The Midnight Witch

by Paula Brackston

  8.

  On this morning it occurs to Bram that his life has never contained so many women, and that those he encountered when he lived in Yorkshire were altogether more straightforward than the ones who now challenge him. He has tried, and failed, to paint two flower girls and a barmaid, with mixed success. One thought herself rendered plain, another objected to the color of her hair, and the third thought he had invited her to his studio for an entirely different purpose altogether. Then there is Gudrun, who has become even more prickly than is her habit since he rebuffed her advances. And now he is faced with painting Charlotte and must not fail, as he sorely needs the money he anticipates her delighted parents handing over for a pretty portrait.

  But still his head is filled with thoughts of Lilith Montgomery. He might well have been able to keep his musings in check, had she not taken it upon herself to accompany Charlotte to each and every one of her sittings. This means that he is required to paint while Charlotte sits, or rather lies, semiclad in front of him, unable to hold a pose for more than a few seconds without fidgeting; Mangan, having produced some wild sketches, paces like a caged lion, gesticulating with hammer and chisel but getting very little in the way of actual sculpting done; Gudrun stomps in and out of the studio with, apparently, the sole intention of upsetting people; Perry dithers about proffering materials and tools and generally getting in the way; Jane fights a losing battle to keep the children, and George, either quiet or out of the house; and Lilith sits, still as a sphinx and quite as inscrutable, observing the chaotic proceedings with what Bram can only imagine to be disdain.

  It isn’t until she shifts slightly to return his gaze that he realizes he has been staring at her.

  “Shouldn’t you be looking at Charlotte?” she asks, with the faintest hint of a smile. “She is the one you’re painting, after all.”

  Bram feels himself blushing like a schoolboy. He pointedly dabs at the palette of oil paints poised on his arm. He tries to think of a witty response, but there is too much noise around him, and too much confusion in his own mind. What is clear to him, by Lilith’s manner and the few words she has spoken during these sittings, is that her opinion of him seems to have softened somewhat. He wonders what has brought this about. The first time he encountered her in the studio she had him down as a hopeless opium user, a bad friend, and a likely dangerous influence on Charlotte. Now she appears to be if not quite friendly, at least not openly hostile toward him.

  And that matters to me, though it should not. Why would I care what she thinks? We can never be so much as friends. I would be a fool to think otherwise. Maybe I am a fool, then, for I cannot deny I am affected by her presence.

  He attempts to concentrate on his painting. Charlotte is a glamorous beauty, who offers a decorative and elegant image to capture. Despite the noisy atmosphere of the studio, and the not inconsiderable distraction of having Lilith there, he is moderately pleased with his work.

  Perry appears at his shoulder.

  “Oh, I say, Bram. That is rather good.”

  “It is some way off being completed yet.”

  “Even so, you must be pleased. Has Mangan seen it?”

  Bram shakes his head, glancing over at his mentor who is working with ferocious determination on an area of stone that would, beneath his talented hand, evolve into Charlotte’s chin. “I’m waiting for the right moment,” he says.

  Perry laughs and pats him on the back. “Courage, my friend! You know you won’t be happy unless he is,” he points out before hurrying off to answer his master’s cry for the floor to be swept and the stone dampened.

  To his surprise, Bram sees Lilith get up from her chair and come to stand in front of his easel.

  “Can I see?” she asks, almost shyly. “Or would you rather I didn’t? I don’t want to trample on any delicate artistic sensibilities.” There is no mockery in her tone, he thinks, rather a genuine wish not to offend.

  “Your feet are far too elegant to do any trampling.”

  “Don’t you believe it,” she says. “When I was a child my elderly dancing instructor would hobble from the room after each session, claiming I had deliberately sought out his bunions.”

  “And had you?”

  “On the whole I think I’d rather keep my distance from a bunion, wouldn’t you?”

  Bram smiles at her, and is so engrossed in studying her face he forgets she has asked something of him. After a long moment she raises her eyebrows.

  “You have only to say if you don’t want me to look at it until it’s finished.”

  “What? Oh, the painting … I don’t mind. You can look if you wish. In fact, I’d like you to.”

  “Really?”

  “You are close to Charlotte. You will be able to see if I have captured her in the portrait. Success lies beyond a mere likeness, of course.”

  “Of course,” she agrees, stepping round to stand beside him. She considers the picture intently, first leaning in as if to examine the minutest brush strokes, then moving back to view the overall effect.

  After a while Bram can stand her silence no longer.

  “Please say something. With every passing second I am imagining a more damning critique.”

  “I’m really not qualified to offer a critique.”

  “You are a person looking at a portrait of someone dear to them. Your response will be valid, however unfavorable.”

  She turns to look at him now, subjecting him to the same rigorous scrutiny as she has the painting. “It really matters to you, doesn’t it? What I think.”

  “Naturally, as I said, you are Charlotte’s friend. And, no doubt, as a young lady of good … education, moving in society … well, you surely encounter many paintings. Many portraits. I expect you have, in fact, a perfectly well-developed sense of what is good art and what is not. As it were.” Bram is horribly aware that he is rambling but is powerless to stop himself.

  If she goes on standing so close to me and looking at me like that I shall have to kiss her. I’ve never wanted to kiss someone so much in my life. Now I’m being completely ridiculous.

  “So, you see,” he says, just a little too loudly, “your evaluation is indeed … worthwhile. Or will be, when you eventually decide to give it.” He knows he should turn away from her, mix some paint, perhaps, work at a corner of the painting. Anything, rather than just stand there, watching her watching him. But he wants to look at her. He wants to drink in every available second of her.

  At last she speaks, not for one instant taking her eyes from his.

  “I think Perry is right, it is rather good.”

  “Oh. Thank you,” he says, but he is not, in truth, thinking about the painting anymore. He is thinking about how Lilith’s eyes shine as she teases him. He is thinking about how clear and pale her skin is. He was thinking about how, even wearing black, she glows, somehow. He finds himself smiling at her, a broad, honest grin that he simply cannot hold back. And it is a smile that has very little to do with her appraisal of his picture. To his astonishment, and, were he to admit it, to his delight, she returns his smile with one of pulse-speeding loveliness.

  Bram Cardale, he scolds himself silently, what in God’s name do you think you are doing?

  * * *

  A minute before curtain up, Stricklend takes his seat in the front row of the balcony. He has timed his arrival with care. As a latecomer he would have drawn unwanted attention to himself, or even risked being kept out until the end of the first act. Had he arrived early, on the other hand, he might have been drawn into unwelcome conversation with someone in an adjoining seat. On the whole, experience has taught him, operagoers are a garrulous and sociable breed, given to striking up acquaintances based on a mutual liking for Wagner or Puccini, or a desire in common to participate in the activity of being an audience, and therefore responding to a performance as one amorphous whole. It would surprise no one who knows Nicholas Stricklend to hear that he does not share this taste for communal behavior. Indeed, on the occasions
where a simple desire to experience sublime music compels him to purchase a ticket, he does so in spite of, not because of, his fellow devotees. He would much prefer an auditorium empty save for himself and those on stage. On this particular November night, however, it is not the program that has lured him from the pleasant solitude of his apartment. He is not a lover of Mozart, deeming his work to be irritatingly frivolous, in the main. And he finds a theater full of those who seek out such light entertainment to have a childish buzz and fidget about it that is as tiresome as it is distracting.

  The orchestra plays well, and Figaro delivers his lines in a pleasing bass. Even so, the minutes pass slowly. Stricklend wants to wait for the story to be sufficiently underway that the audience will be giving it the greater part of their attention. If he waits too long, however, the call of the interval glass of champagne or light supper course will have them restless and looking about them, which would not suit his purposes. At what he decides is the perfect moment, Stricklend picks up his opera glasses and holds them to his eyes. They are his own, a pair he bought in Vienna some years ago, fashioned from pale silver, finely crafted, set in ivory, and with a silk cord attached so that they might be comfortably worn about the neck when not in use. Through the superior lenses, he can make out the youthful flush of Susanna’s throat, and the thickly applied kohl around her lover’s eyes. Opera singers, in his opinion, are best viewed from higher up and farther back. Slowly he moves the glasses and refocuses them on the figure sitting at the front of a private box to the right of the stage. He has an uninterrupted view of this particular box, which is why he selected his particular seat. The man framed in the ellipses of his glasses is evidently enjoying himself. He holds a large glass of red wine in one hand, and a sizeable cigar in the other. His eyes are unnaturally bright, suggesting his evening revelries began some time earlier, and that here is a man accustomed to partaking of the good things that life has to offer. His companions for the evening Stricklend recognizes as his wife, his brother and family, and one or two minor aristocrats whom he has presumably brought along to impress with the lavish way he entertains them and the erudition of his taste in music. Their expressions imply that good wine has gone some way to ensuring they will speak favorably of the evening, nevertheless. Stricklend wonders if they would be seen out with him if they knew him to be a practicing necromancer and a member of the Lazarus Coven. A senior witch, held in high esteem by his fellows. And a staunch supporter of the Montgomery household. It is this last fact that, to Stricklend’s mind, renders him an unacceptable obstacle. One that must simply be removed, lest he stand in the way of what the Sentinels’ desire. What Stricklend himself desires, above all else.

  Keeping the glasses trained on his intended victim, Stricklend takes a gentle hold of the silken cord with his left hand. The plaited slub feels pleasingly cool in the heat of the auditorium. Slowly he winds it around his hand, once, twice, gradually letting the cord tighten, taking up the slack so that the narrow rope starts to dig into the loose flesh between his thumb and forefinger. His lips move, silently forming the Suffering Spell he chose with such careful deliberation. As the ancient entreaties and curses fill his dry mouth, the man in the private box puts down his cigar and begins to pull at his starched collar, feebly at first, and then with increasing irritation. Soon he is tugging at his tie, releasing the neat white bow so that it falls into limp lines down his shirt front. His wife becomes aware something is wrong with her husband, and utters a small cry of alarm as she watches his wineglass fall to the ground and empty its contents into the dense wool carpet. The man staggers to his feet, one hand clawing at his throat, the other clutching the brass rail in front of him. Others in his party seek to come to his aid, clustering round uselessly, fanning him with their programs, calling for water, powerless to ease his distress. Stricklend can sense the man attempting to summon his powers as a witch to protect himself, but his actions come too little and too late.

  And all the while the notes of Mozart’s melodies drift about them like so much confetti caught up in a breeze.

  Stricklend tightens the cord and moves on to the Stopping Spell he selected for the occasion. It is a relatively basic piece of magic, perhaps lacking something in elegance, but he has used it several times before, and it gives reliable, and crucially, swift results. As he continues to watch through his opera glasses, he pulls the cord still closer around his hand, aware of the veins beneath his skin constricting and interrupting the flow of blood, in much the same way the air is being squeezed out of the gasping man opposite him. The wife has become distraught and sets up a wail that even the orchestra cannot compete with. The second violins falter. The conductor is distracted and turns to follow their gaze, causing the percussion section to crash into one another. Susanna pales beneath her greasepaint. The man in the private box has insufficient breath left to make any noise at all, so that it is to the accompaniment of women’s shrieks and a stalwart French horn that he finally pitches forward over the rail and plummets into the stalls.

  * * *

  As Bram approaches Number One Fitzroy Square the thrill of anticipation hastens his steps. When he had found the scarf pin belonging to Lilith on the floor of Mangan’s studio he knew he had the perfect excuse for calling on her. He would return the silver pin with its green tourmaline stones set into the small dragonfly, claim he had been passing anyway, that it was no trouble, and so on, and so on. Despite his determination to see Lilith, he knows he will have to deal with those who might not regard him as a suitable caller.

  I shall make certain not to be diverted by some overprotective servant. I shall insist on placing the pin in her hand and no other.

  Perry bounds past Bram and pulls the iron bell handle confidently. When he heard of Bram’s intention to visit the house he had insisted on accompanying him.

  “Can’t have you standing there all on your own. Don’t want you to look predatory, seeking her out,” he had said. “And besides, you’ll probably think better of it at the last minute if I don’t go with you.”

  The bell sounds deep within the house and the door is opened. A young butler peers out at them through suspicious eyes.

  “Is Lady Lilith at home?” Bram inquires in his most confident voice.

  “Is Her Ladyship expecting you, sir?”

  “No. She is not. I have something to give to her. Something that belongs to her and was lost. I have come to return it.”

  The butler frowns. Perry springs forward, proffering his calling card.

  “Peregrine Smith. Would you be good enough to tell Lady Lilith myself and Mr. Bram Cardale are here and hope very much she will receive us?”

  The butler takes the card and, reluctantly it seems to Bram, admits them into the hallway. Perry lets out a low whistle and hops about examining portraits and objets d’art.

  After what feels like an interminable wait, Lilith appears at the top of the stairs. Bram is aware of his pulse quickening, and his mouth becoming nervously dry at the sight of her. He cannot recall a woman ever having the effect upon him that Lilith does. She descends the stairs, her simple black dress showing off her tiny waist and accentuating how tall and slender she is. Her hair is secured in a loose bun today, which nestles in the nape of her long neck.

  Remain calm, Bram tells himself. If she only glimpses the strength of my desire for her she will more than likely be frightened off.

  “Mr. Cardale, Mr. Smith, what a pleasant surprise.” She greets them formally, but warmly enough, Bram thinks. The butler remains a few paces off like a sturdy guard dog, on the alert for the first hint of trouble.

  Bram offers the scarf pin to Lilith. “I found this,” he states a little more bluntly than he had intended. “In Mangan’s studio. You must have dropped it when you attended with Miss Pilkington-Adams. I … I wanted to return it to you. As quickly as possible. I thought you might be looking for it,” he finishes. He notices for the first time that there is still oil paint beneath his fingernails. He snatches his hands away.


  Lilith smiles slowly. She turns the pin over. Light flashes off the gem-studded wings of the little dragonfly.

  “Why, thank you,” she says. “I had indeed missed it. I am fond of this pin—it was a present from my late father. It was so good of you to bother to deliver it to me in person.”

  “It looked … important. I thought it best not to entrust it to a messenger or post boy.”

  “And you brought a guard, in case some robber should try to wrest it from you?” she teases, nodding in Perry’s direction. Perry grins and looks as if he might say something but Bram successfully silences him with a harsh stare. Lilith says, “I think the very least I can do after such diligence is to offer you tea. I’m afraid Mama is indisposed this morning and is staying in her room.” She turns to the butler. “Radley, would you ask Cook for some of her splendid shortbread and a pot of Darjeeling?”

  She leads her visitors through to the drawing room. Although winter is settling in now, there is still plenty of golden sunshine falling through the tall windows, which are framed by swags of silk and brocade of palest blue to match the eggshell walls.

  “What a pretty room,” Bram murmurs.

  “Mama would be pleased to hear you say so. She prides herself on having an eye for decor, and took to the Art Nouveau movement wholeheartedly. Father was not particularly enamored of it. He said all the flowers made him want to sneeze, even if they were only painted or carved in wood.”

  “But she has shown restraint I think.” He wanders about the room, taking in the Tiffany lamps and a fine Mackintosh table. Lilith follows him as he explores, while Perry takes a place in a window seat at the far end of the room.

  “Oh!” Bram cannot help exclaiming, “That is a piece of Lalique, unless I am mistaken,” he says, stopping next to an elegant vase of frosted glass with a fine pattern of leaves twisting up it.