After she had bathed, and put on a dress of apricot silk which especially suited her colouring, she went downstairs to fetch her uncle and show him what they had done. Harry, now clad in a surprisingly elegant suit, had come down before her and was chatting to Uncle Theodore as if they were old acquaintances.
It was close on sunset, and in the fading light the transformation seemed even more remarkable; it really did feel as if they were stepping back thirty years. The illusion grew stronger still as Cordelia lit the candles she had already arranged. There was no electric light in the room; St Clair's belongings had been stored here long before the house was electrified, and Theodore had preferred not to disturb them. It occurred to her, as her uncle stood contemplating the results of their labours, to ask him if he recalled seeing electric lights in the restaurant in Soho on that dark winter afternoon.
"No, my dear, I don't think I did. In fact I'm sure there were none; I remember a gas-lamp on the wall. Electric light was still a luxury, you know; they would have been far too poor. And you're sure," he added, to Harry, "that the trustees would approve of this?"
"Entirely sure, sir. After all its our-that is to say, your-duty to ensure that everything is well cared for, and this could only be seen as an improvement."
Uncle Theodore asked several more questions along these lines, and seemed reassured by the replies, which encouraged Cordelia to make the request that had been shaping itself in her mind.
"Uncle… would you mind terribly if we were to bring Imogen's portrait in here and put it on the easel? We could have another key made-I don't think Beatrice would care, she never looks at it-so you could come in and see it-I mean, any of the pictures" (remembering she had told Harry nothing of her uncle's love for Imogen de Vere) "whenever you like."
"You don't have to ask my permission, my dear; it's for you to decide. But why do you want to?"
"I shan't unless you approve, uncle. I'd like to because… because then the room would look just as it did before."
"Before?" he prompted.
"Well, before everything went wrong," she floundered, realising this was delicate ground.
"I see… You can't undo the past, you know."
"I know that, uncle. I just feel it would be the right thing to do."
"Well my dear, I shall trust your feeling, and accept your offer of a key."
She could tell that he was uneasy, but felt sure of persuading him once the portrait was back in its rightful place. One of Henry St Clair's luminous daylight visions could take its place on the landing.
At dinner that night, Harry insisted upon acting as her assistant, and between them they made a game of waiting upon her uncle and aunt. In Cordelia's private bestiary, her aunt had always been, in the nicest possible sense, bovine: large, placid, gentle, utterly without malice or guile. She could not walk very far, these days, because her legs tended to swell, and her heart was not strong. But tonight she wore her best dove-grey silk, and beamed upon Harry as if he and Cordelia were already engaged. Uncle Theodore brought out a couple of bottles of his best wine, and as the evening unfolded it seemed to Cordelia that everything in the room took on a deeper and richer glow. Harry and her uncle did most of the talking; she was perfectly content to sit and gaze at her beloved, bathed in a radiance so entrancing she felt she had never seen candlelight before.
Given that Henry St Clair's entire property had been seized without warning, they had expected to find papers, letters, perhaps even a diary. Harry-to his uncle's displeasure, as he cheerfully acknowledged-had spent much of the interval inquiring after the painter, without result: no one in any of the established galleries or salerooms had ever heard of a St Clair, let alone seen the man himself. Nor, thus far, was there indication that he might have continued working under another name. They began their search of his belongings with high hopes; but late on Sunday afternoon they were compelled to admit defeat. There were no books, no keepsakes, no photographs, no papers of any kind. The sole clue to his identity was his signature on the paintings.
"I don't understand," said Cordelia, when they had put away the last box and returned to the studio. "If they let him keep everything personal, why not his painting things?"
"I think," Harry replied, "that de Vere" (Cordelia had told him that she disowned her grandfather) "must have destroyed everything of that sort."
He was standing at the lectern, examining the face of the drowned man, as he had done several times that morning it seemed to hold a particular fascination for him. By leaving off the clasps that secured the last panel, he could display the final opening without having to lay out the rest of the work.
"But then why would he leave everything else?"
"Well… madness aside, it does look as if he removed anything that might have given us a clue to St Clair's whereabouts. Which suggests to me that he wanted to make sure nobody did find St Clair. So perhaps there was something illegal in the way he got hold of the pictures…
"And suppose… suppose you hadn't been interested, just left them locked up; then in due course the whole lot would have been burned by the trustees without anyone ever having seen them. De Vere really would have managed to erase all trace of St Clair's existence. 'Here lies one whose name was writ in water'…"
He paused, still gazing at the drowned man's face.
"But even now, if we could only find him-and somehow I feel sure he's still alive-we could change that, and perhaps save his pictures as well For ever, that is."
"I see what you mean," said Cordelia. "But supposing we did find him, and it turned out that everything really did belong to him, the income would stop and my uncle would have to sell this house. I'm not saying we shouldn't try-we must do what's right-but it will make him terribly anxious. He loves Ashbourn-so do I-and I should hate to be the cause of his losing it."
It crossed her mind that her uncle and aunt would not always be here-and what would happen to Ashbourn after that?-but this was a train of thought she did not want to pursue.
"On my reading of the deed that wouldn't necessarily follow, not at all. Besides, St Clair would surely be happy to see his pictures here; he wouldn't want to do anything to harm you, of all people. And to recover possession of the pictures, he would have to bring an action against the trust, which could be very costly. No, my idea is that we would look after them for the life of the trust, but if we could establish St Clair's claim, then we ought to be able to persuade the trustees that the pictures couldn't be burned; if they went to the nation, nobody could be accused of profiting from the change."
It seemed to Cordelia that this chain of reasoning depended on a great many "ifs", but she was too delighted by "we would look after them" to care. Warm scents of blossom drifted in through the open window, where she was perched, in her usual fashion, on the sill with her feet upon the counterpane of the bed. The portrait of Imogen de Vere, serene and luminous as ever, rested upon the easel as if the artist had just laid down his brushes. Yes, she thought, we really have banished the last of the evil; the intended curse has turned out to be a blessing. Without the pictures I would never have met Harry; now this room will be our special place until we have a house of our own. Harry had accepted Uncle Theodore's invitation to join them again the following weekend, so eagerly that she really could not doubt it