CHAPTER 2 #2
“Paris Green.” She looked at Mary. “Are you careful with this? It contains a shocking quantity of arsenic. Medical journals have traced several deaths to its use.”
“Good Lord, I had no idea. I grind cakes of the stuff and mix it when I watercolor sketch.”
“Be sure to wear a cloth over your nose and mouth when you prepare it. And gloves.” Julia dropped the tube in the box with the other paints. “I think that’s the lot.”
Mary nodded absently, staring at her damaged canvas, ripped and marred by the emerald W. She drew her finger along the tear and hugged herself.
“It’s a pity,” Julia said sadly. “Is the painting beyond repair?”
“I wasn’t happy with it, so it’s not worth salvaging. Thank God I’d sent three paintings away for framing. Next month, I’m showing them at the SFA exhibition in Mayfair. That’s the Society of Female Artists.”
“I wonder why the intruder painted a W across the picture before slashing it.” Julia watched Mary closely as she answered.
Mary grimaced. “I can make a guess. Something someone sent in an anonymous letter. I’ve received two.”
“Forgive me, but you didn’t mention that to the policeman.”
“The letters accused me of improper relations with my art teacher. Ridiculous, of course. The man is forty years my senior.” Mary frowned. “Still, there’s also . . .”
Julia waited. Then she asked, “There’s something else?”
“Nothing. It’s nothing. W for whore. That’s what the letter writer called me.”
* * *
That evening, Julia came down for dinner and found her grandfather and great-aunt conferring by the library fireplace, silvery heads together. Dr. Andrew Lewis and her Aunt Caroline looked up from their leather armchairs and exchanged guilty glances.
Julia chose a glass from the drinks cabinet and picked up the sherry decanter. “You may as well tell me,” she said as she poured. “You look like a pair of children caught with forbidden sweets.”
Her grandfather cleared his throat. “Your aunt and I were, ah, debating the wisdom of—”
“Consigning this week’s Illustrated London News to the fire before you saw it.”
Lady Aldridge rarely had difficulty reaching the point and presented her cheek to Julia for a kiss. Her aunt shimmered in the firelight, all silvery elegance from her head to the metallic threads in her brocaded gown. Even seated, she looked tall and indomitable.
Dr. Lewis held the journal up and chuckled. “Your favorite reporter wrote the lead article.”
“Johnny Osborne.” Julia sat facing her relatives. “Who is he libeling this week?”
“My dear niece, you must admit he played fair with you.”
“I agree,” Dr. Lewis said. “Those articles about your ordeal were spot on. This week, Osborne’s going after the army over venereal infections among the ranks.”
Julia sipped and shrugged. “That’s hardly news. There must be something else that you don’t want me to read.”
“His solution will incense you,” her aunt said. “And I had hoped to have a peaceful drink before dinner.”
“Let me guess. He suggests doubling down on the horrid laws and rounding up every female within shouting distance of a soldier.”
Her grandfather smiled. “Something like that.”
Julia sighed and leaned back with her elbows on the armrest. “I’ve expended enough anger on the subject—some of it unfairly aimed at Richard. I wish Johnny Osborne would investigate the skating disaster instead.”
“Over forty souls, gone,” her Aunt Caroline said. “You believe the tragedy was avoidable?”
“Yes, with proper procedures for judging the soundness of the ice.”
Dr. Lewis asked, “How did you find Mister Allingham this morning?”
“Recovered, with no ill effects.” Julia looked into her sherry and frowned. “It’s his sister who worries me.”
Lady Aldridge asked, “Was she injured as well?”
Julia explained the break-in at the studio. “And there’s something else. A poison pen has sent Mary Allingham offensive letters.”
Her Aunt Caroline shrugged in disgust “How repugnant.”
“And embarrassing,” Dr. Lewis said. “Which is why victims rarely report such letters to the police.”
“Speaking of the police, have you apologized to Richard if you’ve treated him unfairly?”
Julia smiled a bit guiltily. “Not yet, Aunt, but I shall.”
“Don’t tarry, my dear,” Dr. Lewis said. “I look at you and think, what might have been, but for Richard. I’m his debtor until the end of my days.” In a steadier voice, he said, “He’s an impressive young man. Scotland Yard should recruit more men of his caliber.”
“There aren’t many such men . . . available.” Lady Aldridge sipped. She caught her niece’s glance over her glass’s rim and held it.
Julia knew full well the meaning behind her aunt’s remark.
Not long ago and in that room, they’d discussed matrimony—the impossibility of marriage, from Julia’s perspective, and her belief in Richard’s indifference.
Aunt Caroline disagreed, claiming an elderly aunt’s “fine eye” for observing and keen insight into matters of the heart. Julia doubted it.
“And what of Miss Allingham?” Andrew Lewis asked. “You said she worries you.”
“There’s something she’s not saying about . . .”
“About what?” her grandfather asked.
“The letters,” Julia sighed. “Today wasn’t the day to press her, but I return tomorrow. I’m hoping she’ll confide in me.”
* * *
The following morning, Blenheim Lodge’s footman opened the French doors to the patio.
Once again, Julia followed the path in search of Mary.
The studio door’s windows had been replaced, and all traces of yesterday’s break-in were gone.
She found the artist sitting in front of her painting, feet up and arms wrapped around her legs.
Julia said, “Still thinking about Repose? You said you’d been brooding over it. Can you tell me why?”
“I can’t decide if it’s too subtle or crushingly obvious.”
“Show me.”
“No,” Mary said, smiling. “You tell me.”
Julia looked again. The elegant woman in the sitting room gazed over her shoulder through a large window enclosed by an iron grille.
Claret drapes opened like a stage curtain, revealing details of the busy streetscape beyond.
Striding, top-hatted men walked the street.
One gestured for a cab, the sunlight glinting on the silver knob of his walking stick.
Off to the side, a nanny gripped a little girl’s hand.
She pulled away, eyeing two boys in knee pants tossing a ball.
“It’s two worlds,” Julia said, nodding at the canvas. “You might have called it Captivity instead of Repose.”
Mary laughed and said, “Full marks for you.”
Julia turned to her with a wide smile. “Even the caged canary looks longingly out the window. Is the subject also the woman in the damaged painting?”
“Yes, Margot Miller. She’s much in demand.”
A maid with a coffee tray appeared at the door and carried it to the table next to Mary’s chair. She bobbed a curtsy and withdrew.
Mary unfolded her legs and eyed the tray with a wry smile. “Two years on my own in Paris, and I’ve adjusted quite well to being waited on, hand and foot. I’m not sure what it says about my character.”
Julia sat across from her. “Do you miss France?”
Mary poured their coffees and sat back, stirring and contemplating. “I miss the freedom. And I miss the evenings on my own when the city empties into its boulevards, and Parisians stroll the sidewalks. I’d find a table and sketch the passersby until the light failed.”
“Unusual—an English girl alone in a foreign city. It must have been hard to give up Montmartre and the Louvre.”
“Lou persuaded Charles to build this studio to lure me back. I would have come home anyway. Louisa . . . well, she suffered another miscarriage, and Charles was worried about her.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Louisa longs for motherhood. It breaks my heart to see her disappointed again. I often wonder . . .”
Julia waited.
“I think I told you Louisa hoped to nurse in the Crimea?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Well, her father was a doctor. Charles said Dr. Upton let Louisa train because he never thought she’d finish the course. Then her father refused to let her sail with Miss Nightingale and the other nurses.”
“That seems particularly cruel.”
“She nursed him to the end and keeps his doctor’s bag and portrait in her room like a shrine. Poor Louisa.”
“She did a wonderful favor for you with this studio.” Julia looked around, her eyes resting on the damaged canvas. “Have you heard anything from the police?”
“Nothing yet.”
“About those letters . . . should you have mentioned them to that constable?”
“Lou would faint if the accusations about my teacher wound up in a police report.”
“And now this,” Julia said. “It’s possible the break-in and letters are connected.”
“I’ve wondered about that.” Mary bit her lip. “I should tell the police, but there are others involved.”
Julia took a sip of coffee and waited for Mary to continue.
“A few painter friends received letters, too. One told me a man had followed her model and accosted the girl on the pavement outside the studio.”
“That sounds serious enough to report.”
“Oh, and a young milliner who models for us got a letter accusing her of posing in the nude and consorting with prostitutes. All lies, but the writer threatened to tell her employers.” Mary shook her head. “Why extort a poor hatmaker like Annie O’Neill?”
Julia had taken a sip and nearly choked on her coffee. “Annie O’Neill?” She set her saucer and cup on the table. “Good Lord, poor Annie.”
“You know her?”
“Yes, she’s a patient.” How extraordinary, Julia thought. More trouble for the girl.
Mary shrugged. “It doesn’t make sense. She has next to nothing.”
“So many victims . . . perhaps that’s a reason to speak to the police. You might talk to one I know at Scotland Yard, Inspector Richard Tennant.”
“He’s the officer who . . . I’m sorry. I read about your ordeal in the newspapers, of course. He was the policeman in the case.”
“Yes.” Julia looked away. “I underestimated the danger to me. I scoffed at it, and that was a mistake.”
“I’m not sure. . . .”