The Midnight Witch (16 page)

“I certainly remember counting those dragging hours until we could escape to the lake that summer. You built a swing so we could drop into the deep water.”

“I was a particularly fine dropper, you’ll allow that. Some spectacular backward flips.”

“No one else could do it.”

“I was the unchallenged king of the flip. Even our wretched cousins couldn’t match me.”

“Partly because you kept putting them off with well-timed shouts about their ludicrous bathing costumes.”

“Well, they were ludicrous. They had only themselves to blame for presenting such easy targets.”

I laugh lightly, surprising myself with the unfamiliar sound. It has been a long time since I have laughed.

“We used to have fun, Freddie, didn’t we?”

He nods.

“It all seems an age ago,” I say.

“We were children.” He raises his hands in a gesture of hopeless acceptance. “And now we are adults and life is not allowed to be fun anymore.”

“Oh, Freddie.”

“I don’t think I make a very good adult at all,” he decided. “I should have stayed a child.”

I lean forward and take his hand. To see him so beaten by life when he is barely nineteen years old pulls at my heart.

“You were so happy at Radnor Hall,” I say, clearly picturing the bright-eyed boy he had been, scampering among the undulating gardens of our country estate, or urging his pony on at breakneck speed across the parkland, or climbing to the very top of the tallest tree in the orchard to reach the best apple. “Why don’t you go back there? Just for a while,” I race on as he slowly shakes his head. “Oh, think about it, Freddie, at least consider the idea.”

“I would shrivel up and die there.”

“But you love the place. You were so content there, so free…”

“I was a boy, Lil. I can’t go back to being seven.”

“You could shoot and hunt and fish. The air might put some color back in your cheeks.”

He smiles at me ruefully now, gently taking his hand from mine. “You and I both know my devilishly fashionable pallor has nothing whatever to do with a want of fresh air.”

“I can’t stand seeing you so unhappy. And nor can Mama. After losing Papa, it distresses her to see you unwell. And of course she cannot know the cause.”

“If you’re trying to make me feel guilty you needn’t bother. I already hate myself quite sufficiently, thank you.”

“Freddie.” I snatch up both his hands this time. “I really do believe going home to Radnor Hall could help. There are not so many … distractions there.”

He gives a mirthless laugh. “Out of temptation’s way, you mean. No Mr. Chow Li to tend to my needs.”

“Perhaps it is too easy for you, living in London, too easy to…”

“My darling sister, I can assure you, nothing is easy for me.”

In the silence that follows I search desperately for the right words, for the words that would make him listen to me. The small clouds that have been partly obscuring the bright moon part briefly, allowing pearly moonbeams to fall upon Freddie’s face. The shadows beneath my brother’s eyes deepen, so that I feel I am gazing into the empty sockets of a skull. The image is so powerful it makes me gasp. As if sharing my vision, the Dark Spirit speaks again.

Your brother does not belong in the Land of Day!

Be gone! My brother has nothing to do with you.

Freddie notices my change in mood.

“You are cold,” he says. “Let’s go in.”

I try to remain in the moment with him, forcing myself to press him to go away. I will not let the wicked spirit come between me and my brother. “Is there nothing that would persuade you?”

“You don’t know what you’re asking. Really, you don’t.”

“But what is there for you here? Apart from … I mean … you haven’t anybody to stay for…”

“That you disapprove of my friends comes as no surprise, Lil, but they
are
my friends. They … understand me.”

“They use you.” I cannot help speaking my mind. “I’ve seen how they take advantage of your good nature and your money.”

“Am I so very loathsome? Can I only buy friendship?”

“That is not what I meant.”

“Isn’t it? What use am I to you? Or to Mama? Or to anyone? At least my friends value me, in their own unedifying way.”

“We value you. I value you.”

“You can’t look at me without that dreadful pitying expression you seem to reserve solely for me. Do you know, it is precisely the way our dear late father used to look at me? Quite a legacy you have there, that disappointed look.”

I feel the familiar exasperation a conversation with Freddie often brings about. Taking a breath, I try hard not to sound as despairing of him as I feel. At last I say, “I miss you, Freddie. I miss the brother I had.”

“I’m sorry about that, sister dear, truly I am. To be honest, I quite miss me, too, sometimes. But there it is. The clock cannot be made to run backward. Time has shaped me into the person I am now, like it or not.” He takes a silver cigarette case from his inside pocket and selects a small Russian cigar. He lights it and inhales deeply, filling the air with the smell of dark, treacly tobacco. “Being in mourning doesn’t help a fellow, I must say. Doesn’t help one bit. All this moping around, wearing black, having to turn down invitations endlessly.”

“It’s not for very long,” I say, though in my heart I agree with him.

“Feels like an age already, and Mama is determined we suffer this purgatory for a whole year. A year! I shall lose what little there is of my mind. Only this morning I overheard the Lindsay-Brown girls discussing a fabulous ball being planned for March and when I asked why I had not been invited I was told there was no point as I would still be unable to accept. March, Lilith. That’s next spring.” He smokes energetically, and his left leg has begun to jiggle. The thought takes hold in my mind that Freddie might actually be right. Being in mourning means he has even less to do than usual. He could not be persuaded to take an interest in Parliament, and he is a social outcast, and will continue to be so for months yet, because of the death of our father. An idea comes to me.

“I will strike a bargain with you,” I tell him. He raises an eyebrow and waits. “If you agree to spend the winter at Radnor Hall … no, hear me out.” I hold up a hand to fend off his interruption. “If you leave London and return home for the next four months, I will see to it that Mama agrees to have us officially out of mourning in time for the ball in March.”

“She’d never agree to it,” he scoffs.

“She will. I promise.”

He hesitates, clearly tempted by the idea.

“I’d have your word? I swear if you make me endure a winter of Radnorshire weather and all that dangerously fresh air for nothing I won’t be responsible for my actions.”

“If you go, and stay there, just until the end of February, I’ll accompany you to the wretched ball myself.” I watch his face closely. “Well? Do we have a deal, Your Grace?”

“Only if you promise never to call me that again. Makes me feel like a bally bishop,” he says, laughing as I throw my arms around his neck.

8.

On this morning it occurs to Bram that his life has never contained so many women, and that those he encountered when he lived in Yorkshire were altogether more straightforward than the ones who now challenge him. He has tried, and failed, to paint two flower girls and a barmaid, with mixed success. One thought herself rendered plain, another objected to the color of her hair, and the third thought he had invited her to his studio for an entirely different purpose altogether. Then there is Gudrun, who has become even more prickly than is her habit since he rebuffed her advances. And now he is faced with painting Charlotte and must not fail, as he sorely needs the money he anticipates her delighted parents handing over for a pretty portrait.

But still his head is filled with thoughts of Lilith Montgomery. He might well have been able to keep his musings in check, had she not taken it upon herself to accompany Charlotte to each and every one of her sittings. This means that he is required to paint while Charlotte sits, or rather lies, semiclad in front of him, unable to hold a pose for more than a few seconds without fidgeting; Mangan, having produced some wild sketches, paces like a caged lion, gesticulating with hammer and chisel but getting very little in the way of actual sculpting done; Gudrun stomps in and out of the studio with, apparently, the sole intention of upsetting people; Perry dithers about proffering materials and tools and generally getting in the way; Jane fights a losing battle to keep the children, and George, either quiet or out of the house; and Lilith sits, still as a sphinx and quite as inscrutable, observing the chaotic proceedings with what Bram can only imagine to be disdain.

It isn’t until she shifts slightly to return his gaze that he realizes he has been staring at her.

“Shouldn’t you be looking at Charlotte?” she asks, with the faintest hint of a smile. “She is the one you’re painting, after all.”

Bram feels himself blushing like a schoolboy. He pointedly dabs at the palette of oil paints poised on his arm. He tries to think of a witty response, but there is too much noise around him, and too much confusion in his own mind. What is clear to him, by Lilith’s manner and the few words she has spoken during these sittings, is that her opinion of him seems to have softened somewhat. He wonders what has brought this about. The first time he encountered her in the studio she had him down as a hopeless opium user, a bad friend, and a likely dangerous influence on Charlotte. Now she appears to be if not quite friendly, at least not openly hostile toward him.

And that matters to me, though it should not. Why would I care what she thinks? We can never be so much as friends. I would be a fool to think otherwise. Maybe I am a fool, then, for I cannot deny I am affected by her presence.

He attempts to concentrate on his painting. Charlotte is a glamorous beauty, who offers a decorative and elegant image to capture. Despite the noisy atmosphere of the studio, and the not inconsiderable distraction of having Lilith there, he is moderately pleased with his work.

Perry appears at his shoulder.

“Oh, I say, Bram. That is rather good.”

“It is some way off being completed yet.”

“Even so, you must be pleased. Has Mangan seen it?”

Bram shakes his head, glancing over at his mentor who is working with ferocious determination on an area of stone that would, beneath his talented hand, evolve into Charlotte’s chin. “I’m waiting for the right moment,” he says.

Perry laughs and pats him on the back. “Courage, my friend! You know you won’t be happy unless he is,” he points out before hurrying off to answer his master’s cry for the floor to be swept and the stone dampened.

To his surprise, Bram sees Lilith get up from her chair and come to stand in front of his easel.

“Can I see?” she asks, almost shyly. “Or would you rather I didn’t? I don’t want to trample on any delicate artistic sensibilities.” There is no mockery in her tone, he thinks, rather a genuine wish not to offend.

“Your feet are far too elegant to do any trampling.”

“Don’t you believe it,” she says. “When I was a child my elderly dancing instructor would hobble from the room after each session, claiming I had deliberately sought out his bunions.”

“And had you?”

“On the whole I think I’d rather keep my distance from a bunion, wouldn’t you?”

Bram smiles at her, and is so engrossed in studying her face he forgets she has asked something of him. After a long moment she raises her eyebrows.

“You have only to say if you don’t want me to look at it until it’s finished.”

“What? Oh, the painting … I don’t mind. You can look if you wish. In fact, I’d like you to.”

“Really?”

“You are close to Charlotte. You will be able to see if I have captured her in the portrait. Success lies beyond a mere likeness, of course.”

“Of course,” she agrees, stepping round to stand beside him. She considers the picture intently, first leaning in as if to examine the minutest brush strokes, then moving back to view the overall effect.

After a while Bram can stand her silence no longer.

“Please say something. With every passing second I am imagining a more damning critique.”

“I’m really not qualified to offer a
critique.
”

“You are a person looking at a portrait of someone dear to them. Your response will be valid, however unfavorable.”

She turns to look at him now, subjecting him to the same rigorous scrutiny as she has the painting. “It really matters to you, doesn’t it? What I think.”

“Naturally, as I said, you are Charlotte’s friend. And, no doubt, as a young lady of good … education, moving in society … well, you surely encounter many paintings. Many portraits. I expect you have, in fact, a perfectly well-developed sense of what is good art and what is not. As it were.” Bram is horribly aware that he is rambling but is powerless to stop himself.

If she goes on standing so close to me and looking at me like that I shall have to kiss her. I’ve never wanted to kiss someone so much in my life. Now I’m being completely ridiculous.

“So, you see,” he says, just a little too loudly, “your evaluation is indeed … worthwhile. Or will be, when you eventually decide to give it.” He knows he should turn away from her, mix some paint, perhaps, work at a corner of the painting. Anything, rather than just stand there, watching her watching him. But he wants to look at her. He wants to drink in every available second of her.

At last she speaks, not for one instant taking her eyes from his.

“I think Perry is right, it is rather good.”

“Oh. Thank you,” he says, but he is not, in truth, thinking about the painting anymore. He is thinking about how Lilith’s eyes shine as she teases him. He is thinking about how clear and pale her skin is. He was thinking about how, even wearing black, she glows, somehow. He finds himself smiling at her, a broad, honest grin that he simply cannot hold back. And it is a smile that has very little to do with her appraisal of his picture. To his astonishment, and, were he to admit it, to his delight, she returns his smile with one of pulse-speeding loveliness.