“No,” I said vehemently. “I think she should have been allowed to go on with her studies. If we have talent we should not hide it away.”
“The parable of the talents,” she cried, her eyes alight with pleasure. “It’s what Isabella thought too. She was…resentful.”
I felt a sympathy with Isabella. She had thrown away a career no doubt for marriage…somewhat as I had.
I felt those childish yet penetrating eyes on me.
Then she turned once more to the picture. “I’ll tell you a secret, Mrs. Verlaine. That is my work.”
“Then you’re an artist.”
She put her hands behind her back and nodded slowly.
“How interesting!”
“Oh yes. I painted that picture.”
“How long before he died did he sit for it?”
“Sit for it. He never would sit for anything. Imagine getting Beau to sit down! And why should I want him to? I knew him. I could see him clearly then…just as I see him now. I didn’t need him to sit, Mrs. Verlaine. I only paint the people I know.”
“It’s very clever of you.”
“Would you like to see some more of my pictures?”
“I’d be most interested.”
“Isabella was a clever musician, but she wasn’t the only clever one. Come to my rooms now. I have my own little suite. I’ve had it all my life. There was a time when I might have left here. I was going to be married…” Her face puckered and I thought she was going to burst into tears. “But I didn’t…and so I stayed here where I had been all my life. I had my home and my pictures…”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She smiled. “Perhaps I’ll paint you one day, Mrs. Verlaine. It’ll be when I’ve learned to know you. Then I’ll see how I’ll paint you. Come with me now.”
I was fascinated by this strange little woman. She sprang round daintily and I saw her black satin slippers peeping out from beneath her blue skirt. There was mischief in her smile; as I have said she was like a high-spirited little girl and the manner coupled with that wrinkled face was intriguing and yet, I fancied, a little sinister. I wondered what I was going to see in her room, and if she really was responsible for the picture over the fireplace in Beau’s room.
Upstairs and through corridors we went. She looked over her shoulder at me and said: “Now, Mrs. Verlaine, you are lost, are you not?” in the manner of a teasing child.
I admitted I was but added that I supposed I should be able to find my way about in time.
“In time…” she whispered. “Perhaps. But time does not teach everything, does it? Time heals they say, but everything they say is not true, is it?”
I did not want to enter into a discussion at this point so I did not attempt to disagree with her; and smiling she walked on.
Eventually we came to what she called her suite. We were in one of the turrets and gleefully she showed me the apartment. There were three rooms in the great tower. “It’s a circle,” she pointed out—“you can go all round—one room leading to another and you come back to where you started from. Isn’t that unusual, Mrs. Verlaine? But I want to show you my studio. It faces north, you know. The light is so important to an artist. Come along in and I’ll show you some of my work.”
I went in. The windows were bigger in this room than in the others and the north light was strong. Her look of youth was harshly denied in this room; the little bows, the blue gown with its satin sash, the little black slippers, were not enough to combat the wrinkles, the brown smudges on the thin claw-like hands; but she had lost none of her animation. The room was simply furnished; there was a door at each end which I knew opened onto the next room; on the walls were several pictures and canvases were stacked up in a corner. On a table lay a pallet and an easel was set up; on this was a half-finished picture of three girls; and I knew at once that they were Edith, Allegra, and Alice. She followed my gaze.
“Ah,” she said conspiratorially. “Come and look.”
I went closer beside her. She was watching me eagerly for my reactions. I studied the picture; Edith with her golden hair; Allegra with her thick black curls and Alice neat with a white band holding back her long straight light-brown hair.
“You recognize them?”
“Of course. It’s a good likeness.”
“They’re young,” she said. “Their faces tell nothing, do they?”
“Youth…innocence…inexperience…”
“They tell nothing,” she said. “But if you know them you can see beneath the face they show the world. That is the artist’s gift, don’t you think? To see what they are trying to hide.”
“It makes the artist rather alarming.”
“A person to be avoided.” Her laughter was pitched and girlish. She was looking at me with those childlike eyes and I felt uneasy. Was she trying to probe my secrets? Was she seeing my stormy life with Pietro? Would she attempt to probe also into my motives? What if she discovered that I was Roma’s sister?
“It would all depend,” I said, “whether one had something to hide.”
“All people have something to hide don’t they, Mrs. Verlaine? It could be only one little thing…but it’s something so very much one’s own. Older people are more interesting than the young. Nature is an artist. Nature draws all sorts of things on people’s faces which they would prefer to hide.”
“Nature also draws the pleasanter things.”
“You’re an optimist, Mrs. Verlaine. I can see that. You’re like the young woman who came here…digging.”
My uneasiness increased. “Like…” I began.
She went on: “William didn’t want the place disturbed, but she was so persistent. She wouldn’t let him rest so he said yes. And they came down looking for Roman remains. It hasn’t been the same since.”
“You met this young woman?”
“Oh yes. I like to know what’s going on.”
“She would be the one who disappeared?”
She nodded delightedly, her eyes almost lost among the wrinkles.
“You know why?” she said.
“No.”
“Meddling. They didn’t like it.”
“Who didn’t?”
“Those who are dead and gone. They don’t go…altogether, you know. They come back.”
“You mean the…Romans?”
“The dead,” she said. “You can sense them all round you.” She came closer to me and whispered: “I don’t think Beau will like Napier’s coming back. In fact I know he doesn’t. He’s told me.”
“Beau…has told you!”
“In dreams. We were close…He was my little boy. The one I might have had. I’d pictured him…just like Beau. It was all right when Napier wasn’t here. It was right and proper that he should be sent away. Why should Beau be gone and Napier stay? It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. But now he’s back and that’s bad, I tell you. Just a moment.” She went to the stack of canvases and brought out a picture. She set it against the wall and I gasped with horror. It was a full length picture of a man. The face was wicked…the hawknose was accentuated; the eyes were narrowed, the mouth was curved into a repulsive snarl. I recognized it as Napier.
“You recognize it?” she asked.
“It’s not really like him,” I said.
“I painted it after he’d murdered his brother.”
I felt indignant. For the boy, I told myself fiercely once more. She was watching my face and she laughed.
“I see you are going to take his side. You don’t know him. He’s wicked. He was jealous of his brother, of beautiful Beau. He wanted what Beau had…so he killed him. He’s like that. I know it. Others know it.”