discreet swap of their dishes. It was a mystery, how he managed to eat such quantities while talking – for talk he most certainly did. Even Jimmy stayed quiet, or mostly quiet, to hear him. In that impressive voice of his, he began to tell them of a certain period of his youth – always brought to mind, he claimed, by the taste of lobster. He was Portuguese, as it turned out, not Spanish as Maud had assumed; or rather a half-Portuguese, the son of an English wool merchant and a noble lady of Oporto.
‘Their final child,’ he said. ‘No fewer than thirteen others preceded me. My father expired, in fact, not long after my birth.’ The cause was exhaustion.’
Left destitute, his widowed mother had moved out of the city with her six youngest to a village down the coast. There, some years later, the teenage Owl had supported them all by diving for treasure. The Barbosa, a mighty galleon from the time of King Alfonso VI, had been wrecked just offshore, the hull lying untouched in shallow waters. And so, an India rubber air tube clenched between his teeth, he’d set about groping through the seaweed-coated timbers – braving the snapping jaws of monstrous eels, the tentacles of octopi and heaven knows what else – returning to the surface only when his fishing net was filled with gold doubloons.
‘On occasion, in the Barbosa’s innermost crevices, I would encounter these gigantic lobsters. These turquoise leviathans, like creatures from dreams or the paintings of madmen. I see you laughing there, Jimmy Whistler, but you wouldn’t have laughed if you’d been in the water beside me. You’d have spat out your air tube and screamed like a horse.’
Jimmy was rolling a cigarette and smirking so hard he dislodged his eyeglass.
‘I swear the blasted things were two feet long,’ Owl continued. ‘The size of a small dog, and deuced lively with it. Spines like you wouldn’t believe. Claws the size of coconuts. I’d wrestle them up from the wreck, through the surf, to the beach where my mother and sisters would be waiting. Often we’d make a fire in the sand and roast the beast in its shell. Feast on it before the sunset. This,’ – he held up a forkful of pinkish flesh, the last of Maud’s pie – ‘can’t really compare.’
‘We should go,’ said Miss Corder. Her eyes were dark with love; she reached between the dishes for Owl’s hand. ‘You should take us – the three of us. We could find a house on a cliff-top, overlooking the ocean. The wild Atlantic. Think of it, Carlos. Think of what Jimmy could paint.’
The Owl – Carlos – agreed. ‘A fellow’s shilling goes far over there,’ he said. ‘Damned far. Why, we could take a castle. Live like royalty.’
Right then, with a newly refilled glass raised to her lips, this struck Maud as a truly brilliant idea. Why on earth shouldn’t they? Venice had been the plan, the promise, but elsewhere could surely be as good, especially in such enlivening company. The land of Carlos the Owl. She very much liked the sound of it. She glanced at Jimmy. Eyeglass reinserted, cigarette lit, he was studying the Portuguese with wry affection.
‘We’ll be expecting lobster every night, Owl, you know,’ he said. ‘You’d better bring along your bathing suit.’
They toasted their expedition, several times over and with much laughter. The last traces of formality fell away: Miss Corder and Miss Franklin were shown the door, with Rosa and Maud taking their place. Various far-fetched arrangements were made. Goals were set, both artistic and gastronomic. A warm camaraderie enfolded the table.
Shortly afterwards, as the dishes were removed, an unspoken communication passed between the men. They excused themselves and rose, disappearing into the rear of the restaurant.
‘Cigars, most probably,’ said Rosa, looking over her shoulder, out at the street.
Maud emptied her glass. She was feeling pretty damned tight, in truth, having drunk a good deal and eaten next to nothing. She fell to staring at Rosa’s hair. It was tied up in a plait, the coil as elaborate and perfect as a carving in a church. Until then it had simply seemed a yellowish shade of brown. Now, though, in the candlelight, Maud could see something much paler in it – a lustre that was almost metallic.
Abruptly, Rosa turned back to the table. Her eyelids lowered a fraction; she gave Maud a look of fond assessment. ‘You are brave,’ she said.
‘Beg pardon?’
‘To have done what you did. What was needed. All by yourself. And to be here again, at his side. It is very brave.’
Maud saw her meaning now, and her woozy happiness – all the pleasure she’d been taking in this place and this singular couple, so convivial and ambitious and full of spirit – went in an instant, vanishing as if it had never been, leaving her with the cold and simple fact that she was sitting there in a swell restaurant, pickling herself in sparkling wine like she hadn’t a care in the whole bloody world, while her child, her baby, was away several miles to the north in the care of a woman who could be anybody, who could be anything, who could be about to bake the infant alive in an oven and there would be nothing, absolutely nothing, that she could do about it. She put down her glass. She felt panic rising. It quivered inside her, urgent and hopeless. It bolted her to the spot.
‘You mean with my daughter,’ she said. ‘You mean with Ione.’
The smallest crack ran through Rosa’s self-possession. She’d plainly thought they would discuss Jimmy – the importance of loyalty or something. Not this. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘your daughter.’
‘I chose the name. Ione Edith Whistler. On my own. While I was – just after. I had to tell it to Jimmy. He hadn’t—’
Maud was going to say that he hadn’t asked what the name might be, that she’d given him three days to do it and he hadn’t, so she’d snapped and simply told him, shouted it at him in fact; but recounting this, trying to untangle it all for the first time, proved too much. She slumped forward onto the table, pressing her cheek hard against the marble. A slick of liquid – tears or wine, she couldn’t tell which – made her head slip an inch to the left.
‘I thought I could just leave her.
I thought it wouldn’t matter. I—’
Rosa eased her back upright, wiped her face with the cuff of her silver-grey jacket, and proposed that they take some air – walk down to Piccadilly, perhaps. Maud was signalling her assent when the men came back into view on the other side of the room. They were speaking loudly in French to the head waiter, talking over each another with much gesticulation. Maud followed their approach with a prickle of resentment.
Jimmy noticed at once that something was wrong. ‘What’s this?’ he said. ‘An excess of cheer?’
‘She’s tired,’ Rosa told him, ‘that’s all. A little weak still.’
Sliding his wiry frame onto the seat beside her, Jimmy plucked Maud’s hand from her lap and squeezed it between his. ‘Is everything well, Maudie?’ he asked, gently as you like. ‘What’s the difficulty here?’
Maud reclaimed her hand. ‘Nothing,’ she sniffed. ‘Honest.’
July 1877
Lord’s Cricket Ground, Jim swiftly decided, was a charmless spot on which to pass a fine summer’s afternoon. It was little more than a broad, dull lawn, a few streets away from Regent’s Park, hemmed in by depressing terraces and withered nursery gardens. There was something, perhaps, in the contrast between the luminescence of the sportsmen’s white costumes and the smooth green carpet upon which they played, but brief observation of the game itself – much milling about, punctuated by sudden thwacks and shouts, and frantic, inexplicable rearrangements – demonstrated to Jim that he would never understand or care for cricket, even if he lived to be a hundred years old.
He was there, of course, for a very particular reason, wholly unrelated to sport. By the day’s end he was determined that Whistler would be reinstated as the cher ami of the Leyland family. He would be the confidante of the wife, of the children, and of the husband too. Once again there would be dinner invitations, and visits to the opera, and trips up to Speke Hall, the Leyland country pile. And he would be allowed access to his Peacock Room, for the first time in half a year. He would be able to make a full and proper photographic record of what he’d done there, and expunge this corrosive suggestion of imposture once and for all.
The first encounter, nearly a month earlier, had genuinely been one of chance. Mrs Leyland had been seen across a drawing room, in a dress of powder blue, listening with the slightly pained attentiveness of a polite person enduring a tedious conversation; yet looking, it had to be said, tremendously well nonetheless. Indeed, the intelligence in her face, its beautiful tenderness, had made Jim’s breath catch very slightly in his throat. There had been a certain caution in him as they’d spoken. The saga of the Peacock Room was still much discussed in society. Many, he understood, were inclined to view him as a vulgar, self-promoting vandal, a foreigner with no understanding of honour or manners, who had traduced his patron’s trust; reacted with petulance to a generous fee; disregarded and then deliberately contradicted Leyland’s wishes, slathering valuable antique leather in bucket-loads of blue paint. And of course – perhaps most seriously of all for these blasted English – it was claimed that he’d made a gentleman’s home into an exhibition hall, with press nights, newspaper reviews and an unending procession of visitors. It had seemed entirely possible that Mrs Leyland might want nothing whatsoever to do with him.
But no. The connection forged during the painting of her portrait had survived. Her smile had been dry, faintly teasing; it held a memory of jokes, subtly shared, at the expense of those around them.
‘Should I strive for rapprochement, madam?’ he’d asked. ‘Is there hope?’
‘It will be hard,’ she’d replied, ‘most certainly. You know what Frederick is like. But there is always hope, Mr Whistler.’
A fortnight later they’d taken a drive in the Leyland carriage. It had been extremely pleasant, with much gossip and laughter, like old times almost – but only Mrs Leyland had been there. Jim had the sense that the rest of them might be avoiding him, or even unaware that the meeting was taking place. As he’d left, however, she’d mentioned this fixture at Lord’s: two Cambridge colleges, one of them her son Freddie’s, meeting during the summer recess to play for the relief of a pauper school in Maida Vale. The whole family would be present, she’d added. He’d understood her at once.
In the days afterwards, Jim had convinced himself that it was in fact a very natural progression towards the restoration of goodwill, somehow both rapid and agreeably unhurried; and when the envelope had arrived bearing the orderly, sloping hand of Frederick Leyland, his immediate thought had been that the wife had spoken with the husband. That she’d brought him round. That their rift was to be mended and the philistine tamed right there and then. That the value of the Peacock Room had been recognised even, and the Leyland commissions might conceivably resume.
The letter inside had been short, a dozen lines or so – headed with a ‘Sir’, finished off with a ‘yours truly’, both clear signals of war – and it had stopped Jim like a clock. The two of them, Leyland had written, were publicly known to be in a state of absolute and enduring opposition. In riding out with his wife, Jim had taken advantage of the weakness of a woman – yes, those really were his words – and had placed her in what he termed a false position before the world. Any further contact had been prohibited.
For a week Jim had stewed, occupied by Maud’s return from her confinement, and nagged by a most unwelcome sense of having been outmanoeuvred – of the Peacock Room being gone for good. Then, while out at the Café Royal the previous evening, he’d consulted with the Owl, whom he’d been keeping apprised of the situation. As usual, the Portuguese had been able to see in an instant that which eluded less nimble minds. His advice had been unequivocal.
‘Why, my dear chap, you must attend the cricket ground. Mrs Leyland is a tactician. One would have to be, with a husband like that. She has engineered a final opportunity for you to say your piece. The perfect opportunity, I might say. No, no, Jimmy – you must attend. You must go before him. It is the only way.’
So there Jim was, clad in white cotton duck and a straw boater, ready to patrol. His plan was to remain at a distance for a while, assessing the Leylands’ mood and selecting the optimum moment for his approach – perhaps just after Freddie had scored a wicket or whatever they were called. There would be a great cheer; he would stroll up, applauding with hands raised, calling out ‘bravo!’, and as one the family would turn towards him. Mrs Leyland would beam and beckon for him to approach. Her husband would be rather less pleased; Jim was confident that his wife would have worked on him a little, though, upbraiding him for that outrageous letter and laying out the situation in a manner so reasonable and objective that even the British businessman would heed it. He’d be flushed, furthermore, with his son’s sporting success – the son who’d always held Jim in such amity and regard. The fellow would have to give Jim a chance. A decent hearing, out there on wholly neutral ground. Yes, Owl was right. It really was ideal.
But a problem soon arose. This confounded game took up an unreasonable amount of room, two or three acres by Jim’s estimation, obliging the spectators – of whom there were a good number, a few hundred at least – to cluster thickly around the edges. It made the careful scouting he had in mind completely impossible. He was in amongst them from the start, these wealthy families and crowds of well-to-do youths, stuck beneath a shifting lily pond of parasols, unable to see more than a few yards in any direction. He might stumble across the Leylands entirely by accident – the timing of their reunion, and the climate of his reception, determined only by the whim of the gods.
Fortune, however, was on Jim’s side. Halfway around the cricket ground’s circumference, between caps and boaters and a variety of summer hats, he spotted the Leyland girls, perched atop a mustard yellow landau to get a better view of the proceedings. There was Florence, looking characteristically truculent; she would have seen the Amber and Black, he supposed, on the wall of the Grosvenor. Some appeasement would be required there – an explanation, somewhat dis
ingenuous, of the artistic necessity of the change. Fanny, the eldest, was next to her, in a cream gown with a dark stripe. A woman of twenty now, she was out in society, being touted around for the purposes of marriage. And on the end, closest to him, was Elinor – Baby, they all called her – the youngest, but along with the others looking noticeably older to Jim’s eye – about fifteen, he guessed. She had been his most devoted companion of the three, always making him gifts of flowers and hopeless scraps of needlework, and he had applied himself to her portrait with special dedication. The child had been taken in blue, like Gainsborough’s boy, with a result almost equal to his painting of her mother.
The sisters had arranged themselves upon the open-topped carriage in a charmingly jejune attempt at elegance. Their attention was very much on the game and their elder brother’s performance in it – and rather pointedly not upon the gaggle of students who stood nearby, talking loudly and larking about, doing all they could to draw the young ladies’ notice. Jim smiled, recognising both roles; and then Baby – whose display was a touch less committed than that of Florence or Fanny – noticed him standing there. Her indifferent expression screwed up into an antagonistic little pout.
It was a spear, quite frankly, driven into Jim’s heart – yet another wound to an organ pretty much riddled with perforations already. He wanted to appeal to her somehow, to launch into an old jest perhaps, or recite a favourite rhyme. The girl was nudging her sisters, though, alerting them; and Florence was shuddering, yes, actually shuddering at the thought. Neither would so much as turn in his direction. Very well. So this would be difficult. It was foolish, really, to have thought otherwise. Jim carried on towards the landau, inserting the eyeglass. His cheery hail went unacknowledged.
Mrs Whistler Page 7