The Parasol Flower

by Quevillon, Karen;

  Of course, I remembered the comment in Barnaby’s email concerning the “nasty business.” I’d learned that Charles Peterborough had performed studies of the natives in the Malay and Indonesian archipelagos as well as Australia. Physiological tests, the “evidence” of which informed the most contentious section of The Descent, two chapters concerning the sexual traits of human beings. Whereas Alfred Wallace had collected everything from crayfish to orangutans, which he’d brought back to England pickled in barrels, apparently Charles and Eva Peterborough felt that to fully understand humans they had to study humans. Whether that study represented Barnaby’s “nasty business,” I wasn’t so sure. In any case, I wasn’t prepared to do what he wanted: namely to prove, by mentioning the “nasty business” reference, how closely and keenly I’d been hanging on his every emailed word.

  I said, “Is The Descent considered to be their magnum opus, so to speak?”

  “It’s the only book-length volume she wrote. He wrote several others.”

  “She wrote? I thought it was a—”

  “Oh, it was published under both of their names.”

  We broke off to receive menus and order drinks. Were we eating? the server wondered. Yes, we were eating a proper lunch, he informed her. I wanted to ask Barnaby if he’d found out; did his family have any more of Hannah’s paintings? This seemed so direct as to be impolite, however. I inhaled and smiled as my companion addressed his menu with as much gusto as he’d welcomed me.

  “The operative question,” he said, folding his menu at last, “is what to consider that document. Do we address it as a contribution to truth? As a historical artifact? Literary work? Triptych to a global adventure tour? Is it a book of theory, a sort of philosophy of sexuality, or is it a scientific treatise?”

  “Uh. What do you consider The Descent of Man?” I countered. “Isn’t the Peterboroughs’ book some kind of response to Darwin?”

  “If we treat it as a contribution in the service of scientific truth,” said Barnaby, “if we do so…then we can discount The Descent of Woman thoroughly.”

  “Can we?”

  He shrugged, making an it’s-always-debatable expression. “Well, I can tell you the dominant view is decidedly not that sexual differences arose from sexual selection mechanisms. Nobody followed Darwin in that direction.”

  “And is the dominant view correct?” This was as an innocent question on my part. It set Barnaby off, and he seemed pleased for the opportunity to put me straight. In the process, he told me about his own research in the field of lepidoptery, which centered on moth migration and various accomplishments associated with moth migration. In the midst of his monologue we ordered our food. By the time it arrived, Barnaby had exhausted himself.

  “Now tell me about your own research.” He unrolled his knife and fork from their napkin. “You’re looking for this Inglis woman.”

  “I am, yes. Her artwork.”

  “Quite. She herself would long be mouldering, wouldn’t she?”

  Irrationally, I felt a pang of sadness. Surely I hadn’t been expecting to meet the woman? I reviewed for Barnaby what I’d seen at Fulgham House, as well as Alvin’s unveiling of Strangler Fig for me at Kew Gardens. I worked in how difficult it was proving to be to find any more of Hannah’s art, and I expressed hope that his family might have some pieces in their collection.

  Soberly, Barnaby said, “I did speak to Celia.” He wiped his hands, fished in his shirt pocket, and produced a heavily creased piece of paper. Squinting for a moment at it, he turned it over to me.

  It was a typewritten list. A very long one. Some line items had been crossed out with a blue fountain pen; others involved additional penciled-in information. I scanned the numbered entries until I found what I was looking for.

  16. H. Inglis, Murdo and Jane (2 pieces, companion; oil)

  17. H. Inglis, Still Life of Cut Flowers (oil)

  18. H. Inglis, The Cabin (sketch, charc. on paper)

  19. H. Inglis, untitled of Sikh servant and fruiting tree (oil)

  20. H. Inglis, Nude House Girl (oil)

  21. H. Inglis, The Parasol Flower (oil)

  My hands shook a little as I moved my beer aside and my bowl of curry. Beside the entries for 20 and 21, someone had written: give to Tommy.

  “Do you, do you have these works?” I asked.

  “No, unfortunately not,” he said, forking off a chunk of battered cod. “Well, as you know, Murdo and Jane are at Fulgham House.” He took the sheet back and, pulling a pair of reading glasses from the pocket of his cardigan, reviewed the list with great care. “I believe the Trust also took the still life, and this one called The Cabin.”

  An annoying confusion. Miranda had told me the Fulgham House collection had no other Inglis works at all. “And the others?” I pressed on. “Does ‘Tommy’ have those?”

  He laughed. “Presumably. Celia and I do not.”

  “Does Celia perhaps know where I can find Tommy? Or how to contact him?”

  Barnaby sucked his bottom lip for a moment before shaking his head. “We’re not sure who he is. The list was probably drawn up by Charlotte. She was my grandmother, Charlotte Peterborough Munk. Or, you know, somebody working for her. But the list itself is sixty years old or more.”

  I hid my frustration with showier mock-frustration. “Oh, no! And so no idea who this ‘Tommy’ is? Do you think it was Charlotte who wrote that in?”

  “Well, it could be Thomas Ealing—he was a second cousin of Charlotte’s, apparently. Celia went through all this with me. You see, I’m afraid I’ve never taken much interest in these old dead buggers. Tory toffs, the lot of them.” He cleared his throat and gave me a rueful look. “Or it’s possible ‘Tommy’ was no relation at all. One of the estate staff, perhaps. An art dealer. A friend of Charlotte’s?”

  “Quite a close friend, to give him two oil paintings,” I observed.

  He looked frankly miserable. For a moment, I thought he was going to reach for my hand to squeeze it. “Charlotte may not have valued the pieces as much as you do, my dear.”

  How delicately put, I thought. I must look a fool to him. People like Charlotte Peterborough, people who lived in places like Fulgham House, had so much art they had to list it to remember it. They treated it like a commodity—bought, sold, dispensed with. I had no inkling of this kind of life. Barnaby was at least familiar with it.

  “Forgive me for being blunt, Ms. Roach, but I must ask you: why is this woman’s art noteworthy? Is it indeed noteworthy?”

  “I believe so,” I managed to say.

  “But art is subjective, isn’t it?” He shrugged. “Art is a subjective matter.”

  “Not merely subjective,” I protested softly. “There are elements—line, balance, composition, color—elements that can be judged on the basis of known standards and known strategies. Anyway, you can’t go discounting everything with a subjective element to it. Intersubjective,” I drawled the word. “How else could there be art criticism. Art appreciation. Art history.”

  “And yet Hannah Inglis has not been part of that history or that criticism, has she?”

  My fingers began tapping the table of their own accord. “I don’t know that that matters for considering the quality of the art itself.”

  “But you’ve just said it does.”

  “The question is why, then? Why has she been excluded?”

  I took a swift pull of my pint, a beer that he’d recommended, which smelled and tasted to me of meadows. Excusing myself for the toilet, I locked myself in a dimly lit stall to try to get some purchase on my motives.

  Hannah’s paintings had moved me. Because they were a contribution, I vowed, a true contribution. Not because they hadn’t been appreciated, she hadn’t been appreciated. I couldn’t deny that her gender and the lack of reception were factors of interest for me. Of course they were. I, more than Barnaby
, surely, knew how very alone she must have felt as she was making these works…. But how exactly did Hannah’s story matter to an appreciation of her art?

  Perhaps her art had been forgotten for good reason, and I had simply become obsessed with it in the way people became obsessed with stock car racing or comic book heroes or their local football team. I stared at my face in the tiny mirror over the sink, habitually going over as I did now, the pouches under my eyes and the blurring line of my jaw.

  Did I have a right to be angry with Barnaby? Yes, I decided. Not because he was clueless about his family history. He could have saved me a trip to Oxford. He could have just written back to me and said he’d checked into it, sorry, there was no art, he had no clue where else to look. Instead, I’d come all the way here and walked in circles for two hours; it had all been one great big tease. “He’d better be paying for this meal,” I told my reflection.

  When I returned to the table I found that he’d done just that and was chatting with the server. The two of them were discussing the sidewalk construction—some in’s and out’s with the city council. I thought I might ask Barnaby to introduce me to Celia. I considered how to accomplish this request without making it seem that I distrusted him, while also subtly pointing out that he’d wasted my time.

  “Did you like the unfiltered beer?” he asked when the server bowed out of the picture.

  “Yes,” I said decidedly. “Very much.” There was an inch left in my glass, and I set about finishing it.

  He played with his paper coaster and smoothed his dress shirt with a knobbled hand, shooting me furtive looks. A crusty old codger, that was the bottom line. Which is not to say I didn’t like him. On the contrary.

  He leaned toward me. “I have letters in my possession.”

  “Oh. Uh. Letters? You mean…”

  “Letters written by your Hannah Inglis.” He paused to enjoy the moment, a sly look on his face.

  “More letters?” I said, deliberately deadpan.

  He looked a little deflated, which pleased me. “More? I—well, I don’t know about that,” he said stiffly. “At any rate. You’re welcome to have a look at them.”

  I told him I’d love to have a look at the letters in his possession. I told him about what I’d found at the Academie Julian: namely, the Coles book. That Hannah had attended the academy in one of the first classes of female students and she’d left for Malaysia, possibly even before she’d graduated, but that she’d kept in touch with one of her instructors. Presumably the letters in Barnaby’s possession were more mundane, though perhaps more personal, if she’d been writing to one of the Peterboroughs.

  “She kept up quite a correspondence with this famous artist.” I smiled at him. “Mind you, I’ve only seen a few of her letters as they have been reprinted. Appendix A. Not the originals. A Frenchman named—”

  “Henri Godot.”

  We frowned at one another.

  Nineteen

  The Peterboroughs’ large and cluttered sitting room is stocked with objets d’art. Dreading and longing for the moment that Eva is finally finished flipping through her portfolio, Hannah flits from one exotic item of décor to another. Hannah’s plan is to let her art speak first and as much as possible. Far better that Eva Peterborough is moved to help her because she’s seen some promise in her work. Pity, in any case, seems out of the question. It’s not in this woman’s character.

  “Idlewyld,” Hannah says, unable to stand the silence any longer. “Was that the name of your English home as well?”

  “No.”

  The Peterboroughs’ estate is vast. It’s nestled in the lush, hilly countryside, about a twenty-minute cart ride upstream from Kuala Kangsa. Judging by the state of the coffee orchards, the plantation was abandoned long ago. Perhaps the family got a good price. Though they’d hardly needed one, by the looks of the opulent furnishings.

  “You’ve obviously traveled…extensively…” Hannah picks up a carved elephant tusk to examine the workmanship. “Is this from India?” she guesses. She’s seen nothing like it locally.

  “That’s a shiva lingam,” says Eva, glancing up.

  “Oh?”

  “In honor of the penis. A sort of penis idol, if you will. From the tantric religion of Goa.”

  “Oh!” Hannah puts the tusk down and bends to look at it. “Oh, I see what you mean.”

  “I think these are wonderful,” Eva says levelly. “Very bold. Expressive. There is something wavering about them, about these spaces, that…draws me in.”

  Hannah receives these compliments gratefully and, as the tea service arrives, answers the lady’s many questions about craft and subject matter. They even discuss her training and her life in Paris. Eva Peterborough may not be an artist but she’s obviously an educated and accomplished woman. It’s a pleasure just to talk with her.

  When their conversation finally slows, Hannah attempts to explain. “I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m here in the first place, Mrs. Peterborough.”

  “Please, call me Eva.”

  “Eva. The thing is, and this is why I thought of you, here, at Idlewyld… The colonel has forbidden me to paint.”

  “Forbidden you!” She laughs outright. “You’re serious.”

  “Perhaps not in so many words. But I—I have been warned.”

  “Hmmm,” Eva muses. “This has something to do with the Ridge Road ladies, I’ll wager. Mrs. Finch and her cautionary tales. They’re a fearsome bunch, aren’t they?”

  Hannah sighs audibly, which feels luxurious, but holds back her scorn. “I suppose they think they are helping me.”

  “People like that always do.” Eva adjusts her collar. “What do you mean you thought of me? To be frank, we hardly know each other.”

  It’s true. And the reasons for Hannah being there, making her appeal, are all patently self-serving. Swallowing, she vows to become a better human being. “Mrs. Peterborough. Eva. At the moment I have very few means, practically speaking, to keep painting. George has reduced my stipend and diverted the money to his tiger hunt. Which…I cannot see an end to.”

  “No end to it? Wasn’t that bloodied spectacle at the festival a tiger?”

  “Yes, it was. The colonel says he cannot be sure that one was the man-eater.”

  “There is no man-eater.”

  “Quite!” Hannah looks at her stained fingers with their bitten nails before thrusting them behind her back. “I may be able to manage as far as paints are concerned. However, I have no place to work. For a while, I was painting in the village.”

  “But?”

  She can’t bear to mention the confrontation at the Residency. “But that was not practical.”

  “Oh, my dear, surely none of it is practical.”

  “No, I suppose not.” Hannah rubs her eyes. “It was objectionable, then.” She shifts herself on the chesterfield. “They say I should stop.”

  “They?”

  “Everyone! All of the other residents!”

  Eva rests her chin on her fist for a moment or two. “Why do they say you should stop, Mrs. Inglis? It is matter of your reputation?”

  She nods. “It’s not that I don’t care about reputation or, what is the right word, ‘social graces’? I simply care more about art.”

  Eva smiles shrewdly. Could it be that Hannah’s misjudged the strange woman? Will Eva report to George or Lucy the latest installment of her foolish obsession to paint? There is nothing for it now but to press her case further. So she says, “I don’t exactly know why, but you’ve always seemed to hold an appreciation for the fact that I paint, Mrs. Peterborough. It’s obvious that you have an independent mind. I respect that very much. And I don’t believe the colonel would suspect anything if I were to…come here occasionally. He’d think I’m visiting you to socialize. That we are becoming closer friends.”

  Eva blinks slowly.
/>
  “Which of course I would like to do as well, to become closer friends. I really would.”

  She’s skipped over the major consideration: the Peterboroughs are recluses who live well outside of town. No one would find her here.

  “Let me be clear, Mrs. Inglis. You are requesting that I—that we—permit you to paint on our premises? And that we lie to your husband about it.”

  “No, no, I would lie to him. You need not have anything to do with him. Just as it is now.”

  “So: condone your deceit and the very practice you say your husband has already ‘forbidden.’” Eva’s expression is neutral.

  “I promise I wouldn’t be in your way,” Hannah hastens to add. “I had in mind to paint out of doors, you see. In the forest, with your permission. I needn’t come in the house at all.” She looks around her. The main house must be thirty rooms or more for the three of them. It’s hard to imagine how anyone could be in the way in a place like this.

  Eva refreshes her cup of tea. “You say you have no means to continue painting.” Hannah shakes her head warily. “And that you face opposition from your friends and your husband.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why don’t you stop?”

  “I—uh. I don’t know.”

  “I think you do. You’ve gone to a good deal of trouble to pursue something that, to put it mildly, continues to cause you suffering. Why?”

  What happened to the praise and memories of Paris? The woman is formidable when she wants to be.

  “Surely, given the circumstances, this is a reasonable question for me to ask.”

  “Yes, yes, of course.” Hannah says. “Of course it is. I suppose I don’t stop because I cannot stop. I need to paint.”

  “Explain.”

  “Only that I cannot stop, Mrs. Peterborough! I’m not sure if I ever could. Certainly not since the academy. I find that I need to make art. And I would like to try—” She draws a deep breath. “I wish to contribute. I feel that I have something to contribute to whatever it is that we’re all…trying to fathom. This life. Mostly, I admit, it’s personal need. Whether that’s selfish, I’m not sure. But whatever else is expected of me here, on earth, I need to paint. I’m sorry, but I don’t know how else to put it.”