The Daughters of Eden Trilogy: The Shadow Catcher, Fever Hill & the Serpent's Tooth (14 page)

‘You want me to take off my clothes and—’

‘Well, why not? You don’t got to do nothing. And it pays. That’s the point.’

She took another look at the photograph. This time, she noticed that the girl had a good figure but rather short legs, which the photographer had disguised by a clever choice of camera angle. Madeleine had used the same trick herself many times. The only difference was that her clients had been clothed.

She swallowed. ‘Will I have to take everything off?’

Ben hesitated. ‘Like I said, you won’t have to
do
nothing.’

The doorbell clanged behind them, and the street was quiet again.

Lettice put her hand on the lamp-post to steady herself. A sharp pain flared in her breast. She shut her eyes and willed it away.

Gradually the pain subsided, and she opened her eyes. She didn’t see the street before her. All she saw was Madeleine and that – creature – disappearing into that appalling little shop.

Chapter Ten

‘If you need to shave your legs,’ said the photographer, ‘there’s a razor behind the screen. I don’t run to soap.’

Madeleine shook her head.

‘Good, then we’ve got time for a cup of tea while we wait.’

She looked round in alarm. ‘Wait for whom?’

‘Not who, dear. What.’ He rubbed his hard little stomach. ‘Corset marks. We wouldn’t want those.’

He still hadn’t met her eyes, which she found increasingly disconcerting.

‘Get a move on, dear, tempus is fugiting. We don’t want nasty long shadows spoiling the pics.’

She went behind the screen. Over one corner hung a purple robe of imitation silk. It felt greasy, and smelled of cheap scent and stale cigarettes.

She was glad now that she had told Ben to wait downstairs. He had shrugged and said fair enough, and don’t worry about Bob Venables, you’re safe with him, he’s a Marjorie. A what? she’d said, and he’d explained that the photographer had once tried to corner Robbie. When she still didn’t understand he’d snapped, ‘Oh, leave it out,’ and hustled her upstairs.

But whatever he meant, he seemed to be right about the photographer: a plump young man with a bad case of acne and a shock of cherubic blond curls, who nimbly avoided meeting her eyes as he showed her into his surprisingly spacious studio.

Nobody’s going to touch you, she told herself as she struggled out of her clothes.

It didn’t work. Nobody would touch her, but they would touch her image. And she could not delude herself that it was ‘only a photograph’. She knew the power of images. She remembered the photograph of Eden which she had loved and then defaced. And Lettice destroying her mother’s work like some latter-day witch.

She had read in
Amateur Photographer
about a tribe of Arabs who believed that the taking of photographs is the taking of souls. Mr Rennard had scoffed, but she had thought it as good a way of putting it as any.

It was hot in the studio, with an acrid smell of chemicals that reminded her of the darkroom at Cairngowrie House.
In a photograph
, her mother used to say,
you can be anyone you want
. Angrily, she pushed the thought aside.

The robe felt horribly insubstantial when she put it on, but when she emerged from behind the screen she was relieved to see that the photographer was still ignoring her. He was busy draping grubby white sheets over the backs of chairs arranged in a semicircle about a couch. The couch had gilded claw feet and upholstery of stained blue plush. It resembled the one at Mr Rennard’s which he used for family groups.

She looked at the sheets draped over the chairs and thought, he must be using them as reflectors. And that couch is where I am to sit. Or lie, I suppose.

At length the photographer remembered her for long enough to hand her a mug of black tea which he fetched from a gas ring in the corner. Then he scuttled off and began rooting around in a stack of cartons. He still hadn’t looked her in the eye. She wondered why. Ben had told her that she was ‘a cut above’ his usual models, so perhaps that was it.

She perched on the edge of the couch and sipped her tea. She felt sick. She pictured the photographer’s dismay if she spewed tea all over the couch.

To break the silence, she asked what he thought about the new hand-held cameras. She had noticed that he favoured an old-fashioned view camera, with half-size plates and a sturdy tripod.

‘Snapshots?’ He snorted. ‘So now every Tom, Dick and Harriet fancies they’re a photographer. I tell you, if I wasn’t such an artist I’d be out of the biz.’ He scowled into a carton of plates. ‘Know a bit about it, do you?’

She told him about helping at Mr Rennard’s, and keeping up with developments in
Camera
and the
BJP
. Some of the tension went out of him, and soon he was telling her about the new flash powders he’d been trying out, and his hopes for panchromatic plates – the way of the future, dear, or it would be if it wasn’t so bloody
expensive
, pardon my French. For the first time he actually looked at her, and she saw that his eyes were pale blue, and bloodshot from the chemicals.

It struck her as bizarre that
she
was trying to put
him
at his ease, but it also made her feel a little better. So it was a shock when he suggested that she just pop off the robe and lie back on the couch, to get the feel.

She didn’t move.

He peered into the viewfinder. ‘It’s just a
thought
,’ he muttered, ‘but as the skin texture’s so delicate, we might go for a nice, soft, glowing kind of a look? Keep the light flat, pop a bit of muslin over the window?’

‘The’ skin texture. She appreciated the attempt at distancing, but it didn’t stop her breaking out in a cold sweat. She asked if she might have a towel.

‘Wouldn’t bother, dear. Bit of a gleam adds a certain something? All nice and pearly?’ He slotted a plate into the camera. ‘Now when you’re ready, we can just get rid of that robe. I thought we’d get those hands clasped, or the shaking’ll spoil the pics. And a bit of gauze over the face – sort of like a shroud? Be amazed how many of the gentlemen like that kind of thing.’

The girl in the tea shop asked Lettice if she was still feeling seedy, and Lettice replied that she was better thank you, and the girl nodded and hurried off to attend to another customer.

Lettice blinked at her cold tea, and wondered why God had forsaken her.

She had always done His will. Always. When Mama had said how can you think of accepting that Mr Fynn, he is scarcely a gentleman, Lettice had married him, for she had known that she was too plain to turn down the only offer she was likely to get. She had married him, for it was God’s will.

When Mama had cut them off without a shilling, and Septimus had cooled towards her, she had borne that too, for it was God’s will.

And when, after decades of silence, she had received a letter from Jocelyn –
henceforth I have no son; you will oblige me by never receiving him or entering into correspondence
– she had obeyed without question. For it was God’s will.

At the time she had been forty-one, and still happy – or still hopeful that she might
be
happy, if she became a mother. A few years later, all hope was gone. And somewhere along the way she had ceased to think about happiness.

Then one dark February morning, she had opened the letter from Rose Durrant.

The shock of it. To see that infamous name proudly scrawled in bold black script.
Please forgive me for writing, but Ainsley is in the Sudan, and I fear for my daughter and for the little one to come, should anything occur while he remains overseas
. Then the bald request: if ‘the worst’ should occur, would Lettice care for the children until their father’s return? Please, please send an assurance as soon as convenient.

Enclosed with the letter was a photograph of a beautiful woman seated on a chair, with a handsome, fair-haired man smiling down at her, and a lovely little girl on her lap.
Look at me
, said the peerless dark eyes.
All my life I have been wicked. And see how God has rewarded me.

At that moment Lettice had seen her own life for what it truly was: a cramped existence in a mean little house where she spent weeks without speaking to anyone but the servants; a childless union to a vulgar, unfaithful man who had disliked her for years. Why had God allowed it? Where was the
justice
?

And what must she do about Rose Durrant’s letter? To respond would be to disobey the head of the family; but how could she ignore the plea of a woman in distress?

For a fortnight she had agonized. Then she had dashed off a curt response, seeking details of the lying-in arrangements by return.

She had never received a reply. Ten days later she had seen the piece in
The Times
.
Gallant major slain . . . captain held, pending court-martial.
She had overruled her husband’s objections and they had travelled to Scotland.
Gallant major slain.
She had been shocked, but also horribly soothed. God had spoken. The world was just.

She had been totally unprepared for the rage which had boiled up inside her at the sight of the children. She had stood beside the cot and stared down at that perfect infant and that huge-eyed, silent little girl. Rose Durrant had been given all this. Where was the
justice
?

Then it had come to her.
This
is the justice. These children before you were born to wickedness – but God has given them to
you
. Rose Durrant died because she was wicked. You have her children because you are good.

For ten years she had clung to that truth as to a rock. But now the rock was crumbling beneath her. God was about to cast her charges into the abyss. He was about to destroy everything she had fought for. It would be as if she had never existed.

All her life she had struggled to do God’s will, for He was the only one who had ever loved her. Now He had forsaken her. She didn’t know what to do.

She picked up her cup and frowned at it, and took a sip of cold tea. It tasted bitter, but it gave her strength. Surely there must be something she could
do
?

One thing is certain, she told herself. You cannot manage this on your own. You are only a woman. You are not supposed to manage things like this.

She took another sip of tea.

Yes. That is it. You are only a woman. You must find a man to take control.

Madeleine was still tasting bile when she let herself into the house.

On leaving the studio she had retched into the gutter until her eyes watered. Beside her, Ben had been puzzled and disappointed that his efforts had met with such a response. He had left her soon afterwards, and she had found her own way back to Wyndham Street.

Walking the pavements, she had felt as if everyone was staring at her. What did they see? Could they tell what she had just done?

The hall was dim and empty when she let herself in, and her footsteps echoed as she crossed the tiles. The furniture was gone, but darker patches on the wallpaper showed where it had been.

From habit she went to the patch where the looking-glass had hung, and started taking out her hatpins. She felt exhausted and nauseous. She wanted to go upstairs and curl up beneath the covers and think of nothing.

A rustle of skirts behind her made her start. To her alarm she saw that Lettice was sitting on the stairs. Her face was in shadow, but Madeleine could make out the gleam of her eyes. Her bony yellow hands clutched her knees.

Anxiety gripped her. ‘Is Sophie all right?’

‘Asleep,’ said Lettice.

Madeleine let out a long breath. She turned away, and took off her hat and smoothed back her hair from her temples. ‘Did you get the Lysol you wanted?’

‘No,’ said Lettice in a strange, toneless voice. ‘I had something else to do.’

‘What was that?’ said Madeleine mechanically. She wished Lettice would stop watching her and leave her alone.

With a stiff rustle of skirts Lettice rose to her feet. ‘Tell me everything,’ she said.

‘About what?’

‘About what you did. With that – creature.’

The hall was completely silent.

‘I saw you,’ said Lettice. ‘I followed you.’

‘That was underhand.’

‘I followed you quite openly. You were too involved with that creature to notice.’

Madeleine glanced down at the hat in her hand.

‘Tell me what you did,’ said Lettice. ‘Tell me the truth.’

Madeleine did not reply. Lettice didn’t want the truth. She couldn’t face the truth.

‘What’, said Lettice, ‘did you do?’

‘Nothing,’ she replied.

‘A lie.’

‘If you wish it, I’ll swear on the Bible.’

‘The Bible’, spat Lettice, ‘means nothing to you.’

Again Madeleine said nothing. Lettice was right.

Sophie appeared at the top of the stairs, balanced precariously on tiptoe to raise herself to the level of her splint.

‘Go back to bed,’ said Madeleine and Lettice together.

‘But—’

‘Bed.’

Sophie gave them a mutinous look and hobbled off.

Lettice waited till Sophie had gone. ‘For ten years,’ she said, ‘I have tried to make you decent. Respectable.’

‘But I’m not respectable,’ said Madeleine. ‘You made sure I never forgot that.’

‘You can
seem
respectable. You can
pass
for respectable among decent people—’

‘I don’t know any decent people. You never let me meet any. Except for Mr Rennard, and he’s a shopkeeper so he doesn’t count.’

‘So you blame me when you seek out the dregs? You blame me?’

‘No. No. I don’t know whom I blame.’

Lettice shook her head, and her horsehair ringlets swung. ‘You
long
for the dregs,’ she said between her teeth. ‘You ache and whine to be down there in the filth.’

Madeleine felt sick. ‘Is that what you think of me?’

‘How can I think anything else?’