by Ella Carey
“Coffee? Or would you like tea?”
“Coffee,” Laura said. “Thank you.”
Each piece was given a chance to show off its beauty here on Ewan’s walls. Laura simply had to wander around the room, taking her time to look. The art was too beautiful to be scanned or dismissed, no matter who the owner was.
Once he came to stand next to her, she reached out for the coffee and took a sip.
She faced him, but as she did so, her eye caught at something. An easel. And on it was a painting, a beautiful, clear rendition in the same cobalt blue as the box painting she’d been drawn to the moment she walked in the door, but this one was of lines, clear blue lines reaching, Laura thought, into eternity.
He put his hands in his pockets and looked at the floor. “Graduating from art school and announcing I was going to take the leap straightaway and paint didn’t seem like such a sensible plan to me.”
Laura glared at the easel.
“Hang on,” she said. She put the coffee down on a side table. “Where did you train?”
“Slade School,” he said.
Laura hugged her violin tight against her chest.
“Let me help you,” he said.
“What?”
“I should pay your tuition. I can’t sit by and watch you lose everything. Not after hearing you play Bartók—”
“At least you know who he is.”
“I know who he is.” Ewan leaned against the kitchen bench.
“Of course you do,” she murmured. “I can’t accept your offer to fund the huge amounts of money that I need for my college tuition, Ewan. But I do need to ensure the legacy from my grandmother’s relationship with Patrick.”
“And I should have known.”
She waited, looking up at him in the still, quiet room.
“I should have known that any granddaughter of Emma Temple’s would be incredibly special. Her fire and talent are within you. Laura, you must keep going with your music.”
Slowly, she moved over to the kitchen. She placed her empty coffee cup down on the bench. “I’ll see myself out,” she said, coming back to pick up her violin. “You know what I want you to do, what I need you to do. I’ve told you why.”
“Would you have told Emma to give up her art if she were in your circumstances, Laura? Didn’t Patrick rely on Emma to help him financially?” His voice came from behind her.
She didn’t turn around. “That was different.”
“How?”
“If you don’t know the answer to that,” she said, “then you know nothing at all about the way they were with each other.” She closed her eyes at the sound of his sigh. “You know what I need you to do. I can’t accept your money. But I think you knew that already. The answer . . . what has to be done is simple. You just need to understand the truth about Patrick. You might know a lot about art, but you see, I know the truth about Patrick and Emma, and that’s why I also know that what you’re saying is false. You just need to realize that too, and when you have, I’ll be waiting to hear it.”
Laura walked out.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
London 1923
Emma and Patrick returned to London as a couple. With Lawrence’s considerable support their careers flourished, but it was Patrick’s flamboyant genius that was becoming famous, while Emma continued with her daily practice by his side. He’d had three shows in the capital entirely devoted to his work, and his name was beginning to be starred in catalogs when he contributed to other exhibitions. His collaborative, decorative work carried out with Emma and sold through Lawrence’s workshop became wildly fashionable; Vogue picked up their screens and lampshades, and their modernist style was so popular that at one showing, all their pieces sold out in a great crush in one hour, with the profits going to Lawrence’s cooperative and the thirty artists all sharing in a little of the margins. Meanwhile, Emma remained of the acute opinion that Patrick’s talent was far superior to her own. And she kept on producing her quiet, reflective pieces that were picked up by the occasional collector. She was content to work for her work’s sake and because there was nothing she would rather do.
She saw Patrick as more inventive and more imaginative than she would ever be, and she remained fascinated with his love of conceits in both art and life—by the way he made her laugh and was always the center of attention at any party. Mostly, she was in constant admiration of the way he could draw up a miracle directly with his brush.
When Lawrence told her one afternoon in Gordon Square that he felt her work had deeper feeling and integrity to it than Patrick’s did, that her art held a steadiness that was missing in the frivolity of Patrick’s work, Emma turned away and shook her head.
But Lawrence was insistent. “Underneath that calm luminescent surface we all see, I worry that you are not happy,” he said. “Your depth of feeling and the sadness I can see in you shows in your work. I worry that it’s become part of you. Something you’re living with. Something you’ve accepted as your lot.”
Emma glanced across at him—the man she’d found comfort with, briefly, when her marriage was falling apart. But Patrick had so eclipsed him since then in her head that she’d not given Lawrence a second thought romantically. Now he was working for both her and Patrick, tirelessly organizing exhibitions, promoting their decorative work, while his other career as a London art exhibition reviewer went from strength to strength.
He remained close in the inner Circle, but he was out of the circle that was Emma and Patrick’s tight-knit orb by a mile. She created a bubble, and she saw this as her core and her reason for living. While she and Patrick were sometimes lovers, she would never be everything to him. To love him was to accept him as he was. It was beautiful, heartbreaking, and a means of complete contentment all at the same time.
It was, in a word, life.
But why her circles always had to sharpen into triangles was the constant rub.
And at the same time, here was Lawrence. She could not be dishonest with him. She could not lead him ever to believe that she was in love with him when she wasn’t. While guilt sometimes plagued her about Lawrence loving her and while she worried that Patrick might feel about her the way she did toward Lawrence, only one thing remained clear: she was in love with Patrick.
So she went on. Since the war, she’d gained several devotees in Patrick’s strings of lovers. Because she reached out the hand of friendship to them, Patrick’s lovers, in turn, felt safe in her presence. Patrick’s affairs came and went, sometimes more than one at a time: there had been an artist with eyes the color of wintergreen moss; a shy, sensitive musician who lived with his sister and mother; and a displaced Russian aristocrat. In the turmoil of all this, Patrick always reassured Emma that she was the one constant he adored in his life.
Meanwhile, London society viewed Emma and Patrick as an undeniably bohemian couple, gossip about his homosexuality and speculation about their relationship lending a thrilling air to how they were seen. But Emma viewed her love for Patrick as final, and she drew her circle of old friends close around her after the war. She became adept at creating her own safety net.
“I am thinking of going to France for the summer,” she said, glancing up at Lawrence. “But before that, I’m going to Italy with Oscar and Calum for a short holiday. I find myself in need of a break from London for a while.” She and Oscar kept in touch over their son and the practicalities of Oscar’s help funding Summerfield and the Bloomsbury house. She’d managed to keep his friendship, making it clear that she accepted his relationship with Mrs. Townsend. She’d even started decorating a bedroom for him so he could stay occasionally out at Summerfield, scouring local markets to pick up old books and small comforts, things she knew that he liked.
Lawrence lit a cigarette, holding it in his pale, tapering hand. He pulled the sleeve of his light tweed jacket up to his elbow and regarded her through the smoke. “Taking Patrick to France? Having him all to yourself in the very country where he won’t be illegal? And
yet, will he have reason to be jealous if you go away with Oscar?”
Emma reached out and took the cigarette from Lawrence. “Italy’s only about sun. And I want to live an entirely antisocial existence in France so that I can paint.”
“Come on, you want Patrick to yourself.”
Emma couldn’t help but smile. “I’ve found a villa to rent in the middle of a vineyard in Provence. Don’t bring that little friend down with you, will you, if you come?”
“If you mean Coco, then I’m afraid I can’t grant your request. You can hardly expect me to—”
“It upsets the balance entirely when someone is wrong, Lawrence,” she said, staring out at the square.
“Coco is a wonderful distraction. Couldn’t you find the same thing for yourself?”
Emma blew out a smoke ring.
“I’m thinking of marrying her. Unless you want to change your mind about me instead?”
The room was filled with haze.
“Very well, then,” Lawrence said. “I could take a separate house down in Provence for myself and dear Coco,” he went on, “and we will not intrude our vulgarities into your . . . art.”
Emma sighed. “Oh, do shut up, Lawrence. You are welcome to stay with us.”
“Your life could be so much simpler, darling, beautiful Em. Why not be with me rather than in love with a man who is ‘that way’? I do worry that you are destined for a long agony of unrequited passion. It’s a cruel way to live, you know.”
Emma put out the cigarette, rubbing it into the ashtray until there was only a tiny stub left. “As I get older, I’m coming to believe that being in love is less and less important, but loving people is more so. Friendship is the thing. Loving one’s friends. And accepting them as they are.”
Lawrence removed his glasses, his eyes taking on a startled expression for a moment. But then, he took in a breath. “You know, the view is that you are giving up far too much of yourself for him.”
“Fortunately, I don’t believe in the ‘view.’” Emma rolled her eyes.
Lawrence was silent.
“I have far too much respect for you than to treat you with anything other than the utmost of honesty,” Emma said.
“And that is why I’m in love with you.”
“So we go round and round. I am fond of you. You know that, my dear friend.”
He was silent.
Lawrence was starting to grate.
Oscar and Italy, then France and Patrick were just what she needed.
“Mas d’Aurore is in a field of wildflowers,” she said. “Anemones and marigolds among groves of olives. When I went down there to inspect it, the almond trees were in blossom.” She faced him, her expression serious. “Work is the only thing that is constant, Lawrence; what a mercy we both have that passion in our lives.”
Lawrence reached his hand out to her, and she let him hold it for one brief moment before she stood up and walked over to the window, where she looked out at the verdant square, the emerald-green of it seeming rich and delicious with possibility.
It was another two months before Emma, Calum, Patrick, Oscar, Lawrence, and Coco traveled on the famous Blue Train from Calais to Saint-Raphael. Patrick had wanted to remain in London for a month to complete a series of paintings for an autumn exhibition. After the ferry ride across the channel, during which both Calum and Emma were ill, Emma was glad that she’d booked a little luxury for them all on the well-known train to the South of France.
“You have outdone yourself once again,” Oscar said. “Your genius for organization shines, as always.”
Emma rested her head on the velvet seat, trying to take in the elegant walnut that lined the interior, the plush cushions scattered on blue velvet headrests, the waiters who brought around canapés that Emma could hardly look at, let alone eat. She attempted to push aside the nausea that hung over her like an unwelcome mist. Emma had only returned from her short break to Italy with Oscar two weeks earlier, and she felt they had reached an even deeper understanding of each other; their regard and respect would, she felt certain, always remain strong—a friendship that was based on shared memories and one boy. She knew she was lucky to have such an easy, if unconventional, marriage.
Normandy’s green fields flew past outside the carriage, lush pastures that would soon give way to dramatic hilltop villages, where valleys carved by wide-flowing rivers would, in turn, unfold into the south, with its olive groves, grapevines, and sunshine.
She was thankful right now for two things: the first was that Patrick had no tricky young men on the boil, and the second was the addition of the young Lydia to their household, as companion for Calum, help for Emma, and general housekeeper as well.
Lydia had arrived breathless for her interview back in London with a story about how affected she’d been by the sight of an ex-serviceman with his tiny son begging on the streets of Hampstead. The boy’s legs, Lydia told Emma, were like a pair of twigs. Lydia announced in no uncertain terms that she was not interested in giving up her own employment should she ever marry anyone and had no problems with Emma’s aspiration to work all her life. What was more, Lydia did not bat an eyelid at Emma’s unusual household and her bohemian choice of friends.
“Are you really going to be a recluse, Em?” Lawrence asked as he brought his glass of champagne up to his lips and the train rattled on.
“Oh, absolutely,” Emma said, eyeing them all: Lawrence with his sketchbook on his knee, Oscar smoking his pipe and gazing out the window, Coco reading a little red novel that she’d produced from her bag . . . and Patrick staring out the windows at the changing landscape . . . What was he seeing through those eyes? “I have everything I need right here in this carriage,” she said.
But the run-down train from Saint-Raphael to Mas d’Aurore was as hot and crowded as the Blue Train had been serene. Jagged cracks ran across the windowpanes, and the old green seats were tattered and torn. By the time they arrived at the station, taking several minutes to alight with their odd collection of easels, a gramophone, and Roorkee chairs, Emma thought she might faint. Calum had been sick twice on the journey, and even the formidable Lydia was swaying and looking green.
“I think I should take Em, Lydia, and Calum to sit down,” Oscar said.
“We’ll sort the luggage and find a cab.” Patrick rolled up his sleeves and smiled at Emma, his eyes brightening below his shock of dark hair that had curled in the heat.
She reached out a hand, and he took it, holding it for one moment. “Go and sit down. You are exhausted,” he murmured. “Sip lemonade, preferably pink, darling.” He wandered off with Lawrence and Coco, whose eyes glittered with excitement. She’d not been sick in the least.
Once they drew up outside Mas d’Aurore, a small farmhouse set among the vines of its famous neighboring chateaux, Emma stepped out of the hansom cab, threw her head back, and took in an enormous breath. A range of hills overlooked the vineyards, which glowed green in the heat. It was Summerfield out in France.
Patrick stood behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. “This is perfect. Well done. Although I’m not surprised. I have no idea what we’d all do without you.”
Emma leaned back into him. “I want to sleep for a week. But I suspect I’ll be up at dawn tomorrow. The light down here fascinates me, and the colors are as striking as ever. I can’t wait to get my paints out and begin.”
Oscar and Lawrence stood around, both men with their hats off, wiping their foreheads in the searing Provençal sun. Calum started kicking a ball around on the lawn, his lanky, youthful movements almost elegant in the sun, while the young Lydia, with the determination of a saint, wiped her perspiring forehead and joined in.
“I don’t want any guests at all,” Emma murmured. “This is heaven.”
“In that case, don’t look at six o’clock,” Patrick said. He let go of her, and Emma made an about-face, her heart sinking as a rotund gentleman made his way toward the farmhouse.
“British,” Emma muttered
. “Wonderful.”
“It’s our neighbor—the famous Colonel Bird!” Oscar took great struts toward him and held out his hand.
The man approached and removed his hat, revealing a bald head and a face that was dappled with drips of sweat. His shirt hung loose over his trousers, and his tan shoes, while clearly smart and new, were dusty from the dry soil on the roadway. “My dear friends, you will be exhausted,” he said. “I am your neighbor, Colonel William Bird.”
Lawrence and Patrick made their way over to shake his hand.
When the colonel looked directly at Emma, his face lit up in genuine delight. “And the famous Mrs. Temple,” he said. “Enchanted . . .”
“Delighted to meet you,” Emma murmured, taking his warm outstretched hand and staring at the hard ground beneath her feet.
“Dolly and I will leave you to . . .” He stopped. “Settle in. And then get on with your art and . . . whatever else you do . . .” He coughed.
Emma had to turn away to stop herself from laughing out loud.
“We are a motley lot of expats here,” the colonel went on. “Most of us have abandoned England for one reason or another . . .” He looked at the hills a moment.
Emma looked at him with more interest now.
“Dolly, you see, my dear companion, is not socially acceptable back at home. We are free to live as we choose in France, no matter what side of the blanket we are from.”
Emma sighed. “I assure you, being acceptable in society doesn’t concern us one bit. But yes, I do understand how limiting social restrictions can be.”
The colonel cleared his throat. “Well, I hope you will all find yourselves most welcome in France, and you are, of course, utterly acceptable to us.”
“I’m afraid we might be terribly dull,” Emma said. “I’ve come here to paint.”
The sound of Calum’s youthful whoops resonated around the valley, and Lydia’s and Coco’s high-pitched giggles provided a joyous, birdlike accompaniment.