The Fraud (6 page)

She rubbed away the tears, she rubbed away the charcoal, she found another paper, she started again at the boys’ faces, caught something then in their expressions as they fought: vicious: half-fun, half-anger: Tobias and Ezekiel Marshall, her brothers. Long into the night she opened her heart and drew, and re-drew the remembered contents, and outside drunken voices laughed and sang:
and she wished she had a carving knife herself: she would wear it at her waist - like a pirate.

 

Grace Marshall became herself again, and therefore infinitely more of a tribulation to Mrs Falls the milliner. With a charcoal or a chalk in her hand Grace remembered at last who she was. She drew half the night away. She used up all the paper she could find. She stole paper from shops. One day she found a marker in the sewing basement and tried surreptitiously to capture Mrs Falls’ rather fat eyes on her own small thumbnail and began to laugh, biting her lip and looking demure when Mrs Falls looked at her rather severely. She then drew the face of Mrs Falls on the underneath of the table in the attic room and it was only because the walls of the attic sloped so sharply that she was not able to draw Mrs Falls there as well. She even, with a kind of unstoppable wild energy, began to draw faces of gamblers on the blank walls at the back of the milliner’s house that adjoined a baker: she would ignore the nearby cesspit and smell the fresh bread and remember the faces as the sun rose, if the sun rose, and then she drew the vintner’s son and Venus, smiling together. Mrs Falls at first expostulated but there was something unstoppable now about her assistant: she drew as if she was half-mad.

‘That Scrape-grace!’ Mrs Falls would say, laughing slightly at her own humour.

Grace drew on.

She stopped haunting the quays.

‘I should prefer it if she drew Flowers,’ said Mrs Falls, sniffing, but she left the girl alone, she was the best assistant she had, and what was it to her if charcoal faces lay upon the back wall of the house where nobody saw?

One early morning Grace drew someone she did not know: it seemed to be a girl of about her own age who just came into her head. The girl was quite clearly there, in charcoal, on the wall of the back of the house. It was still early: Grace sat beside the girl she had drawn as the early sun appeared between the tight buildings.

‘Do you smell the bread from the Bakery?’ said Grace, ignoring as usual the smell from the cesspit.

She half-thought she heard the girl drawn on the wall say
Yes
.

Next morning when Grace returned to the yard the girl was still there.

‘I’m glad you are here,’ said Grace and again, as the sun appeared at the corner of the building, the smell of fresh bread rose from the bakery and Grace sat beside the charcoal girl and felt content: a tiny oasis of real happiness.
I have a friend
.

‘What is your name?’ she asked on the third day.

Did the girl say
Mary-Ann
?

Grace hummed slightly as she sewed hats in the basement of the milliner that day: she had a friend, a friend called Mary-Ann.

On the fourth day it rained and rained and rained. Grace ducked out into the yard, tried to see through the rain if Mary-Ann was still there. She lay awake that night listening to the heavy water cascading. When next morning the rain had stopped she rushed out to the stinking, overflowing muddy yard. The girl who may have been called Mary-Ann was gone, black wet smudges of charcoal were all that was left. And no matter how hard Grace tried, how insistently she drew on the wall, Mary-Ann did not return to the yard by the bakery.

Grace slowly began to draw the children in the streets, the old sailors down by the quays and finally, quick sketches, the other assistants. Mr Wm Hogarth had indeed been correct: it was easier to have the face
there
. She would draw, and then rub out her charcoal and draw over again, trying to get faces right. The assistants stared over her shoulder in amazement as they saw themselves; one of them gave Grace an apple. After some time Grace also began to draw the women who came to try on the elaborate fruit-decorated straw hats over their lace caps, and haggle at the prices. One day she even tried to draw Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare made word-pictures, the vicar had said;
this is my word-picture, but I have drawn it
. Juliet looked perhaps a little like her imaginary friend Mary-Anne, but she could not draw a Romeo that she would cut out in stars in the sky: she could not see him properly. She thought of the sailor she had noticed and the girl on the quay weeping with the tears falling on the baby’s hair; she drew them instead and one of the assistants said in awe, ‘Is that the Holy Family?’ Mrs Falls, despite her strangely decorated backyard walls, continued to find Grace a good worker, although possessed now (Mrs Falls sometimes thought) of some demon. Some kindness for the strange orphan girl meant she once or twice provided proper drawing paper, for this scribbling, surely, was better than the haunting of the docks and the ships as if Grace Marshall was a street-girl. The precious, precious drawings of her family Grace kept under her small mattress: her only treasures. She would take them out in the night and smooth the faces very carefully, very gently under her hands, as if they were gold.

And all the time, Grace Marshall drew and drew all the faces around her, trying to catch them, hold them, as if her very life depended on it, as perhaps indeed it did.

One early morning there was a loud, brisk knock at the door of Mrs Falls’ premises, at the top of Christmas Steps.

Mrs Falls, huffing up from the basement, complained bitterly on every stair: customers only called in the afternoon. ‘In faith, I suppose it will be one of those hopeless street-girls with no References, thinking she could make my Hats!’

Breathing heavily she opened the door.

‘
Buongiorno, Signora
.’

There a foreign gentleman stood. She looked at him most suspiciously, but found herself somewhat overcome by the exquisite smile and the wonderful eyes of a man who wore a fashionable wig, had a long embroidered waistcoat of impeccable worth and the latest wide turn-back cuffs on his jacket. There was much expensive lace at his throat, and he kissed her fat hand, and made a deep and elegant bow.

‘
Buongiorno, Signora
,’ he said again
.

The suspicions of Mrs Falls the milliner intensified when she heard his request: that he would like to see Miss Grace Marshall. Grace, now fifteen, was reluctantly called for from the workroom.

‘
Goddam!
’ she said, seeing the visitor, shocking both the visitor and Mrs Falls.

‘
Buongiorno
, Signorina Marshall,’ said the foreign gentleman.

Of course she recognised him at once but something in his eyes and his manner gave her absolute warning:
say nothing
. But why-ever was he talking in that manner and waving his arms about? She was so completely stunned that she did, indeed, remain silent. ‘
Signorina bella,
I am Filipo di Vecellio,
il amigo
- that is - a friend of your Brother, who ’as sadly - I am so sorry - passed away.’ Grace Marshall looked at her brother standing there perfectly alive, in total incomprehension. Philip was wearing a wonderfully curled short wig that Bristol men were not yet seen in, and elegant clothes, and had shining buckles on his shoes. Under his arm, with impeccable, fashionable insouciance, he carried a fine, gorgeous hat.

‘I have ’ere,
Signorina
’ (she wanted to laugh aloud at his ridiculous manner of speaking) ‘a letter from your Brother asking me to take you to London where, as you of course know, you ’ave a respectable Aunt to whom you shall become a Companion,
una compadre
. It was your late Brother’s wish
assolutamente
.’ As he brought forth papers with a flourish his sister stared on in astonishment.

Mrs Falls looked most indignant. She had never heard of a respectable aunt, indeed there was a complete lack of respectable aunts in the girl’s family. ‘She is indentured to me!’ she said angrily. She did not want to lose her best hatter.

‘Acquire your
bagalio
- that is your belongings, Signorina Marshall - for we leave at once.’ And while Grace scampered up to the attic the foreigner turned again to the milliner. ‘
Mi dispace, Senora
. The
signorina
was indentured for three years only, and you ’ave ’ad ’er for almost five! I ’ave ’er Brother’s Signature, and your own. She is to come with me
pronto
,
multo pronto
,
assolutamente.
’

‘There will be no payment for a broken Contract with no Notice!’ Mrs Falls was frantic.

‘I think there is no need of your Money, Signora Falls, and I think you ’ave ’ad a good Bargain.’

Grace, like the wind, passed
Gin Lane
and
Beer Street
for the last time, clutching all she had in her world which included her one treasure: her drawings of their family.

‘Goodbye, Mrs Falls!’

‘
Arrivederci,
Signora Falls!’

And the foreigner and the girl were gone.

There was a small closed chaise for their comfort and privacy; he had it waiting, attended by postboys, by the Olde Hatchet Inn beside Frog Lane: Grace could not believe her eyes when he handed her into it. Philip sat back, laughing - tears literally pouring down his face at the bewilderment of his sister. (And perhaps one tear was for the finding, after all, of his little sister Grace, for whom he had promised to return.)

‘You look thin,’ he said. ‘I should like my sister to perhaps have more shape!’ He was teasing her. ‘But your face!’ He wiped at the tears. ‘Your disbelieving face!
Bella
,
bella
, I told you I would come back. You are to be my housekeeper. I have taken an address in London.’ Still he kept up his incongruous, foreign, arm-waving manner, spoke in the ridiculous voice; still she stared, clutching her small bag. The chaise left Bristol, bounced over terrible rutted roads as it turned towards London. She had never been outside Bristol in her life: had heard of course of frightful danger, and pistols on journeys.

‘Shall we encounter Highwaymen?’ These were the first words she uttered to her long-lost brother.

But Philip showed no concern for any dangers. ‘I have a Cudgel,’ he said nonchalantly, and seeing her alarm, he added, ‘One never travels anywhere without being armed,
cara mia
, and when darkness falls you will see that I have been prudent enough to choose the time of a full Moon for our travel.’ He laughed again at her astounded confused face as the carriage rattled along the London road.

And then at last she found her tongue. ‘Philip! Where were you?’ she cried out to him, and she suddenly leaned across in the carriage and grabbed at both his arms, the way she used to do as a child. ‘You left me too long!’ Almost she punched him: she felt anger in her throat, like bile.

‘I have come back for you,’ he said reasonably, extricating himself firmly. ‘Listen,
bella mia
. I could not come back. I was learning everything on that Tour, I went everywhere; I saw Venice, I saw the Frescoes of Rome, the magnificent Gallery in Florence. I have been to Amsterdam - I know everything! English Painters are nothing, we have nothing like Titian or Michelangelo or Rubens or Rembrandt.’

Venice. Titian
: words she had heard. But she did not understand him. ‘When did you return?’ They had to speak all the time with raised voices, above the rattling and shaking of the chaise.

‘Perhaps two years ago -’ he saw her outraged face. ‘Listen,
cara mia
, it was most necessary that I establish myself first. I have worked very, very hard - and I have become very, very successful, as you will soon understand. But I promised to come back for you and here I am. I need you, you are to become my housekeeper! You might smile, at the very least!’

She stared at him, her chin held very high. She was certainly not going to be a housekeeper. ‘Why do you talk in that funny way?’

‘Grace, listen. I have - this is the point
cara mia
, listen very,
very
carefully - I have transformed myself into an Italian Artist of noble blood.’ She still could not understand him. ‘When I left you I journeyed with my companion all around Europe: Bruges, Paris, Austria, the Netherlands, Switzerland. But the centre of Art is Italy. Ah - you should have seen me in Rome, wandering about among ancient ruins. Everywhere you turn in Rome, Grace, History is upon you, it is
meraviglioso
;
Roma meravigliosa!
I spent months - years - copying Old Masters, copying Michelangelo, learning of Classical Form. My companion returned to Bristol after a year - but not me, I did not want ever to see Bristol again! I determined to stay on in Italy but I ran out of money - so I drew the faces of people for my living, on the streets and
piazzas
of Rome!’ His words tumbled out in a kind of glee. ‘And my poverty was a Blessing,
cara mia
, a fortuitous Blessing for I found out how good I was at faces and I had my most important Education of all, the Education of a real Italian. My dark eyes, my dark hair: people thought I was Italian, of course they did. I stayed on there for over a year, copying, studying, listening, and there - like a wonderful, divine Message from the Lord above you might say - the idea came to me that I should change myself into Another! I look like an Italian, I speak Italian like a native they say. And all the Artistic Education in this country comes from Italy: from Rome itself, from the Vatican, from Florence, from the
Uffizi
,’ (She had no idea what he was speaking about) ‘Italy is the history of Art!’