Chapter 3
Cecilia
IT IS NOT STRAIGHTFORWARD to find Mr King at the Jermyn Street Gallery.
There is no neat sign pointing towards the private offices – of course there isn’t – and Cecilia is not so naive as to think she can simply present herself to an attendant or one of the women selling tickets and expect to solicit an audience with the proprietor.
She hovers on the street opposite, watching the crowds drift in and out of the entrance, the matinee-goers turning off the Haymarket, the boys darting across the road to sweep the manure from the paths of the gentry, a newspaper seller pushing The Illustrated London News into the hands of anyone who makes the mistake of catching his eye.
Her earlobes throb with her pulse. The feeling of the rip through paper, the blow of pain to the side of her head, is still vivid from earlier that day.
She thinks back to her encounter with Mr King in the summer.
He was all human. Flesh and stink and hair and mouth, and every base thought The Illustrated London News could possibly cry about.
Perhaps there is a way she can present herself to gain an audience.
Perhaps she simply needs to understand the tableau she wishes to create and the role she will play in it.
She checks her reflection in the window of a restaurant and pinches some colour into her cheeks, then darts between the traffic to the gallery. She pulls a card from her case and presents it to the man at the front of house.
‘To see Mr King,’ she says simply, presumptively.
The man assesses her card. ‘Is he expecting you?’
‘He knows me,’ she says. ‘I am one of Lydia Fairfax-Waugh’s models. Mr King and I met at Herne House.’
The man’s expression changes at the word model, and he moves his roving gaze from the card to Cecilia’s face and body. Whether he recognises her from Lydia’s paintings, she does not know and refuses to let herself consider.
‘I’ll tell him you’ve called for him. Wait.’
She is left standing awkwardly to one side as visitors come in and out, and she tucks her gloved hands into her sleeves against the cold. People are looking at her; she is sure of it. Did they hear her call herself a model? What will Mr King think of her solicitation?
Before she can talk herself out of such boldness, the man returns.
‘He’ll see you. Through the door on the left and up the stairs.’
Cecilia does not look at him again. She hurries inside and through the small door to the left that leads immediately to a narrow set of stairs.
They are almost blocked with boxes of flyers, paperwork, stacks of rolled canvases, broken lengths of frame.
All the glamour of the gallery disappears at once; it is like stepping into the wings of a theatre and seeing the lengths of rope and waiting props, the illusion of imagination transformed at once into junk and scrap.
There is a tight landing above. At one end, a door is open onto a storeroom, piled with chairs, broken plant pots, heaps of scrap fabric, discarded posters and paintings. At the other end is a closed door, from behind which the sound of a gramophone spills.
Cecilia hesitates before it. She is struck by a sudden longing for Odette.
She could be braver if Odette were here.
With Odette, she has climbed across rooftops, swam in rivers, drunk herself sick, taught herself the fumble of two bodies together.
She has been ignorant and out of her depth, and the fear has turned instead to excitement.
Curiosity. The desire to know. Odette makes her bold – perhaps it feels like the only way to keep her attention – but that boldness has fled her now, and she falters at the door, heart racing.
Mr King has heard her footsteps, though, and the door opens whether she wants it to or not.
He is as handsome as she remembers, dark brows over flashing hazel eyes and a wide mouth that curls with an edge of something that could be humour or could be predation.
‘Miss Moore.’
‘Mr King. I hope you will forgive me for this unexpected intrusion.’
‘There is nothing to forgive. Come inside.’
He steps back, and Cecilia is left no choice but to cross the threshold, brushing uncomfortably close to his body in the limited space.
The office is as jumbled as the staircase: an overlarge desk takes up most of the centre of the room, stacked with newspapers, magazines, opened letters, bills, invoices, empty ink bottles and broken nibs, blotting paper and several dishes of cigarette ash.
The bare floorboards are layered with overlapping Turkish rugs, at first dazzling but on closer inspection stained and moth-eaten.
On the walls are countless posters of the gallery’s exhibitions, and frames are stacked up in the corners, chairs piled with sketchbooks, portfolios, ledgers.
There is no chair for her to sit in, and Mr King only leans against his desk and lights another cigarette.
‘To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?’ he asks, shaking out the match. ‘I am surprised a shy little thing like you would come knocking on my door.’
Cecilia knots her hands together to keep from fidgeting. ‘I will not beat about the bush, Mr King. I come to you with a simple problem I hope you can assist me with.’
‘If you are hoping I can put you in the path of another artist who recognises your unique talents but who, unlike our dear Lydia, might pay for them, then I might have a name or two in mind.’
Cecilia blushes furiously. ‘No. You mistake me.’
‘Ah. Forgive me.’ Mr King takes a long drag on his cigarette, the glowing tip reflected in his eyes.
‘My business does concern Mrs Fairfax-Waugh, but it is about her paintings. When we met at Herne House, you had come to discuss an exhibition of her work with a view to selling. Is that correct?’
‘It is.’
‘Of course Mrs Fairfax-Waugh sadly passed away before any exhibition came to pass. I want to know what has happened to those plans and whether any buyers had already been located—’
‘My, my, so mercenary.’
Cecilia clenches her jaw. ‘It is important to me to know what became of those paintings she wished to sell.’
‘If there is a piece you would rather not see the light of day, I’m afraid I don’t have as much power in the world of art as you might suppose.’
‘That is not it at all, Mr King. I would appreciate it if you would answer me directly. What happened to the paintings she gave you for the exhibition?’
Mr King takes another pull on the cigarette and lets out a stream of blue-tinged smoke towards the ceiling. ‘I can’t rightly say. She intended to exhibit with us, yes, and use our services to find interested buyers, but her illness overtook her. I was deeply saddened by her death.’
Cecilia deflates. ‘But her paintings are all gone, and you have an unfinished piece of hers on display—’
He waves this away. ‘A loan.’
‘Oh.’
Cecilia has fumbled all the cards in her hand.
The paintings must be somewhere, and it is impossible to think Mr King does not have some role in the matter.
Instinctively, he is not a man she trusts, but perhaps he does not understand the full situation, and if he knew what Lydia had intended with the sale of her work, he might be more inclined to help her.
It is worth trying.
‘The money from the sale was promised to her daughter,’ she says. ‘I thought perhaps some of it had been secured before she passed.’
A limp throw, and it lands flat between them.
Cecilia is outclassed.
Mr King stubs out the cigarette and straightens from the desk. ‘If you do think of modelling again, I hope you will call on me. I can think of a few men who would know what to do with someone like you.’
‘Thank you,’ says Cecilia mechanically. Humiliation burns her cheeks.
Mr King opens the door, and she slides out, pressing herself against the wall to avoid him.
On the landing, she squeezes her eyes shut. The shock of the séance that morning, the yawning gap growing between her and Odette – it is enough to overwhelm her.
The path of escape she had pictured for the two of them shrinks before her, dwindling into nothing.
As she starts down the stairs, she glances into the storeroom – for no reason really. Perhaps something in the light catches her eye, or perhaps it is a premonition, some buried sense calling to her – but she looks up.
From the storeroom, Odette looks back at her.
A stack of paintings leans up against the far wall and one, taller than the rest, peeks above a frame – the top of Odette’s face, her watchful, attentive eyes and the curl of her brown hair along her brow.
Cecilia hurries into the room, pulls back the stacked canvases to reveal Odette – and freezes, a gasp caught in her throat.
The painting comes up to her shoulder, and it is a long, narrow thing, like a coffin. It shows a full-length figure amidst the vines and leaves of a Dionysian revelry, pomegranates and apples scattered throughout the foliage.
Odette is entirely naked.
She faces the viewer, head cocked shyly and hair loose about her shoulders. Her breasts are exposed – her whole body on display. If Cecilia didn’t know Odette as she does, she would think her the model for the face alone, that Lydia found some other body to stand in for her daughter.
But she has not.
It is Odette, as Cecilia has known and loved her. It brings a blush to her cheek, but it is – disconcerting. She did not know this painting existed. Odette never spoke of modelling like this. It feels – wrong.
She puts back the canvases quickly and turns to leave, only to find Mr King blocking the doorway.
‘Ah. You’ve found her.’
Cecilia struggles for words. ‘You lied to me.’
He smirks and holds his hands up. ‘You can’t blame me for trying.’
‘I think you’ll find I can. Why did you not tell me you had the paintings?’
‘Lydia’s work is extraordinary, and I had the luck of my life to come into possession of some of it. I didn’t lie to you. Lydia died before we got as far as dealing with the money, and I thought if I laid low, my great fortune might go unnoticed.’
‘But I have noticed it. The money rightfully belongs to Odette.’
‘On that front, I have no case to settle. I have paid up.’
Cecilia frowns. ‘Paid who?’
‘The late Mrs Fairfax-Waugh’s estate.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I suppose a chit like you has little reason to know how legal matters work, but it is customary that the executor of a will identifies and disposes of the deceased’s assets.’
‘Executor?’ Cecilia fumbles to make sense of it. ‘Who?’
Mr King ignores her. ‘I expressed an interest in acquiring the paintings, and the estate agreed to the sale. You might think many things of me, Miss Moore, but I’m a mere reprobate, not a criminal. I settled the bill, so I have no case to answer to you.’
‘But why did you not say?’
‘As I said, I never lied. When a stranger comes to ask me the details of my business, I find myself under no obligation to give any details of my clients or their arrangements. Who knows what pieces of Lydia’s the estate might discover and feel inclined to sell.
I’d rather keep her confidence than yours.
But I wouldn’t expect a girl like you to understand the way business works. ’
If Cecilia were Odette, she would give Mr King some lecture on art versus business. But Cecilia is not that sort of girl. She has exhausted her own supply of confidence, and she can feel herself shrinking under his gaze.
Of course, the matter is settled. She has been away for two months, and much has changed. Uncle George married Claudine. The money has been tidied up. Aunt Lydia is rotting in her coffin.
What use is Cecilia?
She cannot undo any of these things.
She lowers her eyes. ‘I understand. I apologise for my intrusion. I will gladly take my leave.’
Mr King steps to one side, and this time, when she passes, he puts a hand on her waist as if to help her through, though it is only a step from the room to the landing and she needs nothing from him.
He has won. She has failed again.