The Gates of Rutherford (21 page)

She looked at him. Unlike the other man that she had been thinking about, Michael Preston's face betrayed no emotion at all. It was the bobbing movement, however—that entirely involuntary movement—that gave his unease away. “How did that happen?” she asked.

“She missed her footing coming down the stairs, apparently.”

“You weren't there?”

“It was early in the morning. She had an early shift.”

“I see,” Christine murmured. “How annoying for her. And painful. It stops her nursing, of course.”

“Yes. Although she has come in a little. There's some things that she can still do, and being Charlotte . . .”

“She comes to do them, yes.” There was a pause. Michael began to turn towards his office. “I'll go and see her,” Christine said.

“She may be resting this afternoon.”

“Or she may not. She may be quite bored,” Christine replied. “I shall take her something. A treat? I know an Italian café in St. Martin's Lane. Where they get their butter from I don't know. One doesn't ask, after all. But the cake is quite scrumptious.”

She could see that he was wrestling with his reply. Then he smiled. “She'd adore it.” Graciously, he held out his hand, and Christine shook it. She could feel that despite the hesitation and that restlessly bobbing head, Michael Preston was actually quite calm. His hand was steady and dry. “How kind of you to seek her out,” he said. “And how brave of you to go to France.”

My goodness,
she thought.
Aren't you absolutely charming?

“
Thank you, Captain,” she said evenly. “And good-bye.”

•   •   •

L
ondon was still humid despite the rain. She got a bus to Trafalgar Square and dodged across the lanes of traffic, holding the precious cargo of cake in her hands. Before the war, the café had wrapped everything in deliciously crisp striped paper, with a chic black-and-white ribbon neatly tied on top. Now, the wrapping was brown and there was no fabric tie. “I am sorry,” the Italian owner had said to her. “It is the war.”

“I know,” she replied. “Never mind. It doesn't alter the cake.”

It took half an hour to get to the mews house, even walking at Christine's brisk pace. But that was preferable to another journey among the dripping mackintoshes of a public bus. One of the paintings that she had done for the exhibition had been of the inside of an omnibus—a pastiche on Alfred Morgan's
An Omnibus Ride to Piccadilly
, which had showed the prime minister in 1885, Gladstone, traveling with ordinary people. The passengers shown in that painting had been a tradesman, a young mother, and an older woman shepherding two children; a boy had been seated with his back to the viewer dressed in a sailor suit with a toy boat on his knee. Christine had painted a similar-looking bus, but the occupants now were young women in munitions uniforms, and the little boy had been replaced with a real sailor slumped over his kit bag, asleep. Instead of Gladstone, Lloyd George now looked out straight at the viewer, his face half his own, and half that of the Kaiser. The hands in his lap were red with blood.

The painting had caused a sensation, almost a riot. Mark Gertler, whose own painting of a fantastical carousel of mechanically grinning occupants she so admired, had warned her that the public might
try to lynch her. She'd smiled up at him; he was rather attractive. “An artist should always tell the truth,” she had remarked.

“Ah, it's the truth you want?” he had said, returning the smile. “Good luck with that.”

She reached Charlotte and Michael's home in mid-afternoon. She rang the doorbell and waited for the sound of the housekeeper's feet along the hallway. The door was opened and the woman looked out. Christine remembered Charlotte saying that the housekeeper had been chosen by Michael's mother and her immediate reaction was,
Gosh, I would hate to look at that sulky face every day
. She summoned her smile again. “Is Mrs. Preston home?” she asked.

“I'm afraid not.” The woman's gaze strayed down to the now-soggy brown paper parcel.

“Do you know where she might have gone?”

“I do not.”

“Or when she'll be back?”

“No, I don't.”

Christine steeled herself. She often got this kind of reaction. People could see that she wasn't working class, but she didn't dress as a lady either. She had no hat, no gloves; her coat was a workman's, and she wore it over a bright green dress that she had fashioned from a much older garment. Her stitching wasn't exactly professional, but she had partly hidden it with a yellow scarf. A horrendous sight to most people, and a paean of eccentricity to herself. No corset either, and no stockings. She loved it, but she could see how much the housekeeper hated it. She stood across the doorway and evidently was not letting her in.

Christine held out the parcel. “Would you be so kind as to give this to Mrs. Preston when she comes back?” she said. “It's a little delicacy for her. I know she must be feeling rotten.”

The housekeeper took it, holding it away from her as if it might explode.

“Do you have a piece of paper?” Christine asked. “May I leave a note?”

The paper was found; the note was left. Christine had no alternative but to turn and go, leaving her name. The housekeeper repeated it, and added, “Most visitors leave a calling card.”

“I don't have a calling card,” Christine said. “I'm awfully sorry.”

When the door had been shut, and Christine was walking along the narrow cobbled street, she inwardly cursed herself. When would she get over this horrible little middle-class habit of apologizing? As she walked, she kicked at the stones underfoot. “So sorry, so sorry,” she muttered. “For heaven's sake!”

The truth was that she was not sorry about a calling card; but she was desperately sorry that she had not seen Charlotte. It was selfish, she supposed, to gad about the country and just write to Charlotte occasionally. She ought to have made more of an effort to visit. But then, she considered, reaching Oxford Street, Charlotte hadn't contacted
her
. Why was that?

She stood on the pavement looking down the long street towards the Oxford Theatre with all its gaudy trappings of music hall and variety shows. Vaudeville had been her father's weakness; after her mother died when she was a teenager, he used to go out to the clubs and theaters all the time. “Oh, it's a little bit of fun,” he would tell her. “There's not enough fun in the world.” For a respected gentleman, he could be a lecherous old goat all the same. After his death she'd been shocked to find that all his money had apparently been spent on the painted chorus girls of Shaftesbury Avenue. His sister had rallied to Christine's side and bestowed the necessary but oh-so-hated annuity that enforced the ritual visits to her aunt.

“Where the bloody hell are you, Charlotte?” she muttered, as people brushed past her. She wanted to take Charlotte somewhere, to entertain her. Her father had been right in one respect at least: you needed fun. The theaters were packed every night in London. She would like to take Charlotte out to see Bessie Bellwood or Vesta Tilley, into the bright and bellowing world with its tiller girls and jazz and silly costumes and bright lights. If anyone needed cheering up, it must be Charlotte, she thought.

But there was something else. Christine looked at the crowds and at the passing traffic of horse and bus and van and the occasional absurd-seeming carriage, and she saw nothing at all of it. She only saw Charlotte's face. “Oh Christ,” she whispered. “I'm going to France.” And it suddenly struck her that it wasn't an adventure at all. Because she was going to France and she wouldn't see Charlotte. Michael Preston would keep his wife close. That nodding, pecking head kept coming back to her, that rigidity of pose and expression. She was going away, and would miss the opportunity to paint Charlotte's portrait. And suddenly that seemed to matter very much.

The rain came down harder, and, at last registering it, she began to run.

•   •   •

S
he got back to her studio and walked up the stairs at a slow pace, taking off her coat and trailing it behind her. She was thoroughly wet from the rain, and sticky and hot from the temperature outside.

“What a wasted day,” she muttered, trying to find her key in the pocket of her dress. “Bloody rain. Bloody everything.”

She was almost at her own landing at the top of the house. She found the key and looked up.

“Bloody everything,” Charlotte said.

Christine gave a little yelp of triumph. She started to rush up the last few steps, and then stopped. Charlotte was sitting on the floor, under a skylight to the roof. She wore a terracotta-colored linen coat, something with a great deal of material. It rippled around her like a tawny wave; her hair was drawn back severely. What had stopped Christine, however, was the expression on Charlotte's face.

It was both hard to read and extraordinary. Or perhaps it was extraordinary
because
it was hard to read. Charlotte looked much older, but her face was unlined, as smooth as a child's; it was the expression in her eyes that was strange. It was full of irony and a kind of sad humor. She was incredibly pale.

“Something has happened,” Christine murmured. “Please don't tell me it's Harry.”

“No, it's not Harry.”

“Caitlin? Louisa? Is your father all right?”

Charlotte smiled. “They're fine. Everyone is fine.”

Christine took another few steps, and then lowered herself onto the top step so that she was level with Charlotte. “It's you, then.”

Charlotte held up her injured hand. She looked at it objectively for a moment.

“I've been to the hospital,” Christine said. “I spoke to Michael.”

“I've not been in work this week. I doubt that I can really be of any use until this is healed.”

“How long will that be?”

“Four weeks? Five?” Charlotte lowered her hand. “Why did you go to the hospital?”

“Why do you think? Looking for you.”

There was a silence. “Shall I be in the way if I come in for a while?” Charlotte asked.

“I almost wish you could stay there. I'd love to paint you just as you are, under that light. Summer afternoon light.”

“I don't want to be in the way if Alexis Barrington will be here.”

Christine jumped to her feet and held out her hand. “He isn't here and isn't likely to be. We were at Garsington a fortnight ago and he left with a very sweet girl from Hampshire who knows his mother. So I think that is probably that.” She pulled such a face that Charlotte gave a glimmer of a smile. “He was rather beginning to grate on me, actually,” Christine informed her, unlocking the door. “His work was so much more important than mine. He said that if we lived together I should have to stop painting.”

“He said
what
!
”

“
Apparently the talent of women is a short-lived thing.”

“He's jealous of you,” Charlotte murmured.

“Yes, I thought the same.”

They stood looking at each other. Christine threw the wet coat onto a chair. “Are you hungry? I've just delivered a most delicious cake to your house, by the way.”

“Have you? Why?”

“Because someone should be looking after you. What kind of question is that?”

Charlotte stood perfectly still. Then she dropped her head, and began to cry.

“Oh, darling, not again!” Christine exclaimed, going to her and putting her hand on her shoulder. “What is it?”

Charlotte didn't answer. The tears convulsed her; she put one hand to her face and half-turned away. “Don't look at me.”

“Don't
look
at you? What on earth are you talking about? I like to look at you more than anything.” She enveloped Charlotte in her arms, felt her thin frame, her awkwardness, the way she curled in on herself. “You must tell me,” Christine said. She stroked Charlotte's hair. “Tell me.”

But nothing came out except the tears. After another few
moments Christine guided Charlotte to the makeshift bed, and sat her down. “I expect you hate the damned stuff after doling it out to half of Kitchener's army, but would you like some of my usual milk-free tea?”

Charlotte wiped her face with the heel of her hand. “No. Thank you.”

“You're awfully polite these days, aren't you?” Christine observed softly. “There's no kicking and screaming like there used to be.”

“I've never kicked and screamed.”

“Metaphorically, I mean.”

“Oh . . . well.”

Christine slammed the flat of her hand onto her knee. “This is exactly what I mean. ‘Oh well.' What a simpering little person you've become.”

“You don't understand.”

“Quite right. I don't. Suppose you tell me.”

There was a prolonged silence. Christine sighed. “Look, I went to the hospital to tell you some news. I had no idea that you'd had this injury. I supposed that you'd be working there. And after Michael told me what had happened, I went to your house to be met by Mrs. Cow-Face. And then I came back here. And it was all because I want to paint you before I go to France.”

Charlotte's head snapped up. “What?”

“I'm going to France as a war artist. I shall be gone in a little while and I want to paint you before I go. I've been thinking of it. I have ideas. I want a portrait of you, a large one, just by these windows. I want it to be all light, because that's what you are in my mind. A creature of light. And now I'm looking at you and I see the light's been turned off. I don't want ‘
oh well
.' I don't want ‘
thank you
.' I don't want that person. I want you.”

She placed a hand on Charlotte's chin, and turned her to face her.
She scrutinized Charlotte's face. “You have such a wonderful look to you. I think it might have deepened, altered. Improved you somehow.”