Queenie looked as if she was about to start purring. “There’s someone to see you, Miss.”
“Who is it?” asked Charlotte.
“He told me not to give his name.”
“Then tell me what he looks like.”
“He asked me not to say anything.”
Could it possibly be Harcourt’s friend, curious to meet her after their wordless exchange the previous day?
“Ask him to wait a minute, will you please, Queenie?”
“Shall I open the curtains, Miss?”
“No, leave them. I can do without all that glare.”
She tried to comb her hair into some kind of shape. Since the night of the Hunt Ball she had kept it short, snipping away at bits that annoyed her, not caring how it looked. She now tried to hide the gaps and jagged edges under a band, but they poked out no matter which way she tried to arrange them.
In the end her impatience to see Harcourt’s friend again overrode her desire to look presentable. “You may send him in now, Queenie,” she said.
She positioned her arms so that her still slender hands could be seen to their best advantage.
It was not Harcourt’s friend, but an older, greyer Cormac who came through the door.
Charlotte looked up at him with a blank face as Queenie slipped out, smiling.
“Afternoon, Miss,” he said to Charlotte. “Nice day. Looks as if the rain is holding off.”
Why is he talking to me like that? “Yes, but not for long. Would you care to take a seat?”
“I’ll wait until Miss Charlotte arrives, Miss, if you don’t mind.” He motioned towards the large canvas hanging on the far wall. “Meanwhile, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to have a closer look at that.”
“Please feel free to do so.”
Two can play at this game of pretending we’ve never met before, she thought.
Cormac stood in front of an abstract of luscious greys, one of her early works similar in concept to the four she had exhibited when she was sixteen.
“Amateurish, isn’t it?” said Charlotte. “Wouldn’t you think she’d choose to paint something interesting like a bit of horseflesh in a summer landscape rather than those dreary, colourless shapes?”
“I suggest that if you let in a bit of light you’d be better able to see it properly and be able to make a more accurate judgement.”
“I’ve seen it in bright light and it looks worse. Are you a close friend of hers, pretending to like it?”
“I am her friend and I’m not pretending. I was her tutor until I left twelve years ago and I taught her the rudiments, but she soon left me behind.” His face was inches away from the canvas. “Masterly. Masterly. I’d forgotten how good she was. Will she be long? I’m impatient to see her, so I am.”
“Your impatience must be easily controlled if it’s taken you twelve years to come to see her.”
Cormac looked back over his shoulder and stared directly at her for a second. “You must be related. You have the look of her and your voice is very like.”
“We’ve been told we look more like sisters than cousins, but that’s where the similarity ends. Our natures are quite different.”
“I’ve already noticed.” Cormac resumed his close study of the painting.
“I remember feeling sorry for you when I heard you’d been lumbered with Charlotte who was notorious for being miserable, not to mention quite dense. I presume you had a tough time of it.”
Cormac flushed. How did one fake a flush? “You presumed incorrectly. Charlotte was none of those things. She was bright, good-natured, courageous, quick-witted and a joy to teach.”
Charlotte was moved by his words even though she knew they were only part of a game.
“High praise, indeed. One would never suspect all that by looking at her.”
“If you were in any way perceptive you would, even on short acquaintance. I liked her from the start and couldn’t have wished for a better pupil. I was blessed. And such talent. It’s not often you come across talent like that and I was lucky to have seen it, so I was.”
“All of that admiration must have gone to her head.”
“Not in the least. I had to keep boosting her confidence. She had no idea how good she was.”
“I’m beginning to think you are making all this up to incite some cousinly jealousy.”
“Why would I waste my breath doing that?” He looked at his watch. “How much longer do you think she’ll be? I’ve an appointment to see her father in ten minutes.”
“He won’t mind waiting. It’s not as if he has anything else to do. This is my only chance to hear about Charlotte as I’ll be moving back to Belgium shortly and it will be years before I see her again. Where are you stationed now?”
“Paris.”
“Paris? How convenient. Perhaps I could travel down to see you and you could give me some art lessons. I’ve heard that talent runs in families.”
“I don’t give lessons any more.” Cormac looked alarmed. “And I may not be in Paris much longer.” As if his life depended on it, he bent to study two small paintings hanging beside the large one.
“Pity. You’d find me a very agreeable pupil, not like Charlotte with her temper and her sulks.”
“You’ve not been listening to me. She had no major character faults. If you are looking for a juicy bit of scandal to spread around the family, I’m afraid I can’t help you. I couldn’t think of a bad word to say against her even if I tried.”
Deeply moved by his words, Charlotte was annoyed to find tears welling up, and opened her eyes wide to disguise them. “The thing is, can your word be trusted? I heard you led Charlotte astray, painting misshapen nudes all day long.”
“Did you now? No need to ask where that story came from. God preserve me from narrow-minded craw-thumpers and from uninformed gossips who listen to them.” Cormac turned to face Charlotte for the first time and spoke with rising anger. “You were in Belgium being fed tittle-tattle by a woman who knows as much about art as a flea, while I was here for six years in Charlotte’s company, and I can tell you without fear of contradiction that Charlotte was one of the most admirable and gifted people I ever had the privilege to meet. If it wasn’t for the fact that I am so keen to see her new work I’d leave immediately and come back to see her when she has no disloyal cousin sitting there in her chair spouting bile. Shame on you!”
Charlotte felt a surge of love and affection for Cormac. She tried to speak but made a sound like a honk. Tears spilled over and began to fall.
“And don’t try those crocodile tears on me. If you dish out dirt you can’t expect to get bouquets of flowers back in return.”
“Joke,” Charlotte wept, praying that this indeed was a joke. “The joke’s over.”
“What joke? What are you talking about?”
Charlotte wiped her eyes and looked into Cormac’s face. She felt a coldness spreading over her body and kept staring at him. He stared back, waiting.
“Have I changed so much?”
“How would I know? I’ve never met you before, and after today I hope I never see you again.”
“Cormac, I’m not a cousin. I’m Charlotte.”
“And I’m Brian Boru! I thought you said the joke was over, Miss.”
“It is me,” she said, swamped by feelings of unspeakable shame. “Or should I say in front of my old, dear teacher ‘It is I’? The same teacher who said that artists must above all things be observant?”
Cormac half-laughed, then abruptly stopped and focused on her as if he needed to weld her image onto his memory. His mouth dropped open.
“Christ Almighty, Charlotte. Oh my God, Charlotte, what has she done to you? Jesus, Mary and Joseph, of course it’s you!” He looked as if he’d been punched. “Bloody hell. I wasn’t really looking. That bad-mouthing cousin of yours had me distracted. And this gloomy room. I couldn’t see you properly.” He rushed over and pulled back the curtains. “There. Now no one could mistake you.”
“You can’t bluff your way out of it, Cormac, but thank you for trying. I know I’m disgusting.”
“No, no. Don’t say that. It was the dull light and the short hair and the fact that I wasn’t really looking at you that threw me. You look fine. Reubenesque.”
“That’s one way of putting it. All those nice things you said . . .” Her eyes filled up again.
He pulled a footstool up beside her and took her hand with his good hand.
“I only said them because I knew it was you all along,” he laughed. “Now do you want to hear my real opinion?”
“Too late. You can’t talk your way out of it now. I never knew you thought so well of me.”
Cormac’s face became grave. “Every word I said was true. You were all that and more. We’ve so much to talk about, but first, I want to see your work. I have been imagining you going in so many creative, original directions. Come on, let’s go and see them.”
Charlotte began weeping in earnest. “I didn’t last,” she managed to say. “It all just slipped away. Without you around I couldn’t motivate myself. It all seemed so pointless.” She looked at him and let out a loud sigh. “I’m sorry I let you down.”
“You didn’t let me down. Never think that. It was I who let you down, I can see in hindsight. I shouldn’t have left before I pushed you into the Society – they would have looked after you and encouraged you, and stood up to your mother.”
“They could have tried, but it wouldn’t have done any good.”
“But you’re not sixteen any more. You’re a young –”
“Not so young.”
“Take it from me, you’re young. Why don’t you come back to Paris with me now and make a fresh start?”
“Paris? I couldn’t.”
“Why not? What’s to stop you? You’re over twenty-one and independently wealthy. You’re obviously wasting your life here.”
“I can’t go to Paris. I can’t even walk from here to the door without running out of breath. I’ve been in these rooms so long I don’t think I can cope with other people. I’ve no energy and no purpose.”
“Trust your old tutor to look after you. You’ll soon make up for lost time. You already have the advantage of the language.” He became more animated with each word. “Don’t sit around thinking about it. Just do it. I can walk the legs off you like I did when you were a girl and you can regain your health. You can always return if it doesn’t work out.”
“I lack the courage. You described me as courageous but you were wrong. I’m really a coward. There’s a certain comfort in rotting here – no decisions to be made.”
“You’ll soon change your attitude when you’re mixing with like-minded people. It’s sinful to give up on life before you’ve lived it.”
He was making so much sense she had to side-track him.
“I’ll tell you what, Cormac, I’ll make a deal with you. Give me a year and make the same offer. I’m just not mentally prepared for it at the moment.”
“I hope you’re not saying that to fob me off and keep me quiet.”
“Of course not.” The image of the archangel from her dream the previous night flicked across her mind.
“All right then. I’ll take your word for it. One year from now. Shake on it.”
They shook hands and grinned into each other’s faces.
“So you didn’t marry either?”
“Me? No. Never. I’m married to my work. I always thought creativity and domesticity didn’t mix.”
“When I was a child I was hoping you and Holly would marry.”
“Did you now?” Cormac enjoyed that remark. “Lovely lady, but even she couldn’t tempt me. You know yourself. Can you imagine being immersed in a masterpiece and being called away to fix a leaking tap or shift furniture? God preserve me from that. But I’m not holding back – I don’t want to bring a blush to your maidenly cheeks so I won’t say any more. One year, then. It was wonderful to see you again. Can’t say the same about your nasty cousin.” He kissed her on the top of her head, and she felt immediately lonely. “Now I’m off to see if your father’s failing eyesight has had a beneficial effect on his brushwork.”