Beautiful Lies (50 page)

‘It is extraordinary.’

Mr Pidgeon shook his head. ‘It is a trick,’ he said.

‘Well, yes, but all the same –’

‘Anyway, it is yours. And now you must go. I do not wish to detain you further.’

‘Was it a commission?’

‘No. It –’ Mr Pidgeon hesitated. ‘Some months ago, you told me that spirit photographs were hoaxes, tricks played upon the credulous. Perhaps you remember.’

‘I remember.’

‘I am a Christian, Mrs Campbell Lowe. I take solace from the knowledge that those who depart this world do not leave us but only pass into the next room, where, when the time comes, we shall be reconciled. I, like many others, have long harboured hopes that science would help us to gain a better understanding of God’s mysteries, so that we might see Him through a glass less darkly. Like them I have deplored the pseudo-scientific cynicism of the so-called psychical researchers who make it their business to discredit those miracles made possible by such technological advances. I cannot help thinking that if such people had been around when the Lord was creating the world, He would have abandoned His efforts in disgust.’

Mr Pidgeon paused, his fist against his chest, and cleared his throat. His tone, when he resumed speaking, was soft.

‘In the past few months, however, I have come to see that the quest for evidence, for proof, though doubtless well intentioned, is – misplaced. The Lord does not ask us to comprehend His mysteries, far less to prove them. He asks us to have faith,
the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
The opposite of proof. It is through our faith, not photographs, that we find truth and, through truth, comfort. The faith that requires proof is no faith at all.’

‘And this?’ she said, gesturing at the photograph.

‘It is difficult for some to accept that, on occasion, the camera does indeed lie. I wished to make it easier.’

‘I see.’

‘Besides, it was rather diverting.’

Maribel smiled. Mr Pidgeon twitched his mouth and looked away.

‘It is difficult sometimes to know what is truth and what is only beauty,’ she said after a while. ‘Or the lack of it.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t quite follow.’

Maribel blinked. ‘Hold this.’

Handing the photograph back to him, she tugged at the buckles of the satchel on her shoulder and slid out a thin cardboard portfolio. Quickly, before she could change her mind, she spread its contents across the table.

‘Yours?’ he asked.

She nodded, standing to one side so that he might examine them more closely, her arms folded defensively over her chest. Already she regretted the foolish spontaneity of her decision. It hardly mattered what he thought, of course, the opinion of a jobbing portraitist was not worth a jot, a fraction of a jot, but all the same she watched him, scouring his face for any trace of a reaction. Eventually he straightened up.

‘Well?’ she demanded, despite herself.

‘Where did you take these?’

‘Mostly in Coatbridge. Some in Motherwell. In Scotland.’

He nodded thoughtfully. ‘They are unusual. Raw. Very – candid.’

‘But are they any good?’

‘Some are. Some are very good. This one in particular.’

He reached over the girl with the cleft palate and picked up an image of a tow-headed boy who peeked up at the camera from beneath a rickety table. Maribel frowned at the picture. It was not one of her favourites. The dreaminess on the child’s face gave him a fey look, while the playful pose struck her as uncomfortably sentimental.

‘You think so?’ she said doubtfully.

‘The way the light falls, the lift of his knee here, the hands around the tin cup, it contrives to be charming, despite everything.’

‘I never meant it to be charming.’

Mr Pidgeon smiled as though she had said something witty and put his finger to his lips.

‘I shan’t tell if you don’t.’

Maribel shook her head. ‘You don’t understand. These are the children we have destroyed. The great capitalist’s bastard sons. That tin cup? Gin. The boy was drunk. Ten years old and unable to stand up straight. He said his father gave it to him, that it was the only pleasure he had in life. That there wasn’t anything in the world could ever make him give it up.’

‘So the camera lies,’ Mr Pidgeon said with a shrug. ‘It doesn’t matter. The boy himself, drunk or sober, is quite immaterial. What matters is the image, the moment you have created, the boy you have made. This boy belongs to all of us. We are each free to tell his story in whatever way we choose.’

F
REDERICK
M
ORE’S GALLERY WAS
a small shop tucked beneath the overhang of a crooked Tudor-beamed residence in Duke Street. Under his father’s management it had specialised in oils of the eighteenth century and, even blank-walled, the low-ceilinged rooms were stuffy and old-fashioned. It did not surprise Maribel that the son wished to wield a new broom. What puzzled her more was why he wished to champion the most controversial of the modern arts when it was plain that he had not the least artistic impulse in him. His questions to her were all about Edward and in particular whether it was true that the Queen had referred to him as ‘that insufferable Anarchist’. As for the photographs, he gave them only a cursory glance before inviting her to participate in an exhibition scheduled to begin in less than two weeks. It came as little surprise, then, to discover that the exhibition had been set up as a favour to Walter Edridge, a doctor and aspirant photographer of landscapes whose wife was a cousin by marriage of More’s, and who had made vague undertakings of investment in the gallery if the show was a success.

So small an exhibition would likely have passed quite unnoticed had it not been for a letter to the
Times
from a group of painters, objecting in the strongest terms to the effrontery of those who presumed to claim photography as Art. It was not Art, the painters stormed, to ‘
set down facts as they exist. There is in Photography no skill of hand or eye, no trace of the artist’s imposition of self upon his subject, that draws upon the highest flights and darkest reaches of the soul. Photography is no more Art than the making of a garment in a factory is Art, which creates a product through the mundane manipulation of a machine
.’ They declared it a betrayal of London’s artistic traditions that an eminent gallery like the More dared to present the empty images of the camera as a creditable pretender to paint and charcoal. Mr More’s late father, they insinuated, would be turning in his grave.

This letter inspired several others, three-quarters of them purple with violent agreement, and, though it was not long before the editor tired of their tub-thumping, the exhibition of photographs at the More Gallery received a good deal of publicity. Frederick More might have lacked his father’s aesthetic sensibilities but he had a nose for business. He hastily arranged a late opening for the gallery on the first night of the exhibition and invited not only the contributing photographers but all the gentlemen of his acquaintance to stop by for a glass of Moselle cup on their way to their clubs.

Maribel, who had begged Henry and Charlotte to attend so that she might not have to stand alone in a deserted room, was astonished to find the gallery crowded with people. Near the door a huddle of newspapermen crowded around Mr Edridge, who opined on the importance in photography of noble and dignified subjects, such as mountains and cathedrals. He had introduced himself to Maribel that afternoon as the pictures were being hung and had been unable to conceal his surprise that her work had been included. She had been unable to discern whether he considered it shocking or only rather infra dig.

Henry pushed through the throng towards her, a glass of cup in each hand. He was dressed formally, in white tie and tails. Onyx studs gleamed in his starched shirt front.

‘You look as though you could do with one of these,’ he said. ‘Or perhaps both.’

Maribel laughed and took one of the glasses gratefully.

‘Is Teddy here?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘He’s on his way back from the Black Country. He had to speak at a meeting of chain-makers.’

‘But he is coming?’

‘Oh yes. He cabled last night. He plans to come straight from the station.’

She touched her hand to her pocket, feeling the corners of the folded paper there. That afternoon Edward had sent a second telegram, directly to the gallery. She had opened it reluctantly, certain that he had been detained. It read only
THINKING OF YOU SHALL BRING MOON
.

‘Which ones are yours?’ Henry asked, looking around him. She gestured towards the back wall. He craned his neck, raising himself on tiptoes.

‘I can see only hats. Shall we?’

‘In a minute,’ she said, sipping her drink. ‘There’s no hope of lifting a glass in that crush.’

‘Have you sold many?’

‘I shouldn’t think so. From what I gather, this lot have come to sneer, not buy.’

‘What nonsense. Once they see your work they won’t be able to help themselves.’

Maribel smiled and shook her head. ‘Thank you for coming,’ she said.

‘I wouldn’t have missed it. Although I can’t stay, I’m afraid. I have promised faithfully that tonight I won’t be late.’

‘It must be something special if you are prepared to make a promise like that.’

‘Buffalo Bill is back in town and Berkeley Levett has been prevailed upon to host a farewell dinner. It would appear that the Prince of Wales wants one last chance to win back some of the family inheritance before the old cowboy hightails it home to the prairie.’

‘The Wild West is finally going home?’

‘Not home exactly. They have a summer season booked in New York City.’

‘No peace for the wicked, then.’

‘No, but then Cody is very serious about his wickedness.’

Maribel smiled. Henry leaned closer, lowering his voice.

‘He has asked me to keep an eye out for his Miss Clemmons while he is gone. It would seem that he is not entirely convinced of her affections.’

‘He is hardly entitled to them, given that he already has a wife.’

‘If he finances her new show, as she is pressing him to do, he will be entitled to them several times over. That creature is perfectly shameless. I know quite well she has had other gentleman friends while Cody’s been out of town. Trouble is, one can’t quite bear to tell him. He’s as smitten as a schoolboy.’

Maribel’s glass was empty. Henry took it from her, setting it with his on the ledge of a nearby window.

‘Sharpen your elbows,’ he said. ‘We are going in.’

It was nearly eight o’clock when the crowd began to thin. Maribel looked about her, searching those faces who remained. Near the door the Wildes conversed with the Mansfields, Oscar paying not the least attention to Constance’s repeated blandishments that they should leave, and Jane Morris smiled at a gentleman that Maribel did not know.

At the back of the gallery a handful of people still examined her photographs. She scanned them quickly, looking for Charlotte. The Ferrixao boy returned her gaze impassively. Until today she had not been sure whether it was right to include him in the exhibition. The picture was the best she had ever taken but, as she had watched the photographs being hung, she could not evade the feeling that she had betrayed him, that, to serve her own vanity and commercial advantage, she had offered up to public scrutiny something precious and profoundly private.

On the other side of the gallery, beside a huge print of Whitby Abbey, Edward leaned back a little from Mr Edridge, who, in full flood, swept his arms about him in great arcs. Edward looked tired, travel-worn. There was no sign of Charlotte.

‘I shall be there unless I am actually in labour,’ she had promised, patting her huge belly. Perhaps the baby was indeed on its way. It was due any day. Perhaps at this very moment Charlotte clamped the hand of the nurse, her back arched and her screams pressed into the pillow so that she might not frighten the little ones upstairs. It was too silly to worry about her, of course, who had more children than the old woman in the shoe. Knowing Charlotte she would be telling the doctor his business and dictating the next day’s menus as she laboured. All the same Maribel was distracted, her smile uncertain as she shook Mr More’s hand and congratulated him upon the attendance.

‘Madam, it is not my work they have come to see,’ More said, raising her fingers to his lips. ‘Thank you for entrusting my modest gallery with your immodest talent. May we enjoy a long and profitable partnership.’

His expansive manner hung loosely on him, a borrowed suit several sizes too large. Over the toothy clutter of his smile he scanned the room, his eyes pale and narrow.

‘Ah,’ he purred, his outstretched arm nudging Maribel to one side. ‘Mr Webster, what a pleasure. You are acquainted, perhaps, with Mrs Campbell Lowe?’

Maribel’s heart shrivelled.

‘Mr Webster,’ she said curtly.

‘Madam.’

His eyes held hers, cold and opaque. Like a dead fish, she thought. The idea that she had ever thought him charming sent a chill down her spine.

‘So,’ Mr More said, rubbing his hands, ‘have you seen anything you like?’

Webster did not take his eyes from Maribel.

‘Not yet,’ he said.

‘Then I must insist on showing you Mrs Campbell Lowe’s work. She has real talent. It won’t be long before she is at least as well known for her photographs as for her husband.’

‘What a distressing thought.’

Mr More smiled nervously.

‘You must let me introduce you to Mr Edridge,’ he suggested. ‘His views would interest your readers, I think.’

‘No, thank you. That chap there, in the brown coat, he’s one of mine. Talk to him if it’s publicity you’re after.’

‘Publicity? Heavens, are all newspapermen such cynics?’

It was intended as a joke but Webster did not smile. Maribel felt a lick of fear at the base of her throat.

‘Well, gentlemen, if you will excuse me –’

Webster stepped a little closer, blocking her path. ‘It astounds me, you know,’ he said, his tone almost conversational, ‘the insatiable hunger you people have for notoriety.’