CHAPTER NINE
The Gallery of the Ex-quis-ite was in-deed ex-quis-ite.
Two days af-ter my con-ver-sa-tion with Or-lagh—a sleepy Sun-day evening, for most stu-dents—she ar-ranged for us to meet the Masked Painter in the un-der-ground gallery hid-den be-neath the bones of Do-rian.
I had spent the whole week-end en-shrined in my room, pre-par-ing my body. Be-cause if I was to be im-mor-tal-ized, I had to be the most beau-ti-ful ver-sion of my-self pos-si-ble. I wrapped my hair in a silk tur-ban, mak-ing sure I would not lose an-other strand be-fore the sit-ting—it was a shame that I’d have the ten-pence piece patch of bare scalp for-ever, but that was far pre-fer-able to a wholly bald head.
I waxed my legs, my un-der-arms, my bikini line, grit-ting my teeth through the sting with the knowl-edge I’d never have to do it again. I tinted my lashes black, plucked and shaped my brows into per-fect fluffy arches, scraped back my cu-ti-cles and tended to a small pa-per cut on my thumb.
I ate noth-ing, drank noth-ing. Felt my stom-ach shrink, my skin pulled taut over my hip bones and ribs.
Not for much longer, I promised my-self. Just one more day of this, and then we will be free.
Through-out it all, a twisted kind of ela-tion set-tled over me. Al-though I knew some-where in my chest that noth-ing was truly with-out cost, my star-va-tion-ad-dled mind wanted so badly to be-lieve it that I didn’t ex-am-ine Or-lagh’s of-fer for traps.
I ag-o-nized over what to wear. Of course I’d be able to change my clothes when-ever I wanted in real life, but for some rea-son it felt deeply im-por-tant for the por-trait to truly rep-re-sent me. In the end I set-tled on an off-the-shoul-der Alexan-der Mc-Queen dress in black silk, with sil-ver-em-broi-dered roses at the dé-col-letage. It was more gothic than I usu-ally chose, but it felt fit-ting for the drama of the oc-ca-sion.
Late on Sun-day af-ter-noon, I was to meet Or-lagh out-side the Basil Hall-ward The-ater, named for the vi-sion-ary who founded the school. We en-tered through the stage door, which she un-locked with a large golden key, then crossed through the green room and onto the stage it-self. It was the first time I’d set foot on it since my au-di-tion.
“Be-hold, player,” she said grandly. “Your dais.”
Chills came over me as I looked out at the bare rows of ma-roon vel-vet chairs, imag-in-ing the heat of the spot-light on my face as I per-formed Lady Mac-beth. Chills—but not nec-es-sar-ily the good kind. I thought of my ill-fated na-tiv-ity au-di-tion, of the burn-ing shame of hid-ing my soiled un-der-wear, how it felt to lose that lead. How it felt know-ing that my mother didn’t care.
I’ll show her, I thought. One day I’ll be so great she can’t ig-nore me.
Once the por-trait was fin-ished and my beauty sealed, I could fo-cus all my at-ten-tion on my craft, my art, on be-com-ing great. As great as Davina. Greater, even.
And then my mother would see me. Re-ally, truly see me.
Af-ter al-low-ing me an in-dul-gent mo-ment, Or-lagh strode down-stage—el-e-gant pur-ple dress flow-ing silk-ily be-hind her—and crouched down to lift up a trap-door that was used for spe-cial ef-fects. Once it was open, she de-scended the first few steps lead-ing be-low the stage and ges-tured for me to fol-low.
I still could not parse her ex-pres-sion. There was a grim stoni-ness to it that I didn’t un-der-stand, as though she were lead-ing me to the gal-lows not a gallery. Didn’t she un-der-stand the im-mense gift she was be-stow-ing upon me? Didn’t she un-der-stand the shack-les she was loos-ing?
She did. She knew what this meant to me. I had told her as much. And so why did she gaze at me like an ex-e-cu-tioner might?
Be-neath the stage was a dim, dusty cav-ern filled with props, smoke ma-chines, un-plugged lights and sev-eral snarls of tan-gled cords. It was a low space, and any-one much taller than my five and a half feet would need to stoop. My eyes strained against the lack of light, un-til Or-lagh pulled an hon-est-to-god lantern out of the folds of her skirts. It was tiny, made of brass, and a tea light flick-ered in-side it. I had the dis-tinct im-pres-sion I’d fallen into a Vic-to-rian hor-ror novel.
Light-headed as ever, I shuf-fled be-hind her as she strode to the far end of the space, where an al-most im-per-cep-ti-ble door was notched into the wall. Ev-ery-thing was wood-pan-eled and painted black, so the seams of the frame blended per-fectly—the only thing that gave it away was a small key-hole of scuffed gold. Or-lagh pulled out a del-i-cate key from an-other skirt fold and slid it into the lock.
Be-yond the door was a steep set of stone steps with a mildewy run-ner down the cen-ter. As we crossed the thresh-old, cold, stale air wafted up from what-ever lay be-low.
The steps seemed to go on for-ever, darker and danker and colder, un-til fi-nally we hit the ground. A nar-row tun-nel stretched and curved out be-fore us, and I could only see a few steps in front of us by the flick-er-ing lantern light. But this was no rab-bit war-ren. The walls were plas-tered and solid, and the floor was not bare earth but rather wooden par-quet floor-ing worn smooth by decades of trod-den feet. It was like be-ing part of some-thing an-cient, some-thing ar-cane and clan-des-tine. Some-thing so much big-ger than my-self.
“It’s so cold down here,” I whis-pered, un-sure why rais-ing my voice felt al-most dis-re-spect-ful. Still my low words echoed around the tun-nel.
“We’re be-neath Swan Lake right now,” Or-lagh an-swered. As soon as she said it, I could al-most feel the vast body of icy wa-ter press-ing down on us from above, could sense the vi-cious swans carv-ing lines through the glassy sur-face of the wa-ter. It was op-pres-sive, and some-how fright-en-ing.
Abruptly the tun-nel opened out into a much larger space, and I sti-fled a gasp.
It was a room the size of a hockey pitch. In the mid-dle was propped an easel and a stool, and be-yond that a ma-roon vel-vet chaise longue hastily draped in a swath of white fab-ric. There were few other ob-jects—just an in-tri-cately printed screen in the far cor-ner, be-hind which sub-jects could change in pri-vacy. Three of the four walls were hung with por-traits, but in just the dim light from the tiny lantern, I couldn’t pick out any de-tails.
“Be-hold,” an-nounced Or-lagh, “the Gallery of the Ex-quis-ite.”
The di-men-sions of the room were wrong; too much blank space around the easel, be-tween the chaise and the paint-ings. I’d al-ways found the jux-ta-po-si-tion of very large things next to very small things un-nerv-ing. An ant next to a dou-ble-decker bus. A thumb-tack in an empty sta-dium. Per-haps my great-aunt’s try-popho-bia wasn’t so ab-surd, af-ter all.
As Or-lagh be-gan light-ing the pe-ri-odic sil-ver sconces bolted to the wall be-tween paint-ings, slowly the room was il-lu-mi-nated, and a shiver ran down my spine.
The near-est por-trait to me was of An-gus Ar-ras, a Do-rian alum who had starred in sev-eral BBC dra-mas be-fore mak-ing it huge in Hol-ly-wood. In real life he had barely aged at all—he was more rugged and beardy than in his youth, but his dark brown hair was streaked with only the finest sil-ver threads. In his paint-ing, how-ever, all of his hair was white, his eyes wrin-kled and droop-ing, and there was a gaunt-ness to the hol-lows of his cheeks.
There were other world-class ac-tors too. Celia Van Der Beek and Lyle Barr, who had suf-fered a rather pub-lic and ac-ri-mo-nious di-vorce, both looked over a hun-dred years old. None of the sub-jects looked any younger than forty or fifty—which would sug-gest that no new paint-ings had been hung in decades.
“So many fa-mous faces,” I said, fight-ing the urge to run a fin-ger over the lined brow of Ly-dia Fettes. She had just starred in a glossy new Shirley Jack-son adap-ta-tion, her skin smooth and her eyes bright. The press had long been spec-u-lat-ing over her date of birth, since ev-ery pub-lic record of it seemed to dif-fer.
It felt like a veil had been lifted on one of the act-ing world’s deep-est se-crets.
I also strug-gled to rec-on-cile the logic of what I was see-ing with my sci-en-tific and or-dered world-view. My brain scram-bled for an ex-pla-na-tion that did not, could not ex-ist. Per-haps Or-lagh was quite mad, and these paint-ings had all been re-cently com-mis-sioned to show how the stars might look as they aged. But stand-ing in this eerie space be-low a sil-ver-topped lake, sur-rounded by an es-o-teric chill I’d never felt be-fore, it was as though my bones un-der-stood some-thing my mind could not ac-cept.
There was also a kind of ten-sion to the paint-ings that didn’t seem wholly nat-u-ral. It wasn’t that the fig-ures moved, ex-actly, but nor did they seem to stay en-tirely still. They were not poised, el-e-gant, but rather taut and charged with some-thing en-tirely meta-phys-i-cal. Look-ing at the por-traits felt like I’d caught each sub-ject in a vul-ner-a-ble, ex-posed mo-ment. It was as though I were star-ing at their naked forms through the crack in a cur-tain, and while they were very aware of my gaze, they were pow-er-less to move away.
Then my gaze drifted over to the paint-ing I had ex-pected to see—but still the sight stole the breath from my lungs.
Be-low it, a gold plate: Peggy Pax-ton, Ed-in-burgh.
Dazed, I si-dled up to the paint-ing, barely dar-ing to blink or breathe. As I drew close enough to pick out the most minute de-tails, my eyes welled with tears. Be-cause here was my mother as she should have been, had she not been hung in this very gallery.
The years had not been kind. Her green eyes had dulled to a mossy gray, and the whites were shot through with red veins and a gray-pink un-der-tone. Her face was puffy and bloated from al-co-hol, and the skin around her mouth sagged into low jowls hang-ing from the jaw. Limp, life-less hair framed her face—not the vi-brant cop-per I shared with her but a strag-gly gray shot through with tepid gin-ger.
And yet while she was un-de-ni-ably less beau-ti-ful, she was more real to me than the glo-ri-fied man-nequin I’d lived with my whole life. There was an in-ten-sity be-hind the eyes that was miss-ing in re-al-ity, as though this ver-sion of my mother were ca-pa-ble of the depth of love I so craved. Her wa-tery gaze al-most strained against the can-vas. It was as though this painted face—still, un-mov-ing, as paint-ings should be—were try-ing des-per-ately to com-mu-ni-cate some-thing to me.
But maybe I was just pro-ject-ing.
“She was an in-cred-i-ble tal-ent, your mother.”
Or-lagh’s voice be-hind me made me start. I hadn’t re-al-ized she’d fin-ished light-ing the sconces.
I frowned. “Is. She’s still alive.”
“Of course. I meant only that her fullest po-ten-tial was not reached.” A wist-ful sigh. “She could have been the best Shake-spearean ac-tor of her gen-er-a-tion.”
It was a strange thought, so far re-moved from the mother I knew. She’d been in-tox-i-cated for so much of my life that I couldn’t imag-ine her on stage, clar-ion-voiced and clear-minded, in-hab-it-ing some of the most com-plex char-ac-ters ever writ-ten.
I swal-lowed, star-ing into the blood-shot eyes of who she should have been. “Why do you think she left Do-rian?” I asked, cu-ri-ous to see whether her an-swer would match my mother’s own.
Or-lagh rubbed thought-fully at her chin. “She was scouted for mod-el-ing, or so I heard. The high-est com-pli-ment most young women hope to achieve. I can only as-sume the lure of it was too strong.”
The as-ser-tion was guarded; over-prac-ticed in the same way it was when-ever I told some-one it’s all I know. I knew there was some-thing else lurk-ing be-neath it.
“When I told my mother about our men-tor-ing, she told me to be care-ful.”
Or-lagh did not flinch at my di-rect-ness. “I can only as-sume she didn’t want her daugh-ter to make the same de-ci-sion she did.”
“But why? It seems like the an-swer to all my prayers.”
“And such is the rea-son I shared it with you.” Or-lagh shrugged, then spread her arms wide, ges-tur-ing for me to look around. “For me it has been the great-est bless-ing of my life, and yet not all sub-jects feel the same. I sup-pose, from her cau-tions, your mother is one of them.”
I pressed on, de-ter-mined to un-earth some-thing more in-sight-ful about her re-la-tion-ship with my mother. “You looked grim-faced as we climbed through the trap-door.”
“My child, I think only of the hurt you’re about to face.” She winced, and fear flut-tered through me like in-sect wings. She fid-dled with the apri-cot-gold cameo ring on her fore-fin-ger. “It is fleet-ing, but in-tense. And the dull throb af-ter-ward never truly leaves.”
Be-fore I could ask any-thing else, be-hind us there was a sub-tle shift in the at-mos-phere, like the soft swish of a cloak.
Or-lagh and I both turned at once, and be-fore us was the Masked Painter.