The Painted Face

by Jean Stubbs

  ‘Tell madame,’ Lintott ordered, holding her gaze as he spoke, ‘that I’m here until I’ve found out what I want to know. That I don’t mind how long I wait in order to get it. And that there’s money involved.’

  She looked at Lintott as though he were a cockroach. He made himself as comfortable as he could on the slippery horsehair, and took out his notebook and pencil.

  ‘Tell madame, for a start, that we know about Mrs Carradine’s love affair. That I know she knows even more. And I want names and details.’

  ‘She says never, sir. She spits on your money.’

  ‘Oh Lord,’ said Lintott humorously, ‘oh, dearie me! Tell madame that she’s an accessory to a kidnapping, which might mean a prison sentence.’

  ‘She says you may kill her if you wish. She tells you nothing.’

  ‘Tell her that Mr Nicholas Carradine sends her his kindest regards, and asks her to help him for old times’ sake. Show her this card of his, in case she doesn’t believe me.’

  Berthe read the card, and the message scrawled on its other side, put it in her pocket, nodded.

  ‘Ask the lady to sit down, lad,’ said Lintott, satisfied.

  ‘She says that M. Cluny cannot be left alone so long, that he is now like a child and it is not always pleasant.’

  ‘Then ask madame to take us to wherever he is. Bless you,’ said Lintott, ‘I don’t mind sitting in the old gentleman’s room. I’ve seen silly old folks afore.’

  The attorney was in the kitchen by the fire, a rug over his knees, firmly bound to his chair by a stout strip of linen. He had completed the circle from first to second childhood, resembling a very old hairless baby. The visitors delighted him, and he commented on them to himself in an excited undertone. Le Jallu was disgusted, Lintott imperturbable. Berthe scolded her charge automatically and offered him a biscuit which he sucked in vast contentment.

  ‘Tell the lady that nobody’s going to be hurt or upset by her information, and Mr Carradine could be helped by it — leastways, I hope he can!’

  Recollection was an old wound, laid open.

  Berthe Lecoq had come to Paris as a country girl, ignorant of everything except the raising of children, since she was the eldest of a large family. M. Lasserre had heard of her because her father worked in one of his small vineyards. Berthe had disgraced herself by bringing an illegitimate baby into the world. That it died within days of its birth simply meant she had milk to give, and an abundance of baulked affection. The stigma remained.

  So Lasserre engaged her, and Madame put Gabrielle into her arms. They kept her comfortably, paid her very little, and supplied a great want. Gabrielle grew into a young woman. Whatever desire Berthe could grant her was granted. They were closer to each other than to anyone else, until the girl fell in love with a young man and they wished to be married. By this time Gerard Lasserre was nibbling at his capital, keeping up appearances, and retreating behind a steady sale of small properties. He had no dowry to give his daughter, and the young man had nothing but his salary and his prospects. Ambitious, clever, close on thirty, Gabrielle’s lover stood as yet on the lower rungs of the great French civic ladder.

  ‘What was his name?’ Lintott asked.

  ‘Lucien Fauvel.’

  ‘Did your mistress have a nickname for him, beginning with D?’

  ‘She may have done. I don’t know of one.’

  ‘Just do me a service, will you, lad?’ said Lintott.

  He opened the Gladstone bag from which he had not been parted since he left Paris. He found the paper he was looking for. ‘It’s the list of passengers killed on that train, Mr Jallu. Can you see if Mr Fovell’s name is among them. I don’t know how to spell it. It is?’ He was dumbfounded. So much for Carradine’s theory. ‘Show me, will you lad? F-a-u-v-e-l. I’ll remember that. Thank’ee. All right, let her carry on.’

  Then Walter Carradine had appeared, offering what the Lasserres regarded as being of prime importance: un bon parti, a good match, and no demand for dowry. Only Berthe knew what the girl suffered before she gave her consent. But M. Carradine was kind and generous, accepted all her conditions, took Berthe along with her mistress and paid her handsomely. They were content. The little boy Nicholas was charming. In the first year or so of the marriage the little girl Odette was born. And on this child Gabrielle poured the same enraptured love Berthe had lavished on her charge twenty years before.

  ‘I understood how Madame felt, because I had known it,’ Berthe said.

  But Madame was restless. She found London dull, she found her husband duller. She made frequent trips to Paris. She bought her clothes there. Then Lucien Fauvel turned up, still in love with her, still hopeful.

  Berthe had never experienced passion — a peasant’s by-blow could hardly rank in that exalted category — but she recognised it. So Madame did wrong to become his mistress? So Berthe did wrong to act as cover and go-between? Well then, they did wrong! She wanted Madame’s happiness above all else, but they were careful. The little Nicholas was with them, his eyes and ears were sharp. Naturally, neither M. Carradine nor the Lasserres must suspect. So M. Fauvel met them as if by chance, in public places, and chatted as though he were a friendly acquaintance, and made his assignations. Letters exchanged between them were immediately destroyed. Madame went abroad at certain times of the year, and he would wait until Berthe brought the news of her arrival. Gabrielle had invented an old friend, a Madame David, who was childless and often lonely — lest Nicholas should mention the man. And M. Fauvel was M. David, come to beg Madame to console the lady for a few hours...

  ‘That’s the D!’ cried Lintott. ‘My word, she covered up, even in a private diary!’

  But the boy Nicholas never said anything, nor questioned the man’s presence, nor discussed him, nor mentioned the fictitious name.

  ‘Better if he had, to my mind,’ Lintott observed. ‘Better all the way round. Children know without being told. The quiet ones bottle it up inside them. It can do a deal of damage. It did do a deal of damage.’

  The affair lengthened, deepened, became their all-in-all.

  ‘Lucky she didn’t find herself in the family way!’ Lintott said to himself.

  Le Jallu translated this also, rather more delicately, and brought a national reprimand on the Inspector’s head.

  ‘Frenchmen are not so uncontrolled as Englishmen,’ said Berthe scathingly. ‘They are more careful.’

  ‘Lucky she didn’t have any more children by her husband, then,’ Lintott retorted, annoyed. ‘That would have spoiled her game!’

  But Walter’s desires apparently surpassed his achievements. Lintott was mortified in the name of England.

  Then Fauvel was offered his first good post, in Switzerland. The strength of their liaison, the knowledge of final parting, brought them to crisis point. He begged her to bring the child and come with him.

  ‘And where did the late Mr Carradine figure in this plan?’ Lintott demanded, shocked and forthright.

  M. Carradine worshipped Madame. He could be persuaded to come to some arrangement in time, for her sake.

  ‘And what about his daughter?’ Lintott cried. ‘Translate for me sharpish, lad, and don’t sound so polite about it. Sound angry, like I am!’

  Le Jallu slapped the question down.

  But Berthe only said composedly that it would be very difficult, very sad, but M. Carradine adored Madame. In the end he would do as she wished.

  ‘Poor fellow,’ said Lintott. ‘A born loser, every time.’

  Still Gabrielle hesitated. She was too much the product of her upbringing and environment to cast it so wilfully aside. Her position as Fauvel’s mistress would reflect adversely upon herself and Odette. Even with Walter complaisantly agreeing to divorce, which he might well not, her future seemed perilous. Besides, though the child was fond of Fauvel she loved her father. Gabrielle saw good society turning its back, whispering. She saw Odette barred from the privileges of wealth and connections which were hers by right. She fear
ed scandal, ostracism, insecurity.

  Fauvel had waited three months for her to make up her mind. Desperate, he approached Berthe. He offered her a permanent place by Gabrielle’s side. He protested that his intentions were honourable, his future assured and promising. He would provide for all of them. He would eventually make Gabrielle his wife.

  He asked for trust, for faith, for a last risk in the name of love.

  ‘He pleaded his cause to some effect!’ Lintott commented drily.

  ‘He promised I should die in their loving arms,’ said Berthe. ‘I believed him. Madame wept and prayed and would move neither backward nor forward. I made up her mind for her. I knew what was best. I gave him the child, so we should follow him.’

  The silence in the kitchen was so intense that Lintott recorded every tick of the clock on the wall. The old man sucked another biscuit and contemplated the fire. Le Jallu sat, head bowed before this saga of human passions, and awaited further instructions. Berthe stared beyond them into immeasurable sorrow.

  ‘I can guess what happened,’ said Lintott finally, ‘but get her to tell me, lad.’

  Berthe took Odette for the walk from which she would not return, and came home with a half-truth. Fauvel had met them, sent Berthe on an errand while he amused the child, and disappeared. In her hands she held the proofs of his excuse: a packet of cigarettes, a carton of sweets tied with a ribbon.

  ‘Madame was distracted. I had to think for us all. I advised her to tell M. and Madame Lasserre that Odette was staying for a few days with Madame David. Madame sent me to M. Fauvel’s lodgings. I knew he had gone. I knew which hotel he was staying in, with the child. I went to him to ask what I should say. He gave me a letter for her, which was supposed to have been left with his landlady. Again, he insisted that he loved her, that he meant well by all of us. He told her the child was cared for, but longing for her Maman. He gave her his address in Switzerland and begged her to follow them.’

  Gabrielle, trapped and hysterical, forced to hide her feelings from everyone but Berthe, faced yet another problem. Walter had promised to join them for the coming weekend. She could not endure a further crisis. She telegraphed him to postpone the visit. She thought of a private detective, of the police, or a part-confession to her husband; and discarded the ideas as impossible.

  ‘I knew Madame was at breaking-point,’ said Berthe implacably. ‘My heart was heavy for her, but I knew where she would find happiness...’

  ‘Did you?’ shouted Lintott. ‘Did you? What gave you the right to play God Almighty, I wonder?’

  Unmoved by his outburst, Berthe continued, ‘The child had been gone a week. The Lasserres were curious, the situation was becoming desperate. I knew which train was taking M. Fauvel and the child to Switzerland. On the morning of its departure I took Madame’s breakfast tray. I told her what I had done.’

  Gabrielle stared at Berthe for a long time. Then, vanquished, she said, ‘So be it.’

  News of the accident came hours later.

  ‘We could not conceal everything, except from the one Madame now needed most her husband. I told Madame Lasserre the essential details, so that she and M. Lasserre could act for us, advise us. They were distressed, they were shocked, but they were practical. We had to find out whether the child was alive, injured, dead. M. Fauvel’s mother was his only relative. We had to confide in her, too. M. Lasserre took all upon himself, all.’ She lifted her arms and let them drop in terrible resignation. ‘It was he who thought of saying that the child was visiting friends who would meet her. Then we heard that M. Fauvel and the child were killed. M. Carradine was informed. By the time he arrived the Lasserres had thought of everything. And Madame was so ill that we feared for her life, too. So M. Carradine was content with what they told him, thinking now only of Madame.’

  ‘They closed ranks,’ Lintott said quietly. ‘Covered up. Made it look right, so there wasn’t a scandal. Is that it?’

  Berthe nodded. ‘They were practical. It was all they could do for Madame. We buried the truth with the child.’

  ‘You never bury the truth,’ Lintott replied with conviction. ‘It comes up and catches you unawares, one way or another. Aye, twenty years after! It’s like the law. It might seem a bit on the slow side, but it’s dogged, it don’t give up, and it never shuts its files until the case is finished.’

  She cared nothing for his philosophy.

  ‘And so Mrs Carradine turned against you when she’d lost them both, eh? Blamed you for the lot, told her husband some cock-and-bull story about not having you round her because you reminded her of the child? Gave you a letter of recommendation so you shouldn’t starve, and your fare home? But Mr Carradine turned up trumps, didn’t he? Sorry for you, sending you money — and you accepted it, after the dirty tricks you’d played him!’

  Her obsession shielded her from Lintott’s contempt.

  ‘How she suffered. How she suffered. I travelled with her and with M. Lasserre to identify the child. It was a dark time. Many others were there, searching for those who belonged to them. Sometimes I thought the dead were fortunate, when I heard of the injured. We spoke little. Only a few words. We were in a dream from which we could not wake. There was a mark on us that would not be washed away, as though we were unclean...’

  ‘You wish me to translate still, sir?’ Le Jallu asked in a low voice.

  ‘Yes, carry on, lad. It may not be evidence, but it’s merciful.’

  ‘...they identified the nun by her cross. They did not weep. They said it was the will of God. I heard those who cried against Him, but I did not cry. Who was I to complain to Him? He had punished me, and I was cast out. And yet there were those saved who should have been taken. I heard stories of pity and terror. Of a criminal, badly burned, whom they healed for the guillotine. Of a child nobody wanted, whose reason had been impaired, taken to an orphanage. The nuns, whose sister had been killed, stayed on to comfort those who were in trouble. I never saw them weep. I did not weep, but that was because my heart was frozen. God tormented me, through the child, through Madame. I died a thousand times, watching her. She would not believe, you see, sir. Even when they showed her the bracelet. We took her home. She would not let me see her, touch her, speak to her. Only M. Carradine spoke kindly to me, and Madame Lasserre was practical. I was a year in that dream. I woke to nothing. I was nothing. I am nothing.’

  Suddenly she wailed, hands over eyes, heedless of them.

  ‘I think we’d best go, lad,’ Lintott said quietly, ‘no good thanking her, or giving her money or the old bonjour. It’d be out of place.’

  They breathed in the spring air simultaneously and looked at each other.

  ‘God is not mocked,’ Lintott observed reverently, ‘and whatsoever a man shall sow that shall he reap. He’s a regular old harvest for her sins, ain’t he?’ Jerking a thumb towards the shrouded house.

  ‘You find poetry and philosophy in this also, sir?’

  ‘Of a very dark sort, lad. Yes. You stick to your sunshine and mayflies, and the passing of love and beauty. It might be a bit on the flighty side, but it’s a deal more palatable!’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Lintott’s departure from Paris removed a sense of restraint. His rare letters, written stiffly in a stiff hand, took care of Carradine’s earlier concerns. But they were no longer signposts pointing to a hidden answer. Nicholas had found himself without Lintott’s assistance. The Inspector’s search simply reminded him that he had tried to uncover a truth, to come to terms with the past. And truth had been discovered, as it usually is, in an unlikely place; and was very simple, as it usually is, being in this case self-deception.

  His revelation in the studio during Claire’s first visit, rousing forgotten hurts, forgotten angers, also promised new growth. He saw his obsession with Gabrielle as a childish thing, and with many falterings and regressions was putting it away from him. New attitudes were developing and with them new work was possible. He had been saved and recognised this unexpected gra
ce with humility.

  Only the thought of the dead child, played as pawn by Gabrielle’s lover, wounded him. She had been innocent, and died fearfully. He had wanted to throw that terrible bracelet into the Seine, to bury it, to put it irrevocably from him. Then he realised that this, too, must be accepted. So he was careful to remember mother and daughter with compassion and regret, and to remember that they were yesterday.

  Today was that intimate distance between sitter and painter. Today was exasperation and laughter, argument and tenderness. Today was a woman self-willed and vulnerable, who could be defeated by nothing but personal truths — and so utterly routed by these that he dare not speak them. Today was a Parisian coquette who knew everything about men in theory, and nothing in practice. Today was a half-educated mind picking up and examining every crumb of knowledge he fed to it, and asking for more. Continuez! Today was wanting this woman so much that he could not contemplate another, and this woman keeping him at a distance even though she wanted him too. Today, in a name, was Claire.

  The pose had wearied her. She arched her back and yawned. Clasped both hands behind his neck, stretched again, and lapsed into smiling immobility. She was thinking of something other than Carradine, so easy with him and sure of him that she could forget his presence. He was entranced by her faults: the defensive manner in which she tucked both thumbs into her palms; the fine lines of temper that drew her brows together; her insistence on reason when she was at her most irrational. He was enchanted with a voice which could be velvet or steel; with a face which could be sallow and plain in anger, gentle in repose, lovely in pleasure, comical in pique.

  As a painter he absorbed the folds of her absurd dress, the light pulse at the base of her throat, the rebel fringe and sober chignon. He became the hundred contradictions that were Claire.