All I Want for Christmas

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Otto stood with her in silence, waiting, as she stared at the portrait on the easel. On his orders, the conservation team were taking a long coffee break as she stood motionless, allowing her mind to fall into a deep dive. For weeks now she had been recording the high and low points of Lilja’s life as if she were plotting a graph – only now did it acquire a three-dimensional shape.

‘You’re going to have to bear with me in this, Otto,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m still trying to join the dots. There’s a lot to go at...but if we can just talk it through...’

‘Okay. Why don’t you start by telling me what’s tripped your thoughts?’

‘It’s the necklace,’ she said quietly, unable to take her eyes off Lilja’s likeness. ‘It’s wrong.’

‘How can a necklace be wrong?’

‘Because it’s wooden. Home-made. Far too humble for a woman of her class. She would be wearing pearls in the daytime, or at the very least, paste.’

‘I see,’ he murmured, narrowing his eyes as he looked at the portrait with a fresh gaze. But he passed no comment. He wouldn’t lead her thoughts, only listen to them.

‘I think it was her lover’s gift to her.’

‘Her lover?’

She leaned forward, pointing. ‘Look at her expression, the tilt of her head – it’s intimate, like this is a shared, private moment. She’s in love...And see how the gold bead is positioned directly front and centre. It’s like a north star, drawing the eye. She’s wearing the necklace as a signal, using it to say she is still her lover’s property, even if she can’t show it publicly. Even if her husband has returned.’

‘Had he?’

‘Yes. The baby had been born – a little girl, Emme – and Casper was back from London.’ She reached for her phone and showed him the photograph she had taken of the picture in the end bedroom before she’d left. ‘This was taken at Solvtraeer in August 1922. It shows Lilja holding Emme, with Trier, Casper and the Saalbachs – or the Sallys, as they were known. They were the Madsens’ longstanding housekeepers-cum-gardeners. Trier was staying in the house that spring and summer, painting Her Children .’

Otto’s brow furrowed as he looked back at the portrait again, his own brain beginning to make connections. ‘And you think Lilja was having an affair with Trier?’

‘I did,’ she nodded. ‘But now I don’t.’ She pointed to the robin. ‘I think it was Arne Saalbach, the gardener’s son. Little Sally.’

Otto’s eyebrows slid up. ‘Explain.’

‘Originally I thought the robin was just a motif for her love of the garden, a symbol of her return to health. Now I think it was a way of proclaiming that she was the gardener’s friend. She was head over heels in love with him, Otto, and I think this painting was her gift to him. I think it was a self-portrait.’

‘ She painted it?’

‘We know Trier didn’t. And she was an accomplished artist, even if she never took it too seriously. Lotte’s diaries tell us she and Lilja took fine art lessons together for years and there are some paintings at Solvtraeer which are signed L. Madsen; Max said they were by Lotte, but I think they just as easily could have been by Lilja.’

She hoped that had been an innocent misdirection on Max’s part, but she couldn’t be certain.

‘There are artistic similarities, definitely, between those paintings in Hornbaek and this,’ she continued. ‘And the botanical watercolours I found – misfiled – in Trier’s documents are, I suspect, also hers; they never looked like his work, even if he was experimenting. They’re much lighter and finer stylistically, and thematically they coalesce to her interests in the garden.’

Otto looked unconvinced. ‘Tenuous, though. And highly speculative.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘But there’s more that points to a relationship between them. There’s a cabinet in the Madsen archives with some clays: garden tool miniatures – spade, trowel, wheelbarrow, that sort of thing. But there are some lovely main pieces, too: life-size heads of fishermen.’

‘Specifically fishermen?’

‘Well, they’re all wearing sou’westers. But here’s the thing, Otto. There aren’t any miniature clay pieces of fishing kit – no nets, pots, hooks, not in the way that there are gardening tools. And all the clay heads have the same face. They’re of the same man.’ She enlarged the screen to show Otto a closer image of the young, tall, dark-haired gardener in the photograph. ‘Arne. She disguised him – figuring no one would recognize the gardener in a fisherman’s hat. She hid him in plain sight, Otto.’

She brought up the photo again, showing the Sallys’ guarded demeanours. They had been the keepers of secrets after all, just not the one she had first thought. ‘What if their son, Arne, was the father of her baby? She could never publicly admit it, even if they were in effect living as man and wife most of the time – except for when Madsen family or visitors came to stay. Which was rarely.’

Otto pinched his cheeks between finger and thumb as he contemplated everything she was saying. It was a lot to take in.

He began to pace. ‘Okay. Well, let’s go with that, for argument’s sake. Let’s say he is the father to the child.’

‘All of these things are love notes: a bead necklace around an aristocrat’s neck; a self-portrait of a private look; models of his head because she loved his face so much; clay doodles as she sat in the grass beside him as he worked...They all scream affair when you see it. But it could never be allowed to come to light. Can you imagine the scandal – the gardener and the lady of the house? It would have been unthinkable for a family so ambitious about its social prospects.’

Otto nodded. She could see he was with her. That the evidence – disparate though it was – stacked up when put together. ‘So, did someone find out about them? Did they get caught?’

Darcy closed her eyes, moving effortlessly through memories of a house she herself had slept and made love in. ‘I think we definitely have to consider that possibility. Trier was in the house by spring onwards, and we know Casper came back in the summer around the time of the birth, meaning it would have been difficult for Lilja and Arne to move with the same freedom they had probably been accustomed to.’

She thought of stolen looks across the lawn, hands brushing lightly as they passed by the greenhouse.

‘I imagine it would have been difficult for Arne to see his child in another man’s arms, not to mention the woman he loved sharing a bed with her husband again,’ Otto posited, running with it.

‘Exactly. Tensions might have escalated. There could have been a confrontation, or a fight...If Casper uncovered the truth about her and Arne, he might have threatened to fire him and send him away. Or worse, said he’d take the baby from them?’ Darcy blinked. ‘That would send any woman walking into the sea, much less one who had already lost a child. She would have had nothing more to live for.’

They were both quiet, thinking hard.

‘I agree it sounds plausible, Darcy, but without concrete proof...’

She nodded, knowing what he was saying.

‘Tell me more about the marriage. Was it a good one?’

She shook her head. ‘It was blighted by tragedy, and I’m not sure how close they ever were. There was a large age gap.’

‘Ah,’ he said knowingly. ‘Well, we all know those only ever fall in two directions: either they’re a great love story or a horror story.’

A horror story? Had it been?

If she stopped casting the Madsens as Lilja’s saviours, for just one moment; if she looked at the facts without that bias... Had it been a marriage of convenience? A favour between two families...?

Or something altogether more sinister?

She had never found anything on Lilja’s marriage – not a wedding photograph, nor a letter of correspondence. Suddenly she understood why.

‘Oh,’ she gasped as another context was finally applied and the facts sifted in her mind, the heaviest settling at the bottom and underpinning everything.

‘Tell me.’

She looked at him. ‘I think it was a forced marriage. I think Casper sexually assaulted her and it was arranged to cover for the pregnancy that resulted.’

Otto frowned. ‘Elaborate.’

She closed her eyes, recalling what she had read. ‘He had come back from his war profiteering to find this beautiful, but very young, fourteen-year-old girl living with them...The Madsens threw a party that December...I think it probably happened then.’ She thought back, trying to remember the details of Lotte’s diary. ‘Lotte said that Casper danced with Lilja, gave them both champagne...she was distraught that her parents hadn’t returned from Germany; later on, Lotte said she could hear Lilja crying...Plus, he had been paying her undue amounts of attention before that.’ She remembered the car rides and the shopping trips.

‘And when was the child born?’

She bit her lip. ‘The end of August, but I think it was a premature birth. She had eclampsia – hence the complications to her baby. Her body was too young to cope with the pregnancy.’ She looked at Otto. ‘Casper was sent away to London, ostensibly to head up the Madsens’ growing business interests there. But what if they were keeping him away from her? Putting a lid on any scandal?’

‘London would be suitably far, without raising questions.’ Otto inhaled deeply, a sombre look on his face.

‘It might also explain why he appears to have been largely written out of the family legacy. There’s almost nothing on him. I think Helle would scratch him from the record altogether if she could.’

‘Indeed, it’s not at all the sort of thing they would want getting out. They’ve built their reputation on philanthropy and high-minded cultural ideals, and with the public listing in the offing, it’s a reputation stain they could do without.’

‘It makes sense, though, doesn’t it?’ she said, looking straight at him. ‘They covered up Casper’s crime by marrying Lilja to her rapist. No wonder she couldn’t recover! She was traumatized...Hornbaek must have felt like the only place she was safe.’

‘Except Casper went up there too.’

‘Yes, but only for very occasional visits. I suspect appearances would have needed to be maintained to some degree. They couldn’t let people start to talk...’

Darcy tried to imagine eighteen-year-old Lilja’s horror as her abusive husband came back into her life. Her bed.

A door opened at the far end of the room and Ida stuck her head around. ‘Ah, you are in here...Otto, your seminar group’s arrived. They’re in your office.’

Otto gave a small sigh. He looked at Darcy. ‘I’m sorry. Terrible timing. We’ll have to pick this up later.’

‘Sure.’ She looked at him. ‘But just tell me, is this making sense to you – or am I too close to it? Have I lost my perspective?’

He looked back at the portrait, Lilja watching them in painted silence as they conjectured over her fate. ‘Darcy, sadly, I think there was always going to be a dark reason why this painting was hidden behind another one. It was no accident that it was put there...These secrets have been kept for a long time – so keep going. We owe it to Lilja to tell her truth.’

Darcy watched him leave. Was he right? Did they owe it to Lilja to tell the world about her trauma, her love affair, her decision to leave a newborn baby to grow up without her mother? Was that to be her lasting legacy, immortalized for ever as a victim?

She walked over to the window, rolling out her neck and swinging her arms. Her mind was stuck on Lilja’s desperation in her final weeks – her husband and her lover, all together at Solvtraeer...emotional anguish so bad it drove her into the sea...

She leaned on the sill and looked down into the courtyard. It was trying to snow again, the Christmas tree glittering majestically – reminding her that this was a time for goodwill to all men – as tourists walked past with shopping bags. A glossy black car was parked on the cobbles almost immediately below the window. She could see the driver in his front seat, waiting. Christoff?...

She gasped just as the door swung open and she turned to find Max himself walking through with a bold smile.

‘I just saw Otto in the hall. He said you were in here,’ he said, the yellow lining of his suit flashing as he headed straight for her. Her heart lurched at the sight of him. ‘I had to work not to look happy about it.’

She saw him scan the room for others, but they were quite alone and he didn’t hesitate as he reached her, cupping her face and kissing her possessively. She felt weak by the time he pulled back. ‘...I’ve been thinking about doing that all day.’

She smiled. ‘Me too.’

‘Sleep well?’ His tone was intimate, as if they were still in bed, talking as the moon came up.

‘I missed you.’

‘Even in your sleep?’

‘Yes.’ She lightly hooked a finger into the waistband of his trousers, drawing a weighty look from him. Memories of last night played between them and he made a small sound, pulling back as if he didn’t quite trust himself. His eyes went to the door again; someone might walk in at any moment and she knew their body language would give them away, whether they were kissing or not. ‘What are you doing here anyway?’ she asked instead, trying to dial down the temperature between them.

He gave what almost passed as an apologetic look. ‘I needed to cross-check something with someone here.’

‘Oh. Something with someone.’ It was to do with the restitution claim, clearly.

‘You? I thought you’d be at the gallery.’

‘I was actually heading over there this morning, but then I realized I needed to cross-check something with someone here too.’

He grinned. ‘Oh yeah?’

He glanced over at the easel where the back-to-back canvases were clamped, Lilja’s portrait and Her Children stuck fast to one another. Pots, jars and brushes were scattered on the neighbouring counters, the delicate business of extrication ongoing.

Someone had made an attempt at decorating the room, she noticed now: glittery paper chains were looped in a criss-cross over the ceiling and fairy lights threaded over the pinboards. A paper crown had been placed on one of the plaster casts of King Frederick VII.

He walked towards the easel, his head tilted as he took in the unobstructed view of his own great-grandmother’s portrait. He had held back in the last meeting, she recalled, when everyone else had been clamouring; of course, she had been unaware then of his familial connection.

‘I’d ask for an update, but I’m not sure it’s worth the risk now,’ he said, looking back at her with a wry smile.

‘No! Although I guess I can tell you we believe the painting is actually a self-portrait.’

He looked surprised. ‘Lilja painted it?’

She nodded. ‘We also think she was the artist responsible for the clays in the glass cabinet in the archives.’ She remembered they had been marked A.S. on the bases. The presumption had been they were the signings of the artist, but now she believed the initials were identifiers of the subject, not the maker.

Viggo had told her the artist was an unknown, Anna Saalbach. Had it been a deliberate attempt to head her off – or had she misheard? Anna and Arne weren’t so very different, especially to a non-native ear.

‘The clays?...Really?’

‘She was very accomplished,’ she said, trying to stick to the positives, even though they were few and far between. If her theories bore out, there really wasn’t much from this that was going to cast the Madsen family in a good light. ‘She had a natural talent. It’s a shame she never got to do more with it.’

‘No. She died before she could get going.’

Dead at eighteen, in fact. Darcy bit her lip as she watched him stand before his great-grandmother’s likeness, his hands in his trouser pockets.There was one thing she needed to know. Something only he could answer. She was nervous to ask the question, to open up a line of conversation on this, after the disagreement it had led to last time – but, as she saw it, she really had no choice. He was the only one left. Last man standing.

‘...Max, can I ask you something?’

He turned to her, hearing the hesitation in her voice. ‘Okay.’

‘Did your grandmother suffer from epilepsy, do you know?’

‘Emme?’ He frowned. ‘Not that I’ve ever heard.’

‘Is there a family history of it?’

‘No.’

‘Okay,’ she murmured, trying to appear unaffected by his replies.

‘Why?’

‘Oh, I’m sure it’s nothing,’ she demurred, wishing he had answered in the affirmative. A small silence bloomed between them. In spite of their best efforts to keep things personal, they were back to business again.

‘Evidently it’s not nothing, or you wouldn’t have asked.’ He came and stood in front of her. ‘I’ve answered your questions; it’s only fair you answer mine.’

She looked back at him. Was she talking to her lover, Lilja’s descendant, now – or to her professional adversary? The boundary kept shifting.

‘Lilja’s son, her first child, had severe epilepsy. The family doctor prescribed regular dosages of bromide until his death at seven months.’

‘Okay.’ His eyes narrowed, waiting for the next part. ‘So...?’

‘So, a household ledger shows some more was bought again a few weeks before Lilja died. That coincides with just after Emme’s birth, so I wondered if it was for her...But you say she didn’t have epilepsy, so...’

She felt the gears shift in her brain. Facts levering into position.

‘...It must have been for someone else?’ he shrugged.

She nodded, but turned away, her mind already beginning to race again. For need of something to do, she crouched down at the side of the portrait; tiny, hair-thin wires had been inserted between the back of the Her Children canvas and the portrait, keeping them fractionally apart where extrication had been achieved. But she didn’t see them. Her thoughts were caught on the bill for the bromide, and something Aksel had told her.

In the context of what she now suspected about the Madsen marriage, there was another possible application for the bromide: had Lilja drugged her husband’s tea when he went to stay at Hornbaek? It was one way she could have kept him away from her, even if – for appearance’s sake – they had shared a bed. She wouldn’t have been able to fend off a full-grown man – Lilja had been slight and certainly weakened after the birth – but if he was rendered impotent...? Threat neutralized.

Had it worked? One time? Every time? If they hadn’t been intimate – quite possibly ever since the attack at the party: his relocation to London and her severe depression must have thwarted numerous opportunities – then they alone would have known the baby wasn’t his.

Casper would have known he had been cuckolded. Had he also discovered what she was doing to him?

One marriage. Two births. Three deaths ...What had happened at Solvtraeer that the two of them should have ended up dead within days of one another? Because everything told her it wasn’t a broken heart Casper had died from.

‘Darcy?’

She realized he had been talking to her; said something she had missed. ‘What?’

‘You’re very distracted.’

‘Sorry.’ She blinked, running a hand through her hair, feeling her heart pound.

He watched her closely. ‘What’s going on? Talk to me.’

‘No, I...I shouldn’t say...at least until I’ve spoken to Otto.’ She reached for his hand. ‘I’m still working through theories, that’s all.’

He made a small groan. ‘Fine. I’m not keen for a repeat of the other night.’

‘No,’ she agreed. Neither one of them wanted to go back there. It had been a catastrophic end to what had been a perfect weekend and she hated that it sat like an inkblot on their fresh, clean sheet together.

But... The other night . Darcy frowned at the words, falling very still as she realized she had overlooked something conspicuous in the car the other night, in the dark.

She looked at him, her conscience urging her to speak, her heart telling her to stay quiet...

His eyes narrowed, seeing the conflict running over her face. ‘Darcy— What?’

‘...Why were you so challenged in the car, when I suggested Lilja’s death might not have been suicide?’

He tipped his head back and sighed. ‘Why are you asking me that? We’ve literally just said we don’t want to go back there.’

‘And I don’t want to!’ she agreed. ‘But it makes no sense; it’s contrary, in fact. Most people would far prefer to think their great-grandmother’s death had been a horrible accident; that it was not her actual choice to walk into the sea, leaving behind her baby, her longed-for child.’ She stared at him, remembering what Viggo had told her. ‘And yet, that’s what the Madsen Foundation would seem to prefer people think. A deliberate death instead of an accidental one.’

He made no move to reply, as if waiting for more. She could see his guard was up again.

‘Was it a double bluff?’ she asked. ‘Deflection strategy?’ If the marriage itself had been a cover-up for a crime, why not Lilja’s death? ‘Was an accident too open to speculation?’

There had to have been gossip in society circles about the state of the marriage: Casper in London, Lilja up there in Hornbaek – strangers but for infrequent reunions. The birth might even have raised more questions than it answered...

‘Darcy—’

‘An accident was too open to speculation, so hustling public opinion into whispering about suicide shut down other wonderings instead – right? Lilja’s depression allowed the family to control the narrative.’

There was a pause.

‘Darcy, you know I have feelings for you,’ Max said in a steady voice. ‘But you’re mistaken if you think I’ll let you defame the Madsen name.’

‘I’m not defaming anyone. I’m actually trying to honour your great-grandmother’s memory.’

‘By sacrificing her husband’s?’

She caught her breath as she stared at him. ‘...Who said anything about her husband?’

She watched as Max turned away. She could see the tension in his shoulders. She could read his body now. ‘I’m only interested in revealing the facts of what happened,’ she said more quietly. ‘It’s not for me to judge.’

‘But Casper is obviously the villain in your story,’ he said after a moment. ‘You want to sacrifice his reputation—’

‘Is it worth saving?’ she cried. ‘Why would you defend him over her? Why , a hundred years later, is your family still putting his interests before hers?’

He turned back on his heel, angry now. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

‘Wouldn’t I? He was a Madsen, as are you. Isn’t it the same reason now as then? You’re doing damage control, Max. You’re making sure I don’t get too close to the truth. A lot of people are about to get very rich when the company is listed, and this is not the sort of scandal they want to get out.’

‘There’s no scandal. You’re overplaying this.’

‘No. I’m not,’ she said, shaking her head as she saw from his stricken look that she had hit upon a truth more terrible than she could have foreseen. ‘Because it strikes me that if Lilja’s death wasn’t an accident, and it wasn’t suicide, then there was only one other thing it could be.’

‘Darcy –’ A desperate note came into his voice. ‘Don’t—’

‘Lilja didn’t walk into the sea. She had too much to live for. I think Casper killed her and put her there.’ She felt her heart break as she watched his response to her words: no surprise; just defeat. ‘...But you already knew that.’