The Midnight Witch (46 page)

“It is true. Not only because of my opposition to the war, but, well, I fear having Gudrun here placed me beyond some sort of pale.”

Bram shakes his head. “It seems to me we fought a war so that people could be free to follow their own consciences. Are some still to be hounded because of where they were born or what they believe in?”

“The war may be over,” Mangan says, “but we live in an uneasy peace.”

Perry nods. “There is a danger that if Mangan were to attend the private viewing of your exhibition, if people were to see you allying yourself to him, well…”

Mangan finishes the statement for him. “You would be tainted by association. Your career might very well be over before it has begun.”

“But that is appalling.”

Mangan shrugs ruefully. “It is the world in which we find ourselves.”

“Well, it is not the world I slogged through swamp and jungle to protect,” he says, slamming his cup down on the tray with such anger the handle snaps from it. He jumps to his feet. “I would very much like it if you, sir, and your entire household, would do me the honor of attending the first night of my exhibition as my guests.”

Mangan grins up at him. “Do you insist, Bram from Yorkshire?”

“I absolutely insist,” he says. “And the devil take anyone who doesn’t like it!”

*   *   *

Less than a week after their conversation, the day of the private view is relentlessly warm. By the time Bram has overseen the hanging of the final painting and all is arranged to his satisfaction, he can feel his shirt clinging to his back beneath his jacket. He glances at his pocket watch. There is not time enough to go back to Bloomsbury and change.

They will have to take me as they find me. After all, it is my pictures they are coming to see, not myself.

He tries to imagine Mangan caring, or even noticing, that he is in a disheveled state, and the thought makes him smile. The gallery owner and his assistant bustle about instructing the caterers where to set up the drinks. Bram takes the opportunity to pace the three rooms that display the accumulated work of nearly four years. The collection has come about entirely from the sketches and notes he made while in Africa. A half-dozen damp, dirty, battered sketchbooks, carried with him over hundreds of miles, through relentless rain and enervating sun, smudged with charcoal and smeared with fat from campfire meals, these were the seeds that grew into over fifty paintings.

The pictures look so orderly and finely framed here in the smart gallery, beautifully lit, and carefully positioned to show each to best effect, Bram scarcely recognizes them as being the same works that filled the spare bedroom in his parents’ house. There they were left on easels, works in progress for weeks or months at a time. Or stored in random batches in corners, to be later plucked out and reworked again or, in some cases, wiped completely from the canvas, so that he would pick up the original sketch, travel back with his mind’s eye to that place, that time, that face, that light, and begin again. But now there are no more chances to polish and to hone. What hangs on the walls in this gallery, on this day, must serve to represent all that he felt those long, hard months. All that he discovered, partly about Africa but mostly about his fellowman.

In the third room, at the very end on the far wall, is the painting that can still move him to tears if he lets it. He steps closer, steeling himself against emotion. The gentle face of the army chaplain gazes back at him. He is shown in a close-cropped portrait, three-quarters profile, the low light of the equatorial sunset warming the dusty tones of his face and hair, his pipe held lightly in his smile. Bram starts to feel rage replace the tenderness the picture evokes.

What a waste. What a dreadful waste.

“Ah, Mr. Cardale, there you are!” The gallery owner—an elderly academic who left Oxford to immerse himself in the world of art—ushers Bram back toward the reception area. “Can’t have you hiding away in here when the first guests are due to arrive any minute. Dear, dear. This is your moment, Mr. Cardale, this is the day when you are discovered, and your praises sung. And sung they will be, I assure you.” He pauses in his bolstering up of Bram’s confidence to take in the portraits and landscapes that surround him. “My, my, but aren’t they something terribly special? I can’t tell you how proud I am to have your work here. Can’t tell you … Are you happy with the hang, Mr. Cardale, is it to your liking?”

“It is all so much better than I could ever have expected, Dr. Travis. I can’t thank you enough. I only hope the public, and the critics, are as kindly disposed toward my offerings as you are.”

“Oh, the public have more sense than one might suppose. They will surely see the talent on display here today. As for the critics, well, try not to mind them. Their livelihood depends upon their saying something no one else has thought of, and it makes most of them rather bad tempered.”

Bram has not felt so nervous since the moment he disembarked onto the harbor at Mombasa. His stomach churns, and the bullet wound in his shoulder sets up its familiar ache. He finds he is afraid, not so much of failing as an artist, of remaining penniless and obscure, but of failing the subjects of his paintings. He has kept them to himself all these years, until he finally found the courage to venture out with them. Now he is fearful, so that he regrets exposing them to what might be hostile viewers. And then there is Lilith to think about. Having finally summoned the courage to send her an invitation he has suffered agonies ever since.

Will she come? She did not send word, did not respond to my invitation. And if she does not come, will it be because she no longer cares for me or because she cares too much?
Too much for a woman about to be married to someone else. And if she does come, how will she judge my work? How will she judge me? Have I a chance of winning her back? The smallest chance?

At last people begin to arrive. Some are keen followers of art. Some are there to be seen to be there. Others might hope there is money to be made from this new artist. Others still had nothing better to occupy them this Friday evening. Soon the gallery is so crowded Bram wonders anyone can actually see the paintings at all. The wine is disappearing fast, and as it does so the noise rises. And it is a cheerful noise, full of praise and compliments. The mood of excitement and approval is unmistakable. Dr. Travis is beaming. He grabs Bram’s arm as he rushes past.

“You are a success, Mr. Cardale, as I knew you would be. Yes, a very great success!”

Bram feels almost as pleased for the gallery owner as he does for himself.

There is a commotion at the front door which can only herald the arrival of Mangan and his party. The artist’s resonant voice carries even to the inner room, as he enthusiastically praises the paintings on show.

“Genius!” he declares to anyone within range. “A natural talent. A painter for our times, of our time. The perfect chronicler of these cruel years. Such pathos! Such insight!”

Bram tries to make his way through the crowd. He sees Perry, who waves to him. Gudrun is there, looking fabulous and drawing glances both admiring and quizzical. Jane leads in the string of children, all scrubbed up and shiny faced, eyes bright, and clearly thrilled at being included in something so grown-up and important. For a while it seems the gathering is happy to listen to Mangan’s opinions, as he is only voicing what many of them are thinking. But then someone recognizes him, and someone else recalls the stance he took over the war, and another someone lets it be known that his mistress is German. And the mood changes. The alteration is as swift and as marked as the cessation of a storm at sea. There is a sudden quiet and an uneasy calm. Bram sees panic on Dr. Travis’s face, who has taken in the situation and must surely see his hopes and aspirations fading in front of his eyes.

“Mr. Cardale,” he hisses into Bram’s ear. “You must ask your friend to leave at once!”

“I will not.”

“I beseech you! He will ruin us all.”

Bram pushes through the now-subdued guests and at last reaches Mangan.

“Ah! The artist himself. Congratulations, my friend,” he cries, pumping Bram’s hand. “A triumph. Triumph.”

Bram speaks into the tense silence that follows, still holding Mangan’s hand, addressing the gathering as he speaks. “Any small triumph that I might lay claim to, if triumph it can be called, would never have come to be had it not been for the guidance of this man,” he says. “When I knew nobody, indeed, knew nothing, this great artist took me in. He showed me what could be achieved. He taught me to have the courage to be honest in my work, to tell the truth. I would not be a man of courage if I were to turn my back on him now. This man, and his family,” he pointedly takes in Gudrun with a sweep of his arm, “they have made me what I am. They are my friends.”

There is a silence where all the air seems to have been sucked from the room. A moment of tension filled with unspoken accusations and questions and private fears. And into it comes the sound of one person clapping, softly, with gloved hands, but firmly enough to be heard. Everyone turns toward that small sound of solidarity, and there at the back of the room stands Lilith.

“Bravo!” she declares. “Bravo!”

And the room erupts into enthusiastic agreement.

It is some time before Bram can reach Lilith. She stands, waiting calmly, watching him being congratulated and adored by the crowd who have decided, as if they were one, that he is to be admired. He is a true artist. He is a success. He is a man whom people will want to know, will claim to know, and whose art they will buy, and as such, anyone he considers a friend is deemed acceptable.

Bram’s heart is dancing by the time he is close enough to Lilith to breathe her in. For a moment he cannot speak, cannot find the words that he has formed in his mind so many times, in so many places, for so long. Now, in her presence once again, his yearning for her is too great. He cannot articulate it, but neither can he speak to her of anything else. Not now. Not this time. He starts to panic that she will think him displeased that she has come, will misinterpret his silence as hostility and slip away from him again.

“Don’t go,” he says at last.

She smiles at this. Just smiles.

“I didn’t think you’d come.”

“I found I couldn’t not. In the end.” She glances at the nearest painting. It is of a campfire next the Rufiji at night, with faces aglow from the low flames. “They are wonderful. Quite wonderful,” she says.

“The faces or the paintings?”

“Both.”

They fall silent again, but she has turned her gaze back upon him and holds him in it. Lilith’s eyes are wet with tears she does her best to blink away. Bram becomes aware that people are moving toward them.

This moment will pass and I will lose her again!

Recklessly, he says, “I hear you are to be married.”

She shakes her head slowly, the tears now falling despite her efforts. “No, I am not,” she tells him. “Not anymore. Not now.”

He snatches her hand and presses it to his lips, tasting the saltiness of her dripped tears on the fine, white leather.

*   *   *

When Fordingbridge announces a caller, Stricklend reacts with mild irritation. He was about to leave his office, and was looking forward with some relish to an evening in his rooms at the top of Admiralty Arch, taking in the sunset over the palace while enjoying a well-earned glass of single malt whiskey. He has had a testing day, compelled to sit through dreary meetings concerning the reorganization of civil service departments, a business that has been grinding on ever since the end of the war well over a year ago now. If any real progress has been made it is hard to see where, and Stricklend feels as if the matter is simply an exercise in giving people who no longer have a purpose in Whitehall something to do.

“Who is it, Fordingbridge?” he asks, with little interest in the answer.

“The gentleman has given his name as Peregrine Smith, sir. He assures me that he is known to you and that you will want to receive him.” The factotum, already in his habitual bent pose, flinches at the expression on his master’s face. “Forgive me, sir, perhaps I was wrong to bother you with a caller at such a late hour. I shall inform the gentleman that it is not convenient…”

“No. Send him in.” Stricklend is too thrown to toy with Fordingbridge. “Send him in at once and see that we are not disturbed.”

“Yes, Mr. Stricklend, sir.”

“Not disturbed under any circumstances! Do you understand?”

“Completely, master, yes, sir. Right away, sir,” he says, backing hastily out of the door.

Stricklend regains his poise and stands behind his desk. When his visitor enters the room he allows no sign of his inner turmoil to remain visible.

“Good evening, Stricklend. Your man looks quite terrified. What do you do to him to keep him in such a constant state of terror, I wonder?” Perry drops his hat and cane on the Chesterfield with a nonchalance that causes Stricklend to grind his teeth.

“What madness is this?” he demands. “Why have you come here, unexpected and without disguise, in working hours for all to see? Have you taken leave of your senses?”

“I have not. Do calm down, dear fellow. There really is no call for such alarm. What does it matter if someone sees me? Nobody here knows who I am, and besides, this place is full of people far more interested in themselves than anyone else.” He flops down on the sofa and gestures toward the firmly closed door. “Any chance your little man will bring us a glass of something? I feel in need.”

Stricklend ignores his request and sits down, resting his arms on the desk in front of him to help steady his nerves. He is unaccustomed to being spoken to in such a way. He is astute enough to know that his subordinate would not be taking such liberties if he was not in an unusual position of strength.

“Why don’t you come to the point and tell me what has brought you so rashly to my door?”

“No drink then? Oh, very well. Now, don’t look so glum, you will want to hear what I have to say.” He pauses for effect, clearly enjoying stringing Stricklend along. “You are a lucky man, Stricklend. You have sailed close to the wind these past few years. Others in your position, well, they might not have survived. Difficult times, indeed. But,” he grins, “all your troubles are at an end. For I bring you the means to acquire, at last, that which you have been chasing after for so long.”