The Fraud (42 page)

I snatched up my palette knife and with no care any more for all my hours and days and months of painstaking work, I scrawled GRACE across the luxurious, gorgeous skirt of the beautiful gown in the fake, unsatisfactory Rembrandt painting - I heard James Burke’s voice in my head, not this James Burke the fraudster but James who I had loved, who had quoted Mr Hogarth,
It seems to be universally admitted that there is such a thing as Beauty
,
and that the highest degree of it is Grace
, and as I scratched the name GRACE I saw her clearly: Grace Marshall of the hooped skirts running through Bristol like some kind of zany, ungainly bird - Grace Marshall who made paint from flowers and from butter and from earth from our Bristol garden where the fake Greek statue stood in a heroic pose and not one of us knew what a Greek statue was! and Tobias, not Tobias in the Park in the rain, the boy Tobias who had brought me a rose that day - and somehow in among all the mess of our childhood I was somehow
joyous
- and here she was now, that Grace Marshall: dour, old, and inebriated ,
pretending to be an Old Master myself? pretending to be Rembrandt?
how could I
not
laugh as I scratched with the knife and I saw Tobias our brother picking up my fallen basket and taking Philip’s money,
good for him!
, and I pictured again Tobias sitting at the dining-table in Pall Mall speaking of Bristol, perhaps the exquisite enamelled snuff box of Mr Hartley Pond would be the next thing to disappear, and I was still laughing as I tossed the palette knife right out of the window into the King’s Garden and there was a pitcher of water and I threw water on my face and I picked up a cloth to dry my face and I looked up and I saw my eyes in the mirror and they were eyes remembering and they were bright.

I dropped the cloth as if it scalded me.

I went quickly back to my easel, drying my hands on my gown, and picked up a brush; Eliza’s grave face stared back at me and I leaned towards it.
And I changed the eyes
. I put my eyes into her eyes: I painted eyes remembering something: in the painting the eyes that looked up from the discarded book now remembered something and in that remembrance there was a flash - of pleasure, of humour, wry even, something
warm
and the eyes were alive
the eyes were alive
.

Quickly, quickly, I picked up another brush; in long strokes I painted completely over the scrawl, the name at the bottom of the painting on the beautiful gown, I filled the scratch marks so completely, I painted over it so completely that it disappeared entirely, I remembered the gowns I had seen in several of Rembrandt’s paintings and my gown, slowly, carefully, emerged again, became again the beautiful, beautiful thing that I had laboured over so long: the rich brown and the gold and the deep warm red - my thumb gave the paint just the texture I wanted where the gown met the floor, the shadowed folds fell exactly, almost I could feel them; the girl so like Eliza touched the book still but looked away, the light from the window caught the light from her eyes, the sleeve moved almost as she put the book aside and she glanced up, remembering something that amused her and it made me smile to look at it.

I could not stop now, I mixed colour with my fingers, I worked on the turn of the neck, the hands on the book - almost they were right now, almost now everything flowed and fitted together - suddenly I saw to make the book even brighter, light reflected off the pale cover of the book so that the look began from the book, from something in the book . . . something, something in the book had set off the train of thought, some knowledge, some recognition that gave the brightness to the eyes of the girl, I was almost shaking when I put the last strokes there, I had to pull my hands and my brushes away so that I could not touch it again and spoil it.

I turned away, and I closed my eyes, and then I turned back.

The chair was partly in shadow, one side of the girl’s head was partly in shadow but the girl’s face and her book on the table caught the light and the warm gown shone. And the eyes. The eyes glowed with life.

As I stepped away from the painting I looked up at the window and saw that the first grey morning light was just touching the room, and very faintly I thought I heard the crowing of Mr Gainsborough’s rooster.

The painting was finished.

The next morning Filipo di Vecellio and his sister were the only members of the family who appeared for breakfast. He did not notice her drawn, exhausted face, or her scrubbed red hands, nor saw her gleaming, shining eyes, for his son had not come home, had sent no message, was not (it was quickly ascertained by sending the carriage) at his new studio in St Martin’s Lane.

‘And where is Isabella?’

‘Isabella is still asleep,’ answered his sister.

‘Did she return late?’

‘A little late.’

‘You must go with her in future. That is your role.’ He attacked several lamb’s kidneys.

‘About Claudio.’

‘The boy is painting somewhere. He is seventeen years old. He is a man. He will be back.’ She suddenly saw those far-off days when Philip was seventeen years old himself and thought he was a fashionable French
flâneur
as he strolled the streets of Bristol.

‘Filipo,’ she said. Something in her voice caught him, and he looked again at her: her thin face was haggard. He and his sister were seldom alone; he found comfort in the motherly figure of Euphemia suddenly appearing now, bringing in hot water for the tea from the basement so that they were not alone, the brother and the sister, but almost at once Euphemia was gone again.

‘Well?’

‘I told you that Tobias is in London.’

‘And I told you not to speak of this matter.’ A lamb’s kidney was attacked further.

‘I think - perhaps he is in some sort of trouble.’

‘Of course he is in some sort of trouble. When was he not?’

‘He no longer goes to sea.’

‘What is that to me?’

‘Would it - would it not be possible to help him in some way? Even for - for old times? He seems - he looks ill, could you not help him?’

‘
Could I not help him?
’ Philip exploded. ‘Isn’t it enough I saved one from the gutter?’ There was a tiny, disbelieving gasp in the room: she lowered her head quickly so that he would not see her eyes. ‘What do you suggest I do - invite him home with his thieving Bristolian ways? “My brother,” I will say, “from Florence.”’

‘Filipo.’
I am so nearly gone from here, not long, not long, hold on
. . .
‘
Filipo.’ She took a deep breath, looked up at him again. ‘Filipo, there is something else. Claudio spoke to me yesterday.’

He stared at his sister. She knew something then. Kidney juice, wiped with bread. Then, ‘Well?’

‘He told me that he owed five hundred guineas to the cock-fighting men.’

‘
Five hundred guineas?
’ The bread dropped to the plate. ‘But he has given up gambling. He promised me he had given it up. We agreed that he would paint, and the name di Vecellio would rise again!’ He pushed the food away impatiently. ‘He promised on the memory of his dead Mother.’

‘You should not have made him do that. He is a child still.’

‘He is seventeen years old!’

She shrugged. ‘And he is the grandson of a man who gambled away a Fortune.’ Silence. ‘You gave him a Studio in St Martin’s Lane, I understand. I did not know that.’ Her brother still did not speak, it was not her business. ‘Claudio came to me and asked me to tell you that he owed five hundred guineas. He was frightened. He said they had threatened to kill him.’

‘What rubbish is this?’

‘I said the same. But he was very frightened.’

Suddenly her brother was very, very angry. He jabbed the table suddenly with a knife. ‘
Five hundred guineas
? It is not possible. The boy promised me. He promised me! And if he told you this story yesterday why are you only telling me now?’

‘You were already in your Studio, then there were guests, then you went out.’ She slowly poured tea, he could not but see that her red, wrinkled hand was shaking.
She is old
, he thought. Her eyes were lowered. She pushed his cup towards him. ‘I told him we would speak after dinner, but as you know he did not come.’

‘You should have told me at once.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But you were gone.’

In their silence the clock ticked and the fire spat as the grey, freezing February morning tightened its grip and a dog howled somewhere along Pall Mall.

‘
Five hundred guineas
?’ he repeated.

‘So he said.’ She saw his fallen shoulders.

‘His Mother should be here,’ he said, and she saw that the words were wrenched out of somewhere deep inside.

‘I wish she was.’ And she saw that her brother (perhaps it was the way the light fell) looked old suddenly.
Well - we are both old. But I have painted something
. . .
and soon I can help Tobias even if he will not.

‘Did he tell you where he has been following the cock-fighting?’

‘I have seen him in an alley off Broad-street, I happened to pass there one day.’ She took another deep breath. ‘Tobias was there also.’

Now he did look shocked. All sorts of realisations crossed his face, ran after each other:
Tobias and Claudio?

‘Does Claudio know him?’

‘I do not know. But he knows Claudio.’

‘Is he one of the people who is threatening him for money?’

‘I do not know. But - I think he would like to know him, not to harm him.’

One of the kidneys was stabbed viciously. ‘I swear I will
kill
him if I find he has made himself known in any way to my son.’

‘Perhaps you should ask Claudio if he has met his Uncle. They look
so alike
Filipo.’

She suddenly thought he was going to hit her but the door burst open rather quickly and Euphemia came bustling in with lamb chops. From under her eye-lashes as she put them on the sideboard she looked at her master and then at her mistress. The
signore
got up suddenly and left the room.

Francesca di Vecellio declined chops, gave some instructions to Euphemia, then she made her way up the stairs again. In her hands now she carried a cup of hot chocolate. She paused for a moment at the painting of Angelica, caught in youth and beauty forever as she hung in her golden frame at the bend in the staircase. And she thought,
it is so simple but it is not enough said: art is a matter of truth
.

She went into the room of Isabella. Almost she laughed. She was
so unsuited
to the task before her (for was she not working in the alleys off the Covent Garden
piazza
when she was younger than Isabella now?) and so exhausted, and the room of Isabella was so tumultuous, and the figure under the quilt so small. But Grace Marshall was smiling. She had looked and looked at her own painting and she knew she had painted something beautiful. It was done. So that Isabella woke to find her serious aunt smiling at her and holding hot chocolate.

‘Drink this,
cara mia
,’ said the aunt. Isabella’s dark curls fell untidily round her face. With an almost superhuman effort her aunt picked up a hairbrush and began to brush her niece’s hair. And although Isabella made small, childish sounds of pain as the hair caught, she was secretly pleased, for her aunt had not brushed her hair for many years.

‘Now you must listen to me,
Isabellabella
, for I cannot speak of all this again. You are seventeen years old and you are very pretty and it is not the - the fashion for seventeen-year-old young ladies to travel in coaches alone with old rogues like Lord Pawltry, who will certainly not marry you, and whom you must never, never allow to kiss you again.’

‘It was more than a kiss,’ said Isabella uncertainly, and there was a little tremor in her voice. The brush stopped, and then started again. After a moment the aunt spoke.

‘What do you mean?’

Isabella was silent.

‘What happened, Isabella?’

‘Lord Pawltry - touched me.’

Now there was a slight tremor in the aunt’s voice. ‘Touched you - where?’

Isabella slowly put her own hand upon her own breast. ‘It was horrible,’ she said in a small voice.

The aunt brushed very rigorously. ‘Where else?’

The niece looked very shocked. ‘What do you mean,
Where else
? Nowhere else. What will happen?’

There was a somewhat long and charged silence in the room.

‘Are you sure that was all?’

‘Yes! I am sure! What will happen?’

‘Nothing will happen, and Lord Pawltry is a Rake and a very, very dishonourable man. If it were known that he had taken such a liberty your Father would be very, very angry.’ Her niece was silent. The aunt brushed and brushed as she took a deep breath and went on speaking. ‘It is so very sad that your Mother is not here to instruct you in all the Social Knowledge of which she was, indeed, such an example.’ (Quickly the aunt banished from her mind what she knew of Angelica’s activities with worse than Lord Pawltry when she was Isabella’s age, before she married Filipo di Vecellio.) ‘You do not have a child if you allow a Gentleman to kiss you but, in the Society you are so anxious to be part of, you lose your Reputation as a person of consequence if you allow a Gentleman to kiss you - or in any way lay his hands upon you - before you have had a very, very long Acquaintanceship with him.’ (Quickly the aunt banished from her mind the stunned face of James Burke, who turned from her paintings to enclose her in his arms without a single word.) ‘On the matter of Marriage, it would be for a Gentleman - and certainly not Lord Pawltry, ever, who is
not
a Gentleman - to approach your Father if his Intentions were serious. If any Gentleman’s Attentions are not serious they can only do you harm and you must request most urgently that they desist,’ (and a picture flashed into her mind of another old raddled Duke in a box in Westminster Abbey on Coronation Day all those years ago, fumbling with her petticoat). The aunt sighed, for she was not finished, and her arms were exhausted, but it seemed to her that she must keep brushing Isabella’s hair until she had said what had to be said. ‘On the matter of Children . . .’ And here she stopped for a moment, surprised by the unexpected, sharp stab of pain; she made a tiny involuntary sound, and then began again. ‘On the matter of Children you must guard your body until you are married. Try to - try to remember that it belongs to nobody but you’
but how can I tell her of the wild fire?
‘One day you will love somebody, and only then, when he is your Husband, will you share your body.’ (She felt the girl stir uneasily.) ‘But never until then, and only because you marry a man who will love you and make you happy.’