She had as sharp an eye as Augustus John’s. ‘The little one in the corner looks like his Lazarus.’
‘Yes.’ He waited. ‘Do you know the woman’s face?’
‘Mr Himple’s studio is over the road.’
It took him an instant to guess what that meant. ‘You don’t see his models?’
‘I hardly pry into my employer’s business.’
‘I didn’t mean to suggest that. You might have seen her, I meant.’
She handed the drawing back. Denton waited; nothing came. He said, ‘When will Mr Himple be back?’
‘Mr Himple has gone abroad.’
‘Ah. For how long?’
‘I’m sure I don’t know. He made arrangements that would allow him to make an extended journey. You would do best to write to him, perhaps. Or not.’
‘I did. May I ask when he left?’
‘Some time ago.’
‘When?’
She enjoyed being a dog in the manger of information. No amount of niceness was going to get it out of her. Denton bore down, gave as good as he got, showed in a changed voice that he could be just as stern as she. Reluctantly, she admitted that Himple had gone some time ago, then that he had gone in August, then that he had left on 9 August.
One day after Mary Thomason had written to ask for help. Denton felt himself coming out of his end-of-book daze. ‘Did he go alone?’
She got her back up at that: what did he mean? What was he suggesting? She would have to ask him to leave if he was going to make insinuations.
Denton produced the drawing again. She said, ‘He would hardly travel with a young lady!’
‘Did he travel with anybody at all?’
‘His man, of course.’ She glanced down at the drawing, looked out of a window, said in a different voice, one for the first time suggesting — was it disapproval? Or some personal hurt? ‘A man. A servant, I mean.’
Denton had to figure this through — his man but apparently not his man, a man — and he said, ‘Not his regular man?’
Again, she didn’t look at him, spoke in the same aggrieved voice. ‘He wanted someone who could speak French.’
‘His regular man didn’t speak French?’
‘Brown does not speak French.’
‘Brown is his regular man? Can I speak with Brown?’
‘Brown lives in Strand-on-the Green. He comes in once a week to tend to the studio and do the pictures.’ Denton had no idea what this meant; it didn’t matter. She said, ‘Mr Himple made an arrangement with Brown for his absence — until he returns.’ She looked again at the drawing. Her expression was even more severe.
‘You didn’t approve of the man he took with him.’
‘It’s hardly my business to approve of my employer’s judgement.’
‘I thought perhaps you didn’t like the new man.’
‘I hardly knew him.’ She looked yet again at the drawing.
‘You recognize the drawing, don’t you.’
She handed it back. The edge of the paper vibrated; her hand was trembling. Looking at her again, Denton felt a sudden sympathy, had a glimpse into her life and its isolation, probably its loneliness. He said, ‘Did the new man look like the woman’s face in the drawing? ’
She sat very straight. ‘I believe he resembles the face in the corner, at least.’
‘Lazarus.’
She was silent. Her head may have trembled; maybe he was wrong. He said, ‘Have you seen the painting?’
‘Mr Himple kindly invited me to the studio to see it before it went to the Academy.’
‘Do you think the “new man” who went abroad with him was the model for Lazarus?’
‘I — thought that might be so when I saw the painting. It was not my business.’ She looked at him. ‘Nor yours, sir.’
‘I think the man who modelled Lazarus may be the brother of the missing girl. He may know where she is. Mrs Evans, this is quite important. I want to get in touch with the young man.’
‘You may write a letter, I’m sure.’
‘Where are they?’
She licked her thin, dark lips. ‘Brown — Mr Himple’s regular valet — is in touch with him. If I have anything to report about the house, I do it through Brown.’ She smoothed her dress; her fingers plucked at a square inch of fabric as if she saw something on it. ‘I had an address for him at the beginning, but it was only a poste restante. They’re long gone from there, so Brown says.’ Through tone alone, she made it clear that a housekeeper should not have to communicate with her employer through a valet.
‘Where?’
‘I’ve told you, I don’t know!’ As if she regretted her sharpness, she said, ‘They spent the first month painting in France, a village, Hinon. In Normandy. They were supposed to spend the summer there, but he changed his mind. Quite an unspoiled spot, Mr Himple said. That’s why he wanted a French speaker. But he moved on.’ Her expression changed, suggested malicious pleasure. ‘Perhaps it was too unspoiled.’
‘The “new man”, too?’
‘I assume so. Although-’ The expression, malicious, almost a smile, touched her mouth. ‘Brown said Mr Himple has discharged him.’
‘Why?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘When?’
‘I don’t remember. The end of summer, perhaps.’
‘Then writing to him care of Mr Himple wouldn’t reach him.’
‘No, I suppose it wouldn’t.’
Denton was angry with her, made himself see her side of it. She had tried to fob him off at first with the idea of writing to the ‘new man’. She had wanted to get rid of him — Mary Thomason was nothing to her; why should she bother helping him? She wanted him to go, to leave her to her isolation and her loneliness. ‘But you’re sure you haven’t seen the young woman in the drawing.’
‘Quite sure, of course.’
‘But Mr Himple drew her.’
‘I don’t know that he did. Perhaps he did.’ She was looking towards the door, towards a black stone clock on the mantel.
‘Was the “new man” English?’
‘Certainly he was.’
‘You heard him talk, then.’
She compressed her lips. ‘Once or twice.’
‘What did he sound like — educated? Rough?’
‘He sounded like his class.’
‘But he spoke French.’
‘So Mr Himple said. I wouldn’t have known if he had. I don’t bother myself with foreign things.’
She didn’t know the new man’s name — he’d have to ask Brown. He asked if he could see the studio and was told he’d have to apply to Brown. She was eager for him to go now; she had said too much, he thought, not because she had anything to hide but because information was all she did have. Perhaps she got pleasure from treating as secrets things that were merely ordinary. He got Brown’s address from her and went away, glad to get into the gathering dusk and the cold.
The ducks were gone. The sun was gone, too, the dwindling light throwing everything into shades of lavender and dark grey-blue, the last light on the water like much-rubbed metal. On the Albert Bridge, the traffic rumbled and growled. A steam launch came down the river, its lights like tantalizing hints of certainty in the gloom.
Next day, he visited Brown in a tidy little house on the river almost as far as Kew. The valet was not yet forty, heavy-set, unintelligent. Yes, Mr Himple sent him regular letters. Yes, Himple and the ‘new man’ had stayed at Hinon for a month; yes, they had left there early and gone on to Paris and then ‘the South’; yes, Mr Himple had written that he had discharged the new man and was taking a villa with its own staff. No, he wasn’t sure of the villa’s location; he had been told only a poste restante address. But Mr Himple had moved again, heading for Italy incognito because of the crowds of English tourists, he said. He planned to winter in Florence, where he had a large acquaintance. He had sent back four paintings — ‘What artists call sketches in oil, sir.’ Mr Himple was ‘renewing his style’. It sounded like something Brown was quoting from one of Himple’s letters.