Gentlemen Formerly Dressed (21 page)

E
dna inspected the head of Pierrepont under the light. There was a minor dent in the peer's nose, an injury sustained during his roll on the platform.

“What's your assessment, Ed?” Rowland asked, keeping his eyes clear of the glass gaze, which seemed to reproach him for his carelessness.

“It's not too bad, Rowly. Barely noticeable, really. I could try to smooth it out a bit, but I'm afraid anything more would risk disaster.”

“Whatever you think best, Ed.” Rowland was happy to defer to the sculptress' expertise on the matter. “I say, where is everybody?” He and Edna were alone at breakfast.

“I'm not sure.” Edna placed the head on the sideboard beside various covered dishes of eggs, bacon, wild mushrooms and river trout. “Perhaps they're all still asleep.”

The previous evening's game of chess had turned into something of a tournament, during which Rowland quite skilfully and subtly allowed his host to win back most of the money he'd lost through poker.

Rowland pulled out Edna's chair as the sculptress returned to the table with her plate. “I thought we might head out to Bletchley Park today,” he said. “Murcott's happy to allow us to borrow one of his motor cars and we should probably return Lord Pierrepont's head before we damage it further.”

“Perhaps Mr. Murcott and Ivy should come with us,” Edna suggested, watching as Rowland managed breakfast quite adeptly with a single hand. “They seem to be well-acquainted with Lady Pierrepont and her godmother. It might make the delivery a little less awkward.”

Rowland smiled. “I don't know what you mean. What could possibly be awkward about delivering the wax head of a dead man to his widow?”

Edna sighed. “You know, Rowly, Mr. Murcott has been so kind and generous.” She lowered her voice. “It's difficult to imagine that you weren't friends when you knew each other first.”

“He was different and so was I, I suppose,” Rowland replied. “And we moved in rather different circles. Being de-titled has, to my thinking, improved him no end.”

“You don't remember Ivy Murcott whatsoever, do you, Rowly?” Edna asked, still whispering.

Rowland grimaced. “Was it obvious?”

“Not at all. I'm sure even Milt and Clyde are fooled… but I do wonder why you don't remember her?”

“I don't remember Marriott Spencer, either,” Rowland confessed before Edna read something more sinister into what appeared to be his failing memory.

“You might not have ever met Marriott,” Edna said. “You were a painter after all… Marriott came to Ashton's to teach sculpture and only for a little while.” The sculptress frowned, puzzled, contemplative. “You don't usually forget faces, Rowly—I've never known anyone to capture likenesses from memory after a single meeting the way you do.”

Rowland knew that Edna had a point. Ivy Murcott's countenance was artistically interesting. Even back then, he was sure he would have noticed her, thought about drawing her. And yet he had not even the vaguest recognition of the girl.

“Well perhaps nobody introduced us,” he said finally. “Lord Lesley was adamant back then that Colonials were merely criminal stock. I was probably not the kind of acquaintance he would have allowed his sister to make.”

“And yet she seems to know you.”

“She knows
of
me.”

“No, Rowly—when we were in town yesterday she showed me where the boxers would train, told me about some of the fights… said you stopped just when you started winning nearly every bout.”

“How could she possibly know that?” Rowland said, a little alarmed. He'd never known women to attend boxing matches… not then, at least.

“She knew that you hate whisky!” Edna offered as final proof.

“Miss Murcott told you all this?”

“Well me, Clyde and Milt collectively, but in separate conversations,” Edna replied. “Milt first mentioned that Miss Murcott seemed rather curious about you, and we compared notes while you were playing chess.” She sipped her tea. “Milt's convinced she's romantically obsessed with you.”

“But you think that's unlikely?” Rowland asked wryly.

Edna smiled. She looked at him almost tenderly. “It's nothing to do with whether you are worthy of obsession, Rowly darling. It's just that Ivy seems far too sensible for such things.”

“Oh.” He frowned, shaking his head. “I really can't remember her at all.”

“It is odd, don't you think?”

“Yes… but what, since we arrived in England, hasn't been odd?”

Edna laughed. “Perhaps Ivy did simply admire you from afar. I'm sure she wasn't alone.”

They had only just risen from breakfast when the others returned. Noticeably excited, Murcott rushed in to intercept Rowland. “We have the most wonderful surprise, old boy,” he said. “It'll help you get over the drubbing I gave you last evening—quick sticks!”

Clyde and Milton came in carrying between them several brown-paper parcels, which they dropped thankfully in front of Rowland.

“What's this?” Rowland asked.

Murcott's footman then dragged in the largest package.

Edna didn't wait, opening the box before Rowland could ask anything more. “It's an easel!” she said.

“Your chums are convinced that you're pining for your studio, old boy, so I thought, why not set one up here? I knew of a little shop in Oxford which deals in paints and brushes and whatnot—and Ivy's
always wanted to learn to draw. Perhaps you could show her how it's done?”

Rowland looked at Clyde and Milton, expecting to see in their faces evidence that this was just some mad whim of Murcott's. But they were by all appearances at least complicit.

Clyde rolled up his sleeves. “Archie's happy for us to set up in the conservatory,” he said. “It's got good light,” he added, as if that would be Rowland's only concern.

“Ivy and I will go find some servants to move the furniture out of the way.” Murcott said decisively. “If you gentlemen wouldn't mind bringing the boxes…”

Clyde waited till Murcott and his sister had left before he tried to explain. “I realised when we were on the belltower what's wrong with you, Rowly—why you can't sleep. You haven't drawn anything since they broke your arm. It's driving you insane.”

“I've tried… I can't…”

“You can draw as well with your left hand as your right—you just can't hold that notebook of yours at the same time… which is why we found you an easel.”

“But…”

“It's not the same as your notebook, I know, but it's got to be better than nothing.”

Rowland shook his head.

Milton and Clyde exchanged a glance. The poet picked up a box. “Come on, Ed. We'll go give the Murcotts a hand.”

Edna nodded. Clyde was a painter. For years now, he and Rowland had shared pigments and ideas and inspiration. They would leave Rowland's reluctance to him.

“You know, Rowly,” Clyde said, when they were alone, “I wouldn't push if I couldn't see that not working was hurting you.”

“Hurting me?”

“I know you too well, mate—you work things out with a brush. You've just got to get over whatever's stopping you…”

“I would have thought that what's stopping me is pretty obvious,” Rowland muttered, lifting the cast at Clyde.

“You've been using your left hand on and off to paint for years, Rowly. The bloody cast isn't stopping you. You've just got to get over this fear—”

“Fear?” Rowland flared, affronted. “You think I'm afraid to paint? That's preposterous!”

Clyde moved to stand beside Rowland, shoulder to shoulder rather than face to face. He spoke calmly. “I think the last time you painted, someone broke your arm for it. They burned a swastika into your chest for good measure. I don't know what it's like to believe you're going to die, mate… to really think that the next breath will be your last. You came that close twice that night. And still you pulled yourself together and got Eva out of there. But, Rowly, you wouldn't be human if you didn't think twice about ever painting again.”

Rowland said nothing.

“For some blokes,” Clyde continued, “that would be all right… for you, it's not going to work. Not painting is driving you crazy.”

“I'm not crazy, Clyde,” Rowland said wearily.

“Not yet,” Clyde conceded. “But how long can you go without sleeping or working? Wilfred, as much as he disapproves of what you do, bless him, can see it. It's why he's so worried you'll start drinking to numb it all.”

Rowland stared at the H-frame easel, the packages of pencils and brushes and paint. Some part of him knew that Clyde was right. Not drawing, not putting the images in his head onto paper or canvas, had been building into an almost unbearable frustration. But
he could have procured an easel days ago if he'd wanted to… he'd thought about it and then avoided thinking about it.

“Just try it, Rowly. Start painting again and things will work themselves out. You'll work them out.”

Edna and Milton returned then to collect more boxes. They looked cautiously at Clyde, hopefully at Rowland.

Rowland picked up a brush, rubbing the sable bristles between his fingers as he studied the sturdy easel. “I thought we'd go to Bletchley Park today,” he said glancing back at the wax head which Edna had left on the sideboard.

“We'll go tomorrow,” Milton replied, shrugging. “It'll provide us a chance to give Pierrepont a proper send-off.”

They set up a makeshift studio in the conservatory which looked out towards the spires of the university city over meadows of wildflowers. Clyde had thought of everything that Rowland might need.

“Don't be too grateful,” Milton warned. “They'll be sending
you
the account for this paraphernalia.”

Clyde suggested, in fact insisted, that they play croquet and, by this promise of competition, lured Murcott away. Rowland was left with peace and solitude to paint. For a while he just gazed at the easel, and then he began, though his hand shook and he felt sick.

After the first tentative strokes, images seemed to explode onto the heavy sheets of cartridge: dark works in charcoal and wash, and splashes of vermilion. The compositions were raw and confronting. Rowland cast the images onto the sheet as if by doing so he could expel them from his mind. Visions of Germany: the Stormtroopers in line, a wall of brooding malice; the Königsplatz
decked out in the banners of the Nazis; the inmates of Dachau, some broken, some defiant; a bonfire around which children danced while books were burned; and violence, pain, fear… his own attack.

Finally Rowland paused; his hair was damp with perspiration and his breathing heavy. There were over a dozen wet sheets strewn across the conservatory floor. It was barely midday.

Edna and Milton returned first. Apparently both had been banished from the game of croquet: Edna for cheating and Milton for making such a fuss about it. Still bickering about whether or not the sculptress had moved her ball illegally, they walked into the conservatory. And stopped. The paintings still lay on the floor. Rowland was endeavouring to clean his brushes. There was vermilion in his hair and on his waistcoat. He looked exhausted.

Edna studied each painting in turn. “Oh, Rowly,” she said quietly. “This was in your head? No wonder you couldn't sleep.” She stepped closer and took the brushes from him. “I'll do this.”

Rowland smiled slightly. He felt strangely relaxed now, and drowsy.

Milton squatted over the painting of an adolescent—a fair-haired youth in Brownshirt uniform. He guessed it was the boy who'd been ordered to shoot Rowland as he lay tortured on the ground. There was a kind of desperate terror in the eyes of the young Stormtrooper, a creeping realisation of the fact that he was about to kill a man. The perspective was unusual, the gun large, dominant, the boy receding. Milton turned back to Rowland. “You look knackered, mate,” he said. “Go get some sleep.”

“It's the middle of the day,” Rowland protested half-heartedly.

“Go, Rowly. We'll make your excuses… and see that your paintings don't scare our hosts.”

Rowland was unconscious to the sunset but he woke early enough to see the following dawn. He had stirred not once in the last fifteen hours and if he dreamed, he did not remember it. For a while he lay still, enjoying the feeling of having slept. He shook his head. After weeks of Horlicks and counting sheep all he'd needed was to paint.

He bathed and dressed, stuffing a tie into his pocket for Edna to see to later.

Quietly, he slipped downstairs to the conservatory. Not even the servants were about yet, but Rowland had always preferred the softness of the light at this time.

“Pierrepont,” he greeted the sculpted head, which sat on a small circular table. A glass of whisky had been placed beside it like some offering to a wax idol. Rowland smiled. Perhaps this was the send-off Milton had promised the demised peer.