Chapter 12 #2
It felt like more ought to be said. The night they found Freddie and Emilia in flagrante delicto loomed around every conversation.
When they returned to Sampson, Lady Edith had been waiting for them.
Freddie had stood silently beside him while Alasdair concocted a story, covering for his brother by placing him as a helpful bystander at the fire.
They had both been convinced to stay and help with the bucket brigade, Alasdair claimed.
The heroism distracted their mother for only an instant, for she just as quickly turned to admonishing them for helping that “den of iniquity” with anything.
Her flash of anger, however brief, had inspired Freddie toward silence; if she was that upset just about them helping at the Florizel, how would she react if she knew what Freddie was really doing?
And that silence had been encouraging until it stretched on between the brothers.
“You can’t help but get in the way of everything, can you?
” were the last words Freddie spoke to him that night.
Maybe he ought to be more outraged by Freddie’s stubbornness, but he could hardly justify lecturing his brother about propriety and respect when Alasdair’s thoughts kept turning, willfully, almost obsessively, toward Violet Arden.
We are imprisoned in the same hell, he wanted to say.
“Why are you staring at the back of my head?” Freddie grunted.
Alasdair left him, went to his bedchamber, and put the painted table safely in his own sphere of influence; as he did so, he realized it would look perfect beneath Violet’s self-portrait, for it even had small clusters of violets chasing up the sides.
A letter from Robert Daly was waiting, as Freddie had indicated, and Alasdair’s heart thumped wildly as he read it.
A Caravaggio had surfaced in London, and Robert had it from a connection that a member of the Tenebris Circle would soon put it up for auction.
Robert preferred Saraceni (a quirk Alasdair would never understand or fully believe) and promised not to contest him for the Caravaggio.
He’d happily bid for it on Alasdair’s behalf but assumed he would want to experience the thrill of the purchase in person, so could he be in London by Tuesday?
He arrived in London on Monday afternoon.
There was a card from Robert in the front hall relaying that he had called, and that Alasdair had been invited to an exclusive dinner that evening.
Tenebris Circle only. That left him a few hours to consult with his solicitor, Mr. Finny, to make inquiries about the family’s storehouses (in good condition) and to approve and arrange the sale of a few higher-quality pieces, justifying (in his own mind) the likely cost of the Caravaggio.
Mr. Finny was sharp-tongued, wry, and mean, exactly how every solicitor ought to be.
Afterward, Alasdair dressed in accordance with the strict code of dress for the Tenebris Circle—black coat, Titian-blue cravat with a lapis-encrusted circular silver pin, engraved silver watch carried in the fob pocket.
The Tenebris Circle never met as a collective at White’s, and never acknowledged they knew one another beyond the expected social bonds among wealthy men of the ton.
Alasdair’s friendship with Robert had preceded his membership, and so it was considered natural and less suspicious that it should continue.
Robert’s house had become somehow more garish in just two months.
“It’s Lillian,” Robert told him by way of excuse, preempting the expected admonishment for allowing so many more gilded eyesores to appear in the hall. “She grew up impoverished, you see, and I cannot stop her from spending my money on anything that takes her eye.”
Alasdair laughed softly as they walked together toward the drawing room where the other members were milling and sizing one another up. “Impoverished, Robert? Her family owns Pargan Poole in Somerset.”
“Certainly, but that is a rather small castle, it’s given her emotional problems. Let the dear thing have her golden frames, it makes my life easier.
Ah! There is Jasper, the dog. Do you know he swiped a Constable right out from under my nose last week?
Unbelievable. I ought to call for his head!
Ha! Look at him, the smirk! Yes, yes, very fine, Jasper, you win this time, chap, but I’ll die before I let you lay hands on this Caravaggio. ”
It was dawning on him that it had been a mistake to come, not only because Robert was unendurable, but because being surrounded by so much art and so many art admirers forced him to think of Violet.
He had been trying hard to lock her in a dark, lonely room in his mind, but that was proving impossible.
On the wall behind Robert, someone (presumably Lillian Daly) had overpowered a watercolor botanical with a cumbersome filigree frame.
“Who is this?” Alasdair asked, drifting toward the painting.
“It’s Bilbury, I don’t know if you’re aware of her. Wonderful command of shadows.”
“I’ve heard of her. God, Robert, that frame is diabolical.”
Robert sighed. “I’m well aware. It’s a good thing Lillian is so beautiful, her taste really is shocking.
I’ll wait until she’s forgotten about the whole thing and change the frame.
A shame Bilbury is such a wild figure. I wouldn’t mind having more from her.
Look, look, Jasper is hungry to gloat, I can see it in his beady eyes. We shouldn’t keep him waiting—”
“Wild figure?” Alasdair planted himself firmly before the painting, trying to see around the frame.
“Chased out of Paris for setting some lover’s abode aflame.
It was hot scandal for a week or so, but that was before anyone wanted her paintings.
London wouldn’t have her either, though I’m sure she’ll try to beg her way back into the Society.
Well. I’ve always believed we should allow painters their crumb of madness.
One must suffer from a serious defect to produce a work of genius, n’est-ce pas? ”
Alasdair grinned, wondering what Violet Arden’s crumb of madness might be. You already know, for you have it, too. “Before we go in,” he began, “I had a favor to ask.”
“No, you can’t have the Bilbury. I like it too much.”
“It isn’t that,” Alasdair said with a laugh. “I wanted to send a gift of paints and brushes to an artist in need of them. I thought given how much time you spent getting painted, you might have the right connections. Could you arrange it?”
Robert shrugged. “Is that all? I’ll consult Dawe, he will know all about it. And where shall I have these pigments and brushes sent?”
Shifting, Alasdair glanced toward the busy sitting room.
He wondered if Violet even remembered being carried into her home, or if she could recall the way he had cradled her to his chest on the ride there.
He didn’t know what he hoped she would remember.
His face prickled with heat; oh, but did she hear him when he bent down and asked her to stay awake, to stay with him…
“It’s for a young lady in Cray Arches, a budding artist of some promise and potential,” Alasdair grunted. “But please, put no name to the gift.”
“Oh! A secretive gift! Does Miss Holzer know? My, how splendidly mysterious and romantic! But take it from me, old friend, a lady tends to love one better if she knows she is, in fact, being courted, and by whom.”
“Then you should leave it as I have instructed, for I am not courting the lady. Have you never considered the value of a woman’s friendship?”
“Friendship? Why would I do that? Lillian provides all the feminine companionship I could desire. And when I tire of looking at her, I console myself with dreams of a mistress. Then, I remember what a bother it is to keep a woman happy enough to maintain a secret, and I come to my senses.”
Alasdair squeezed his eyes shut. “Just…do as I asked, please. I will provide the address, do not indicate the sender.”
“No need to use that tone,” said Robert, abruptly sober, perhaps afraid he had conjured the Mute Brute. But Alasdair let himself shrink, no threat to the man. “But what sort of friend would I be if I did not nudge when a nudge was needed?”
No nudge required, thought Alasdair, tired. I have already toppled well over that cliff.
In fact, it pained him not to take credit for the gift of the paints.
If only he could see the surprise and delight bursting behind Violet’s smile as she beheld the package…
He shook his head and began to walk off toward the sitting room, hand on the back of his neck, then he swung back around toward Robert.
“Oh, and she will need canvases, paper, an easel. Buy the very best and send the bill to the house on Wimpole.”
Robert Daly shouted with laughter, bounding after him and clapping Alasdair on the shoulder. “For you, my friend, there is no need to reimburse. Just the thought of you agonizing over a secret gift for a young lady will sustain me for months!”
—
Less than a fortnight later, Alasdair was ready to return to Sampson Park.
He had no interest in displaying the Caravaggio there but had it wrapped and ready for transport, already imagining where it would hang in Clafton.
Before departing for the country, he had accepted a hasty invitation from Robert to join him for one last visit.
He decided he owed Robert for helping him acquire the Caravaggio and for his role in sending Violet new supplies.
As the carriage neared the Dalys’ home, he further decided the Caravaggio would have a place of honor in Clafton when it was finished, and that the art acquired for his mother over the years (the sum total of which could furnish two estates) must be confined to certain halls and one sitting room; their tastes did not align, and he saw Clafton as much his home as hers.
A place to begin again, a memorial to his beloved father, perhaps even where he might raise a family…