by Ella Carey
He raked his hand through his hair.
“Ewan, while I’m training to be a musician thanks to the value of The Things We Don’t Say, I’m working long shifts in a supermarket so I can eat. I teach private students, and every paycheck goes straight toward the interest repayments of the loan. The school has loaned me a Guadagnini violin to play—it’s become part of me; I’m extremely attached to it. As far as I know, I could have it for my entire career. I don’t know if you have any idea what it’s like to hold a priceless instrument in your hands, to have the opportunity to nurture it, to make it sing and soar . . .”
He wouldn’t meet her gaze.
“Then there’s my grandmother. Everyone who knows anything about the Circle knows that Emma loved Patrick Adams. She is strong, a passionate, talented artist who worked hard all her life. But have you any idea what it might be like for her now that you, a random stranger, have come along and announced to the world that the person who fed her soul for more than sixty years lied to her instead?”
His lips wrenched grimly downward.
“You come along when she’s more than ninety and say to the world that Patrick never painted her, even though he always told her that he did? Emma made great sacrifices for her relationship with Patrick. He was gay, but Emma loved him in spite of his relationships with men, in spite of the fact that he could never be the man she needed him to be.”
“Laura—”
“No, Ewan, Emma gave Patrick Adams a home, she supported him so that he could paint, and he famously gave her a place to rest her weary head whenever she needed him. They are to be buried next to each other in the churchyard at the village nearest Summerfield.”
Laura glanced up at him, and she swore his eyes were glittering, but she had to finish what needed to be said.
“Your announcement that the universally recognized symbol of their love for one another could be based on a falsehood will destroy something—it will kill her faith in him, in the person she loved. If Emma dies with your allegations hanging in the balance, I could never live with myself. You need to retract your statement. And I need you to do so now.”
Silence hung between them.
Laura waited a few beats. She lowered her voice even more. “I want you to announce that you made a mistake. Put this right.” She pushed the newspaper that lay between them closer to his side of the table. Ball in his court. He had to make the next move.
The old men at the counter laughed at some joke or another. They seemed content, happy; no one was messing with their precious lives . . . because life was precious. Emma’s life was important. She, as an individual, deserved respect toward her memories, her story, not some jackass coming along and messing everything up.
“Laura, believe me, I understand where you are coming from, and I hate this, but I cannot retract the statement.” Ewan’s voice hit like bullets out of a gun. “I just can’t . . .”
“Did you hear anything I just said?”
“How much is the loan?”
“One hundred thousand pounds. There was no way I could afford to go to the college under any other terms. Like I said, I’m working two jobs to pay off just the interest until I get a position with an orchestra. But without my tuition, I have no hope of playing to the level that I need to attain in order to get a job in an orchestra or to have a career in music.”
Ewan tented his hands.
“The bank,” she went on—there was not a chance in heaven she was going to give up—“is threatening to recall half the principal in two weeks because the authenticity of the painting is in doubt. You’ve thrown it into doubt. Emma knows the painting is Patrick’s work. We need you to rescind your statement.”
“There’s no other way of guaranteeing the loan? Your parents? Family?”
“I don’t have parents with a trust fund in place for me. If that’s what you’re asking.”
“No.” He looked at her, his expression dark.
Laura fought a derisive laugh. Look at him. He had his first-class path—expensive education followed by fine-arts courses at a top university, then a job as an appraiser followed by a partnership in the chic art gallery in Mayfair—written all over his face. How could he possibly understand hours and hours of practice, alone, in her unremarkable bedroom in a small, nothing special village in deepest Hampshire?
“I’m sorry. I wish I could help. But I can’t. Taking out a loan and using art as a guarantee is spectacularly risky. I’m surprised the bank allowed you to do it.”
“Patrick Adams was one of the leading figures in modern art. The bank has had a relationship with Emma for years—they allow paintings to guarantee loans, Ewan. It’s not something they don’t do.”
“But still.”
“If I can’t pay them back that half principal in two weeks, money that we are supposed to conjure out of the blue, then the bank can and will recall all Emma’s assets instead. But her furniture and her own artworks don’t amount to nearly what’s required. She never achieved the recognition or fame that Patrick did. Her work sells in the hundreds, not the thousands of pounds, and she rents her houses, both in London and in Sussex. She always has. So she’ll lose the homes she’s lived in for decades and have to move, aged ninety, into much cheaper accommodation. Away from the Circle’s two spiritual homes—the places that fed both their art and their souls.”
Ewan paled.
Laura focused on his untouched glass of beer.
“I am so sorry, Laura.”
“We know that Patrick painted Emma in the South of France during the summer of 1923. Before that, he made preliminary sketches of her in preparation for what was going to be a most unique work. Patrick never painted people he knew, you see. But still, he painted Emma. Doesn’t that tell you something about The Things We Don’t Say?”
“I understand the Circle’s theories and I know about Emma Temple and Patrick Adam’s relationship.”
“How on this earth could a student or a copyist have any hope of capturing her inner truth, of capturing what moves anyone when they look at the portrait of Emma, in the way Patrick has done?”
His jaw tightened into a tight, hard line.
“Patrick gifted the portrait to Emma. He told her he painted her. What possible reason or motive would he have had to lie to her about it?”
“I wasn’t there. You weren’t there.”
“Emma was.”
“I can’t lie professionally.”
“Can you honestly say that you are an expert in the Circle’s art? Because with all due respect, it seems very odd to me that we haven’t heard of you until now.”
Ewan raised a brow, but when he spoke, he sounded more resigned than cocky. “I worked as an appraiser at Sotheby’s for twelve years, specializing in twentieth-century British art. It’s also what my gallery handles—and it has done so since the early decades of this century.”
How predictable this was turning out to be.
Ewan reached a hand across the table, leaving it halfway between them. “Tell me something. How is this affecting your music? Can you still play?”
Laura swallowed the lump that appeared in her throat. “It’s up and down.”
“What are you playing right now?”
She glanced at him. If she was not overwhelmed by his perfidious actions, she would say that the expression on his face seemed genuine. “Bach and Bartók.” She frowned.
“Bach is my favorite composer,” he murmured in turn. “You know, it’s funny, I always come back to him.”
Salesman, she thought, and realized how Emma-like she sounded.
A car approached up the narrow street, its headlights shooting a distinct beam of light in the darkness that gathered under the murderous black clouds.
At this moment, Laura was unable to find any words to say.
CHAPTER TEN
Provence, 1913
Emma ran her hands down her paint-smattered smock and hovered while Thea, Beatrice, and Lawrence inspected her and Patrick’s hard w
ork at the chateau. She regarded her shoes—flecks of green and ochre decorated the brown leather lace-ups, colors that were resplendent in the murals decorating the walls of Thea and Beatrice’s entrance hall.
Emma had no doubt about Patrick’s talent, having worked with him these past weeks; were she honest, she regarded Patrick’s vision and creativity as far superior to her own. For her, painting was like a slow burn—it was the one thing she relied on. It was always, always there. But for Patrick, it was as if artistic inspiration struck like a series of wild flames, each one needing to be tended until it burned out, and then he moved rapidly on to the next.
She’d become enraptured with the way he flew from thinking about the project at Beatrice and Thea’s chateau to his own private projects. Ideas came to him throughout the day while they worked together, lighting him up like streaks of gold embedded in rock. He’d decided, stunningly, to paint a circle of men in the end, inspired by the ancient Greeks.
The muscled men posed in a series of glorious formations, their arms linked, some dressed in the classical robes of the ancient world, others only half-dressed, some of them naked. Their bodies were painted in a bold, figurative style against a background of mottled sky and vibrant grass. Goddesses looked down upon them with approval. Each male form was in a state of movement, causing the eye to move, in turn, around the room, creating an effect where the viewer felt at no distance from the work. Time did not matter. Their beauty—that was eternal. Their strength was their vulnerability.
Patrick and Emma had painted from dawn until evening for three weeks straight. It was vigorous, exciting work.
Lawrence took a shot with his camera, the noise ricocheting through the echoing space. “I have good news, Patrick,” he murmured, his eyes still on the breathtaking, larger-than-life images.
Thea and Beatrice remained quiet, their expressions ones of contented admiration.
“I’ve managed to get six of your paintings accepted for a major Post-impressionist exhibition next year,” Lawrence said. “You’ll be exhibited alongside Picasso, Matisse, and Gauguin again, but this time, the exhibition will be a major public event. I’m hoping that exhibiting Picasso and Matisse in such a major way will finally open the British art world to their striking talent. And I want you to be shown right alongside them as Britain’s answer to modernism.”
Patrick rested his paint-stained hand on the stubble that flecked his chin. “I am completely honored. But Emma did half of this. It was an equal proposition for us. She should be represented too.”
Lawrence glanced across at Emma. “I’m always going to be putting Emma’s work forward. We’re hoping to get your two latest French pieces into the exhibition, Em.”
Emma held out a hand to Lawrence. His hair was disheveled, and his eyes were bleary. She knew he was taking no breaks here in France, and back in London he was building a reputation for racing off to an art meeting in Brussels, then returning to London and attending a party straight after he arrived back. He was like a man in a whirlwind—art critiquing, writing, and lecturing, and now he was on several boards; on top of that, he was setting up a collaborative art and design workshop in London, to which he’d asked both Patrick and Emma to contribute. His plan was for artists to share in the profits of the sales. He’d found premises for a potential gallery and workshop in Bloomsbury’s Fitzroy Square.
Thea took off her round spectacles and swiveled around from her close inspection of the murals. “The fact that you’ve painted men in a house full of women delights me. You never lose your sense of humor, Patrick.”
Patrick smiled, a lazy, sexy smile; Emma couldn’t help that thought . . . then she admonished herself. She’d loved working alongside another artist. No, she’d loved working alongside Patrick. But what happened when they returned to London?
She and Calum would live in Gordon Square, while Oscar moved about. Out here in France, she’d been able to work so furiously only because she had left her baby in the care of the wonderful nanny she’d found for him and because Ambrose had taken a thoughtful interest in her little boy. She spent time with him in the early mornings, and in the evenings she would play with him before he went to bed. Back in London, she wanted to spend more time with him—that was a consolation, and not a small one.
But Emma looked down at the way the shapes fitted together on Thea and Beatrice’s perfectly polished floor and fought the feelings of inescapable loss that roamed around inside her at the thought that this project was over. Would she ever have the chance to work with Patrick so closely again?
Emma ate lunch on the terrace with everyone, only to remain lost in her own particular thoughts. Baguettes and ripe tomatoes were tempting and full of color, along with local cheeses and wine. Patrick was in fine form, leading the conversation, delighting in showing Thea and Beatrice a little kaleidoscope in which he was placing a moving reel made up of tiny paintings he’d done. The exquisite patterns ran in front of the viewer as they twisted the kaleidoscope reel. He’d been trying to mimic the transient nature of sensations, with the unique idea that as each image came up, one would feel a new sensation as it passed. He had used collage, color, and pattern to achieve this effect. Even though he and Emma had agreed that realism was probably their natural means of expression, they were still playing a little with abstract at times.
“Em, how did you find working alongside Patrick?” Lawrence asked, his voice sounding as if out of the blue.
Emma looked at the way he twirled his wineglass around on the table. She suspected that his gray eyes read her thoughts sometimes behind those thin-rimmed glasses he always wore.
“Won’t you find it somewhat dull going back to working alone in London having painted alongside the dashing Patrick in the South of France?”
Do shut up, Lawrence, she wanted to warn. Don’t say the unsayable. Be quiet, for goodness’ sake. To her horror, she felt her cheeks burn. Silence fell over the table. She sensed Patrick watching her with the intensity of a flame.
“Tell me, Thea and Beatrice, in which village do you buy your bread?” she asked, keeping her tone as even as the smoothest of lakes. “It is the best I’ve tasted.”
She knew Patrick’s eyes remained on her, and she smiled and smiled at Thea.
But Lawrence, darn him, roared with laughter. “Darling Em. So typical. Where do you buy the bloody bread?”
“In Uzès,” Thea answered, her measured tones matching Emma’s to a T. She arched her brow. “And bread, Lawrence, is an inordinately serious subject here in France.”
Beatrice began a loud conversation about an exhibition in Aix.
“Promise me you won’t fall in love with him,” Lawrence said in Emma’s ear. “Everyone does. Not you too.”
She lifted her chin. “Do tell me about the design workshop you are conceiving in Fitzroy Square, Lawrence. I think it’s a marvelous idea.”
Emma didn’t look at him. She knew what the expression on his face would be—eyes downcast with the hurt she was causing him. She hated to hurt him. And yet, she couldn’t stop the flush of excitement that spread through her at the thought of the party that Beatrice and Thea were holding to celebrate the completion of the murals here in their beautiful chateau tonight.
Once twilight had slipped into velvet darkness, Patrick arrived at Emma’s studio door freshly washed and dressed for Thea and Beatrice’s party. She’d spent a couple of hours working on her current painting after they’d returned from inspecting the murals, and now, she felt curiously naked in her smock as he stood in his dinner suit in the dimly lit room.
“They let me into the house,” he said, surveying her up and down. “Lawrence and Ambrose were in the middle of some political discussion. I thought I would come up here and keep you company instead.”
Emma wiped her hands on a cloth. Turpentine and the deep smell of oil paint had imprinted their strong scents into her skin. She’d fought with a flush of worry over Lawrence this afternoon, and yet here she was, devastatingly attracted to Patr
ick. What a roundabout we all play on when it comes to falling in love.
Emma placed the cloth on her workbench. In any case, she reminded herself, no matter who was in love with whom, Patrick was right. It was a relief not to have to discuss politics and economics all the time.
And yet she did sometimes wonder whether she was deliberately looking to find a part of her circle of friends that was exclusively for Patrick and herself. No matter how much she fought to create a free, new style of family that broke the confines of what she had endured, sometimes it still seemed that the tightest circle was the lonely bubble in which she found herself. But maybe that was the way things were in life. Was it possible to ever truly know and love another person entirely? Thank goodness for Calum, for her baby. She smiled at the time she’d spent playing with her two-year-old boy earlier this evening in the garden.
Emma glanced up at Patrick and couldn’t resist smiling even more at how handsome he looked. Whatever the answers were to her questions, whatever barriers she had to face, it seemed particularly vital right now to live in the moment, because that, Emma realized, in the end was all we had. Particularly with the talk here in France about neighboring, frenetic Berlin being on the march. Germany had become an explosive mixture of modern technology and nationalism, with a kaiser who was restless and wanted a new shining navy to compete with that of his British cousins. Downstairs, Emma knew that Lawrence, Oscar, and Ambrose were talking of the new Balkan War. Whatever the outcome, they all agreed on one thing—total avoidance of conflict; killing and hatred went right against their pacifist beliefs. All Emma’s male friends would do everything they could to avoid actual fighting in any war.
She stood up and made her way across to her open bedroom door.
“I suppose I should take a bath,” she said, pulling off her smock to reveal her skirt and blouse.
She started to unbutton her shirt, feeling a little reckless as he followed her into her bedroom. But if freedom and tolerance was their philosophy, then there had to be no boundaries at all. All should have the freedom to love whom one chose at any time . . . and Emma was well aware that no one had a choice with whom they fell in love.