The Elizabeth Papers (7 page)

Chapter 10

London, 14 August 2014

The ring of the phone in the studio was like an alarm. She set it loud so that she would hear it in the back garden or if she had music turned up loud. On this occasion, however, it was early morning, and she was scrambling to get the key into the lock. She just made it.

“Hello. Evie Pemberton speaking.”

“Hi. Hello, Miss Pemberton. This is Charlie Haywood. We met at Cork Street last week. I hope this is not a bad time?”

There was a beat of silence, as though he were considering whether he needed to say more. She recalled him immediately. His name had lodged in her brain, and the memory came back in an instant. It wasn’t completely welcome.

“Erm, no this is a fine time. What can I do for you?”

“Well, first of all, I wanted to say ‘sorry.’ I hope I didn’t give you the wrong impression at the gallery. I’m sure you don’t need charity dinners, and I’m sorry if it sounded wrong. You will have to forgive me for bad chat. I didn’t mean it.”

Evie did not know what to say to this. A candid apology did not match her notion of the kind of man Charlie Haywood was. She recalled his tall figure before her and the fit of his crisp, white shirt over his broad shoulders in the summer heat. His voice did not seem to match her notion of his arrogance. She was momentarily silenced by it.

“And secondly—in fact, I suppose, the main reason that I am ringing—is that I really did like your work. It was an impressive corpus, and I’d like to see more if you’d let me. I am sorry to ring so early, but I have a meeting on the King’s Road this morning, so if you were in your studio, I could come over after?”

She wasn’t entirely against it, but she wasn’t enthusiastic either. In her mind, she was conflicted. She thought of the swagger of his smile when he looked at her in the gallery and the sheer chutzpah of the man to ring up like this when she had brushed him off! Maybe she had misinterpreted him at the exhibition. Men were a foreign country to her now, and she acknowledged that she might have misread the signs. Then, she remembered the pathetic number of sales she had made, and the word “collector” danced around her brain. It wasn’t in her character to push him away when he was being so polite.

“Sure, that’s no problem. I am in the studio all day today. Come over whenever you like.”

“How about eleven?”

“That’s fine. I’ll see you then.”

Charlie replaced the receiver in his Notting Hill flat and gazed out of the sash window over the streets below. It would be good to find out more about her and her sister. She might actually know some useful information herself. The rumour was obviously out there in the family because that is how Cressida Carter found out about it, so maybe Evie knew the truth or an element of the truth. Cressida Carter. Just her name turned his stomach. Since receiving Mr. Darcy’s letters, she had bombarded him with emails and calls, suggesting all manner of avenues for his enquiries. She was obviously thinking of nothing else. For Charlie’s money, she had no idea how to ferret out a secret.

Simon had done a good job of amassing a few documents, and to kill time between now and his visit to Fulham, he sat down to read them. Right at the top of the pile was a PhD thesis from 1975 on the privately commissioned work of leading portraitist of the mid-nineteenth century, Alfred Clerkenman. Charlie was about to start tutting at Simon’s lack of focus when he spotted a “Darcy” in the index. He turned to the page and read. It spoke of a momentous group portrait—a fine and detailed conversation piece. It was said to be a monumental work, the kind of art that melts its observer into a space on the floor. The painting was called
Mrs. Darcy and Her Daughters
and was commissioned in 1826 by Fitzwilliam Darcy. It featured his wife and their five daughters, ranging in age from five to eleven. The girls were seated around their mother in her private sitting room, variously holding books, toys, and musical instruments. It was judged to be an exquisite example of Clerkenman’s work, perfectly showcasing his eye for detail and human sympathy. The few who had been admitted to its presence had been astonished. And it was “the few” because for some reason Fitzwilliam Darcy had adamantly refused to allow it to be exhibited publicly. He had been approached by a number of galleries, but the answer was always “no.” After his death, his son followed the same line, and after that, Clerkenman went out of fashion, and the galleries stopped asking. The thesis author had seen it but only by private arrangement with the owners in their home.

In 1975, this painting was still behind closed doors. Where was it now? Charlie chewed it over in his mind. There was no illustration, only the description, and his imagination burned with it. It sounded beautiful, but would it be? It felt like it must be meaningful, but why and how? How could he square this painting with the cuckolded Mr. Darcy? He had been mulling for a long time, and his coffee had gone cold when he realised that it was time to set out for Fulham.

When he knocked, she opened the studio door so fast that he wondered whether she had been watching through the peephole. She said “hi” and “welcome” and swept her honey-blonde hair back from her face. She was slightly flushed and wearing a loose-fitting shirt with the sleeves rolled up over tatty Levis. There was a fleck of blue paint on her Converse trainers. Somehow, he knew she was more herself in this outfit than she had been in the dress at the gallery. The curves of her body under the camouflage of her costume didn’t escape him. She had Buddy Holly jangling quietly in the background, and the unexpected familiarity of it struck him. A memory came to him of watching his parents jiving around the church hall to “Peggy Sue,” his mother shrieking with laughter, flinging her arms out with joy. He felt a sense of comfort that was almost alarming. Evie made them tea in the tiny galley kitchen at the back of the studio, and they talked about the weather and his journey. Charlie’s mind dwelled involuntarily on the light shampoo fragrance from her hair as she handed him his cup, and he battled to set his wayward thoughts aside. He congratulated her on the show, and she explained that it was her first and she was still buzzing from it.

“So you should be.”

“Thank you.” She smiled, and it warmed him. “It never would have happened without my old tutor from Camberwell. He has contacts at the gallery and has been pushing for it for ages. I don’t deserve him. I do have some stuff here that was not exhibited if you’re interested. There wasn’t room for it, and it doesn’t all ‘fit’ if you know what I mean. But if you like, I can shunt stuff around so that you can see it.”

“That would be great. Yes, please.”

She immediately stood and started shifting dusty canvasses about and pulling sheets from their faces to display them. The air was suddenly full of paint dust, so she opened the French doors to the back garden.

“Sorry! I should have done this first. I forget how dusty they get.”

The sunlight crowded into the room, and the green of the grass reflected on her porcelain face.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Charlie, suppressing a cough.

He looked at the previously obscured images and saw that she was right. They would not have “fit” with the work exhibited at Cork Street. But they were really good. They were vibrant, interesting, and challenging in an unlikely way. He liked them. He
really
liked them. He was struck by guilt that he had lied to her in order to see these pieces, and he was wretched to think that she would have hopes that he was a real, long-term scale buyer. He could buy a couple, of course, and would. One thing he was not lacking was cash, and the thought of having an object made by her hands in his home reassured him greatly.

“These are great, Evie. More ballerinas as well. They would have exhibited well alongside the big piece.”

“Thanks. I know, but there was so little space, and these were the early ballerina paintings. I was worried that they were rather immature, so I left them out.”

“You’re too harsh on yourself. I love them.”

“Wow. Strong words. Thank you.”

Was she teasing him? He couldn’t tell. He hadn’t been teasing her.

“Seriously. I am surprised that you haven’t sold these. I hope that you made some sales from the exhibition.”

“Yeah, well a few. I had a really good review in the
Art Monthly
, which was amazing, but it hasn’t led to all that much. I am always surprised when people are actually interested though. I can’t get past the idea that nobody but me and my sister and my uncle and aunt would actually like this stuff.”

“No way, Evie. That’s ridiculous. You must have other family members who would like it too.”

They laughed, and she did not want to spoil the moment by saying she did not.

“My old tutor might be good for one or two. He taught me at Camberwell, and as I said, he’s been a bit of a hero helping me to launch myself. I must admit that I love doing the work…but I’m not so great at selling it.”

He found it hard to credit that she did not make a good living from painting, but that was what she seemed to be suggesting.

“Well, isn’t that better than the other way around? Some artists can sell coal to Newcastle, but if the work isn’t worth the time they spend tweeting about it, then what’s the point?”

They drank more tea and talked with an ease that surprised them both. Evie dragged a few ill-fated attempts at working with clay out of the shed at the back. As she did so, she thought it was crazy to show a potential collector any examples of her work that had gone wrong, but she somehow knew instinctively that it didn’t matter. They laughed at them together, and quite against her expectations, everything felt fine. Evie had lost track of time, but Charlie knew that it was at least two hours since he arrived. It was a trick of the trade that he was astoundingly good at estimating time. It was part of the watchfulness and awareness that came with the territory, and out of habit, he was always measuring out time like so many spoons of sugar. He had asked Maureen to clear his diary for the morning, but his iPhone had begun buzzing away in his pocket. He hadn’t looked at it. He didn’t want to leave. When the studio phone rang, he didn’t think he had ever heard a louder ring.

“Hi, Evie Pemberton. … Hi, Milena. … Oh my God, is that the time? Okay. Give me five.”

She clunked the phone down, and he had a sinking feeling that he was about to be politely turned out.

“Sorry. That was home. I live next door, so I usually go home for lunch. It’s just sandwiches, but my sister’s there, and it’s kind of nice.”

He was about to say that he’d give her a ring when she astonished him.

“If you’d like to join, you’d be welcome. It’s nothing special, but it’s food, and it’s only next door. If you don’t have anything else planned, that is…”

“Erm, thanks, that would be great. I don’t have to be anywhere.”

“Okay, well, let’s go.”

She put their tea-stained mugs in the sink, and he watched her tussle with the Banham lock on the front door, yellow sunlight pouring down on her head. Eventually, she locked it, and they walked the few steps to the next door and went in.

“’S’me,” called Evie as she gestured for him to follow her. “Clem? Milena?”

A lilting eastern European accent came back from some unseen place. “We’re in here, Evie.”

Charlie followed her diminutive figure through the hall, along a slightly faded Chinese runner, and past stacks of unframed prints and canvasses. There was a suitcase open on the floor and seemingly full of medical kit. A grandfather clock with the mechanism taken out stood in the corner.

“I’ve got someone with me,” called Evie as they walked through a set of double doors into an airy dining room. The patio doors were open at the other end of the room, and outside a light breeze played fallen petals across the grass. You could hear the low moan of traffic on the King’s Road, and a carriage clock ticked on the mantelpiece littered with postcards and keys and the general detritus of a busy life. His eyes rested on her, and he cursed himself for not having guessed. Even in the wheelchair, you could see that she was Evie’s sister. Her hair was held back by a red Alice band, and a napkin had been tucked into the collar of her top. It fell over her chest like a flag on a still day. And that was how her body was generally; it was still. It had no movement in it, you could tell. The chair sat around her like armour, rising high behind her head, the footrest catching the soles of her feet below.

“This is Charlie Haywood. He came to the studio to look at my work. Charlie, this is my sister, Clemmie.”

She turned to him, and he knew from the gleam in her eye and the tilt of her head that it was a challenge. She hadn’t warned him because she wanted to see his reaction. Did she expect him to fail? At that moment another woman, plump and black-haired came in, holding a glass of orange juice with a straw in it.

“And this is Milena, my sister’s nurse, who lives with us. Lena, this is Charlie.”

They all smiled and said “hi.” Milena reported that she and Clemmie had spent the morning listening to Radio 3. Milena had checked through Clemmie’s meds and fixed some buttons that had broken off her cardigan when she fell from her chair the previous week. Clemmie had napped sitting up, and while she was asleep, Milena had made her bed. Auntie Betty had rung to say that she would pop in tomorrow. That is how the morning had been: quiet, domestic, unhurried. When Milena brought the sandwiches in, Charlie made a point of sitting next to Clemmie.

“When I came over to look at your sister’s work, I didn’t expect to get fed, so thank you for having me.”

“You’re very welcome. Did you go to her exhibition? I wish so much that I could have gone myself, but the gallery doesn’t have disabled access, so I would have been camped outside on the pavement, which might have cramped her style.” Her eyes twinkled as she laughed.

“I bet you wouldn’t have done, but you have plenty of her paintings here unless I am mistaken?” He looked around the room.

“Yes, they don’t get any choice,” interjected Evie, biting into a sandwich.

“We like the pictures, don’t we, Clemmie?” asked Milena who was feeding Clemmie hers in tiny pieces. “They brighten the place up.”