Chapter Twenty-Five
As the light began to fade, Clem walked around the ballroom pulling closed the heavy curtains. Every evening that she did this it made her grin. When she’d been learning to sew, she would watch her heroines on TV as they gamely tore down their curtains and refashioned them into beautiful gowns. Scarlett O’Hara outshone every belle at the ball; Maria managed to clothe an entire troupe of children with nothing more than mere window hangings.
Clem would sit in the family terrace and look from the TV to the front room window, with its three foot by four foot drapes, and wonder if there was enough fabric there to clothe a single child, let alone a whole tribe of them. And if there was, she still had the problem that her home curtains were cheap and made of polyester. And of course the biggest issue would be that having romantically fashioned said curtains into something breathtaking and wonderful, her neighbours would then be able to stand by the window and watch the TV along with those inside the house. No, those curtains stayed on their pole.
Despite her poor start and criminally neglectful choice of curtains, Clem was lucky to be surrounded by neighbours who were ferocious seamstresses in their own right. Growing up, she would sit in their living rooms hand sewing, embroidering, cutting and sewing whatever needed doing. And whilst she learnt, she was getting paid. Most of the ladies did piece work for some of the nearby factories, and as Clem showed talent, they passed on some of their workload to her. As she got older, she was trusted to work on the finer fabrics and became adept at the trickeries of chiffon and satin. Slub silk held no fear for her and she could run rings around a French seam. By the time her parents died, Clem was already working on full garments, making clothes for friends and neighbours as well as working for local tailors. Making shirts was fiddly but it paid well; she was fast and accurate. Shortly after their funerals, she left school and started working full time. When her GCSE results came out no one was surprised that she failed the lot.
Clem drew closed the last set of curtains and looked back to her current project. A fitted wedding dress for a constantly changing shape, not too shabby for a thickie, hey Mrs Conlan? Maybe she would send her old teacher an invitation to her show in the VA and then when she got to the door have security throw her out. Happy in her daydreams, Clem started sewing panels together.
Gradually, the piles of cut fabric began to build as Clem assembled the parts for the gown. There was a knock at the door and Miss Farano walked in.
Clem checked her watch and was surprised to see it was close to midnight. Miss Farano looked tired and if Clem didn’t know better she might even have been crying. Earlier in the day they had had a brief but pleasant exchange, and Clem had been relieved to find that it was possible for the woman to talk without piss and vinegar. This hesitant worried look was something completely new.
‘Is something wrong?’
The housekeeper walked forward but then stopped, reluctant to come in any further. ‘We need to talk but I’d rather be sitting down.’
Damn, thought Clemmie, she was right in the zone, cutting and thinking about the dress. It wasn’t like she had an expansive deadline for this project. Only the seams could be expansive. Everything else was rigid. Sighing, she pushed herself away from the table and walked towards the door. ‘Anywhere in particular?’
She followed Otto into the Blue Room and noticed that Otto had already stoked the fire and poured a glass of whisky for herself and offered a glass of port for Clem. Knowing that she would need to get back to work after this, whatever this was, Clem declined and sat down, impatient to get on with it.
Miss Farano cleared her throat, sipped her whisky, cleared her throat again and then stared into the fire. The light from the flames jumped across her lined face and made her look strained and witchy. She took a deep breath and then fell silent again. Clem narrowed her eyes. Just as she was about to speak, Miss Farano began.
‘Earlier on today you showed me a photo of a gallery at the VA. One of the pictures in it is a fake.’
‘Really?’ Clem was intrigued; how could the old girl see that from a photo? ‘Well that’s a bit embarrassing. How can you tell. Are you sure?’
‘Oh, I’m one hundred per cent certain.’ She took another drink, and Clemmie laughed.
‘Look, I wouldn’t worry about it. Honestly, I don’t think you can really tell from a photo. Now, if you don’t mind, I do need to get back to work. Even if it is a fake, it’s hardly our issue.’ Clemmie wondered if Miss Farano was losing her marbles. Was this something else that she was going to have to deal with, evening chats about people stealing the silver, government conspiracies, alien overlords, the youth of today?
‘It is a fake and it could mean the total disgrace of the House of Hiverton.’
That got Clem’s attention. ‘What on earth are you talking about? How can an Old Master in London have anything to do with us?’
With a shaking hand, Otto splashed another shot in her glass.
‘Because it’s not an Old Master. It’s a fake. I painted it and the original is up in my bedroom.’
In the silence, Clem could hear the grandfather clock ticking out in the hallway as a log crackled in the fireplace. Clem poured herself a glass of port and pinched the bridge of her nose, screwing her eyes up.
‘Go on.’
‘I paint. I have always painted. I love it and it was the first thing your grandfather noticed about me. He fell in love with my paintings before he ever met me and I loved him for that. And then, of course, as I got to know him, I loved him for so much more.’
‘Wait. You and my grandfather were an item?’ Clem leant forward. This was the first time Miss Farano had mentioned anything about her past and it was a bombshell.
‘An item? What a strange way of talking you young people have.’
Otto paused, remembering how in love she and Henry had been. How exciting it all was, how dramatic and wonderful. Everything was passion and tension. Tiny, sweet ecstasies and eventually one gigantic agony.
‘But that is off the point. The painting is the point.’
‘Sorry, I’m still trying to work this out. Were you and my grandfather having an affair when he was married? Did my grandmother know? Was this one of those marriages of convenience?’
‘No, I…’ Otto paused. She just wanted to explain about the painting but at least this was an easier topic of conversation.
‘I don’t believe your grandmother ever knew, or at least if she did, she never objected. We met once, when they came up for a holiday. She was perfectly civil, but she never came again. I am sorry if you feel pain on her behalf.’
This time Clem scoffed.
‘I feel no pain for her or my grandfather, whatsoever. Remember they disinherited my mother. I found her diaries and I bawled my eyes out reading how my mother felt as her mother rejected her. When Mum told them she was pregnant with Ari, her own mother called Ari a mongrel and her father disowned her. No, I feel no pain on either of their behalf.’
Otto was shocked. She herself had never had much in the way of a family life but she knew a family should behave better than that. She was beginning to understand some of Lady Clementine’s emotional anger.
‘I feel that I may have been told only one side of the story about your mother. Maybe Henry did his daughter a disservice?’
The two women sat in silence. An uneasy truce was building between them but Otto knew she needed to continue her story.
‘When I moved in here, he set me up with a studio and I continued painting. Sometimes copies, sometimes originals but I hated my new life. One day I saw the painting of the songbird in one of the bedrooms and romantically thought that it summed up my situation, so I copied it. Henry saw it, and immediately understood the symbolism of my being separated from my love and my freedom. He started crying and apologising and asked if he could take the copy back to Norfolk with him. He said he would think of me every time he looked at it. Which hurt me, because I didn’t need a painting to be reminded of him. Looking back, I realise I was ungenerous in thinking that: every day I was surrounded by portraits of him and his family, I slept in his beds, ate at his table. Here, he was a constant reminder to me, but in his home he had nothing. Just a wife, a growing family and a massive estate. It was easy to forget me amongst all those other demands.’
Otto paused and took another drink and returned to looking at the flames. Just when Clemmie thought she was going to prompt her, she continued. ‘I’ve spent the afternoon looking up the VA catalogues and auction house sales and it looks like your uncle must have sold the painting about a decade ago. Maybe he wanted to raise funds, I don’t know. Anyway, he obviously didn’t know it was a fake. And now there it sits in the VA.’
‘But that doesn’t make sense,’ protested Clem. ‘Even if David couldn’t spot a fake, the auction house would and so would the VA.’
‘But what did they have to compare it to? The original has never been photographed or exhibited. It has been in the family for centuries. The written description matches, and the provenance is impeccable. Why would the auction have run a full battery of tests on it? Twenty years ago people were much more trusting. And tests were so much more expensive and potentially damaging.’
‘But that still doesn’t make any sense. Anyone worth their salt would spot a modern canvas or modern paint.’
Otto took another sip of whisky and smile ruefully.
‘When I said I paint, I probably failed to stress just how good I am. My copies hold up under most levels of inspection. I don’t use modern canvas or paints. My copies are as near perfect as they can be.’
Clemmie leant forward and placed a log on the fire. When she sat back she looked at Otto. The woman seemed to have shrunk to half her size. ‘When you say copy, do you mean forge?’
Otto scowled at her. ‘That’s a very ugly word.’
‘It’s a pretty ugly thing.’
‘Not always. And anyway, this picture was not a forgery. It was an authentic reproduction. It was never meant to be circulated.’
‘Okay, well this is a bit of a mess,’ said Clem, ‘but it’s not the end of the world. We’ll quietly get in touch with the museum, explain the problem and swap the paintings over.’
‘Just like that?’ scoffed Otto.
‘Yes,’ snapped Clem, ‘just like that. I don’t see why you are being difficult. This is your sodding mess and we’ll be the ones that have to sort it out.’
‘You can’t do that. You can’t draw attention to it.’
‘For heaven’s sake, of course we can. They’ll be perfectly understanding. They might even write a piece about it.’
Otto blanched. ‘They really won’t.’
‘Why not? It’s sweet. Man’s lover paints him a memento and it’s good enough to fool the experts.’
‘Well, to begin with, experts don’t like being fooled. They don’t like it being made public. But more importantly, once they have a thread to pull, they will be obligated to look at everything else. Everything that your uncle sold. Or that was attributed to that artist, or that was sold by that auction house. It would grow out of control.’
‘Why? That’s silly!’
‘Because it’s so good, damn you. Don’t you understand? They will look at it afresh and realise that it isn’t the work of some man’s mistress. It is the work of an expert. An expert forger. One that they hadn’t previously uncovered. It would shake the art world at its foundations and everyone would look to the House of Hiverton who sheltered the forger for decades.’
‘Over one picture?’ Now it was Clem’s turn to scoff. ‘I think you need to lay off the whisky. It’s made you overly pessimistic. What I think you…’ Clem’s voice broke off as something occurred to her and she looked at Otto again.
Otto’s face was once more defiant and sneering. She was angry and embarrassed and was waiting for the penny to drop.
‘That’s not the only one, is it?’
‘No.’
‘How many more are there?’
Otto shrugged.
‘Are they all in the VA?’
‘Who knows? I never kept track of them. It was just a job. The one I did for your grandfather was for love. The others were for money. How ironic that the one I did for love is the one that’s going to ruin me. Hats off to the Hiverton family, screwing with my life all over again.’
Pushing herself up from the chair she gathered up her glass and half-empty bottle. ‘I’m going to bed.’
As she walked carefully out of the room, Clem stared at her back in amazement and then wondered what the hell she was going to do.